Ted Lieu, The Airheaded Reactionary

California State Senator Ted Lieu has just been shown to be the empty headed reactionary politician that he really is. The California Supreme Court has disallowed his proposal from being placed on the ballot for the November election. The senator, who is running to replace long time U.S. Representative Henry Waxman on the Westside, wanted to put Proposition 49 in the state general election. Prop 49 would merely ask California voters whether they approved or disapproved of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allowing businesses to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign donations. That is probably the most populist and vacuous proposal ever granted a place in California elections.

The CA Supreme Court rightly stated that California's proposition system allows voters to directly decide new laws of the land, since our state representatives are too cowardly to make any laws on their own that might be deemed controversial ie/ Prop 8. It is not there for any Tom, Dick, or Harriet to put up bogus statements simply for grandstanding. Even California's governor disapproved of this nonsense. Said Gov. Jerry Brown, "we should not make it a habit to clutter our ballots with nonbonding measures, as citizens rightfully assume that their votes are meant to have legal effect."

Of course none of this is a surprise for anybody who has followed Mr. Lieu's career. He has trademarked the qualities of being a politician who has no personal convictions, somebody who uses his position as a lawmaker to make up whatever bills he deems popular at the moment that will bring him votes. Remember his anti-swatting bill from last year? At the time there was a rash of celebrities getting prank calls to 911 and having a platoon of emergency vehicles show up at their front doorsteps. Mr. Lieu, sensing an opportunity to curry favor with Hollywood and getting his face in front of the cameras, wrote this bill to increase criminal penalties of anyone caught swatting. Ironically, his own residence was swatted shortly after he introduce this bill. Of course it was another one of those faddish activities like the Harlem Shake that people got tired of quickly and nobody bothered with a short time later. Mr. Lieu's bill just prolonged the publicity these stunts craved and helped it gain more life than it otherwise would have.

While Mr. Lieu is the favorite to win his election in November, since he is the Democrat running in a heavily Democratic district, the voters should know what kind of person they are getting. He has already shown his jelly spine to the Asian American communities who used to support him strongly until he stabbed them in the back by supporting affirmative action for University of California student admissions. I have no doubt that he will do the same thing in the future to any future constituent if he thinks he can get more votes or publicity by supporting a cause that runs directly against his voters' wills. Caveat emptor.

Is Global Warming Pessimism A White Man's Conspiracy?

The Los Angeles Times has another story about man's destruction of nature leading to global warming, or now called under the PC label, climate change. The paper's article uses a chart compiled by the National Weather Service to point out that 2014 had the hottest January through July of any year ever recorded in California. They highlight that singular peak way over on the right hand side, with an average temperature of 60.2 F this year. That compares with an average temperature of 57 F in the past century.

What I find more profound was how cold California has been since 1900. While the Times wants to look at only the red bars from the last twenty years, it appears to me that about 80% of the time, the state has been running below, way below, the mean temperature of 57 F. In fact, in the mid 1950's, the state's average temperature dropped to 53 F, four degrees below the mean. That makes it the polar opposite (pun intended) of today's climate which is only three degrees above the mean. Yet I don't think there were screaming headlines sixty years ago about the need to reform the world economies to compensate for the cold weather they were experiencing.

I have a theory about why that is. Is it because white people, who control the major political parties and media companies of the developed world, like cold temperatures? Most of the WASPs who hold the levers of power came from northern European climes, and thus prefer frigid cold temperatures. Look at any ski slope during winter. Virtually every face up there is as white as the snow they are standing on. Who hold stupid polar bear swim meets in the dead of winter? White people. The rest of us brown people are shivering our asses off and looking at these pinkish white idiots incredulously.

We brown people love warm climates. My father used to wear long sleeve flannel shirts in mid summer during the hottest days of Missouri. Town folks used to think he was crazy. It is 95 F outside with 90% humidity but he was driving around town in long sleeves and no air conditioning. In the meantime, white people were dying by the hundred every summer from heat stroke. But when the seasons changed, we would have on our thick jackets and gloves at the slightest chill while Caucasians were still running around in T-shirts and shorts. Most non Caucasians come from warmer countries. We love our days warm and nights cold. Who wants to walk around wearing a sweater in August like they do in Seattle or London?

So maybe this whole notion that the world is about to end because of global warming is another way for white people to stay in control. They don't like warm temperatures so they are demanding that developing countries, who are mostly of browner complexion, curb their industrialization to decrease the release of greenhouse gasses. This of course will slow down their economies and keep the developed countries superior, who just happen to be mostly run by Caucasians.