I (Brian) am sitting here in San Francisco, being rather incessantly buzzed by the Blue Angels, but I’m sure it will be a lovely weekend of this.  The Links!

• As of this afternoon, nobody expected a water deal to be hammered out.  Does this mean a mass veto of the entire 2009 session?  Darrell Steinberg still calls that possibility a “sideshow.”  Meanwhile, instead of doing his job and signing bills the Governor hung out at a Latino Water Coalition rally today, without bothering to disclose that he invented the Latino Water Coalition out of whole cloth.

• Martin Wicksol of the OC Register likes the unknown Richard Faher as a stalking horse for Linda Ackerman, the wife of longtime OC political kingpin Dick Ackerman. The argument seems a teensy bit weak, mostly because in order to be a stalking horse you need to have some profile to gather votes.  

• California’s exports are down for the 10th straight month.  While some are saying there are green shoots, there are still a lot of sickly plants out there in the field.

• Fighting global warming would save the state $100 billion in Gross State Product and create 112,000.  Of course, the Yacht Party will tell us that such policies are job-killers.

• Jerry Brown is not troubled by the Governor’s horsetrading on 700 bills for a water deal. But hey, the law is so 30 years ago.

• The US Labor Department is looking into whether the furloughs are slowing down response times at the EDD for unemployment benefits.

• Casino regulation in the state could change dramtically if this deal goes through.  Perhaps we should just legalize gambling in the state?