monday night.

spent the whole day trying to tweak my zoinky new laptop...HUGE waste of time. I feel like sisyphus...every time I fix something, either something new goes wrong or the system crashes and I have to start all over again...

all day long, I've been thinking of our good friend Arnold Schwarzenegger...why? because the media is on Arnold overload? no....

all day I've had the Doors' "back door man" going through my head...and I thought ...hmmmm.....the perfect recall campaign theme song....

but then again, something about Arnie as my 'back door man' scares my sphincter...

I'm going to offer a little flack on the prop 187 history...

once upon a time (ca. 1994), the voters of california came up with a brilliant proposition to stop what was considered (at least by the republicans) to be california's worst fiscal problem: preganant mexican women were coming here in droves to have their babies and suck off california's welfare teat.

while this never in any way reflected reality, a lot of people were bamboozled into thinking that it was the mexican mothers who were causing california's fiscal crises. so along comes prop 187...designed to keep those immigrants from stealing our money...until the state supreme court ruled it unconstitutional.

so here's the problem: someone is always being blamed for california's money crises. 10 years ago it was the mexicans, today it is gray davis. how stupid do they think people really are???

why does california have a budget crisis???

1. deregulation of the power industry under a certain prior republican governor...ultimately leading to...
2. enron
3. security precautions due to 9-11 (maybe it would be cheaper to tear down the gg bridge?)
4. three strikes (prison is more expensive than welfare)
5. earthquakes, riots, wildfires and floods...every year.
5. spending $70 million on a recall vote instead of on education, health care, disaster preparedness, or even perhaps buying electricity...

while there is little we can do about deregulation, enron, 9-11, and "acts of god", we can talk about #5.

we, the voters of california, are not being offered a choice as to whether we want to spend $70 million on this vote...we are forced to pay this money out of our taxes because some whiney guy named Issa started this ball rolling (and then jumped out of the three ring circus once the tent was propped).

now there are 200 potential candidates who want to take advantage of this $70 million circus extravaganza...

so let's be fair to the california taxpayers here. if this vote is going to cost $70 million, and there is the very good chance that the voters will say NO to recall, should the taxpayers be forced to pay $70M to shut down this circus?

I propose that if the voters say NO, then the candidates should have to split the cost of the $70 mil. that's $350,000 each candidate. seems pretty fair to me, considering the cost of campaigns these days. besides, most of the candidates are getting a free press ride anyway.

This proposal would also ensure that the recall statute is only used in very dire circumstances...like if the governor were accused of a crime or other impeachable conduct.

if each of the 200 candidates had to put up their share of the cost of this circus, the tents would be folded by morning.