It appears as though conservatives are on the cusp of doing what they've dreamed of for over 70 years: getting rid of everything related to the New Deal. Bush accomplished a big part first thing in office by obliterating the budget surplus. And his administration has been slowly but surely ensuring that the country will be bankrupt for years to come. And these same right-wingers are everywhere. Here in California, my beloved bastion of rationality, we are about to vote on whether to recall our damn governor. California's problems are varied and legion (both ancient and recent), and Gray Davis's extreme unpopularity is strange to me. Blaming Davis for the state's ills is like yelling at the sheriff of Tallahassee for not stopping the hurricane. What's essentially happening is that Darrell Issa, a wonderful, stalwart Repub from my own corner, is trying to buy the governorship. Make no mistake. I could never have raised enough money to pay for people to gather signatures in front of malls all over the state, but Issa can. And, as we've noted several times before, people are fucking stupid. Several of the people cavassing in my neighborhood had two petitions, one for those who think that there should be a recall vote, and one for those who wanted to go on record as saying that the recall vote would be an asinine waste of money in the middle of the worst budget crisis in decades. Canvassers want people to sign both. And some of the conversations I've had with my fellow Californians about the recall would make your fucking head spin. You thought creationists dabbled in logical fallacies...