If you thought 2004 was bad...

Not to be outdone, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is considering whether to disqualify Ted Strickland, who is currently crushing Blackwell in the gubernatorial race. As the New York Times points out, this is pretty much Blackwell's only chance of winning.

Many of you may remember Blackwell as the man behind the disproportionately long voting lines in black communities in 2004. Coincidentally, he was also co-chair of the Bush campaign in the state. (Click here for the full report).

And just in case Blackwell decides to let him stay in the race, he is pinning his hopes on accusations that Strickland is gay and supported by NAMBLA. In the process, Blackwell has embarrassed himself so much that one paper even took back its endorsement.

Where all the white women at?

In the surprisingly close race to replace Dr. Bill Frist as Tennessee's Senator, Harold Ford, Jr. is bidding to become the first black Senator from a Confederate State since Reconstruction.

In response, the Republican National Committee, of course, is basically accusing him of intent to consent to miscegenation. The advertisement features a white woman saying she met Ford at a Playboy Party and winking at the camera as she says "call me." Earlier in the ad, a black woman says that Ford "looks good" and that's enough for her.

RNC chair Ken Mehlman, fresh off a campaign to woo black voters back to the Republican Party, continues to defend the ad and claim that he could not have taken it down even if he wanted to. The ad has been replaced with another that accuses Ford of "not being one of us."

Guess Tan Nguyen's alias

Let's begin with Orange County's 47th Congressional District, where incumbent Loretta Sanchez is absolutely pummeling Republican challenger and raging lunatic Tan Nguyen.

Nguyen continues to defend a letter sent to 14,000 residents with Spanish surnames born outside the U.S. telling them that they could go to jail or get deported for voting. Nguyen fired the staffer accused of sending the letter (which was printed on a non-profit advocacy group's letterhead. Now he says he would welcome her back. Why the change of heart? Because Nguyen's sources tell him that the word "emigrado" does not actually mean "immigrant." The identity of these sources and the schools from which they earned their PhD's in Spanish Vocabulary continues to remain a secret.

"I am innocent, and there is no way in hell that I am going to withdraw," Nguyen [lied]. "I am not going to quit this race, and I am going to win this race."

The L.A. Times is now reporting that Nguyen actually purchased the voter list himself, using an alias. They didn't say what alias he chose, but if you're an Orange County voter, be wary of future political mailers sent from anybody calling themselves "The real Sergio Ramirez," "Rusty Shackleford," "Edward K. Janowsky," or "T. Simon Warrington III."

Yesterday, state investigators searched the home of an LAPD officer who apparently played a role in the mailer. The best part of the story is Nguyen's comment at the end.

Reached by telephone Wednesday, Tan Nguyen declined to comment on Mark Nguyen, saying he had already discussed details of the case "far and beyond" his lawyers' recommendation.

Google enters negotiations to buy Congress

For those of you who didn't suffer through Atlas Shrugged, here's the plot:
A brilliant businessman named Hank Rearden is convinced he needs to hire lobbyist Wesley Mouch to curry favor in Washington. This advice winds up backfiring, as this supposedly fictional Washington runs on illusory notions of trust and equality instead of virtuous capitalist efficiency. Ayn Rand spends 900 pages knocking down straw men. Subsequently, a cult grows up around her, which is ironic, given her support of individuality.

Apparently, Hank Rearden's advisors have prevailed upons at Google. Its progressive leanings notwithstanding, the company has been hugely successful on the strength of its ideas and its execution of them. Instead of continuing with that wayhas decided to start funneling money to Republicans in a bald attempt to gain more influence. And if you ask the cheerleading team known as the San Jose Mercury News, the only problem with this is that they are not giving more.

This is as good an excuse as any to check in on the status of some of my favorite races to follow across the nation, starting with a place near, if not dear, to my heart.

MV council candidates profiles

[Note to readers: Given the outcry that has accompanied the Voice's "decision" not to run council profiles this year, I have decided to pick up the slack. -- NOE]

In 2002, Matt Neely, Mike Kasperzak and Greg Perry emerged from a field of 11 candidates for Mountain View City Council, all promising to build more housing throughout the city. Perry's suprising decision to drop out of this year's council race robs the council of a man so meticulously honest he once reports $6.25 worth of buttons on a campaign contributions form. It also means that the phrase "at least one council member" will appear less frequently in the newspapers. Most of all, it means that the council will have lost its three biggest proponents of new housing projects, and the crop that replaces them is likely to roll back some of their efforts.

With the city awash in new residential developments as a result of recent votes, a growing residentialist backlash will have plenty of candidates to support this year. The Voice has endorsed three candidates it believes are likely to put the brakes on the housing developments. This is ironic, to say the least, for two reasons. The Voice consistently backed the housing policies supported by Perry, Neely and Kasperzak. Furthermore, the city council and city staff are both on record as saying they do not want the current pace of development to continue for more than a few years.

Anyway, here are he candidates, in alphabetical order, complete with links to their Web sites and smarmy comments:

• Margaret Abe-Koga: Attacks by Perry and disappointing interviews spelled doom for her 2004 bid, but she's back for more after serving on the environmental planning commission for the last two years. Once again leading in endorsements and money raised.
  
• Ronit Bryant: A sextalingual green thumb from Old Mountain View. Matt Neely once introduced her at a party as a planning commissioner before she reminded him that the council had rejected her application.
• Alicia Crank: Human relations commissioner, renter, blogger, weight loss success story and Nemesis of Evil reader, and not the kind that found by doing a vanity search. (Speaking of which: welcome candidates.)
  
• Tian Harter: Best understood by his decision to avoid paying federal income taxes by refusing to collect any income.
  
• John Inks: Soft-spoken, upstanding libertarian parks and recreation commissioner. The kind of person whose best qualities are the same ones that will keep him from going far in politics. Has collected endorsements from those who fought against the city's decision to build a privately-operated child care center in Rengstorff Park.
  
• Kalwant Sandhu: Blunt-spoken HRC member. Enthusiastic about sports, but rumored to pay too close attention to his jv soccer team's record and not enough to player development. Has suffered the indignity of the Voice mispelling his name in different ways on different occasions.
  
• Jac Siegel: The conservative EPC member has the backing of several council members. A supporter, according to his Web site, of "win-win solutions," he is also one of Mountain View's 10 most eligible bachelors.
  
• John Webster: Former standard bearer for the Libertarian Party, supports this guy, but also this guy. Barely lost 2004 primary after fellow party members decided certain things, like his unflinchingly honest biography, were best left off the platform.
  

This would be more believable if it took place in Los Altos

I don't generally care about Menlo Park news, other than when it applies to Los Altos High School boys water polo. Nor, so far as I know, do most of you. But this story about a fight over privatization of the public pool was just too amusing. Good thing the pool Los Altos is building will be too small and useless to engender this kind of anger.

No on everything?

As I write this, I am surrounded by thousands of undergraduates, mostly female, who are hoping to get a glimpse of the fallen former sex symbol Bill Clinton before he is institutionalized for his uncontrollable bouts of violent rage. The crazed ex-president is ostensibly here to discuss the virtues of Proposition 87, a perfectly fine law that has the unfortunate quality of being a state ballot proposition.

Prop 87 would create a severance tax on oil drilling and spent the approximately $4 billion raised to fund an alternative energy program. This is almost unquestionably a good idea, and by far the best law I have ever seen proposed on the state ballot.

If you have any doubt that the severance tax is a good idea, simply look at the tens of millions of dollars oil companies are spending to defeat it. If what they were saying was true -- that the law will simply force them to pass costs onto consumers -- they would never waste that much money fighting it. The law actually makes it illegal for them to pass those costs on. They are opposing it because it threatens to cut into their profit margins).

The problem is that every time a proposition becomes law through a vote of the unwashed masses, somewhere a rich asshole gets the idea in his head that he can spend millions of dollars getting people to support his terrible idea to reform the state constitution.

These rich assholes occasionally they have good ideas (like this one). More often than not, however, those ideas wind up screwing the state's tax, education, or penal systems. Progressives have scored small victories over the years through this process: the (sort-of) legalization of medicinal marijuana, funding for stem cell research and the recent "millionaire's tax" to support mental health facilities being popular examples. Here's a partial list, off the top of my head, of what they have given up in return:

1978, Prop 13 "People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation"

1994: Prop 187 "The Save Our State Initiative"

1994: Prop 184 "Three Strikes You're Out"

1996: Prop 209 "The California Civil Rights Initiative"

1998: Prop 227 "English for the Children"

2000: Prop 22 "The Defense of Marriage Act,"

Ultimately, I don't know that I will be able to face myself in the mirror if I am the one vote that keeps the tax on oil drilling from passing. Weighing the possibility that voting no will discourage the next Howard Jarvis, Pete Wilson or Ron Unz from spending millions on their own particular horrible idea against the possibility that a yes vote will make this law a reality, I have to say the latter is probably greater. Sure, this amounts to compromising any belief in categorical moral imperatives to accept a loathsome kind of Clinton/Gore type of political pragmatism. Call me a sell-out, I suppose.

They must have been running out of Hangar One-related puns

A week after calling for kids to exercise less, the Voice's editorial pages tackle the biggest story in the history of Mountain View.

Squirrels.

A reader sent me the link to last week's editorial with the subject line "Worst one yet?" The issue referenced squirrels in four different articles. With apologies to the good folks (and fellow malicious nerds) at Fire Joe Morgan, let's walk through the reasoning here:

"As far as we can tell, no biologists or other wildlife experts have been directly consulted."

This seems complicated. Does anybody else mind looking into this?

"Different animals follow different patterns of behavior and reproduction, and the city should educate itself in developing a humane and long-term way of alleviating the problem."

Seriously, somebody should DO something.

"Another possible option for the city is to close the portion of the park that is causing the problem."

Last time we checked, squirrels can not walk.

By doing so, perhap the squirrels could be weaned of human food, and park users would have more time to be educated about the dangers of feeding squirrels."

Q.E.D.

A's clinch ALDS, poor people's lives don't measurably improve

The celebration of the A's landmark, hex-breaking ALDS win was somewhat muted last Friday at the detention center at Lancaster. I had signed up to go volunteer there (despite having no training) well before the playoffs schedule was set. When the day came, what I really wanted to do was stay home and watch the game, but I figured that might make the A's lose. I certainly didn't want that on my conscience, let alone flaking on the the people at the detention center.

Reiterating again that I have no training and can't speak about immigration law with any sort of authority, I did want to share the story of one man I met there.

Jose was 4 years old in 1986 when his family fled the civil war in El Salvador. [As a brief refresher, Central American civil wars, particulary during that time period, typically feature corrupt and brutal governments armed and supported by the United States.] The family did not apply for asylum, but managed to obtain work permits and, for the most part, green cards. Jose let his work permit expire, which means he is no longer able to apply for green card, at least not from within the country. Effectively, it meant that despite living here nearly his entire life, raising a 6-year-old son, and having no criminal record, Jose was in the country illegally.

Earlier this year, Jose bought a stereo system for his car off the street. He was pulled over for running a stop sign [which is apparently still against the law in some parts of Los Angeles]. The police officer saw the stereo under the driver's seat, and immediately booked Jose on grand theft auto. With no evidence to support the charge, the prosecutor lowered it to possession of stolen property. Jose was convicted. Now he's in a Lancaster jail, awaiting deportation to a economically depressed country that is in no way his home. Jose said he had no gang affiliation, but is afraid of the gang violence that the U.S. exported to El Salvador in the last two decades.

So what did the lawyer tell him his options were? One was to try to win some international awards for his sketches and get legal status under a provision generally reserved for Olympic athletes. The other was to ask for voluntary removal, which, if he were to get it, might make it easier for him to get a visa to come visit in the future.

Go A's.

Strange rumblings in Los Altos Hills

At the end of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the defeat of the dark lord Sauron also spells an end to the grand aspirations of his deputy the corrupt wizard Saruman. Undeterred by his lack of a patron, a weakened Saruman travels to the Shire, where he reasserts his will until the rural hobbit folk finally awake to their own power of self-determination and, in a battle unusually intense for that part of the world, overthrow the fallen wizard and his lieutenant.

That's not exactly how it went down with George W. Bush and Toni Casey, but the similarities are hard to ignore. NOE's Los Altos Hills correspondent Drew Grewal, reports that the disgraced former LAH Mayor is back at the helm of the Los Altos Hills Civic Association.

In the group's August junk mailing, Casey once again rails against the dual threats to our freedom of energy efficiency and deer.

"Casey and her cronies like Steve Finn paved the way for monster home development in this town in the late 90s, before Casey went to work for the Bush administration," writes Grewal.

He adds, "I suggest these topics instead of incriminating your friends on a public site -- friends who are upstanding citizens, teachers, and entrepreneurs. Your previous posts could amout to libel."

First, make sure not to get fatally ill.

Death and pestilence correspondent Erik Koland wrote in with this tidbit over the weekend:

The Mercury News came with a special insert today, "Your Guide to
Pandemic Flu." It was a poster-sized fold out that helps you guide your
way through the upcoming pandemic flu in which deaths could be in the
millions.

It was sponsored by the Department of Health, Santa Clara County.

So, hang on to that, I guess. Thankfully, the Merc got back to being its new self as the week progressed. For more of the news that makes Silicon Valley tick, go the Merc's Web site, where some of today's top stories include a controversy around A.C. Slater's dancing techniques and coverage on the overly aggressive squirrels in Cuesta Park. (We actually got a letter about this at the Voice many months ago expressing fear that the city would not do anything until a squirrel attacked a kid).

Things us nerds find funny

Apologies for the lack of posts. I meant to finish my guides to local elections this weekend but have been engrossed in my law school reading. Here's a brief sampling:

from Favrot v. Barnes, a 1970s divorce case before the Louisiana Supreme Court:

"...at the husband's insistence, they agreed to limit sexual intercourse to about once a week. The husband asserts, as divorce-causing fault, that the wife did not keep this agreement but shought coitus thrice daily."

This case inspired my contracts professor, an Oxford graduate from Kansas who pretty much fits the stereotype of what a law school professor should look and act like, to go into a long and involved hypothetical featuring (I'm not lying about this) penal-vaginal intercourse, missionary position, oral sex, dildos, butt plugs and threesomes.

Meanwhile, the Civil Procedure has these nuggets, from actual cases, borrowed (and reprinted here without permission) from Richard Lederer's Anguished English:

Q: Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?
A: No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.

Q: Mr. Smith, do you believe that you are emotionally unstable?
A: I should be.
Q: How many times have you committed suicide?
A: Four times.

Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?
Mr. Brooks: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.

And lastly, this, from Professor Richard Friedman:

The Court: Next Witness.
Ms. Olschner: Your Honor, at this time I would like to swat Mr. Buck in the head with his client's deposition.
The Court: You mean read it?
Ms. Olschner: No, sir. I mean to swat him [in] the head with it. Pursuant to Rule 32, I may use the deposition "for any purpose" and that is the purpose for which I want to use it.
The Court: Well, it does say that.
(Pause.)
The Court: There being no objection, you may proceed.
Ms. Olschner: You may proceed.
(Whereupon Ms. Olschner swatted Mr. Buck in the head with a deposition).
Mr. Buck: But Judge...
The Court: Next witness.
Mr. Buck: We object.
The Court: Sustained. Next witness.

Moments of silence, months of scare tactics

I glanced at Fox "News" early this morning, just out of morbid curiosity. Next to the ever-waving flag in the corner was the banner headline

"THE COST OF WAR:
STOCKS READY TO MAKE AN ALL-TIME HIGH!"

Just after this came an update on Paris Hilton. Not quite what you might expect from the Defenders of Freedom (TM) on the fifth-year anniversary of Sept. 11. The Mercury News did little better (at least on its Web site), burying its coverage of the anniversary under a mountain of information about the kick-off of the NFL season.

Meanwhile, at the law school this morning, very few people seemed to remember that the bells were tolling for 60 seconds so that we could spend one minute silelntly reflecting on the significance of the attacks, the lives lost and the wars spawned. Apparently, that was too long to ask people not to talk about themselves. Special shame goes to the rep from Sidley Austin LLP who kept right on going with her pitch to some hopeful job supplicant during the entire minute.

Luckily, for those of us who have forgotten the significance of the day, Karl Rove is going to remind us, as only he can.

House: Earth is round

Run, don't walk, to your local newsstand. The L.A. Times has a Pulitzer-worthy scoop: According to the U.S. Senate, Saddam Hussein was not allied with Al-Qaeda.

Advice from family and friends

At a going away party my family through for me a few weeks ago (thanks to everyone who came), my mom circulated some paper so people could write down some advice for me. She led it off with "Meet a nice girl with long arms and bring her home to meet the family by Thanksgiving '06 not '07.''

Here are my other favorites:
Molly Tanenbaum:

"To do in LA: 1) Find a decent bagel. 2) Meet Larry David.
To not do in LA: 1) Party with undergrads. 2) Continue blogging about MV + Los Altos news."
(Sorry, Molly, but building a shower to take to Burning Man cost you some credibility here.)

Arcia Dorosti:

"I can't think of anything important to say. So, I will call you when it comes to me."
(He called a few days later with updates on the A's).

Bubba:

"Deep thought: You will go as far as your heart and mind take you.
Lighter note: I'll hook you up with some girls if you buy me beer."
See you in a few weeks, Bubba.

Patrick's return

The last thing Patrick Neal needed was $8,000 from the Army. The son perhaps the greatest nine-fingered litigator in the world, money had never been a motivation for him to join the Army. Instead, he wanted to lead men, help repair America's damaged standing in the world and perhaps launch a political career.

But no sooner had he arrived at Officer Candidate School this January did he begin to doubt the nobility of the institution he had joined. The very first day, officers briefly mentioned problems that had arisen with the signing bonuses that recruiters had promised them. As Patrick would learn later, the Army was trying to figure out a way around a provision of U.S. code that prohibits offering signing bonuses to officers.

No one mentioned the bonuses again until the day before the class of 115 was due to graduate and receive their commissions. Junior officers circulated a memo advising the candidates that the bonuses would not be paid, and told everyone they had to sign it. Pat, of course, did not sign it, reasoning that if he had a contract that called for him to receive an $8,000 signing bonus that he was never going to get, that contract was invalid.

Over the course of the next three months, Patrick's case sparked a clash between his superior officers that would eventually force a change in the Army's policy. After some initial harrassment, Patrick received a commission as a second lieutenant and an honorable discharge. He returned home Wednesday to yellow ribbons and American flags. (A "Mission Accomplished" was not arranged in time).

For his friends and family, Patrick's safe return after what he called his free trial in the Army is by far the most important issue. But the larger questions are still very troubling. Why were recruiters making promises they could not deliver? How many officials knew about this and why did they approve it? How many other people have been lied to?

At an impromptu welcoming party for Patrick, at which his mother smiled for the first time in a year, we discussed the case of Steven Green, the soldier accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and then murdering her and her entire family. Green, despite at least two misdemeanor crimes on his record, received a "moral waiver" that allowed him to enlist. He was honorably discharged before the allegations against him came to light. His case has very little in common with Patrick's, but they both show the desperation tactics to which military recruiters have resorted in order to fulfill their quotas.

The writing on the wall

Joseph Krueger, I have some good news for you.

Sure, a judge increased your bail $1 million after you and your friend allegedly attacked a black man in Pioneer Park while yelling white supremacist statements. And maybe everybody is planning public gatherings and vigils to denounce you. And then there's that pesky (albeit unverified) rumor about a man showing up to your court with sleeves rolled up to show his white power tattoo.

But here's the good news: Your mother believes you.

The editor chose to bury my favorite quote from her interview with the Ceres Courier -- "Actually all their friends are mainly hispanic and lots of blacks." It reminds me of a guy I lived with in college. We affectionately called him "Angry White Ben." Born in New Hampshire, the Ceres of New England, he used to angrily defend himself against charges of racism by arguing that he knew several Jewish kids growing up.

At one point, he told me that the reason the Native American tribes were wiped out was because of their failure to "see the writing on the wall."

"They were up against a superior force," he said.

This, of course, presented me with a rare opportunity to win an argument by beating someone up. In short, he didn't see the writing on the wall.

Lucky for him our sh*t doesn't stink

Three-and-a-half years ago, the city of Los Altos dumped 36,000 gallons of raw sewage into Tom Burns' house. Tree roots clogging the sewer line sent enough waste to fill two swimming pools pouring out of the sinks, drains and toilets throughout the house, forcing Burns to move out for 9 months and, not surprisingly, leading to a bitter public and courtroom fight. The case has put the city's aging sewer system in the spotlight, including an alleged coverup of overflows into Adobe Creek and nearly a dozen other instances in which the city has paid damages to homeowners.

Somehow, Burns lost the case, and the two sides are in court again this afternoon to hear his appeal in the case. Burns wants the city to pay more than a million in damages, but the city is sticking to its argument that Burns was at fault for not installing a backflow device, an argument that the judge apparently bought the first time around.

A friend says Burns, a rheumatologist, is also working on a book in the case. If nothing else, it should have a good title.

Wait until our 10-year reunion

As president of the Los Altos High class of 1998, [name redacted] left Los Altos (among other things) a $500 tug-of-war rope as well as the best quote I have ever managed to print in any article ("Jon, why do you have to ruin everything good?").

[Name redacted] is also the person responsible for calling off our five-year reunion, reasoning that nobody was doing anything interesting enough at that point to justify a reunion anyway. Better to wait until we've been out 10 years when people have better stories to tell. Personally, I think I'd have been prouder to tell people that I was the water polo coach and a reporter for a local paper than that I'm in law school, but hopefully the rest of you 98ers will take advantage of the opportunity to do something interesting in the next year and a half or so.

For her part, [name redacted] will be done with law school. She's entering her third year at George Washington and worked as an intern for Dianne Feinstein this summer. When I visited her recently, she introduced me to the culture of Hill interns and political consultants.

"I've been working on campaigns since 1992," said one 24-year-old, who proceeded to introduce the CFO of her 2010 campaign for Washington State's 4th Congressional District.

[Name redacted] also volunteers with Human Rights Watch's Guantanamo project and periodically saves the lives of crime victims. She is open to suggestions about where and when to hold the reunion (I said Safeway Parking Lot, but that didn't go over well).

"Here's a quote for you, Jon," says [name redacted]. "Jon Wiener is as reliable as your drugstore tabloids. I think you should learn how to draw a boundary between work and play."

MV loves the hook-ups

An e-mail from Ellen Fletcher, former Mayor of Palo Alto, to the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition listserver:

"We urgently need more volunteers for the three-day Grand Opening of the new REI store in Mountain View today, Saturday and Sunday.

I had recruited three volunteers for each shift, thinking that would be more than enough. However, between 8 am and 10 am this morning seven of us were working and there was a line of bicyclists waiting to have their bikes parked.

When we got there at 8 there were already people in line, many, if not all, had slept there overnight. By 10 the line had gone around all the buildings next to REI all the way to the back parking lot - maybe 1,000 people!"

Incredible.