Blather and books
It’s been a good day, mostly – work was a bit rough, because I’m dealing with a new product on new hardware and my primary contact hordes information and is not helpful (and not interested, it seems, in camaraderie with his coworkers), leaving me feeling clueless and like an idiot. But this will pass … and since i’m currently a hired gun brought in to help some other team, I can put on my mercenary hat and, beyond not liking feeling like an idiot, not care.
My first final was tonight – election law. Functionally five questions – one dealing with preclearance under VRA section 5, one dealing with a challenge to at-large districts under VRA section 2, one dealing with the constitutionality of a measure to ban (local) campaign contributions by foreign corporations, one dealing with the single-subject rule for initiatives, and one dealing with the substantial compliance rule for minor technical errors in initiatives. Just over 5k words written in two hours (I finished early. so did half the class.)
I got the “polished draft” on my paper (finished in the immediate post-coachella no-sleep zombie mood; I think the last 5 pages of the 32 are crap, and I ran out of time for an entire section about how the ninth circuit handles the issue under discussion). The prof’s comments boiled down to: this was really well written, you could probably just paginate it and turn it back in as the final. (Thanks, I think. I hate it when I’m harsher than the reviewer is, because it makes me think the reviewer isn’t doing their job or being honest. Still, nice to get that kind of feedback from an authority figure, it will reduce my nervousness as I finalize it in a week).
I’m finding it unusually hard to care about politics and the news. (FFS. the news is still going on about OBL.) I had a moment of obsessing over election results Monday night, because obsessing over election results is an independently fun thing to do, and because I care about Canada more than I care about any country other than my own. But otherwise … I can make it through the newspaper, maybe. But I have no desire to listen to NPR (and am listening to the local corporate modern rock station instead, when not to headphones), and my reading has shifted almost entirely to fiction and not history.
It’s even so bad that I didn’t vote in an election this week. It was a minor election – a local, mail-ballot only election, to elect a new county supervisor; the old one had resigned to become the county clerk. The issue with this is that because the county is sandwiched between two large cities, the county really doesn’t have its own media market – no tv, radio, or newspapers really local to the county, so there’s very little coverage of local issues. To really understand county supervisor stuff, I need to do a lot of research on the net, and go to candidate debates, etc … which is hard to factor in while working and going to school, particularly hard in a month where i’m away for a week at a music festival, and somewhat pointless when i’m moving out of the county in four months and so really just don’t give a shit. So … I didn’t vote. I didn’t even bother to send in the unvoted ballot as an undervote (which would cause my voter record to show me as having voted). I just … couldn’t be bothered to care.
Which … is the first time in my adult life that’s been true. It feels wierd. It feels wrong, as if I’ve somehow betrayed myself. And yet. I really don’t give a shit who the new county supervisor is. It’s been more than 24 hours since the election, and I haven’t even checked the results.
—-Feb/Mar/Apr books
I haven’t been reading much new. I’ve been rereading a lot of stuff I’ve read before – the robots & empire series, some of the stephen king stuff i liked, the four lords of the diamond series (nowhere near as good as i remember), the first dozen anita blake novels (trash, but fun), the Foundation novels, Battle Circle …
But I’ve read some:
The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss
I loved the Name of the Wind, so it was only natural that as soon as I knew about the Wise Man’s Fear, I ordered it, and it arrived, a giant hardback, the day it was published. (I’d ordered it before I bought my kindle).
It was good. Perhaps not as good as the Name of the Wind, but it held up well, far better than many second books I could name. IT was entertaining, and kept my attention throughout.
And yet.
The underlying presumption of the story is that something *big* must have happened to Kvothe, to drive him into hiding and to set the great sense of despair which looms over him. And yet, at the end of book two, there is nothing that looks like it might be setting the stage for that. It’s not clear that there is room in book three to set that up … and worse yet, the structure of the series suggests that book three has to end with something which resolves the problem, which causes Kvothe to snap back into the world. Some realization which cures the despair. It’s even harder to see how there’s room for that.
All of which is to say: book 2 was good, but I’m really, really worried that book 3 won’t be able to pull off the conclusion in a way that makes the entire trilogy satisfying as a whole.
The Land of Painted Caves, by Jean M Auel
This book is, I think, the paradigm example of why I’m worried about Rothfuss. The Clan of the Cave Bear was awesome, the immediate two sequels were pretty good, and the last three books have all sucked. Painted Caves sucks for two completely unrelated reasons. For one thing, the writing quality has deteriorated, and it almost feels as though Auel is going through the motions rather than writing stories she finds compelling about characters she loves. For another … there’s an overpowering sense of ennui and disappointment; the earlier books suggested that Ayla has a grand destiny, which just doesn’t pan out in a way which justifies the fanfare. :{
Immortality, by Kevin Bohacz
I’m embarassed to admit that I remember virtually nothing about this book. I read it in a blaze (a day or two, if I recall correct – it was back in February). I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it, but it left no lasting impression, which can’t possibly be a good recommendation.
The Enterprise of Death, by Jesse Bullington
This was a highly entertaining light fantasy involving a lesbian necromancer placed under a horrible curse, and the friends she met along the way of trying to free herself from it. A deep, compelling, moving novel it wasn’t; it was, instead, a fantastic, amusing romp. 
Hounded, by Kevin Hearne
Technically a May book – I just read it yesterday, based on a recommendation from Scalzi’s site. It was another fun romp; a fun romp involving an ancient druid living in Arizona. It was everything I wanted Norse Code to be and more. (Plus, the picture on the front is cute.)
The Half-Made World, by Felix Gilman
The best novel I’ve read so far this year. It’s a travesty that it wasn’t nominated for a Hugo. (Particularly since Blackout/All Clear was). It’s a fascinating, fantastic mystery set in a peculiar world with well-drafted magical elements. Somewhat bizarrely given the title and the fact that the world in question is, well, half-made, it’s the worldbuilding which truly made the novel. (I’d tried Gilman before and disliked him – Thunderer seemed like a failed attempt to imitate China Mieville – but in this book, Gilman has really hit his stride, and the novel was simply awesome).
The Native Star, by MK Hobson
Steampunk is in this season. Steampunk zombies are particularly in this season. Dreadnought was the epitomy of this a year or two ago, although the sequel failed to hold my attention. The Native Star is a fine implementation of that this year – better than Dreadnought in my mind, because the world is more interesting and complex, the view of America more detailed, and the story more deeply layered. I loved this book enough that I ordered the sequel on spec, as soon as I knew it existed.
The Hidden Goddess, by MK Hobson
This wasn’t as good as The Native Star, but that’s not unusual. It took a bit to get into, to fall back into the rhythm of the story, and the complexity of the story seemed periodically overwhelming. And yet, by mid book, the story was engaging, and the ending was well thought-out and well executed.
The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, and The Last Olympian, by Rick Riordan
These were entertaining light (juvenile) fantasy. The first book was particularly good, and as normal the second and fifth were less compelling (books 3 and 4 were unreadable due to formatting issues).
Breakthrough! How the 10 Greatest Discoveries in Medicine Saved Millions, by Jon Queijo
Meh. The stories were interesting pop history-of-science. But the book was .. how shall I say it? A combination of too light, with some nasty internal contradictions, and it left me with a general sense of wondering how well sourced it was. Not a good trait in a history book. But what can I expect, really, for free kindle books?
I haven’t finished a single history book in this time (other than Breakthrough); I haven’t even really gotten more than a fifth of the way through one. History requires too much concentration for what I have to spare right now.
Intermittent trivium
According to this report, “an estimated 10 million pounds of pesticides are used in the Bay Area annually, with the highest use in Sonoma and Napa counties.”
Just … wow.
OK, this is astonishing.
According to the prof of my tiny 6-person water law class, 90% of the biomass in the delta today is exotic.
According to an article in this morning’s Chronicle (which I read on my Kindle and so can’t link directly to), the Golden Gate Bridge District is considering abolishing toll-takers and replacing them with a system which takes a picture of every license plate which crosses the bridge, queries the DMV database, and then sends the registered owner of the car a monthly bill. This is expected to save on the order of $3 million a year.
This is a good thing; the technology to do this has existed for some time – even the bridges with RFID toll-taking technology have this built in to bill (and fine) people who drive through the toll-tag lanes without the appropriate RFID chip sitting on their dashboard. In that case it’s obnoxious – because the imposition of a fine which vastly (eg, on the close order of 50x) overcompensates the toll district for the marginal cost of sending the bill is deliberately punitive, an example of the state using an excuse to fleece the citizenry (a gambit which I admit it has been forced to by the budget, but still an obnoxious one). In the case of a system which just bills you, it’s not obnoxious; it’s a plan which lowers transaction costs, allows you to drive across the bridge without worrying about having $6 at the ready and without having an RFID tag in your car constantly broadcasting your identity to anyone with the wits to read it, while allowing the state to not pay an army of people to do really mindnumbingly boring jobs. This is how all tolls should work.
And yet: this also means that it would be impossible to drive across the bridge anonymously. Oh, sure, you could cross it anonymously as a passenger; that kind of anyonymity remains. But … this convenience, this money-saving device, brings us one step closer to the world in which the state regularly tracks everyone’s move, and it is only the sheer mountain of data which prevents officers of the state from paying too much attention to any one individual.
Some days I fear fascism is the inevitable future, not because anyone will deliberately choose it, but because our love of convenience and our desire to save money will cause us to simply slide into it, blithely unaware of what is happening.
It can be mitigated in this case, somewhat, by the bridge authority agreeing that:
(a) records of who has crossed over the bridge will not be made available to police or other government agencies absent a court order or warrant;
(b) there will be a regular program of destroying records of people who have paid within 30 days of receipt of payment;
(c) there will be a regular program of isolating records for which there has not been payment from the rest of the system.
These are really essential if the information the bridge authority collects is not to be misused. (I assume there are similar safeguards already in place for the use of FastTrack).
This morning’s Chronicle has an interesting article comparing statistics from 1974 (the first time Jerry Brown was sworn in as governor) and today.
Five that I found particularly interesting:
California population, 1974: 21.5 mil
California population, 2010: 37.3 mil (73.4% increase)
SF population, 1974: 715,674
SF population, 2010: 815,358 (13.9% increase)
this is why SF isn’t as powerful as it used to be. (albeit, it’s still surprisingly powerful given how small it is).
——
cost of a gallon of milk, 1974: $1.57
cost of a gallon of milk, 2011: $3.50 (122.9% increase)
median household income, 1974: 17,393
median household income, 2010: 56,134 (222.7% increase)
one year tuition, UC, 1974: $647
one year tuition, UC, 2010: $11,279 (1643.2% increase)
——-
when people like me complain about how the state has abandoned its promise of cheap higher education, it’s statistics lke this which explain why we think that.
Voting
Voting:
A quick rundown of how I’m planning to vote on Tuesday, with (brief) explanations instead of the usual 1000 word tomes.
Governor: Dale Ogden (L). Meg Whitman has spent a fortune failing to convince me that she can succeed at doing what Arnie promised to do. Jerry Brown is more responsible than any single other living politician for helping construct the state of California’s current framework of ungovernability. I reject them both, and am slightly more sympathetic to the Libertarians than to the Greens when I look for third party candidates.
Senator: Barbara Boxer (D). Carly Fiorina came into HP, failed to understand its corporate culture, the motivations of its employees, or what made it a great company, then proceded to change the company in ways which destroyed all three. There’s no good reason to believe she’d be any better in the Senate.
Lt. Governor: Abel Maldanado (R). Gavin Newsom is a spotlight-seeking political hack who managed to make the gay community in San Francisco love him while scoring a massive own goal for their side; then he proceeded to betray his closest friend (and prominent political aide) and his wife, simultaneously. Abel Maldanado is a socially moderate, pro-environment Republican who is willing to vote for compromise budgets. Given this choice, the answer is obvious.
Secretary of State: Debra Bowen (D). She came to office four years ago promising to restrict the use of unverifiable (and unsafe) electronic voting machines. She did so. She deserves re-election for the simple reason that she kept her primary campaign promise, with the result that elections in California are now more secure than they are in much of the country.
Attorney General: Steve Cooley (R). He’s a relatively nonpartisan conservative who supports modifying three strikes; his opponent ran a DA’s office which has been embroiled in a scandal involving the DA’s office not turning over impeachment evidence about cops with disciplinary records involving dishonesty. That was a fundamental failure of a basic job duty, and blaming it on the SFPD should not earn her a promotion.
Insurance Commissioner: why is this an elected office, again?
Superintendent of Public Education: all I know about this is that it’s shaped up to be a race between the candidate backed by the administration and the candidate backed by the teachers. Since I have no children in the public schools, I don’t follow public school politics enough to know more, so I’m inclined to not vote on it.
Assembly: Ray Bell (L). I voted against the Democrat in the primary for reasons involving local county politics (and because one of his opponents was one of the best candidates i’ve seen anywhere in a long time). He’s guaranteed a win in the general election, so I’m voting for a third party candidate to increase their visibility and numbers.
Congress: Anna Eshoo (D). I’m reasonably happy with her as a representative and don’t think any of her opponents will do a better job.
Proposition 19: Yes. It’s far from a perfect bill, but legalizing possession and growth of marijuana, and allowing some legalization of sale, is a step in the right direction. Aside from the (uncertain) situation with respect to corporate drug-free workplace policies, where I’m somewhat sympathetic to the danger that companies may be unable to comply with both this law and federal contracting regulations, my objections to Prop. 19 are that it doesn’t go far enough, not that it goes too fa.r
Proposition 20: No. I voted for the independent redistricting commission for the state legislature, two years ago; how about we give it a chance, and see how it works, before extending its power?
Proposition 21: No. This is tough: more money for parks (many of which were almost closed last year), tied to a minor increase in the vehicle license fee, balanced by free park admission – it’s a reasonable policy choice which I would vote for as a legislator. But I don’t like ballot-box budgeting; it makes the overall state budget problem worse.
Proposition 22: No. More ballot box budgeting. In a good cause, sure … but aren’t they always in a good cause?
Proposition 23: No. A temporary suspension might be in order (although even then, if we really believe that global warming is a problem that must be addressed, don’t we need to address it regardless of whether we’re in good economic times or not?). But this isn’t temporary: the trigger is a condition of extremely low unemployment … meaning the suspension may be indefinite.
Proposition 24: No. (1) Complicated tax policy is why we have a legislature. (2) I like some of the changes the measure would repeal while disliking others. (3) More ballot-box budgeting.
Proposition 25: Yes If a majority of the legislature can put together a budget which is balanced and which doesn’t require tax increases, they should be able to do so.
Proposition 26: No. Increasing the number of things which require a 2/3 majority vote, and simultaneously incresing the number of things which must be sent to the voters for a 2/3 majority vote, is a recipe for gridlock and further structural inflexibility, making it even harder for government to function than it already is.
Proposition 27: No. We voted to create this redistricting commission two years ago. Nothing has changed. How about we give it a try before repealing it?
Proposition 21
Proposition 21 is a microcosm of the difficulty facing California voters, and the structural incoherence of our political system.
The idea is simple: add a $18 fee to the annual vehicle license fee, direct the money to the state parks, revoke the state park day use fee (which is currently levied on a per-vehicle basis) for most vehicles registered in California, and thereby give everyone free access to the state parks in exchange for the fee. (Campgrounds and paid activities would still cost more).
The initiative was put on the ballot after the Governor suggested, as part of last year’s budget deal, that 2/3 of the parks be closed in order to save money; public outrage prevented that from happening, but the danger always remains that it will happen again. So activists organized a drive to put a measure on the ballot to protect the state parks from budget cuts, and to ensure funding for them even when the legislature is searching around looking for money.
So in that regard it seems like a good idea: everyone likes the parks, and closing them to save money in one year is economically foolish (as failure to maintain them will cost more money in the long run, and as closed parks are nonetheless a public nuisance in the sense that we can’t afford to keep people from breaking in, using them, and then either leaving a mess behind or suing the state when they get injured). This measure would take an unpopular dumb idea and put it beyond the grasp of the Legislature.
True, it would impose a flat fee cost on every car owner in the state … but it’s a relatively minor one, and it’s balanced by the fact that the day use fee for state parks would be effectively eliminated, so the cost to most people would be very low. (There’s some danger, as the libertarian opposition to the measure points out, of vehicle fees becoming the twenty-first century sin tax … but we’re not at that point yet).
And yet …
One of the fundamental problems in California over the years has been that the voters, irritated at the Legislature, have repeatedly passed measures making it impossible for the legislature to touch the funding of this year’s sacred cow, or to raise taxes without voter consent; meanwhile, we’ve passed measures requiring funding particular programs and selling bonds (thereby requiring the Legislature to fund interest payments). So with each passing year, the Legislature’s freedom of action is constrained a bit more, and the places it can look to resolve the state budget become more limited, and so each resolution of the budget has a larger effect on a narrower range of state programs, fueling voter outrage and causing the voters to decide that the Legislature can’t be trusted to protect this year’s sacred cow …
That’s precisely the dynamic here: the Legislature considered virtually obliterating the state park system. They decided not to, because the voters got pissed off. But we don’t trust them to continue not doing that, so we want to deny them the ability to do it … without actually solving the general problems preventing the legislature from passing a budget. We’ll carve outt this particular exemption, increasing the pressure on everything else, and not resolving the underlying problem.
Were I a legislator, I would vote for this program in a heartbeat.
But I’m not.
And I remain unconvinced that using the initiative system to mandate particular taxing and spending policies, thereby putting them outside the realm of things the legislature is allowed to effect, is a wise idea.
LOL WUT
Near the end of this episode of Forum, the Libertarian candidate for Secretary of State alleges that the way to get corporate money out of politics is to repeal the top-two primary, which she goes on to say only passed because of all of the corporate money spent to ensure its passage.
Proposition 26
Proposition 26 is another seemingly simple proposition. It would change the state constitution to say “Any change in state statute which results in any taxpayer paying a higher tax must be imposed by an act passed by not less than two thirds of all members elected to each of the two houses of the Legislature.”
It then goes on to define “tax” to be “any levy, charge, or exaction of any kind imposed by the State“, except for
- a charge imposed for a specific benefit or service, granted directly to the payor and not to those not charged, which doesn’t exceed the reasonable costs of providing the benefit;
- a charge paid to enter or use state property, or to rent or lease state property,
- a fine imposed by the courts
It would also retroactively nullify any “tax” adopted after January 1, 2010.
In addition, it would place the burden of proving that something isn’t a tax or that the amount of a charge isn’t more than needed to cover reasonable costs, on the state.
It would impose a similar rule on local governments.
——-
The legislative analyst provides the following example of a ‘fee’ which would be redefined as a ‘tax’ under Proposition 26:
In 1991, for example, the state began imposing a regulatory fee on businesses that made products containing lead. The state uses this money to screen children at risk for lead poisoning, follow up on their treatment, and identify sources of lead contamination responsible for the poisoning.
Other examples include the regulatory fee imposed on oil manufacturers to fund inspections of used-oil recycling facilities; the hazardous waste fee on businesses that treat, dispose of, or recycle hazardous waste (used to clean up toxic waste sites); and city fees on alcohol retailers to pay for additional law enforcement and anti-drinking programs.
The proponents of Proposition 26 believe that “Californians are taxed at one of the highest levels of any state in the nation”, and that one way this is done is via a myriad assortment of taxes disguised as “fees”; they want this measure because, they believe, imposing a 2/3 majority requirement will end the proliferation of fees.
The authors of the argument against Proposition 26 in the ballot pamphlet believe that it’s goal is to shift the burden of paying for externalities off of evil corporations onto taxpayers as a whole. (The argument being that by making it harder to impose fees to balance environmental or public health externalities, the measure makes it easier for corporations to get away with generating the externalities, and requires the general fund to pay for the damage caused by them).
I think the opponents have a point, but it’s tied up in silly anti-corporate populist rhetoric, and it misses the real problem with this initiative:
imposing a 2/3 majority requirement to raise taxes, or impose fees, deprives legislatures of flexibility, and undermines democracy by allowing the minority to hold the majority hostage. The idea behind this measure is that the current 2/3 supermajority requirement for raising taxes is achieving its goal, except for the niggling loophole the evil politicians have found, and that Prop. 26 simply closes that loophole. But that idea is bizarre: how anyone can look at the current budget-creation process in California and say that it’s working is beyond me.
Proposition 26 is inherently antidemocratic: it imposes a supermajority requirement.
Proposition 26 is bizarre in that it would allow a majority to make it a criminal act for the owner of a motor vehicle to release carbon monoxide into the atmosphere, but would require a supermajority to assess that same owner a fee for the priviliege of releasing carbon monoxide and then direct the money to cleaning the carbon monoxide out of the atmosphere – that is to say, it creates a system which makes it vastly easier to punish behavior which could instead be economically mediated.
But none of this is the real problem with Proposition 26.
Proposition 26 is inherently unworkable.
In the language of the proposition itself (emphasis added):
“Any change in state statute which results in any taxpayer paying a higher tax.”
A law not intended as a tax measure which accidentally results in anyone paying more money to the state for anything would be covered. So, for example, if some inventor were to invent a flying car, which wasn’t covered by current regulations of cars, and the legislature were to decide that that car ought to be covered by the vehicle license fee … it’s a tax. Someone can sue seeking an injunction against that measure, unless it was passed by a 2/3 majority vote.
And the burden of proving that it isn’t a tax … that it doesn’t result in any taxpayer paying a higher “levy, charge, or exaction of any kind” … falls on the state.
So: anything which causes someone to pay more to the state, if it wasn’t passed by a 2/3 majority, that person can sue, and the state must prove that it wasn’t a tax, or the law is retroactively invalid.
This is a recipe for chaos.
I’m not sympathetic to the idea that we’re overtaxed, and I’m not sympathetic to the idea of supermajority requirements in general, so I may be more concerned about the failings of this initiative than is fair; I have my biases, after all, and I’m not immune to their effects. But this seems like a terrible idea, even so: the initiative is explicitly drawn broadly enough to encompass anything which causes anyone to pay the state more money … and something so broadly drawn is guaranteed to pull in more than was intended. And, by putting the burden of proof on the state, it’s guaranteed to make protecting against that broader reach extremely difficult.
That was the intent, to an extent: the proponents of this measure think that something explicitly drawn and limited will be meaningless because it’s easily manipulated and gotten around.
But … in reacting to that, they go too far, and have proposed a measure which is guaranteed to strangle what little flexibility remains in state and local government.
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