Sawing through a bridge? Al Qaeda must have Wile E. Coyote working for them now

This week the Calif. Legislature failed to pass a bill protecting privacy in banking and suchlike information. A pro-privacy lobby responded by putting 4 digits of the Social Security numbers of legislators who opposed the bill on their website, to make a point. The legislators are screaming like stuck pigs that their, um, privacy has been violated and that they are being put under undue pressure, which is illegal you know.

As opposed to State Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte, who promised to campaign in the primary against any Republicans who dared vote for a tax increase, thus wrecking any chances of a budget being done well, much less on time. This is part of the attempted recall-slash-coup attempt, to deny Gray Davis anything resembling a victory. Brulte has evidently been coordinating these efforts with Karl Rove and some of the people that brought us Florida’s Chad-Fest 2000.

Meanwhile, Der Arnold is trying to win his way into the governor’s mansion by puns and bad jokes. Here’s one:

Speaking to a taxpayers group in Los Angeles, Schwarzenegger joked: "This is really embarrassing. I just forgot our state governor's name. But I know you will help me recall him."

It’s much more terrible when you hear him say it. Attempted word-play by someone for whom words clearly take a lot of work.

There’s a good piece on this in Slate. Here’s the first paragraph:

Gray Davis has made a career out of being the incarnation of None of the Above, a ballot option made flesh. He's not popular, he's not inspiring, he's not likable, but he's also not the other candidate. Davis doesn't have supporters, really. Rather, he receives support from those who don't like his opponents. Which is what makes the attempt by California Republicans to petition for his recall so fascinating and so dangerous for the California governor: What happens when the None of the Above candidate actually squares off against None of the Above?

Speaking of Slate, you should be reading the William Saletan series on the buzzwords of the candidates. This is the latest, on Edwards, with links to the previous ones.

The polls continue to show that even though a majority of Americans believe Bush lied to them, they still support the Iraq War. The Big Shrug. When Lincoln said the thing about fooling some of the people etc., his underlying assumption was that people would react in some sort of negative fashion to being fooled.

The UN nuclear regulatory body (the IAEA) has issued a demand that Iran sign a protocol for more intrusive inspections than other countries have to undertake. The US wanted it to go further and say that Iran was in breach of its treaty obligations. The problem is that isn’t. I don’t see what the legal basis is for the IAEA demand. And if the inspections conducted under the existing non-proliferation regime aren’t good enough to detect a nuclear weapons program, that’s something of a worry to, isn’t it?

Ashcroft paraded an Al Qaeda gofer today, a guy who did basic intern work, none of which was especially illegal, since most of the dastardly plots he was involved with ended with “Nah, that wouldn’t work,” like the famed idea of sawing through the Brooklyn Bridge. So if you believe this was a major arrest, I’ve got something to sell you, and I think you know what it is.