Friday, October 10, 2003

Schwarzenegger announced a broadly bipartisan transition team Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 9:54:00 AM     This is a welcome surprize. Compaer it to the Bush strategy of non-inclusion.. Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday tapped Donna Arduin, a veteran state budget director, to carry out his promised audit of California's finances, a task she vowed would be accomplished before the new governor has to present his first budget in January. The appointment of Arduin, Florida's budget director, as his audit leader came as Schwarzenegger announced a broadly bipartisan transition team including a conservative political opponent, veterans of the last Republican gubernatorial administration and Democrats, one of whom is San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, a favorite target of the GOP. ********

Mini essay California results who voted for what? Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 9:01:42 AM     I applaud the statistical anlysis of voting and vote differences that might reveal problems and even manipulations of voting machines. But we must not lose sight of a very major factor in this election. Recall lost in almost all the coastal counties, and Bustamente won in all the bay area counties. It was a rural/ urban split, and our failure to understand this means we do not lead ourselves to a deeper undersanding of what the rural vote has on its mind. My own udersanding is that it does not ike th whole package of urban, large system, ewlfare, tax, corporate, federal power world. What is striking to me is that both the left leaning and right leaning folks agree on the dangers of bigness. The left sees big in terms of military industrial complex, and the right in terms of sate welfare and compulsory education. Both have a common enemy, but project the desire for largeness onto the other. We need to think more deeply about the way in which the urban technical market ysstem is explitative of much of the rural part of the country. Sources for data, the New York Times, an excellent interactive map.   ********

Red Cross criticizes Guantanamo Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 8:48:43 AM     The way in which the US has dealt with detainees, prisoners, suspects, lacks fundamental concern for human dignity. Instead of representing the best of American justice, it has shown an instinct for revenge and sacrificing the individual to the public task of warnings, using the person for state needs. This is what the constitution was meant to prevent. It has taken an aspect of the post 911 situation, where American culture of restraint and human rights could have been showcased, instead we have a wasting of a an opportunity and a tradition.and put the US at greaterrisk in the world. Stumulating the old culture of an eye for an eye and retribution, rather than due process and justice though the judgment of peers, is a major step backwards. I find it humiliating, and I am shocked there has not been more criticism and a movement to prevent this.It may be something we need to take on. UANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, Oct. 9 — A senior official of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday that the holding of more than 600 detainees here was unacceptable because they were being held for open-ended terms without proper legal process. ********