It’s hard work to get a state after all these years

This morning, Bush took some time out from solving the financial crisis to meet with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman.


WHAT LEBANESE-AMERICANS CARE DEEPLY ABOUT: “There are a lot of Lebanese Americans who are paying attention to this visit. They care deeply about their ancestors.”



Later, he met Palestinian President Abbas.

TALKING ABOUT, YOU KNOW, PRESIDENT STUFF: “You and I have met a lot since I have been the president and you have been the president.”

IT’S HARD WORK: “no doubt it must be frustrating at times for you, because it’s hard work to get a state after all these years.”

WHAT THERE IS A FIRM DETERMINATION TO DO: “But nevertheless, there is a firm determination on your part and on my part to give the Palestinians a place where there can be dignity and hope.” So they met in the Bush White House?

Bush address on the financial crisis: These are not normal circumstances

Bush spoke, robotically, to the nation.

WHAT OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS MANY AMERICANS HAVE FELT: “Over the past few weeks many Americans have felt anxieties about their finances and their future.” John McCain, for example, is worried about his future; everyone else is worried about their finances. (That semi colon was in celebration of National Punctuation Day).

A LOOOONG PERIOD, NOT MY FAULT AT ALL: “Well, most economists agree that the problems we are witnessing today developed over a long period of time.”

HE WAS FOR IRRESPONSIBLE ACTION BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT: “I faced a choice: To step in with dramatic government action, or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all.”

NOT NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES? YOU’RE PLANNING TO GRAB BILLIONS FROM THE TAXPAYERS AND GIVE THEM TO YOUR RICH FRIENDS. SOUNDS LIKE NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES TO ME. “I’m a strong believer in free enterprise. So my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business. Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There’s been a widespread loss of confidence.” I wonder why....


THE GOVERNMENT HAS PATIENCE, SEE? SO PASS MY BILL NOW! NOW! NOW! NOOOOOWWWWWW!!!! “The government is the one institution with the patience and resources to buy these assets at their current low prices and hold them until markets return to normal.”

MORE FINANCIAL BUBBLES FOR EVERYONE! “As they do, they must ensure that efforts to regulate Wall Street do not end up hampering our economy’s ability to grow.”

SO THAT’S OKAY THEN: “Despite corrections in the marketplace and instances of abuse, democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised.”

Every form of witchcraft is what you rebuke

Palin and the witch-hunter pastor Thomas Muthee.

I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to ya

Sarah Palin was interviewed by Katie Couric today. 5:40, if you want to watch the Palin-Couric perky-off



She defended McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, saying he “recused himself from the dealings with Freddie and Fannie, any lobbying efforts on his part there.” Since Davis was being paid by Freddie Mac, I don’t think she knows what the word recused means.

WHAT SHE’S ILL ABOUT: “I’m ill about the position that America is in and that we have to look at a $700 billion bailout.” CBS, whose transcription was a touch spotty, has that line as “I’m all about the position that America is in”.

She claims that “Americans are waiting to see what John McCain will do on this proposal. They’re not waiting to see what Barack Obama is going to do.” She’s right: for the last several days I for one have just been sitting on the living room floor in my underwear waiting to see what John McCain will do on this proposal, without eating, sleeping, bathing. The cat is getting worried about me.

I kid. Of course the cat isn’t getting worried about me.

She says we may be on the road to another Great Depression (Palin says that, not my cat).

Asked to name examples of John McCain leading the charge for stricter oversight in the past 26 years, bar one mention two years ago, Palin said “That’s more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.” Pushed further she added, irrelevantly, “He’s also known as the maverick though, taking shots from his own party... trying to get people to understand what he’s been talking about - the need to reform government.” Pressed again by the perkily persistent Couric for actual, you know, examples of that mavericity in relation to financial oversight, she again dodged, whittering on about his “foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities.” Asked one last time for concrete examples, she meekly replied, “I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to ya.”

I know the McCain people insisted that in the veep debates responses be limited to 90 seconds, but I think Palin will find that 90 seconds can be very long indeed.

(Update: is it just me or, when Palin said that last line, did she sound just like Catherine O’Hara playing some clueless but chipper character in a Christopher Guest film?)

These agreements are mutually benefit

Today Bush met in New York with leaders of countries in the Western Hemisphere, and talked about trade.

IN OTHER WORDS: “In the five years since the free trade agreement between the United States and Chile took effect, trade between our two nations has increased by more than 180 percent. And that’s positive. In other words, these agreements are mutually benefit.”

OBVIOUSLY: “There are three free trade agreements pending in the Congress today: South Korea, Panama and Colombia. Obviously, two of those are with nations in our own hemisphere.”

“The Colombia free trade agreement will be good for Colombia; it will be good for America ... and Congress needs to pass it. The Panamanian agreement is good for Panama, it’s good for America, and Congress ought to pass that agreement, too.” He did not say whether the South Korean agreement is good for South Korea, good for America and whether Congress ought to pass it. Now we may never know.

Bush and the UN and the Almighty and the universality of freedom

In the afternoon, Bush, along with Laura and Condi, met with various dissidents from Russia, Burma and I don’t know where else (not from the US, of course), then posed with them with the Statue of Liberty in the background, which is kind of faulty imagery because they want to breathe free in their own countries, not here. Bush said of the meeting, “I assured them that this government, my government, believes in the universality of freedom. We believe there’s an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child is freedom.” So Bush’s government, his government, believes there’s an Almighty. It’s official.

“Say there, little guy, you Buddhist types don’t believe in an Almighty, do you? Then how can you believe in freedom, I don’t get it.”

To further show his commitment to freedom and democracy, later in the afternoon Bush met with Ugandan President Museveni, who he praised as a “strong leader,” which I guess is one way of putting it.


He praised Uganda’s efforts against AIDS: “infection rate went from a lot to, you know, a much smaller number.” I trust Bush will apply that same command of higher mathematics to the financial situation.

In the evening, he met Iraqi President Talabani.


NO DOUBT: “there is no doubt that the situation in Iraq has changed substantially. There’s no doubt that mothers are able to send their child to school without fear of carnage.”


In his next sentence, see if you can spot the word that gives something away: “Oh, there are still killers amongst your -- in your midst, but your government has been steadfast in bringing people to justice who are trying to undermine your democracy.” The word is “Oh.” Re-read that sentence, and imagine if the leader of a country whose troops invaded and occupied your nation spoke of the continuance of murder so dismissively.

When citizens around the world suffer, we suffer with them

Bush is hanging out at the UN today. Oh good.

This morning, he met new Pakistani President Zardari (aka, Mr. Benazir Bhutto). He expressed condolences from the “collective heart of the American people” about the weekend bombing in Islamabad that the collective brain of the American people never heard about or paid attention to.

WHAT WE WANT: “We want our friends around the world to be making a good living.”


Later, he attended a meeting on food security, a personal concern of his since that pretzel tried to kill him.

“The United States is a compassionate nation,” he proclaimed. “When citizens around the world suffer, we suffer with them.” And when they go hungry, we...um...

But we’re doing something about it. “We’ve committed about $5 billion of taxpayers’ money over the next two years to make sure people don’t go hungry.” In fact, CEOs of financial institutions will get $5 billion each just to make really quite sure that they never have to miss a meal.

It’s just not the week to really impress anybody with that $5 billion figure, is what I’m saying.

And he addressed the UN General Assembly. He told it that “the ideals of the Charter are now facing a challenge as serious as any since the U.N.’s founding -- a global movement of violent extremists. By deliberately murdering the innocent to advance their aims, these extremists defy the fundamental principles of international order.” Dude, murdering the innocent to advance aims is the fundamental principle of international order. You could look it up.


Anyway, the speech was about how terrorism is bad and should be dealt with pre-emptively, democracy and freedom are good, “clarity of vision” is required and so on.

See if you can spot the word that gives something away: “In the decades ahead, the United Nations and other multilateral organizations must continually confront terror. This mission requires clarity of vision. We must see the terrorists for what they are: ruthless extremists who exploit the desperate, subvert the tenets of a great religion, and seek to impose their will on as many people as possible.” The word was “a” in “a great religion.” Just one religion. He’s pretending to be talking about the evils of terrorism, but what he means is Muslims.


WHAT SOME MAY BE TEMPTED TO ASSUME: “As the 21st century unfolds, some may be tempted to assume that the threat has receded. This would be comforting; it would be wrong.” How does he know what will happen as the 21st century unfolds? “The terrorists believe time is on their side, so they made waiting out civilized nations part of their strategy.” See, they’re especially dangerous when they’re not doing anything at all.

WHO SOME? WHAT SOME? WE WANT NAMES ALREADY. “Some question whether people in certain parts of the world actually desire freedom.”

NOT PATERNALISM: “Experience also shows that to be effective, we must adopt a model of partnership, not paternalism. This approach is based on our conviction that people in the developing world have the capacity to improve their own lives -- and will rise to meet high expectations if we set them.” And our setting high expectations for them to meet is not paternalism how exactly?


FOR EXAMPLE, I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE AND NO ONE IS PUTTING ME UNDER ARREST: “For example, there should be an immediate review of the Human Rights Council, which has routinely protected violators of human rights.”

Laura Bush, Ban ki-Moon’s wife, and Carla Bruni (Sarkozy’s wife) listen to Bush’s speech being simultaneously translated into French, Burmese, and Percocet.

The hockey mom and the Iranian dictator

Sarah Palin never gave what would have been her first foreign policy speech, at the anti-Iran protest at the UN, the one from which Hillary Clinton withdrew when she found out Palin had been invited, and then Palin was disinvited. But the text of the speech has been released. She calls Ahmadinejad “the Iranian dictator” who “dreams of being an agent in a ‘Final Solution’ - the elimination of the Jewish people.” Also, that he showed up for a test completely unprepared and in his underwear.

Of course the most important way to stand up to Ahmadinejad, sez Sarah, is to achieve victory in Iraq. Stands to reason. “If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran’s nuclear ambitions will be bolstered.”

And of course he should be arrested. “President Ahmadinejad should be held accountable for inciting genocide, a crime under international law.”

So sad that she’ll never be able to give that speech, huh?

Sarah and I are going to get on that chopper and ride it straight to Washington!

I got nuthin’ today, except a backlog of pictures of McCain and Palin and the kiddies out on the town, with McCain just biding his time, waiting for Obama to take any position on the financial bailout so that he can take the other side.

He started out the week so well. Here he was yesterday after his weekly bowel movement.


This next picture is entitled, “Are you my new daddy?”


Introduced, in Media, Pennsylvania, by one of his many friends in the bikers-with-oversized-mustaches community.


Wait, I just stopped to look that guy up. His name is Paul Teutul and he has a show on... the Learning Channel. And because 13 cars aren’t enough vehicles for one man to own, Teutul gave McCain a motorcycle.


McCain responded, “Sarah and I are going to get on that chopper and ride it straight to Washington!” Quite an image. Sarah seems happy with the idea, or perhaps she is looking at Teutul and asking, “Are you my new daddy?”


Always happy to meet and/or lick his supporters.


Possible images of McCain for his presidential commemorative 5½ cent stamp.



Oh no! Sarah Palin is trapped inside a Teleprompter! Her ability to field dress a moose cannot save her now!

So, Hamid, I hear you can see Russia from your house too

Tomorrow, the McCain people are introducing Sarah Palin to foreign leaders for the very first time.

COMPETITION: What will Sarah Palin have to say to Colombian President Uribe and Afghanistan’s Karzai?

You bet it’s big, because it needed to be big

Today Bush met with Colombian President Uribe. He even, for the first time in weeks, took a couple of questions.

WHAT EMPTY PROMISES WON’T BE: “In the last few years, thousands of members of FARC have deserted. They’ve realized the empty promise of the leaders of -- you know, won’t be met.”


He lectured Congress about the importance of ratifying the free-trade treaty: “And members of Congress from both parties have got to understand the following facts.” There were three of them.

IN OTHER WORDS: “First of all, about half our growth last year, Mr. President, was because of exports. In other words, exports have affected our economy in a positive way.”

There were two more facts that members of Congress from both parties have got to understand. See if you can follow along with the MBA president’s sophisticated analysis: “Secondly, a lot of small businesses trade -- send goods and services to Colombia. It’s important for the small business sector to be vital and strong. Thirdly, a lot of jobs depend upon exports.”

STRUTTING OUT: “Dos preguntas por cada lado. Deb. That’s two questions per each side. (Laughter.) Just strutting out my Spanish here.” (Later, he will beg Colombian reporters not to speak in Spanish.)


OF HOW SIGNIFICANT: “My first instinct was to let the market work until I realized, upon being briefed by the experts, of how significant this problem became. And so I decided to act and act boldly.” You know, I can picture him standing in front of the mirror saying to himself, “I must act. And act boldly!”

WHAT IT TURNS OUT: “It turns out that there’s a lot of interlinks throughout the financial system. The system had grown to a point where a lot of people were dependent upon each other”. Yes, a lot of people are dependent on each other now; the economy has changed since you went to Harvard Business School, back in 2000 B.C.

IN OTHER WORDS: “In other words, the system risk was significant, and it required a significant response, and Congress understands that.”

HEH HEH, HE SAID BIG PACKAGE: “This is a big package, because it was a big problem.”

HE’S THE REMINDERER: “And, you know, I tell our -- I will tell our citizens and continue to remind them that the risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package, and that, over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back.” Heh heh, he said “the risk of the package.”


THEY’RE THE REMINDERERS: “We’re going to go to New York and talk to -- and remind people here in the nation’s capital that this is an issue that affects a lot more than countries than just Colombia.”

FABULOUSNESS ALERT: “And therefore, I asked Hank Paulson -- who, by the way, in my judgment, is doing a fabulous job”.

WHAT HE UNDERSTANDS: “And I understand it’s important to have confidence in a financial system.”

HE HAS AN MBA, YOU KNOW: “At first I thought we could deal with this -- deal with the problem one issue at a time. We made the decision on Fannie and Freddie because there was systemic risk to our mortgage markets. And then obviously AIG came along -- and Lehman came along and it was -- it declared bankruptcy; then AIG came along and it -- the house of cards was much bigger, beyond -- started to stretch beyond just Wall Street, in the sense of the effects of failure. And so when one card started to go, we were worried about the whole deck going down, and so therefore moved, and moved hard.” Because when you’re worrying about a house of cards going down, you move, and move hard.


WHY IT’S BIG: “And you bet it’s big, because it needed to be big.”

BUT YOU’LL TELL US WHEN IT IS THE TIME, RIGHT? “Now is not the time to play the blame game.”

There will be ample opportunity to debate the origins of this problem

McCain said that if he were president, he’d fire Christopher Cox, the chair of the SEC.

Presidents do not have the power to fire the chair of the SEC.

Reached for comment, George Bush just said, “Chairman Cox,” then giggled helplessly for ten minutes.

McCain has a new ad today saying that, “on the biggest financial issue of the day,” Obama would not say if he supported the AIG bailout. McCain, of course, has had more than enough positions on that issue this week for the both of them.


Human Rights Watch accused Hugo Chavez of human rights abuses. So he threw them out of the country, which was possibly intended as ironic commentary.

This morning, Bush gave a 1,270-word speech about the economy. In the afternoon, he gave a 1,209-word speech about the Boston Celtics. Somehow he seemed happier at the latter. Maybe Ben Bernanke should have given him a basketball and a jersey with the number 43 on it.







He also sounded more engaged and like he might actually have known what he was talking about.

Not that he feels that knowing anything about, say, how this financial crisis occurred, might be of any particular use in getting out of this financial crisis. “There will be ample opportunity to debate the origins of this problem. Now is the time to solve it.”

Caption contest:

Why do white Southern evangelicals hate America?

Ah, Christians. A poll of white Southern evangelicals (defined as attending church at least once a week) finds (pdf) that 57% of respondents think that torture of suspected terrorists is justified (“often justified” = 20%, “sometimes justified” = 16%). 34% oppose torture, but if asked whether the US should “use methods against our enemies that we would not want used on American soldiers” (i.e., the Golden Rule), that goes up to 50%. In other words, 16% of white Southern evangelicals want to torture our troops.

We being used as a force for good is how I see our country

Tonight Fox aired Part II of the epic Sarah Palin interview by Sean Hannity in which “no topic is off limits.”

ON TRACK PALIN: “He’s independent and he’s strong and he’s serving for the right reasons.” She’s said this before. What are the wrong reasons and how many troops does she think joined for the wrong reasons?

IT RHYMES, SO IT MUST BE TRUE: “Retreat is defeat in Iraq.”

WHAT’S GOTTA BE OFF THE TABLE: “No Cold War. That’s gotta be off the table.”

LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURFUIT OF HAPPINEFS: “Being an optimist, I see our role in the world as one of being a force for good and one of being the leader of the world when it comes to the values that, it seems that just humankind embraces the values that encompass life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that’s not just in America, that is in our world. ... We being used as a force for good is how I see our country.”

WHY SHE REALLY ADMIRES JOHN MCCAIN: “I so respected John McCain, his, his, maverick streak in him there really being made manifest in choosing someone who has a track record of that commitment to reform...” Oh, etcetera. She respects him because he chose her, is what she’s saying.


SHE DIDN’T MEAN TO OFFEND ANY COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS, JUST LAUGH AT THEM: “Oh, I certainly didn’t mean to hurt his [Obama’s] feelings. Didn’t mean to offend any community organizers, either.”

Asked why women’s groups don’t support her: “This campaign is about important, very important issues which are not necessarily gender-specific”. As opposed to the very unimportant issues which those hairy-legged feminists support.

ON BIDEN: “I think he was first elected when I was like in second grade. He’s been in there a long, long, long time.” Enough longs in that sentence, Sarah? (she really emphasized the longs, too).

SARAH SHOWS SOME SKIN: “I was telling a couple of our campaign people the other day. I said, you see this? You think this is just baby fat, right, from having Trig four months ago. No, it’s some thick skin in there also.” First, what part of your body were you showing to your campaign people? Second, don’t blame your weight on the media.

Says she had no desire to ban any books.

Says she wasn’t part of the Alaska Independence Party.

Says she supports the teaching of evolution.

Says she wore that Pat Buchanan button just because she was being polite and she was very excited that he was visiting her small city.

Says that fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan was “insubordinate” and that the investigation of Troopergate has been “captured” by “excessive partisanship.”

“This trooper tasered my nephew... His threats against the first family, his death threat against my dad. All that is in the record. And if the opposition researchers are choosing to forget that side of the story, well that’s, they’re not doing their job.” Sarah, “this trooper” isn’t running for vice president. Indeed, the truth of your allegations against him is entirely irrelevant to the question of your abuse of power in trying to get him fired. As is the fact that he’s still a trooper, which doesn’t prove anything except that you’re not all that good at carrying out your petty vendettas.


SHE’S ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE: “I’m one of those people, you know, I see a soldier walking through the airport, and, you know, I, my heart does a little double-take”.

(Update: forgot to add the response given at a town hall meeting today by Palin, who McCain said last week “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America,” to a question about how drilling would benefit American consumers:

Oil and coal? Of course, it’s a fungible commodity and they don’t flag, you know, the molecules, where it’s going and where it’s not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it’s Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It’s got to flow into our domestic markets first.

Meeting these challenges

This morning, Bush gave a very brief statement about the financial situation.

SELL! SELL! SELL! “I’ve canceled my travel today to stay in Washington, where I will continue to closely monitor the situation in our financial markets and consult with my economic advisors.”

SELL! DID YOU HEAR ME? SELL EVERYTHING! “[M]y administration is focused on meeting these challenges.”

But everything you need to know about the economy, you can tell...


And do you concur with that assessment, Secretary Paulson’s face?


(That picture actually from 3 days ago)

Why John McCain tapped me to be a team of mavericks

Sarah Palin’s second interview tonight. Tough questions from... Sean Hannity.

WHAT GETTING THE NOD FROM MCCAIN TO BE VICE PRESIDENT WAS: “Getting that nod was quite an experience.” He not only gave her a nod, but a tap: “And that’s why John McCain tapped me to be a team of mavericks”.

Much of the interview focused on the economy.

WHAT YOU KNOW WHEN WE SEE THE COLLAPSE THAT WE’RE SEEING TODAY: “When we see the collapse that we’re seeing today, you know that something is broken”.

The capitalist system is, of course, fine, it’s just... corruption: “I think the corruption on Wall Street. That’s to blame. And that violation of the public trust.” Hannity didn’t ask her who specifically she was accusing of corruption.

ON THE FUNDAMENTALS: “Well, it was an unfair attack on the verbage [sic] that Senator McCain chose to use because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain afterwards, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people.”

WHAT THE ECONOMY IS: “Certainly it is a mess though, the economy is a mess.”

WHY WE DON’T HAVE AN ENERGY POLICY, UNLESS YOU COUNT THE ONE CHENEY CREATED BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: “Yes it is gridlock and it’s ridiculous. That’s why we don’t have an energy policy. That’s why there hasn’t been the reform of the abuse of the earmark process.” Actually, the reason there hasn’t been reform of the earmark process isn’t because of partisan gridlock but the opposite: because both parties benefit from it.

“We sort of have a do-nothing Senate right now where nobody’s wanting to really pick up the ball and run with it and take the steps that we have to take to become more energy independent.” Does her plan for energy independence involve people running with balls, possibly on giant wheels?

A robust and meaningful way

The House passed the “Second Amendment Enforcement Act” to overturn gun control in D.C., banning D.C. from imposing such restrictions as proficiency or vision, and allowing guns, assault rifles, etc to be owned by people convicted of violent crimes, etc. Naturally, George Bush, who has been known to shut down whole cities to preserve his own security, welcomed the bill and demanded the Senate also pass it, “to ensure that the residents of the District are able to exercise their Second Amendment rights in a robust and meaningful way.” As in, hand over your wallet or I will exercise my Second Amendment rights in a robust and meaningful way.

Presumably the prospect of exercising his Second Amendment rights in a robust and meaningful way explains the expression on Cheney’s face at an Oval Office event this morning.


Later, Bush celebrated the most awkward day on the White House calendar, Iftaar. He talked about the many contributions of Muslim-Americans, pointing out a guy working on devices to allow quadriplegics to operate wheelchairs and computers. But of course it was Muslims in the US military, not that guy, who he said “represent the best of our nation.”


He said that his administration has “partnered with Muslims around the world to spread freedom to millions of people who have never known it before.” Well, certainly a lot more Muslims around the world seem to be exercising their Second Amendment rights in a robust and meaningful way.

Lord make a way

Palin and the witch-hunter.

Secretary of War Robert Gates in Afghanistan, offering his “personal regrets” for all the civilians we keep bombing: “While no military has ever done more to prevent civilian casualties, it is clear that we have to work even harder.” Really, no military? Because the Swiss Army has been preventing civilian casualties quite effectively lately by not, you know, invading anybody.

Nov. 2008 California proposition recommendations

Official results. Results below, in purple.

Abortions, high-speed trains, gay marriage, renewable energy and chicken cages. It could only be another California ballot.

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Prop. 1A. The, and I quote, “Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act.” Which are safe, reliable and high-speed – the passengers, the trains, the bonds, or the act?

Look, I like safe, reliable, high-speed passengers as much as the next person, and choo-choos are nice too, but I object to all bonds as a method of funding state projects, 1) on pragmatic grounds: they’re an expensive form of finance, with almost as much going to interest, which is just money flushed down the toilet, as is spent on anything productive, 2) on fairness grounds: they’re regressive, giving undeserved tax deductions to bond purchasers, 3) on principled, democratic grounds: they place tax obligations on the future generations that have to pay them off, which amounts to taxation without representation.

Beyond that, the money would be spent mostly or entirely on purely preliminary work on a bunch of projects, most of which will never be built – a high-speed train from Merced to Stockton to San Francisco? I don’t think so. Most of the list is bait and switch, just there to attract voters in those areas. At best, 1A would provide seed money for a possible LA-SF train that would require a lot more money and federal backing to have any chance of becoming a reality. No on 1A.

Yes, 52%.

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Prop. 2. For better treatment of farm animals (until we kill them and eat them, anyway), mostly in the form of improved housing. Yes.

Yes, 63%. Californians love their chickens.

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Prop. 3. Children’s hospital bonds. See 1A for my argument against any bond act. In addition, there seems to be an excess of micro-management here, such as naming diseases that the hospitals should be focused on. Like 99% of voters, I lack the medical expertise to decide which diseases should be prioritized now, and no one can predict what the situation will be 5 or 10 or 15 years from now. I’m also not sure whether children’s health in this state is best served by focusing funding on a small number of children’s hospitals (some of which are private hospitals). No.
Yes, 55%. Californians are, well, okay with their children.

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Prop. 4. Parental notification of abortion for minors, and a 48-hour waiting period.

Speaking of waiting periods, we voted down this exact measure in 2006 and 2005. I’d be against this anyway: parents should no more be able to force their daughters to carry a pregnancy to term than to force them to abort against their will. But this version also has problems with the way the judicial-bypass alternative is set up: it can take so long that parental notification might become, well, redundant; and if there is any sort of abuse, including “emotional abuse,” the girl must make a written statement (is this really the time to be giving her homework?), which will be passed on to the cops or Protective Services, a provision which seems less about protecting abused pregnant minors than it is a “nuclear option” designed to raise the stakes for girls opting for abortion.

The supporters of Prop. 4 have revamped their argument this time around. In 2005 and 2006, identical ballot arguments made clear their hostility to promiscuous little trollops: “When parents are involved and minors cannot anticipate secret access to free abortions they more often avoid the reckless behavior which leads to pregnancies.” Because that didn’t work, this time around they’re claiming to be concerned primarily with protecting the young Junos from sexual predators who impregnate them and then drag them off to abortion clinics. They claim, without any proof or logic, that “These laws reduce teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, without danger or harm to minors,” they claim that law enforcement supports this initiative, and they keep repeating the phrase “secret abortions,” as opposed to abortions carried out in the food court at the local mall, I suppose.

This is dangerous and stupid, and should be defeated by a large enough majority that we don’t have to see it again in 2010. No.

No, 52%, not as large as I'd have liked.

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Prop. 5. More drug addiction treatment, including for prisoners, less imprisonment for non-violent drug offenders, decriminalization of marijuana possession. Yes, why don’t we try something that’s cheaper and more likely to succeed than what we’ve been doing?

No, 60%. Californians love their prisons.

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Prop. 6. Spending minimums for criminal justice programs; more jail time for certain crimes.

The spending part is more micromanaging of the budget, which is supposed to be the Legislature’s job (yeah I know, I know, but just because they haven’t been doing it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be doing it). Nor should we be setting in stone how the budget should be allocated in the future. We don’t know what future needs will be, and it’s undemocratic to take decisions, especially budgetary decisions, out of the hands of our elected representatives in the future. No taxation without representation and all that.

The increased penalties are draconian, sometimes ridiculously, like life imprisonment for gang members who threaten witnesses or break into homes,. Plus a new crime of failing to register with the police as a gang member. And increased sentences (as much as ten years) for various crimes if performed by gang members. Presumably the police get to decide who is a gang member, which is a lot of power for them to abuse. Juvenile gang members to be tried in adult courts; increased use of hearsay evidence in court; cracking down on graffiti; you name it, really, the list goes on and on.

Mean-spirited, reactionary, self-defeating, stupid, and I can’t even imagine how much it would cost to implement. No.

No, 69%. Funny: mean-spirited, reactionary, self-defeating, stupid law 'n order measures usually do better than this.

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Prop. 7. Requires power companies to increase the amount of energy derived from renewable energy sources.

Gosh, a proposition that requires us to be experts on both the science of cutting-edge renewable-energy technologies and the economics of the electricity market. Fortunately, the legislative analyst is there to help: “The PUC has set the amount of the penalties at 5 cents per kilowatt hour by which the IOU or ESP falls short of its RPS target...” Thanks for clearing that up, Mr. or Ms. Legislative Analyst.

Of course we don’t have the expertise to decide on this, so the authors of 7 blizzard us with details and hope we’ll just assume that anything environmental-sounding must be good. Now, I’m all for renewable energy, but I don’t trust that Prop 7 is the way to achieve it. I don’t know if the targets it sets make sense. I don’t like Californians taking the financial hit alone (the claim of supporters that it would increase electric bills by no more than 3% per year is just a claim; it’s not actually in the initiative anywhere) for an issue that should be addressed at the national level. I’m not sure why the authority to set rates would shift from the PUC to the Energy Commission, or the reason for the insistence that contracts be for more than 20 years when technological innovations might change the situation completely. This sort of massive transformation needs to be overseen and tweaked as needed, not set in stone. And smaller power generators, especially solar, do seem to be locked out completely for no good reason.

This seems like the wrong means to a commendable end. No.

No, 65%, with all the environmental groups joining the energy companies in opposition.

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Prop. 8. “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Excuse me for the pedantry, but I just have to criticize the grammar. For a start, as written, it says that “marriage between a man and a woman” is literally the only thing at all, of the myriad of things under the sun, which will be valid or recognized (the sun won’t be valid or recognized either). That’s an interesting epistemological statement, although not perhaps one best argued in a voter pamphlet. The bad grammar results from the authors being unwilling to acknowledge the existence of gay people, much less to use the sacred word “marriage” to describe the relationship between gay people, leaving them unable to name the thing that they wish to ban. “Only marriages between a man and a woman, and not Abominations Unto the Lord, are valid and recognized in the God-Fearing State of California” might sound a little, I don’t know, unkind.

I don’t think I need to make an elaborate argument here; you probably know what you think. But remember, this is about policy, not your personal comfort zone. It doesn’t matter whether gay marriage makes you uncomfortable any more than whether you think Bristol Palin is marrying the high school dropout who knocked her up for all the wrong reasons and it’ll never work out. It’s the state’s job to register marriages, not judge them. And it is, or should be, the function of the state constitution to entrench rights, not discrimination.No.

Yes, 52.5%. Californians love their gays, but not in, you know, that way. The way that gives them equal rights, that is.

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Prop. 9. Increases the role of crime victims in parole and bail decisions. Other provisions would interfere with the right to a fair trial, such as giving victims the ability to prevent the defense receiving certain information about them. Yet other details are designed to disadvantage people in relation to the state, such as removing the right to counsel in parole-revocation hearings. Time between parole hearings would be greatly increased. And there’s something about “finality” in criminal proceedings; I’ve read the initiative’s text and I still have no idea what if anything is meant by that.

Victims of crime already have the “rights” to be informed of parole hearings and speak at them. Those parts of Prop. 9 are redundant, window dressing to obscure the new provisions, which are all aimed at reducing the rights of defendants and prisoners and making the criminal justice system an instrument of personal vengeance rather than public order and rehabilitation. No.

Yes, 53.5%. I'm hoping some of this gets thrown out in court.

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Prop. 10. Bonds for alternative fuels and cars run by alternative fuels, mostly in the form of rebates, with a bit of solar and wind thrown in.

I oppose this one because it is funded by bonds (see Prop. 1A above), but also because I don’t think rebates are what will got more alternative-fuel-powered cars on the road, since even $5,000 won’t begin to make them competitive (and there’s nothing to stop manufacturers and dealers raising prices and pocketing the money themselves). And as it happens, most of the money wouldn’t go to cars but to trucks, run on natural gas, which isn’t the most eco-friendly fuel either. In other words, Prop. 10, backed by T. Boone Pickens, would fund the wrong solutions, and subsidize his business interests. No.

No, 60%.

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Prop. 11. Redistricting. Again!

These little schemes are always like one of those complicated board games where by the time you’ve read through all the rules, everyone’s cranky and no one wants to play it anymore. Redistricting for the US Congress would remain as now, except that the Legislature would be asked to take into account “communities of interest,” whatever that means (the prop. doesn’t say!). For the Legislature, there would be a citizens’ commission. Anybody who hasn’t held office, been a lobbyist or contributed lots of money to a candidate in the last ten years, or changed their party registration in the past five, could apply to join, although I have no idea who would. Then, three faceless state bureaucrats narrow the applicants down to 60 based on their intelligence and “appreciation of California’s diversity,” whatever that might mean; then leaders of the Legislature would strike out 24; then 8 names would be drawn out of a hat and those 8 would pick 6 more. In total, they would have to be 5 Dems, 5 Reps, and 4 small party or non-party. Which presumably means that if those 8 chosen at random happened to include, say, 5 Democrats, a Green and 2 non-party, they would get to choose the Republican members. And hilarity ensues. To be approved, a plan would require 9 votes, including 3 R’s, 3 D’s and 3 others.

Even if I had any confidence that a group of people so chosen could produce a fair electoral map, and agree on it, which I don’t, I’d still have a major problem with it: by insisting that panel members’ primary qualification should be their party affiliation, this measure enshrines the two parties at the heart of the redistricting process, thereby doing exactly what the current system is rightly criticized for doing, protecting the interests of the two-party establishment and trying to pre-determine the outcomes of elections. But the Republican and Democratic parties are not branches of government or established religions, so they should not be officially entrenched in the constitution. If the measure instead called for the commission to have set numbers of Methodists, Catholics and Episcopalians, or whites, blacks and Hispanics, there would be outrage. So why should party be privileged? And as party identification continues to decline in this state, with fewer people voting the straight party ticket and only 77% registered as R’s or D’s, there is less and less justification for institutionalizing the two parties. No.

Yes, 50.6%.

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Prop. 12. Bonds for loans to veterans to buy homes. Most of my objections to bonds don’t apply here, since the veterans will be the ones paying off the bonds and the interest. So you can vote for it if you like.

Yes, 63.5%.

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Comments and rebuttals are welcome; sarcastic remarks about Californian participatory democracy are... probably inevitable.

(UPDATE: for well thought-out recommendations by people who mostly agree with me, see Kevin Drum, whose argument that Prop. 5 is not well-drafted and should not be set in stone in case in case it works out badly in practice is fairly convincing, enough so that I will probably flip-flop on this one several times between now and election day; the SF Bay Guardian; and Greenboy at Needlenose, whose recommendations have the virtue of coming in limerick form.)

Obviously going to see a devastated part of this fantastic state

Today Bush went to Houston to examine Hurricane Ike damage.

WHAT ENERGY COMPANIES INSTINCTIVELY WANT TO DO: “Secondly, obviously people are concerned about electricity and, you know, the -- what I look for, is there enough help to get these energy companies to do what they instinctively want to do, which is get the grid up again.”

THE DEMAND HAS BEEN MET EXCEPT WHERE IT HASN’T BEEN: “Thus far -- I know there are some shortages [in water and fuel], but thus far the demand has been met”.

WHERE GEORGE IS FIXIN’ TO GO AND WHAT HE’S OBVIOUSLY GOING TO SEE: “We’re fixing to go down to Galveston and obviously are going to see a devastated part of this fantastic state.”


WHAT HE’LL HAVE A CHANCE TO DO: “And it’ll give the Governor and me and the Congressmen and Senator and others a chance to express our heartfelt sympathies for those whose lives have been, you know, disrupted.”

WHAT GEORGE HOPES: “You know, I hope that the country does not have disaster fatigue.”

He is the Lion King

I know it’s George Bush’s function in life always to be the goofiest-looking guy in any photo, but some days it must be more difficult than others. Still, he always rises to the challenge.

Is there nothing John McCain cannot do?

Not only does McCain know how to win wars and how to capture bin Laden, but evidently he can “fix” the economy too: “And I know how to fix it, and I know how to get things done.”

Bedtime for bonzos

Four San Diego firefighters are suing the city for sexual harassment because they were ordered to ride their fire truck in a gay pride parade where they were subjected to, gasp, catcalls and sexually suggestive comments, which caused them to feel demeaned and oddly aroused.

So what if Sarah Palin had an expensive tanning bed installed in the governor’s mansion?


I mean, do you know how expensive it was for McCain to install an appropriate bed in every one of his homes?