LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sent this letter yesterday to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino:

Dear Mayor Menino:

Tonight is truly an historic night. It is hard to believe that it has
been twenty one – long – years since the last time the Lakers beat the
Celtics in the NBA Finals. Tonight we renew this great American
tradition.

The only thing harder to believe is that it’s been more than two
decades since the great Boston Celtics have tasted the sweet victory of
an NBA Championship. The year was 1986. Hair was big. Shorts were
short. And Michael Dukakis was preparing his historic run for
president.

I truly expected our great rivalry of the 1980s to carry into the 1990s
– particularly as the Lakers and Celtics continued to assemble a
pantheon of NBA legends: Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Derek Fisher,
Phil Jackson, Pervis Ellison, Bryant Stith, Vitaly Potapenko and Rick
Pitino.

Check out this post by the OC Register’s Jan Norman on her Small Business blog detailing the cost of the Mandatory Sick Leave bill that recently passed in the State Assembly:

http://jan.freedomblogging.com/2008/05/30/states-proposed-mandatory-sick-leave-would-cost-22-billion/

In a piece of news that has not been widely reported, the AFSCME union that represents workers on all University of California campuses has approved a strike in an effort to seek a 20% wage increase. The union last held a UC-wide strike in April of 2005.

The kicker — unlike their previous strikes, this one would coincide with final exams at the vast majority of UC schools. They have already demanded that both Students and Teachers not cross their picket line, without regard for what effect this might have on those individuals’ academic standing. Even without such a demand, the strike would nonetheless prove extremely detrimental to student life during final exams by shutting down on-campus services like dining halls and shuttles, as well as severely limiting public transit access to and from campuses.

Yesterday Morning, I had the opportunity to attend the the California Chamber’s Business Legislative Summit in Sacramento, which featured a panel discussion on the state budget crisis with legislative analyst Elizabeth Hill, the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Weintraub and political strategist Dan Schnur.

The three panelists, all from varying political backgrounds, each brought a number of interesting ideas and perspectives to the table. Below are some of the thoughts, ideas and quotes they put forth which we felt F&HD readers might find particularly interesting. Each are, of course, the opinions of the respective speakers:

Elizabeth Hill

• California can not get out of this budget dilemma just with the lottery – we must reduce spending and increase revenues.
• In reducing spending, we must also try to maintain current service levels.
  

Billionaire financier Carl Icahn recently launched a proxy battle to oust Yahoo’s board of directors, responsible last month for rejecting a merger deal with Microsoft, in an effort to restart negotiations with the tech giant. Many of those opposed to a Microsoft-Yahoo merger have framed the potential partnership as one that would only benefit Microsoft, whose search technology has struggled since its inception.

Yahoo, however, stands a lot to gain from a partnership with software provider Microsoft, and this becomes apparent when one begins to understand the primary difference between #2-ranked Yahoo and its primary competition, Google. While both companies provide industry-leading search engine technology and other mainstays such as free email systems, they are clearly dissimilar in their primary objectives.