Hope is not a plan

Two years ago, Congressional candidate Tan Nguyen sent out a letter that looked suspiciously like it was meant to scare Latino Democrats into staying home on election day. The Orange County Republican Party quickly stepped as far away from Tan as they could, reasonably enough, and he was left to protest lamely that his "mailing was flawed."

Apparently, he was also less-than-forthcoming when the Department of Justice came around to investigate whether he had violated federal voting laws. Now, the DoJ has indicted Tan Nguyen on federal obstruction of justice charges. Here's part of the DoJ press release:

The grand jury alleged that Nguyen knowingly misled state investigators who were investigating the circumstances surrounding the mailing of the letter. The indictment also alleges that Nguyen's actions were intended to prevent communication to federal law enforcement officers of information relating to Nguyen's involvement in the production and dissemination of the letter and to whether the letter violated federal election laws, including interfering with the federally protected right to vote in federal elections.

An indictment is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. If convicted, Nguyen faces up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. Nguyen will receive a summons to appear in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana for his initial appearance and post-indictment arraignment on Oct.14, 2008.

Proposition 5: Nonviolent Drug Offenses. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. Initiative Statute. - recommend Yes

I'll preface this by saying that Prop 5 is quite long, and I read the whole thing (as I always do). Quite long.

Proposition 5 is an extensive revamping of California drug law as it pertains to punishment and treatment of nonviolent drug offenders. It would restructure the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation into a bipartite system, with one portion devoted to the prison system, and a second portion devoted parole and treatment systems. In addition, it would alter the criminal penalties for possession of limited amounts of marijuana.

We'll tackle this as three parts, with restructuring first, changes in how drug offenders are handled second, and marijuana third.

As mentioned in the introduction, Prop 5 would restructure the Department of Corrections into a two-part system, each led by its own Secretary -- one being the Secretary of Corrections (who will remain in charge of the prison system), the other being the Secretary of Rehabilitation and Parole (who would be given authority over parole and drug treatments for offenders). Some additional restructuring would increase the size of the Board of Parole Hearings from 17 to 29 commissioners, and would alter some undersecretary jobs from durations of "at the pleasure of the Governor" to 5-year periods. A clause within Prop 5 emphasizes that job losses due to this restructuring are to be minimized. This is important, as parts of the general Corrections structure will be slid wholesale into the new Rehabilitation and Parole subsection, and one might be concerned that this could be used as an excuse to fire and then rehire experienced Corrections employees to cut down costs.

The vast bulk of Prop 5 is taken up with a general restructuring of how drug offenders are handled.

First, the list of nonviolent drug offenses is modified. Being under the influence and possession of drug paraphernalia both become nonviolent drug offenses. In contrast, transportation of drugs for sale no longer kinds as a nonviolent possession offense.

The big change is the creation of a three-track treatment system for people who have committed nonviolent drug offenses (and they do really mean three tracks -- they're called Track I, Track II, and Track III). Very briefly, Track I is reserved for nonviolent offenders who also don't have a history of violence. To enter Track I, an offender must plead guilty, and then has their judgment deferred if they enter Track I treatment. Per my reading of it, judgment can then be reconsidered later -- there's the possibility that a judge could waive the judgment on successful completion of treatment. However, the offender always has their guilt plea hanging over their head, which matters, because if you screw up the treatment in Track I...

...then you can be bumped to Track II. Going into Track II, you're going to have to shoulder that guilty verdict, but if you successfully complete drug treatment, you don't have to register as a drug offender. People who fail to finish in Track II, or who have a history of some kind of violent offenses (not the current one), can be bumped onto or initially placed onto Track III.

People who have committed a serious felony can't be on Track III. Individuals on Track III may still be require to be on parole as well, and a judge can require parole even after treatment is completed.

In short, the three tracks of drug treatment amount to fairly limited but important differences in strictness. In Track I, a drug offender can avoid formal judgment by completing treatment. In Track II, a drug offender can avoid parole by completing treatment. In Track III, the offender gets to not be in jail.

Prop 5 also modifies parole rules in general, such that "technicality" violations -- that is, parole violations that do not involve actually committing a crime -- do not automatically rescind parole. In addition, the results of drug tests taken during participation in required treatment cannot be used to further incriminate a person who is in mandated treatment.

Notably, detox programs and mental care programs that are applied in noncustodial settings do not count as treatment for the purposes of this program.

This law would require the setting aside of $150 million for drug treatment programs in 2009, and then $460 million per year annually afterward. This would replace the $100 million that is currently appropriated annually for drug treatment programs. Funding would be distributed as follows:

15% to youth programs
15% to Track I
60% to Track II
10% to Track III

In addition, 1% is to be used to fund university studies to track the effectiveness and financial impact of this drug treatment program.

The text is long, but that's what it amounts to. Over on the side of marijuana, the law would be changed such that possession of less than 28.5 grams of marijuana would not longer be a misdemeanor. Instead, it would be an infraction -- similar to a traffic ticket -- with a fine of $100 (with a maximum of $100 in add-on fees). Those under eighteen get to pay that same infraction fine and be sent to an instructional course on drug abuse.

So what does this all come to? The Legislative Financial Analysis tallies the added costs at $1 billion per year, balanced pretty much evenly by projected savings of $1 billion per year. The costs come from treatment programs, and the savings come from not imprisoning drug offenders. Layered on top of this is a projected additional $2.5 billion in one-time savings from not building a certain amount of new prison space. From a cost perspective, this appears to be a clear win.

Objections to this proposition can be expected to come from people who see it as being "soft on crime." Unfortunately, a moralistic approach to drugs policy has not been successful in the United States -- nor is it easily supportable from an ethical point of view. After all, how is the abuse of a given illegal drug ethically different from the abuse of a legal drug such as alcohol? Both are destructive, personally and generally. In the case of alcohol, we very reasonably punish people for offenses committed while abusing the drug, but we simply ship people off for treatment when they are abusing alcohol to the detriment of only themselves.

Last year, our state legislature voted to repeal a ban on funding needle exchange programs. This was a good start on harm reduction -- that is, approaches to health policy that focus on reducing the harm to people, rather than on punishing them for their abuse of a substance. As I noted in that post, harm reduction works. The example I cited in that post:

Needle-exchange programs have cost various Australian governments $130 million since their inception in the early 90s...but over the course of that decade, they saved those same governments at least $2.4 billion.

These savings come in reduced HIV rates, reductions in other diseases, and so forth. It is reasonable to expect that aggressively attacking addiction rather than jailing nonviolent drug offenders in environments where drugs are readily accessible will result in similar net savings in terms of public expenditure and in terms of years of disability prevented in the (former) addict pool.

I assert that arguments against treatment-oriented approaches for nonviolent offenders must be able to clearly explain why nonviolent alcohol abuse should not also be criminalized.

Funding in support of Prop 5 comes largely from private citizens, with a couple of big donations from names you may recognize. Biggest among these names is George Soros, who has given well over a million dollars in support of this proposition. In addition, several hundred thousand has come from the Drug Policy Alliance Network, an organization promoting "alternatives to the drug war."

Money against Prop 5 comes in the form of a smattering of donations from police and similar organizations. Major donations opposing Prop 5 come from the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation and the California Narcotics Officers' Association.

To see the full list of contributors supporting Prop 5, click here.

To see the full list of contributors opposing Prop 5, click here.

You can read the full text of Prop 5 here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions by clicking here.

Last time we were all watching a big event, Georgia attacked South Ossetia and Russia invaded Georgia. Thus, as we watch (vice) presidential debates and attempt to ignore political advertising in the coming runup to the next big election here, let's not let our attention drift too far from ominous-sounding Russian pronouncements:

"When people and military systems are used to kill Russian soldiers, it's a crime," Putin told reporters after meeting with Tymoshenko at his residence outside Moscow.

"That is a crime. That's an attempt to set Russian and Ukrainian people against each other."

The Tymoshenko in question is Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko, who is a direct rival to Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko.

This is mostly "leverage talk," but it's leverage talk from a country with actual leverage, both in the form of fuel supplies and in its recently proven willingness to roll into a neighboring country to beat them down.

Back in the fabled land of South Ossetia, a car bomb killed seven Russian troops. Interestingly, the bomb went off after the car was seized in the ethnically Georgian village of Ditsa, along with its cargo of Georgians, guns, and grenades. So either this is a super-clever way to get a bomb near some Russians, or they unwittingly picked up a crew going off to bomb something else entirely, leaving themselves in possession of a live bomb. The Georgian government is claiming this is a Russian "false flag" style operation, which, while not out of the question, would probably be done on a larger scale than this.

As it happens, Somali pirates might bring us all back together again. The Russian government has called for cooperation in dealing with piracy, as it sends the Neutrashimy to patrol the Gulf of Aden, where the Ukrainian freighter Faina and its shipment of tanks is still being held by pirates.

Proposition 10: Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy. Bonds. Initiative Statute. - recommend No

In 2006, Californians rejected Prop 87, which would have levied an additional tax on oil companies to generate an extra $4 billion in money to be directed toward getting us onto an alternative energy track. As a state that uses 16 billion gallons of petroleum products a year as well as one of the biggest science innovation centers in the world, this seemed like a good fit for us. Prop 10 is one of two measures on the ballot this time around that uses "Renewable Energy" in the name. Unlike Prop 87, 10 doesn't try to levy a tax on oil producers, so they haven't been fighting it tooth and nail the way they fought 87.

In fact, Prop 10 looks suspiciously like a company's "investment" in adjusting California law to get hundreds of millions of dollars at our expense.

So what would Prop 10 do?

Prop 10 proposes to issue $5 billion in bonds to cover a number of purposes. As always, that's $5 billion that will eventually cost about $10 billion for the state to pay off over thirty years. Prop 10 proposes to use the money as follows:

• $3.425 billion to subsidize the purchase of alternative-fuel vehicles, with natural gas vehicles included in this category
• $1.25 billion for research and development of renewable energy, with 80% of that to be used for researchering solar power
• $200 million to eight major California cities to fund renewable energy programs and retraining of workers to adapt ot new renewable energy jobs (the cities are Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach, Irvine, San Francisco, Oakland, Fresno, and Sacramento).

Pretty straightforward. When I read this proposition, I was immediately surprised. Does it make sense to put the state into hock for $10 billion largely to give moderate financial incentives to people to buy alternative fuel vehicles? Wouldn't it be better for the majority of the money go to funding in-state research, so that the eventual massive profits from alternative fuel technologies can have their home in California, much in the way the profits from the computer industry historically have?

Sounds like it's time to look at the backers.

The primary financial backer for Prop 10 is Clean Energy, a company that, to quote their site, "is the largest provider of natural gas for transportation in North America." Clean Energy was founded by T. Boone Pickens, who was the primary individual involved in getting 10 on the ballot in the first place. Clean Energy has pushed about $7.75 million (that's million) into trying to get you to vote for Prop 10. It's worth it for them, though -- the subsidy just for the heaviest of natural-gas powered vehicles is worth $250 million.

That's quite a return on an investment of about $8 million, and that's just the heavy-duty vehicles.

There are no significant contributions in opposition to this proposition.

One of the unfortunate side effects of California's citizen-based proposition system is that anyone who can collect enough signatures can get something on the ballot. The upshot here is that a genuine groundswell of popular support may get things done when the legislature can't. The downside is evident in cases like this one, where a single corporation can view the legislative process of the state of California as an investment to be gamed. I don't personally feel like subsidizing one company's purchases and market, especially not when we'll be building up debt to do it. It is, in a word, a scam, and I have to recommend against it.

The corollary to this, by the way, is that you absolutely must read the text of a proposed law when someone walks up to you at the beach or the park and says, "Hey, wanna sign this petition?" The name and the petition-taker's word alone just aren't good enough. They are, after all, being paid to get you to sign.

You can take a look at the money pushing for Prop 10 here.

You can read the full text of Prop 10 here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 11: Redistricting. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute. - recommend No

Redistricting proponents have a curious fascination with handing away control over the power of redistricting to very, very small groups of people. Back in 2005, Prop 77 proposed handing over the power to draw legislative districts within California to a group of three retired judges. This time around, Prop 11 proposes to put the power to draw districts into the hands of fourteen people.

Currently, the state legislature draws state Senate and Assembly districts, as well as Congressional and Board of Equalization districts. As proponents of some kind of revision of the process point out, the legislators tend to draw their districts such that most of the voters in a given district will vote one way. This, in turn, makes it less likely that incumbents of a given party will be kicked out of office. It has also generated some oddly tortuous voting districts that go through or around parts of cities.

Prop 11 proposes to have all future redistricting done by a committee of fourteen people. Five of them will be from the "biggest" party in the state, five more from the "second biggest," then the remaining four from neither of those. Or, to decipher the clever code, it would be five Democrats, five Republicans, and four members of other parties. This group of fourteen people would be solely responsible for redrawing all legislative districts, starting in 2011 and then every decade thereafter (so, 2011, 2021, 2031). Obviously, the membership of the committee is expected to change each time, and there are procedures for selecting the committee.

Anyone can apply to be on the committee. A review panel consisting of three randomly chosen auditors (actual auditors, chosen from the rolls of the California Board of Accountancy) will narrow this down to 60 "most qualified" applicants. Members of the state legislature can then knock people out of contention, jury-selection-style, until a final panel of fourteen people is chosen.

Prop 11 would also make itself hard to amend, requiring a two-thirds approval vote in each house of the state Legislature, and the nebulous requirement that any amendments "further the purposes" of the law contained in Prop 11.

I am extremely dubious of any proposal to hand off power from my elected representatives to a small group of people who can't be easily checked or recalled from office. It behooves us to recall that power given away from elected representatives to an unelected central authority is rarely returned.

Prop 11 includes one laudable bit of text, suggesting that the geographic integrity of cities, counties, and neighborhoods should be respected as much as possible. Should another redistricting proposal appear on a future ballot, I recommend that it stick to this point. If districts were simply required to be, say, squares, that alone would have a great impact on the many issues that opponents of the current method have. There's no need to hand off our power to a much-less-accountable group when there are simpler solutions available.

A look through the major contributors list suggests that a number of corporations think that focusing redistricting on a smaller group of people will mean reduced lobbying costs for them in the future. Contributors pushing for Prop 11 include Blue Cross of California (recently renamed Anthem), the California Chiropractic Association, Sony Pictures, Safeway, the California Association of Health Underwriters, Sempra, Beny Alagem of Alagem Capital Group, Blue Shield of California, Oracle, Paramount, W. Howard Lester of Williams Sonoma, the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, Haim Saban, Charles Schwab, and, curiously, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, who gave $250,000. Two political groups gave significant monetary support, with hundreds of thousands coming from both Governor Schwarzenegger's political action group and the curiously named "Hold Politicians Accountable" group. Curiously named, I say, since Prop 11 would "keep them accountable" by handing the unaccountable powers off to people who can't even be voted out.

Major donations against Prop 11 come from the Democratic State Central Committee and the California Correctional Peace Officers fund.

You can look at the full list of financial backers of Prop 11 by clicking here, here, and here.

You can look at the full list of financial opponents of Prop 11 by clicking here.

You can read the full test of Prop 11 by clicking here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 7: Renewable Energy Generation. Initiative Statute. - recommend No

Proposition 7 is one of two propositions ostensibly oriented toward increasing renewable energy use in California on this year's ballot. Unlike the other one -- Prop 11 -- this one does seem to be making a legitimate attempt to increase the use of renewables, but it appears to be so poorly written that it needs to be bounced for its authors to reconsider for next time.

Prop 7 would enact a series of restructurings in state energy law that would set new renewable energy targets, hand off many of the responsibilities of the Public Utilities Commission to the Energy Commission, change how penalties are applied for not reaching targets, and change how new generation and transmission are both procured.

Currently, California has a target of 20% renewable energy source use by both investor-owned utilities and out-of-state utilities by 2010. Prop 7 would revise this requirement, adding a requirement of 40% renewables by 2020 and 50% renewables by 2025. In addition, it would make the significant change of requiring publicly owned utilities -- that is, government-owned utilities -- to hit these renewable targets. It would not, however, give the Energy Commission the authority of approve or reject contracts entered into by these publicly owned utilities. "Renewable" energy sources are defined currently as solar, biomass, solar thermal, wind, geothermal, renewable fuel cell, small hydroelectric, and other, similar options.

Prop 7 would hand over the job of setting the market rate of electricity from the Public Utilities Commission to the Energy Commission. It would also require consideration of the benefits of renewables (e.g. the value of reduced carbon production) into setting the market rate for renewable electricity. Renewable electricity costs are capped at 10% above the "regular price" -- opponents somewhat disingenuously refer to this as "locking in" the price at the more expensive level. That's irksome, but par for the course.

The penalty rate for missing renewable energy procurement targets would actually be reduced under the revised law, from $0.05 per kilowatt-hour (KWH) to $0.01 per KWH. However, the current cap on penalties would be removed, making the potential penalties for failing to hit these targets potentially open-eneded. As with other proposed laws along similar lines, power companies would not be allowed to be recovered from customers, although there's no explanation of what happens if a company can't meet its expenses following penalties.

The Energy Commission is tasked by Prop 7 to identify "Solar and Clean Energy Zones" that have "potential for solar and clean energy resources." Nothing special appears to happen in these zones, so this appears to be an advisory role for the Commission.

The revised law would contract the decision period for authorization of construction of new solar and clean energy facilities from 12-18 months down to 6 months, with 100 days for public comment. In addition, the Energy Commission would have to certify construction of any new transmission lines, with a 90-day consideration period. Producers that are primarily out of state would be largely exempted from this rule.

Finally, the Energy Commission would be allowed to buy, sell, and lease land to advance the cause of renewable energy.

As you may have gathered from the body of this summary, the single biggest flaw in Prop 7 is that it sets procurement requirements and customer-cost limits without providing a clear explanation for (1) how we can even enforce the no-passing-on-of-costs rule and (2) what happens to a company that runs out of money trying to hit the rules. Also, inasmuch as these new rules would apply to publicly owned utilities, it's possible that a local government could go broke from a combination of renewable energy costs and penalties.

The primary supporter of Prop 7, to the tune of a bit over seven million dollars, is Peter Sperling, vice chairman of the Board of Directors for the Apollo Group. As much as that name might suggest a self-interested solar energy company, Apollo is actually the company behind the near-ubiquitous University of Phoenix, purveyor of continuing and adult education courses.

Opposition to Prop 7 comes from California's large, investor-owned energy companies. Pacific Gas and Electric donated nearly 14 million dollars to oppose Prop 7, with Edison International coming in a close second with about 13.7 million.

You can check out the full list of financial backers supporting Prop 7 here.

You can look at the full list of financial opponents to Prop 7 here.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions here.

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is a split between Harald zur Hausen, who discovered that human papilloma virus (for which there is now a vaccine) causes cancer, and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, who discovered HIV.

All three made tremendous contributions to preventing human illness and death, and are very deserving of this recognition.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008

As FactCheck.org reports, the group Vets for Freedom is blitzing our fine state of California with a new anti-Obama campaign that manages to lie both by omission and by commission. In the ad, they attempt to indict Obama for missing 45% of Senate votes while cleverly failing to mention that John McCain missed 64% of his Senate votes. Similarly, they tell you to call Obama (who, by definition, can't be the representative of any legal residents of this state, but let's not worry about that) to support a Senate Resolution...except that the Resolution is currently stuck in the Senate Armed Services Committee, where Obama is not a member but McCain is a senior member, and thus the only one of the two candidates who can get it to the Senate floor, where everyone else, Obama included, will get their first chance to move it forward.

They also try to say that Obama voted against troop support, which as I've previously reported, is exactly as accurate as insisting that McCain urged us not to support our troops.

Interestingly enough, the veterans over at 2 Dinar don't support John McCain. In fact, as Editor-in-Chief, Iraq war veteran, and former Marine officer Ben points out in the linked article, since 2003 John McCain has voted against seven bills supporting veterans, and failed to vote on another two veteran-supporting bills. In contrast, Barack Obama voted for all but one of those same veterans' bills which came up during his time in the Senate.

So, to reprise, John McCain has voted against the majority of veterans' bills that have come up since the start of the Iraq war, and consistently misses nearly two thirds of votes in the Senate. By the standards of the Vets for Freedom ad campaign, McCain neglects both our veterans and his Senate duties.

Instead, he was making trips through Baghdad under heavy, heavy security provided by those same soldiers, and then lying about it afterward.

I'm still very sad at how far John McCain has fallen, and a misleading ad campaign offered on his behalf can't help. Maybe he can tell the Vets for Freedom to knock it the hell off. That would earn back some of his lost honor.

Proposition 6: Police and Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal Penalties and Laws. Initiative Statute. - recommend No

Proposition 6 is another one of the long ones on this year's ballot. Unlike Prop 5, Prop 6 covers a lot of different territory, changing current law in a number of places and adding new funding and some new programs. Very generally, it adds money to the tune of $500 million a year to various public safety related programs and increases the severity of punishments for a range of violent, firearms, and gang-related crimes, with an expected $500 million worth of new prison building to match.

I've broken it down below, but I think the salient facts are that this proposition will result in a lot of new state spending and will represent a significant bump in our prison population. I'll note here that the argument in favor of this proposition asserts that it "returns taxpayers' money to local law enforcement without raising taxes." This is clearly disingenuous, as this proposition would add half a billion in new spending annually. Simply not bothering to figure out where that money is coming from does not count as not raising taxes.

Cost aside, if there were empirical evidence that putting a lot of people in prison would lead to a marked decrease in crime overall, then we could do a cost-benefit analysis and compare the benefit of this approach to other approaches, like explicitly hiring more police officers. Unfortunately, the case here is not clear. Even on the major web site in support of this proposition, the evidence is weak. They mainly cite crime stats, and point out that we need more police officers. Given that there does seem to be evidence for crime reduction as a consequence of increased police presence, it's curious that Prop 6 spends so much money and effort increasing penalties and doing things other than simply funding more police officers.

I approve of the witness-tampering related changes to the law in this proposition, but would prefer that they be passed without the rest of this material.

As I said, it's a long proposition. Let's try to break it down.

Programs

Prop 6 adds and builds on a number of public safety programs. This is expected to result in an extra $500 million in spending, annually, with year-to-year increases as it requires many of these programs to inrease their funding in lockstep with inflation.

First of all, it would establish the Office of Public Safety Education and Information, tasked with the dissemination of crime statistics and information about things such as Three Strikes, Jessica's Law, and so forth. It would be required to maintain a webs ite with a public safety information page, crime victim information and support, and so forth. This program would receive $12.5 million in funding each year (adjusted for inflation -- just assume that's true from here on out), with 20% to be sent off to support Sheriff's departments participting in the Victim Information and Notification Everyday (VINE) program, and 80% to other county police departments.

It would also establish the California Early Intervention, Rehabilitation, and Accountability Commission, tasked with studying rehabilitation and deterrence programs, then to release its findings to the public. It's also supposed to recommend and propose standards relating to rehabilitation and deterrence. There's an interesting clause contained within the section establishing this Commission. In addition to these general-sounding goals, the section of Prop 6 that establishes this commission requires that early intervention and rehabilitation programs have clearly defined goals and tracking -- basically, a moderately specific call for accountability in these programs.

Notably, Prop 6 would remove the requirements for community-based representatives to be involved in councils required the development of local action plans relating to juvenile crime and delinquency. It would also remove the ability to use community punishments plans in dealing with these issues.

Prop 6 would also remove mental health, drug, alcohol, and other county departments other than probation from eligibility for Youthful Offender Block Grant Fund money.

Following these adjustments, Prop 6 swings in a giant funding package spread across a number of current or new state organizations. If you're reading through and doing the arithmetic, you'll see that the funding discussed amounts to almost a billion dollars annually. Keep in mind that in many cases the values shown are increases to already-funded programs -- this is why the annual increase in expenditures from this proposition is expected to come in at about half a billion (or, more briefly, roughly half a billion of the amount discussed is already being spent on the listed programs). Okay, let's start looking at the funding additions and changes. We have:

$92.5 million to assist in housing youthful offenders

$50 million for the Juvenile Probation Facility and Supervision Fund, to cover juvenile facility repair and renovation, juvenile probation, and juvenile deferred judgment programs.

$10 million to the Crimestopper Reward Reimbursement Fund, to reimburse awards given out by groups and individuals in support of solving felony cases. In other words, if you as a private citizen offer a $5,000 reward for information about a person who murdered someone you know, and you end up paying out that reward, then this fund would reimburse you.

$20 million to the Parolee Reentry Fund to fund contracts for parolee mentoring and workforce programs.

$500 million to the Citizens Option for Public Safety programs (COPS, yes), with half to go the local jurisdictions, and half to go to the Safe Neighborhood Fund. The latter fund is spread across various city anti-gang and anti-violent crime groups, multiagency task forces, county sheriffs, county jails, GPS tracking, and other purposes. The single biggest share, slightly over a quarter, goes to county probation departments.

$10 million to the Safe Neighborhoods Compliance Enforcement Fund. This is meant to support work that eliminates public funding of tenancies that are occupied by people involved in drug, gang, or other criminal activity.

It would also renew and make perpetual the Central Valley Rural Crime Prevention Program, and the Central Coast Rural Crime Prevention Program. Between them, they support crime prevention efforts in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and San Benito counties. There is no specific funding set aside for these programs.

It also starts the Victim Trauma Recovery Fund to provide comprehensive recovery services for crime victims, with grant money awarded to up to five sites.

It allows counties to start child advocacy centers, which sound like a pretty solid idea -- the goal is to have one clearinghouse where specially trained people can coordinate any inteviews a child may have to undergo as part of a criminal or other investigation, to try to reduce the number of separate interviews a child has to undergo. Prop 6 creates the Child Advocacy Center Fund to support this concept.

Finally, Prop 6 seriously shifts where money from the State Penalty Fund goes. The main change is to yank basically all the money that's going into the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund, with the shifted money going to Corrections Training, Victim-Witness Assistance, and the new Victim Trauma Recovery Fund and Child Advocacy Center Fund.

A lot of stuff, right?

Laws

Prop 6 would also revise a number of laws related to gangs, felonies, and other crimes. Most of the revisions tend toward making punishments for these crimes more severe than they currently are.

One notable exception here is a revision to laws relating to witness testimony. First, Prop 6 would alter the legal meaning of "unavailable as a witness" to include a potential witness who is actually at a hearing, but for some reasons refuses to testify. Second, it would allow second-hand repeating of testimony (e.g. "I heard Bob say that Joe committed this crime") in cases where the statement is being given in a case against someone who somehow caused the original speaker to be unavailable as a witness (e.g. by killing them). Both of these changes appear to be oriented toward removing the incentive to mess with witnesses. The laws relating to witness tampering would also change, such that a series of tampering offenses would be classed as felonies, punishable by 2-4 years in prison.

Vandalism crimes would have their cash value aggregated for the purposes of determining punishment if they are "part of a common plan" -- gang tagging, for example. The expected effect here would be to bump up the punishment for some people involved in vandalism.

Penalties would be increased for home invasions and carjackings, as well as threats directed toward judges, jurors, prosecutors, public defenders, and similar figures. In addition, laws that currently give enhanced penalties for theft of on-duty ambulances and emergency vehicles would now apply at all times, on-duty or off.

The laws around street gangs undergo a number of revisions. Nuisance injunctions become contempt of court, which appears to mean that someone can summarily be given jail time and a fine. In addition, cumulative violations would result in bigger and bigger jail times. It would enhance jail times for accessories to crimes committed as part of a gang. Recruiting a minor under the age of 14 would yield another 5 years of punishment on top of the normal for recruiting for a gang. The recruiter would also count as a principal for any subsequent felonies committed by their recruits within a year after recruiting. Prop 6 also introduces the ability to sue a street gang by its assumed name (e.g. charging the local Pirus with a vandalism charge as a group). Finally, this proposition generically doubles the prison terms for committing felonies for a gang.

Prop 6 also adds some changes relating to drug and weapon possession. It adds an extra ten years of prison time for firearms convictions on the part of someone who was already barred from possessing a firearm, as well as adding some new rules relating to firearms use from a car. Firearms and gang penalties can also stack under the revised rules in Prop 6.

Prison Overcrowding

Finally, Prop 6 authorizes temporary emergency jails and treatment facilities to avoid early release as a response to prison overcrowding. These temporary facilities still have to be staffed by regular Department of Corrections employees.

Back to the supporters

Financial support for Prop 6 comes from a number of people who are currently running for office, as well as the group Crime Victims United of California and a number of law enforcement-related groups. The single largest contributor, coming in with a million dollars, is Henry Nicolaus (his name is misspelled in the listing as "Nicholaus"). He's a businessman in Aliso Viejo without a lot of background information available.

Money opposing Prop 6 comes from a collection of civil rights and government employee associations. The major rights contributor is the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. On the professional association side, major contributoins opposing Prop 6 come from the California State Council of Service Employees, the California Federation of Teachers, and the California Teachers Association.

You can view the full information on funding in support of Proposition 6 by clicking here and here.

You can view the full information on donations in opposition to Proposition 6 by clicking here and here.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions by clicking here.

Proposition 8: Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. - recommend No

Prop 8 is so straightforward that I'll just quote the entire text of the law it proposes here:

"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

This is fundamentally an argument of religious ideas, preconceptions, and things that wig some of us out, which doesn't leave much room for breaking down the empirical consequences of this proposition.

The one non-ideological consequence of Prop 8 would be the loss of tens of millions of dollars annually in revenue from the wedding industry as gay couples no longer go through with large-scale ceremonies that go with weddings.

That was, indeed, brief. All the remaining arguments about this issue tend to largely boil down to ideology, although the New York Times has an article addressing a ostensible biological angle to the argument.

As the ballot argument for Prop 8 notes, this is not really about the legal rights of same-gender couples, it's about their right to say, "We're married." Although the "pro" argument asserts that if things are legally the same, then there's no reason to allow same-sex marriage, that's just as reasonable an argument for allowing it. If it's all a legal issue, then what does it matter if a same-sex couple gets to call themselves married? Let's go with Thomas Jefferson on this one:

"But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

We have chosen, in this country, not to force people to live within our religious constraints. I can't be required to eat kosher or to not eat beef; similarly, my Hindu coworker can't be required to eat beef, nor can an orthodox Jew be required to eat pork. I got to choose the church I was christened in as an adult, rather than having to go to a state-defined one. Similarly, no one I know or work with is required to attend a church or other religious location or service.

So it's unclear to me why we need to enshrine in our state constitution that religious meaning of a term, if legally speaking, the rights and obligations of that term are already there. After all, if Mormons can call Jews gentiles, and if I can refer to Genesis through Deuteronomy as "part of the Old Testament" rather than "the Torah," it's hard to see why this issue should be fundamentally different.

As a final note on this issue, the argument for Prop 8 points out that one possible consequence of keeping same-sex marriages legal is that your kids may be taught about it. So? Children are routinely taught about things that don't exactly plug into their parents' beliefs. If your beliefs and ideas are worthwhile, your kids will keep true to them regardless of what's going on in the rest of the world. If your beliefs can't stand up to the outside world, they're not going to last long no matter what is taught in school.

There are so many contributors and groups pushing money at this issue on both sides that I'm not going to review them in depth. As always, you can read about them yourself.

You can see who's spending money for or against Prop 8 here.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions here.

Proposition 9: Criminal Justice System. Victims' Rights. Parole. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute. - recommend No

Proposition 9 is a small package of modifications to the current legal system surrounding victims' rights, restitution, and parole, all oriented toward tilting things more in favor of crime victims and making parole somewhat harder to achieve and maintain. These changes would affect the way the law works during a case, during parole hearings, and for people currently on parole.

In addition to a number of basically unenforceable assertions about victims' rights, Prop 9 would make a few concrete changes. First, it would prevent disclosure of confidential information or records from a crime victim to a defendant in the case. Second, it would let a crime victim refuse an interview, deposition, or discovery request from a defendant or their lawyer.

On the post-conviction side, Prop 9 would require restitution in all cases. Currently, restitution is required unless a judge decides for some reason not to require it -- in most cases, they require it. Prop 9 would remove this role for the judge's discretion. In addition, any restitution payment would have to go to the victim first, effectively prioritizing it over other places that collect portions of restitution money.

Prop 9 would block any potential early release of prisoners as a response to overcrowding. The legislative analyst notes that this hasn't actually happened yet in the state, but Prop 9 would make it unlawful to do so.

Prop 9 would also enact a number of changes in how parole hearings are handled. It would allow unlimited testimony by victims and their families, as well as allowing any number of family members to speak during the hearing (currently, there's a limit of two additional people). It would give affected people who might want to speak at a hearing 90 days notice rather than 30 days notice prior to a hearing. Finally, in the specific case of parole hearings for people with life sentences, it would alter the timeline for the next parole hearing following a rejection of parole, from the current 1-5 years later to 3-15 years later (although the prisoner has the ability to file for an earlier hearing).

Under Prop 9, law enforcement agencies would be required to give crime victims a victim's rights reminder card and a survival and resource guide.

Finally, this proposition would remove legal counsel for people charged with parole violations except in cases where a judge deems the charges to be complex or the person involved to be incompetent to represent themself.

For me, the two big red flags in this proposition are the ability to refuse a deposition and the removal of legal counself for parole violation hearings. As we consider potential legal changes like that, it's important to remember that criminal cases are not always a matter of a violent criminal who is clearly in the wrong, and the victims who are being harassed by the defense counsel. As we know -- especially in this era of DNA testing overturning incorrect convictions -- defendants may be incorrectly identified by eyewitnesses, or otherwise implicated in crimes they didn't commit. Although it's well meaning to try and prevent the defense "putting the victim on trial" via harassing requests for depositions and interviews, it is problematic to deny an innocent accused the ability to check on a crime victim's story to see if there's some undiscovered truth in there that will set justice on the right track. Similarly, it is important that people have legal representation when they are charged with parole violations so that they can understand what exactly is going on.

Or, to put it more briefly, most of us aren't hardened criminals, but some of us may still end up in these situations. Would you feel it was just to have things tilted against you?

By far the largest amount of funding for this proposition comes from Henry Nicolaus, who is also the major funder of the effort supporting Prop 6. Whereas he put about a million into Prop 6, Dr. Nicolaus has donaed nearly five million dollars in support of Prop 9.

Mirroring that, the opponents to Prop 9 are largely the same as the opponents to Prop 6. Major money in opposition to this proposition come from a number of California employee agencies, including multiple teachers associations, as well as the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

You can see who's giving money in support of Prop 9 by clicking here and here.

You can see who's opposing Prop 9 by clicking here.

You can read the full text of this proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions here.

Proposition 12: Veterans' Bond Act of 2008 - recommend Yes

Prop 12 is oddly opaque if you don't know the background it's building on. From the text included, it allows the sale of $900 million in bonds for some purpose defined elsewhere in law. Let's look at the background.

Over eighty years ago, California began selling bonds to help finance the Cal-Vet program, and we have sold about $8.4 billion worth of bonds to date in support of that program. The Cal-Vet program provides home loans to military veterans who served at least 90 days in war- or peacetime (note that the opposition argument is incorrect about this point). The chief advantages of a Cal-Vet loan over other loans is that all qualified applicants receive the same rate, and that the program purchases the home you're buying and then sells it to you, which lets them acquire a very favorable group rate for insurance for the homes they cover.

Note that active duty personnel can also apply for Cal-Vet loans, if they are state residents.

To date, the program has paid for itself, as most veterans have not defaulted on their home loans. On the other hand, the general obligation bonds must be paid off, default or no, so there's no guarantee that default rates won't spike and lead to increased costs from the program. As a consequence, we could expect costs anywhere from the historical "basically nothing" to some significant portion of the full amount.

My opinion on this program is perhaps colored by growing up in San Diego, but California really is a state that in many ways has grown on the back of the United States military. San Diego in particular grew up around a core of military and veteran residents and homeowners. Given this, their history of service, the fact that national-level support sometimes fails them, and that the program supports itself, I am inclined to continue supporting Cal-Vet.

There are no major financial interests pushing for or opposing Prop 12.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions here.

Proposition 3: Children's Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program. Initiative Statute. - recommend No

Proposition 3 is a bond act that would authorize the issuing of just shy of a billion dollars in bonds to fund construction and other capital costs at various children's hospitals in California. These bonds would be paid off over the course of 30 years, for a final cost of about $2 billion.

The funds would be split between UC hospitals and others, with 20% going to the UC system's children's hospitals and the remaining 80% going to children's hospitals outside the UC system. Grants awarded under Prop 3 are supposed to expand access for children who are eligible for government insurance programs, as well as indigent or underserved children, including providing under- or uncompensated care in some cases.

Prop 3 in particular is this year's candidate for annoying arguments for and against a fairly straightforward proposition. The official argument for Prop 3 pulls out this incredibly tired line:

"Proposition 3 does not raise taxes." (except they wrote it in all caps)

This is such fundamental nonsense, yet it must work well enough to bear reuse. Sure, it doesn't raise taxes -- it just builds up a two billion dollar debt. Ridiculous.

On the other side, the argument against tries this one:

"It appears that a driving force behind this measure is to provide a backdoor way of compensating hospitals for treating indigents (including illegal aliens) who don’t pay their way through the front door."

Backdoor? It's clearly there on the front that the grants are meant to help provide support for people who can't pay. This argument against tries to combine the narcissistic "nothing bad has ever happened to me" argument of the mid-Orange-county wanna-be who thinks they'd pay their way, no matter what, with the cheap addition of the bugbear of "it's supporting illegals!"

Shame on both of you. Those are pathetic arguments.

Although I support children's hospitals in general, and despise the arrogant and ignorant "everyone should pay their way no matter what" argument that is included in the opposing stance, I can't support two billion dollars in debt. If we want to make health care for children, especially uninsured children, more of a priority in this state we need to do it the right way, by tackling it in the legislature and restructuring our state's expenditures to support these services, potentially in favor of other items. Although it is logical for the hospitals supporting this proposition to try and support themselves in the face of ridiculous costs and a large population of uninsured children who nonetheless need help, this is not the approach I want to see used to do so.

Major financial support for Proposition 3 comes from, unsurprisingly, a number of children's hospitals throughout the state. Miller Children's Hospital, Loma Linda University Childrens' Hospital, Children's Hospital Oakland, Rady Children's Hospital San Diego, Children's Hospital Central California, Children's Hospital of Orange County, and the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford each gave over eight hundred thousand dollars in support of Prop 3. Children's Hospital of Los Angeles gave about 1.4 million dollars in support of this Prop, bringing the total from all these institutions to about 7.2 million dollars.

You can check out the full list of financial backers of Proposition 3 here.

There are no major financial opponents to Prop 3.

You can read the full text of the proposition here.

You can read my reviews and recommendations for the other propositions here.

As I've just finished posting the last of my California proposition reviews and recommendations today, I'm going to once again put up a central link page, this time with the ultra-concise reasoning behind each voting recommendation. As always, click through to the individual entries to read my summary of the propositions, see who's putting up money for or against them, and decide for yourself. Alternately, you can always just take my word for it.

1A: High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act - recommend "No" because even the massive amount of money put aside in this proposition won't complete the most basic rail line from the SF Bay Area to Los Angeles.
2: Standards for Confining Farm Animals - recommend "No" because it will eliminate the egg industry in California, but won't change how animals are raised -- it will just outsource them to other states.
3: Children's Hospital Bond Act - recommend "No" because it would pile on a billion in extra debt at a time when our debt load is already high.
4: Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of a Minor's Pregnancy (again) - recommend "No" because it is even more poorly written than earlier failed versions, and would put young woman in tremendous danger.
5: Nonviolent Drug Offenses; Sentencing, Parole, and Rehabilitation - recommend "Yes" because it would help unburden our jail system and may help reintegrate a significant portion of our criminal base -- drug users -- into productive society.
6: Police and Law Enforcement Funding; Criminal Penalties and Laws - recommend "No" because it would cost a massive amount of money, put many more people in jail, and there is little evidence that it would actually help reduce crime.
7: Renewable Energy Generation - recommend "No" because it is a very poorly written proposition that would screw up the California economy while failing to adequately support renewable energy.
8: Elimination of Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry - recommend "No" because this we don't need to legislate people's religious beliefs.
9: Criminal Justice System; Victim's Rights - recommend "No" because it would remove key rights of the accused and those who are on parole.
10: Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy - recommend "No" because this is a scam to put money into the hands of one corporation at taxpayer expense.
11: Redistricting (again) - recommend "No" because it would remove the power of redistricting from our legally elected representatives and hand it off to a small group of unaccountable people.
12: Veterans' Bond Act of 2008 - recommend "Yes" because it supports home ownership by veterans and this program has historically paid for itself fully, making this a net-no-cost proposition.

John McCain was complaining today about Representative John Lewis's comments that compared the attitude of fear and paranoia the McCain campaign has been pushing with regards to Obama with segregationist George Wallace:

"During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama," wrote the Democrat.

John is stunned at the comparison. Seriously. I'm not clear why, though:

The Republican campaign has turned highly personal over the past week asking "who is the real Barack Obama" and suggesting that he was not candid or truthful.

During rallies after the initial attacks, Republican supporters shouted "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar" and even "off with his head," in reference to Obama.

In attempting to retreat from this unpleasant and fantastically unsuccessful attempt to tap into the far gone xenophobic wing of the Republican party, John McCain put on this stellar performance:

There were signs as early as Friday that the negative tone was not having the desired effect. McCain drew jeers at a town hall meeting in Minnesota when he defended Obama after a supporter said he feared what would happen if Obama were elected president.

He also cut short a woman who described Obama as an Arab, saying his rival was "a decent, family man".

Wait, what? The alternative to "Arab" is "decent?" What?

A good answer there might have been, "Well, not that it matters, since America has many fine Arab citizens, but Obama was born in Hawaii and his parents were from Kenya and Kansas."

John, it's not "Arab" versus "decent." Good lord, what's happened to you?

al Jazeera article
CNN article

In taking down the Southern California-based Mongols biker gang, the ATF and the U.S. Attorney's office have taken the notable step of acting to seize the Mongol's brand identity. They plan to take possession of the gang's name and associated trade dress. This would, on later occasions, let an officer of the law simply seize any associated material on sight.

It's an innovative and intriguing way to strike at the identity of a criminal organization. The ability to go after the gang's identity is reminiscent of the ability to charge criminal gangs as a group that is proposed in Prop 6 on the upcoming ballot.

Also, the article speaks to why polygraphs aren't admissible in court:

The unidentified agents, who spent several years working to gain the Mongols' trust, were checked out by a private investigator hired by the gang and given polygraph exams before being formally admitted in 2007.

LA Times article

I picked up at least one antagonized comment over in my recent post about the misguided politics of xenophobia the McCain campaign has turned to in an effort to generate an issue on which it can beat the Obama campaign. Although prior political campaigns have illustrated that playing up the divisiveness can pay off, I think this hard turn toward fear mongering is really doing some damage not only to the McCain campaign and the United States, but to the Republican party.

Consider this video making the rounds, provided by the folks at the American News Project:

There's a clear point here. This sad turn toward the narrow, scared, xenophobic slice of the Republican base ignorantly rejects a lot of people who would otherwise vote Republican. A significant portion of observant Muslims line right up with socially conservative values -- they go to religious services, they oppose abortion, they believe in traditional marriage, and they believe in coherent families. When the McCain campaign attempts to tar Barack Obama with the notion of Islam, the take-home message for all those Muslims is that they're the tar. If a man isn't to be trusted because he might be Muslim, you clearly can't be trusted if you are Muslim.

And for those who laud the politics of exclusion -- congratulations, you're ruling out a giant chunk of your fellow Americans, including the roughly 13% of us of African descent, the 15% of us who are Latinos, and the 5% of us who are Asian (you can look at these and other figures at the U.S. Census Bureau's American FactFinder). Try throwing all those people out of your party and see how many elections you win.

The most recent push from the McCain campaign has to try to appeal to "real America" with the idea that an Obama victory would bring about the rise of socialism in the United States. Unexamined, that idea sparks some real antagonism from Americans, as we readily identify the term socialism with the out-and-out evils of late twentieth-century Communism, and so to be socialist is to be evil.

Well, there are some problems with that.

At the height of the Cold War, we identified the Eastern Bloc as Communist and thus Socialist, and ourselves as Capitalist. What were previously technical terms describing economic approaches effectively became ideological stand-ins for the freedoms of the Western world versus the totalitarian states of the Soviet Union and its cohorts. This in turn has "fed back" into the idea that even a trace of socialism -- that is, even a trace of wealth redistribution from the well off to the less well off -- meant leanings toward totalitarianism.

It's a curious linkage, of course. After all, a lot of us happily go to church, donate money to that church, and then applaud the church when it helps the less fortunate. Redistribution of wealth from rich to poor. Socialism.

Similarly, people in this country tend to have a blindness to the amount of assistance we're all giving each other, all the time. The modern Republican party, in particular, has pushed the image of people standing on their own, not needing "handouts," and in general dismissed the idea that it might be patriotic, and the mark of a good citizen, to want to pay into a system that supports those in need.

Well, there's something interesting about that. Consider the 2004 election results, taken from CNN's electoral map calculator:

Then take a look at this map from the Tax Foundation's 2006 Special Report on Federal Tax Burdens and Expenditures by State:

The second map shows, on a state-by-state basis, how much Federal spending each state received per dollar paid in as Federal taxes. Especially low ratios (that is, paying in significantly more than they get out) are shown in light gray whereas especially high ratios (receiving much more money than they paid in) are shown in dark gray.

That bastion of "real America", Alaska? Nearly two dollars out from the Federal government per dollar paid in. Similarly, much of middle America comes out ahead, getting moderately to significantly profitable payouts from the Federal government.

In contrast, those two big blue states from 2004, California and New York, both paid in more than they got out.

Or, in simple terms, we're bankrolling you.

Real America -- especially traditional, rural America -- is about people helping the people around them. When the McCain campaign attempts to rile up middle American audiences by decrying the redistribution of wealth, he never mentions the critical fact that they're the ones getting that wealth.

If we in California reduced our pay-in to the Federal government to the amount we get out, what would Kansas do?

There's nothing wrong with helping your fellow Americans.

The single, glaring flaw in contemporary economic policy has been its faith-based nature. Despite the ability to empirically evaluate how people will behave, Alan Greenspan and his followers chose to believe that the market was basically always right, and that things would work out optimally. Notably, the 2007 Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences (i.e. the Economics Nobel Prize) was given to recognize research into the design of economic systems in light of the fact that things are not optimal.

In testimony before Congress yesterday, Alan expressed his "shock" at investor's lack of self regulation even though it would have been in their long-term best interest:

Greenspan said he was shocked at the banks' inability to self-regulate and blamed over-eager investors for the sub-prime housing meltdown that led to the financial crisis, our correspondent said.

Apparently, our boy Al has never seen an overweight person of any kind (and a good one third of adults in this country are obese). Humans did not evolve in an environment of plenty, or of collaborative financial planning for optimal group outcomes (especially not that second one). We regulate things that can go drastically out of balance specifically because people don't always regulate themselves in their own best interests. Some people are opportunists, others criminals, but most just won't be able to see how their behavior plays into the system as a whole. Certainly, people aren't especially good at self regulating and just deciding not to optimize their own gain.

Faith-based economics is a poor practice, Alan Greenspan's citation of a prior lack of collapse as evidence of success notwithstanding.

BBC article
al Jazeera article

Worth watching in its entirety:

More on Corporal Khan here.

The picture that is referred to in the segment is here.

One of you came to this site from that search phrase. I'm not sure where "the socialists" actually keep their plans, but I'm happy to suggest that people who fear the specter of socialism turn the way back machine to this post from last week, where I explore how we've been "spreading the wealth" from the wealthy states such as California and New York to those who apparently need it, including the putatively independently minded state of Alaska, which gets a solid $1.87 back for every $1 it pays into the Federal budget.

It's mildly saddening to watch people decry the concept of supporting your community as "socialist," especially since those same people probably drove to work on an Interstate highway, have a subsidized home loan, use the Internet, and expect to rely on Medicare someday. Yes, the term "socialism" gained an indelible association with totalitarian governments, but guess what -- helping each other is a fundamentally sane and all-American value.

Or to put it another way: I like roads.

You all are free to give back our money and opt out of using these services, but I like paying in to make my country better.

Traditionally, American Muslims have often supported the Republicans. However, this election is turning things around.

Azeem Khan, 27, is one of them. He said: "There are many Muslims who say because of what they've seen in the past eight years they can't bring themselves, in their lifetime, to vote for a Republican.

This is pretty much what I've been saying. By choosing to focus on the narrow slice of the party that is afraid of everything, the Republican leadership is pushing out those who were once attracted either the socially or fiscally conservative history of the party, including Muslims, Latinos, and others.

And why wouldn't they feel alienated by a party leadership that's now pandering to this nonsense?

Polls here suggest 10% of Americans still think Obama is a Muslim.

"We'll be giving them nuclear arms. Next thing you know they'll be attacking us again."

About the only thing that unnamed woman in question got right is that, historically, we have helped fund and arm some of the people who ended up causing us problems, including supporting Saddam Hussein and providing arms to Islamic radicals in Afghanistan. Of course, these things were done when Mr. Obama was in his late teens and early twenties, so I think we'll need to find someone else to blame.

BBC article

As we careen in toward election day, maybe you're asking yourself how you can escape a party that no longer represents your conservative values or where you can find some real socialism. If so, you're in luck. Well, at least if you're voting in California, you're in luck. You have options. It's not just one, but several third-party candidates, including:

Ron Paul -- For those who never got over Ron leaving the Republican primary. However, you might not want to cast your vote here, because Ron Paul has apparently endorsed...

Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution party, who believes the Constitution is not just a good idea, but given by divine providence. I'm afraid I can't get behind that, but it's nice to see that Chuck has debated...

Ralph Nader, who is running as the Peace and Freedom candidate, leaving...

Cynthia McKinney as the Green candidate. Note that of the parties on this list, the Greens are by far (to my mind) the most legitimate, having made many gains at the regional and local levels, even if they can't yet crack the presidency. From here, we go on to...

Alan Keyes, here to promote a return to true conservativism. If, on the other hand, you want honest to God real socialism (none of that namby-pamby "normal income taxes" stuff), we have...

James Harris of the Socialist Workers Party. I didn't realize we actually had a Socialist anything party. Finally, we can go to two rather different takes on wild freedom with...

Frank Moore, who advocates universal minimum income and universal healthcare, and...

Bob Barr of the Libertarian party, who doubtless has succeeded entirely on his own with no help from anyone.

Being less facetious, I think there is a legitimate space in the electoral market for parties with relatively sane party lines that nonetheless differ from our two big ones. Of the parties above, I think the Green Party fits that metric. There may well be room for a "true conservative" party in the future as well, whether it occurs by the expelling of the nutters from the current Republican party or the creation of a new third party that doesn't focus on hardline libertarian or religious nuttiness. Sort of a party of ethical accountants, as it were.

In its last-ditch effort to get Americans to vote against our best interest, the McCain campaign has been accusing Obama of wanting to "spread the wealth" by proposing a progressive tax plan -- that is, taxes that ratchet down for those who make less and up for those who make more. This stands in opposition to McCain's proposal to flatten out the tax progression, saving money for those who are already well off.

The concept of a progressive tax is labeled, in dire terms, as socialist, even though those who are being sold on the idea of avoiding this "spreading of wealth" are often those who benefit the most from it.

But wait. Let's put aside all ideas of reappropriating wealth in society for the moment, and consider something else.

We are at war.

Two years ago, I took a look at the American history of taxation during war. At the time, George Bush was pushing for his faith-based tax cuts -- I call it "faith-based" not as a dig at religion, but because there's no empirical basis for believing that cutting taxes, especially cutting them for the already wealthy, will actually promote the wellbeing of the economy in general. More to the point, however, cutting taxes in the middle of a war seemed like a bad idea, so I went and looked at the history (again, see the link).

During World War II, the marginal tax rate went as high as 94%. That is, the wealthiest of Americans had the upper portion of their earnings almost completely taxed. During the Korean war, that rate went as high as 87%.

Now that we're at war again -- and it's a big one, with hundreds of thousands of troops committed across multiple fronts -- our highest marginal tax rate is 33%. At the same time, our military is falling behind in fixing and replacing equipment as we attempt to fight a massive war "on the cheap." Nonetheless, a number of Republican senators blocked a proposal to put aside more funding for military reset in July of last year.

What's going on here? Are we so afraid of supporting ourselves as a group that we can't put aside funding to fight a multiple-front war? Are we that much worse than our forebears, that we can't pay more in a time of need?

The rational choice in support of our national defense right now is to pay more, especially those of us who can afford it. If paying more to armor up our soldiers is socialism, then I guess I'm on board.

NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman interviews Dr. Paul Offit on the Today show:

I recommend watching through to the end, where Dr. Snyderman refuses to back down when Matt Lauer suggests that the belief that vaccines cause autism is "controversial." As Dr. Snyderman correctly points out, it is not controversial -- the evidence says that vaccines do not cause autism, no matter how many people believe that in the absence of any evidence. Much more can be found on this topic elsewhere, but the short version is that those who promote the idea of vaccines causing autism have moved the goalposts several times to accommodate their beliefs, even as the evidence remains the same.

The suggestion that there's some kind of vast "vaccine industry" at work manipulating results is especially noxious, as vaccines are notoriously poor money-making propositions for a pharma firm (wouldn't you rather make an erectile dysfunction drug and make serious bank?). And, as infectious disease doctor Mark Crislip points out, if it was all about the money, you'd let these epidemic diseases run wild. After all, why get paid once to vaccinate some kid for polio when you can hook them in for a lifetime of expensive care once it paralyzes them?

Obviously, that "logic" is not at work in the real world, where pediatricians encourage vaccinations precisely because these childhood diseases are so devastating.

Dr. Snyderman is arguing from evidence, evidence for the safety and efficacy of vaccines, evidence that keeps popping up in well-designed research studies, including this one from a former proponent of the autism-MMR vaccine link, who actually tested her ideas and found that there was no support for that association.

It's been suggested that vaccines are the single most important discovery of modern medical science. It makes little sense to trade those in for pandemic disease and a life of hardship.

The Today Show article