According to KQED's Capital Notes blog (click my signature for the link),

the state worker retirement cost over the next 30 years would be $48.2 billion. That's a big number, but dividing it by 30 we get about $1.5 billion, which is about 1.5% of the state budget. Cutting it to zero won't get us out of the hole.

Meanwhile, prisons are about 10% of the state budget, K-12 education is (by law: prop. 98) 40%, and universities are another 10% or so.

Health and human services is about 30%, and that's where Arnold is doing some serious gutting (home health care workers would get minimum wage, and welfare would be cut to zero).

How about not watching the show? There are hundreds of cable channels, and there's no more reason to give Ms. Simpson a fair shot than anyone else. We could all get off our butts and get some exercise instead, and maybe become slightly more beautiful (or at least feel better).

Sorry, malleteery_one, but even if Daley stole enough votes in Chicago to give Illinois to JFK as often alleged, it wouldn't have mattered; Kennedy still would have won in 1960 even if Illinois were switched to Nixon's column. JFK got 303 electoral votes to Nixon' 219. Switch Illinois's 27 votes and it's JFK 276, Nixon 236. So the conspirators have to then claim that Texas was also stolen, even though the vote was not that tight (51-49) and a popular Texan (JFK) was on the Dem ballot.

So no, the 1960 election was not stolen from Nixon. So sorry.

... and he made it several times.

But for the analogy to stick, Moussavi would have to give up his candidacy for the sake of national unity, and instead he's talking about martyrdom.

... for including perhaps the greatest line any country singer ever wrote.

Those who argue that there should be no investigation often claim that investigations and prosecutions would demoralize and drive away good intelligence agents. But what could do this more effectively than an investigation that prosecutes those at the bottom but shields those at the top?

On the other hand, it's too early to know whether this is really what is being considered. Often these leaks reflect infighting between disagreeing factions, each trying to get their story out in the press. Furthermore, it's common for criminal investigations to go after the foot soldiers first, to get them to turn state's evidence so that higher-ups can be prosecuted. When this process is inverted, as it was in the Iran-Contra hearings, and people at the very top of the operation are granted immunity too early, we wind up with the most culpable people (North and Poindexter) getting off free.

My brother died at 18; he had a defective heart. The insurance company escaped paying the bills; my father had changed jobs, joining a small real estate office, and evidently his son's heart defect was later "discovered" to be an improperly reported pre-existing condition.

The family lost all its savings (though we avoided declaring bankruptcy), and my father sunk into a depression that he never recovered from; he died of cancer a few years later.

That's not all: my wife's father died when she was 12 and he was 41 of a brain aneurysm (probably spelled that wrong). The life insurance company managed to avoid paying: seems the check was a day late.

And, for some reason, I'm not as concerned as the Blue Dogs are with preserving the profits of the private insurance industry.

The birthers insist that Obama is not the legitimate president, and the nonsense about the birth certificate is only a pretext. They would claim that an amendment wouldn't make their delusional argument moot because (they would say) Obama wasn't eligible in 2008.

Besides, the fact that they ignore all evidence just shows that they are starting from the conclusion (Obama is illegitimate) and then proceeding to the rationale (Obama isn't an American). They know this in their bones, you see, because he has a funny un-American name and he isn't a white guy.

You then show a picture of Arnold, who's loved by the media but who is a my-way-or-the-highway disaster as governor: his mix of anti-tax fundamentalism, "pro-business" absolutism, moderation on social issues, and contempt for legislators is popular with the media elite and the wealthy. If the purpose of your amendment is to give him a shot at the presidency, no thanks.

For a study to mean anything, it would require hundreds of women, and the researchers would have to demonstrate a statistically significant difference. One woman out of nine showing a preference doesn't mean a thing.

... even though they are to the left of me, and sometimes give air time to truthers and the like. Because they don't take ads, and, unlike NPR, they don't take corporate underwriting, they are free to tell the truth as they see it. And Amy Goodman rocks.

I like Rachel Maddow, but I've noticed that she avoids certain stories, presumably on orders from her employer.

The core idea that these people push, that many aspects of human behavior are shaped by evolution, is obviously correct. But the amount of sloppy thinking and shallow attempts to confirm prejudices you see are amazing.

People have been altering their appearances to make themselves more attractive for eons, and the fashion keeps changing. There are cultures where extremely long necks are attractive, so metal rings are used to stretch the neck. And, of course, there was foot-binding. Plastic surgery's just a new technique.

And of course a person doesn't need to be extremely beautiful to successfully reproduce, or there would be a lot fewer of us. Marginally acceptable will do.