California

My blogging will be at a minimum for at least two weeks. My family is going off to visit my family in California! My son has been counting the days til we leave since August 1st. We are half packed and ready to leave tomorrow. Tomorrow will be airline hell, but by Tuesday I will be happily settling into my California relaxation mode.

I used to love flying. Now, if it wasn't for my family living across the country, I'd avoid flying like the plague. Between Homeland Security's ineffectual but degradingly insulting measures and the airline's incresasingly petty fees and service cuts, the fun has been totally sucked out of air travel, leaving nothing but a husk of misery, anger and bitterness. I used to travel with a smile and just enjoy the ride. Now I fly with a tight lipped sense of dread. Thank you very much airlines. You suck and your suckiness gets worse year after year.

I have been pushing some candidates in California for a couple of weeks, mainly Progressive Majority endorsed candidates. In the June 3rd primary election, those candidates did very well.

First off is a race for Superior Court Judge (office 125) where I covered the rather shocking news that a white supremicist, Bill Johnson, was running for judge as a Democrat. The good news is that Bill Johnson lost. His opponent, James Bianco, won with more than 73% of the vote. The main down side is nearly 25% of DEMOCRATIC voters in the district voted for a white supremicist. This in no way suggests those voters are white supremicists. It shows that so few people actually pay attention to the judicial races that they cluelessly vote for a white supremicist probably because they liked his name better. This is why you will find me publicizing judicial races as often as I can using as much information as I can: people need to know more about who they are electing as judges.

Now we come to the Progressive Majority endorsed candidates. They did well. Of the nine candidates, two lost, one outright won, and six advance to a runoff. Here are the full results:

State Representative

Bob Blumenfield
State Representative - District 40

Tomorrow, Tuesday June 3rd there is a primary election in California. Progressive Majority have some candidates running who need your support. But before I get to that I want to highlight a judicial election for Los Angeles Superior Court judge. There is actually a white supremicist named Bill Johnson running who needs to be soundly defeated. I urge all readers in that district to vote for James Bianco for Los Angeles Superior Court judge. And Thanks to a blogger on MyDD for this tip. Now on to the main list of candidates.

Here is a list of candidates running in California who have been endorsed by Progressive Majority):

Marty Block
Candidate for State Assembly - District 78 (Open Seat)
San Diego County

On June 3rd there is a primary election in California. Primaries are our chance to make the Democratic Party more progressive, an opportunity too often missed. Progressive Majority is an organization that recruits, trains and helps elect progressive democrats in local elections. They have one of the best success rates of any progressive grassroots organizations (about 50%) and recently won big in Arizona and Wisconsin.

Progressive Majority have some candidates running in California on June 3rd who need your support. Here is a list of candidates running in California who have been endorsed by Progressive Majority):

Marty Block
Candidate for State Assembly - District 78 (Open Seat)
San Diego County

Now that the California Supreme Court (all but ONE of whose judges were appointed by Republican Governors, mind you) has declared marriage equality Constituional, we can congratulate George Takei (better known as Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek) and Brad Altman for their upcoming marriage.

Photo from George Takei.com.

I should note that when non-controversial (which often means "safe-seeming to your Average American) do controversial things, it breaks barriers better than when controversial people do controversial things. The death of Rock Hudson from AIDS made it acceptable in America to die of AIDS. That may sound strange to many, but before Rock Hudson died of AIDS, I remember many people who died suddenly "after an illness" and no one would dare speak the name of the illness. It may have been Magic Johnson who made it okay to LIVE with AIDS in America, but Rock Hudson taught America to accept AIDS as something we didn't have to speak of in mere whispers.

Eco Build America
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 12:00 AM
Anaheim Convention Center
800 W. Katella Ave.
Anaheim , CA 92803

Whether you are an Architect, Engineer, Contractor, Facility Manager, Gov't employee, Contractor, Specifier, IT Professional, Building Owner, or just an interested consumer, come learn about the latest products and technologies for green building.

Ecobuild America
Sustainable, Green, and High-Performance Solutions for the Built Environment

Ecobuild America represents your best opportunity to capitalize on the most comprehensive offerings of built environment resources under one roof:

- Explore the latest in sustainability, spanning local to global perspectives
- Uncover best practices in environmental design
- Review new advances in green building products and techniques
- Meet officials representing Building & Construction budgets and projects
- Discover how to apply your expertise to government projects and expand your client base
- See and hear from world-renown and industry experts in Keynote Presentations and in 100+ educational sessions
- Network with product manufacturers and service providers
- Benefit from your whole building team assembling in one location

Eco Build America openly invites all industry organizations, experts and career professionals to provide you and your building team with comprehensive exposure to all aspects of:

Fight Hunger in San Francisco - Volunteer at the San Francisco Food Bank
When: Saturday, April 12th 2008, at 12:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Where: San Francisco Food Bank
900 Pennsylvania Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94107

Host: San Francisco Young Democrats and Democrats Work
Contact: info_at_democratswork.org

Join Democrats Work and the San Francisco Young Democrats at the San Francisco Food Bank on Saturday, April 12th from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Our work will mean that thousands of pounds of food will be distributed at meal and pantry programs throughout the city.

Be sure to wear your Democrats Work t-shirts!

Sustainable Mini-Farming Workshop, Willits, California.
February 29-March 2

The weekend workshop will consist of lectures, discussion, and demonstration on soil preparation, sustainable soil fertility, fertilization, compost, compost crops, efficient resource use, crops for full nutrition, and crops for income. Contact: Margo Royer-Miller, Ecology Action, margoroyer-miller@growbiointensive.org, (707) 459-0150.

Howard Dean put it this way: "You have the power!"

His brother, Jim Dean, now head of Democracy for America, put it this way: "We have to take ownership of the process."

Since the highly flawed 2000 election, progressives have slowly, ever so slowly been waking up to the need for taking ownership of the political process. At first, in all honesty, we were pretty lame at it at first. As recently as 2005 I saw the progressive grassroots, at least in NYC, largely unable to get its act together in any effective way. But by 2006 we started to see real results from what began in 2000.

The extreme right wing of the Republican Party took some 30 years to take nearly complete control of our political system. They did it by patiently and doggedly focusing on every elected position, no matter how low, in every state. They did it by repeating their agenda, their talking points over and over until people started absorbing it without even realizing it. They did it by taking over the media, station by station, newspaper by newspaper. They did it by focusing on LOCAL politics.

Progressives had lost that connection with local politics. But they have been rediscovering it. And that has led to a wave of new organizations that are revitalizing grassroots politics and reconnecting Democrats with their local community, a connection that should never have been lost.

Democracy for America, Wellstone Action, Blue Tiger Democrats, and Progressive Majority are, each in their own way, probably the most effective of these new organizations. Each has its own focus, its own strategy, and collectively they are making a real impact.

I AM SURPRISED, in all honesty, that this is not linked in more places. In my opinion, people who believe in the Democratic process (and I'm not even sure how much I do, anymore, especially given events like this which seem to happen over and over) would be incensed that the Registrar in charge of Los Angeles County would acknowledge that 94,000 votes, thats NINETY-FOUR THOUSAND VOTES will not be counted. Votes that were cast. By humans! Who thought their will would factor into the Democratic process! Who the hell is this person to assert that their votes are meaningless?

Perhaps you remember the recent post I did on this voting trouble in Califas. Here's the follow-up.

A short time ago I predicted California will go for Hillary Clinton, though perhaps narrowly enough that the delegate split will be pretty close. Well, developments may prove me wrong. Obama has an increasing shot at California.

With California a statistical dead heat between Obama and Hillary, three endorsements could put Obama over to victory. The Los Angeles Times, La Opinion...and now Maria Shriver (the Governor's wife) all have endorsed Barak Obama. Shriver's endorsement comes unexpectedly when she showed up at a rally at UCLA.

I have been putting my money on Hillary even as I endorsed Obama. The recent wave of endorsements all over the nation means I consider it now even odds. There is no longer a front runner. Obama has caught up. Tuesday will tell whether Hillary's more traditional, and, I assure you, very effective ground game will pull it off or Obama's momentum and ever expanding coalition will win. Either way, this is what making history looks like.

I have said it once and I am going to say it again : The people a candidate attracts matters. It matters if a candidate is willing to look the other way at their supporters' willingness to pick up the slack and run the dirty politics for them. And such is the vibe that I have gotten from the Clintons' supporters way before Hillary announced her candidacy. They want the dynasty. They want the twofer. By all means necessary.

So it's no wonder there's this coming from the Clinton side of the political aisle :

"That's when I caught on," said Coghlan. He realized then that he was being push-polled. That malicious political virus that is designed not to elicit answers but to spread positive information about one candidate and negative information about all others under the guise of an honest poll had arrived in Southern California within days of the important election.

It could become an issue in the closing hours of the campaign.

Someone who obviously favors Hillary Clinton is paying an unidentified company to spread this material phone call by phone call among independent voters, who can, according to California party rules, opt to vote in the Democratic but not the Republican primary on Feb. 5, when nearly two dozen states will choose a large chunk of the delegates to t

2008 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings
"Scaling Up: Building Tomorrow's Solutions"

August 17–22, 2008 • Asilomar Conference Center • Pacific Grove, California

Conference Co-Chairs:

Michael Baechler, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Rich Brown, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The 2008 ACEEE Summer Study is the 14th biennial ACEEE conference on Energy Efficiency in Buildings and will be held August 17–22, 2008. A diverse group of energy efficiency professionals from around the world will gather at this pre-eminent meeting to discuss the technological basis for, and practical implementation of, reducing energy use in buildings. Presentations and discussions will relate to the theme, "Scaling Up: Building Tomorrow's Solutions." What started out at the Summer Study nearly three decades ago as a fringe activity is now mainstream: energy efficiency in buildings. Energy efficiency now represents our best hope to avoid the worst consequences of global warming and energy resource depletion. But to achieve this potential, the energy efficiency "engine" has to be greatly expanded. New programs, technologies, and financing sources need to be developed. A new generation of energy efficiency practitioners, researchers, and policymakers needs to be trained and deployed to solve the problems we face. Do you have ideas about how to make this happen? Come share your ideas and engage in dialogue about these issues at the 2008 Summer Study. Exchange ideas with some of the leading thinkers, visionaries, and luminaries in the field while experiencing the magnificent natural setting that is Asilomar.

Joy, Jacob and I travelled to California in December to visit my family. Even after 10 years in NYC, I still miss living in California. I am so much more relaxed and happy in California. Sure, NYC is more exciting and it is far easier to get around without a car in NYC, which I greatly appreciate. But Los Angeles is still my favorite city to live in, with the possible exception of Kyoto which was WONDERFUL to live in as well.

Got a lot to blog about that trip, including some restaurant reviews. But first I want to blog about car rentals. Joy and I don't own a car, but we rent whenever we need a car. Whenever we can, we rent a green alternative kind of car. Which means slowly we are gaining personal experience with several kinds of car rentals in Los Angeles...and many options are available elsewhere.

We are willing to spend somewhat extra for a green car, particularly since you save money on gas. But sometimes the difference in cost is too much, so we just rent a regular car with good gas milage. But I always feel better when we can rent an actual green car.

This last trip we rented a biodiesel through a company based in Hawaii that specializes in biodiesal Volkswagen rentals. The company is called bio-beetle. We rented a Jetta, not the eponymous bio-Beetle. Jacob loved calling our car "The Bio-Jetta," and would greet it every time we got in, "Hi Bio-Jetta!"

Joy and I are taking a surprise trip to California to visit my family. My mother is getting on in years and has been ailing a bit. She's recovering, but I figure I should make sure she and my son have plenty of chances to interact. My son already has a special place for "Grandma" and I want to encourage that. Hopefully they have years to establish a bond, but they won't if we don't visit when we have the chance.

So, California is on my mind and, inevitably with me, where we plan on eating is on my mind. Which may lead to a few restaurant reviews...

Tito's Tacos
11222 Washington Pl
Culver City, CA 90230
(cross st. Sepulveda)

Cheap, delicious Mexican fast food.

When I first took my wife to meet my family in Los Angeles (her first time in California ever...for the record, everyone I have shown around Los Angeles likes it...) I explained there were certain things I just HAD to do, certain places I HAD to eat. Among them was an early trip to Tito's Tacos. This is a place that is on the way from the airport if you are heading into the bulk of the city, so it was high the list for first stop off the plane. She seemed a bit unclear why a stop at a random taco stand was a MUST for visting Los Angeles, but she took my word for it.

The second time she visited Los Angeles, I hadn't even mentioned what we should or shouldn't do. Our goal was organizing our wedding and all other considerations were pushed aside in my mind. As we got to our rental car and started the engines, Joy turned to me and said, "Tito's Tacos, right?" It had become HER first MUST do in Los Angeles. All it had taken was that first introduction and she was as hooked as I had been from years of addiction.

Out in California the Republicans are DESPERATELY trying to split California's electoral college votes because they KNOW they are unlikely to be winning many elections in the near future if the election is fair. Of course they aren't willing to do it the fair way which would be to reform the system across the country. But fairness is not what they care about. Greed is all they care about.

This initiative was started by a Missouri Republican (so it isn't even a home grown California initiative) who had previously been fined by a court for ass-biting. Makes you wonder about Republicans when California Republicans follow an ass-biter from Missouri. But it seems that they are having big problems convincing people to sign their petitions because Californians have woken up to the fact that this initiative would make California irrelavent in Presidential elections. So they have been trying to con people into signing their petitions by hiding it behind a petition to provide funding for children with cancer. Once they get someone signing the cancer initiative, they try to slip in the election stealing initiative.

And yet they STILL can't get enough signatures. They have missed the filing deadline for the signatures. But they don't care...they think they can keep gathering signatures and file late and get away with it.

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 6th is election day. If progressives want a solid voice in American politics we gotta influence elections. And off-year, low voter turnout elections like what is coming up TUESDAY NOVEMBER 6TH are the best chances for progressives to affect the outcome.

I now turn to some California endorsements from Democracy for America's Silicon Valley group and from Progressive Majority, one of the most successful grassroots organizations around.

First, Silicon Valley: (with links)

Los Altos City Council

* Randall Hull (also endorsed by the California League of Conservation Voters and Sierra Club)

Palo Alto City Council

* Pat Burt
* Dan Dykwel
* Sid Espinoza
* Yiawey Yeh (also endorsed by Sierra Club and California League of Conservation Voters)

Palo Alto Unified School District
( vote for three only )

* Claude Exran
* Wynn Hauser
* Barbara Klausner
* Camille Townsend

Sunnyvale City Council

This was supposed to be published a couple of days ago but never appeared.

Well, when people were saying that the California Electoral Vote Initiative (which had been pushed on California by an Ass-Biting (literally) Republican from Missouri) had died a well deserved death, I predicted it would be back. Well, the Republican Ass-Biter initiative to steal elections is indeed back, as reported on Daily Kos.

This initiative basically messes with the electoral system without fixing it. This kind of change either has to be done in EVERY state, or not at all. Anything else is just unfair and inappropriate and contrary to our founding father's intentions with te electoral college system. Now many would rather abolish the electoral college system. That would be fine too. But to manipulate it for partisan reasons is just plain wrong.

Contact your state representatives (Dem AND Repub...including Arnold himself...this is a FAIRNESS issue). And contact your local news media to give them your opinion of this unfair messing with California's electoral vote that came from Missouri

I have a friend looking for work in the corporate world. It's been rough, one of the reasons being she is competing for work with people at least 20 years younger than her.

We were musing about how far away we are from realizing the middle class dream of a steady and retirable job as well as that house in the suburban sky. Compared to our parents, our education far exceeds them; yet when it comes to actual middle class accomplishments, boy are we lacking.

Then I read this :

Foreclosures Spurring Blight In Central Valley

[...]
As California house prices soared, cities in San Joaquin County attracted buyers priced out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Developers built more than 30,000 new homes in the last six years. But with the spike in adjustable mortgage rates the flood of buyers turned into a flood of defaults - 11,000 in the county in the past 18 months.

Not long ago an overgrown area with a murky pool that Blackstone toured was someone's backyard paradise, but now foreclosure has taken it all away. There and at hundreds of other properties across the county, even the swimming pool has become a hazard - a source of mosquitoes and West Nile Virus.

County workers who used to patrol swamps and streams now do their work in neglected back yards.

It gets worse though. Those who believed they could gamble their future on a no-down no-interest loan that would balloon 5, 10 or 15 years down the road are now gone. As in war, it's the survivors who stay behind to cope with the neverending pain left by the wounds of the mortage meltdown :

Straight from fangoria.com, look out for this new film that's in the works. A good friend Bryonn Bain, New York lawyer-activist-poet and now actor plays a key role in this movie. We're all very proud to see his talents rise up to the big screen. . .

With Jim (SKINWALKERS) Isaac’s latest horror romp PIG HUNT wrapped, the director sent Fango a slew of exclusive pics from the flick, which details the exploits of a massive (and massively) homicidal boar known as “The Ripper” and the various eccentric denizens of the remote northern California town it terrorizes. Bloody good stuff, to be sure, and PIG HUNT screenwriter/co-producer Robert Mailer Anderson assures us there will be even more on display in the finished film.

“One of the goals of PIG HUNT is to examine death, and why people kill, so there will be a fair amount of gore,” Anderson tells Fango, “but it isn’t ‘torture porn.’ PIG HUNT is old-school terror, like DELIVERANCE or STRAW DOGS—except, of course,” he notes playfully, “for the ‘Abu Ghraib’ setpiece, and our 3,000-pound wild hog, and the dead emus, and the decapitation, and the gunplay.”

Filmed from April 23-June 6 in Boonville, CA “and three days in San Francisco, including a day at Kerner Optical [formerly ILM Special Effects],” PIG HUNT also employed the talents of 2nd-unit director Justin Sundquist and “action heroes Spiro [MANIAC COP 2] Razatos and Igor [BOURNE ULTIMATUM] Meglic, who made our ROAD WARRIOR-esque action sequences doubly intense,” Anderson says. “Rex Reddick rode his dirt bike like a man possessed, or a meth addict redneck hell-bent on revenge—like the script called for!”

Brief moment of computer time. Thankfully I have been paying little attention to news and mostly relaxing. Spent several days staying with friends in the Hollywood Hills (in a house that originally belonged to D. W. Griffith) now with relatives in Santa Barbara.

I hear Fred Thompson, supposedly the savior of the Republican's chances for the White House, has hit some rough waters. No real surprise, of course. It's going to be a rough ride for ALL the candidates, particularly the Republicans who have to somehow appeal to an America sick to death of Bush but also appeal to the base that is so fanatically right wing they practically are from another culture altogether.

Would love to write about one of the people I know in Santa Barbara who was one of the veteran reporters fired (perhaps illegally) from the Santa Barbara News-Press by the nut-case rich bitch publisher Wendy McCaw, but it isn't my story. For those who want to see how a dumb rich idiot can spoil a Pulitzer prize winning newspaper, I refer you to Craig Smith's blog and to a recent biting letter from Lou Cannon (Cannon's letter is a PDF). This whole thing was blowing up last year when I visited California, but I had forgotten about it until hearing the latest from my friends here. My connection is now free lance because of McCaw's purge. One can find some sense of justice in the fact that McCaw is driving her newspaper into the ground as readership drops precipitously, but that doesn't help the many men and women whose livelihoods have been ruined or at least hurt by her utter stupidity. Again, I defer to the above sources for details. But it has been on my mind.

Questioning Capital Punishment
the Nation by BRUCE SHAPIRO
[posted online on December 24, 2006]

In the long, contentious history of capital punishment in America, there has never been a moment like this: Over just a few days in mid-December, judges in California and Maryland and the governor of Florida shut down any pending
executions in those states--all because of rapidly growing doubts about the humanity and constitutionality of lethal injection. In less than a week, 1,052 death-row inmates were thrust at least temporarily beyond reach of the
needle.

At first glance, the impact of each of these death penalty moratoria might seem limited. In Florida on December 16, Governor Jeb Bush suspended executions and set up a commission to study lethal-injection procedures, after the grotesque death of Angel Nieves three days earlier: The three-drug cocktail supposed to sedate Nieves and kill him painlessly and quickly instead left the inmate conscious, grimacing in pain and struggling for breath. It took half an hour and a second round of injections before the
spectacle ended.

In California, US District Judge Jeremy Fogel declared that state's execution protocols rife with irregularities In particular, Fogel raised serious questions about whether "certain inmates
have been conscious" when injected with heart-stopping drugs, suffering "unconscionable" pain and anguish.

This just in from Campaign to End the Death Penalty:

Groups Opposed to Executions Applaud Ruling on Lethal Injection

Activists agree that the procedure is broken but disagree that the
execution process can be fixed.

Oakland, CA, December 15, 2006:

Anti-death penalty activists spoke out Friday in response to the ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel stating that the State of
California's lethal injection protocol is unconstitutional.

The lethal injection process amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, according to Crystal Bybee, the California Coordinator of the Campaign
to End the Death Penalty. "We have been saying that lethal injection is cruel and unusual," said Bybee. "The hearings that Judge Fogel conducted showed the serious issues involved and the possibility of prisoners being conscious during the painful procedure. But the bigger picture is that no matter what the mix of chemicals, all executions are cruel and unusual. Judge Fogel is right that the lethal injection process is broken, but is wrong in thinking that it can be fixed."

Individuals who have witnessed executions attest to the fact that these executions are not simple, painless procedures. Barbara Becnel, advocate for Stanley Tookie Williams, witnessed Williams' execution on December 13, 2005. The execution, which Becnel calls "torture-murder," took 35 minutes. The State has admitted that it was botched. "I know the truth, I know what I saw," said Becnel after hearing Judge Fogel's decision. "I saw Stanley Tookie Williams tortured to death. The anniversary of the execution was marked by a reenactment in Berkeley, CA just this week. Becnel added, "What they did to Stanley Tookie

Sometimes I wonder about Democrats. We don't know whether the elections were stolen in Florida, 2000, Georgia, 2002, and Ohio, 2004. Think about that. We DON'T KNOW. Other elections around the country, including a couple in San Diego, California, have had suspicious outcomes and flaws.

One concern are voting machines. America, after 2000, decided it needs to upgrade its voting machines. Fine. That sounds good. But ONLY if it improves the efficiency and accuracy of our voting system.

Today in NYC and around the nation we are faced with a choice: upgrade to DRE machines where the vote is all done on a touch screen, or PBOS machines where the vote is done in Scantron fashion with a real paper ballot, but computer tabulation. These are the only choices being offered by manufacturers.

Democrats got burned potentially in three election years in a row. And part of the problem are these new machines. Both DRE and PBOS machines have had problems. The difference is that if an election board wants to completely check the accuracy of an election, it can be done with PBOS machines. It can't with DRE machines.

With PBOS, as a last resort, a non-partisan or bi-partisan election board can fairly and accurately count the paper ballots that are left as a record of the vote. In fact, the voter him or herself can check before leaving the voting booth to see that the vote is properly cast. With DRE machines it is all in the computer and the software is a company secret. That means, with DRE machines we will never and can never know how the votes are recorded and tabulated. Only the company knows. That puts private companies in charge of our vote, and puts oversight of the accuracy of an election in the hands of the companies that are selling us the machines.

NYT's Sandy Huffaker and Amy Gunderson in "What's the Thread Count on My Dog's Bed?" forecast the next school-and-socialization frontier after universal preschool:

The W San Diego started pet-friendly cocktail hours in the fall and the Hotel Helix in Washington is starting one this summer. The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples starts obedience classes this summer including a socialization class for puppies 10 weeks to 5 months old.

And the Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego offers dog surfing classes. Yes, surfing. The hotel rolled out a $300 package this spring that includes one night's accommodation, a surfing lesson for the dog (but not the owner), a meal for the pet, and board shorts (seriously) for smaller dogs.

"We have sold close to 40 of those packages," said Anne Stephany, the public relations manager for the Loews Coronado Bay. . .

Today I'm admiring three women in the cultural eye who do better, with more to learn and balance, than I've ever attempted. I'm considering what their individual identity-crafting might teach me as I shape whatever complicated identities I might claim tomorrow.

I could argue my own identity as native American blue-eyed whitebread. I was born here, as were generations of ancestors.

I can speak no language except Americanized English, though God knows I've tried. My enthusiastic but inept efforts both in school and out to learn French were Dave Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day-like as comedy. I was raised a polite and unassuming Sunday-Methodist because everyone else was too, with no party or doctrine in particular to set me culturally apart. Females are technically a majority, so I can't deny I grew up in cultural comfort.

It wasn't until I found myself a homeschooling mom that I felt real culture shock. Keeping my family completely out of school meant abandoning my cultural and professional homeland (public schooling) and moving to a foreign and somewhat frightening culture without a reliable guide.

The republican scandal du jour is brought to us by Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham who stepped down from him Congressional seat after being abused of taking an alleged $2.4 million in briberies from defense contractors over a three year period.

[via AP Wire | 11/29/2005 | Cunningham plea sheds light on extreme case of corruption]:

From November 2001 through June 2004 Cunningham was showered with favors, money and gifts - including valuable antiques, money for the Rolls Royce and use of the yacht - on an almost monthly basis.

Some money was channeled through Cunningham's firm, Top Gun Enterprises Inc., which sold his book "Fox Two" and other memorabilia over the Internet.

Other bribes came in the form of money wired to escrow or other accounts or paid directly to antique stores for items such as armoires, a sleigh-style bed and 1850 Louis Phillipe period commode.

Ferrier's husband, Richard Pettinato, said Cunningham's penchant for antiques and fine furnishings seemed completely out of character.

"That's not Duke Cunningham," said Pettinato, who first met the congressman in the early 1990s. "You give him a buck knife and a gun and he might be happier."

The investigation began earlier this year when authorities looked at whether Cunningham had inflated the price of his home in Del Mar when he sold it to Wade for $1,675,000 in 2003.

Wade later put the Del Mar house back on the market and sold it after nearly a year for $975,000 - a loss of $700,000.

The 63 year old disgraced Vietnam veteran faces, if convicted, up to 10 years in prison for tax evasion and conspiracy. He served for 18 years in congress, and worked in the Appropriations Committee. Unbelieavable.

Best piece of trivia to come out from the mess? The man's the inspiration for Val Kilmer's character in Top Gun.

Crooks and Liars has the video clip of his resignation statement; which was the starting point of Stephen Colbert's show tonight. I so hope C&L gets the clip! Calling himself one of those friends who "Duke" let down, he went on a rant about honor, dignity and the necessities of taking money and bling bling from friends because, "friends never expect anything in return".

I so can't wait to download that clip! Stephen Colbert, I have two words for you babe : YOU ROCK!

Of course, every time a republican runs in disgrace is only good news for the democrats. Word has come to us via Swing State Project that they are slap happy to back Francine Busby for Congress.

Not only is she running on a platform to bring back honesty and integrity to her Congressional District but, EGADS! The woman has written up an Ethics Proposal that she wants to introduce to the House once elected :

Francine Busby Congressional Ethics Reform Proposal

Ban All Outside Relationships With Government Contractors
In most business and personal relationships, conflicts of interest are avoided. However, in Washington, those seeking government contracts can have extensive financial relationships with members of Congress. Francine believes that Congress should hold itself to the same standard as American businesses by banning any relationships between members of Congress and government contractors. Congressman Cunningham was closely financially tied to government contractor Mitchell Wade through a home sale, boat rental and non-profit organization. Francine believes that Congress should make appropriations without regard for personal conflicts of interest.

Ban Members from Promoting Specific Businesses for Government Contracts or Regulatory Favors
Members of Congress should be in the business of serving all people, not a select few powerful campaign contributors. Unfortunately, it has become far too common in Washington for members of Congress to use their official position to lobby for special favors for specific businesses. Government contracts and government decisions should not be decided by which business has the best connections in Washington, they should be determined by who can do the best job at the least cost to taxpayers.

Eliminate Anonymous Appropriations
When a member of Congress spends taxpayer money, taxpayers should know exactly which member of congress wrote the measure and how much it will cost. Currently members of Congress are able to make anonymous appropriation earmarks during the committee process. Every penny of government money that is spent should be accounted for and taxpayers should know exactly who is responsible for spending. This is one part of restoring honesty to the budget process and will also help stop out of control federal spending.

Ban All Privately Funded Junkets
Americans work hard and save to take vacations but for members of Congress, their vacations are all-expense-paid by powerful Washington special interests under current rules. Francine believes that members of Congress should either pay their own travel costs or they should follow the procedure for having the travel approved by the appropriate House Committee. Members of Congress have taken over $16 million in junkets since 2000.

And to all the feminists out there ... ahem ... she is n adjunct Professor of Women’s Studies at California State University, San Marcos.

This is definitely a race to watch.