“San Francisco joined the Bay Area cities of Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto and San Jose yesterday when its Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution endorsing creation of a cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence. By doing so, this sixth-largest metropolitan area in the country (encompassing some 5.4 million residents) joined the ranks of 20 cities voicing support for HR 808, legislation that focuses on innovative and proactive approaches to violence prevention…

Domestically the department will research, propose and facilitate practical, field-tested solutions to reduce conflict, providing financial and institutional heft to strengthen and complement our current efforts to deal with all forms of domestic violence and discord. And it will help develop curricula to educate students in grades K-12 on how to resolve conflict peacefully through peer mediation, and training in alternative dispute resolution techniques and non-violent communication skills.

Internationally, a Department of Peace will advise the president and Congress on the most innovative techniques to establish and promote peace among nations, and will research and analyze the root causes of war to help prevent conflicts from escalating to the point of violence.

It will create a Peace Academy, on par with the Military Service Academies, to build a world-class faculty of peace-building experts, many of whom currently live in the United States. They will analyze peace-building at the highest level, advise other branches of government, and train civilian peacekeepers and the military for domestic and international service.

House Resolution 808 currently enjoys the support of 60 Congressional co-sponsors, including Rep. Susan A. Davis [CA-53-D, Rep. Sam Farr, [CA-17-D], Rep. Bob Filner, [CA-51-D], Rep. Michael M. Honda, [CA-15-D], Rep. Barbara Lee, [CA-9-D], Rep. George Miller, [CA-7-D], Rep. Brad Sherman, [CA-27-D], Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, [CA-10-D], Rep. Maxine Waters, [CA-35-D], Rep. Diane E. Watson, [CA-33-D], and Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey, [CA-6-D].”

“President George W. Bush is issuing a disaster declaration for California counties hurt by the January deep freeze that caused some $1.2 billion (€910 million) in crop losses, Sen. Barbara Boxer said. The declaration will allow farmers affected by the freeze that wiped out citrus and other crops to apply for disaster unemployment insurance, commodities and other help. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Boxer, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and congressional representatives had written to the White House repeatedly to ask for the declaration. Administration officials confirmed to Boxer on Tuesday that it was being issued. The five-night freeze was the most extensive the state had experienced since 1947, according to Boxer and Feinstein, and affected crops for 500 miles (804 kilometers) through the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, the Central Coast and Southern California.”

“The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $168 million to 13 solar companies, many of them Silicon Valley start-ups, in what is the equivalent of manna falling from heaven for these companies. It is cut-throat industry, where solar projects are expensive and difficult to get off the ground, but once at high-levels of production can prove efficient and profitable. Just last week, a group of ethanol companies were awarded similar grants, to help create alternative fuels. These are the most valuable awards yet for the start-up community’s push to create alternative energy sources to gasoline and natural gas. The awards are part of President Bush’s Solar America Initiative. The latest awardees include Berkeley’s PowerLight, and its parent company, San Jose’s SunPower. Particular noteworthy are the awards to Palo Alto’s Nanosolar and Santa Clara’s Miasole, two companies that are producing really thin sheets of solar cells that can be spread efficiently across vast areas, such as parking lots or roofs of large companies.”

“Two U.S. Senators urged federal regulators to approve Virgin America Inc.’s application to fly, saying the airline will benefit consumers and the economy. Senators Dianne Feinstein, D-California, and John Ensign, R-Nevada, said the U.S. Department of Transportation should approve Virgin America’s application to ‘encourage more competition in the airline industry.’ Virgin America, based in Burlingame, wants to provide low-cost domestic flights like Southwest Airlines Co. and JetBlue Airways Corp. The DOT tentatively rejected Virgin America’s application last December, citing concerns that its corporate structure did not adhere to laws limiting foreign involvement in U.S. airlines. British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson conceived of the airline and his company is a financial backer.”

A House subcommittee may issue subpoenas for four of the eight U.S. attorneys who were abruptly fired two months ago, including Carol Lam of San Diego. In December, the Department of Justice forced eight U.S. attorneys to resign firing six on a single day. The dismissal of Ms. Lam raised suspicions because she had successfully prosecuted Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and had indicted the former third in command at the Central Intelligence Agency. Just before she was forced to leave her job, Lam helped get former CIA Executive Director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo indicted by a Grand Jury on 11 counts of corruption for his illegal award of covert CIA contracts to his long-time friend Brent R. Wilkes. Wilkes had been a Republican party “Pioneer” who raised more than $100,000 for Bush’s 2004 reelection. At first, the Department of Justice claimed the U.S. attorneys were dismissed for “performance reasons.” It has subsequently been revealed, however, that all but one of those U.S. attorneys had positive job evaluations.

An opt-ed piece in the New York Times has raised some provocative issues about California and the future of the United States:

SOMETHING interesting is happening in California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to have grasped the essential truth that no nation — not even the United States — can be managed successfully from the center once it reaches a certain scale. Moreover, the bold proposals that Mr. Schwarzenegger is now making for everything from universal health care to global warming point to the kind of decentralization of power which, once started, could easily shake up America’s fundamental political structure.

Governor Schwarzenegger is quite clear that California is not simply another state. “We are the modern equivalent of the ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta,” he recently declared. “We have the economic strength, we have the population and the technological force of a nation-state.” In his inaugural address, Mr. Schwarzenegger proclaimed, “We are a good and global commonwealth.”

Political rhetoric? Maybe. But California’s governor has also put his finger on a little discussed flaw in America’s constitutional formula. The United States is almost certainly too big to be a meaningful democracy. What does “participatory democracy” mean in a continent? Sooner or later, a profound, probably regional, decentralization of the federal system may be all but inevitable.

The Los Angeles Times has reported that 24 year old blogger Josh Wolf, who has been in jail for 171 days, is now the longest incarcerated Journalist in U.S. History. Wolf defied a federal grand jury’s order in July to hand over raw footage of anarchists clashing with police in San Francisco. While he claimed 1st amendment protection, a Judge found him in contempt of court and ordered him to the federal detention facility in Dublin, California. A police officer was injured in the anti-globalization protest that Wolf filmed in July 2005, and outgoing U.S. Atty. Kevin Ryan’s office was investigating whether protesters tried to set fire to a police car. A statement attributed to Wolf recently was posted on his blog: “If the U.S. attorney can compel journalists to testify about what they’ve learned through their work and to force them to turn over their unpublished materials, then not only will the public be unable to trust reporters, but journalists themselves will become de facto deputies and investigators”.

“In its anxious search for energy security, the United States has embarked on a risky strategy to arm and train the militaries of oil-producing West Africa, all as part of an expansion of the Global War on Terror. Over the past 15 years, amidst a deepening crisis in the Middle East and tightening petroleum markets, the U.S. has quietly institutionalized a West African-based oil supply strategy… In a new International Policy Report published by the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., three University of California experts report on the motives, actions and potential consequences of this strategy, and argue that militarization policies are not only short-sighted but also deeply flawed.”

A $500,000 award from U.S. Labor Department awarded to stimulate small business entrepreneurship in Lassen, Plumas and Modoc and 17 other Northern California counties will stimulate the entire region’s economy, according to an editorial in the Lassen County Times. “The only way to address the national challenge of global competition is by building strong regional economies,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training Emily Stover DeRocco. “By bringing together all the key players including research universities, venture capital firms and traditional organizations of economic and workforce development, regions can optimize their ability to innovate.” U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao said, “Investing in area workforces through this collaborative approach will boost the entire region’s economic vitality.”

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated 18 California counties disaster areas in the aftermath of prolonged freezing temperatures last month that damaged more than $800 million in citrus crops… The USDA Farm Service Agency, which administers the emergency loan program, will consider applications from growers who have suffered at least a 30 percent crop production loss.”

“The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has lost an 18-month legal battle with California-based American Small Business League, forcing NASA to provide detailed information that proved the agency had exaggerated its small business contracting statistics for 2002, 2003 and 2004. The ASBL filed the suit in San Francisco federal court after NASA refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request as well as a second formal appeal for information that revealed billions of dollars in contracts that NASA had reported as going to small businesses actually went to many of the nation’s largest defense and aerospace contractors, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing.”