Link Banana

The LA Times has an interesting Flash thing (game seems too generous): devise a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to balance California’s famously troubled budget. For some reason I can’t seem to devise a solution that no one would be upset about…

(via Mr. Arment)

Two interesting data points, both pointed out by Kevin Drum, should cheer gay activists and allies:

• Support for Proposition 8, California’s ballot initiative to define marriage as “between a man and a woman,” is only at 42%. With 51% opposed, most think it’s unlikely to pass, leaving the recent court decision in favor of gay marriage as state law.
• American public opinion now favors gays serving openly in the military by a wide margin. Where in 1993, only 44% of people supported it, a recent poll puts the number as high as 75%.

Even for homosexuals eager for the right to get married, there could be one drawback to California’s making it legal: doting parents and the persistant question of “When are you gonna get married?”

This account of Vernon, CA — an industrial powerhouse in the Los Angeles area — was hard for me to believe. But if it’s in The Economist it must be true.

Vernon caters so diligently to the needs of businesses because it does not have to balance their demands with those of residents. Only about 90 people live in Vernon, many of them cops and fire-fighters. Most rent their homes from the city for a pittance—a one-bedroom flat costs $147 per month. They are the city’s electorate and, in theory, the pool from which mayors and local politicians are drawn.

It does not sound like a recipe for a functioning democracy, because it isn’t. The mayor has held power for 34 years. Contested elections are almost unknown. The last was in 2006, when three outsiders moved into a house just before the deadline and petitioned to stand for city offices. Their electricity was abruptly cut off and their home declared unfit for habitation. The outsiders got ten votes out of 68 cast. That was a surprise: they had expected just eight. Bill Schneider of the Chamber of Commerce says the shenanigans during the election worried him—because of the risk that another regime might take over. “What outsiders miss is that the damn place works well,” says Lonnie Kane, who runs a clothing firm with his wife, Karen.

The Economist says black is the new white. At least as far as fleeing poorer urban neighborhoods in California is concerned.

Since 1990 the city’s black population has dropped by a quarter, from 488,000 to 364,000, even as the overall number of residents rose. The exodus is most noticeable in areas where blacks were once concentrated, such as Compton and Crenshaw. The population of the 35th congressional district, over which the old-fashioned race warrior Maxine Waters holds sway, is now less than one-third black. “It’s becoming hard to find black neighbourhoods,” says Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California.

There is also the important point that this movement, like most movement affected by real estate prices, has stalled with the recent mortgage crisis.

Add this to the mounting pile of evidence that the Evironmental Protection Agency needs either a new name or new leadership:

Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) of Connecticut, who leads one of the 15 states that have joined California’s suit, also had harsh words for the EPA. “The EPA has become a roadblock to states that want to pass tougher clean-air standards,” she said. “This is a shame and a disgrace. They are not serving the people or the health of the public by preventing states from improving their environments.”