I Have Written a Whole Bunch of Columns and Blog Posts About the California Special Election and its Aftermath: So let's collect most of it in one place, in reverse chronological order, shall we? Starting with tonight:

Blame the Voters, Pass the Buck: L.A. Times writers who bemoan "feel-good 'ballot box budgeting'" ignore the paper's longstanding support for bond-measure politics.

Why Long Beach Isn't Detroit: How Southern California survived the collapse of aircraft manufacturing without a bailout. (Not technically about the special election, but somehow relevant.)

Bailout Mentality 101: How Michael Hiltzik's Act or Die mindset is all too common among the people who are supposed to be explaining this stuff.

The $499,000 Pension and Other Tales of California Governance: Why discuss gold-plated retirements when you can bemoan budget cuts that will "reshape" California?

California's Silent Big Spenders: Political class refuses to explain why the state requires hysterical spending growth.

LAT Columnist: State Spending Problem a "Myth"...Unless You Count All State Spending: Michael Hiltzik's curious math.

Paul Krugman: If Only California Could Just Raise Taxes: Blaming tax restrictions, and a political minority, on a spending problem.

The California Scare Campaign: How "straight" news is tailored to maximally frighten your pants off.

Why Governments Are Lousy at Running Businesses, But Excellent at Scaring You About "Annihilating" Budget Cuts: In which "brutal budget cuts" mean 2 percent of the public sector workforce.

Union Chief, to the California He Helped Drive Into the Ditch: "I think democracy is an ugly thing": SEIU chief Andy Stern doesn't even try to defend his takeover of Golden State politics.

California's Political/Journalistic Class = Fail: Though that doesn't stop them from snarling at voters the morning after.

Defenders of Democracy Fail, Yet Again, to Convince the Polity: Featuring a handy and stunning chart of California newspaper editorial endorsements.

Some of this will surely be repetitive and so on, but I wanted to gather all the coverage in once place.

06/02/2009 07:07 PM  |  Comment (0)

Why Facebook Is Fun For a 40-year-old, in a That Way it Can't Be for a 20-year-old: Because ha-ha, surprising old pictures you didn't know about and never expected to see!

For instance, not gay at all:

Also, not drunk:

Not a hippie:

Not looking down Bonnie Cooper's shirt:

And ... just not:

05/31/2009 06:37 PM  |  Comment (4)

Hi! What are you doing down here?