I hate sitting in backed up traffic.  If you’re like me, you’ll get off the freeway and travel city streets for miles just to avoid bad traffic.

So for me, this week’s report in the U-T about the worst traffic bottlenecks in San Diego County was actually good news.

You see, I live in the East County and none of the top ten worst areas for bad traffic are in the East County.  Now that doesn’t mean I don’t have to deal with slow traffic on Interstate 8 and the 52…but nowhere near as much as they do in the northern area of the city and in the North County.

Seven of the ten worst traffic spots are in those areas. If you drive the 5 or the 15 to or from the North County, I don’t know how you do it sometimes.  There can be miles and miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

But then we all know the tricks. Leave early or leave late and chances are you will avoid the worst traffic.

Otherwise, the only answer is to learn patience…that is, as long as it doesn’t take too long.

Click here for UT San Diego story.

You’ve probably heard about it by now…

A school teacher in L-A is arrested and accused of abusing elementary age children in grotesque and disgusting ways…ways so vile it is hard to describe them on the radio without offending people.

When I first heard what this 61 year-old teacher did…it turned my stomach.  Then I thought of what it must be like to be the parents of one of those kids.  And I thought about what we do with a guy like this…as some of our listeners called in with suggestions.

And where do these child molesters and pedophiles come from?  How can an adult man get to be like that?  What makes him so sick and evil and able to do these things to children?

Those are tough questions.  But this case out of an L-A elementary school is another alarm bell to all parents to make sure you get to know any adult who cares for or teaches your children.

It’s sad you have to do that, but given the recurring headlines, it’s the responsible thing to do.

Click here for the details of this case.

What a family from Afghanistan living in Canada did in the name of their religion is really disturbing. 

A husband and wife and their eldest son were sentenced to life in prison the other day for killing the son’s three teenage sisters and another woman in what prosecutors called an honor killing. 

They say the young women were killed because they had betrayed their religion and dishonored the family.  The husband apparently thought the teenage girls and the other woman, who it turns out was another of his wives, had become too Westernized.

Incredibly, the United Nations estimates that 5,000 women and girls are murdered each year around the world in these so-called honor killings, supposedly to cleanse a family disgraced by the woman's conduct.

There is no honor in these honor killings and Muslim groups have been quick to say their religion should not be blamed for these murders in Canada.

But clearly there are those who have a twisted and evil view of their faith.  And that is what needs to be cleansed.

Many Americans have probably never really thought much about what Mormons believe. But with Mitt Romney leading the Republican presidential race, a lot more people are suddenly interested.

Anyone who spends time looking into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will find there’s a lot of debate about Mormonism.

It is a Christian faith or is it not?  A lot of Christians will say it isn’t.  Mormons say it is.   But then for a lot of Americans, being Christian just means being American and Mormonism just means families with lots of kids who don’t smoke and don’t drink coffee.

But the greater debate this election year is whether a presidential candidate’s spiritual faith matters. Does a president’s religion affect their job?

When it comes to electing the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, everything matters.  And how a candidate views the world and how a candidate sees right and wrong can and does influence their decisions.  It has to.  We all make decisions based on how we see the world and what life means.

So when it comes to politics, religion is a fair game…even if it’s uncomfortable.

High temperature around 80…..with sunny days…clear nights….and humidity so low your chapstick gets chapped.

The Torrey Pines golf course looking like something painted on a canvas as a nationwide television audience tuned in for the annual PGA golf tournament. And our local beaches filled with bikinis.

This is January in San Diego.

And while pretty much the whole country has been warmer than usual this winter so far…no place in the U.S. enjoys the same kind of weather we’ve enjoyed much of this month.

So if you’re like a lot of us who live here, you let your friends and family back East know what kind of weather we’ve been having.  You do it gently, but you do it.

If we’re honest, we also have to tell our friends and family that while we do enjoy the country’s greatest weather, we pay for it with a higher cost of living and higher costs for housing. But we accept that and we don’t complain…at least not much. 

Because while a lot of the country waits to see if the groundhog sees his shadow this week, what do we care? take six more weeks of this kind of winter.