While Arnold is putting the moves on President-Elect Obama in Philadelphia, there’s some stuff going on here. So, here are some links:

• Senator Steinberg has named the committee chairs. Of particular note, Fran Pavley was named as chair of the Natural Resources & Water Committee. This is important because Pavley has not been particularly outspoken against the peripheral canal, something the SoCal water nerds were worried about.  Apparently they think there’s a better shot to get the canal through a Pavley led committee. I kind of doubt it.

• Following in the classy footsteps of his father, newly elected Rep. Duncan D. Hunter has decided that Tijuana is more dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan.  He’s been to all three so we’re supposed to believe him.  Sadly for Hunter, anecdote is not data.  And false assertions are not evidence.

• It’s a good thing the OC Board of Supes has all this money to throw around to lawyers. Oh, right, they have a $32 million deficit. I bet they would love to have this 1.1 mil free to spend.

• It appears that Arnold wants to star in a new version of A Christmas Carol.  At least that’s how I can reconcile his desire to lay off state workers during the holidays.

• The SEIU State Council put out a budget plan of their own. Well, that’s more than the Republicans have done. Peter Shrag also has a (sarcastic) plan: completely de-fund higher ed and the prisons until June. Seems about as reasonable as anything GOP has.

• Another rising cost: Free lunch enrollment at schools has risen dramatically during the current recession.

• The LGBT Legislative caucus is pushing a resolution opposing Prop 8, introduced by SF Legislators Leno and Ammiano.  Sure, it would have been more helpful a few months ago, but it won’t hurt now.

• Find an election night party here. But only after 8 PM! Keep on staying for change until then!

• Tomorrow will be crazy.  That much is already established.  We’ll be updating Calitics constantly, but you can also follow Calitics on twitter, right here.

• So, Meg Whitman is a moderate, huh? Well, then, explain the support for Prop 8.  As Dave noted in the Quickies, you can find the proposition picks for all of the potential governor candidates at CapAlert.

• Yup, San Diego County went blue!

• The Home Invasion ad will be making its way to the small screen.

• Shorter friends of Duke Cunnigham: “Mr. Bush, tear down this sentence!”  Because the Duke-Stir has had it so hard, actually having to be accountable for his crimes.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened, actually.

* Dan Lungren really, really doesn’t like when you film him talking his BS. Bill Durston is sending somebody to film his events, and Lungren thinks that is very unfair. How is he supposed to spew his right-wingnuttery if it is going to be available on the web? Poor Dan.

* Shorter Dan Walters: Woe is we. In all seriousness, the loss of reporters covering politics is having a disastrous effect on California.  Unfortunately, this isn’t going to get better for a while as the business plan for most media outlets is still struggling to catch up to the TwitterAge.

* The Yosemite glacier and the Sierra snowpack are simply melting away.  The consequences for our water supply (65% of it in California comes from here) are catastrophic.

* Home sales in Southern California spiked in September.  I think it’s a lot of bargain hunting and people buying up foreclosed properties for cheap (50% of the homes sold had been foreclosed).

* Prop 8: People are getting scared of it passing, and it is showing up in a spurt of marriages before Nov. 4. Meanwhile, competing rallies were held to support and oppose Prop 8 in Campbell and Salinas.

* Prop 10: Anthony Rubenstein, the campaign manager for yes on Prop 87, the Oil Extraction Fee, goes after T. Boone and his scam, Prop 10.  With almost every editorial board and environmental group opposing Prop 10, it faces an uphill climb.  It’s a bad scheme to flood money into T. Boone’s new cash cow, natural gas, and it should be cast upon the garbage heap of ideas.

* John Myers of KQED has made his weekly podcast available.  It’s worth a listen, after you’ve listened to the Calitics Show, of course.

* Speaking of the Calitics Show, this week we have an interview of San Francisco DA, and California Obama co-chair, Kamala Harris with a few bloggers from the DNC.  We’ll kick that out sometime at the end of this week. Full details forthcoming soon.

Here it is, our 7000th Diary. Wow!  So, Open thread time:

• Joan Buchanan (AD-15) has a TV ad. Check it out:

• Shockingly, Tony Strickland is getting dirty in SD-19 against Hannah-Beth Jackson.  He put out a mailer against Hannah-Beth’s non-existent negative mailers saying he doesn’t care.  Put this together with his massive tobacco and oil company donations, and the push polls he has been doing, and you have one of the more disgusting campaigns we’ve seen for a while. He should be ashamed of the crap that’s coming out of his campaign, but what do you expect from the former California director of Club for Growth?

• UC is asking for money from the tree-sitters, up to $10K per tree-sitter. Ouch, all that for taking down some, ahem, “wastebaskets”?

• Dan Walters writes today about the prison crisis, which is not improving magically through lawmakers’ collective decision to ignore it.  J. Clark Kelso is extremely likely, in my opinion, to get the $8 billion he’s seeking from a judge to fix the prison healthcare system, so just tack that on to next year’s budget.

• Late Friday, unemployment statistics for August were released, and we’re up to 7.7%, the third-highest in the nation (only Rhode Island and Michigan are worse).  That’s over two percentage points up from just a year ago.

• Karl Rove is coming to San Bernardino to headline a fundraiser with the local GOP.  This is kind of perfect, since the San Bernardino Republican Party is kind of a criminal enterprise in its own right, too.

• Hey, big news from Gray Davis: he doesn’t like the recall process! But, seriously, he makes decent points about good governance, which this state seems to think is a quaint process.

• Today we’ll see just how infatuated John McCain is with the policies of our nation’s worst president ever, George W. Bush. If you want to learn more about the man of so many flip-flops and political lives, I’d recommend you check out NYT reporter David Kirpatrick’s interview on Fresh Air this morning. It’s a bit long at 43 minutes, but quite interesting. Get ready to hear Mr. Third Term try to distance himself from Bush, while trying to reassure the Republicans that he’ll be Bush redux.

• I really like Alyson Huber. She’s a great candidate in a district (AD-10) that’s trending our way. And now she’s got a new website.  Sweet!

• Mayor Gavin Newsom put the available to all ID card program on hold pending legal review.  The legislative proponent of the cards, soon to be Asm. Tom Ammiano, says they will still be issued in November.

• Capitol Weekly has their wrap of bills that were passed.

• Despite the fact that T. Boone Pickens sponsored the Big Tent, I still find him an abhorrent person for his Swift Boat attacks against John Kerry. The man has no principles, is a liar and Democrats who get chummy with him should remember that.  That includes you Sen. Obama. And oh yeah, NO on Prop 10! It’s just a scheme to make Pickens even more wealthy and poor public policy. The Consumer Federation has more info on Prop 10.  Vote NO!

• Anything else on your mind? McCain or otherwise?

What’s happening around the state?

• The SacBee has some suggestions to make algebra in 8th grade possible.

• Good thing the Governor found out 50 days past the fiscal year what even Pete Wilson knew far in advance in a similar situation: Sometimes a tax increase isn’t optional. Wilson knew he had to act as cover for his Republican allies in the Legislature by offering a tax increase and working down. Arnold never figured that part out.  It’s becoming clear that there is only one word for Arnold’s administration: Ineffective.

• The SF Supervisorial campaigns this year will use a mixed public/private financing scheme. Should be a good experiment.

• Oakland is in dire straits financially, and whoops, they lost track of $48 million.

• In an unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court held today that religious objections do not exempt businesses (specifically doctors) from providing equal services under the Unruh Civil Right Act.  It’s a solid decision, read it here (PDF).

• SacBee: Where a battle of the nerds intersects with the battle of the budget.

• George Skelton gets all nostalgic about oil rigs and wants to see more of ’em off our cost.  Note to George: We already have enough known oil deposits to thoroughly destroy our environment if we burned them.

• California: Still a big, big ATM. Obama reaped nearly $8 million last night in San Francisco. How much of that do you think will stay in California?  Sorry, Todd.

• The LA Times looks at Portland, OR in envy of their magnificent public transportation system.  Portland should be a model for every American City of the 21st Century.

UPDATE by Dave: Just to pile on:

• A rare bit of good news in the housing market, as Southern California prices have dropped enough for a 13% increase in sales in Southern California, though not in LA County.  Riverside County sales jumped 48% year-over-year, as the market must have corrected enough there.  However, 43% of these transactions were from foreclosure resales, so I don’t see this spurring construction.

• In more news of the good, it looks like the federal government will not be sanctioning states, including California, who seek to enroll children in the SCHIP program above 250% of the federal poverty level.  SCHIP needs to become a bigger part of the debate this fall – bringing up the program for a vote again would help, Speaker Pelosi.

• Fabian Nuñez talks up AB 2386, which would set a fair labor election process for farmworkers.  Which the rise in worker deaths in the field, it is vital this vulnerable group gets the union representation they need.

• And in another labor dispute, Mickey Mouse was arrested at Disneyland.  No, really.  

• Over to our east, the Nevada Dems aren’t doing so bad.  Two Congressional Races were just upgraded by CQ, with state Senator and former gubernatorial candidate Dina Titus now in a toss-up in the Vegas ‘burbs.  Titus is a good candidate, and everything is looking up for her: fundraising, name ID, and the polling.

• Speaker Pelosi tells JoMentum to STFU. It seems she’s had enough of the ridiculous attacks on Obama. About time.

• Some grassroots activists in the Sacramento area are gearing up to oppose the Peripheral Canal.  Apparently some didn’t get the message back in the 80s about this bad idea. It would decimate wildlife, among other disastrous consequences.  Interestingly, there’s substantial conservative opposition to the Canal, and not just from the farmers in the region.

• Universities across the state are lobbying to get the Greenhouse Gas Institute that might be set up if it gets through the somewhat unimpressive legislative process. The institute would aim to find solutions to climate change.  A rather small task, IMHO.

• This is an interesting lawsuit. The supporters of Prop 2 (humane farm conditions) are alleging that a partially government funded marketing group, the American Egg Board, has designated $3 million to fight Prop 2. The trouble is that under law, they cannot get involved in politics. Keep an eye on this.

UPDATE by Dave: Let me just add a couple things to this:

• The long battle between the Navy and environmentalists over sonar off the California coast came to an end yesterday with the Navy agreeing to restrict low-frequency sonar to protect whales and other sea life.  This is a win for environmentalists, and it doesn’t impact the Navy all that much to boot – the sonar wasn’t necessary in these training exercises.

• The Oakland man who carjacked Don Perata has been indicted.

• There’s more on South LA’s decision to restrict construction of new fast-food restaurants in the New York Times.  There’s concern that pupusarias and barbecue joints might get caught up in the shuffle, as the definition of “fast-food” is a little vague.

UPDATE by Brian: Paul Hogarth at Beyond Chron has a wrap-up of the San Francisco DCCC endorsement meeting.

• Prop 8 will retain the title Jerry Brown recently gave it as the Prop 8 Supporters dropped their appeal of the superior court’s decision.

• Hannah-Beth Jackson is being attacked by the California Taxpayer Committee, a right-wing group that has had ties to his general consultant.  One funder is Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who once told the OC Register, “My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives.”

They’ve bought some TV time, and will surely be up to their typical scare mongering in Ventura County very soon.  HBJ is on our ActBlue page.

• Asm. Todd Spitzer is blogging. First advice: resize your photos to under a megabyte.

• The Sacramento City Council, under pressure from Mayoral Challenger Kevin Johnson, scrapped their plan to raise pay levels for some top city officials.

• So, is insulting the voters John McCain’s new path to the presidency? This web ad consists almost entirely of saying how voters are dumb.  Apparently, Exxon John greatly preferred when people just ignored politics and left it to the rich people as these pesky new voters don’t seem to like him.

Far Right Wing Activists and Insurance Companies Launch

Negative Campaign against Hannah-Beth Jackson.

It didn’t take long.  Supporters of Tony Strickland will begin airing a TV spot attacking Hannah-Beth Jackson in the highly competitive State Senate District 19 today.  Public information on file at KSBY and KEYT broadcast television stations in Santa Barbara show that a group called the “California Taxpayer Protection Committee” will be airing advertisements attacking Hannah-Beth Jackson beginning 8/13.

They paid $52,750 for the time on these two stations.

The Committee has received over $125,000 in funding from large insurance companies this year.  They have also received $20,000 from Howard Ahmanson Jr., a far right-wing activist who has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns to elect extremist candidates.

Ahmanson told the Orange County Register in 1985,

The most recent California Taxpayer Committee campaign filing can be found at:

http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/Ca…

The Committee is closely allied with the consultants who work for Tony Strickland.  Strickland’s general consultant Johnson/Clark has been paid over $112,000 by the Committee in recent campaigns.  The firm placing the advertising for the anti-Jackson Independent Expenditure (Voter Strategies) is also placing the advertising for the Strickland campaign.

“Clearly, this is the opening shot is what will be a massive campaign by Tony Strickland and his corporate sponsors and extremist political allies to smear Hannah-Beth Jackson,” stated Jackson consultant Parke Skelton.  “Hannah-Beth Jackson has stood up to the insurance companies to protect consumers and homeowners. Tony Strickland has consistently sided with the big insurance companies and against the interests of our families.”