Have a nice weekend!  Next week Calitics will be coming to you from the California Democratic Party convention, so we’ll have a full slate for you.

• Calitician Dave Dayen will speak about the special election at a meeting put on by the West LA Democratic Club and Southern California Americans for Democratic Action.  

Sunday, April 19, 2009, 2 PM

3916 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City

details

• More terrible job news, as the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 11.2%, with a loss of 62,000 jobs in March.  I don’t see a way back for quite a while.

• Interior Secretary Ken Salazar got an earful from Californians in a public comment session in San Francisco about offshore drilling.  Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and Sen. Barbara Boxer in particular offered heated comments in opposition.  Hopefully the Interior Secretary will listen.

• Just a reminder, when you hear all this talk about “greedy public employees,” that California has the second-lowest ratio of state workers per capita in the entire nation.  And with a state spending cap, we’d have even less.  

• Santa Monica City Councilman Bobby Shriver will not run for Attorney General in 2010.

• A pretty remarkable story out in the Inland Empire, where warehouse workers at a temp agency decided to sit-in to protest their treatment.  Video here.  Tom Woodruff has a great piece about the Depression in the IE and the implications.