SeeCalifornia.com

Here are some events in California you may have missed this past week:

• California lawmakers suspend legislation to embed radio-frequency identification chips, or RFIDs, in drivers licenses and state identification cards following complaints from privacy groups.

  Information gathered from the tracking chips could be added to the nation’s database that currently tracks your phone calls, email, work records, medical transactions, and other private information.  The bill is expected to be re-introduced.

• California State Parks won’t open the new $9.6 million High Sierra Crossing Museum at Donner Memorial State Park for over a year because of lack of funding to hire a coordinator. The  9,400-square-foot museum  is ready to go, but will sit empty.
• The City of Huntington Beach wants  California State Parks to stop the Wet Electric Rave booked for the beach. “It’s really sad that our California State Parks need the money so bad that they will allow this drug event to happen,” said one city council member, who cited last week’s New York Electric Rave which closed early due to drug overdoses. Los Angeles Times investigated raves at mainstream venues and found that at least 14 people who attended raves during the past several years have died from overdoses or in drug-related incidents.
• 1,200 rescued California chickens are being flown to New York on a private jet to live out their lives at Animal Place Sanctuary instead of being slaughtered. After egg farmers decide the chickens are “spent,” they are normally gassed in their cages, then ground up and plowed into the ground.
• A California foie gras ban is legal, according to a federal court of appeals decision this past week to prohibit sales what’s considered a delicacy, created by force feeding birds to enlarge their livers.
• Paso Robles residents say that they have no water, thanks to vineyards straining the local water supply.  The water level has sunk approx. 70 feet in 16 years due to agricultural growth and drought. More than two-thirds of water usage is for vineyards and farming. California and Texas are the only two states that allow landowners unlimited access to groundwater.
• The California Legislature is on the verge of passing a bill banning the use of lead bullets for hunting statewide. Though expensive types of ammunition to replace lead bullets are not readily available, they also may be prohibited through national legislation, thus ending access to ammunition for the California hunters and sportsmen.
• Knott’s Berry Farm Windseeker ride (that malfunctioned twice in a two-week period last September)  has been renamed and installed at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, MO. It takes people 300 feet in the air and twirls them at up to a 45-degree angle for about 60 seconds.
• California Skateparks of Upland agreed to a stipulated judgment signed by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ordering them to pay $65,000 in fees, and adhere (without wrong doing)  to an injunction forbidding the company from communicating with competitors, and submitting below cost bids for anti-competitive purposes.