US to Sarah Palin

I got the idea for this Sarah Palin poster about a week ago (click on image for larger one). This morning, email popped into my box about the Palin Political Poster Project. With 48 hours to prepare for the next leg of the film tour, I had no business designing this poster - but as John McCain likes to say, country first.

Election 2008: Signs of life detected in Obama camp

When I read the news that McCain couldn't tell a reporter how many houses he & Cindy owned, I thought, if Obama can't win with this one, he deserves to lose.

Before I could post that snarky thought, I found this:

George W. Bush Sewage Treatment Plant - signature submission, media coverage

Presidential Memorial Commission founder Brian McConnell, PMC historian Paul Festa and San Francisco Department of Elections Campaign Services Manager Rachel Gosiengfiao as the PMC submits 12,000 signatures (photo credit: Associated Press)

I woke at dawn Monday so I could get into town in time to videotape the submission to the San Francisco Dept. of Elections of about 12,000 signatures in support of the Presidential Memorial Commission's ballot initiative to change the name of the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the George W. Bush Sewage Treatment Plant.

The submission brought a flurry of press coverage, including a BBC story that ran with the AP photo above, the AP's own story, and coverage from San Francisco to Tehran to Cape Town.

San Francisco voters: Yes on Prop. A!

Thanks to this guy, I had to buy my own paper and pencil in 3rd grade.

I was in third grade when California voters approved Prop. 13, which slashed property taxes and sent California's public schools from national eminence down to the very bottom. Prop. 13 is still on the books, and so it falls to municipalities to try to improve public education.

This in from Vice President Plack:

Please email everyone you know in SF who votes and ask them to vote yes on Prop A. We are very close to the margin between victory and defeat. Every vote counts. This will be a low turn out election. You can help get us over the top.

The initiative will impose a modest parcel tax on property owners in San Francisco to aid teachers, for whom living in our superultraexpensive city is a serious challenge.

In a nutshell (from the Prop A site) -

Proposition A is a $198 annual tax per parcel. The funds raised will be primarily for teacher recruitment, retention and training. In addition, Proposition A will help our schools upgrade and replace old technologies.

Note that we need a two-thirds majority for this one to pass. Please make sure to vote on Tuesday, June 3rd, vote yes on A, and make sure you spread the word to other San Francisco voters how important this is.

San Francisco students, teachers, and Vice President Plack thank you.

Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco

I am happy to report a new bullet point on my resume. I am now the official historian of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, whose inaugural goal is to get the following initiative on San Francisco's November ballot, and pass it:

"Should the City and County of San Francisco rename the Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility the George W. Bush Sewage Plant?"

As historian, my primary responsibility is preparing a documentary on the endeavor. On Friday, I got footage of Chicken John discussing our project with Fox News Radio. Chicken, a former mayoral and supervisorial candidate, is no spring, um, no babe in the woods, but nevertheless he seemed taken aback by the treatment he received from the right-wing Fox motormouths. T. Wayne Pickering, whose brainchild this is, thought the interview went as well as could be expected. In any case, right wing radio is the least of our worries - only humorless liberals could stop this movement.

Don't miss our first public meeting:

Wednesday, Apr 9, 2008, 6:00 PM
Zeitgeist - 199 Valencia St

San Francisco Bay oil spill--how to help

I wept when I read the news about the fuel spill, 58,000 gallons into San Francisco Bay, which has threatened hundreds of thousands of birds, closed our beaches and reached the Farallon Islands and the Sonoma County line.

I wanted to know if there was any way to volunteer or donate to help in the clean-up. Here's what I've found so far:

--Baykeeper
I sent these guys $100, far more than fiscal responsibility dictates in my case. But they do great work and will be on this case for years.
http://www.baykeeper.org/
http://www.baykeeper.org/donate/index.html

--Coastal Commission (http://www.coastal.ca.gov/oilspill/ospndx.html)

--San Francisco Oiled Wildlife Care & Education Center (http://www.ibrrc.org/contact.html)

The volunteer numbers for these groups are consistently busy, but keep trying...

--Let your elected officials know you're pissed.

This accident was preventable, and, as the Chronicle reports, the response was inexcusably slow.

Democrat Boxer, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said in a statement that she was "very troubled by the Coast Guard's delay in delivering accurate information to the public and the city of San Francisco. ... Many questions remain as to why it took an entire day to determine the gravity of this spill."

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom promised that the city would take legal action against whoever is responsible for the spill and expressed irritation that his office, like many, learned the true scope of the spill after 9 p.m.

...

State Pilot Commission records show that Capt. John Cota, who was in charge of navigating the Cosco Busan when it hit the bridge, has been involved in a number of ship-handling incidents and was reprimanded last year for errors in judgment when he ran a ship aground near Antioch.

Cota, 59, is a master mariner, and veteran of 26 years as a ship pilot. He was involved in four "incidents" over the past 14 years and on several other occasions was "counseled" for perceived mistakes in ship handling.

The Chronicle broke out a separate story on this guy's spotty record.

Contact California's US senators and Gov. Schwarzenegger and tell them we need tighter restrictions on fuel vessels, the companies running them and the people operating them, that come in and out of San Francisco Bay.

Contact Mayor Newsom and let him know you support his efforts to bring the perpetrators of this tragedy to justice and to do whatever is in his power to prevent this from happening again.

Majority in US support civil unions

I stumbled on this new Washington Post/ABC News poll while researching a question for the novel. The poll has a lot of interesting results in addition to the record number of Americans supporting civil unions (55 percent), for instance that men and women support legal abortion in equal numbers.

Odd that this poll didn't get any media--I can't even find it on washingtonpost.com.

What's with Republicans gay-bashing Edwards?

First Ann Coulter's inner foulness got the better of her and she called Edwards a fag. Now Huckabee is calling him a pussy:

“We've had a Congress that has spent money like Edwards at a beauty shop,” Mr. Huckabee said to roars of laughter at the allusion to Mr. Edwards’s paying $400 for a haircut. (Terror Attack Scenario Exposes Deep Differences Among G.O.P. Hopefuls -- May 16, 2007 -- New York Times)

When Bill Clinton got nailed for his pricey haircuts ten years ago, nobody used the word "beauty shop," to the best of my recollection. The way the Republicans are harping on this Edwards-is-a-homo theme you'd think they were actually afraid of him.