Tag Archives: integration

Tuesday Open Thread

  • Following up on Dave’s post below, take a look at the delegation for the Republican National Convention (PDF). Wow, real grassroots there guys. Check out CA-18, where the delegats are, drumroll please, Jeff Denham and his wife Sonia. Or CA-19, where Sen. Dave Cogdill and former SoS and gubernatorial candidate Bill Jones are the delegates.  Good work on getting the activists inspired, GOP!
  • To your right, you’ll see an ad against the “bag tax.” Just a reminder that an ad on Calitics does not mean we support the message. Speaking for myself, I’m pretty comfortable with an outright ban on plastic grocery bags. We should all be using reusable and other more sustainable options, but plastic bags, with their devestating impacts on wildlife and the ocean, are a particularly bad choice.
  • John Myers has a written and audio story about the plan to raid the lottery. Long story short: it’s an extraordinarily bad idea. It counts on huge growth in the lottery despite a worsening economy. Furthermore, the lottery is essentially a tax on the poor who dare to dream. It’s regressive and a poor way to be financing our state. As the late, great TX Gov. Ann Richards said at a debate against W, “It’s just a cheesy way of making money.”
  • Cap Alert, has a poetry contest for Arnold’s 61st b-day. I must say, I was into the sample one.
  • Not really politics, but I am sorry to see Scrabulous be pulled from Facebook. There goes one procrastination option.
  • Anything else?

    UPDATE by Dave: Yes I have a few more.

  • This is astonishing.  LA home prices are falling TWENTY-FOUR PERCENT year over year.  That’s the fourth-largest decline in the country (and San Diego is fifth), and a whole lot of lost equity.  The acceleration of price drops has been dramatic over the last year, too.
  • California is starting to integrate their prisons for men for the first time.  Given overcrowding they probably have no choice.  I actually think this is a good idea – the segregation probably did more to INCREASE tensions than defuse them.
  • PG&E has really stepped up, donating $250,000 to the No on 8 campaign.  As they have a separate ballot measure with respect to public power in San Francisco, the move to curry favor with the LGBT community makes sense.  But for businesses to contribute to stopping the measure is something very new.
  • Something to watch: the Central Valley version of the Terri Schiavo case.

    The family of Janet Rivera, 46, wants to keep her alive in a Fresno hospital. The county, acting as her legal guardian, wants the issue decided in court.

    Among the questions her situation has raised: Should a government agency be able to overrule family members and withhold life support when the patient’s wishes are unknown?

    The Schiavo family has taken an interest in this case. The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation helped find a lawyer to represent the Rivera family, said Schiavo’s brother, Bobby Schindler.