I have always thought that state political parties had primaries to allow their members to pick the candidate they want to represent them in the upcoming election. Never before moving to California in 2004 have I heard of a state party endorsing one candidate instead of another. Yet that’s exactly what the California Democratic Party did yesterday, endorsing Phil Angelides over Steve Westly in the race to challenge Arnold Schwarzenegger in November.

Phil Angelides is easily the most liberal of the two, but I don’t like him because his campaign seems based around Arnold-hatred instead of ideas of any substance or value. And anyone who has every state employees union on his side is someone who’s going to be unable to make the hard choices that are necessary for the well being of our state in the future. Do people think Phil is going to suggest cutting back any of California’s ridiculously overstaffed state bureaucracies instead of raising taxes? No, he’s already been open about the fact that he plans on raising taxes high and fast as soon as he gets into office.

Steve Westly is the better candidate and has a far better chance of beating Arnold in November. If Phil Angelides is the Democratic nominee I’ll be abandoning my party this fall and voting for Arnold. As hard as that would be there’s no way I’m casting my ballot for a Democrat that just can’t seem to keep himself from dancing to the tune of “tax ‘em ’till they bleed” state employee unions.

“Powerful”, “evocative”, “moving.” These are some of the words being used to describe Eric Steel’s new documentary which shows how over the course of a year scads of people were jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

I’ve got some other words to describe the people jumping off the bridge: how about “quitter, loser, idiot, fool and lame-ass?” Harsh? Yes, but consider the consequences of the “suicide barrier” proposed for the bridge: destroyed views of San Francisco, ugly fences stretching for one mile on each side of the bridge, $50-100 million dollars to build the barrier, charging people to walk across the bridge, increased bridge tolls (already $5.00 one-way).

Polls show that the majority of people in San Francisco are opposed to a suicide barrier and don’t want to fund the initial study. But despite this the Golden Gate Bridge Commission, headed by Janet Reilly, have rammed through the study and are heading full force towards forcing a costly, cumbersome and ineffective suicide barrier down our throats.

Janey Reilly is now running for the State Assembly where I’m sure she’ll work hard to suicide-proof every other bridge and tall building in the state of California. Janet Reilly is the perfect example of the nanny-state “I know best” legislator that we don’t need more of in this state. Don’t bother thinking because Janet knows what’s best for you.

Since when did it become the responsibility of San Francisco taxpayers to pay to prevent crazies from hurling themselves off bridges? If the families of these unfortunate people want a suicide barrier on the bridge then why don’t they pool their funds and pay for it themselves? After all, maybe if they’d been a little more attentive to their dead friends/relatives they’d be here with us now!

Isn’t it amazing how the European Union can spend so much time and effort to find out if the United States has been transporting prisoners using EU territory, but it can’t seem to find out why Jews are under savage attack in France, Belgium and other EU states?

Maybe it’s because of articles like this horrific screed. A long, anti-Semitic polemic from the traditional Jew-hating left in Europe. And one wonders why we Jews never care what the Europeans have to say about Israel or the Palestinians. This is, after all, a continent that did absolutely nothing to stop the uncontrolled genocide of European Jewry but which seems to be able to muster an amazing amount of angst on the behalf of Palestinians and Al Qaeda terrorists imprisoned by the United States.

Every time I see something like this Independent article I am more convinced than ever that the United States is right to protect and nurture its historic relationship with Israel. Keep it coming Europe, you’re just proving our point for us: that the Jews have never been able to rely on Europe and their best bet is on the United States.

Last night we were treated to Shane performing a car wash “Paris Hilton-style.” Shane bought a new car because “he felt like it” and fought with his sister, all the while ruminating on his upcoming move to Yavapi College in Northern Arizona.

Please donate to Barack Obama here at my personal fundraising page!!

I’ve recently become a fan of attending the weddings of my friends from my undergraduate years, in no small part because it gives me a chance to take brief vacations and get the hell out of foggy, windy and cold San Francisco for a while.

The last was to LA and Vegas, the next is to Santa Fe in June, right after the fog starts rolling in. And in and in and in.

Seriously though, I do love my friends from my college years and while I’m a bit peeved I don’t have the option to get married (not like my boyfriend would want to) I am always happy to attend their festivities, especially if it’s in a sunny and warm place at least 500 miles away from San Francisco.

Today’s New York Times had a good article about how Airbus is trying to convince its customers to order planes with a section of standing seats for passengers. These “seats” feature strap-in harnesses in place of seat belts and are supposedly only for “short” flights.

Of course it wasn’t very long ago that the airlines told us the suspension of food and snacks was only for “short” flights, and now most airlines don’t serve food on flights shorter than 5 hours. I’m curious just how many passengers are soon going to be forced into standing positions for hours and hours in “super economy” rows where people will undergo any humiliation just as long as they can get to their destination for a buck cheaper.

The American people are fools for tolerating this kind of bullshit, I bet next airlines will start charging a “convenience” fee for allowing people to use the bathroom or turn on their overhead reading light.

Since I first wrote about the sexy Shane Keogh from The Real Housewives at Orange County I’ve been receiving a hugely increased number of hits resulting from readers looking for information on Shane. I need to start gathering that information in one place, perhaps making a sub-category for information on and about the deeeee-licious Shane Keogh.

I’m a libertarian and by that I mean I believe I have the right to do and say whatever I want as long as no one else is harmed by my actions or my words. Let me separate that from typical liberal/PC thought-speak, which supposes that people have the right to have their “feelings” protected. This is wrong, no one has the “right” to have their “feelings” protected, but lately we’ve started deforming proper speech to take account of people’s “feelings.” This particular school of thought is disgusting and wrong and must be challenged at every opportunity.

As such I’m going to protest the ridiculous re-naming of the racist term “nigger” to the infantile “the ‘n’ word.”

Has anyone stopped and though how absurd and ridiculous it is for grown people to simper “and then he/she said ‘the n word’.” It’s pathetic. What’s next, instead of saying “fag” we’re going to start calling it “the ‘f’ word?” Wait, we can’t do that because we already call “Fuck”, a much more graphic and harder slang term than nigger, the “f word.”

I don’t use the term nigger because it’s trashy and lower-class, not because I’m a limp-wristed white liberal who constantly wonders what “the blacks are thinking” about this or any other issue. But I do find the infantalizing of American English through the use of terms like “the n word” to be far more subversive than a couple of “fucks” or “niggers” thrown into a conversation every once in a while.

Again they’re not working, I’m actually thinking of getting rid of them altogether, that verification thing is a pain-in-the-ass and half the time they don’t work at all.

But thanks anyway to all who have left me nice comments on getting into NYU. Even though they don’t show on the post I still receive a copy of them, and I appreciate all the nice thoughts.

I got a call, yes a CALL, from the NYU admissions office today informing me that I’d been accepted to NYU starting Fall 2006. After 5 months of gathering transcripts, test scores, paying old and odd library fees so I could GET said transcripts and traveling to New York to do an admissions interview, I’ve now been officially admitted.

They called because I had received a call from the NYU admissions office earlier this week telling me I was missing something from my application for admission, not anything major or that would hold back a decision, but something they needed nonetheless. I called them back and the admissions person then called me and told me when I was on the phone that I’d been accepted. A welcome pack is in the mail and should arrive next week.

I’m still going to visit UCLA next month before I decide exactly where I’m going, but it feels good to get into NYU. I knew studying as hard as I did would get me somewhere someday. It looks like its paid off.