In their headlong rush to raise taxes as the only way out of California's gaping budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders are conspiring to cover up a fundamental truth: California doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem.

The Southwestern Community College District's board of trustees has long been hung with the rap of micromanaging matters better left to the district's administrators. Micromanagement, however, hardly applies to the board's acceptance in June of the resignation of two longtime employees, Greg Sandoval, vice president for student affairs, and Arthur Lopez, director of financial aid, following allegations of sexual harassment.

Michael Phelps might need a bigger trophy case. He scooped up eight Olympic medals in Athens in 2004, six gold and two bronze. In Beijing, he has won seven gold medals so far. He has one race to go, raising the possibility that he will score an achievement for the ages: the most gold medals in one Olympics in the history of the Games.