If you're in California, today is recall election day. If you're registered and want to vote, go out and do it. If you're apathetic and uninformed -- stay home. Democracies don't have 100 percent voter participation. Never have, never will. Why? Because part of being free is being free not to vote. Hoystory endorses: When […]
Just caught the newest Dianne Feinstein anti-recall commercial. A couple of things struck me: First, there's no mention of any names. Not Gray Davis -- he's "this governor." Arnold Schwarzenegger also got a mention -- he's "this governor's" "opponent." Second, it casts the recall as a Davis vs. Schwarzenegger -- a tactic Davis has been […]
This is probably one of those signs of the forthcoming apocalypse, along with dogs and cats living together, but I'm flabbergasted that Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz is being accused of "plagiarism." Dershowitz's latest book, "The Case for Israel," is a point-by-point apologia for the continuing existence of the state of Israel. I finished reading […]
Regarding the difference between Arnold Schwarzenegger's groping and Bill Clinton's fondling: Apart from the testimony of the groping victims, both of whom were convincing, the most honest thing I heard came from film producer and Codepink activist Patricia Foulkrod. She admitted that Bill Clinton's sexual peccadilloes were as inexcusable as Arnold's. "The difference is that […]
I spent a couple of hours on Monday and Tuesday speaking to a couple of Laura Little's sixth graders about journalism, writing and interviewing. Of course, the kids have questions. My favorite: Kid: "Are you famous?" Me: "Before Ms. Little told you I was coming, had you heard of me?" Kid: "No." Me: "Then I'm […]
Don Luskin has already a cursory shot at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's latest offering and labeled and phantom corrections. I'd just like to echo Luskin's assessment of the labeled correction. I, too, was struck by the "I'm not the only person who's screwed up and made this mistake and anyway, it's not so […]
Just caught Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters on Fox News. Walters said that, unless today's admission by Arnold Schwarzenegger that he's "behaved badly" with women has a bigger impact than he believes it will, he expects Gray Davis to be recalled and Arnold Schwarzenegger to be the next governor of California.
I'm not going to do extensive commentary about the flare up on whether Bush administration officials illegally leaked the name of Valerie Plame Wilson to get back at her mint-tea-sipping sleuthing husband. (If you're interested in the issue, Thomas Maguire over at JustOneMinute is the guy to see -- his link is on the left.) […]
The Sacramento Bee's Dan Walters column today reports on the flip side of the allegedly Republican-supported military-industrial complex: the enviornmental-corporate complex. In contemporary California, we should be equally concerned about the rising political power of what one might term an "environmental-corporate complex," whose game works something like this: A corporation acquires land, proposes development and […]