Linkstew

Gay marriage up to governor now / Landmark legislation clears Assembly by narrowest of margins on second try - Wow, awesome. And now it would be time to call or write Arnie.

Update: VETO = Sad, but it's not over yet. Mail Arnold anyway if you haven't already.

Blink. I almost completely overlooked this because of everything else going on, but wow. State senate OKs bill legalizing same-sex marriage / Measure faces uphill battle in the Assembly.

Of course, it still needs to get through the assembly. If you live somewhere in California besides the Bay Area (and even then), now seems like a good time to call your representative in the assembly.

Alternately: "I can last 4 more years, but I don't know about my liver."

I now have a t-shirt that says "Nov 4, 2008," and I kind of want a shirt of a blue picture of California.

However, I'm undecided on which phrasing of this joke I prefer:

1. All this talk of a "GOP mandate" is a little scary. Three percent isn't a mandate... Some hot Bush/Cheney action? Now *that'd* be a mandate.
2. I'm a little confused about all this talk of a "mandate." Didn't 11 states just ban those? Don't get me wrong, though: I think a little Bush/Cheney lovin' would do them good.

California On-line Voter Registration

Remember, if you've moved this year you need to re-register to vote. Fill out this form, and they'll mail you a form you simply sign and return. While you're at it, register as a permanent absentee voter, mail your vote in from home, and cut diebold out of the loop.

One night last week, I came home to find I had what was clearly an envelope containing a check from the State of California waiting for me in the mail. For a minute I was really confused, wondering if it was a really late tax refund or something. But upon opening the envelope, I found it to be a $271 refund check for my car registration, at the governator's executive order.

Y'know... I would have been perfectly happy to let California keep that money. I'm sure they could have done plenty with it... They could have put it towards education, just to pick an example. But now that they've already bothered to give it back, I'll take it. It's not going to do anything to make me like Ahnold any, though. At this rate, it'll probably end up paying for my gas.

I really need a job where I don't have to drive to work.

I got my license plates today, and I'm fairly disappointed. The plate's letter block is fairly boring... But I guess I can feel some limited satisfaction in getting to sneak around the state's restriction that "The number '69' is reserved for 1969 year model vehicles" for vanity plates, and as long as we're looking at it that way, I guess the "4" on my plate is about the best possible number that I could have before the "69."

Arnold Unplugged - It's hasta la vista to $9 billion if the Governator is selected

Well, it's not like I was going to vote for Arnold anyway, but I fear this will just be too little too late -- much like the late-game drunk driving news about Bush that didn't save us.

Me, balanced on the edge of the north-bound San Antonio CalTrain platform, squinting across the tracks at the newspaper machines on the other side, trying to read the Chronicle headline of "Campaigns in turmoil -- immediate appeals vowed."

Taco Bell cashes in on recall fervor

Okay, this is just insanity, but in this case, it's probably going to be about as accurate as the "real" polls. There's just too much going on to actually try to predict what's going to happen, I think. Also, someone ought to try instant run-off polls, to see if it would provide any data in support of instant run-off voting.

Georgy Tells Why She Should Be California Gov (/. interview)

Okay, this interview just made me want to vote for her even more. Her answer to the vi/emacs question proves that she's a girl after my own heart, and while I was disappointed that she didn't have an answer for the dselect question, the question itself did make me laugh out loud.

Wow, this recall election is going to be crazy. And even if she weren't a cute Berkeley CS graduate, I'd consider voting Georgy for Governer.

Oh, and just to respond to her question of "I continue to be misquoted, and to have my quotes taken out of context. What's up with that?!" that she asked on her blog:

That's politics. What did you think you were getting yourself into? A clean fight?

I wish her luck, and I'll decide whether or not I'm going to vote for her once the election is a little closer. At the very least, she's worth checking out.

Oh, and don't forget the standard disclaimer of "don't forget to register to vote, especially if you've moved recently, etc." The election is October 7th.

Yesterday when I stopped in Noah's, I saw this article about five A's players living in a shared house on the front page of the Chronicle. I liked the idea of five baseball players making plenty of money and yet still living together and playing video games enough that I bothered to dig up the article online so I could read it. It made me stop and say, "Hey, look, maybe they're just some ordinary guys, just like me."

Actually, that was a rather timely article, given the sparse attendance at the Coliseum in the first two games of the division series. It's the sort of human interest piece that might just succeed in boosting attendance at tomorrow's game 5.

And now that I have something to identify with, I want them to win even more tomorrow. Pity they kinda got rocked by the Twins today...

And now that I think about it more, if the A's, the Angels, and the Giants all win their division series, California's practically begging for an earthquake.