Category: This Dangerous Year

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Nature Is Healing: Buzzard Edition

Friends,

It’s Wednesday, and as we start returning to normalcy (at least in 45 days or so), there are a few loose ends in this terrible disaster script that need tying up. Things like Murder Hornets.

Never fear, nature has come to the rescue. Meet the Oriental Honey Buzzard:

Oriental Honey Buzzard raiding a bee's nest.

And it just so happens that the Oriental Honey Buzzard is the natural enemy of Vespa Velutina and can wipe out a nest in an afternoon.

Now if we could just do something about Ted Cruz…

Your pal,

– bob

P.S. I didn’t take these remarkable photos, but they came from a tweet by Foxfeather Zenkova. She has neat stuff in her store called The Foxloft, which is worth a visit.

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The 2020 Jaunty Election Guide – The Rest Of The Propositions Edition

Friends,

Before you dive into the remaining propositions on this year’s California ballot, we recommend that you start with the first part of the 2020 Jaunty Election Guide, then come back here.

A couple notes before we dive back in. First, the president’s doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center hosted a press conference that painted a picture so rosy of the president’s health, you’d think they were talking about Ray Milland. Second, the Vice President of the United States, who is next in line, should the president meet with a sub-suboptimal outcome, isn’t under recommended quarantine for a fortnight but is jetting around, being irresponsible. I guess the GOP really does want to install President Pelosi to complete their next-level 4-dimensional chess strategy that is totally escaping me at the moment.

Well then! Let’s get to the rest of the propositions…

California Propositions

There’s a big list this year, so let’s get to it…

  • Prop 19 – Changes Certain Property Tax Rules – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: 1978’s Proposition 13 property tax freeze takes another little hit here, but overall, it seems like a nice idea to allow the over-55 set to take their tax rate with them to a new home anywhere in the state. This could hurt non-farm family businesses passing down property though, but there’s no light green color in the palette.
  • Prop 20 – Restricts Parole For Certain Offenses Currently Considered To Be Non-Violent. Authorizes Felony Sentences For Certain Offenses Currently Treated Only As Misdemeanors – Initiative Statute: Wow. Do you want to incarcerate a lot more people for longer? Do you want to reduce the chances that shoplifters get parole? Do you want law enforcement to collect more DNA samples? Then this one is for you! With so many bad ideas wrapped up in one proposition, it’s hard to know where to begin. By creating new felonies for the state to incarcerate in already-crowded prisons, we’d have to turn to the private prison industry to make up the difference. During a pandemic, that already sounds like two bad ideas. How about limiting parole board discretion when releasing non-violent offenders? There’s a third bad idea for you. We suggest a no vote on this one.
  • Prop 21 – Expands Local Governments’ Authority To Enact Rent Control On Residential Property – Initiative Statute: I know I’m dating myself again, but there was a time when you could rent a nice apartment in San Diego for less than half of your salary. That’s no longer the case and it’s grinding the entire local economy to a halt. This proposition allows new rent control boards to be established, which is fine, but that might reduce earnings that some homeowners rely on. This one also doesn’t provide eviction protection for tenants living in rent-controlled units, which is bad news. This is a big nope.
  • Prop 22 – Exempts App-Based Transportation And Delivery Companies From Providing Employee Benefits To Certain Drivers – Initiative Statute: The Uber Protection Act exempts Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and others from providing basic protections and benefits to their workers. The Attorney General has determined that gig workers are employees, the companies disagree and are fighting with this proposition. We think that employees should have unemployment benefits, sick time, health care, worker’s compensation insurance, and protection from discrimination and harassment at work. We strongly urge a no vote.
  • Prop 23 – Establishes State Requirements For Kidney Dialysis Clinics. Requires On-Site Medical Professional – Initiative Statute: The last time this came up in 2018, it failed. It should probably fail again.
  • Prop 24 – Amends Consumer Privacy Laws – Initiative Statute: As you open sites on the web over the last few years, those that collect your information (but not this one! – ed That’s right, we never collect your information because our files are already overflowing with information and we can’t possibly store one more bit.) have had to put banners on their home pages to ask your permission. Proponents would like for you to think of this proposition as the California version of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and very well might be. This proposition limits sharing, allows you to correct data, and limit use of your sensitive information with new penalties and a new agency. The problem is that this essentially forces you into arbitration with the privacy agency as your advocate. It also circumvents existing protections and creates new classes of information that are exempt. Probably a good idea to reject this one.
  • Prop 25 – Referendum On Law That Replaced Money Bail With System Based On Public Safety And Flight Risk: I like the idea of eliminating money bail and am extremely uneasy about the implementation. We don’t have a recommendation on how to vote, but do recommend that you read the text of the referendum.

That was a lot, but we did it everybody. Please vote this year. Please tell your friends to get out and vote.

Only 29 days left.

Your pal,

– bob

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The 2020 Jaunty Election Guide – Can We Panic Now Edition

Friends,

Remember when our politics were normal? There was a time, wait for it, when we Americans wouldn’t punch each other in the face for supporting the other party. When we wouldn’t bring long guns to protests. There was a time when we wouldn’t have to worry about somebody coughing on us during a pandemic just to prove a political point.

There was a time before the president of the United States was being hospitalized for a deadly illness that he and his administration made much worse. (there was a time when you used to use an initial capital letter when spelling president. – ed Seems like a long time ago!) I remember when inaction by a president that resulted in the death of over 200,000 Americans would have been immediately disqualifying. Have a seat and let me tell you a story about how the nation would be scandalized by a president that used curse words. There was a Vice President who left office in disgrace for tax evasion. A President who left office for campaign violations and another who was impeached for lying to a grand jury. These things happened before the Republicans coalesced on a plan: lie, block, obstruct, and disenfranchise anybody who won’t keep them in power.

You have to give it to them that their project has been very successful. They’ve appealed to the worst impulses of the American electorate, ensuring GOP minority rule for years. Xenophobia, white nationalism, and a vague reinterpretation of public comity into their familiar bugbear they like to call “socialism” has kept their older, whiter electorate coming back for more. I have hope that it ends this year.

That’s why everyone here on The Best Political Team on this Blog™ has been working double-overtime to analyze your choices in this election and to provide you expert analysis so you can make an informed choice in this crucial election.

Candidates

We haven’t picked actual candidates in actual races for a while, but if you’re wavering on who to choose in this election, maybe this’ll help push you over the edge.

  • President of The United States – Joseph R. Biden, Vice President – Kamala D. Harris
    In the primary, I voted for Elizabeth Warren because I wanted somebody to prosecute the case against the 45th president, but the wisdom of selecting Joe Biden as the nominee seems brilliant in retrospect. He’s (almost) everything the current president isn’t—informed, compassionate, gentle, steadfast, and devoted to service. Sounds weird writing that because we’ve been missing those qualities in our current craven, self-serving, grifter government. I’m ready to not have to worry about the next politically damaging tweet or dumb trade war. I’m ready for competence in government.
    I’m going to miss Senator Harris’ representation of California, but she’s perfect for Vice President at this moment.
  • United States Representative, District 36 – Dr. Raul Ruiz
    The good doctor is the incumbent and has been doing a remarkable job for the Coachella Valley. In addition to his stewardship of the Salton Sea restoration project, he’s taken on veterans’ health issues, and protections for the workers in the fields who put produce on our tables. There are two groups how don’t like him—GOPs who see a seat ripe for the picking and activists who don’t think he’s moving fast enough. The former need to become comfortable pounding sand for the foreseeable future and the latter need to just cool it.
  • United States Representative, District 50 – Ammar Campa-Najjar
    We don’t know too much about Mr. Campa-Najjar except that he lost in the mid-terms here in California’s deeply red and disturbingly nuts 50th district to indicted, later convicted felon, Duncan Hunter Jr. Now he’s running against carpetbagger Darrell Issa who bailed out of his own coastal district when it was clear he was going to lose to Mike Levin in 2016. Fortunately, Mr. Issa has plenty of cash on hand for a comfortable retirement. It’s only right that we help him do that.
  • San Diego County Board of Supervisors, 3rd District – Terra Lawson-Remer
    The County Registrar of Voters seems to be having a very tough time getting voter information out this year. Ms. Lawson-Remer’s opponent, a weird GOP acolyte, is having no trouble putting out campaign hit pieces and polluting the discourse. We’ve had it up to here with that nonsense and we’re endorsing Ms. Lawson-Remer, who seems to have had quite a history of mixing things up for the good of average Americans. Keep an eye on her.

California Propositions

There’s a big list this year, so let’s get to it…

  • Prop 14 – Authorizes Bonds Continuing Stem Cell Research – Initiative Statute: 2004’s Proposition 71 caused the anti-choice activists in this state (And there are a lot. Just drive 25 miles away from the coast and you’ll find them.) to writhe on the floor and choke on their tongues. The idea was that the state would support and protect a burgeoning, but legislatively at-risk biomedical industry with the trade-off that the state would share in the profits of any therapeutic discoveries developed with our money. Well, the money has run out and they’d like a new bond issued. We don’t normally support bond issues, but this one seems important. We knew progress wouldn’t be quick, now we’ll need to put up the cash.
  • Prop 15 – Increases Funding Sources For Public Schools, Community Colleges, and Local Government Services By Changing Tax Assessment Of Commercial And Industrial Property – Initiative Constitutional Amendment: It’s surprising that this proposition isn’t getting more ink, since it’s intended to start unravelling the infamous Proposition 13 from 1978 that essentially locked in property tax rates to a maximum of 1% of values, and annual increases of 2%, prohibiting reassessment unless property was sold. Great news for your grandparents who own their house outright. Bad news for school districts who rely on local property taxes for funding that haven’t kept up with inflation (or the cost of technology, training, removing asbestos, pandemics, etc.) The original proposition was intended to protect homeowners from gouging by evil county tax assessors, but it also included commercial property. The new proposition, firmly treading on the third rail of California politics, seeks to remove those protections from commercial properties worth over $3 million to provide somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 billion in new funding to schools. It’s a slippery slope and could be bad, but we feel it’s worth the risk to provide a quality education to kids in California. Hell, they may even reinstate civics classes. Remember, despots dig low-information voters. Just sayin’.
  • Prop 16 – Allows Diversity As A Factor In Public Employment, Education, And Contracting Decisions – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: Remember when institutional racism ended in 1996 and California voters approved Proposition 209, which banned consideration of race in hiring? In cart-putting before horse voting, Californians were convinced somehow that we didn’t need to protect minorities and underrepresented groups because something magically happened and there weren’t any racists anymore. This proposition fixes that.
  • Prop 17 – Restores Right To Vote After Completion Of Prison Term – Legislative Constitution Amendment: I’m all for restoring voting rights for people who have served their time, unless it’s Duncan Hunter, so it’s a toss-up. Not sure how I feel about this one.
  • Prop 18 – Amends California Constitution To Permit 17-Year-Olds To Vote In Primary And Special Elections If They Will Turn 18 By The Next General Election And Be Otherwise Eligible To Vote – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: Also known as the Expanding The Field And Democrat Protection Act, this one allows kids to vote (for Democrats) before they turn 18 if they’ll be 18 before the general election so they can vote (for Democrats). It’s so crass and blatant if you spend any time at all looking at polls, that you have to love it—or at least you should love it.

Lordy. We’re not even half-way through. Check back in tomorrow when we weigh in on the remaining seven propositions, provide some handy voter information from The Handy Voter Information Desk™, and throw in a couple surprises.

Only 30 days left. We can do this.

Your pal,

– bob

UPDATE: The second part is online now! Just head over there when you’re done here.

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Secret Federal Police Squads Making Trouble

Friends,

Remember back when rolling out a secret Federal police force in the United States was illegal? Get this, it still is! The super fun part is that the current president has done it anyway. But why?

The narrative on the pro-fascism media is that the protests against police brutality targeting Black and brown people aren’t largely peaceful, but “destroying our cities.” This leads to chaos, which leads to anarchy, which leads to the unraveling of the social fabric, etc, rinse, repeat.

They play the scenes of a police station and a Wendy’s burning down over and over again to prove to their viewers that society is crumbling and lo! the president steps in to rescue us from societal collapse! Aren’t we fortunate!

The justification that the acting administrators (Ken Cuccinelli and Chad Wolf, who are political hacks who haven’t been confirmed by the Senate because even Mitch McConnell has *some* standards) have offered seem to change by the hour. The latest, and arguably more egregious than “proactive arrests” is to “teach them a lesson.” That said, this will make your skin crawl…

So here we are. A failed game show host in hock up to his eyeballs to foreign interests has gone full rogue and made a play for the elderly white people already afraid to step outside because of the pandemic: Society would be in ruins if it weren’t for his tiny iron fist.

It’d be a pathetic and transparent play if consumers of the state media outlets took a moment to come up for air, which I don’t see happening until 2021.

Your best pal,

– bob

P.S. Is it just me, or did the name “Department of Homeland Security” creep you out from the day it was introduced? Didn’t it seem like a nod to 1930s Germany? Just me? Okay.

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Decisions

Friends,

If you’ve spent any time at all following this hot mess over the years, I’m sure you will have at one time or another said to yourself, “My goodness, he sure uses a lot of words to get to a point.” My proclivity to go on and on keeps my editor out of the pool halls (that, and a global pandemic. mostly the virus. -ed). It’s this longstanding criticism that gnaws at me like a piranha on Ritalin, forcing me towards—gasp—brevity.

This got me into trouble at work.

You see, sometimes you have to explain the joke. Sometimes some folks aren’t on the same continent where your playful jibes were supposed to land. I was reprimanded over the period of four days for something that you would have either laughed at or ignored. Something’s gotta give. How do I communicate with my colleagues in a department-wide forum without running afoul of somebody’s version of decorum? How do I spare these sensitive nerve endings scanning chat transcripts? I conducted an impromptu investigation!

What are the traits of the people in my department who never get called out? What they have in common is that they are largely absent from group chats. Have nothing to say in team meetings. They’re invisible.

I’ve been sheltering in this place since the beginning of March (for reasons!) and I have mostly enjoyed the banter with coworkers during the slow periods since then. It’s been a nice way to stay connected. That is now over. I’ll have to go into hiding as well. Sure, I can do my tech support job, but no more “typing in public.”

I’ve tried to be the friendly, outgoing team player, so this is going to be a big adjustment. The bosses don’t like it and they’re deciding right now if I’ll be furloughed, so I’m keeping to myself.

And this blog. And Twitter. You know, like a hermit.

Stay safe. Wear a mask. We’ll get through this.

Your pal,

– bob

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Getting A Little Stabby

Friends,

At least 90,000 of our fellow Americans have died as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as of today. It’s likely that many more will perish before this crisis is at a point that we can call “over.” That makes the president’s comments today, complaining that the numbers are so high because we’re doing so much testing, not because of the administration’s failed response, that much worse.

A small number of nitwits claim that the public safety response by local governments to have them stay at home represents abridging their fundamental freedoms. Freedom to get a haircut, freedom to get a new tattoo, freedom to get a bucket of wings, and ultimately the freedom to get infected. These are the “covidiots” you’ve been hearing so much about — mostly because they’re so loud, not because there’s so many of them. It only takes one mask-free demonstration to spread a virus, of course. We’ve already seen new outbreaks among the impatient science/math/statistics denier set, and their parents, grandparents, and children. Dopes.

Because most people are indoors and over 20% are unemployed, spending has gone down, which means tax revenue has gone down in the state. This leads, as the Governor noted in his May budget revision speech today, to a $60 billion budget shortfall. As it stands right now, it looks like we state employees are going to take about a 10% haircut (speaking of haircut, what’s going on with your ridiculous mane, wayne gretzky? – ed I wish! I’m merely cultivating an homage to The Great One.). I kinda don’t mind a temporary pay cut as long as it comes with fewer hours. I guess it depends on what the union has to say about it. Complicated!

Your pal,

– bob

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Greetings From The Nation-State!

Friends,

Good news from Sacramento today. Vote by mail ballots will be sent to every registered voter for the election in November 2020. Here’s the nut from Cactus Hugs…

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced the California will send every voter a mail-in ballot for the November election. Newsom said sending postage-paid ballots will be the best solution to the anxiety voters may feel if they had to go to the polls. Republicans criticized the move, with Donald Trump’s campaign saying that it could “undermine election security.” At least 67 people got coronavirus after going to or working the polls during Wisconsin’s election on April 7.

It is important to note here that the president can keep his cries of election security to himself. Also, Republicans are answering this important question with their criticism.

Your pal,

– bob

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Remember That Time When We Crashed Into Jupiter?

Friends,

Today has been a big day for authoritarianism. Guilty friends of the president got their charges dropped. A beloved institution gets a new boss who is likely to try and destroy it to punish an enemy of the president and disenfranchise voters who are reluctant to expose themselves to the public health risk. States are relaxing stay at home orders prematurely under pressure from the administration to throw workers into the maw of this teensy, devastating beast that has killed over 80,000 Americans.

Experts on these things, who track the rise of authoritarian governments throughout history, note that budding potentates need to get the population used to death. They need for citizens to stop being alarmed and simply shrug off a D-Day’s worth of dead Americans every day for a month.

Maintaining outrage is hard and draining and really annoying to people around you. It’s not healthy, but I think that it’s important to be very angry right now. We need a lot of people to be brave, put on a mask and gloves, and vote these ghouls out in November.

Your pal,

– bob

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What Are You Doing? Worldwide Quarantine Edition

Friends,

Like everyone else on the planet, we’ve been holed up in the house for the last month (Could be a few weeks, or two months. Hard to tell.) and I find that the years spent sequestered in my Secret Alpine Laboratory served me well. What started out as temper tantrum to withdraw from big cities/life/commitment turned into a meditation. “What do you do when you’re by yourself for a couple years?” First, particularly when it’s snowing outside, you get depressed. “What happens when you’re alone and it’s snowing and you have no real income?” That’s much worse

What that means now, that it’s pretty important not to go out and mingle, but to have the benefit of a job that can easily be done remotely and the benefit of a sweet and loving partner, is that staying in is easy. The state’s Stay At Home order isn’t going to last long enough to forestall another huge wave of infection because politicians will cave to the loud minority agitating to get a haircut and line up at Golden Corral. That’s bad news for people like me who, by my latest count, are vulnerable times three. Too old, too asthmatic, and too diabetic.

Here’s the fun part: Will my employer be indemnified from providing unemployment insurance to people who are vulnerable to infection who demur from a return to work order? What choice will that leave me, a person terrified of being broke and sequestered once again?

I’d just begun a program of going out and mingling now that I’ve identified some folks at work who I’d like to mingle with. I’m certainly not going out to mingle any time soon.

As I write this, more than 75,000 Americans have died from complications from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Some people online have wondered why, as a country, we’re not mourning. Why no big obituary pages? Why no profiles on teevee with sad violins in the background? I think the answer is simple: The slow-motion tragedy isn’t over yet. The car is still crashing. The towers are taking months to collapse.

The Federal Government is doing not much at all to help. Political donors were made whole, but the response was late and not enough. Scientists who dare speak out are removed. Doctors who complain are dismissed. A vaccine is months away and I’m not going to play this game of Hot Lava Where Everything Is Lava Everywhere until there’s a safe vaccine that works, and I’m able to get one.

So, anyway, it’s been a while. How are you doing?

Your pal,

– bob

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A Most Wonderful Time

Friends,

The holidays took a busy turn this year. As in previous years, our trip started in the mountains, dropping our elderly pups at the Damp Dog Lodge so they don’t get under foot and drop our elderly parents at their home in the desert.

petey sleeping in front of the fireplace

With the puppy dogs safely napping in front of the fireplace, we headed down the hill for the day.

A lovely photo of a fairly short and extremely dry Christmas tree

We had snacks and ate too much…

My best plate of fudge photo

…then settled into dinner and ate far too much.

My best olive plate photo

Gifts were exchanged in our gift exchange wherein I arbitrarily raised the spending limit this year, which elicited an audible gasp from my Mom.

a lovely photo of Inez in a tortilla blanket

When we returned, the snow wasn’t terribly deep. When we left on Boxing Day, the berm created by the snow plows was an obstacle that the definitely-not-designed-for-the-snow Michelin tires could not handle.

A lovely picture of a Jeep nestled against a tree

I’d say that we had a delightful time over the three days. It was nice to see the family, the hill was resplendent in its winter garb, and except for nearly crashing the Jeep, it was pretty relaxing.

A lovely winter snow scene taken at Thanksgiving.

The next week was a little less relaxing. More on that in a bit…

Your pal,

– bob

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What Are You Doing? Warblogging II – Electric Boogaloo

Friends,

This very blog started a very long time ago as a reaction to the Iraq War and now Orange45 has started a new war with Iran this January 2020. Asking “what was he thinking?” implies that the president is capable of reasoning. He ordered the assassination of the second in charge in Iran, which is illegal, and suggested that if Iran retaliates, he would order the destruction of cultural sites, a war crime. Meanwhile, the entire Australian continent is facing an unprecedented heat wave and is ablaze. CalFire is sending folks there to help out, but the Department of Interior? Who knows!

A lovely snowy picture of Idyllwild, CA

Let’s hope that cooler heads prevail. Hell, let’s just hope for a worldwide cool-down.

Much more soon!

Your pal,

– bob

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Old Friends: Bad News For The Toshiba

Friends,

It’s been real bad news for les ordinateurs anciens around here lately. For one, I purchased a replacement battery pack from a Florida Man and spliced it into the power system of one of the older machines here—a Toshiba T1000 laptop.

Why get this particular machine running again? The concept is brilliant: A PC-compatible laptop that boots almost instantly to MS-DOS 2.11 and runs for nearly six hours on a charge. The keyboard is a delight to type on, the non-backlit LCD screen crisp and reasonably responsive. It’s got a serial port, a parallel port, a 1.44 MB floppy drive and a 2400-baud modem. It’s still a great writing machine and deserves another shot.

After putting the machine back together, I left it on the charger and went to bed.

11:38 PM: “Honey, it smells like plastic burning in the kitchen.”

I shot up out of bed and padded into the kitchen to take in smells like blown 35-year old capacitors. After disconnecting the power adapter, but ever the optimist, I flicked the power switch to see if despite all of the smells, it would still turn on. No lights, no sounds, all the smells. Placing the machine on the granite countertop, I figure that at least I wouldn’t burn down the dining room table if it burst into flames.

1:35PM: Burning smell getting worse. Noticeable from the bedroom.

Laptop is still warm to the touch and rubber feet are stuck to the counter. Move the poor burnt laptop outside into the barbecue. If things go very badly, at least the flames will be contained. She asks me as I walk back in the kitchen, “Hi honey, what are you up to?” “Oh, nothing,” I lied.

I didn’t have time to take the thing apart this morning, so it had to wait until this afternoon. The damage was much worse than I imagined. Bad capacitors weren’t the problem. The real issue was a bad (or incorrectly wired) battery pack. I connected my red wires to the red wires in the battery pack, but the damage sure looks like a dead short that caused a little bit of fire inside the case…

Toshiba Battery Pack

So the motherboard is burnt. The add-on 2400-baud modem is burnt. The battery carrier and harness is burnt.

It’s beginning to look like the machine can’t be fixed!

Aw, c’mon. You know that’s not true.

Your pal,

– bob

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Toddler Watch: The Mueller Report Has Been Filed

Friends,

Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, has submitted his report this evening. What’s in it? Only a few people know. Many more people are speculating about what might be in it. Many more still are filled with hope that its contents will lead to a septuagenarian carnival barker being hauled out of our White House in manacles.

Magical thinking on my part, certainly.

We should be patient and see what’s in it before rushing to judgement. That’s way easier to say than actually do.

Breathe…

Your pal,

– bob

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Happy New Year!

A lovely centered picture of an improbable event
Friends,

I know that you’re sick and tired of 2016. How could you not feel beat down by so much death, destruction, hatred and betrayal? You thought you could count on your fellow Americans to do the right thing and so many of them failed you. Failed us. Failed, in the end, themselves.

You’re tired and just want it to be over. Well today’s your lucky day! 2016, the year when hope ended, is actually ending in a matter of hours. 2017 will finally be here. Hope won’t be good enough anymore. We’ve got to get up and get to work and fight for every scrap and want every small victory. We can do this.

Tonight I leave you with this wish: that your champagne is filled with horseshoes and your roosters are filled with wonder.

Get some rest. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

Your best pal in the whole wide world,

– bob

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The 2016 Jaunty Election Guide: An Introduction

A lovely centered picture of a dog on a mission.

Friends,

I’m very sure that you’re completely tired of this election cycle. I don’t blame you. If I lived in a country that was so full of dopes that it was perilously close to electing a dope to its highest office, I’d be upset too. I mean, if there were only two major parties where I lived, and one offered a candidate who had solid policy proposals and serious plans to achieve them, while the other nominated a man so averse to the facts, so clearly obsessed with his own personal advancement over the general welfare, that there should be no contest. But there is and we could possibly be doomed.

But let’s think about this. Would the next Congress sign off on anything a theoretical President Racist P. Yam might propose? I suspect not and this makes me feel a little bit better.

So why not throw a fit about something we can do something about? This year, here in California, we have 17 state-wide initiatives covering everything from plastic bags (again) to legalizing marijuana (again) to requiring condoms for porn. Thanks to the confluence of the genius of the Internet and the idiocy of A Jaunty Little Blog, I have made a dumb promise to cover each and every one of these initiatives in detail.

Starting as soon as I get around to it, the posts will start coming for each initiative in reverse order (because it’ll look cooler in the blog) from Proposition 67 right up to Proposition 51.

Excited? Of course you are. Me too.

Very excited.

Your pal,

– bob