lemme get this one down while the memory's still fresh

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so tonight after work i stop at my neighborhood rite-aid for the evening's booze a few essentials--the usual kid's there behind the counter and as i reach out to swipe my debit card he says, "oh gosh, i rang it up as a cash sale--you don't happen to have cash, do you?"

i tell him i don't, he rolls his eyes and reaches for the phone to call the manager who's god knows where and as soon as i realize it's gonna be complicated i grab a candy bar off the rack and tell him to ring it up and i'll pay for it with my card and get some cash back to pay for my prior purchase and no manager will be necessary.

he's relieved, the line behind me relaxes, we do the deal and as i try to hand him back one of my new twenties to pay for my shit, he holds a hand up and tells me to wait, grabs the receipt from the first sale, flips it over and starts writing on it.  i'm thinking maybe he needs to document some irregularity in the transaction after all, so i wait

and wait...and wait...

until after an eternity of brow-furrowed scratching he finally drops his pen, takes my twenty, gives me my change--and then instead of tucking the receipt he'd worked so hard on into his cash drawer as i'd expected, stuffs it into my bag instead.


all becomes clear when i get out to the car, fish it out and observe the work of this young, bright-eyed product of the california educational system first-hand.

it's now official:  america is doomed.

an interim post

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yeah, i know all three of you can't wait for my promised post-mortem of the dead-on-arrival california proposition 23--but while i'm putting it together, take a look at the following chart:

and now for the only statistic that really matters these days:  while california has been hemorrhaging jobs for the last 10 years, texas has been creating 'em literally by the hundreds of thousands.

as you ponder the above--and as preface to my prop 23 post--you might wanna ask yourself a couple questions:

(1) why is it that the most highly-taxed and/or unionized states are generally also the ones that have the highest unemployment and/or are the most broke?

      and more particularly to the topic at hand,

(2)  what's more important in the overall scheme of things:  further impoverishing an already-bankrupt state for the strictly symbolic cause of "saving the planet", or preserving what little industry and technology said state state still possesses in order to provide employment for its remaining productive citizens?

california, in its wisdom, just made its choice.  tell me, what do you think?

nice knowing you, california

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remember how i was talking yesterday about how it really didn't much matter whether the red or blue team came out on top?  well, forget all that when it comes to state and local elections, because they still very much matter.  and few states faced more crucial choices than did california this election year.

the results are in, and how much more fucked are we today than we were yesterday? lemme count the ways:

1.  jerry brown

if you had told me a year ago that california--a state that has been bled dry by state-worker unions, their bloated salaries and pensions--would turn for salvation to the guy who

• not only foisted the state-worker unions on us in the first place, but
• whose campaign was almost totally financed by said state-worker unions,

i would have laughed in your face.  well, today i'm still laughing, but only because i have a sick sense of humor.

of course, jerry brown's re-ascendency wouldn't have been possible without the help of

2.  meg whitman

if you had told me a year ago that a bright, accomplished former CEO of one of california's most successful companies with an impeccable track record and a $150-million war chest would lose by 13 points to fuckin' jerry brown--again, i wouldn't have believed you.  but somehow meg managed the impossible.

how'd she pull it off?  she had a two-pronged strategy for failure:

• outspend and out-hardline her conservative primary opponent--and then once he was put away, do an about-face in the general and start pandering to the middle and left in an attempt to please everybody; and
• waffle, obfuscate and dodge every challenge and question that came her way

to the point that, by election day, nobody believed a word she said.  she deserved to go down, but trust me--the last laugh will be on us.

and speaking of laughs, the voters of california in their wisdom also went big for

3.  proposition 25

"prop 25 will ensure that the legislators don't get paid until they pass a budget!" the ads blared, over and over--and the people bought it.

what the ads didn't say was that prop 25 would ensure the speedy delivery of those budgets by reducing the pesky 2/3 vote needed to pass them to a simple majority, thus effectively giving the permanent democratic majority carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want without the necessity of a single republican vote.

so, one more vital check removed from the few checks and balances we had left.  seriously--can't wait to see next year's budget.

but as bad as the passage of 25 will be for california, it's nothing compared to what happened to

4.  proposition 23

the failure of which will have such profound and far-reaching implications for the state's future that it deserves its own post [i.e., i'm tired and will get to it tomorrow--but, seriously, it does].

the early-warning windex test

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contrary to what a casual observer of the seemingly random landscape of mkf's cluttered domain on the 26th floor might believe, the dusty half-empty bottle of windex that's been sitting on the back left corner of mkf's credenza for the last five years is there for a good goddam reason, and it served its purpose admirably today.

see, whenever the building starts to move [as it often does], mkf's eyes always flash straight to that windex bottle--if the level of the blue liquid stays mostly calm [as it mostly always does], then so does mkf.

if, on the other hand, mkf is all alone on easter sunday on the 26th floor and the building starts to move and the blue liquid in that bottle suddenly starts to slosh wildly back and forth as it did today...

whatever--whether or not bracing myself in the reinforced-steel doorway of my office woulda really saved me had it been the big one, it was kinda nice hearing from virtually every non-californian i know today asking me if i was ok, ya know?

hey, there's always north dakota

ever wonder why so many of the most highly-taxed [i.e., liberal] states are also among the most broke?  i mean, you think with all that tax money flowing in they'd be goddam utopias, right?

here's what newly-elected new jersey governor chris christie recently had to say about one of the biggest reasons in his first state of the state address:

One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits, a total of $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?

A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing--yes, nothing--for full family medical, dental and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime. Is it "fair" for all of us and our children to have to pay for this excess?

[emphasis mine]

in other words, it's the same thing that killed GM and chrysler--unions [in this case, state-worker unions] and their entitlements run amuck.

i mean, jesus god, i work for a private company that contributes a little to my 401k every year, and matches a percentage of my contributions each year, but the day i retire, like most americans, i'm on my own.  can somebody please splain me why i should be expected to work until i'm 80 to support the lavish early retirement of  hordes of fat-ass 55-year-old polyester-clad government cubicle-workers [and their families] for the rest of their miserable lives?

the answer, of course, is there is no good reason; these millions of state workers enjoy these obscene benefits because of decades of political payoffs to their unions by corrupt politicians every election cycle in exchange for their support.

is it "fair?"  of course it's not fair, but that doesn't matter--the politicians have locked their states into these contracts whether the hapless electorate they were supposed to have been looking out for like it or not.

california's governer schwarzenegger had this to say about his [my] state's predicament:

The cost for state employee pensions is up 2,000 percent in the last ten years, while revenues have only increased by 24 percent. The pension fund will not have enough money to cover this amount, so the state — that means the taxpayer — has to come up with the money.

what he fails to mention is that all of these pension funds have lost an average of 40% of their value in the last two years since most of them were heavily invested in AIG-style derivatives, leaving the shortfall even greater.

is this a sustainable model?  of course not, and it's not gonna get any better--as taxes continue to rise in these states to pay for all this foolishness, the businesses and middle-class taxpayers who are expected to foot the bill as they always have will continue to flee to more responsibly-managed states.

i can see this fiasco playing out in one of two ways (because the problem is too big for any government bail-out):  either the taxpayers will revolt, or the states will default. either way, the pension funds upon which millions of past and present state workers rely will most assuredly go broke.

and as for the folks who don't have the good sense to get outta these states while the getting's still good?  well, they can look forward to, as the chinese say, most interesting times.

for those of you who think more government is the answer

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i present for your delectation the following:

in their tireless quest to make life better for their state and thus the world, the california air resources board has announced that it is considering a proposal--the "cool paints initiative," they call it--to ban black and other dark colors for new cars sold here.

see, they figure that, since dark colors soak up more heat, it requires more of our precious natural resources to cool 'em down, and the future of the planet requires their swift action to rectify the situation.

think i'm kidding? no, they're dead serious--you can read about it here.

in the course of my time here on earth, i've come to recognize that there are certain personality types who are compelled by their obsessive nature to meddle, micro-manage and control the details of other peoples' lives--they really can't help it; it's in their dna. you know what i'm talkin about--every family has at least one, and they tend to make everybody's lives miserable.

and if they're ambitious, these people are just the types who tend to go into public service so they can really meddle on a grand scale--you know, protect the public from itself, because god knows somebody has to do it. the conservative ones generally want to regulate your morality, which, annoying as that is, often pales in comparison to what the earnest do-gooder liberal ones set out to achieve.

having lived in california for almost 20 years now, i've had a ringside seat to insanity of this sort for so long that i've almost become numb to it--it takes a humdinger like this one to even move my needle anymore.

scary thing is? this mentality is no longer confined to california--get ready, america.

* * * * *

update: in response to the uproar this story stirred up, the board quickly backed off its position, claiming its intentions were misconstrued or some such bullshit.

now, if only the public would get as worked up about the important stuff.

you really wanna understand the utopia this country will become when the democrats get control? fine--come spend some time with me in california

in response to my previous post, reader hubbard provided me with a link to a wsj article which, in its own way, sums up what can go wrong when the dems get their hands on unchecked power, and i wanna talk about that a minute--and you should read it whether you live here or not, because it's instructive in terms of what can happen when any one faction gets outta hand.

and yeah, yeah, yeah, i know--the republicans have made such a fucking mess of things nationally that it's really tempting to think that if we achieve our goal of "hope" and "change" this november, we can start to clean up everything that's wrong with america--but lemme tell you, with congress and the executive being controlled by democrats, we're basically just gonna be trading one set of problems for another.

how do i know this? i'll tell you how: because i live in a state that's been controlled by democrats for as long as i can remember, that's why. even though california as a whole really isn't that liberal (reflected by the fact that we elect a fair share of republican governors), the majority of our legislative districts are gerrymandered in such a way as to ensure that the democrats cannot lose--and they never do; seriously, there is virtually never any turnover from democrat to republican (or, in those relatively few districts that republicans control, vice versa) from election to election.

hell, the democrats in this state are so powerful that, when arnold schwarzenegger took 'em on in a special election shortly after he became governor, he got his balls cut off and handed to him--seriously, every proposition he put forth to correct the balance of power and control spending in this state (all of which were eminently sensible, btw) was, due to the overwhelming power of the democrats' negative ads, defeated--and he's basically given up any hope of reform and done their bidding ever since (governator, my ass; he's proven himself to be an approval-hungry, pussy-ass girlyman, and he should be ashamed--but, of course, he's too busy basking in the glow of his new-found reputation as global-warming visionary to be bothered by such petty concerns as the fact that he sold out the constituency who put him into office).

so basically, we have us some brazen-ass democrats running this state who, unhindered by such petty concerns as having to answer to their constituents at election time, have pretty much led us down the road to economic ruin.

consider: since 2000--due to the insane appreciation of california real estate (and its concomitant effect on property taxes)--our state has enjoyed an enormous influx of revenue, unprecedented in the state's history; i'm talking increases outta all proportion to what anybody could have expected. we should be rolling in cash, folks. and yet, here in 2008, not only has our legislature spent it all, we're facing a $10 billion budget deficit this year--because, in response to this huge influx of cash, our lovely legislators grew the government with the assumption that all that money would just keep coming in forever.

then the real-estate bubble burst, and property-tax income increases came to a screeching halt.

our legislature's response: decrease spending, maybe? adjust the budget so that it doesn't automatically increase each year? hell, no--now they're looking for ways to tax us more so they can keep spending. in the midst of a recession, yet.

now, in any normal situation, we'd be able to vote the bums out, restore some sanity--but not in california. the dems can't lose, and they know it. so, arrogant and unrepentant, they push on with their vast social and government programs, even though their policies are destroying the economic viability of what once was the greatest state in the union.

seriously, folks--businesses are fleeing california for more favorable climates, as are the middle-class taxpayers who make all this spending possible. and soon, all that's gonna be left here are the very rich who can afford all the taxation, and a vast pool of the very poor; i.e., welcome to the third world, california.

and you know what? for years, i thought that the dems were merely deluded, that they didn't realize they were killing the goose that laid the golden egg. until i realized the truth: dems fucking love poor people--the more the better. because it's the poor, looking to the dems to grab from the rich for their benefit, who keep 'em in office, and--fuck what happens to the state--because the way their districts are drawn, they'll still have their office, their prestige and their salary, guaranteed.

and when you look at it that way, all of a sudden what's happening in california--decreased revenues, increased taxes, floods of poor illegals--makes so much more sense.

and, as has been said more than once, and proven over and over: as goes california, so--sooner or later--goes america.

[and yes, this is a slightly-drunken post, but it doesn't make it any less true, goddammit]