Other various items:

• CalBuzz has a slightly different take from me (Brian) on the exit of Eric Jaye. Look, it’s not that I think Newsom can win running to the Right of Jerry Brown at this point. It’s just that it is very hard to imagine a Newsom campaign managed by Garry South effectively embracing the progressive grassroots of the Democratic Party. I do have some background with the grassroots of the Democratic Party, Newsom here in SF, and with Jaye. He certainly is no darling of the Left here. That being said, he had a decent idea of how to talk to the grassroots. I just don’t know that South can do that.

• Steve Maviglio speculates about alternative candidates to Brown and Newsom on the Democratic side in the Governor’s race.  I personally think it’s fairly late in the game, but the grassroots certainly wouldn’t mind an additional choice, and some of those names – Jackie Speier! – are interesting.  And the John Burton flyer is kind of hilarious.

• The best and most concise document listing the (illegal?) line-item vetoes put forth by the Governor is at the Sac Bee.  Dig in.

• Good news on the home sale front, of a fashion. Mortgage defaults are down in California, but notices of foreclosure are up nationally, and banks are staffing up for more foreclosures this fall.

• Sandre Swanson talks about his mostly no vote on the state budget revision to Josh Richman.

• Thanks to Bruce Brugmann for quoting Calitics in his lead Bay Guardian editorial.  Who would have thought the guy whose head San Franciscans have seen on bus signs and newsstands for years would think the click over?

• Jon Ortiz at The State Worker tries to nail down the truth about public employee pay raises.  It’s a mixed bag.  Looks like salary raises and the Consumer Price Index are somewhat intertwined, but by no means out of control, and they’ve taken an extreme dive in the past year.

• UCSC won a legal tussle over federal funding vis-a-vis their position against military recruiting.

• The Port of Oakland is working on cleaning up some of the exhaust from the idling trucks.