McFreedom

Office/Measure	Vote	Why
President	Bush, GOP	War
US Senate	Jones, GOP	Not Boxer
US Representative	Lantos, Dem	War
State Senate	Rice, Lib	Good Policies
State Assembly	Poizner, GOP
BOE Area 4	Belforte
BOE Area 6	Lempert
BOE Area 7	Morantes
Harbor District	Abstains
Healthcare District	Gibson & Sigler	Stop Waste!
Measure A	No	Better luck next cycle
Measure B	Yes	Gays are People, Too!
Measure C	Yes	Commonsense
Measure D	Yes	Why not?
Measure E	No
Measure H	Yes	Save The Children!

My wife and I are the only people who probably care about this, but since I have to figure it out between now and Tuesday, anyway, I figured I might as well right it up, here. Following are my thoughts on the election issues for San Carlos, CA (12th Congressional District), going down the ballot:

President and Vice President of the United States

I figure most people already have an opinion on this one...

United States Senator

Up for reelection this time is Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. Much like Dianne Feinstein, there are very few things I agree with her on. Her primary challenger is Republican Bill Jones ("Farmer/Businessman"), with whom I don't agree about everything, but he'd be better than Barbara. There's no question Boxer will win - she's leading by 16 points in the polls. A glance at the Libertarian candidate - a Judge, surprisingly - reveals a naive foreign policy "It?s very simple: Neutrality, free trade and strong, responsible defense." The age of American neutrality even being possible ended about 125 years ago. McFreedom Votes Bill Jones for Senate.

United States Representative, 12th Congressional District

Tom Lantos is the Democratic incumbent, and through the miracle of Gerrymandering, this district stretches up to western San Francisco. Normally I'm all about sending Democratic Congressmen back to San Francisco, but Tom Lantos was a resistance fighter in Hungary during World War II, and he seems to get the magnitude of our current struggle. The Green Party candidate (Pat Gray) is running against Lantos' war record: "[Lantos is] an old warmonger...Mister Lantos is popularly known as the representative from Tel Aviv." Those are foreign policy credentials I can get behind, and Mr. Lantos' pro-war stand is unpopular in his district; he's clearly doing it because he thinks it's right, not for temporary gain. McFreedom Votes Tom Lantos for Congress.

California State Senator, 11th Senate District

The incumbent is Joe Simitian. His website has precious little about what he'd like to accomplish (other than being reelected). His past accomplishments (if you drill down from that vague page) aren't many I'm impressed by - coauthored the California "global warming" bill, tried to make it easier to raise taxes, tried to send more of San Carlos' money to other education districts... On the plus side, he seems to be a strong supporter of gay rights. He's endorsed by Pelosi, NOW, California Federation of Teachers, California State Employees Association...

His Republican opponent is Jon Zellhoefer (warning: hideously ugly website). His "issues" page is light on content, and he stands little chance in this overwhelmingly Democratic district. He seems a lightweight.

The Libertarian, Allen M. Rice, actually seems to have his head screwed on straight. For example, he doesn't want to end public funding of schools, he just wants to return money and control to local districts. He's concerned about Gerrymandering. He'll no doubt lose, but McFreedom Votes Rice for State Senate.

Member of the State Assembly, 21st Assembly District

There's no incumbent in this race, and no third-party candidates. Ira Ruskin, the Democrat, wants you to download a book to find out his stand on the issues. No thanks, I've already spent many hours on this election, already. He has the laundry list of leftist endorsements. In the voter information booklet they mailed out, he only runs down his positions on the Propositions, but it's almost a perfect mirror image of the McFreedom positions.

The Republican is Steve Poizner, a self-described "frustrated moderate Republican." He also wants us to download an 84-page PDF to find his stands on the issues. He's endorsed by the governor, and, running not against an incumbent, may have some chance of actually winning. Skimming his positions, they don't seem revolutionary, but they don't seem objectionable, either. He's endorsed by the Log Cabin Republicans, so he's not a Neanderthal. McFreedom Votes Poizner for Member of the State Assembly.

San Mateo County Board of Education Member, Trustee Area 4

Unfortunately, all of the local board memberships are "nonpartisan," which means you don't get to see the candidates' party affiliation on the ballot. No doubt this means that most people - who are rationally ignorant on the topic of who would make the best Harbor commissioner - simply don't vote on these.

The two main candidates for this seat are "Fel" Amistad and John Belforte. They both mostly offer generic commentary on what they'd do, and both are endorsed by various Democratic groups. But John says he would bring "responsiveness and dedication to provide leadership in meeting our educational needs during a period of uncertain educational funding," and I do think our schools around here are doing pretty well, with their biggest challenge being funding, so McFreedom Votes Belforte for Trustee, Area 4.

San Mateo County Board of Education Member, Trustee Area 6

This race is clearer: Ted Lempert, the incumbent, against Jack Hickey, the Libertarian nutjob. As I said, our school board is doing a pretty good job, so when I have to choose between "incumbent who's doing a good job" and "Libertarian whose platform is that we spend too much on education at the local level," McFreedom Votes Lempert for Trustee, Area 6.

San Mateo County Board of Education Member, Trustee Area 7

Again, a two horse race: Memo P. Morantes, Incumbant vs. Noria Zasslow, Disabled Advocate. Ms. Zassslow's sole platform is that we need more disabled access to schools. McFreedom Votes Morantes for Trustee, Area 7.

San Mateo County Harbor District Members, Board of Harbor

Who knows, and who cares? You're supposed to pick three. Padreddii, Parravano and Campbell are the incumbents. If you're happy with the way the harbor is run, vote for them. If you're not, vote for some other people. Or, if you have no idea about the harbor and wonder why the positions aren't appointed, you can follow our lead: McFreedom Abstains for San Mateo County Harbor District Members.

Sequoia Healthcare District Members, Board of Directors

Finally, one that's interesting. A long time ago, the Sequoia Healthcare District was set up to collect taxes to pay for a hospital on the Peninsula. That hospital is Sequoia Hospital, which was sold to Catholic Healthcare West, a private firm, eight years ago. So, why does this still exist and collect taxes? Hmmm...good question. Thus far they've seemed mostly interested in either sitting on a mountain of cash, or giving buckets of cash to CHW. Kane, an incumbent, brags that she "gave over $10 million dollars to Sequoia Hospital..." Yup, that's right - they took your tax money, gave it to a private firm to buy equipment so that private firm can charge you money, and she's proud of it!

The district is sitting on $50 million right now, and there are two people who are interested in doing something about it: The Libertarian candidates, Gibson and Sigler, vow to "close down the District, stop the taxes, and return the hoard to the taxpayers." Now that's a platform McFreedom can get behind! Remember, though, that these positions are "unaffiliated" - no party names on the ballot. So you'll just have to recall yourself that McFreedom Votes Gibson and Sigler for sequoia Healthcare District, and you should, too!

County of San Mateo Measure A

Measure A is a tough one - San Mateo's half-cent sales tax is expiring in 2008. This measure is a 25-year extension that is expected to raise $1.5 billion dollars to improve transportation in San Mateo County. It must pass at 2/3 approval, since it's a tax measure. Here's how they're planning on spending the money:

1. Transit 30% ($450 Million)
2. Highways 27.5% ($412.5 Million)
3. Local Streets/Transportation 22.5% ($337.5 Million)
4. Grade Separations 15% ($225 Million)
5. Pedestrian and Bicycle 3% ($45 Million)
6. Alternative Congestion Relief Programs 1% ($15 Million)

Most of this isn't hard. Local roads have to get paid for somehow, and doing it from local money is the way to go. I have two complaints with this measure: It spends a lot of money in that "Transit" category up there that includes buckets of cash for stuff like BART and ferry service that few people actually use. And, it's a little long in its life - the original was for twenty years, now this one's for twenty-five.

McFreedom Votes No on Measure A, and hopes we'll get a better measure in 2006.

County of San Mateo Measure B

Now we get into the middle of a bunch of San Mateo internal government restructuring Measures. This one is to amend the county's hiring policy to replace the word "handicapped" with "disabled" (as it is the currently favored term), add in some meaningless drivel about "serv[ing] the County's diverse population," which bothered me at first, but seems to have no real legislative point, and to add "sexual orientation" to the list of things they can't discriminate against hires on the basis of.

McFreedom Votes Yes on Measure B.

County of San Mateo Measure C

Currently, an Acting County Manager (in case of unexpected departure of the current County Manager) must be appointed from the existing employees of the county. This measure would make it so they could hire anyone, which makes sense to me. McFreedom votes Yes on Measure C.

County of San Mateo Measure D

This measure would reclassify some temporary employees as being under a more permanent status. Unfortunately I'm not clear what the costs are of this, but it seems harmless enough and I'm willing to give the County the benefit of the doubt, so McFreedom Votes Yes on Measure D.

County of San Mateo Measure E

Measure E would allow the County Board of Supervisors to request that a Grand Jury review their salary once a year and recommend if they should get raises. The point seems to be to give themselves political cover for deciding their own salaries, and seems likely to waste the Grand Jury's time. McFreedom Votes No on Measure E.

Sequoia Union High School District Measure H

This measure would issue $70M in bonds for school improvements. That's on top of the $45M in bonds in '96, and $88M in bonds in '01. The new bonds will be paid for by maintaining the current $24/$100k assessed value property tax over the next ten years; normally that rate would decline as we paid off the previous bonds.

My main complaint with this is the funding method - we've borrowed $133M in the past eight years, and this adds another $70M onto that. If this were a simple measure to increase property taxes to provide more funding, I'd be a lot less reticent about it, but I hate wasting tax money on bond interest. Since it's a school bond, it will require 55% approval. McFreedom Votes Yes on Measure H, because it probably makes sense. But don't expect to get another school bond out of us any time soon.

Reuters is reporting on the "comeback" of whooping cough - but completely misses the forest for the trees. Reading the article, we learn that "the culprit seems to be weakening effects of the shot." They quote Dr. David Hooper from Harvard Medical School: "We have a vaccine for it, but the problem with the vaccine is that immunity wanes after five years," and the solution apparently recommended is that teenagers need to get a booster shot.

Later in the article, they note that the Pertussis bacteria aren't changing their pathological characteristics under evolutionary pressure from the vaccine: ""It seems that 40 years of vaccination did not change the pathogenicity," they quote Nicole Guiso, the chief of the National Center for Infectious Disease at the Institut Pasteur in Paris as saying. However, "incidents [have been] steadily increasing since the 1980s."

Hmmm...the germ hasn't "evolved" in response to the vaccination. Yet, the incidents have been steadily increasing. Didn't the children getting vaccinated thirty years ago also have a weakening effect as they moved into their teenage years? Then why is this a growing problem now, if the vaccine is the same and the orgranism is the same? They do skim past the answer, quoted from the CDC, in the article, but miss its significance: "Most deaths occur among unvaccinated children or children too young to be vaccinated." And there are a lot more unvaccinated children, these days, now that not vaccinating your kids is trendy in some circles. So, it seems, the solution isn't to vaccinate the children at risk, but rather to get boosters for the teenage children of the parents who are civic-minded enough to vaccinate their children.

Now, of course, these articles are only as good as the experts they quote, and perhaps the experts at this conference didn't do a good job explaining the issue to the Reuters reporter. That said, it would be nice to have reporters that could use critical thinking to say, "These guys say nothing has changed in the past forty years, yet rates are on the rise - clearly there's some issue missing, here."

Of course, the post below with the message for Azzam predates OBL's climbing out from under a rock by only a few hours...

The obvious point about OBL's videotape is that, when al Qaeda wanted to influence the Spanish election, they blew stuff up, but when they wanted to influence the American election, all they can do (knock on wood) is release a video tape.

The Belmont Club goes a step further, calling it "Osama Bin Laden's Surrender Proposal:"

It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.

Emphasis in original. There's obviously no point in refuting bin Ladin's tripe line by line. I had a very enlightening conversation with a Democrat colleague this afternoon. We finally dug down to the point that it became clear - my number one priority is stopping terrorism in this country. If that means we have to go to war with other countries (and I believe it does), so be it. He doesn't count the war (in fact, he doesn't even see us as really being at war) in his top three priorities, doesn't think Kerry does, either, and thinks that's just fine. Let's hope, come Tuesday, the American people consider the war to be in their top three priorities, and vote accordingly...

I have a longish post on polling methodologies I'm working on and want to get out ere the election. I also need to write up my thoughts on local-to-San Carlos voting, mostly just so I can figure it out, myself. I think I've already spent three hours preparing for this election day, and that's just on the propositions. And here I was thinking I lived in a Republic...

To: Azzam the American
From: George W. Bush
Subject: Your recent video

One of my brothers, a non-Californian, says, in a comment to the propositions guide, he is:

[C]urious about the cost of the three strikes law. Given the budget issues in CA, it might be worth reducing the amount of non-violent three strikes violators in order to save money.

Well, the legislative analyst says it would initially save "tens of millions" and eventually might save "hundreds of millions" of dollars. But it also comes with significant costs in the "tens of millions" range, as current prisoners are resentenced. Also, it's worth noting that the whole theory behind "three strikes" is that people who have gone to prison three times are probably going to go to prison four times, so rather than incurring the costs on society and law enforcement in finding them again, let's just hang on to them. I would be very surprised if the net cost to the state (even leaving aside the societal cost of the new crimes) is positive when you take this into account.

It's also worth noting that, as the Secretary of State's office says, "As of April 2004, there were about 163,000 inmates in California prisons, as well as some state-contracted facilities. The costs to operate the state prison system in 2004-05 are estimated to be approximately $5.7 billion." Even if you grant them $300M/year in savings (which I'm highly skeptical of), you're only cutting the prison budget by 5%. I'd be a lot more interested in a bill to decriminalize drugs and let out the 35,000 drug offenders (of 157,000 total prisoners in 2002) than sweating the maybe 3,500 third-strikers this would let out, many (most?) of whom are just going to come back in a few years.

Man, I so know that feeling. So, as hit /. yesterday, Nintendo sent a cease and desist letter to a website that allows members to set up (adultish) user areas. It seems one user had mentioned that she liked a couple of Nintendo games in her site. This letter, of course, caused a great backlash, and Ninentdo has now quickly apologized and offered free games to the victims.

Many people make the mistake of assuming that corporations are monolithic entities - that an organization as large even as Nintendo speaks with one voice, that no single missive issues forth from the entity without the blessing of the whole. Nothing is of course, further from the truth - it is not uncommon for different divisions of a corporation to even be at odds with each other. We had this exact scenario happen at EMusic. We were very conscious of being community-friendly, and worked hard to reach out to the open-source and hacker communities. Unknown to us, a group of students made a little MP3 player they called "Emusic." Unfortunately, the way the executive management at Emusic found out about it was when the founder of a company we'd bought - someone not really picked by us, or aware of our culture - let us know he'd already sent them a cease and desist letter.

This resulted in the CEO and I frantically calling all these developers late at night, trying to get in touch with them an preempt the story before it got to Slashdot. It's a terrible feeling when some person operating in your name goes out and does something stupid, thinking about the little picture and ignoring the big one. I'm sure some people at Nintendo spit their coffee out when they saw this story in the press, and kudos to them for cleaning it up as well as they did.

A friend (who is a Bush supporter but hangs out on a very leftist mailing list) and I got into a discussion the other day about whether or not Bush legitimately won in Florida. He was of the opinion that recounts had made it clear Bush lost; I was of the opinion it wasn't. I invented some memory about how we could both be right, but decided this morning to find the correct answer. After much wading through people complaining that Bush stole the election, here's what it looks like happened.

A bunch of Democrats in Florida did a poor job expressing their franchise. If all the people, all over the state, had voted correctly, they probably would've granted Gore another 25,000 - 50,000 votes - enough to handily give Gore the state (and the election). Of course, if you're going to engage in this kind of revisionism, it's quite possible to speculate that Bush lost other close states he should've won because of their local ballot issues. You can't just recount one state at a really high level of scrutiny and claim that would change the election.

Regardless, a complete, many-months recount was not what was on the table at the Supreme Court. The reason I remembered thinking that Bush had been vindicated in the end was that, under the standard the Gore team was advocating, he was. The Gore camp had asked the Florida Supreme Court to allow the "Lenient standard" in a by-hand recount, which would examine every chad for any hint that a voter had attempted to vote on it, and use it as a vote. The Federal Supreme Court stepped in and said, "That's changing the rules after the election, you can't do that," and the recount was stopped. This was the way Bush "stole" the election - the presumption being that, if the Supreme Court had done nothing, Gore would've won.

Well, it turns out that, under that standard, if that recount had gone forward, Gore would've lost by 1665 votes. Ironically, if the Supreme Court had done nothing, round about middle of December, the powers that be in Florida still would've called Bush the winner and we could've avoided four years of acrimony about this.

So, in Summary, Democrats feel Bush stole the election because "Under any scenario where all of the votes are counted, Gore won." Republicans feel he didn't because, even if Bush had done absolutely nothing in his defense the state of Florida still would've decided he won, anyway. There were no scenarios on the table where "all of the votes [were] counted." Again, it wouldn't surprise me that if you recounted all the votes in, say, New Mexico, you couldn't flip it to Bush. Since Gore's electoral college margin of victory with Florida would've been 1 vote, if you flip a single state to Bush by aggressive recounting, Gore still loses again. Arguing about who would've won in a complete recount that would've lasted until April, 2001 is pointless. Yes, it is truly a shame that Florida's voting system was so bad in 2000, and I honestly hope they've fixed it for this year, even if it costs Bush. But elections are run by rules, and under any interpretation of the rules anyone could come up with, Bush won in Florida fair and square.

Prop	Description	Vote	Why
1A	Can't loot cities I	Yes	Stick it to Sacramento
59	Open records	Yes	Stick it to Sacramento
60	Elections Same	Yes	Don't mess w/elections
60A	Surplus Property Sales	No	Waste of time
61	Hospitals	No	Waste of money
62	Elections like LA	No	Don't mess w/elections
63	Soak the Rich	No	Waste of money
64	Cons. Prot. Lawsuits	Yes	Stick it to the lawyers
65	Can't loot cities II	Yes	Stick it to Sacramento
66	Limit 3 Strikes	No	Works As Is
67	Phone tax increase	No	waste of money
68	Indian Gaming I	No	Bait-and-switch
69	DNA Database	No	Potential for Abuse
70	Indian Gaming II	No	Works As Is
71	Stem Cell Research	No	$6B blank check
72	Socialized Medicine	No	Waste of money

Robert James Bidinotto posts this morning a letter from John Hospers, the Libertarian Party's candidate for President in 1972. It's a powerful letter. Some of the highlights:

The election of John Kerry would be, far more than is commonly realized, a catastrophe. [...]

Today's Democrats have been out of majority power for so long that they are hungry for power at any price and will do anything to achieve it, including undermining the President and our troops in time of war; for them any victory for Americans in the war against terrorism is construed as a defeat for them. [...]

In [Kerry's] thirty-year career he has demonstrated utter contempt for America, national security, constitutional republicanism, democracy, private property, and free markets. [...]

When the stakes are not high it is sometimes acceptable, even desirable, to vote for a "minor party" candidate who cannot possibly win, just to "get the word out" and to promote the ideals for which that candidate stands. But when the stakes are high, as they are in this election, it becomes imperative that one should choose, not the candidate one considers philosophically ideal, but the best one available who has the most favorable chance of winning. The forthcoming election will determine whether it is the Republicans or the Democrats that win the presidency. That is an undeniable reality. If the election is as close as it was in 2000, libertarian voters may make the difference as to who wins in various critical "Battle Ground" states and therefore the presidency itself. That is the situation in which we find ourselves in 2004. And that is why I believe voting for George W. Bush is the most libertarian thing we can do.

The whole thing is lengthy and good. While I don't agree with every word he writes (he seems a bit elitist in the passages where ne notes that "most Americans...labor under a plethora of economic fallacies and political misconceptions"), it's nice to read a one-time light of the Libertarian Party who seem to think basically the way I do on this stuff - that fighting over exactly how big the Federal budget is doesn't matter in the slightest if we lose this war. Libertarians looking for a reason to vote Bush (or not vote Kerry) should read this whole letter.

California has a plebiscite system in which propositions are placed before the people for a direct vote. Some propositions come about because the special interests involved figure it's easier than lobbying for them. Some are required - issuing bonds beyond a certain amount for some classes of spending must be directly approved by the voters, for example. At its best, the proposition system involves the electorate using the legal system to get things done that aren't in the legislature's best interest - such as combating gerrymandering or cutting property taxes. At its worst, it's special interest groups buying bread and circuses with the public's money. Unfortunately, there are a lot of propositions this year, and not many of the high-minded variety.

The CA Secretary of State has a nice, short, comprehensive guide to the propositions, if you want the opinion of someone who at least pretends to be objective.

Proposition 1A

Keeps the state from raiding local treasuries. As part of outcome of the Great California Budget Wars of 2003-2004, Sacramento looted the local treasuries of towns and counties, but the governor promised to back a referendum that would make it illegal to do it again, in the future. The real plus to this is that it keeps a lot more money locally. The downside is that it locks some stuff into the constitution (like sales tax rates) that probably don't strictly belong there. Unfortunately the argument presented against seems to boil down to "Politicians in Sacramento are more trustworthy than the ones in your hometown." Maybe you buy that, but McFreedom votes Yes on 1A.

Proposition 59

Opens government records. In addition, it instructs courts to interpret the law such that, all things being equal, decisions should be made towards allowing access. The argument against seems primarily to be that this won't do enough, but that hardly seems reason to oppose this measure. At best, this is a case of California citizens getting a better handle on their government; at worst it would do little. McFreedom votes Yes on 59.

Proposition 60

Enshrines current California primary election system in the constitution. In response to Proposition 62, a set of groups put together Proposition 60. If both pass (since they're mutually exclusive) the one that receives the most votes wins. Generally, McFreedom is opposed to arbitrarily moving legislated decisions into the constitution, but Prop 62 is so heinous that this would be much better. McFreedom votes Yes on 60.

Proposition 60A

Meaningless initiative concerning how money from property sales is spent. In a transparent attempt to try to get people to vote for 60, its authors tacked on a totally useless amendment that requires the state to use any money from sales of surplus property to pay off bonds before doing anything else. It doesn't compel the state to actually perform the sales. The courts rightly ruled that it had nothing to do with Proposition 60 and required it split into its own proposition. No one cares about this one way, or another, and its effect would be minimal at best. Because it's useless and the result of transparent pandering, McFreedom votes No on 60A.

Proposition 61

61 would raise $750 million in bond money for building Children's hospitals. The presented argument for this is obvious (who could oppose building hospitals for sick children?) but the presented argument against is worthless: We shouldn't build hospitals for children because what we really need is socialized medicine. Unfortunately, this is one of those classic California propositions where the electorate is asked to make a decision about a complex issue with basically no information. How big a need is there for this? How many kids are unserved, and how will this help? Digging into the "yes" site a a little more, it seems like a lot of this money is going to be for buying new equipment at old hospitals, not making news ones. It's unclear to me why this couldn't be paid for through the normal legislative spending process, other than that there simply isn't the money in the budget for this, right now. If there isn't money in the budget for this, we shouldn't be putting it on credit, either. McFreedom votes No on 61.

Proposition 62

Changes California to a true open primary system. Right now we have a sort-of- open primary system, in which voters may vote for any candidate, regardless of party affiliation, but parties are free to ignore the votes of anyone who is not a registered party member. So, for example, an independent can vote for a Republican in the primary, but the Republicans will simply ignore the vote. This causes a lot of people to throw away their votes in primary season, and is result of a previous initiative that tinkered with the electoral process a while back. Louisiana is the only state in the union that has an open primary system, and it has resulted in some odd races in the past. Under this regime, the top two vote getters in the primary become the only candidates at the top of the ballot in the final election. Most famously, in Louisiana, this resulted in David Duke (ex-KKK Grand Wizard) being one of the two candidates for governor. While this is widely reported, often forgotten is that the Democratic incumbent was under indictment for fraud and extortion - surely not the type of choice advocates are hoping we'll get if they implement this system, here. Supporters have a theory that it will lead to more moderate big-party candidates. The theory is that, i.e., in San Francisco, one has to be a very left-wing Democrat in order to win the primary, but the more-moderate second-place finisher might be more to the wider electorate's liking.

This measure is only going to increase the Democrat's lock on Northern California and the Republican's lock on southern. For many state-wide offices, we'll end up with two Democrats running, and this will effectively end ballot access for third parties. It's difficult to imagine this will make things better or less confusing, so McFreedom votes No on 62.

Proposition 63

The millionaire's tax. This would add a one percent tax to people who make more than one million dollars to pay for services for mental health. A classic case of "soak the rich" populism that no doubt will pass. This sets a terrible precedent and will only encourage more millionaires to declare their legal residences elsewhere; the bottom line may be less money into the state treasury, in total. McFreedom votes No on 63.

Proposition 64

Makes it harder to bring "consumer protection" lawsuits. States that, in order to sue a manufacturer under the state's "unfair business" laws, a person who actually suffered a loss must be produced, which will prevent lawyers filing lawsuits for theoretical violations of unfair business laws that didn't actually hurt anyone. McFreedom votes Yes on 64.

Proposition 65

Another orphaned proposition, 65 would control the state's ability to raid local coffers. It's been superseded by 1A, in that everyone who supported 65 now officially opposes it and encourages voters to vote for 1A. This is a hard call; it seems to be harder on the state than 1A, but the lack of argument on it makes coming to a conclusion difficult. Still, McFreedom is always in favor of restricting the state of California and sees no reason not to vote Yes on 65

Proposition 66

Limits the "three strikes" law such that the second and third strikes must not just be felonies, but be violent felonies. It also gratuitously lengthens some jail terms for certain types of sex crimes against children. Media horror stories notwithstanding, three strikes seems to be working well and doesn't need tinkering with. There is already significant prosecutor and judicial decision making available in three strikes cases. McFreedom votes No on 66.

Proposition 67

Funds emergency medial services by a surcharge on local phone service. This one seems doomed to fail, and good riddance. We have quite enough taxes for what we get, so McFreedom votes No on 67.

Proposition 68

The first Indian Gaming Proposition. This is the one that's been running the odious "fair share" campaign in its favor. You know, the "We took all the land from the Indians and committed genocide on them, and now it's time they pay their fair share" ones. This sets up extortion for the Indian Casinos - either pay 25% of your profits to the state, or we'll authorize significant competition from racetracks and card clubs. The Indian Casinos will of course do no such thing, so this is just a transparent bait and switch. People who vote for this thinking they're going to soak the Indians are going to be very surprised when the card club up the street turns into a megacasino. As this is a disgusting example of raw special interests abusing the proposition process, McFreedom votes No on 68.

Proposition 69

Sets up a DNA sample database. While setting up a database from convicted criminals might be defensible, this collects DNA from people simply arrested for some crimes, DNA which will remain in the system even after acquittal or the dropping of charges. Unlike fingerprints, significant information about a person is contained in a DNA sample, and long term we have to consider the probabilities of information about perfectly innocent people being misused. It might be possible to come up with a reasonable DNA database, but McFreedom votes No on 69.

Proposition 70

Standardizes gaming compacts. This seems to be an attempt to end-run around the Governor's office and try to get a better deal from the voters, who probably aren't familiar with the specifics. McFreedom joins Governor Schwarzenegger and votes No on 70.

Proposition 71

Stem Cell Research funding. The point of this one, obviously, is to poke a finger in the eye of George W. Bush for his refusal to fund stem cell research. Unfortunately, it's a terrible boondoggle - $3 billion in bonds which will cost $6 billion to repay. The Federal government would "normally" be funding something like $100 million per year for the whole country; this would fund $300 million per year for just California. This seems to be nothing more than a giveaway to VCs and biotech megacorporations that ought to be able to come up with their own funding. Remember that whole "budget crisis" thing? Why are we even considering spending all this money on this right now, when we can't balance the state budget as it is? While it'd be nice to give Dubya the finger on this one, McFreedom regretfully votes No on 71.

Proposition 72

Attempts to provide healthcare coverage to most Californians. It does this by requiring small and medium sized companies to offer healthcare to their employees with the employer picking up 80% of the tab, and sets up a state-run system for companies that don't. It's hard to know where to begin on the flaws with this scheme - it seems at best to back-door socialized healthcare. It will result in big bureaucracies, people losing jobs and downgrading benefits, and will increase healthcare costs across the board. McFreedom decisively votes No on 72.

The New York Times notes a web analysis that Bush's IQ may top Kerry's, this morning. I'm not terribly surprised by this - I've been estimating Bush's IQ at about 120 (the analyst quoted concluded "mid-120s" last election), and figured if Kerry's were impressive, he'd've probably released them, if not in this campaign than in a prior one.

The Times column suddenly veers off into Libertarian territory, however, noting that the Libertarians are running television ads trying to pull Bush voters off. It speculates (as I've seen others speculate) that Badnarik's insane campaign could do for Bush what Nader does for Kerry. I just don't see it. The Libertarians are anti-war. I can't imagine there are a lot of Republicans out there who are so angry about the war that they'd vote for Badnarik but not so angry they aren't already planning on voting for Kerry. I think for most Republicans the "there's no way I can vote for Kerry" point comes from his lack of seriousness on foreign policy - and, if it's possible, the Libertarians are even less serious about foreign policy than the Democrats are. Republicans who believe George W. Bush has gotten the US involved in an unwinnable foreign adventure are already going to vote for Kerry. Republicans (like me) who think Bush is socially overintrusive, and a fiscal disaster but think Iraq was good for our country's long-term security aren't going to vote Libertarian because the Libertarians are even more of a joke on Iraq than Kerry is.

Any Republicans stealable by Badnarik have already been stolen by Kerry.

So it turns out that TradeSports also has per-state markets, and an enterprising geek has written a program to automatically project the election results from them. I'm interested, in the wake of (probabably bogus) allegations of market manipulation in the national contracts, if there's a wide spread between the per-state results and the national results for some enterprising investor.

CNN is asking, in its unscientifiic (read: useless) poll, Are you happy with the choice of candidates for president? I'm not aware of a scientific poll that asks this question, but the answer could be very interesting. My hypothesis is that most people who aren't happy with the choices available are going to end up being Bush supporters.

The people who are "happy" with the candidates we have fall into one of two, basic camps: People who like Bush, and are happy with him, and people who dislike Bush but are happy with his opponent (leaving aside the small percentage of people who plan to vote for some, non-mainstream candidate). But the people who are unhappy, I think, are largely saying, "I don't like Bush. But I don't like Kerry, either." Most of the people I know who are planning on voting Bush (including your humble author) have a litany of complaints against him, but don't like Kerry, either ("not happy with" either candidate). Most of the people I know who are planning on voting for Kerry seem pretty happy with him.

So, in my unscientific survey of people I know, commenting on CNN's unscientific survey of web users, I think "I'm not happy with either candidate" translates into more votes for Bush (or more staying at home in apathy). I'd love to see a real poll that asks these questions - this might be an interesting way to drill into people who claim to be "undecided" but really in their hearts know they're going to end up voting for the President.

David Bernstein has been wondering over on the Volokh Conspiracy why many Jews "are so hostile to Republicans." His first post is fairly short, and he follows up with a longer post, today. I don't have a strong opinion about this - I don't talk politics with enough Jews to know much more than their general reputation for leftism. But I was intrigued by his remarks that many Jews think evangelical Christians tend to be anti-Semitic (from the second article, "I've had so many Jewish acquaintances tell me how anti-Semitic evangelical Christians are, despite the data to the contrary..."). I have a lot more experience with evangelical Christians, and know this is a much-assumed fact. In my personal experience, this is mistaken.

First, I have to say that these memories of evangelical Christianism date from my teenage years, in the late 80s, in Georgia and North Carolina. It's possible that the evangelical circles my parents ran in weren't "mainstream evangelical" (whatever that means) and that this theology isn't subscribed to by most evangelicals. I find the whole question of evangelical theology to be an intriguing one, in much the same way urban legends are intriguing - there is no central Authority to desiminate doctrine, so the belief system bubbles up from the bottom to a degree that isn't found in most other modern Christian denominations. So, while I have no specific reason to think these beliefs are standard, nor are they given an official stamp by any church, I did encounter these basic beliefs in several communities across the south in the 1980s.

While I'd agree with David's unnamed correspondant that evangelicals "are perceived as lacking respect for the Jewish religion" (see, for example, Jews for Jesus, much beloved in some evangelical circles), there is a significant minority that takes the Vatican II view that the Old Testament is the Jews' road to salvation while the New Testament is for everyone else. But all of these views are largely irellevant because many southern evangelicals don't know any Jews; following the decline of southern Jewish communities, many southern cities no longer have significan Jewish populations, either because of assimilation or emigration. I once heard a story of a young man moving into his first college dormitory in Charlotte, NC being advised by a friend to be careful of prospective roomates who had names that ended in "itz" because they "might be yankees," completely unaware of the racist connotations such advice would have to northeastern ears.

Within these evangelical communities with no personal Jewish experience, however, there is a substantial respect for Jews in general and Isreal in particular. The common thread for this is the biblical idea that the Jews are "God's chosen people." Southern evangelicals are very impressed by Isreal's military domination of the Middle East, and consider it only proper that would-be invaders are so thoroughly defeatred by the Isreali military. As one evangelical told me, approvingly, many years ago, if you "mess with God's chosen people, you get what's coming to you."

Evangelicalism has, of course, always had a thread of millenial thinking. The "end times" and their nearness are a constant theme, and there is a significant branch of evangelical Christianity that believes that the Temple on the Mount must be rebuilt (among other prerequisites), and who support the state of Isreal as a pre-apocolyptic condition for Jesus' return to the Earth.

Now, certainly, as in any community there are bigots who don't like people of other groups, I'm not trying to say no evangelical hates Jews. But, in my experience, as the Jews have become less of a presence and more of a construct in southern society, the evangelicals have largely embraced them - if only for their utility in fulfilling their ideas of God's prophecy.

Alright, I know it's an entertainment piece and unconsequential, but what's with this AP story about John Cleese's new wine special? There aren't many facts in the piece, but one of them is wrong, and obviously wrong to almost anyone that lives in California (you know, like thirty-five million people): "...Cleese told The Associated Press in a phone interview from his Santa Barbara, Calif. home -- which is nestled close to the state's wine country." Yeah, like Charlotte, NC is "nestled close" to Washington, DC. It's nearly 400 miles from Santa Barbara to Napa!

East-coasters often fail to understand just how big California is. No doubt the reporter that wrote this story assumed that anything in California is "nestled close to the state's wine country." I remember, not long after I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, a colleague from New York state called to say he was coming out for a conference, and that perhaps we could get together for dinner, one night. "Great," I told him. Where are you staying?" "Well, the conference is in Los Angeles," he replied. When I pointed out that LA is a six hour drive, at the very least, he lost interest in getting together one night. There's a reason why the nation's premiere discount airline is called Southwest - there's a lot of space between cities out here.

Just yet another example of the phenomenon that I've never seen a story I knew the particulars of and haven't seen a significant error of comission or omission. If you think about it, you probably can say the same. Which makes you wonder how many errors there are in every single story you read that you don't know the particulars of...

I wasn't aware of the controversy over Christopher Columbus' grave. Apparently, however, both the Dominican Republic and Seville, Spain "boast ornate graves that purport to hold his remains." Apparently Sr. Columbus wanted to be buried in the New World, but there wasn't a church big enough, so they ended up shipping his body all over the place and the Dominicans claim that when the Spanish shipped his body to Cuba in the 1800s the wrong box was shipped. The Dominicans took what they say are the real ones, buried them, and now claim them as their own.

All of this is brought up again because a research team dug up the Spanish Columbus and are testing the DNA of the bone shards they found against the DNA of bodies known to be relatives of the explorer. The interesting thing is that there is so little left that they basically can't tell with today's technology. Which leads me to wonder - if there isn't enough of him left to test, does it really matter if he's buried in that grave or not? I mean other than as a historical footnote?

I actually have no opinion on this subject, as I'm not familiar with the arguments against letting felons vote. My wife, the other night, all of the sudden wondered, out of the blue, if felons can't vote, doesn't that mean a big chunk of the inner city can't vote? I told her that I knew some Democratic activists were worried about it, but that I hadn't researched it, and didn't know the arguments. Today the AP has a story about how Coretta Scott King (MLK's widow) is is calling to allow felons vote. Which is fine; as I said, I don't know the arguments against it. My complaint is that I read the article hoping to find out even the basics of "why not," and all I get is Ms. King saying "Something is very wrong with laws that prevent any citizen from experiencing his or her democratic right, even when they have paid their debt to society." Which may be correct, or may not. But the AP can't even find a single person to quote who thinks felons shouldn't vote?

Edit: Not that I think anyone saw, but, just in case. :) I briefly added, then removed, a paragraph speculating on the demographics of felons, then decided I wanted to research some more before I open my mouth...

I hesitate to even link to The Belmont Club - surely everyone reads him by now - but I really enjoyed this line in his most recent essay, about complaints that George W. Bush's plans won't bring complete victory, soon enough vs. John Kerry's "certain to fail" plan: "We can only say 'faster please' when the car is not in reverse."