September 25, 2003
LA Times reviews debate, concludes the recall lost.
The LA Times reviews the California recall debate, Sacramento Windstorm, and comes to the conclusion that none of the candidates are acceptable.
The televised five-candidate show in Sacramento Wednesday night fell somewhere between a World Wrestling Federation event and a pie fight. Moderator Stan Statham of the California Broadcasters Assn. needed a whistle and a striped shirt. It's a shame that the probing questions that a real debate would have offered were nowhere to be found. Not one word was uttered about the structural reforms necessary to right the state economically and politically.
The loss was often the candidates'. Arnold Schwarzenegger, by participating only in this debate, needed to come across as knowledgeable about state problems — particularly the budget quandary — and offer a specific program of action. He didn't do so; this was partly his failure and partly the fault of the freewheeling nature of the 90-minute discussion. It was difficult to declare winners or losers as candidates tossed barbs at their foes, talked — or yelled — over each other, engaged in generalities and sought to win favor with rehearsed laugh lines.
... Davis was absent, both physically and in the candidates' answers. Considering the low quality of the information the event provided to voters, he should be happy about it. Nothing happened Wednesday night to give Californians reason to replace Davis. A "no" vote on the recall looks better every second.
 permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, September 25, 2003 at 09:29 AM
August 12, 2003
Following California's crazy politics.
Via Tom Tomorrow's This Modern world, is this Rough And Tumble guide to the latest California's insanity. "A daily snapshot of California Public Policy and Politics" they say. With 500 candidates for a job no one in their right mind would want, we're going to need all of the help we can get. Interesting little tidbits of information. Such as this one.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, labeled by polls the early leader in California's recall election, did not vote in five of the past 11 statewide elections, records revealed Monday. Schwarzenegger aides said they were researching four of those five elections to see why absentee ballots were requested by the actor but not recorded as being received by elections officials. They said the actor, an Austrian immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in 1983, takes voting seriously.
Sure seems as if everyone is assuming that Davis will be recalled, even though the success rate for these kinds of elections is rather low. But we'll see. I think it's sad that 35 million people are choosing to blame one person for their problems and greed, but that's Californians for you.
Arnold may be a more entertaining governor, by far, but more effective? Permit me to doubt. California is a huge state, in all ways, and its problems are legion. It's going to take extensive experience and hard work to solve its problems, not sound bites. And certainly not more business. Not with so much traffic that it's practically impossible to even get to work as it is. But what do I know?
permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, August 12, 2003 at 05:16 PM
End of entries.
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CATEGORIES
LINKS / BLOGROLL
THE BLOGOSPHERE
Group blogs and centers
Wood s Lot. Maybe the most consistently interesting weblog out there. Superb selections on all sorts of topics, especially art and literature. Tons of links too.
Blog Sisters, a group blog, with a-z links to individuals. More by the ladies at Blogs by Women.
Good community blogs at Boing Boing, Metafilter and Kuro5hin.
The Wibsite, wiblog.com. British bloggers.
Fairvue Central hosts the Bloggies, awards for best weblogs in different categories from all over the world. See the nominees for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 (in progress).
Iraqi blogs
Today in Iraq.
A Family in Baghdad.
Baghdad Burning.
Healing Iraq.
Salam Pax.
G in Baghdad.
Ishtar talking.
The Mesopotamian.
Iraq at a glance.
Hammorabi.
Nabil's blog.
Baghdadee.
Fayrouz.
Iraq the model.
Iraq and Iraqis.
Road of a nation.
Ihath - Losing myself.
Sun of Iraq.
Back to Iraq.
Individual blogs
Robert Hunter's journal.
Follow Me Here.
Caterina.net.
Avram's journal.
Rebecca's Pocket.
Alas, a Blog.
Weblog Wannabe.
The Rittenhouse Review.
Margaret Cho Blog.
The Oregon Blog.
Angry Bear.
Brad DeLong.
Dohiyi Mir.
Eschaton.
Hullabaloo.
Nathan Newman.
Orcinus.
Steve Gilliard's News Blog.
Tapped.
Tbogg.
Blogging communities
Lists of bloggers in these areas.
Austin, Texas.
Beltway Bloggers, Washington, DC.
Boston, Massachusetts.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Chicago, Illinois.
Dallas Ft. Worth, Texas.
London, United Kingdom.
New York, New York.
San Diego, California.
Seattle, Washington.
St. Louis, Missouri.
Washington, DC.
GENERAL LINKS, NOT BLOGS
News, magazines, reference
The sites where I do my usual news browsing, and get most of my articles and links.
Common Dreams.
Refdesk, info on absolutely everything. A comprehensive newspaper page, listed by US states and countries, and an encyclopedia.
BBC News, BBCi Home, BBC Radio, categories, history topics.
The World News Network, wn.com, gathers news sites from all over the world, country by country.
Wikipedia, online encyclopedia.
The Asian Times.
The Scotsman.
The Moscow Times. Russian perspectives and news. The Russia Post is a World News site with links to other Russian sites.
The Black Commentator.
Aljazeera Net in English.
Outlook India.
GENERAL INTEREST
History, literature, philosophy and other subjects, mostly related to the works in the Galileo Library.
Online Clarity. An I Ching community. Newsletter, readings, etc.
Sacred Books of the East. A 19th century project of eastern literature.
Bartleby.com. Great books online.
Bibliomania. Free online literature and study guides. Lots of classics and reading resources.
THE ARTS
Vincent van Gogh Gallery. Complete paintings and writings, and a nice arts links page. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Bob Dylan, live performances.
Grateful Dead, GD Radio.
David Byrne, radio station.
New Pages. Book and reading related center, lots of alternative publishing links and weblog.
Reading Rat. Reading center with lots of links.
Avid reader web ring.
The Louvre. Other Parisian museums.
The Web Museum, index of artists. Extremely high quality images.
August Rodin web org.
Mark Harden's Artchive.
Emile Kren's Web Gallery of Art.
Artcyclopedia. A fine art search engine. Historical and current, with a nice museum list.
Plagiarist.com poetry archive. Classic and modern plus news, articles, forums, etc. View a random poem.
Rotten Tomatoes. Film center, with collected reviews, ratings and forums.
Aint It Cool News. Movie reviews and previews from a fan's perspective.
Roger Ebert's film reviews.
Scott McCloud. The latest in the world of cartoonists.
YouTube. Video center.
MILD EROTICA
Domai.com. Eolake Stobblehouse's extraordinary, and extremely tasteful, paean to pretty girls, updated daily. Nudity yes, sex definitely not. Nice general purpose links too.
Simple nudes. Lots of links.
Vintage nudes. Pin-ups and other classics.
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