Evade the Tourist Herds and Enter Into An Insider’s Central California. Known and unknown history, hidden delights, blood curdling and fascinating stories pervade the past of Central California beginning from the high tech Silicon Valley heading south until seaside Santa Barbara. In between, the Central Valley and Central Coast offers contributing tales of vice, tragedy and insightful discovery. This kaleidoscope of attractions, personalities, egos, scandals, murders stir the mixture of historical conflicts within the entire region. This guide transports you geographically and photographically to the precise famous and infamous locations where history occurred. The scenes may sometimes appear ordinary, weird, but often illuminate the physical background and descriptions behind events. Many of the narratives defy believability, yet they are true. This Twisted Tour Guide is your alternative to conventional travel. It accommodates the restless visitor, tourist and resident seeking a unique and different perspective to traditional tourism. RENOWNED STRUCTURES AND ATTRACTIONS Robinson Jeffers Tor House and Hawk Tower, Writer John Steinbeck’s Birthplace, Paso Robles Inn Haunting, Carnegie Libraries, Paso Robles City Park, Almond Growers Building, Atascadero Administration and Printery Buildings, This Ole House, Madonna Inn, San Luis Obispo’s Gum Wall, San Luis Creek, Pirate’s Cove, Morro Rock, Dana Adobe, Casa de la Guerra, Arlington Theatre, Modesto Historical Mementos and the Fresno Water Tower SCANDALS Flagrant Silicon Valley High Tech Subterranean Poisoning, Finger in the Chile at Wendy’s, Morgan Hill’s Century Apart Scandals, Gilroy Police Department, Hollister Motorcycle Invasion, Paso Robles Police Chief, 1969 Altamont Motor Speedway Concert, Cedar Funding Debacle, Cesar Chavez Jailing, Eastside Salinas’ Gang Wars, Monterey County Prison Escape, Illicit Prescription Meds Distribution, King City Towing Scandal, Sunny Acres, Chumash Rebellion, Sambo’s, Closure of the Santa Barbara News Press, California Aqueduct Dumping, Frank Carson Persecution, Colin Kaepernick, Fresno’s History of Corrupt Police Chiefs, Clovis Bank Heist, Reverent John Kiggin’s and The Lords of Bakersfield FAMOUS ABDUCTIONS AND MURDERS Brook Hart, Black Panther James Edward Carr, VTA Mass Shooting, Mary Quigley, Garlic Festival Massacre, Sonjii Johnson, Christina Marie Williams, Mel and Elizabeth Grimes, Mission San Miguel Murders, PSA Flight #1771 Crash, Werewolf Murder, Historic Chinatown Murder, Helen King, Kristen Smart, Eugene and Nancy Walker, Elyse Pahler, Bob Domingos and Linda Edwards, Ramona Irene Price, Officer Thomas Guerry, Kym Morgan, Nicholas Markowitz, Holzer Family, Cleveland Elementary School Massacre, Juliani Cardenas, Deborah Whitlock, Laci Peterson, Dr. Amanda Crews, Chandra Levy, Chowchilla Bus Kidnapping, Glenn Reitz, Mary Stammer, Ewell Family Murder and Hmong Massacre. INFAMOUS KILLERS Herbert Mullin, Karl Francis Werner, Edmund Kemper III, John Linley Frazier, Raul Zamudio, San Luis Obispo’s Final Public Lynching, Rex Allen Krebs, Lynwood C. Drake III, Peter Derks, Orcutt Sniper, Elliot Rodger Mass Shooting, Clarence Gray, Elizabeth Duncan, Armenian Assassin, Thor Christiansen, James Tramel and David Kurtzman, Speed Freak Killers, Arthur Sanchez, Dr. Frank Vincent, Clovis Acid Queen, Marcus Weston, Kori Muhammad, Golden State Killer, Cary Stayner, Jose Manuel Martinez, John Lee Holt and Vincent Brothers. CELEBRITIES PASSING THROUGH Singer John Denver’s Plane Crash, Actress Doris Day’s Cypress Inn, John C. Fremont’s California Expedition, Kevin Costner Divorce, Martha Baird-Rockefeller, Writer William Saroyan and James Dean’s Fatal Crash

Evade the Tourist Herds and Enter Into An Insider's Central California. Known and unknown history, hidden delights, blood curdling and fascinating stories pervade the past of Central California beginning from the high tech Silicon Valley heading south until seaside Santa Barbara. In between, the Central Valley and Central Coast offers contributing tales of vice, tragedy and insightful discovery. This kaleidoscope of attractions, personalities, egos, scandals, murders stir the mixture of historical conflicts within the entire region. This guide transports you geographically and photographically to the precise famous and infamous locations where history occurred. The scenes may sometimes appear ordinary, weird, but often illuminate the physical background and descriptions behind events. Many of the narratives defy believability, yet they are true. This Twisted Tour Guide is your alternative to conventional travel. It accommodates the restless visitor, tourist and resident seeking a unique and different perspective to traditional tourism. RENOWNED STRUCTURES AND ATTRACTIONS Robinson Jeffers Tor House and Hawk Tower, Writer John Steinbeck's Birthplace, Paso Robles Inn Haunting, Carnegie Libraries, Paso Robles City Park, Almond Growers Building, Atascadero Administration and Printery Buildings, This Ole House, Madonna Inn, San Luis Obispo's Gum Wall, San Luis Creek, Pirate's Cove, Morro Rock, Dana Adobe, Casa de la Guerra, Arlington Theatre, Modesto Historical Mementos and the Fresno Water Tower SCANDALS Flagrant Silicon Valley High Tech Subterranean Poisoning, Finger in the Chile at Wendy's, Morgan Hill's Century Apart Scandals, Gilroy Police Department, Hollister Motorcycle Invasion, Paso Robles Police Chief, 1969 Altamont Motor Speedway Concert, Cedar Funding Debacle, Cesar Chavez Jailing, Eastside Salinas' Gang Wars, Monterey County Prison Escape, Illicit Prescription Meds Distribution, King City Towing Scandal, Sunny Acres, Chumash Rebellion, Sambo's, Closure of the Santa Barbara News Press, California Aqueduct Dumping, Frank Carson Persecution, Colin Kaepernick, Fresno's History of Corrupt Police Chiefs, Clovis Bank Heist, Reverent John Kiggin's and The Lords of Bakersfield FAMOUS ABDUCTIONS AND MURDERS Brook Hart, Black Panther James Edward Carr, VTA Mass Shooting, Mary Quigley, Garlic Festival Massacre, Sonjii Johnson, Christina Marie Williams, Mel and Elizabeth Grimes, Mission San Miguel Murders, PSA Flight #1771 Crash, Werewolf Murder, Historic Chinatown Murder, Helen King, Kristen Smart, Eugene and Nancy Walker, Elyse Pahler, Bob Domingos and Linda Edwards, Ramona Irene Price, Officer Thomas Guerry, Kym Morgan, Nicholas Markowitz, Holzer Family, Cleveland Elementary School Massacre, Juliani Cardenas, Deborah Whitlock, Laci Peterson, Dr. Amanda Crews, Chandra Levy, Chowchilla Bus Kidnapping, Glenn Reitz, Mary Stammer, Ewell Family Murder and Hmong Massacre. INFAMOUS KILLERS Herbert Mullin, Karl Francis Werner, Edmund Kemper III, John Linley Frazier, Raul Zamudio, San Luis Obispo's Final Public Lynching, Rex Allen Krebs, Lynwood C. Drake III, Peter Derks, Orcutt Sniper, Elliot Rodger Mass Shooting, Clarence Gray, Elizabeth Duncan, Armenian Assassin, Thor Christiansen, James Tramel and David Kurtzman, Speed Freak Killers, Arthur Sanchez, Dr. Frank Vincent, Clovis Acid Queen, Marcus Weston, Kori Muhammad, Golden State Killer, Cary Stayner, Jose Manuel Martinez, John Lee Holt and Vincent Brothers. CELEBRITIES PASSING THROUGH Singer John Denver's Plane Crash, Actress Doris Day's Cypress Inn, John C. Fremont's California Expedition, Kevin Costner Divorce, Martha Baird-Rockefeller, Writer William Saroyan and James Dean's Fatal Crash

The only work to date to collect data gathered during the American and Soviet missions in an accessible and complete reference of current scientific and technical information about the Moon.

Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world." Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom. In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California’s economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results—a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the "three strikes" law—pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state’s commitment to prison expansion.

While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.

In 1997 the State of California Legislature created the Commission on Local Governance for the 21st Century to review current statutes &, where appropriate, recommend revisions to the laws that govern city, county, and special district boundary changes. Over a period of 16 months, the Commission held 25 days of public hearings, received over 100 recommendations, and had nearly 90,000 visits to the commission's website. Based upon this extensive input and deliberations on the information received, the Commission has issued this report, which concludes with a strategic plan for its implementation by the California Legislature. Illustrated.

USA Today Best Seller As seen on the Today Show, Good Morning America, QVC, The Rachael Ray Show, Woman’s World, Bon Appetit, Food52 and Seventeen.com Selected as one of GMA’s highly anticipated spring cookbooks It only takes two years to start a tradition! From New Year's Day to Christmas and every holiday in between, your adopted grandmother Babs shares all of the holiday recipes and motherly advice you need to make every celebration special. With menus for festive moments throughout the whole year, you'll always know what to serve. Babs bestows upon you 100 of her family-favorite recipes—passed down from family and friends through the generations, recorded on tattered and torn recipe cards, and all stored in her old wooden recipe box. She also shares the holiday traditions her family has grown to love so you can pass them down to your family, too, and elevate all of life’s gatherings into memorable occasions. From little party hacks and entertaining tips, hosting the holidays will become less stressful and more meaningful. Celebrate with Babs will insert itself at the center of all of your gatherings for generations. What are you waiting for? Start your new traditions today!

How Main Street was hit by—and might recover from—the financial crisis, by The New York Times's national economics correspondent When the financial crisis struck in 2008, Main Street felt the blow just as hard as Wall Street. The New York Times national economics correspondent Peter S. Goodman takes us behind the headlines and exposes how the flow of capital from Asia and Silicon Valley to the suburbs of the housing bubble perverted America's economy. He follows a real estate entrepreneur who sees endless opportunity in the underdeveloped lots of Florida—until the mortgages for them collapse. And he watches as an Oakland, California-based deliveryman, unable to land a job in the biotech industry, slides into unemployment and a homeless shelter. As Goodman shows, for two decades Americans binged on imports and easy credit, a spending spree abetted by ever-increasing home values—and then the bill came due. Yet even in a new environment of thrift and pullback, Goodman argues that economic adaptation is possible, through new industries and new safety nets. His tour of new businesses in Michigan, Iowa, South Carolina, and elsewhere and his clear-eyed analysis point the way to the economic promises and risks America now faces.