If you imagine that doing away with the 2/3's majority will help California balance the budget you are wrong. After years of watching how business is done in Washington, A) propose an indecipherable and long winded bill, (Medicare for example), and poll the public. B) Watch as the voters are evenly split, naturally. Then go out on the floor of Congress and bribe, cajol, and earmark the other five percent needed for a majority. Instant bad law.

Where were you all when Gray Davis was being pilloried for wanting to raise the vehicle tax? Where were you when Arnold pushed that new bond issue, (a real Trojan horse that is going to blow up in our faces)instead of putting fiscal restraints in place at the time. Somehow now it is the state Republicans fault that the nations biggest welfare state spent itself into bankruptcy? Now all we need is a simple majority so the fools can push through more bad paper? A 7/8's majority makes more sense. As for offshore drilling, I repeat that during the election the prominent Democratic senators were willing to cave on this issue. Maybe we shouldn't let the environmentalists prevent the state from being energy self reliant, even if it involves offshore drilling, maybe energy self reliance is more important, unless you thought being ENRONED was a good thing.

Before 9/11 there was a California Seccessionist movement, that was drawing attention. Independence from Washington makes a lot of sense, but first you need energy self reliance, so lets drop the partisanism, and think about that.

Two prominent GOP Reps were on record against offshore drilling, during the election. Not sure where they are at present, but it seems to me Feinstein was in favor of drilling, you should revisit the Democrats record on that issue, was there a vote of some kind? I mean its all well and good for you to sit in Berkeley and imply that Democrats are holier than the GOP on environmental issues, especially when there is an election. Some of the SOCA GOP was against the bailout and against drilling, and I give them credit for that. As my Republican mother says about Arnold, he married into the Kennedy's, what's that make him?

Ron Nehring took over the CA GOP after 2000, being close to Grover Norquist, he wanted to politicize every elected office in the state. He proceeded to bar independents from voting in the presidential primary, since the Southern District has a large number of indies, who usually swing Republican, he wanted to block the McCain bid. After the recall election CA Repubs had things going their way, (ENRON did the dirty work) Republicans were going to push the agenda, and AG's like Carol Lam were fired for not running fast enough.

San Diego was and is ground zero for the Republican party, the place Bush played the guitar while NOLA was being destroyed by hurricane Katrina. The Navy is doubling their number of ships homeported here, something bound to swing the demographic tide. Whose idea was that I wonder, the same people who gave us the Berlin Wall across the southern United States?

I think you are off the mark here. California is predominantly a Democratic state, but the Southern District is predominantly Republican. Brian Bilbray won Duke Cunninghams seat, after running on a single issue, immigration reform. His constituents are largely Hispanic. I say Southern District, as in Attorney General, where Carol Lam was fired for not pursuing illegal immigration violations. Daryll Issa led that group, he now sits on committee, and was reelected handily. His home town is 40% Hispanic. So we're tired of Republicans blaming the illegals (B1 Bob Dornan) for losing an election. You lost because George Bush ran the economy into a ditch. If anyone wants to close the door on Hispanics, its the Hispanics who are competing with illegals and green card workers for jobs. So the California Republican party knows how to exploit that weakness. For years the local Repubs have been crying about the Latin Leftists, who come here from Mexico with a picture of Fidel pinned inside their jacket.

You're not too old and too white, you're too corrupt, and if its one thing Hispanics know, it's the mordida. That's why you won a few elections here, because of the Hispanic vote, not in spite of it.

To my knowledge Greenhouse gases are responsible for zero deaths, not true with tobacco. You want to blame the end user for the legacy costs associated with smoking? That's crazy, but probably good Republican talking points. The Chinese should bear the burden of the cost for greenhouse emissions, which is "innumerate", if for no other reason that we should discourage overcapacity in consumer goods, for reasons, economic and otherwise. Although political solutions usually arrive after the system finds its own sense of balance, which is coming soon.

just curious..

The two foreclosure properties in my neighborhood sold, but the new owners are doing the work themselves. A friend needed some work done to qualify for a reverse mortgage, so she hired a handyman, instead of a contractor. Rents are still high, and apartments have out the vacancy signs, as families move in together. There may be a few more housing starts, not visible from here, so where's the money?