Author: CoolDMZ

"X-ray vision to see in between / Where's my kimono and my time machine?"

In which CoolDMZ praises the government

waterSince I spend so much time on this here log of Web talking about government failure, I thought I’d share a recent government success story: Calling the City of Sacramento Department of Utilities.

The Cool household woke up Friday morning with weird-looking water. A call to the Utilities hotline (311) got an agent dispatched to our home within about an hour to take samples (luckily, the water had normalized by then). It was like an in-home field trip for the kids. And then I just got off the phone with another science-talking-guy from the Department, who went over all the results (no contaminants, trace remnants of iron and manganese which suggested an open fire hydrant around the time of “The Incident”).

All in all it was satisfying to have a quality encounter with the government. U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!!

Bee misleads on marriage

The Sac Bee’s cover story on differences between married couples, domestic partnerships and other types of couples includes a table of info outlining some specific differences regarding children, medical and taxes. Without opening up this debate, several claims in the Bee’s graphic about marriage and other relationships are misleading.

Continue reading “Bee misleads on marriage”

Sports Show RIP

We heard from a reader named Doug this morning that CBS13’s “The Sports Show” may have been canceled. It looks like that scoop is indeed correct. Arran Anderson’s bio page on CBS13.com is “Page not found,” though Andrew Luria’s is still on there. Reader Doug also wonders whether CBS13/CW31 has canceled all sports coverage in general, which would seem to follow. “Sports Show” pretty much was the entirety of CBS13’s sports coverage. I guess we’ll see this weekend?

They always say these things happen in threes: Kozimor, KWOD, Sports Show…

UPDATE: looks like Anderson and “Sports Show” are gone, but there will still be sports coverage.

Text of Sac Bee’s embarrassing draft post-election editorial

Here is the full text of the cringe-worthy “internal discussion” version of the Sac Bee’s post-election editorial (which was updated yesterday afternoon, here). Items you may need before you read this: vomit receptacle, punching bag, phone number to cancel your subscription.

Editorial: You did it! Uh, so what now?

Published: Wednesday, May. 20, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 18A
Last Modified: Wednesday, May. 20, 2009 – 9:09 am

Good morning, California voters. Do you feel better, now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?

You wanted to show the state’s politicians just how mad you are at them. And you did. Boy, did you ever.

Continue reading “Text of Sac Bee’s embarrassing draft post-election editorial”

Police cops at my polling place?

CHP officer at polling placeI’m not sure of the relevant legal issues but this just “didn’t feel right.” I believe this was a CHP officer doing a speed trap right in the entrance to my polling place this morning on Broadway near 59th Street.

He was perched about 5 feet away from the big sign that said “VOTE.” I’m sad to say that I’m not “in your face” enough to try to get that shot, but it would have been classic.

Repeal the two-thirds majority component of Prop 13!

Money in the ballot boxIn doing my homework on the slate of state propositions for the May 19 special election, I am starting to feel like repealing Proposition 13‘s two-thirds restriction on the legislature for tax increases would be a good idea. It’s not because I think taxes should be greatly increased to get our state out of its fiscal woes, and I want to remove all impediments to doing that. It would take something stronger than waterboarding to get me to suppress my anti-tax reflex.

The reason I want to allow the legislature to raise our taxes by itself is because when revenue-raising ballot initiatives fail, the politicians blame it on us voters. Darrell Steinberg warns us that deep spending cuts will be needed if the ballot measures don’t pass. Arnold’s talking about legalizing pot so he can tax it, which he doesn’t think is right but he’ll do it anyway, if other people think it would be good. (I get the feeling his brain does not suffer the same condition as his other muscles, that one.)

Continue reading “Repeal the two-thirds majority component of Prop 13!”

Perez Hilton, here I come

Steve Large
Julissa Ortiz

Item! Yesterday afternoon I spotted CBS13’s Steve Large and CW31’s Julissa Ortiz shopping for groceries together at an East Sacramento grocery store. Can picking out avocados be called ‘canoodling’? It’s the scoop of the century…not.

Oh well, the search for actual gossip continues. As a side note, I can see now that being a paparazzo requires a sharp eye, because when people wear baseball caps you cannot tell who they are.

Free Comic Book Day today

Wolversometing
Actually it sounds like this movie is teh suck

Today being the first Saturday in May, it is Free Comic Book Day at participating comic book stores all over the U.S. and Canada. You just walk into a store and walk away with a free comic book. Though you can’t enjoy a trip to Comics & Comix, you can use the FCBD website’s bookshop locator to find a participating location.

Some pretty fun sounding titles are being offered this year. This one called Resurrection sounds good and comes with a preview of Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen series. I recommend the Atomic Robo title, and of course you’ll probably need to get their early if you want to score a copy of the Brian Michael Bendis-penned Avengers book.

What were you planning to do today, just sit in your house and not get free comics?