"Former California Gov. Jerry Brown is living off the grid in retirement... 'I’m very happy where I am — it’s a very amazing place. I can’t imagine being in a better place'...."

"He then wondered aloud whether he could have avoided the same mistakes as those who became president. Then he quickly switched to considering why a hummingbird that caught his eye was moving so quickly from tree to tree."

That should be a poem.

But it's just an AP article — "Climate change is like war, California’s Jerry Brown says."

"Governor Jerry Brown virtually admits it's a bad idea even while signing it: 'I don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation.'"

"A terrible law, which will be bad for women and men. Laws and economics are not zero-sum; we can all lose," writes my son John, facebooking "California becomes first state to require women on corporate boards" (NBC).

Brown's statement continued: "Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, D.C. — and beyond — make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message." Is he talking about the Kavanaugh hearings?? Crystal clear. It's not even crystal clear what he's referring to. Spare me your California crystals.

Who will challenge this thing in court? What's the argument that it doesn't violate equal protection? It won't matter if no one sues. It seems easier to just put a woman on the board than to fight the law.

ADDED: A challenge could occur if the state tries to enforce the requirement against a company, and it's put in the defensive position. Maybe a flaw that is "fatal to [the law's] ultimate implementation" is that the state will never enforce it because then it would need to defend the law in court, and it can't. Passing the law is for show, and the law makes a show of requiring that corporations do something for show. And the corporations will probably put on the show, and that's how it's intended to work.

Have you heard that it's now against the law in California to shower and do laundry on the same day?

I just heard that, didn't believe it, and got right to this Snopes piece that says it's "mostly false."

There is a new water conservation law, signed a few days ago by Governor Jerry Brown, that "mandates for water districts and municipalities, and water agencies can be fined if they fail to meet conservation goals (but not until 2027)."

"There is nothing in this bill to target households or companies. Water use objectives are on territory-level of a water agency. There is nothing regulating the time a person may shower or when they may or may not do laundry."

Don't spread fake news. Maybe you don't like this law or rankle at too much government regulation, but what do you propose for a heavily populous state with chronic water shortage problems? Here's a suggestion for a conservative answer: Let the democratic processes within California determine what to do about a California problem.

"What’s here? There’s no swimming pool, no basketball court. There are rattlesnakes and wild boar, and it’s 110 degrees."

"In the middle of nowhere. Wind gusts blowing. Dust getting in your mouth. It’s not for the faint of heart."

Governor Jerry Brown describes his 2,514-acre property, where he and his wife stay in what definitely deserves the term "tiny house." And it's not poshly tiny like those NYC apartments in the news today. There's an outhouse and no electricity.

“You know what I like?” Mr. Brown asked. “You get up in the middle of the night, the stars are very bright, the moon shining on the barn. It makes for a good balance between the intensity of the political and the serenity of the land.”

Where all the governors stand on resettling Syrian refugees in their state.

AP has an extensive run down. I'll focus on some governors that I would expect to be relatively supportive of the President's agenda. The number in parentheses is the number of refugees who have already arrived in the state. Boldface is mine:

CALIFORNIA (218): Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown says he'll work closely with President Barack Obama to ensure any Syrian refugees coming to California are "fully vetted in a sophisticated and utterly reliable way." He says the state can help uphold America's traditional role as a place of asylum while also protecting California residents.

COLORADO (5): Colorado's governor isn't ruling out Syrian refugees. But Gov. John Hickenlooper says the federal government needs to make sure the verification process for refugees is "as stringent as possible."

"The yes-means-yes standard turns almost all of us into rapists. We have let the radicals hijack this issue..."

"...with disastrous results for innocent young people." = the highest-rated comment at the NYT article "Sex Ed Lesson: ‘Yes Means Yes,’ but It’s Tricky."

The next 3 highest, in order

If we're assuming women are to weak willed or stupid to even say "no" to something they don't want to do, why don't we go full 15th century and require permission from her male relatives and a marriage?

Articles like this make feel good about being 70. Keep 'em coming.

"'Kevin de León, the California State Senate speaker pro tempore and lead sponsor of the high school legislation, said the new law was as much about changing the culture as it was about changing the law.' Changing the culture? This is a law that the California legislature passed and the Governor signed. It is not purely symbolic. Students who find themselves on the wrong side of this law may be expelled from their schools. And California has left it to the students to decipher what the law means because the grown-ups like [Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco,] are unable explain it. Apparently you have to break the law to find out what it means. Talk about unconstitutional vagueness!"

ADDED: The article names a particular teenage boy asking a question — “What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” — and I wonder if he affirmatively consented to having his name associated with that quote in The New York Times. The teacher, who probably consented to having the press in her classroom as she forced this intimate topic on the compulsorily educated students, said: “Pretty much.... It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask.”

Do you want to risk looking like a dummy in that press-observed classroom by asking what, to me, seem like the obvious questions: Sex has levels? What counts as a level? When does a level begin? Is there always someone who goes to the next level first or is it possible to change levels simultaneously? Can there be 2 new levels coming up at the same time, with one person "initiating things to" new level A while the other person is "initiating things to" new level B?

Actually, now, this has me thinking of a way students could force adults to become more responsible in their sex education behavior. Listen to what the teacher said and ask questions about the meaning of the words. A phrase like "whoever initiates things to another level has to ask" contains material for a hundred questions. Do these teachers really understand what they are saying, as it applies to real human beings, or are they struggling to follow government orders?

By the way, Zaloom is not just another teacher following government orders. As we learn in paragraph 22 of this 30-paragraph article, she "has written a curriculum for affirmative consent programs that is being used throughout the country." I was surprised to see that, because much earlier in the article, she looks like just another teacher trying to follow orders. Paragraph 9 says Zaloom "has taught high school students about sex for two decades, said she was grateful for the new standard, even as she acknowledged the students’ unease."  

Grateful? Is she a receiver of the imposition of the standard or did she... initiate?

"This multiplication and particularization of criminal behavior creates increasing complexity without commensurate benefit."

Well played, Jerry Brown! (Via Jaltcoh.)

"It's not that expensive. We can afford it. In fact, we cannot NOT afford it."

"All these projects are a little touch and go. You'll have these critics say 'why spend all this money?' On the other hand I like trains, I like clean air... And I like to enjoy the comfort of trains. I like to get up and walk around and shake hands. You can't do that in your little car as you look in your rear view mirror."

Said Governor Jerry Brown at the ground-breaking ceremony for California's $68 billion high-speed rail system.

Yeah, how can you not not afford that?

Isn't it wonderful that after all these years, they're actually starting the darned thing?

And isn't if comforting to know that if it ever actually comes into existence, it will comfort Jerry Brown... if he's still among us and able to walk around and shake hands?

The 142-mile rail line will choo-choo crowds from L.A. north of Fresno to San Francisco south of Fresno. So Jerry has a decent chance at getting to shake hands in and around Fresno.

ADDED: Ultimately, the plan is for a 520-mile line that is supposed to get people from downtown L.A. to downtown San Francisco. We're told there's "hope" of getting that done by 2029 and also that "The authority needs to speed up the eminent domain process, since only 100 of the 500 land parcels needed for the rails and stations have been purchased." Which ones? Have they got all that downtown L.A. and San Francisco land yet?

My prediction is that these endpoints — without which no one would want this project — will never be reached by the line that's getting started now in Fresno. The only question is when people will freak out sufficiently to abandon the desperate throwing of good money after bad. I feel sorry for California, and I say that as someone who voted for Scott Walker in 2010 on the single issue of rejecting the lure of federal money to build a high-speed train.

It's not that I don't care about the environment. I do! I have a much better solution for California than its huge-carbon-footprint construction project. Stop traveling between San Francisco and L.A. Pick one! You know you prefer San Francisco or L.A. Just pick one and satisfy yourself with all the wonderful attractions and indulgences of San Francisco OR L.A. What are the arguments against that option? Please lay them out, because I would like to see them in writing so I can form an opinion of what kind of an environmentalist you really are.

WaPo's Dan Balz exposes the oldness and emptiness of the Democratic Party.

He blames Obama and Hillary. And it's a problem that will only get worse if Hillary wins the presidency:

If Clinton were to win the presidency and serve two terms, the next opportunity for a new generation of Democrats to compete nationally would not come until 2024. The Democrats could go 16 years between competitive presidential nomination contests, wiping out opportunities for today’s younger generation to define or redefine the party apart from either the Obama or Clinton eras.

But at this point, if Clinton doesn't run, things are even worse, since the ranks are so thin. Not Martin O'Malley, after what just happened in Maryland. Balz assumes Jerry Brown at 76 is too old. (On his most recent HBO show, Bill Maher did a long, unfunny routine about the ageism of saying Jerry Brown is too old. Aren't we just terrible to display skepticism about an 80+-year-old President?)

Here's my observation. If Clinton were to see that she's either going to lose in 2016 or destroy the future development of national-level stars in her party, she could decide against running, release the dammed-up streams of cash to the next wave of Democrats, and allow them to develop their reputations in the 2016 race. Assume the GOP is due for its time in the presidency, and let this next round of campaigning center on rebuilding the front ranks of the party. From that invigorating process, a star could emerge. A star emerged in '08 even with Hillary blocking the way. To hope to win in '16 using the same tired bullyism on the theory that there's no one up and coming seems lame compared to bold moves to repopulate the party.

Jerry Brown signs a law requiring colleges and universities that get state money to impose a "yes means yes" standard on student sex.

The Chronicle of Higher Education — citing the famously spurious "one in five women" statistic — says the new law "ushers in a new era in the debate about how to curb sexual assaults on college campuses."

Actually, the statute doesn't — like the Chronicle — call it the "yes means yes" standard, which sounds silly, since "yes" already meant yes. They ought to at least say "only yes means yes." But the statutory term is "affirmative consent":

“Affirmative consent” means affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity. It is the responsibility of each person involved in the sexual activity to ensure that he or she has the affirmative consent of the other or others to engage in the sexual activity. 

He or she... this is gender neutral, as, of course, it must be. So no more assuming that the male must want the female's touchings.

Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent. Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time. The existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent.

The statute proceeds to speak of "the accused" and "the complainant." The accused is not permitted to use intoxication as an excuse for misperceiving the existence of affirmative consent and there can be no affirmative consent when the complainant was "incapacitated" by drinking or drugs.

What if both are drunk? The smartass answer to that question is: It depends on who's the accused and who's the complainant. It seems as though, beyond the gender-neutrality of the statute, there is an assumption that only women will complain. The statutory scheme would collapse if men complained too. But social conditioning and convention keep men quiet... at least so far. Perhaps in the future, they will complain defensively after a night of ambiguity.

As The Chronicle of Higher Education says, it's "a new era in the debate."

ADDED: I suspect that what's really going on is an effort to change the culture of drinking and sex. It will go the way of drinking and driving and become something that decent people don't do... not beyond a light drink anyway. The feminist angle is the wedge.

Scott Walker named one of the world's 100 most influential people (according to Time).

And the write-up is by Chris Christie (who's not).

[Scott Walker's] battle to bring fairness to the taxpayers through commonsense reform of the public-sector collective-bargaining laws brought him scorn from the special interests and a recall election. Despite these threats, he stood tall. His reforms have brought tax reductions to his citizens and economic growth to his state. They have allowed public workers the freedom to choose whether to belong to a union. They have made Wisconsin a better place to live and work.

Doesn't that read like it was written for a children's newspaper?

ADDED: I don't know if Christie wrote that or just agreed to put his name on it, because from what I've seen so far on this Time list, it's all written in that flat, simple tone that assumes the reader has a mental age of about 10. For example: "Holder uses his power to defend Americans’ freedoms and thus our values of democracy and justice."

AND: "How much suffering can human beings tolerate? Unless he starts taking care of his people, the young generalissimo may be the first Kim to find out." And here's "Madeleine Albright" on Putin: "History is filled with aggressors who triumphed for a moment. Then failed." And: "Gray Davis" on Jerry Brown: "No longer the new kid, he’s now the adult in the room — the wise steward of our state’s resources." And: "If Kirsten Gillibrand wants to be a rock star, she’ll be a rock star. But she’d make a great President."

"And all of a sudden, if there's advertising and legitimacy, how many people can get stoned and still have a great state or a great nation?"

"The world's pretty dangerous, very competitive. I think we need to stay alert, if not 24 hours a day, more than some of the potheads might be able to put together."

Said California Governor Jerry Brown... the erstwhile moonbeam.

"For the uninitiated, ‘Governor Moonbeam’ became Mr. Brown’s intractable sobriquet, dating back to his days as governor between 1975 and 1983...."

The nickname was coined by Mike Royko, the famed Chicago columnist, who in 1976 said that Mr. Brown appeared to be attracting “the moonbeam vote,” which in Chicago political parlance meant young, idealistic and nontraditional.

The term had a nice California feel, and Mr. Royko eventually began applying it when he wrote about the Golden State’s young, idealistic and nontraditional chief executive. He found endless amusement — and sometimes outright agita — in California’s oddities, calling the state “the world’s largest outdoor mental asylum.”

“If it babbles and its eyeballs are glazed,” he noted in April 1979, “it probably comes from California.”

Breitbart wants to go after news outlets "that hide behind this patina of entertainment in order to promote a left-wing agenda."

Says Ben Shapiro, who's especially eager to "smack Politico across the face." Of course, exposing the bias in reporting that might be mistaken for neutral is what the internet is for. One must pick apart the rhetoric of others.

It can get tedious, however, to just be saying over and over that Politico or Buzzfeed leans left. Or, as they say at the right-leaning Breitbart promotes a left-wing agenda. Please. They are not that exciting. They are much more lame and flabby than that. Don't accidentally compliment them. Agenda! It sounds so officious.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "agenda" as "A campaign, programme, or plan of action arising from a set of underlying principles or motives. Hence: the underlying intentions or motives of a particular person or group."

1976   Newsweek 19 Apr. 23/1   Their hope is that the party..would opt for youth and freshness. ‘Those folks who have their own agenda for Hubert underestimate Jerry Brown’, says one California politician....
1991   C. Paglia Sex, Art, & Amer. Culture (1992) 73   That girl had her own agenda..trying to glom onto the Kennedy glamour!

That's not a reference to Marilyn Monroe, by the way. After making an appearance in post #1 of the day, Marilyn would seem magical is she popped up here too, but Camille Paglia was talking about the William Kennedy Smith rape trial.

And can you hide behind a "patina"? The OED defines "patina" as "A thin coating or layer; spec. an incrustation on the surface of metal or stone, usually as a result of an extended period of weathering or burial; a green or bluish-green film produced naturally or artificially by oxidation on the surface of bronze and copper, consisting mainly of basic copper sulphate."

1748 H. Walpole Let. 6 Oct. in Corr. (1974) XXXVII. 297, I wish you could see him making squibs.., and bronzed over with a patina of gunpowder.

One must pick apart the rhetoric of others.

And speaking of neutrality and smacking in the face... the Althouse blog agenda is cruel neutrality.

"This bill bans nonscientific 'therapies' that have driven young people to depression and suicide."

"These practices have no basis in science or medicine, and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery."

The [California] law, which is to take effect on Jan. 1, states that no “mental health provider” shall provide minors with therapy intended to change their sexual orientation, including efforts to “change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

California voters have "buyers' remorse" over over a $68.4 billion high-speed "train to nowhere."

"The project is still $54.9 billion short of what is needed, raising fears that the state will be unable to find the funds to finish later sections, and could be left with a futuristic rail line linking minor cities and farming communities."

A new poll shows almost three fifths would oppose the bullet train and halt public borrowing if given another chance to vote.

Almost seven in 10 said that, if the train ever does run between Los Angeles and San Francisco, they would "never or hardly ever" use it.

Not a single person said they would use it more than once a week, and only 33 per cent said they would prefer the bullet train over a one hour plane journey or seven hour drive. The cost of a ticket, estimated at $123 each way, also put many off. Jerry Brown, California's Democrat governor, has championed the project as a way to create jobs and is backed by unions.

Democratic governor... backed by unions... Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, we rejected the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who wanted the high-speed train. We rejected him in November 2010, and we re-rejected him yesterday.

Here's Tom Barrett in October 2010, just before his first loss to Scott Walker, touting high-speed rail — "a defining issue" — where "Wisconsin was the biggest winner" — bigger even than California — in getting an offer of federal money to pay for a leg of a rail system.



And here is one of the most effective political ads I've ever experienced, the ad from Scott Walker, in late summer of 2010, rejecting the high-speed rail:

"If they began this project where they want it to go — between San Francisco and Los Angeles..."

"... they would run into so much opposition from the environmentalists, and from local politicians influenced by the environmentalists, that the delays could take the high-speed rail advocates beyond the time limit for using the federal subsidy money. But the green fanatics have not yet taken over politically out in the San Joaquin Valley."

Writes Thomas Sowell about the high-speed rail line between Fresno and Bakersfield, California.

In other words, they are going to start wasting money out in the valley, so that they will be able to waste more money later on, along the coast. This may not make any sense economically, but it can make sense politically for Jerry Brown and Barack Obama.

The reason why every not-Romney candidate but Bachmann has had a surge.

We're experiencing the Santorum surge now, and it seems that the conservatives looking for a way to stop Romney have simply converged on him after the sequential failure of their efforts to converge on Perry, Cain, and Gingrich. But why not Bachmann? She won the Iowa straw poll back in August. If she was that strong then, why was she denied her turn for a surge?

There was her blunder talking about the HPV vaccine causing mental retardation, but that was a single incidence of loose talk, relaying an anecdote, and I doubt if most people even remember that.

I think what has held her back is her husband. A candidate's spouse matters. It was recently reported that when Newt Gingrich was divorcing his first wife, he (supposedly) said to a close friend: "You know and I know that she’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of a president." Now, Gingrich is on his third wife, and she's relatively young and pretty (though she strikes many people as weird). But Gingrich's decline coincided with some intense focus on Callista. I'm not saying his decline was all about Callista. He had his surge, and that drew all sorts of scrutiny and criticism, and there was plenty to bring him back down. Yet the wife — and the wives — have mattered.

My question is: Why did Michele Bachmann get passed over in the sequence of surges? And my answer is that once people saw what her husband Marcus was like, they excluded her from consideration. For a female candidate, the spousal question is quite complicated. We expect the candidate herself to live up to some of the expectations we have — consciously or unconsciously — of the wives of male candidates. But what of the husband? Who will be the first First Gentleman in history? What's he supposed to be like? The role needs to be invented. And it couldn't be invented with the raw material that is Marcus Bachmann. Once people noticed him and tried to imagine him as the first First Gentleman, they ceased to conceive of her as a possible President.

If you don't remember how Marcus Bachmann burst into the national consciousness, refresh your recollection:

California's high-speed rail project nearly triples in cost — to $98.5 billion.

And the new projected completion date is 2033, not 2020.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday was expected to endorse the long-awaited plan, the first major update to the project in two years and the last before the federal deadline to begin construction next year. But state legislators, who were already skeptical, will tear through the plan starting Tuesday before deciding whether to start building, or to kill the project.

Obviously, they need to kill the project. Speaking of governors, remember this guy?



That's the ad — from August 2010 — that clinched my vote for Scott Walker.

California already requires its public schools to teach women's history and black history, so why not gay history?

There's a bill in the state legislature that has already passed the senate.

Advocates say that teaching about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in schools would prevent bullying and shatter stereotypes that some students may harbor. They point to several students who have committed suicide after being taunted by peers for being gay. But the bill has drawn vociferous criticism from opponents who argue that when and how to talk about same-sex relationships should be left to parents.

So the motivation behind forcing this study of history has little to do with history. It's about controlling behavior.

I have this idealistic belief that young people would behave better if they were respected as students, if the study of history would be premised on the value of studying history, and if, when history is studied,   historical principles determined the subject matter. 

A similar bill was approved by the Democratic-controlled Legislature in 2006, but vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said that school curriculum should be left up to local schools. But there is a new governor now. And both supporters and opponents of the bill expect it will sail through the heavily Democratic Assembly and be signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat who has been supportive of gay rights.

How much easier it is for a politician to sign a bill than for students to slog through political lessons year after year instead of learning what truly belongs in a history class. It's disgusting to compel young people to go to school and then to treat them like this.

And don't tell me that the gay rights movement genuinely belongs in a history course. Let that topic be integrated into history courses to the extent that they truly belong in a history course, not because some politicos wanted to score points or because their emotive constituents feel that there's an epidemic of bullying and suicide and it can be cured by making heroes out of Harvey Milk and his ilk.

“It is very basic to me that people dislike and fear that with which we are less familiar,” said Mark Leno, who sponsored the bill and is one of the first openly gay men elected to the State Senate. Students who come to view their fellow classmates as regular members of society, rather than misfits, will find that “their behavior changes for the better,” Mr. Leno said.

Leno just intuits cause and effect. "It's very basic to me" isn't a good enough foundation for a law that appropriates and exploits millions of hours of the time of other human beings. I could just assert that it's very basic to me that when young people are compelled to spend day after day, year after year, under the control of adults cranking out what sounds like state indoctrination, that they will rebel against authority. And then where's the good behavior you had your warm heart set on?

ADDED: Shouting Thomas cites "South Park":

The parents in that series are all veterans of the 60s, and they think that rebellion ended with them. They think that all of the issues of authority versus kids were solved when they were adolescents. So, they are constantly astonished to discover that their kids think they are pompous windbags preaching bullshit. Their kids are rebelling against them.

Click through to see what Shouting Thomas thinks about bullying.

"Once, he baked in existential estrangement, opportunistically tilting at authority figures..."

Baked? What are you trying to say, Maureen Dowd?