Leading off our news tonight, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was abducted by aliens. Carla Marinucci explains, "Jerry Brown supporters have been promoting the line that Newsom
may have set his ambitions too high in taking on Brown,
who has logged
four decades in state politics. Newsom insiders, though,
counter that
this all started when Brown himself showed up to a
75th birthday party
for the Mayor's dad -- and reportedly told the elder Newsom that Gavin
should be running for Lite Gov instead.
"So could party leaders
urge Newsom to make peace with Brown and settle for
next-best-thing if
it looks like he can't get the brass ring?Newsom's consultant, Garry South responded, ""I've run a campaign for California lieutenant governor,
and served as
the lieutenant governor's chief of staff,'' he said. "I would have
Newsom kidnapped by one-eyed aliens from Pluto if I ever thought he
would make that decision."
Dan Walters looks at a new Field Poll that compares today's California with pre-Prop 13 California.
"How else does one explain that California, with about
12 percent of
the nation's population, is home to more than 30 percent of its welfare
recipients? Or that it spends more of its budget than
any other state
on prisons? Or that its academic achievement scores
and its traffic
congestion are at or near the bottom among the states
while its
unemployment rate is near the top?
"Underlying
those and many other vexing political and economic
issues is, almost
everyone now agrees, dysfunctional governance. And
no small factor, as
well as an illustration of the state's fragmentation, is the evolution
in the body politic over the last several decades.
"Campaign
committees on both sides of the effort to recall Inland
Assemblyman
Anthony Adams raised
hundreds of thousands of dollars during the first
six months of the year, new reports show.
"Dentists, hospitals and other interest groups have
contributed
$288,000 to a campaign committee created by Assembly GOP leadership
to
defend Adams, R-Hesperia, according to campaign filings due Friday.
"Supporters of ousting Adams, meanwhile, raised about
$81,000. Adams'
anti-recall committee collected $46,000. And Adams raised another
$224,000 for his main campaign account, which also could be
spent to
fight any recall.
"Adams faces the most serious recall threat of any of
the six GOP
lawmakers who voted for February budget legislation
that temporarily
raised taxes. Critics, including the hosts of the "John and Ken"
talk-radio show, contend that Adams violated a no-tax pledge.
"Along
with California's efforts to crack down on its own greenhouse gas
emissions, state officials have begun preparing for the worst : heat
waves, a rising sea level, flooding, wildlife die-offs and other
expected consequences from what scientists predict
will be a dramatic
temperature increase by the end of this century," reports the LAT's Margot Roosevelt.
"California's Natural Resources Agency on Monday issued the nation's first statewide plan to "adapt" to climate change.
It offers strategies to cope with threats in seven
sectors from
firefighting to public health and water conservation.
Resources
Secretary Mike Chrisman called the plan an effort to
acknowledge the
problem and suggested that Californians "recognize their role in
solving that problem and alter their behavior so that
the change lasts."
There are unconfirmed reports that part of the plan
calls for each type of animal to board the Queen Mary,
two by two, in the event of a massive flood.
"The
state Senate will hold hearings later this month to
determine if
legislators need to change a California law governing
the use of
student test scores in order to qualify for competitive federal
education reform dollars," reports teh LAT's Jason Song.
"At issue is a 2006 law that bars the state from using student test
score data for measuring teacher performance. That law is at the center
of a dispute between the Obama administration, which
is urging states
to more effectively determine teacher quality, and
state education
leaders, who insist that federal officials are misinterpreting
the law."
Pay cuts are coming to San Francisco, too. The Chron's Heather Knight reports, "San Francisco's elected officials might want to start clipping coupons
- their paychecks throughout this fiscal year will be 2.45 percent
smaller. The city's Civil Service Commission voted Monday to cut the
pay of the 18 officials, including the mayor and the Board of
Supervisors.
"The decrease is largely symbolic and won't save the city much money.
But under the City Charter, whenever city workers take
a pay cut - as
many unions did this year to help the city bridge a
$438 million budget
deficit - the elected officials must take a "comparable" decrease."
"In a ruling Friday on a San Francisco attorney's suit against an
Orange County veterinarian, the Fourth District Court
of Appeal
acknowledged that "the love and loyalty a dog provides creates a strong
emotional bond between the owner and his or her dog."
"But the court noted that a parent whose child is killed
by medical
negligence can't sue the doctor for emotional distress or loss of
the
child's companionship. By the same token, California law
allows a pet
owner, in some cases, to seek compensation for loss
of the animal's
"unique economic value" but not for its "sentimental or emotional
value," the court said."
And finally, from our Patheptic People files, you know
it's bad when you hit on your own daughter at your girlfriend's funeral. But that is the mess known as Ryan O'Neal.
"Ryan O'Neal admits that he was so frazzled at Farrah Fawcett's funeral that he hit on his own daughter, Tatum O'Neal.
“They had just put the casket in the hearse and I was
watching it
drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and
embraces me,"
Ryan tells Vanity Fair.
"I said to her, 'You have a drink on you? You have a car?' She said,
'Daddy, it's me -- Tatum!' I was just trying to be funny with a strange
Swedish woman, and it's my daughter. It's so sick."
For once, we're actually speechless...
