In today's Sacramento Bee newspaper Dr. Bill Durston finally got some press coverage about his race against one of the most well-known California Republicans, Dan Lungren. You can decide whether it was a positive article or not, but one thing is for sure: Bill Durston is putting up a fight for this seat.
Part of Durston's fight to "take back our government from the special interests that control it, and to restore government of, by, and for the people" is online. He has recently created a video that pieces together clips from a debate he had with Lungren in 2006 about corruption and a more recent ABC News segment in which Lungren is found to be taking luxury vacations paid for by special interests, despite House ethics laws which prohibit such trips. If that video gets you riled up about Lungren, please consider sending Durston some love on his ActBlue page.
Well I've finally gone round the bend! I'm going on vacation to our place in the mountains in early October. So, you say. Well it turns out there are a number of Kossacks within an hour or so driving radius and I'm willing to host a meet-up!
Location: Near Mt Lassen on the north side (Hwy 44 & 89) junction to Susanville
On a creek
1 hour and 15 minutes from Redding / or Red Bluff
1 1/2 hours from Quincy
3 1/2 hours from Yreka
4 1/2 - 5 hours from Southern Oregon / San Francisco
Folks in the mountains know everything is at least an hour away...so here's the chance to get away and do politics too!
Some accomodations available for overnight at my place...up to 3 couples...your choice as to partners! It is a 1 bedroom house (cabin) with detached guest accomodations!
Bed & Breakfast within 3 miles.
Some cabins within 3 miles.
2 acres for campers, etc.
Too damned cold for tents in October...imho!
What it will be like in early October - below the fold!
It's time to recall Arnold Schwarzenegger from the Governor's seat in California.
He claims that the state is in a cash crisis. He's also committed himself to not raise taxes, and to cut them wherever possible.
Well, now he's moved beyond cutting taxes. Now he's cutting wages. And that's the point at which I say, "It's time to recall this guy."
Come with me after the jump for some reasons why, starting with the fact that he lied about the state having a cash crisis, and that he's the one who's responsible for creating this budgetary problem in the first place.
The Bush administration made it a point to declare that the U.S. military's strategical progress in the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions, would not, could not, and should not, be judged in terms of body counts or other such statistics.
But it is perhaps in the interest of both the American and Iraqi people, as well as the two presidential candidates, to reflect on these numbers and to let the facts and the statistics speak for themselves.
The Governor announced late yesterday that he has exempted a dozen or so State Agencies:
August 5, 2008
Who's exempt?
The administration told state Controller John Chiang this afternoon which workers are exempt from the minimum wage portion of the executive order.
Here's the list:
California Highway Patrol
Department of Transportation
Agriculture Security and Emergency Response
Veterans Affairs
Department of Developmental Services
Department of Mental Health
Military
Office of Emergency Services
Department of Water Resources
Department of Forestry (CALFIRE)
Department of Parks and Recreation
California Conservation Corps
Office of Spill Prevention
Department of Fish and Game
Thanks to The Sacramento Bee
Me, I work for the Department of Transportation so I'm basically happy, but there is more to consider beyond the fold.
If you’re from California, you have probably noticed that your monthly gas bill (from PG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric, or Southern California Gas, depending on where in the state you live), has a number of fees and surcharges tacked on after the actual energy charges. One of these fees is generally labeled "PPP," and it goes to support a number of so-called "public purpose programs." These public purpose programs are well worth supporting; they include direct assistance to low-income customers and an efficiency program for low income customers, which installs energy-saving measures, ranging from CFLs to high-efficiency furnaces, for people who couldn’t afford them. These programs are known as California Alternative Rates for Energy (CARE) and the Low-Income Energy Efficiency (LIEE) programs. Other programs, including efforts to expand use of solar power and reduce greenhouse gases in California are also supported by the PPP Fund.
These programs are now being threatened. More information and an action item after the jump.
The anti-gay attack machine worked before; will it work again? I'm a contributing writer for queer media cites AfterEllen.com/AfterElton.com, and today they're running my article that asks just that question of a wide variety of media and political figures including Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Congressman Barney Frank, Joe Scarborough, AmericaBlog.com's John Aravosis, and a number of others -- including Karl Rove himself.
More and Better Democrats. We in the netroots are the most vigorous champions of candidates who truly represent their districts, candidates who challenge the status quo and demand tangible changes in our government. If we had the power to create the quintessential strong Democrat, we'd be hard put to make up someone more authentic, intelligent, and schooled in the needs of his community than Manuel Perez.
The other day I was reading an article through Slashdot, and found the following sentence in its introduction, referring to the article's author, a scientist who has proposed some reforms to science education:
"Can someone who went through 20 years of science education as a student, lived his life in academia since then and even got a Nobel prize get a fair shake from bureaucrats who like education the way it is - - flawed and therefore always needing more money?"
As a longtime public school teacher in California, I take exception to this comment, which betrays the writer's ignorance of what really obstructs progress in public education.
June's lightning-caused fires in rural Northern California continue to burn. This weekend, fire swept through a beautiful old-growth forest on a mountain where I spent summers as a child. My heart aches. Miles upon miles of once-green land have been charred, ruining timberlands, fisheries, and the health, homes and economic futures of the area's citizens. It is increasingly clear to area residents, and those of us who love this place from afar, that something has gone dreadfully wrong.
The mainstream media barely notices this sparsely populated, often rugged region between Sacramento and the Oregon border. When the smoke reached Sacramento, President Bush and various officials, including Rep. Wally Herger, dropped in for a Katrina-like flyover. But as a cartoon in a local paper made clear, that isn't the kind of leadership that this area needs.
Enter Jeff Morris, Democratic candidate for California's 2nd Congressional District.
Well, it look like Arnold won't be able to ding our pay after all. John Chiang, the State Controller says it really will take 6 months to change our pay.
State Controller John Chiang said Monday an antiquated state computer system makes it impossible to adjust the state payroll quickly to issue minimum-wage checks to state workers. He said it would take at least six months to make the change.
A poison pill amendment to a seemingly harmless bill (SB 1565, Kuehl, Runner) is in almost certain violation of the California State Constitution-- but it may provide the opposition with a way to gut the California stem cell program...
In my previous dairy, I previewed California Governor's Arnold Schwarzenegger bizare tactics. Here it is: Working for Anold
It's a week and a half later and 'Ahnold' has gone ahead and cut most all full time worker to Federal minimum wage ($6.55), expects us to show up and work normally and attempted to lay of 22,000 non-full time workers. Here's the executive order and his claims: Governor Schwarzenegger Issues Executive Order to Address State’s Looming Cash Crisis
I will dissect the lies and misrepresentations below the fold. Yes, I'm a State Worker (and I'm pissed.)
Every few years California thinks it's running out of water - it really is - and starts proposing desalination plants.
An internet friend of mine got me to thinking about the matter.
The separation of mixtures (of which solutions like seawater are a subset) always implies a thermodynamic (energy) cost because of entropy. There's no point in discussing the theory - science is not a very interesting topic these days - but the empirical costs in energy terms are well understood.
As I posted on this site last week, Kucinich was making illegal robo calls in the State of California.
Kucinich was making 100's of thousands of fund raising robo calls in the state of California without understanding that the State has existing robo call code that effectively makes all robo calls illegal.
Now, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kucinich's home town paper reports that his operations have stopped robo calls in the state of California.
The California Public Utilities Commission has a law in California that clearly states that ALL robo calls are illegal, UNLESS they are introduced by a live person. We have received thousands of complaints from California citizens about receiving these illegal robo calls.
It is there, clearly, in the California Public Utilities Code sections 2871-2876.
On Thursday of this week, in a largely unreported and unnoticed story, governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order eliminating 22,000 jobs and reducing the wages of a further 200,000 to the statutory minimum wage.
Despite the terrible effect this will have on those thousands of families, with gas prices and house foreclosures at record levels, very few people noticed.
