I can drop links like a whole pack of shrink-a-dinks.  So, let’s do it:

• The OC Transportation Authority is getting some OC Register scrutiny because of a doubling of their travel budget, from just under $25K to just under $50K. I must admit that I’m not the most informed on the budget issues of OCTA, but the spending they cite hardly seems profligate. That being said, if traveling these days on the government dime, I would try to stay at Motel 6 or something.

• In Garden Grove, a woman lost her COBRA coverage because the bank cashed the check with the wrong amount.  Apparently her 56 cents looked like 50 cents.  The insurance company, CERIDIAN, said that’s it out you go for your 6 cent underpayment. She eventually got the insurance back when they discovered that she in fact wrote the right amount.  It’s all rather disgusting.  But, look at the Register fighting for the common man.

• The co-founder of Guess Jeans will run for Governor as an independent.  I can’t think of what this state needs more than a political neophyte with lots of money and a pretend sense of post-partisanship despite a quite conservative message.

• Turning to news of the rich know-nothing Governors we have, ugh.  I think this bear sculpture is to Schwarzenegger what that stupid rug was to Bush.

• Burt Reynolds owes the state $250,000 for back taxes. Pay up, Bandit! Dionne Warwick is on the list, I guess the Dial-a-pyschic business doesn’t pay what it used to.

• This is some bad data. Of the state’s 480,595 seventh graders in 2001-2002, over a quarter of them dropped out before graduation in 2007.  You can find dropout rates across the state here.