Today was a short but sweet visit to another independent republic of the Middle East. Short but sweet, not long enough to get Illannoyed with the place like the last time I was here. Had a pleasant dinner with Spoons, who used to blog, and Mrs. Spoons, who should consider taking it up. Unlike Lebanon, the jihadis in Champaign-Urbana don’t care about alcohol, only about rendering law-abiding citizens defenseless. The Spoonses don’t exactly share that attitude, of course, but far too many of their compatriots do. If I lived here I’d move to the United States for political asylum. Then again, as a resident of a state on the west bank that is only marginally less repressive than theirs, maybe I should anyway.

I’m roughly halfway across the country now. At least, it seems about halfway, given that Carl’s Jr. is called Hardee’s, but radio stations still start with a K. People call this part of the country the “Midwest,” but given its location on the map, it should probably be called the Middle East instead. Perhaps not coincidentally, I’m crashing in a town called Lebanon. They have jihads of their own here, but target a different enemy than what I’m used to. Rather than protecting me against the evils of secondhand smoke, the hostess at a local restaurant endangered my life by asking me if I wanted to sit in a smoking or non-smoking section. Can you believe that?! On the other hand, they are quite vigilant in protecting diners against secondhand beer. I guess that’s only fair. It’s only a matter of time until someone conducts a study to prove that people who live with beer drinkers are twice as likely to get cirrhosis of the liver than people who are exposed to beer drinkers only rarely, or never.

In other news, it’s cold as hell here. WTF was I thinking when I planned a road trip across the country in … February?! This area didn’t look cold when it was flyover country. Drivethrough country is a different story.

Tomorrow I’ll be meeting up with one of my favorite bloggers, Spoons. On Monday, I’ll head south to Knoxville to meet up with another excellent blogger you may have heard of. No, not the guy who puts puppies in blenders, geez. Will keep all y’all posted, maybe.

I realize that Southerners generally (which, in this context, includes Texans) are insanely nice, but even so, apologizing to a guy for getting shot by him strikes me as a tad extreme.

Regardless of one’s perspectives on Ethanol, it appears as though E85 (the more commonly formulated Ethanol fuel blend) is going to be making it’s way to California sooner rather than well, later or never.

Recently, Chevron, GM, and the State of California have agreed to increase the ethanol delivery infrastructure of California.
If you happen upon GM’s main site you will see that GM has taken the Ethanol plunge. As they seem to be pushing it pretty stridently. If you read further in their website, they direct you to a Press release informing us that there will be a relatively large push for Ethanol in California in they next few years.

FWIW, I’m happy to see GM not get all too gung ho over hybrids, I don’t really care one way or another about Ethanol, but I really don’t like Hybrids, well I really just don’t like that the 42 MPG (real-life) Hybrid gets to use the Carpool lane single occupancy, and my 37 MPG (real-life) normal car does not, just because I’m not going to waste $5,000 to enrich shareholders of a motor company (which btw I’m totally happy for them as shareholders, way to invest in a smart company, but still not for me.)

Back to the subject at hand, even more distressingly comes this article about Schwarzenegger suggesting that he’s ready to increase the tax on gasoline. (Grrr.) Since if Arnold does this he’ll surely lose the election we should consider what another contender (Angiledes) also wants to do. In today’s Sac Bee, comes this article about Angiledes embracing the Ethanol future (and calling for cars to all be flex fuel).

Either way, it’s looking to me that for good or for bad, Ethanol will soon be making its way to California.

Perhaps it’s just because the US is faring somewhat poorly this year in the Olympics, but anyone else just feel like they don’t care about the Olympics. They used to be more interesting when I was like…8… Now, not so much. I’m just waiting for Baseball to start and quite frankly get here soon enough.

Speaking of America’s pastime, it was awfully kind of X, to allow an A’s fan to uh…post on his site.

(Apparently, I’m not alone in thinking the Olympics just aren’t worth much time Low Ratings for the Olympics. (Via Drudge.)

California may have the most repressive anti-smoking laws in the nation, but apparently even that isn’t good enough for Calabasas, which has now banned smoking outdoors. I have so got to get out of this state – and I don’t even smoke.

The Institute of Governmental Studies has released its report on redistricting in California (the one which was originally scheduled to be released in October but which was postponed at the last minute). They summarize their findings thusly:

1. Plans that balance all the criteria (population equality, congituity, compactness, minimizing county splits, preserving the VRA seats and enhancing competitiveness) would create between 12-14 Congressional seats (13 on average) in the range between a 3 percent Republican registration advantage and a 10 point Democratic registration advantage.

2. Districts in that range will be contested more heavily but small registration margins do not necessarily predict turnover since other factors matter significantly such as incumbency, money advantages, national tides and candidate quality. In the redistricting plan drawn by the Court in 1991, only 14 of the 260 California Congressional races (ie 5%) between 1992 and 2000 resulted in party turnover.

3. Plans that maximized competitiveness and ignored city/county lines and the integrity of the VRA districts create on average as many as 18 to 25 districts in the potentially competitive range, but they would be subject to serious legal challenges and much controversy in the affected local communities.

4. Political geography and the VRA give the Democrats a big edge in safe seats over the Republicans. No plan, no matter who draws it, can change that. Barring a heavily biased Republican plan, the Democrats are unlikely to drop below 26 seats in Congress and the Republicans could fall to 14.

5, Out of eighty Assembly districts, plans that aim to maximize the number of potentially competitive seats could produce between 21 to 30 seats in the 3 point Republican and 10 point Democratic registration range.

6. Among plans that balance other redistricting criteria, between 12 to 17 seats (15 on average) would fall in that range.

7. Similar to the Congressional races, due to incumbency advantage and other factors, a slim party registration difference does not necessarily translate into a narrow vote margin. Among the 400 Assembly races that took place between 1992 and 2000, only 22 (6%) resulted in party turnover. Ten of those races occurred in districts with a party registration difference in the 3 point Republican and 10 point Democratic range. Contrary to conventional expectation, none of these party turnover races happened in districts with a party registration difference within 3 percentage points. In fact, several Republican candidates were able to win in districts with high concentration of Democratic voters.

8. The conventional belief that majority minority districts tend to be non-competitive and dominated by the Democratic Party still holds. Yet with changing demographic composition and partisan alignment, it is now feasible to draw one or two minority districts that might be potentially competitive.

9. Plans that placed a heavy emphasis on compactness and minimizing city/county splits made it hard to achieve the political goals of more competitive seats and preserving majority minority representation.

The summary goes to great length to convince readers that “competitive districts” aren’t actually important and won’t necessarily produce greater turnover , and implies that the entire effort is somewhat misguided. As one of the few liberals who endorsed Proposition 77, I’m annoyed by that; it seems off-topic and somewhat irrelevant for the study to be making that point.

But that doesn’t obscure the big finding in the report: there is a strong tension between increasing competitiveness (on the one hand) and preserving compactness and minimizing city/county splits (on the other). The two are not entirely compatible goals.

So which of these goals is more important? If a new ballot measure comes down the pike, which course should that measure enshrine as paramount? I tend to favor preserving communtiies of interest and minimizing city/county splits; minimizing city/county splits makes the entire process less confusing to the voter, and preserving communities of interest makes it more likely that the representative will represent the community; it’s hard to do that when there is, so to speak, no community.

But competitiveness was the rallying call of many who supported Proposition 77. Will they be happy with a solution that reduces competitiveness in the name of increasing compactness?

(Hat Tip: California Insider.)

Jim and Sarah Brady have pretty well thrown away any pretense of (1) not wanting to ban hunting or (2) being Republicans. The story of Cheney’s hunting accident had barely broke when both of them implied Dick Cheney was a would-be murderer. Quoth Jim Brady:

Now I understand why Dick Cheney keeps asking me to go hunting with him.

One hopes this was a lame attempt at humor.

UPDATE: The Professor isn’t impressed, either.

Last week, Today, Britney Spears Mrs. X was not cited for driving with a small child dog on her lap.

Center-left professional blogger Kevin Drum linked this morning to a disturbing article in today’s Los Angeles Times about political shenanigans in the City of Vernon.

Vernon, it seems, has a total population of 91, consisting of 25 households. According to the LA Times, everyone who lives within the city limits is a city employee of some sort, and most live in city-subsidized housing. The city hasn’t held a contested election in twenty-six years. The most recent attempt to hold one failed:

Twenty-five years after its elected officials last had a contested ballot, eight strangers took up residence in the tiny city four miles south of downtown Los Angeles. Last month, after just a few days in town, three of the newcomers filed petitions to run for City Council in the April 11 election.

Within days, city utility trucks had turned off their power. The building they shared was slapped with red tags by inspectors who said the property was “unsafe and dangerous” as a residence. Strobe lights flashed through their windows. They and some of their relatives were placed under surveillance. Shortly, city police and other officials drilled holes in the locks and evicted the would-be office-seekers.

Having deprived the interlopers of city residence, Vernon officials on Jan. 27 disqualified them from the ballot.

To be fair, Vernon city officials claim that the evicted candidates were part of a plan by a notorious corrupt outsider to, in essence, mount a hostile takeover of the city. That’s a plausible claim; a city with five dozen voters in which the municipal officials are effectively lifetime office-holders and have more or less unchecked authority to dispense the city’s tax revenue to themselves is a very good candidate for a hostile takeover.

But surely that misses the point: it’s not clear to me that there should be, in the United States, cities with unelected “governments” that are accountable to nobody, in which every voter who could hold them accountable are in some fashion dependant upon them for their livelihood, their home, or both. If the situation in Vernon is remotely as the LA Times has described it, the City is a farce: a Potemkin democracy in which the legal forms are being observed in order to frustrate their intent.

Surely there must be something California can do to shut them down.