Voting tomorrow
Nov. 6th, 2006 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zdashamberUgh. One of the things I was meaning to do before going to ACNW was investigate the election... Before getting to a report on the con, I oughtta do the time-sensitive post.
The only things I'm really keen on this time are voting for Phil Angelides, Oakland auditor Courtney Ruby, and Oakland Measure N; and voting against Proposition 85.
The 85 thing speaks exactly to why I'm happy about Angelides. 85 is the "parental notification" thing, the clone of Prop 73, which we shot down just one year ago. It came up for a fair vote last November, it lost. But the Republicans are all about wasting our fucking money again and again to shine their egos with elections. And this fucking "leftover Tuesday" proposition demonstrates that they think the special election was something trivial.
A lot of people have forgotten Schwartzenegger's waste of a year and billions calling an election to shine his ego. Which followed on his waste of a year when he was trying for his ignorant-ass campaign promise of filling the huge hole in the California budget by "hunting out waste in government." Guess what, dumbshit? You were off by four orders of magnitude! And then you put it all on a credit card like a rich guy who's not going to be alive in 40 years. I remember. It's not really a win.
So, I'm really happy that Angelides is running on a platform of actually paying for the government we get. Hell yeah, raise taxes to balance the budget! Like Jim Henley says, if we actually paid for the government we use, maybe we'd spend a bit more time thinking about whether we really want it.
And I'm not worried about Democratic hegemony. I've been watching the bills Schwartzenegger vetoed, and I don't think it'd be a big problem to have textbooks that included gay people, or a minimum wage tied to the CPI.
Lessee; Ruby I'm happy about because she's done auditing in the business/nonprofit world, and she seems to have her head on straight... Meanwhile, the other guy is a crazy fool who says he can't get anything done because the council cut his staff, and so he sued the city, while meanwhile his staff is suing him for sexual harassment. Lord.
Measure N: Yay! The new library plan looks awesome, it's 3 blocks from Lake Merritt BART and a bunch of parks and housing... Huge skylight! Floors of books! Meeting rooms! Nice old building! Some money for other libraries, too. Where is the lack of awesome? Well, there are some saying "Oew, it will raise my property tax by 1% of the purchase price of my house!" Why don't you fucking cry about it? You come buy a house in Oakland because it's "cheap" compared to everywhere else in the Bay Area, which still means that you paid at least 400K, which is more than most anyone here can afford. Time to start addressing part of the reason things are so cheap: there aren't so many nice places to go to study or hang out. Leads to people doing stupid stuff to occupy their time.
Also, I want a library, and soaking the rich is kindof an easy sell for me.
As for the rest of the people elections, I'll probably go straight Democrat... After all, a Republican vote is a vote for what those assholes in Washington have been doing. A couple exceptions to straight Democrat: Insurance Commissioner, because Bustamente impressed me with his slime in the recall. The Libertarian is a whackjob, but hell, it would be a interesting test position for a whacked-out Libertarian, and he does work in the insurance field. For Assembly, I'm voting for Edward Ytuarte, the guy who isn't Sandre Swanson. Swanson's only selling point is "I'm a part of the machine already, even though I've never held public office (or a real job)! Look at me on the side of this photo of people at the Port deal, which I sorta helped with when one of my friends handed me the plum assignment!" I've seen that photo about four times, and nothing else. Too bad the gay Filipino from Alameda didn't make the first cut... I really liked him.
For the non-people elections, I haven't studied much, so the obvious solution is No On Everything. Um... 1B, 1D, and 1E look decent, particularly 1E, the "fix the levees" bond. 84 (more "fix the levees") looks ok, 86 ("tax the cigarettes") I'm on the edge; on one hand, more money coming into the state is good, and higher prices would be pressure to quit; on the other, it probably would increase smuggling. 87 ("tax the oil companies"), same deal. 88 ("parcel tax for schools") seems all messy: the arguments on the pro side make me unhappy, but the arguments on the con side gladden me. Con: Exempting the elderly? How would that be done? Sounds like a lot of bureaucracy for little effect. Pro: Not earmarked? Cool. Opportunity of raising it in many future elections? Neat, it can reflect what people want then.
For local non-people, I'm also kinda happy about O, IRV in Oakland. Cheaper because there will be no primary in June, and I'm curious how it would work out. M, I have no idea what the hell it's about, and probably won't even vote on it, since I'm not sure what a No means.
Return the favor and tell me what you think about these things, eh?
The only things I'm really keen on this time are voting for Phil Angelides, Oakland auditor Courtney Ruby, and Oakland Measure N; and voting against Proposition 85.
The 85 thing speaks exactly to why I'm happy about Angelides. 85 is the "parental notification" thing, the clone of Prop 73, which we shot down just one year ago. It came up for a fair vote last November, it lost. But the Republicans are all about wasting our fucking money again and again to shine their egos with elections. And this fucking "leftover Tuesday" proposition demonstrates that they think the special election was something trivial.
A lot of people have forgotten Schwartzenegger's waste of a year and billions calling an election to shine his ego. Which followed on his waste of a year when he was trying for his ignorant-ass campaign promise of filling the huge hole in the California budget by "hunting out waste in government." Guess what, dumbshit? You were off by four orders of magnitude! And then you put it all on a credit card like a rich guy who's not going to be alive in 40 years. I remember. It's not really a win.
So, I'm really happy that Angelides is running on a platform of actually paying for the government we get. Hell yeah, raise taxes to balance the budget! Like Jim Henley says, if we actually paid for the government we use, maybe we'd spend a bit more time thinking about whether we really want it.
And I'm not worried about Democratic hegemony. I've been watching the bills Schwartzenegger vetoed, and I don't think it'd be a big problem to have textbooks that included gay people, or a minimum wage tied to the CPI.
Lessee; Ruby I'm happy about because she's done auditing in the business/nonprofit world, and she seems to have her head on straight... Meanwhile, the other guy is a crazy fool who says he can't get anything done because the council cut his staff, and so he sued the city, while meanwhile his staff is suing him for sexual harassment. Lord.
Measure N: Yay! The new library plan looks awesome, it's 3 blocks from Lake Merritt BART and a bunch of parks and housing... Huge skylight! Floors of books! Meeting rooms! Nice old building! Some money for other libraries, too. Where is the lack of awesome? Well, there are some saying "Oew, it will raise my property tax by 1% of the purchase price of my house!" Why don't you fucking cry about it? You come buy a house in Oakland because it's "cheap" compared to everywhere else in the Bay Area, which still means that you paid at least 400K, which is more than most anyone here can afford. Time to start addressing part of the reason things are so cheap: there aren't so many nice places to go to study or hang out. Leads to people doing stupid stuff to occupy their time.
Also, I want a library, and soaking the rich is kindof an easy sell for me.
As for the rest of the people elections, I'll probably go straight Democrat... After all, a Republican vote is a vote for what those assholes in Washington have been doing. A couple exceptions to straight Democrat: Insurance Commissioner, because Bustamente impressed me with his slime in the recall. The Libertarian is a whackjob, but hell, it would be a interesting test position for a whacked-out Libertarian, and he does work in the insurance field. For Assembly, I'm voting for Edward Ytuarte, the guy who isn't Sandre Swanson. Swanson's only selling point is "I'm a part of the machine already, even though I've never held public office (or a real job)! Look at me on the side of this photo of people at the Port deal, which I sorta helped with when one of my friends handed me the plum assignment!" I've seen that photo about four times, and nothing else. Too bad the gay Filipino from Alameda didn't make the first cut... I really liked him.
For the non-people elections, I haven't studied much, so the obvious solution is No On Everything. Um... 1B, 1D, and 1E look decent, particularly 1E, the "fix the levees" bond. 84 (more "fix the levees") looks ok, 86 ("tax the cigarettes") I'm on the edge; on one hand, more money coming into the state is good, and higher prices would be pressure to quit; on the other, it probably would increase smuggling. 87 ("tax the oil companies"), same deal. 88 ("parcel tax for schools") seems all messy: the arguments on the pro side make me unhappy, but the arguments on the con side gladden me. Con: Exempting the elderly? How would that be done? Sounds like a lot of bureaucracy for little effect. Pro: Not earmarked? Cool. Opportunity of raising it in many future elections? Neat, it can reflect what people want then.
For local non-people, I'm also kinda happy about O, IRV in Oakland. Cheaper because there will be no primary in June, and I'm curious how it would work out. M, I have no idea what the hell it's about, and probably won't even vote on it, since I'm not sure what a No means.
Return the favor and tell me what you think about these things, eh?