Quote Of The Day: Racism Ploy Edition

"Because of the fact I am Mexican, they think I have to sleep under a cactus and eat from taco stands."
-- Former CA Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez

Forgive me for not putting all the little accent squiggles over Nunez' last name; I do it at the risk of being called racist.

Nunez has rightfully earned quite a reputation as a big-time spender while heading up the state assembly -- not just the usual tax-gouging we've come to expect from Dems, but also the illegal spending of his campaign funds on lavish trips, nice hotels and fine food and drink. He's been catching a heap of criticism for that, so when asked about it on a Spanish TV station, he unloaded, as quoted in the SacBee:

"Everyone's done it like this," Núñez said of previous legislative leaders. "The difference is there are some in politics who want to judge me in a certain manner. Because of the fact I am Mexican, they think I have to sleep under a cactus and eat from taco stands.

"What's a luxury hotel? A stay at a Sheraton? … I am, you could say, like a head of state. I'm the leader of the Assembly of the state of California. Where am I supposed to sleep?"

The "everyone's done it" defense is one that really rings true, isn't it? "I confess ... but ..." It hardly addresses the $47,000 he spent on plane fares, or the the more than $5,000 at a wine cellar in France, and certainly not the more than $2,500 in campaign funds he dropped for "office expenses" at Vuitton.

Another prominent California Hispanic, Hector Barajas, communications director of the California Republican Party, called out Nunez:

"Questioning someone's expenses, especially when they're in public office, is something the public should do."

And trying to hide under a brown cover is simply despicable.

Finally, Some Fiscal Responsibility in California!

The California Citizens Compensation Commission -- who would expect revolutionary work out of such a group, appointed as it is by the governor, and therefore hardly answerable to the people?

But the six commissioners took a look at officials whose salaries they have jurisdiction over through a vote of the people in the passage of Prop. 112 in 1989, and they didn't like what they saw. Here are those salaries (source):

Elected Officials	Monthly Salary	Annual Salary
Governor	$17,681.56	$212,179
Lieutenant Governor	$13,261.17	$159,134
Attorney General	$15,358.43	$184,301
Secretary of State	$13,261.17	$159,134
Controller	$14,145.25	$169,743
Treasurer	$14,145.25	$169,743
Superintendent of Public Instruction	$15,358.43	$184,301
Insurance Commissioner	$14,145.25	$169,743
Members, Board of Equalization	$13,261.17	$159,134
Speaker of the Assembly	$11,136.56	$133,639
President Pro Tem of the Senate	$11,136.56	$133,639
Minority Floor Leader	$11,136.56	$133,639
Majority Floor Leader	$10,410.29	$124,923
Second Ranking Minority Leader	$10,410.29	$124,923
All Other Legislators	$9,684.01	$116,208

Today, they said, "No more!" and voted against raising any of these salaries. Here's a bit of the SacBee report:

"We have a deficit of $7 billion" that news reports say will double by this summer, [Charles] Murray, of San Marino, said during the short meeting. "Everybody has to take a cut."

[Kathy] Sands, a retired banker and former mayor of Auburn, said a vote to reduce top government officials' salaries would send a message about their performance.

"We don't have a budget and they're not working any overtime to get it done," she said. "People have said that to me. They're not doing their job."

Not only that, but two members of the committee asked for an opinion on whether they have the authority to cut salaries. The decision, presumably to be rendered by the $184,301 a year Attorney General Moonbeam, will be coming along shortly.

There are two labor representatives on the six-person commission. So guess: How many votes there were against freezing the salaries? That's right. Two.

Fiscal Conservatism: An Unforgivable Sin

Last year, Merced CA GOP state senator refused to vote for a bogus state budget that failed to deal with run-away spending and out of control bureaucrats. His defiance was highly visible, as his refusal to give in to crappy economics held up the state budget.

In return, the state honored him with laurel wreaths and trophies. In your dreams.

It's on.

Voters will be asked whether state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, needs to
be recalled, and if so, who should take his place.

The recall effort -- spearheaded by Democrats because of Denham's
opposition to last year's budget -- has enough signatures to go before voters,
the Secretary of State's Office announced Tuesday. (Fresno Bee)

Yep. Budget hawk Denham is now officially the target of a recall.

The recall campaign is called "Dump Denham." Being able to alliterate two words is the culmination of creativity in some circles, I suppose. Here's what they have to say about anyone defiant enough to stand up for the taxpayers of California:

The voters have caught on to Jeff Denham – they’re recalling him for the same reasons they take unsafe toys off the shelf and tainted meat out of supermarkets – because they’re no good, and because we deserve better.

Tainted meat? There is something rotten in the state of California, but it's not Jeff Denham. It's the California Democratic Party and the wild-spending, unconstrained Dems in the state legislature.

Casinos Buy NAACP Support

Mandatory disclaimer: Nobody pays me to be against gambling; I just am.

I am particularly against the four Indian casino measures on the Feb. California ballot (Prop. 94, 95, 96, 97), in which four fabulously wealthy tribes will permission to vastly increase the number of slot machines they operate in return for a pittance of the new revenue the slots will generate as a payoff to the state.

Here's the opposition site -- funded, of course, not by anyone I like, but primarily the sleazy Vegas casino operators.

Update: Here's a better opposition site that lays out 14 strong, funny and maddening reasons to vote against the propositions. End update.

On the pro side, the tribes are pulling out the stops, all the stops ... call it their "black ops" --

The president of the California NAACP has been paid more than $40,000 in consulting fees – and the organization itself has received $60,000 – from a coalition of Indian tribes at the same time the civil rights group has endorsed four ballot measures pushed by its tribal benefactors.

The payments to Alice Huffman, who has served as president of the state conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since 1999, continue a three-year pattern in which Huffman's political firm has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by special interest groups.

Those same interests, including tobacco and pharmaceutical companies, have also donated tens of thousands of dollars directly to the state NAACP while receiving the organization's backing. (SacBee)

Huffman operates the NACCP out of the same office she runs her "political consulting" firm from. Now she might have spent hours on the phone with the reporter explaining exactly what she did for the tribes for her $40 K -- the meetings she held, the direct mail pieces she produced -- but there's nothing about it in the article ... probably because there was nothing to write about.

Huffman acknowledges that running a shakedown shop political consulting firm while running the Cal. NAACP has lead to many allegations of conflict of interest in the past, but:

She continues her consulting work because "campaigning and politics is my livelihood," she said. "That's how I make my money to buy my Gucci handbags and other things that enhance my standard of living."

And in that regard, she is cut from the same polyester as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton -- blacks who make a good, if immoral, living out of nothing more than being black.

Her support of the props, and the NAACP's support, are just one more good reason to vote against these propositions.

Note: There's also an interesting gambling-fired battle going on in Nevada, where Hillary is saying gambling is just terrific (whoring for the casino labor vote), and attacking Obama for his anti-gaming record in the Illinois statehouse, where his position was that gaming had a high "moral and social" cost that is devastating black communities. Read more in the LA Times.

Hillary, you are showing your true colors: chameleon ... no, more like ... Predator

Lookin' good, Hil. Whatever it takes, Ol Gal, eh?

Sunday Scan

Bad News For Cal. GOP

Everyone worth their political salt knows grassroots campaigning is key, so when a state party cuts its funding of its county kingpins -- the roots of the grassroots program -- you know they're in trouble. Welcome to the California Republican party:

At a regular scheduled meeting on November 16, the California Republican Party axed its counties "Executive Director" program because of the lackluster fundraising operation and the ongoing financial problems plaguing the organization. When Ron Nehring ... took over the party's chairmanship in the aftermath of the '06 election, the CRP's treasury was in red, with nearly $4 million in debt left behind by Duf Sundheim. (Red County)

The $260,000 a year program paid part of the salary of county GOP Executive Directors, whose primary job is to grow the party.

California has always been liberal, but it gave us Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in days gone by ... make that day long gone by. With a liberal Republican in the statehouse, the conservative California GOP has lost its way; no, with this news we see that it is still losing its way and there's a way to go before the way back to strength is found.

Speaking Of Our RINO Governor

How liberal is the Republican in the California statehouse? How about this liberal, as described by Bakersfield Californian columnist Marylee Shriver:

Despite all his tough talk about securing borders and immigration reform, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month signed AB 976, making California the first state in the union to prohibit landlords from asking tenants about their immigration status.

Talk about your dubious distinctions.

Not a single Senate or Assembly Republican voted in support of the bill, but the governor -- never one to fret over party loyalties -- signed anyway. (source)

This is a no-brainer. You have individual property rights and maintaining a semblance of respect for federal law on one side of the ledger and collapsing before the lobbyists for illegals on the other ... and Arnie sides with Big Government taking away individual rights.

Shriver, whose conservative viewpoint always makes her column a joy to read, wraps it up nicely:

... Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Industry, penned the new bill anyway, slamming [a similar] Escondido ordinance for targeting "people of color." It didn't. It targeted illegal immigrants, but such rhetoric surely grabs at the hearts of landlords who fear the threat of possible legal reprisals.

The problem now is Calderon's bill actually forbids landlords to even ask prospective tenants about their citizenship status.

"The point of asking is so landlords can protect their financial assets from someone who is more likely to flee the country," Fuller said. "This bill is a special protection to a person who does not have legal status and is breaking immigration laws."

Getting the Message ... Sort Of

Yesterday, the NYT acknowledged what I wrote about last week in my Watcher's Council winner of a post:

But the changing situation [in Iraq] suggests for the first time that the politics of the war could shift in the general election next year, particularly if the gains continue. While the Democratic candidates are continuing to assail the war — a popular position with many of the party’s primary voters — they run the risk that Republicans will use those critiques to attack the party’s nominee in the election as defeatist and lacking faith in the American military.

How do you stay defeatist and hope to win? How do you demand withdrawal without admitting that victory, even when it appears to be increasingly within reach, is not as important to you as embarrassing W?

Here's how the primary Dem Prez candidates are punting:

• Hillary: Won't say how large or how fast a withdrawal, but she supports the concept of withdrawal. Natch.
• Obama: Favors the withdrawal of one or two brigades a month.
  
• Edwards: Favors immediate withdrawal.

So the Dems still think the way to piece peace is premature withdrawal, which may prove a poor prophylactic to electoral defeat if victory continues to grow closer in Iraq.

Unable to continue to lay the blame for failure on the military, they are now clinging to the last desperate hope that the Iraqis will fail to establish a viable government. But now that the sectarian violence is diminishing, the likelihood that the Dems will lose that last crumbing toehold of a defeatist philosophy is increasing. Not surprisingly, that hasn't changed their message any; they remain steadfastly behind defeat in Iraq.

Differing Shades of Green

Green is great -- as long as it doesn't include that iridescent light green we associate with comic book renderings of nuclear power.

Case in point. The nice deep green was recently adopted as the County colors for Ventura County in CA, as county supervisors passed a new green ordinance they hope will make Ventura the venerated green leader nationally. The ordinance requires such things as biodiesel in all city diesel-fueled equipment, environmentally safe cleaning products, retrofitting city buildings to qualify for LEED standards, and eliminating Styrofoam.

But embrace nuclear power as the only technology capable of large-scale energy generation today without significant greenhouse gas emissions? Not a chance. California GOP Assemblyman Chuck Devore found that out as he realized his proposed ballot initiative that would have streamlined the development of nuclear power plants in the state did not have the support needed to pass.

Here's part of Devore's interview with FlashReport:

With the initiative filed, we were able to do two statewide polls, following on to a statewide poll done in July by a group of nuclear power supporters out of Fresno. The Fresno poll showed the public backing nuclear power by a margin of 52-42 - encouraging, to be sure, but not enough to launch a successful statewide ballot initiative. Our follow up polls showed the same public opinion climate: slight support for nuclear power.

Further, our polling showed that when voters where given the facts on the pro-nuclear side and the arguments against nuclear power, that there was a modest improvement in support for nuclear power. This was all encouraging, but the standard rule of thumb in California initiatives is that, to be successful in the face of well-funded opposition, an initiative has to start out with support in the mid- to high-60s.

We therefore decided that the time was not yet right to push to bring an initiative lifting the nuclear ban to the ballot. Discretion is the better part of valor.

Syria Wiggles

Last week, it was the news that Syria has suddenly begun closing its border to jihad-crazed Islamists wanting to enter heaven via Baghdad. Now, a new sign that Assad's toy country is still unable to resist the gravitational pull of America's global strength:

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syria announced Sunday that it will attend the Annapolis summit on Mideast peace, saying it would send its deputy foreign minister because the future of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights had been put on the agenda.

The official news agency, SANA, said Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad would travel to the U.S.-backed conference, a decision made "after the Syria track was added to the conference agenda," the agency said. Syria had said it will attend only if the conference discusses the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed.

Funny thing, though: The Golan Heights aren't on the agenda. The White House stated that the Golan Heights were "not specifically on the agenda" but attendees would be able to freely raise issues. So if you see Mekdad in the media coverage, look carefully to see if his tail is between his legs.

Now if we could just get Syria to pay attention to us on Lebanon ...

Why We Call It Climate Change

Greenie Watch spotted this:

If last season was one for Europe's skiers to forget, the coming months on the slopes look more propitious than in recent memory, thanks to large snowfalls in recent days.The white windfall, although confined to the northern Alps and omitting France, prompted some Swiss and Austrian resorts to open early. Heavy snow forecast for the southern Alps on Saturday and Sunday might trigger the same there, as ski operators on both sides of Europe's mountain divide strive to make up for the misery of last season, when poor conditions and abnormally high temperatures prompted widespread fears about global warming.

Of course, it was perfectly all right for the media to clang the global warming hysteria gong last year, but this year we will all be warned that a single year does not a trend make. Still, here's what Swiss meteorologist Jacques Ambuehl said about this winter thus far:

"Last week's snowfalls were certainly quite extreme. We have no record, especially at mid altitudes, of such an event in the past.

Brrrrr.

Burma 101

History News Network provides us this week with a lengthy article by Donald M. Seekins, professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Japan's Meio University on the history of repression and defiance in Burma, showing how the regime's inept demonitization program of 1988 was a mirror of its fuel price hike in 2007: Same loony ineptness, same cavalier attitude about the financial condition of the populace, same uprising, same brutal quelling of the uprising.

The piece is informative, but anything but hopeful. The best Seekins an offer in terms of resolution is:

• Smart sanctions that target the ruling elite, not the people -- you know, prohibitions on single malt scotch, fine watches and the despots' ever-popular entertainment of choice, American porn.
• Pressure on China, which Seekins acknowledges is likely to go nowhere.
• More cooperation among Burma's neighbors, which Seekins sees a probably unattainable.
• Greater prominence of Burma on the U.N. agenda, even though China and Russia will continue to veto any real progress.

In other words, barring a miracle, Burma will continue to be a hell-hole for years to come.

Risks Of Teen Binge Drinking

Finally, since the Christmas decorations are calling, it's time to draw this to a close, with a warning about teenage binge drinking.

I doubt if many C-SM readers are teenagers awakening today with binge-fired splitting hangovers, but if so, take heed. And parents, friends and relatives of teenage binge drinkers take heed as well:

Binge drinking by teens and young adults is linked with increased long-term risk for heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes, a U.S. study found.

Senior author Dr. Marcia Russell of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Berkeley, Calif., says the risk is lower in people who start drinking alcohol later in life and maintain more moderate drinking patterns.

The study, scheduled to be published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, suggests that the increased health risks were independent of the total amount of alcohol consumed over a lifetime, or whether or not people stopped or curtailed drinking as they matured. (source)

Come to think of it, I should take heed as well -- and not just because I have young daughters. I haven't touched alcohol for a decade or so, but did binge in my youth. So far, the ticker and the blood sugar are fine, though, so I hope I'm an exception to this rule ... but not as much as I wish I had been wiser in my youth.

Smelt Dealt: Greenies Gut Water Supply

The Fresno courtroom was packed to the gills yesterday, with people even sitting in the jury box to hear U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger's decision regarding a three-inch fish's impact on a thirsty state. If it's drama they want, the Delta smelt ruling didn't disappoint.

In a conclusion that was pretty much foregone due to the inflexibility of the Endangered Species Act, Wangler ordered pumping of San Joaquin Delta water cut by as much as 37 percent from December through June.

The two sides -- Greenie fanatics and sober ag and urban water providers -- now are supposed to sit down and agree to a plan to implement the ruling. If they can't work together, Wanger will write the plan himself, placing an unelected judge in solo control of most of California's water supply.

Greenies, as is their wont, after chanting "Doom, doom!" for years, demanding that draconian measures are necessary to save a critter, are downplaying the ruling's negative effect now that their scare-mongering has helped bring them victory. For example, attorney Kate Poole (an ironic name, given the effect of the ruling on water supply) was already dismissing any projections of big negative impacts:

Poole, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, questioned the officials' numbers. "I don't think they can say that," she said. "I don't think anybody has yet figured out how much delivery reduction this would cause." (LA Times)

Well, Katie girl, if you shut down the pumps 37 percent of the time during the spring and winter -- in other words, the only time when there's a lot of water to pump -- you are going to have a profound, pooch-screwing impact. You and your Greenie attorney comrades made the bed, Katie, now fess up and sleep in it.

Here's how Tim Quinn of the Association of Cal Water Agencies described the impact of Wangler's ruling:

A sober assessment of this says it's a very large deal. We are not only losing supply here, you are greatly compromising the tools we have developed to deal with water shortages. (Fresno Bee)

What Quinn means is this: During the winter and spring, ag and urban water districts pump their reservoirs full with snowmelt water that is flooding into the Delta -- what used to be called surplus water, but is now called water for endangered species. If we can't fill our reservoirs during the rainy and snowmelt months, our reservoirs will not be able to provide the supplies needed to get us through the dry months.

There's a beneficial result of all this: more conservation. I'm a fan of conservation. But we represent some water districts and I can tell you that conservation is already taking hold big-time without Greenies forcing it down our throat.

Greenies will counter that the fish had to be saved. Bogus argument. If they were truly more about the Delta smelt than they are about water policy, they would have not pursued this through Endangered Species Act litigation, but by a holistic effort that looked at seawater intrusion, the introduction of non-native species, chemical pollution and pump activity.

By focusing on the pumps and using the inflexible Endangered Species Act as their sledge hammer, their agenda is clear: Writing new policy through the courts for California's ag industry and the residents of Southern California. But if you write broad policy based on narrow objectives, as worthy as the objective of protecting the Delta smelt may be, it will necessarily be bad policy.

And as California's drought continues, the timing couldn't be worse.

Why We Can't Trust The EarthTo The Bureaucrats

Give a bureaucrat a checkbook, and he'll tell you he can fix any problem.

Why, he can even convert the state of California's state auto fleet to ethanol and help save the planet! Save the planet? A bureaucrat? Not hardly, says an OC Register editorial:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration for two years has "invested" more than $17 million in a fleet of cars and trucks to be environmentally friendly, but that the 1,138 state vehicles have traveled a combined 10 million miles, burning more than 413,202 gallons of gas – without using a drop of the ethanol they were intended to run on. Oops.

Because the vehicles have used regular gasoline, the so-called "flex-fuel" fleet produced even more pollution than would have been created with conventional gas-burning cars and trucks, according to the Mercury News. ...

On top of that, the Mercury News reports, over 15,000 miles the state's "flex-fuel" mid-sized Chevy Impala creates 8.3 tons of greenhouse gases compared to 7.3 tons from the smaller, petroleum-fueled Ford Focus that it replaced.

California, as you may recall, is leading the way in state-mandated greenhouse gas emission ceilings. Leading the way to where, exactly, we might well ask ourselves.

Why do you suppose the state employees driving these cars are refusing to put ethanol in them?

Because ... and here's bureaucracy functioning at its normal level of inefficiency ... there aren't any ethanol fueling stations in the state! Oh, I lied. There's one, in San Diego ... but the OC Register reports no state vehicle has ever fueled there.

Besides, marketing ethanol as a clean fuel is less than honest. Yes, it's renewable. Yes, it would reduce dependence on jihad-funders as a source of our oil. But it's inefficient and dirty, and you'd think big, smart states like California could (1) do the research and (2) be honest enough to do the right thing instead of the political thing.

Maybe Arnold's just a big, dumb weightlifter after all. Or, in the interest of being less offensive to guys who could easily beat me up, maybe he's' just a big, dumb politician after all.

Germs, Guns, Steel And Autocrats

Well, San Luis Obispo it is. The long worked-for hearing is tomorrow and the long drive was last night and the long work session getting our presentation ready (that's my job) is today.

The hearing is not yet a sure bet. We have Commissioners on our side, but all in all, the California Coastal Commission staff is a very frustrating group to work with. In a nutshell, its staff rejected nearly all our good, well done, professional science and sided whole-hog with the opponents' pseudo-science, ignorance and deception.

Why? Because we were obnoxious and uncooperative?

No. Our mantra since day one was to win them over with good science and friendly cooperation.

Because the project we propose would destroy wetlands and mess up the coast?

No. The property is at the inland edge of the Coastal Zone, not on the coast, and we're preserving and restoring more wetlands than exist there, according to our scientists. It's just that the commission's staff, without authority of law, wants us to restore wetlands that nearby neighborhoods and flood control channels wiped out, most of them years before the Coastal Act went into effect -- wetlands that, if they indeed existed, would take up most of the little bean field, leaving a small corner for development.

We'll fight the good fight and maybe, miraculously, we'll come out with an approval that leaves enough land for my client to actually develop. As it is, the staff recommendation doesn't pencil out and can't be built.

And all because Eurasia runs east-west instead of north-south. Were it not for that phenomenon, which I learned last night while driving up here and listening to Germs, Guns and Steel, the Fate of Human Society by Jared Diamond, there would be no California Coastal Commission.

That twist of God's hand or fate (your choice; I know mine) allowed thought, invention, weapons, governance and germs to spread quickly through wind bands of compatible climate zones from Ireland to Japan, whereas in Africa and the Americas, bands of desert and jungle stopped progress in its track.

More important than human invention, Eurasia's axis was responsible for the development of truly great and powerful diseases, and resistance to them, so we could more easily conquer African and American civilizations and impose our own.

That lay of geography led to the rise of our type of civilization, our bureaucracies, our weapons, our dominance -- and it led to the California Coastal Commission, which wouldn't exist even still today if Eurasia didn't run east-west.

Oh, we'd probably stop bashing ourselves over the head with stones and start doing it with regulatory tomes eventually, but we wouldn't be there yet.

I'd trade where I am today for a simpler role in the bands or tribes that preceded this mess, but only through tomorrow. Once our hearing is over, I'd want to go back to all the niftyness Eurasia's orientation has brought us.

(Like, for example, the nifty gadgets the incredible family got me for Fathers Day. One was my own iPod, finally, into which I downloaded the book from iTunes. The other was the car player, which replaced my unused CD multi-disk player, and now plays my iPod content over the car's stereo system, with each former CD setting now an iPod setting.

(It's as if the Eurasians got busy in my glove box, defeated/infected the indigenous, backward American/African CD tribe and imposed something new and magnificent in its place.)

Warning: Stupid People Driving ... Or Governing

According California DMV, some extremely stupid people are driving on our roads and highways. I have it on good authority -- it's right on the wrapper of my new license plate.

Right next to the "click it or ticket" logo is this:

A safety belt can

• Prevent painful injury
• Save your life

When you buckle up!
Protection is void if your seat belt isn't fastenened at time of impact.

Thank you for that helpful little tip, Mr. Schwarzenegger & Co. Here we thought we could avoid the discomfort of continual seatbelt clickage by simply waiting until we have an accident, then click it shortly after impact. Things are much clearer now.

Does the government really think they serve people this stupid? Or is the government so stupid that it actually thinks warnings like this are necessary?

Methinks the latter.

Hearing Day

Today's the day one of my teams has been working towards for years. We received city approval of this little 170-home project in Dec. 2002 and have been trying ever since to get a hearing before the California Coastal Commission.

Today is that day, so there will be no blogging until it's over.

Yesterday was intense, as the opposition prevailed in getting staff to buy one of their arguments. In a nutshell: Decades ago, before the current owner owned the property, it appears someone put some fill on a portion of the property without a permit. They were cited, and it appears the fill was never properly removed. If it had been removed, a wetland plant in the area might have grown there, so we will have to adjust our plans to avoid the area.

It's all based on interpretation of fuzzy old aerial photos and vegetation maps. They've got a defensible argument, and we had one against it, but if we pose our argument, the Commission is likely to see an unresolved question and delay us until October.

The cost? Four houses, maybe 10.

The decision we made? You can watch the hearing live at here (there's a video link on the left near the top). We'll hopefully come on sometime before lunch. (Here's the Web site for the project.)

The California Coastal Commission staff believes the State has the right to do whatever it wants with private property on the Coast. They push the regs to the max, and many Commissioners think that's just fine. Others hold to reasonable regulation and reasonable property rights.

It's a very odd dynamic and if you are totally lost in your wonkism, you may find it interesting.

Me? I'm a capital T, capital B true believer in the benefits of and need for well planned development and have my heart very much in this one. Plus, I'm paid to be there.

Verified! 8% Of Californians Are Whack-Jobs!

I was meandering through the latests Public Policy Institute of California survey, Californians and Their Government, when I came across this little heartstopper:

Changing topics, thinking about the world for a moment -- what country in the world, if any, rpresents the greatest danger to the United States?

The bottom answers round out with Russia, none, "I'm a moron" and other, but here are the other results of the question, which was asked of 2,000 supposedly cognitive Californians between March 13 and 20:

1. 20% Iran
2. 19% North Korea
3. 15% Iraq
4. 11% China
5. 8% Unitited States
6. 2% Al Qaeda/terrorist groups

I did not inadvertently transpose those last two results; four times more Californians feel they have more to fear from America than they do from Al Qaeda. Mystifying.

Could that be the percentage of the population that thinks Bush masterminded 9/11 with help from the Israelis, who found 19 Mosad agents willing to die to have America fight Iraq ... as opposed to, say, the much nearer Syrians or the nastier Palestinians, and that no one involved in the conspiracy has sold their story to The National Enquirer? I know those souls are out there ... but 8%?

Maybe they're the anti-Patriot Act folks who have convinced themselves that they've lost freedom because of the Act, even though their lives are unchanged, unless they've been phoning terrorists in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border zone, the area code of which slips my mind at the moment. I know those souls are out there ... but 8%?

Maybe they are the folks who actually knew that today is the 12th anniversary of Timothy McVeigh's bombing and the 14th anniversary of Janet Reno's deadly decision-making regarding the Branch Dividians, and they circled the date in red on their calendars as soon as the stripped the celophane off them. I did not know that myself until I heard Dennis Miller mention it, but I know those souls are out there ... but 8%?

Maybe they are the suffering elite in the advanced stages of Bush Hatred Syndrome, when the brain cells attack each other out of sheer maliciousness and the lack of any other logical target. I know those souls are out there, too ... but 8%?

Obviously, there's a crazy quilt of loons that are lost in their own sad, false realities who would, if they could carry out the mental gymnastics required to assemble with the others, make up nearly 10 percent of our state's population.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda has actually killed more than 3,000 Americans on our shores, caused billions of dollars in economic damage, and are actively engaged in killing American troops and innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, to name just two of their theaters of operation. They have sworn that we are the enemy and that they will not give up their fight until they kill us or convert us.

Our protectors have broken up plots in which Al Qaeda operatives would have blown up bombs at LAX and flown an airplane into the Gas Building in downtown LA. They've tracked some of the 9/11 killers to San Diego and stopped a Lodi man from carrying out the trianing he received in Al Qaeda camps.

And 98% of Californians don't put Al Qaeda and terrorists on the top of the list of the largest threats to the United States. Listen, my Golden State brethren, you are far more likley to die at the hands of Al Qaeda than you are at the hands of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Li'l Kim Il-Jong or the ghost of Saddam Hussein.

Art: Winds of Change (edited)

Californians, Please Support SB 476

I'll make this easy: There's an important hearing in Sacramento on Tuesday at 9:30 regarding SB 476, a measure to exend the Statute of Limitations for manslaughter from three years to 10 years. Dems are attempting to stonewall the bill, but anyone interested in law, justice and rational responses to crime should support it.

At the bottom of this post, I'll put a sample letter and an email address to send it to. Do it right away because the hearing is Tuesday. Here's why it's important, as explained by Thomas A. Smith, a professor at the University of San Diego Law School:

I am writing this letter to express my strong support for SB 476. Extending the statute of limitations [[SOL] for manslaughter to 10 years, as SB 476 would do, is an important reform of the criminal law in California and is long overdue. While it would not lead to the incarceration of many criminals in absolute terms, those that would be imprisoned under this law would be particularly dangerous offenders from whom California's citizens should be protected.

A three or five year SOL for manslaughter is a relic from an earlier time. In a world where people move quickly within the state and around the country, the model of investigation in which everyone who knows about a crime can be quickly interviewed and the truth arrived at, is obsolete. Furthermore, the crowded dockets of the courts and the increasing complexity of the civil laws mean that easily years can elapse before civil suits, which may reveal facts crucial to criminal homicide investigations, are settled or completed.

This happened in the case of Brian Gillis, whose tragic homicide is the motivation for this bill. The facts in his case only emerged as a result of the civil litigation, which lasted nearly three years. The office of the district attorney with jurisdiction over this case assured Brian's mother that they were waiting for the civil suit to be completed before they pursued the criminal investigation. Evidence did in fact emerge in the civil suit which could have been the basis for a manslaughter or even a murder prosecution, but by this time, the statute had nearly lapsed. With limited resources, and little time left on the statute, the DA elected not to pursue the case.

Facing such short time limits, law enforcement officials have the incentive to give up pursuing difficult cases even when serious offenses such as homicides are involved. Such short statutes of limitation also give defendants and witnesses implicated in wrongdoing every incentive not to cooperate with any investigation, civil or criminal. That is what appears to have happened in Brian's case, and why his killers may now relax, confident in their belief that the State of California cannot touch them. Brian's mom can tell you who killed her son, but they are now beyond the reach of the criminal law. Unless SB 476 is passed into law, there is no reason to think the same thing will not happen again to some California mother.

Manslaughter is a catch all provision that covers all but the most culpable homicides. The facts in Brian's case suggest crimes on the border between manslaughter and Second Degree Murder. For crimes such as these, ten years in an entirely appropriate statute of limitations, because of the gravity of offenses involved. While criminal defendants deserve speedy justice, crime victims deserve justice as well. Extending the statute of limitations for manslaughter is a small but important step in that direction. It is also, frankly, the very least that the State of California can do for a grieving mother who lost her son, and whose killers are free, even as the record of the civil trial explains who are responsible for Brian's death. The bill will not help in Brian's case, but at least it will make it more difficult in the future for those guilty of manslaughter to avoid justice by running out the clock.

There's more to this: It's important to support SB 476 to smack the Dems upside the head. Senator Gloria Romero, who chairs the committee hearing the bill, is on a rampage, holding up any bill that could impact prison overcrowding.

Unless you agree that the message criminals should get is that they should go ahead and commit crimes because you they be prosecuted and jailed, and unless you agree that people like the killers of Brian Gillis should go unpunished, send in the letter below:

Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, Senator.Hollingsworth@senate.ca.gov
Senator Gloria Romero, Senator.Romero@senate.ca.gov

R.E: Support Senate Bill 476

Dear Senator Hollingsorth and Senator Romero:

I am writing to urge your support for the enactment of SB 476, which would extend the statute of limitations for manslaughter to 10 years. While the bill will not lead to the incarceration of many criminals in absolute terms, those that would be imprisoned under this law would be particularly dangerous offenders from whom California's citizens should be protected.

Two phenomenon argue for a longer statute of limitations for manslaughter. First, today's society is extremely mobile, making it harder for investigators to track down witnesses and suspects. Second, crowed civil court dockets delay these cases, which can turn up evidence that can support manslaughter charges, beyond three years.

We must put the citizens of California and the victims of crime first, well ahead of concern about prison overcrowding. Support SB 476!

Californians May Vote On War This Feb.

California Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata appears to be leaning left in the accompanying photo for good reason: He's leading the anti-war, anti-Bush White Flag Brigade in the Golden State.

Perata introduced a bill today that's sure to breeze through the far-left Cal legislature that would place a referendum on the Feb. 5 primary ballot calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The referendum says:

The people of California, in support of the men and women serving in the Armed Forces of the United States, urge President Bush to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and immediately begin the safe and orderly withdrawal of all United States forces; and further urge President Bush and the United States Congress to provide the necessary diplomatic and non-military assistance to promote peace and stability in Iraq and the Middle East.

Let me see if I get this right.

1. We're actually supporting the men and women in the military when we cue up the next bigger, bloodier war by refusing to let them finish this war.
2. We are occupying Iraq. There's that word again. As I said this morning, the Germans occupied Poland and Germany, the Russians occupied Eastern Europe. We liberated them as we are liberating Iraq.
3. Diplomacy and "non-military assistance" will do what troops were unable to do. Dips, God love 'em, will get al Qaeda in Iraq to lay down their arms and non-military assistance will lead Sunnis and Shi'a to go all kissy-face on each other in the street.
   

Might I suggest that Perata has alterior motives, that this might not be about the well-being of our troops? Sure, it's all about Bush-bashing, but in this case, it's probably really s all about the well-being of Perata.

The Berkeley (natch!) Dem may be using the anti-war referendum to increase Lib turnout and help another possible measure on the ballot, one that would modify California's term limits, allowing a certain termed-out Senator named Don Perata to keep his seat. With an anti-war initiative that's sure to endear him to Berkeley's whacked voters, passage of the term limit initiative virtually guarantees him a life-long suckle on the public teat.

Will Arnold terminate this silliness? The bill is sure to end up on his desk. He can be a girly-man and say "Let the people decide," or he can be a man and veto the bill.

As of this afternoon, the Gov has no comment.