Why haven't we heard about California Proposals 10 and 7, intarwub?

[highlyeccentric]

While hunting down the complete breakdown of results from California, I discovered that while Prop 8 has been passed, two measures relating to clean energy- Prop 10, for alternative fuel cars, and Prop 7, for renewable energy- have been knocked back. WTF, California?

Granted, I can't see from the brief description what *sort* of proposals they were, they might be godawful stupid propsoals, like Morris Iemma's desalination monstrosity. But still.

ETA: see Rymenhild's comment below. Apparently the proposals in question were foolish.

Speaking of Prop 8, how about we appoint the FRENCH Leaders of the Free World? They let you get a Pacte Civil de Solidarite with anyone, regardless of gender or relationship, with whom you live and share a partnership. You can pacser with your sibling or your mother or anyone at all, if you want them to be recognised as your Next of Kin and to benefit from your social security and so forth. No one gives a stuff who you sleep with: my French textbook had a happy profile of a middle-aged fellow who had got a PACS with his elderly mother when they were living together and both suffering from ill-health. The PACS is voided when one party marries, and/or by a statement on the part of the persons concerned.

According to my textbook, at least, the PACS isn't just a token measure, it's publicly recognised as a legitimate partnership; it's apparently popular with secular heterosexual couples; there are lines of 'PACS' cards and department stores have PACS gift registries. The French govt, as well as instituting the legal set-up for a civil union, went out of its way to advertise them as something attractive to everyone, not just gay couples.

Comments

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

The great majority of CA ballot propositions are stupid. It's easy and cheap to get propositions on the ballot, so lots of people do it -- without bothering to do research on the possible consequences of the consequences. I don't actually remember what I found out when I researched Prop 7, so I don't remember how I voted on it.

Prop 10 asks CA to borrow 5 billion dollars to use to research renewable energy cars. That's just too much money. The state of California is broke and can hardly pay the interest on the loans it's got now. I voted against it because I don't believe the state can afford it. I did vote for the state to borrow money to create a high speed train line between San Francisco and LA. That's a pro-environment measure, and it's also very necessary. Researching renewable energy cars... just isn't as good for the environment as getting a decent train system in, and we certainly can't support both.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Ow! Consequences of the propositions, I mean.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I see. Sounds like the kind of problems we were having with Morris Iemma's pet desalination plant a while back.

So who puts propositions on the ballot, then? I was assuming they were sort of like our referendums here, but evidently not...

[areyoustrange.livejournal.com]

I don't think you've factored CAUCASIAN JESUS into your little plan there! Ha ha HA!

Seriously though, the PACS is pretty swish. Down with marriage. Up with PACS.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

What about CAUCASIAN JESUS? He can get a PACS too if he wants ;).

[areyoustrange.livejournal.com]

Caucasian Jesus frowns upon your shenanigans and urges you to marry a biomale poste haste. Except not in France because over there they are cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

*sulks* don't wanna marry anyone. *sulks* Nor, KNTHX Crazy Catholic Medievalist, do I wish to 'pay the price' of voluntary celibacy.

[areyoustrange.livejournal.com]

But various cultural pressures are telling me contradictorily that I must be a slutty mcwhoreson AND a virginial bride in order to be happy! One of them must be right!! ;_;

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

*eyes you*

you've been taking media too long. Go outside, take a deep breath, and then play video games or something.

[areyoustrange.livejournal.com]

Tetris is the new feminism. :D

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Wilkins made this point (http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2006/10/a_modest_solution_to_gay_marri.php). It is a good one.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

This is what the Dutch do. It is a good idea.

I thought it was a good idea when I was *in* the church. For one thing, parts of the UCA would happily issue a church marriage to gay couples, but can't, because of state law.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Any Californian who can write up a new law as a petition, send the proposed law to the state Attorney General with a $200 fee, and get a petition to put the law on the ballot signed by 5% or 8% as many people as voted in the last election for governor, can get the law on the ballot. (5% for a statute, 8% for a constitutional amendment. Prop 8 is a constitutional amendment.)

I can't tell you how many times I've had ballot initiative petitions waved at me when I was living in Berkeley. I always refused to sign. Plenty of people around me just signed without bothering to read the petitions. It shuts the petition-wavers up, you see.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. That's... actually pretty cool :D.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

It's pretty stupid, actually. I can't tell you how much crap is written into state law because of this. Interest group 1, for perfectly valid reasons, convinces enough people in the state that their interest must be supported with money, and thus it is made law that x million dollars a year must go to interest group 1. This could be, say, California Teachers insisting that x million dollars go to California Elementary Schools. Same thing happens to California Firemen (or whatever the gender neutral word is), who insist that x million dollars go to fire squads.

All well and good, until it comes time to balance the budget... and the money doesn't balance. There must be drastic funding cuts. But it's in the law that California Elementary Schools *must* get x million dollars. So all the cuts go disproportionately to equally good causes that never got ballot initiatives to mandate their funding. Like, say, California higher education. Speaking as a graduate student at a California public university, I feel this system is more than a little bit unfair.

And I haven't even explained about the statutes that get stuck in state law even though they don't make an iota of sense...

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Oh, GUH. Yes, I see. This is why the treasury should be bloody well in charge of funding...

Ok, you win, that sucks.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

I have found an online version of Glider PRO - do you remember it? You got to be a paper plane and fly around houses and things, it was great when I was ten.

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

No way! Tetris is totally phallic, it can't be feminist..ic..al! All those long thin bits slotting together, filling holes and whatnot? No way! I don't think there's anything more phallic than tetris. Even the penis pales in comparison. Seriously, try comparing the two. You will see: pale.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a penis is only one thing which is longer than it's wide. Tetris is a whole SCREEN full of them. And even the receptacles are composed of longer-than-wide pieces.

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

It's phallocentric AND gay! :D