the law won

i think it was maybe a little insensitive/tasteless to have a musical interlude of “I Fought The Law and the Law Won” during the call-in discussion about Oscar Grant on KALX radio last night on the eve of the sentencing.

in today’s news, the judge will sentence Johannes Mehserle in the murder involuntary manslaughter of Oscar Grant on January 1, 2009. downtown oakland is once again braced for riots protests, as many are unhappy that Mehserle might well just walk out, time served.

update: Mehserle gets two years, one already served.

as of 2:47 pm, no activity reported, but the twitterverse is not happy.

the country you love could be your own (FP voter guide 2010)

the official 2010 Voter Guide from False Profit HQ:

Here at False Profit LLC, we care about politics. And we know that you care about politics too. We noticed that one time you read that article about politics and stuff and shared it on your Facebook account. That was totally cool. Now we have another opportunity to make a difference.

Whether or not you believe voting makes a difference doesn’t matter. You should do it because it’s awesome. And nowhere does it matter more than in local elections. Best of all, voting gives you the right to complain. As a San Francisco resident, that’s an inalienable right that they can’t take away from you, no matter how hard they try.

So be sure you vote on Tuesday, November 2. Or else Olivia Wilde will be very pissed at you.

Below is your handy Cheat Sheet to print and take to the polls. Check our web site for the full explanations and more links to do your own research.

Remember: The country you love could be your own.

False Profit Voter Guide Cheat Sheet

CA Prop 19, Marijuana Legalization – YES
CA Prop 20, Congressional District Redistricting- No
CA Prop 21, Vehicle License Fee to Fund State Parks – YES
CA Prop 22, Prohibits State from Taking Local Funds – Yes (with dissent)
CA Prop 23, Suspension of Air Pollution Control Laws – NO NO NO
CA Prop 24, Repeal of Corporate Tax Loopholes – YES
CA Prop 25, Simple Majority State Budget Passage – YES YES YES
CA Prop 26, Approve State and Local Fees with 2/3 Vote – NO
CA Prop 27, Eliminate State Redistricting Commission – Yes

SF Prop AA, Vehicle Registration Fee – YES
SF Prop A, Earthquake Retrofit Bond – YES
SF Prop B, City Retirement and Health Plans – NO
SF Prop C, Mayor Appearances at Board Meetings – NO
SF Prop D, Non-Citizen Voting in School Board Elections – YES
SF Prop E, Election Day Voter Registration – YES
SF Prop F, Health Service Board Elections – YES
SF Prop G, Transit Operator Wages – YES
SF Prop H, Local Officials on Political Party Committees – NO
SF Prop I, Saturday Voting – YES
SF Prop J, Hotel Tax Clarification and Temp. Increase – no
SF Prop K, Hotel Tax Clarification and Definitions – yes
SF Prop L, Sitting or Lying on Sidewalks – NO NO NO
SF Prop M, Community Policing & Foot Patrols – Yes & No
SF Prop N, Real Property Transfer Tax – Yes & No

Barbara Boxer – US Senate
Debra Walker – SF City Supervisor District 6
1) Rafael Mandelman, 2) Rebecca Prozan – SF City Supervisor District 8

GOVERNOR: Meg Whitman is not for me.  I’m voting for Moonbeam!!!

OAKLAND/BERKELEY (ALAMEDA):  WE GOT A LOT ON OUR LOCAL BALLOT TOO.  I support using the Green Party Voter Guide to make those decisions:

Alameda County Local Measures
F – County $10 Vehicle Registration Fee – Yes, with reservations
H – Berkeley: Continuation of School Maintenance Parcel Tax – Yes
I – Berkeley: Continuation of School Facilities Bond – Yes
J – Emeryville: $95 Million School Bond – No, with reservations
L – Oakland: Schools Parcel Tax – No Endorsement, see write-up
N – Albany: Appointed City Attorney – No Endorsement, see write-up
O – Albany: Utility Users’ Tax – Yes
P – Albany: Paramedic, Fire Engines and Ambulance Tax – Yes, with reservations
Q – Albany: Cannabis Business Tax – No Endorsement, see write-up
R – Berkeley: Downtown Plan – No, No, No!
S – Berkeley: Tax on Cannabis – Yes
T – Berkeley: Medical Cannabis – Yes
V – Oakland: Cannabis Tax – Yes
W – Oakland: Telephone Tax – Yes
X – Oakland: Parcel Tax – No, No!
BB – Oakland: Amend Measure Y Funding – Yes

NO EXCUSES, people.  You are LEGALLY ALLOWED to take off work to vote if needed.  and come ON! voting isn’t hard when you have awesome cheat sheets! (or visit SmartVoter.org to make your own informed decision.) DO IT!

more on Prop 19 (Marijuana): Questions and Answers

Nicholas Kristof (NYT) clearly explains the economic and justice reasons for why you should vote yes on Prop 19:

“Sure, there are risks if California legalizes pot. But our present drug policy has three catastrophic consequences.

First, it squanders billions of dollars that might be better used for education. California now spends more money on prisons than on higher education. It spends about $216,000 per year on each juvenile detainee, and just $8,000 on each child in the troubled Oakland public school system.

Each year, some 750,000 Americans are arrested for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Is that really the optimal use of our police force?

In contrast, legalizing and taxing marijuana would bring in substantial sums that could be used to pay for schools, libraries or early childhood education. A Harvard economist, Jeffrey A. Miron, calculates that marijuana could generate $8.7 billion in tax revenue each year if legalized nationally, while legalization would also save the same sum annually in enforcement costs.

That’s a $17 billion swing in the nation’s finances — enough to send every 3- and 4-year-old in a poor family to a high-quality preschool. And that’s an investment that would improve education outcomes and reduce crime and drug use in the future — with enough left over to pay for an extensive nationwide campaign to discourage drug use.

The second big problem with the drug war is that it has exacerbated poverty and devastated the family structure of African-Americans. Partly that’s because drug laws are enforced inequitably. Black and Latino men are much more likely than whites to be stopped and searched and, when drugs are found, prosecuted.

Here in Los Angeles, blacks are arrested for marijuana possession at seven times the rate whites are, according to a study by the Drug Policy Alliance, which favors legalization. Yet surveys consistently find that young whites use marijuana at higher rates than young blacks.

Partly because of drug laws, a black man now has a one-in-three chance of serving time in prison at some point in his life, according to the Sentencing Project, a group that seeks reform in the criminal justice system. This makes it more difficult for black men to find jobs, more difficult for black women to find suitable husbands, and less common for black children to grow up in stable families with black male role models. So, sure, drugs have devastated black communities — but the remedy of criminal sentencing has made the situation worse.

The third problem with our drug policy is that it creates crime and empowers gangs. “The only groups that benefit from continuing to keep marijuana illegal are the violent gangs and cartels that control its distribution and reap immense profits from it through the black market,” a group of current and former police officers, judges and prosecutors wrote last month in an open letter to voters in California.

but there is still some confusion out there.  some of the info in the Chron directly contrasts with the info in the cute animated video we all watched from TheNewLeaf.org

specifically these two:

“Workplace: A nondiscrimination clause would prevent employers from firing or disciplining workers who used marijuana unless an employer could prove that job performance was impaired. Pre-employment testing would be banned. Conflicts with federal law abound. For example, the feds require operators of planes, trains, trucks and buses to be removed from their jobs if they test positive for any narcotic.

+

If Prop. 19 were to pass, such outdoor gardens would not be limited to ostensible medical-marijuana patients. They could show up in any backyard, in any town – and local governments would be powerless to stop them.” –SF Chronicle

New Leaf says that workplace laws won’t change, and that local governments have power to control growing laws in their own jurisdictions.

for all the reasons Kristof explains, i am still voting for it, but in your digging around did anyone find out the real situation is on these two points or is it all written too vague to really know?

the state of 2010

i’m not one who believes in apocalyptic theories, whether it’s the Second Coming of Jesus Christ Our Lord or 2012: The Mayan Prophesy or even just mundane, secular, Nuclear WWIII.

but the fact that this is 2010 and

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger still holds a very high political office in the USA and

2.To replace him, two of the top winning candidates in yesterday’s CA election are extremely rich white republican WOMEN who were CEOs of HUGE CORPORATIONS (which TK calls the “Girls Gone Wild Senate Race“…ouch! oh, what does this say about the world, especially California, today? the socio-eco-politico-anthro discussion could be endless)

and

3. Ozzy Osbourne is now a health columnist for the Times of London

really sort of freaks me out in a dystopian 1984 kind of way, without even mentioning everything else.

June 8 2010 – SF/CA Election Cheat Sheet + Why voting “No” is important

False Profit Cheat Sheet

A Prop 13, Seismic Retrofit – YES
CA Prop 14, Top-Two Primary – NO
CA Prop 15, Fair Elections – YES
CA Prop 16, PG&E Monopoly – NO
CA Prop 17, Insurance Persistency Discounts/Rate Hikes – NO

SF Prop A, SFUSD Parcel Tax – YES
SF Prop B, Earthquake Safety Bond – YES
SF Prop C, Film Commission Appointments – YES
SF Prop D, Public Employee Pensions – YES
SF Prop E, Costs of Protecting Dignitaries – ?
SF Prop F, Rent Increase Appeals – YES
SF Prop G, Transbay Terminal – YES

For full explanations visit False Profit.com

If you live in Alameda County, like me, go to SmartVoter for information about the Alameda County items on the ballot, specifically Measures A-D, which are minor, or visit the East Bay Express voter guide.

In general, I’m against voting for huge state measures at the ballot box (voters being swayed by commercials and misleading short summaries should not be making decisions; elected officials guided by experts should be making decisions, that’s why we pay them), and I especially agree with the Green Party – “When we can’t understand a proposition’s effects and side effects, we should usually vote No.”

To be clear: For those of you who don’t understand your ballot propositions and therefore just figure you won’t vote, NOT VOTING is not the same as Voting No.  VOTING NO IS IMPORTANT.  It keeps badly organized, faulty laws that people don’t really understand from being implemented.

do you know what oil tastes like?

this pelican does.

this just breaks my heart.

cognitive dissonance is not a problem

hey, Oklahoma?

As we know from last week’s discussion, Oklahoma lawmakers are now mandating that women undergo completely unnecessary vaginal ultrasounds so they have all the information they need before deciding to obtain a legal medical procedure.

Except that Oklahoma lawmakers want to make sure women don’t have all the information they need before deciding to obtain a legal medical procedure if it means they might decide to obtain a legal medical procedure.

for shame. so many conservatives talk about keeping the government out of their choices and our lives, but somehow this is ok?

totally socialist

hat.tip@titaniumdreads

us and them

the nobel prize now = an A for effort?

many discussions recently about entitlement, telling all children they are smart, beautiful, can do anything, ‘EVERYONE IS A WINNER’, and how this leads to false benchmarks, false hopes……seems to have leaked over to the Nobel arena.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15622

When war becomes peace,

When concepts and realities are turned upside down,

When fiction becomes truth and truth becomes fiction.

When a global military agenda is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor,

When the killing of civilians is upheld as “collateral damage”,

When those who resist the US-NATO led invasion of their homeland are categorized as “insurgents” or “terrorists”.

When preemptive nuclear war is upheld as self defense.

When advanced torture and “interrogation” techniques are routinely used to “protect peacekeeping operations”,

When tactical nuclear weapons are heralded by the Pentagon as “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”

When three quarters of US personal federal income tax revenues are allocated to financing what is euphemistically referred to as “national defense”

When the Commander in Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker,

When the Lie becomes the Truth.

Obama’s “War Without Borders”

We are the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US in partnership with NATO and Israel has launched a global military adventure which, in a very real sense, threatens the future of humanity.

At this critical juncture in our history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President and Commander in Chief Barack Obama constitutes an unmitigated tool of propaganda and distortion, which unreservedly supports the Pentagon’s “Long War”:  “A War without Borders” in the true sense of the word, characterised by the Worlwide deployment of US military might.

Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons.