I’m not a sportswriter… and it’s a far cry from politics to the gridiron… but yesterday witnessed the re-emergence of one of the truly preeminent football franchises in the history of the sport.

The San Francisco 49ers, Alex Smith and their no-nonsense head coach Jim Harbaugh, pulled off what may be the most remarkable finish to win a division playoff game in recent memory… possibly since 1981. Then, it was Joe Montana to Dwight Clark in what came to be known as ‘The Catch’.

This football franchise has seen its share of remarkable moments. The image of Terrell Owens at the goal line, snagging a last minute pass from Steve Young in the last three seconds of the 1999 NFC wild-card playoff game against the Packers at ‘The Stick’, is still fresh in the 49er faithfuls’ minds as the ‘The Catch 2?.

There can be no greater indication of the ‘new’ 49ers resurgence than the fans in Candlestick Park. The old place really rocked… you could hear the roar from miles away on the wind. The 49ers are back… and that ‘old’ stadium which has seen so many great 49ers teams over the years has, at least temporarily, a new lease on life.  read more »

So while you were California dreaming… that’s if you still had a California job, that’s if your company hasn’t had to pull up stakes and head for business-friendly territory out of the increasingly repressive governance of (Red) Jerry Brown and his equally (red) state legislature, better known, perhaps, as Ali Brownee and the sixty-seven banditos… the 43 Republicans in the legislature, for the most part, have been valiantly but largely ineffectively trying to slow the Marxist juggernaut, which with the aid and collusion of the state’s public service unions, whose collective unfunded liability to the state is in excess of 40 billion dollars, has them spending millions of dollars in an entitlement turf war of massive proportions, between the unions and the nutcase hard left that California has no lack of. Then you introduce and add up all of the minority and special privilege, er, interest groups which have always been the hallmark of the left.

Few states have felt the crippling reach of the statists more than California. You know, if you strip away the state and federal government’s figures and substitute them for actual statistics, the unemployment rate in this state is over 16%. And, as I’ve mentioned before, there are pockets of unemployment in this state approaching 40%.  read more »