Yes on 45

This will require the elected State Insurance Commissioner to sign off on health insurance rate increases just like is done for other forms of insurance in CA, and just like 35 other states do for health insurance.  I just got a letter from Anthem today informing me that my Covered California insurance for Mike and Russ is going up 20% over last year...to $950/month! We need someone answerable to the voters to keep an eye on this.  The insurance companies are spending buckets of money to stop it. Ignore them. Yes on 45.

Yes on Measure P

This Santa Barbara County measure will prohibit new oil operations that involve fracking/ acidification/ steam injection.  I see this as an oil development vs. water resource protection issue. New, intensive oil extraction technologies are proliferating around the country and the environmental risks are not fully understood or are being minimized. The only protection our local ground water has from risky oil extraction is a 3 to 2 vote on the board of supervisors. If the always closely divided third district goes to a pro-oil candidate in the future, that's it. We can wait forever for the State or Feds to regulate while we risk more and more high intensity projects getting into the pipeline, or the people of the county can say that we prioritize water over oil and hold any future board to that standard. The is a lot of talk about how this will cause a raft of lawsuits.  Possible. The oil interests often sue when they hear NO and it will happen without Measure P as well.  The only alternative to lawsuits is to let powerful unscrupulous people get their own way regardless of the cost to the community. We need to prioritize our tourism, agriculture and the integrity of our water over oil extraction. That is prudent self governance.

Ann's Voter Guide

The Election is Nov 4 and it is important that you vote!  I have put in some serious time thinking about the ballot propositions and have summarized below. I am not going to bother with candidates except State Superintendent because that's an obscure one.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction:
                   Tom Torlakson

Propositions:
1    No
2    No
45  Yes
46  No
47  Yes
48  Yes

Measures:
S    No
O   Yes
P    Yes

And here are more details on my thinking:

Tom Torlakson
Read what this guy says about his opponent.  I agree.

Propositions:

1    No. Water Bond.  7.5 billion for more dams is not going to fix our water problems in a sensible way. We need to get serious about ground water regulation which we DO NOT have AT ALL right now in CA and we need to ask ourselves if growing massive crops of a tropical plant, cotton, is the central valley desert is the wisest use of our water resources.

2    No.  "Rainy Day Fund" I have done a lot of reading on this one and I am convinced it is Sacramento giving itself weasel room to get out of full school funding in part by raiding local districts cash reserves.  If this passes all local school districts will be required to spend their cash reserves, which currently average 16 weeks of expenses, down to just 2-3 weeks of expenses.  That is scary. SF Gate on the subject.

45  Yes. Insurance Commission Approves Health Insurance. My Mom was suspicious of this one so she made me really look into it.  This comes from Consumer Watchdog not some fly by night astro turf crew with a fishy agenda.  It may get the Insurance Commissioner up in Covered California's business but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Just because I think Obamacare (ACA) is a lot better than NOT-Obamacare does not mean we all look the other way.

46  No.  Drug tests for Doctors/ Increase in Medical Malpractice Cap.  Drug Testing for Doctors...really? That part was supposed to sweeten the bitter pill of increasing malpractice liability limits for pain and suffering.  I would actually have considered upping the limit which was set to the fixed dollar amount of $250K in the '70s back when that would buy you a big fancy house on the Riviera instead of half of a dump next to the freeway in Goleta ...but the drug testing idea is so dumb I choked on that poison pill.

47  Yes. Changes some non-violent felonies to misdemeanors. Yes Yes Yes. OMG can we please stop sending everyone in California to prison for everything. Who doesn't want this? Prison guards, for-profit prison operators, fear mongering politicians, racists.  Who wants this? Sane people.

48  Yes. Indian Casinos. They happen. The State and the Feds negotiated this one. Other tribes and their casino operators/investors with nearby casinos put this on the ballot to stop the competition.

Measures:

S    No.  City College Bond.  I love SBCC. I really do. And I am willing to cough up property taxes to support the school. But $288 million in bonds covering a 10-year wish list is too much money all at once.  Especially since SBCC did not spend it's last bond on exactly what they said they would.  I think this community will agree to support campus upgrades. But the board need to get the message that they have to communicate better with us about out of state/country students, housing, facilities for Adult Ed and exactly what projects it is planning and why.  SBCC doesn't need to sneak stuff by us. We are eager to be on their side.

O   Yes.  Bed Tax.  Get's Hotel Bed Tax in unincorporated parts of county closer to amount in our cities. Helps fund services that make people want to come here.

P    Yes.  Prevent new oil operations that involve Fracking/ Acidification/ Steam injection.  I see this as an oil development vs. water resource protection issue. New, intensive oil extraction technologies are proliferating around the country and the environmental risks are not fully understood or are being minimized. The only protection our local ground water has from risky oil extraction is a 3 to 2 vote on the board of supervisors. If the always closely divided third district goes to a pro-oil candidate in the future, that's it. We can wait forever for the State or Feds to regulate while we risk more and more high intensity projects getting into the pipeline, or the people of the county can say that we prioritize water over oil and hold any future board to that standard. The is a lot of talk about how this will cause a raft of lawsuits.  Possible. The oil interests often sue when they hear NO and it will happen without Measure P as well.  The only alternative to lawsuits is to let powerful unscrupulous people get their own way regardless of the cost to the community. We need to prioritize our tourism, agriculture and the integrity of our water over oil extraction. That is prudent self governance.

Time Machine: What I Said About Iraq in 2003

Dear Editor,

George Bush is preparing to launch our country into unprovoked war of aggression against a sovereign nation. We are sending troops thousands of miles from our shores to invade and indefinitely occupy a country that has neither attacked nor threatened to attack us, a country that is, in fact, incapable of posing any meaningful military threat to us even if it wished to.  International support for this action is at best weak and, insofar as it exists, is due only to the enormous military and economic hegemony of our country in the world community. Our roster of “allies” has been assembled through a combination of coercion and bribery, and not from a genuine international concern that Iraq posses any immediate threat. The plain truth is that the Bush administration intends to invade Iraq for no other reason than to secure control of it’s oil reserves.

This fact should shock us.  This war is murder and robbery in its purest form. It will cost thousands of civilian lives but let us go beyond that.  When our soldiers arrive on the streets of Baghdad they will be facing the armed citizenry of Iraq.  These people will be fighting, not to protect Saddam Hussein or his supposed weapons of mass destruction, rather they will be fighting to defend their homes and families and the independence of their nation against foreign invaders. Any of us would do the same.  It is conceivable that we will be asking our sons and daughters to murder people literally on their own doorsteps. There is no stretch of the imagination that can frame this as self-defense.

When the fighting actually starts the call will go out to “support our troops” as if the wickedness of starting the war can be atoned for by the winning of it.  Well, I am supporting our troops and all the brave people of Iraq as well, by saying no to war right now.  I do not want to see our soldiers turned into dead bodies and I don’t want to see them turned into murderers and war criminals either.

Where Does the 2nd Amendment End and Terrorism Start?

 Here's the story: Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has been grazing his cattle on public land for decades. For the last 20 years he has refused to pay grazing fees to we-the-people who collectively own this land. He said his ancestors had been running cattle on the land since the 1870's and it is theirs by right. He also objected to grazing restrictions the BLM was trying to enforce to protect the endangered Desert Tortoise. He had his day in court and the judge told the BLM they could confiscate his cattle until he paid up. The BLM rounded up around 400 of 900 cows. Hundreds of well armed protesters, who disagree with the concept of public land or at least federal public land, showed up to exercise their first and second amendment rights simultaneously and demanded a stop the round-up. Some of them also blocked a nearby highway. Fearing a violent escalation (remember Waco?) the BLM backed off and released the 400 cows, allowing Bundy to continue to graze his cattle for free for now.

This unfolding story raises a lot of interconnected issues.

The first is the question I raised at the top: Where does the 2nd amendment end and terrorism start?
Should the BLM, representing we-the-people, have given in because protesters were armed and seemed dangerous? Should we ask government range managers to face large groups of angry armed people to do their job?

Then again having seen the excessive force so often employed to stop avowed peaceful protestors one could be excused for concluding, based on this story, that it might be better to show up armed next time.

Then again, imagine the balls and ovaries a group of unarmed, say pro-tortise, protesters would need to show up to express their first amendment rights in this situation.

The feds claimed a lot of land occupied by Native Peoples. Is this different than claiming land occupied by Bundy's ancestors?

There is a lot of loose talk about second amendment remedies to tyranny. One the one hand, just because something is legal doesn't make it right. (You know like slavery and Goldman Sachs). And just because something is hard to stop doesn't make it legal (like NSA spying and Goldman Sachs) But as always, one person's tyranny is another person's constitutionally implemented law.

All this ties in with the current "Santa Barbara Reads" title "Big Burn" which discusses the origins of the Forest Service under Teddy Roosevelt and the birth of the whole concept of public lands in this country.

I'd really like to know what y'all think. And I recommend "Big Burn". They have many copies at the library.