The primary hearing on the water bond measures has moved to Monday 1 pm.  I had previously been schedules for Oct. 4. Does this indicate that there have been some smoke filled room (Arnie’s Cigar) deals?  I don’t know, but I always fear it has.

Restore the Delta is trying to get as many well informed people as possible into the hearing.  If any of you know people in Sacramento, by all means call them up, send them an IM, an email, whatever.  Just make sure that they hear the public’s message and not the big money lobbyists.

Restore the Delta is mandatory reading.  So is Aquafornia.

The initial State Senate hearings on several bills to address the water issues in this special session of the CA State Legislature have been moved from tomorrow (Oct. 4) to Monday (Oct. 8)

Restore the Delta sent out an alert today to call off their action for tomorrow.

The Natural Resources and Water subject hearing scheduled for October 4, 2007 has been rescheduled for Monday, October 8th at 1 p.m. or upon the Call of the Chair.  This means that the hearing could begin as early as 9:00 a.m.  Restore the Delta suggests that supporters arrive early, pack snacks, and bring either a good novel, or knitting.  There is a cafeteria within the Capitol.

The meeting will be in room 4203 in the Capitol.  The hearing will be on the following bonds:  SBX2 1 (Perata), SBX2 2 (Perata), SBX2 3 (Cogdill), SBX2 4 (Cogdill), and SBX2 5 (Wiggins).

  Note, there is not yet a bill before the Assembly, though they are still scheduled to meet tomorrow, but without any notice of public comment.

There is a deadline looming if they want to get a bond on the ballot for the Presidential Primary. That deadline is next week.  The act of moving the hearings means that they have either given up on the idea of making that early date or that there is a back room deal in the making between Perata and Schwarzenegger.  I don’t trust either.  If such a deal does get made, it will most assuredly be the citizens of CA who get hosed (down).

( – promoted by Robert in Monterey)

I have not posted anything here for quite a while.  Frankly, most of my political time has been spent becoming more educated on the issues surrounding California’s Water Crisis.  What I figured out is that it is just basic common sense.

I have been posting most of my observations on my main blog, California Greening.   I have been reading Aquafornia almost every day lately. This all leads to some interesting conclusions.

A. The primary focus of the environmental movement  is on Global Warming.  Not enough attention is being paid to the issues of water, even though those two are intimately related.  Global warming will make the ocean level rise.  It will change rainfall patterns.  It may make some current dams useless as they will not catch enough water to keep their reservoirs full. California environmentalists need to pay more attention to water.

B. The local newspaper coverage on the “water crisis” is pretty good. Much of it is summarized faithfully at Aquafornia (link above).  The editors of all the major papers seem to understand the urgency (Orange County Register is not one, though.)  They differ somewhat in their idea of the proper solution, but they all seem to understand the we have put off doing anything and it is now time to pay the piper.  I have summarized much of the editorial coverage at CA Greening.  As I indicated before, on the extreme Libertarian views of the OC Register fail to understand the need to spend a dime.  They don’t understand global warming either.

C.  It is really important to follow the special session of the legislature called by the Guv.  This will be an ideological battle.  It may happen in a short time. Schwarzenegger wants it on the February Primary Election ballot and that means action in Sacramento no later than mid-October. Hah!  If they do get it on the ballot for February, it just may be that they have to deliver two versions, Schwarzenegger’s and Perata’s. Highest vote total wins.

The real reason for doing it in February is that there is generally not a very high turnout in a primary election, even a presidential primary.  So, they will want to sneak this through.

D.  The focus on the “progressive netroots” on Iraq, etc. will prevent their being much of a participant in this unless we do something (like I am trying to do now) about getting them energized. 

E.  In the marketplace of idea, the survivors often are the ones with the biggest Ad Budgets.  This may be the Governor and the Association of California Water Agencies.

F.  The biggest question for us all is whether or not the general voter will care enough to think about water until the faucet is shut off or the levees fail, just as they did in NOLA.

This is truly worth spending a lot more time on and I hope that you all do just that.  I also hope that you will help me put increasing pressure on our legislature to make sure we do the right thing, not just look to grab all the water for their favorite user… which is normal practice for a legislator. 

(Yes, we need to do something! – promoted by atdleft)

I once saw a sticker saying “Save California’s Water. Drink Coors.”

robertinmonterey posted a quickie that said:

SoCal to face “extreme drought” (Robert in Monterey) the worst on record, in fact. NorCal and the Central Coast aren’t far behind..

If you believe that, then the time for action is now.  The canary n the coal mine for California Water policy is the delta smelt and the population has crashed precipitously. I posted California Greening with an action alert from the Planning and Conservation League (I also got the same alert from Restore the Delta and the Fish Sniffer magazine.)  The text follows…

ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS IN THE DELTA

DELTA SMELT ARE on the BRINK of EXTINCTION

Results from a just completed survey by the Department of Fish & Game:

–Scientists failed to find any smelt in 30 of 36 stations in the Delta

–The survey found only 25 smelt overall; a 93% drop from 2006

–This is the worst return in the history of this survey, in fact these numbers are ONE TENTH of previous record lows

NO RESPONSE TO SAVE THESE FISH

–Even though SEVERAL Delta species have been collapsing for SIX YEARS, the State has refused to commit to actions to avoid extinction

–Last year the State and Federal water projects exported near RECORD amounts of water through massive pumps in the Delta Smelt?s habitat

–The State pumped 55 BILLION gallons of “EXTRA” water in January even while they were telling the Judge there was no problem with smelt

MORE DELTA FISH ARE HEADED TOWARD EXTINCTION

Severe declines in multiple fish populations show that the Delta ecosystem is collapsing. Since 2005 the State and Federal governments have known about the problem, but have failed to commit to actions to save the Delta.

WHAT MUST BE DONE TO SAVE THE DELTA SMELT?

Scientists’ recommendations to help the Delta Smelt must be immediately implemented (see attachment below).

Call the Governor and tell him to commit to actions to save the Delta Smelt before its too late!

Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Phone: 916-445-2841
http://www.govmail.c…

More information:

Tom Philp of the Sacramento Bee?s Blog provides a link to the Delta Smelt Working Group’s recommendations to respond to the delta smelt crisis:

http://www.sacbee.co…

Hank Shaw’s blog on this issue:

http://blogs.recordn…

During May 2007, pumps have taken more smelt (84) than the Delta survey (8):

http://www.usbr.gov/…

Department of Fish and Game

20 mm survey: http://www.delta.dfg…

Notes from Delta Action Team (State and Federal Agencies)

http://wwwoco.water….

See how this year’s most recent DFG survey of Delta Smelt compares to similarly-timed surveys in years past: (click here to view).

(And you thought Dana was just crazy… – promoted by atdleft)

Thanks to a tip from an OC friend, I started to look at the connection between Dana Rohrabacher and Blackwater, the mercenary soldier of fortune organization that was founded by Erik Prince, himself once a Navy Seal.  I did not have to look very long.

I have not thought very much about civilian armies.  I know that the militia stories that circulated all over after Oklahoma City bombing were scary.  Maybe we have all been anesthetized by the military entertainment complex churning out Rambos or Delta Force or television’s 24 Hours or The Unit. But I grew up on a higher class of movie. More like The Manchurian Candidate or Dr. Srangelove.

Connect it all to Crazy Dana on the jump.

The result of all of that is I don’t always trust the government and I surely don’t trust the creation of an army created precisely because they don’t have to play by the rules of engagement.  We have seen the results when America’s forces step over the line: Abu Graib for example.  Even when it was not intentional, like today’s US Air Strike that hit an Iraqi school, it turns the non-committed into committed enemies.  So, Blackwater’s army lets us do the dirty work without taking the blame… except that everyone knows who these “contractors” are.

How difficult would it be to take that same Blackwater force and to start it operating within the US? That is where the television series would take us. We should not be hiring thugs to do what we don’t want to have blamed on us.  We should be wary of government officials who have anything to do with them.

It was easy to find direct connections between Blackwater and Rohrabacher.  According to a story posted recently at Democracy Now, Prince once interned with Rohrabacher.  There is no clear definition of exactly what he did for Dana, but there are plenty of examples of an ongoing relationship.

This is from the Democracy Now source:

But also, Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater worked as an intern for Representative Dana Rohrabacher, another California Republican. In fact, when Blackwater was founded, both Dana Rohrabacher and Representative John Doolittle were brought out, at the company’s expense, to be at Blackwater’s grand opening. So these are deep Republican ties in California that Blackwater has.

Those deep Republican ties also includes Duncan Hunter.

This is going to be an long story.  Rohrabacher has left a trail behind him that should be easy to follow.  For example, did he actually account for that trip to the big show by his one-time intern?  The FEC filings do not show it and the other online source of records of Congressional travel American Radio Networks,  does not go back before the year 2000.  There is probably another story for someone who wants to go through all of those trips. I would bet you could like a few to the Taliban photo I have heard about.

Cross-posted from Ditch Crazy Dana

(Why can’t Crazy Dana understand that this is much more serious than “dinosaur flatulence”? – promoted by atdleft)

The following is crossposted from a new blog that I have been working on, Ditch Crazy Dana.  In my previous diary, I suggested this.  Now it is a reality and we are running hard.

Take the jump to read more about California Repubicans, Global Warming and the doofus on the beach. 

It seems that people make the biggest fuss over the things that they are the most afraid of. We know that Dana Rohrbacher is afraid of so called ” illegals”, because he surely makes a great deal of fuss over that. We know that he is afraid of al Quaeda, because he surely makes a great deal of fuss over that.

But, according to the April 15 NY Times, Global Warming is a bigger threat to our national security than either of those two scary facts.

The report recommends that climate change be integrated into the nation’s security strategies and says the United States “should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate changes at levels that will avoid significant disruption to global security and stability.”

When will California’s Republican Congressional delegation wake up to the fact that it is not nice to fool Mother Nature. They, at least, should understand the national security implications. They should understand the implication of having a 100 million displaced people asking why the richest country in the world did nothing and just allowed this all to happen.

Almost without exception, these California Republicans tell us to stay the course in a failed Iraq war and fail to consider the costs of non-action on Global Warming. Most of these corporate legislators do not even mention global warming as an issue on their web site. Rohrbacher, at least, acknowledges that it may exist, if only to use it as the point of his crude humor.

Maybe, we should consider that the cost to the US economy of taking strong action regarding global warming is about what the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars are costing us, but the implications of losing this battle are far worse than the implications of losing face in Iraq.

It is time to get someone in congress who understands what the real threats are to our national security rather than some imagined Weapons of Mass Destruction. It is time that we had someone as our representative who could provide leadership rather than jokes. (Memo to Jay Leno… “Don’t worry, his timing is not that great.”)