Interesting to see your take on Shellenberger, but you're incorrect on his stance re: Suboxone. I assume you got his stance on Suboxone from the chronicle hit piece, but they got it wrong.
Leroux's "Pro-life Plus" seems pretty reasonable, per her website it's just Pro-life with funding for supporting single mothers with affordable childcare, remote education, employment opportunities etc.
Tony Fanara's Lower-48 aqueduct system sounds great if you're a coastal state importing water, but not so great if you're a midwestern state whos water is being stolen by coastal elites.
Shellenberger is aggressively mendacious. I like the "Apocalypse Never" idea but he's like a high school debate club in human form. He says stuff that he's smart enough to know isn't true, because he thinks YOU'RE not smart enough to notice. If you could desalinate water with smug you could plug him straight into the grid.
Shellenberger sounds pretty good to me. I get that he's not perfect, but the status quo in California seems so dysfunctional that I think he'd be a big improvement on housing (he's a YIMBY), crime, homelessness, and climate change (pro-nuclear).
> I started out thinking you struck your enemies with the Action Rod directly, but now I believe it probably attaches to a gun and makes the gun more powerful somehow. Further research is needed.
Research has continued! I believe this is a gun disassembly tool, which allows you to remove/detach AR-15 interior components via the barrel without the need to fully disassemble the gun (i.e an internal component that would normally need 50 other parts removed can be accessed directly via this).
I was surprised how you didn't address Mercuri's opposition to "goy shutdowns" and "goy gay in newsom" but I eventually figured out his "v" looks weird
I can't tell if you're joking about Gavin Newsom's name - Gavin's a pretty common name here in the UK, but in the US it does seem to be very rare among people born before the mid-90s: https://www.everything-birthday.com/name/m/gavin
I agree that Newsom is going to be the governor and none of these people have a chance. But this one made me laugh (not in a mean way, because the only person you were remotely mean about was Newsom and he can handle that), and I badly needed a laugh today.
God bless California and all who re-invent themselves who live there!
I'm a power engineer. I promise not to evaluate Shellenberger's policy positions on mental health if you'll promise not to evaluate his policy positions on nuclear power.
Due to the outsize impact that California's economy has on the way the rest of the country does business (and enjoys their rights) *if* there was a state that I broke my 'let other democracies make their own choices' rule for, it would be CA.
But, no. I think that it is extremely important to not mess with the choices made by other free people.
Instead of a book review contest we should have a gubernatorial candidate review contest (although the elections come up at different times, of course). I don't expect Scott to write about the other 49 states, but I would love to see some more of these, because this was very entertaining.
Shellenberger seems like he's the best choice here by far, to the point where it's not even a contest. I'd vote for him in a heartbeat if I lived in California. Sure, he's not perfect, but none of them are. And judging by your descriptions, he has the unique distinction of getting far more right than he gets wrong. Maybe it's partly because he codes as one of those rare Blue-Gray types, and as a Blue-Gray myself, it's very refreshing to see anyone with similar leanings actually run for office or be in the public eye at all. I was really rooting for Carrick Flynn too, for similar reasons.
I suppose my distant second pick would be Tony Fanara. Mostly because he's 1. not a conservative, 2. not a Bernie-style radical leftist, 3. not some other sort of weird crackpot, and 4. not Gavin Newsom. Though Woodrow Sanders III is tempting too, because "make the bureaucrats do their jobs better" is probably more likely to have an actual positive impact than any grand vision, and it displays an admirable level of pragmatism and intellectual humility.
I would like to congratulate Mr. Zacky on having passed a difficult test in American political life: plausibly convincing me that he actually wears Carhartt on days he isn't filming campaign ads.
Heather Collins' idea to build parking-like structures to provide basic accommodation to the homeless is a very good one and I support it (but not her as governor). They could be designed as panopticons and built and run very cheaply, but still provide much better accommodation than most current homeless shelters.
Came for the entertaining review, but found the conclusion remarkably heartwarming. Great work! Room for a docuseries on the interesting political candidates of america.
What’s interesting to me, as an outsider, is how little of America’s cultural wars are being fought here. Some of the Republicans are anti vax, but that’s old hat. One guy opposed to the WEF. Some opposition to blm but it’s rare. On the other side no demands to fight white supremacy, increase the number of genders officially to 150, defund the police, replace all “o”s in gendered languages with “x”s.
Is twitter lying to me about what is Important, or does that stuff only matter at a federal level.
"I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many of them are immigrants. Immigrants believe in the American Dream. Maybe they’re the only people who still do. Back in Mexico or India or wherever, they heard that America was a magical place where ordinary people governed themselves and anyone could get ahead."
I'm an immigrant too, and this is a good lesson for everyone living in the US. Yes, there are many social, political, and economic problems, but you're a paradise of equality and opportunity compared to most countries on Earth, and compared to any time in history more than 50 years back. Here, your abilities and your hard work actually matter, not just how well connected your father is or how many officials you can afford to bribe. For anyone coming from a country where corruption is a fact of life, where justice is merely the advantage of the stronger, and where the average person would envy America's homeless, America really is the land of dreams. That's not because immigrants are all naive starry eyed dreamers; sometimes it's because they are comparing America to other human societies and not to the Kingdom of Heaven.
This was a really fun one to read! It's kind of a shame that the Republicans decided to unite around Dahle, when (Shawn) Collins would probably have been a better choice -- the national Republicans recruited him to run against Katie Porter and he fundraised pretty impressively, but then redistricting screwed him over and he decided to try for Governor instead of running in a seat that already had a Republican incumbent (he's in Young Kim's seat now). Not that Newsom is going to lose, but if some kind of absolutely improbable lightning strikes I think Collins would be a very marginally better candidate than Dahle, whose main qualification is just good connections to the state-level California Republican Party. Which shouldn't be a strong qualification for anything.
Being European, I always thought that I would be a staunch democrat in the US. However, I now see that my aspiration to own a ranch one day clearly makes me republican. The more you know!
1: I would watch a reality tv show featuring these people. Or, better yet: a show where, due to some constutional [mumble mumble] they find themselves collectivly as absloute rulers of CA, but they all have to work together.
2: Scott, or anyone else for that matter, who do you think would be the best govenor, distinct form questions of electability?
Scott, I recommend you stop using Adblock Plus and switch to Ublock Origin, the first switched to a "pay us to let YOUR ads through" business model. Also, good article.
"Although his first wife left him for Donald Trump Jr. (?!), he is happily remarried and has four children named “Montana”, “Hunter”, “Brooklynn”, and “Dutch”.
"Dutch" was Arnold Schwarzenegger's character's name in the 1987 movie Predator. Arnold Schwarzenegger was of course also governor of California. His co-star in the film was Jesse Ventura, and coincidentally or not, he later served as governor of Minnesota. This makes me think that Gavin Newsome is a shoo-in for re-election.
Then again, Sonny Landham, who played "Billie" in the film, ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary election for Governor of Kentucky in 2003. Lots of political aspirations among the cast of this movie, strangely.
One is tempted to laugh at states like Alabama, given the success of college football-affiliated candidates there like Tommy Tuberville. But clearly the phenomenon is not limited to red states, and at least he had to deal with a real world problem, like slowing down Alabama's running game, whereas Arnold and Jesse were just actors. They'd get more points from me if they fought a real alien.
When I lived in California I heard the rumour that everyplace was bussing the homeless to California. Turns out it's true, but with the key caveat that California is also bussing its homeless everywhere. In fact California is probably a net exporter of homeless people. Municipal governments like to find contacts for homeless people ("So you have a sister in Peoria? Maybe she'd take you in?") and buy them bus tickets.
Best article I've seen on the subject, with some numbers:
Putting aside policies and ideas, the important thing is to pick someone who _looks_ gubernatorial.
Ron Jones looks promising, he's just one slightly more expensive haircut and one much more expensive suit away from looking like a state governor from central casting. Lonnie Sotor is basically similar but as far as I can tell from his picture has no eyes, which is a problem.
Hanink looks like he turned up for the wrong casting call -- he looks more like he wants to be a philosophy professor. What's that? You already are a philosophy professor? Great, keep that up, it suits you.
Shawn Collins: I'm not sure if he's governor material with that haircut, but his wife looks like definite First Lady material. Maybe we can pair her off with a different candidate?
Brian Dahle has the sort of goatee that says "I definitely peaked in the 90s" and the confident smile of a man who is the boss of something, but it's not something very important". I would expect to see him as a very effective county school board president, or chairman of a local soccer club.
Gavin Newsom is clearly the corporate CEO bad guy from some kids TV series.
Jenny La Roux looks like the "who farted y'all?" beauty queen meme in middle age.
Reading the Major Williams section I was all poised to make some comment about how actually socialists and communist’s often have found themselves at opposite ends of the rifle. Then I read that his kid’s name was Lord and realized Major was probably his first name, not his rank. Then my brain broke.
Jenny Roux never worked at Bain Cap, she worked at Bain & Co. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyraeca/ The two firms have shared ancestry (first spun out of second) but are completely separate. First is a LOT more prestigious / hard to get into than second. She was an AC i.e. lowest level grunt at bain & co for a couple years, basically standard finishing school fare for ivy league grads these days.
As a citizen of California, I appreciate your making my choice so much easier. I'm definitely now going to stay home and stress-test my couch instead of driving three blocks to the middle school to vote for any of these vegetables. Thanks!
> when I inspect that emotion further I find it has a flavor of “I could fix him”, which I’m told is not a good way to choose one’s relationship partners or governors.
This was funny but I think it sort of preserves a very Republican point of view by where the jokes land.
It accepts a lot of Republican framing of the problems of California and hand waves a lot of problems with standard Republican positions.
For example, "California has a worst in the country business climate."
Like that is going to go up in an ad with scary music on a black and white clip of Gavin Newsom with a "paid for by the GOP"
By contrast, most of these the Republican candidates are pro life. This is treated as just wacky fun and to be expected. No comments or scary text on what that actually means for people with difficult pregnancies or who are pregnant via rape or incest. No mention of how this is a gap in any stated commitment to cut bureaucracy and red tape. Between the jokes about hair, there wasn't room for one about how being pro life means being pro "adding a bunch more government bureaucracy between a woman and her doctor"?
The tone of the piece kind of laments that Gavin Newsom is probably going to be reelected. It attributes a lot of it to him looking the part and having good hair without acknowledging that most people in California also prefer the policy positions of a generic Democrat.
What ARE good ideas for solving the homeless problem? Seems like we should from the outset admit that at least 50% of our concern for the homeless is we don't want to see them, but we also wish them well to the extent it doesn't cost us too much.
I like the idea of giving them high-rise parking lots as a thought experiment. The first effect is it makes them less visible to the rest of the public, without changing their circumstances much from living homeless at street level. It hides them from view and takes them off the sidewalks we wanted to pass down.
It breaks all regulations immediately, as all good ideas do. A big problem with homeless shelters is they are too expensive to build and maintain because progressives love to regulate things to an insane degree.
A parking garage is a nice start because it is a big fuck you to all the progressive notions of what a perfect homeless shelter should be.
Now, a high-rise parking lot for the homeless will cause problems for its neighbors. Many of the residents will need money and drugs in that order. Perhaps the drugs can be delivered inside the parking garage, but the money is likely to be searched for it in nearby blocks outside of it. This creates externalities for neighboring businesses or residents.
Maybe the homeless parking garage should look like this:
Floor 1: This is where local charities give out food. Nobody actually sleeps on this floor because who wants to live on a first floor?
Floor 2: Religious institutions offer services and counseling for those who want it.
Floor 3: Secular minded altruists offer practical advice on getting a job, getting skills training, perhaps other practical survival advice.
Floor 4: Closely monitored living and sleeping conditions for those who choose it. I imagine this would include a lot of women who want to feel safe from attack.
Floors 5-8: People who want to live in relative anarchy. Who want to smoke crack, drink mouthwash, whatever floats their boat.
Outside fundraising can be used to distribute limited cash in some sort of equitable way among residents. (not sure how best to do this.) Those who want to better themselves and escape homelessness can use the cash for that; those who prefer to be drug addicts can use the cash for that -- which prevents them from harassing neighbors for cash.
The last link links to the "unspeakable" New York Times!?! What happened to "NYT delenda est" and "Écrasez l’infâme!" ?! - I only read it, cuz it's only 50 cent a week. Promised! And will get out asa the price goes up - or earlier. - Thanks for the insights into politics on the other side of the world. Was great fun. And very sad. As a good story should be.
On the Joe Rogan episode Shellenberger mentions reading the scout mindset, and reading substack. Maybe he reads SSC. As Rogan would say it's entirely possible. You might get your chance to fix him yet.
In another comment I mentioned how unrealistic a freshwater pipeline from the interior to the coast was. I maintain that it's ludicrous, but an opposite proposition is being seriously considered and makes a lot of sense. The Great Salt Lake is an endorheic lake with no outflows, so it's naturally far saltier than the sea. Unfortunately it's been drying up, due to increased population in the same watershed.
A not as unreasonable as you might think solution may be to pump seawater from the pacific into the Great Salt Lake. Nobody will mind pumping water out of the Pacific, it has plenty and it's not fit for human consumption, but it's actually less salty than the Great Salt Lake is already. This would not be drinking water for Utah, but it would prevent exposure of the dusty lakebed, cool the environment, and make it possible to keep drawing from the current inflows without drying it up altogether.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/editorial/2022/05/22/loony-idea-pacific-ocean/ - Environmentalist opposed to the idea because it doesn't involve raising water prices, and might disrupt the "Great Salt Lake's ecological balance" which is essentially just Brine Shrimp and flies, and declining every year as is.
I'm not sure if you've commented on it, but its striking how hard it is to vote in primaries (or even generals). There's a list of candidates most of whom lack a website or any clearly stated positions beyond one "slogan." The ballot gives the impression of choice, but it feels like a lie. I dont have enough time to determine which downballot races to vote on this year. Democracy feels dead.
The Controller race is probably an even better example of this than Governor, where an immigrant woman with no political experience is spending millions of dollars of her own money to run for Controller, just to prove she can.
It seems very unlikely that a republican candidate will be competitive in a state-wide election anytime soon. Given that, a moderate alternative to the democratic party may be beneficial. I've registered my party preference with the "California Common Sense Party" and I encourage others to consider doing the same. And if anyone thinks doing so is harmful, I'd be curious to learn why.
Thank you for correcting the error about my position about Suboxone, but you make another error claiming I support “sweeping institutionalization of the mentally ill.” That’s simply false. I address this issue at length in my books and writings. Please correct it.
Scott, I'm way late to the game here, but just want to say, in response to your obviously tongue-in-cheek overview of Gavin Newsom, that I worked with a fellow who would have replied "Heh heh, now actually your assessment of Gavin is not quite right - you see, he IS ALREADY the governor, so the fact that his name is Gavin actually wasn't actually a major deterrent for voters. You should really do a little more research next time!"
Interesting to see your take on Shellenberger, but you're incorrect on his stance re: Suboxone. I assume you got his stance on Suboxone from the chronicle hit piece, but they got it wrong.
https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1525928377151959040
https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1490703152244428805
Leroux's "Pro-life Plus" seems pretty reasonable, per her website it's just Pro-life with funding for supporting single mothers with affordable childcare, remote education, employment opportunities etc.
Tony Fanara's Lower-48 aqueduct system sounds great if you're a coastal state importing water, but not so great if you're a midwestern state whos water is being stolen by coastal elites.
Shellenberger is aggressively mendacious. I like the "Apocalypse Never" idea but he's like a high school debate club in human form. He says stuff that he's smart enough to know isn't true, because he thinks YOU'RE not smart enough to notice. If you could desalinate water with smug you could plug him straight into the grid.
Shellenberger sounds pretty good to me. I get that he's not perfect, but the status quo in California seems so dysfunctional that I think he'd be a big improvement on housing (he's a YIMBY), crime, homelessness, and climate change (pro-nuclear).
Gavin Newsom looks too much like Gavin Belson.
> I started out thinking you struck your enemies with the Action Rod directly, but now I believe it probably attaches to a gun and makes the gun more powerful somehow. Further research is needed.
Research has continued! I believe this is a gun disassembly tool, which allows you to remove/detach AR-15 interior components via the barrel without the need to fully disassemble the gun (i.e an internal component that would normally need 50 other parts removed can be accessed directly via this).
Hilarious post.
I was surprised how you didn't address Mercuri's opposition to "goy shutdowns" and "goy gay in newsom" but I eventually figured out his "v" looks weird
I can't tell if you're joking about Gavin Newsom's name - Gavin's a pretty common name here in the UK, but in the US it does seem to be very rare among people born before the mid-90s: https://www.everything-birthday.com/name/m/gavin
The fact that you can inject so much wry humor, Scott, into your description of this motley crew of wannabe public servants is truly masterful.
Just commenting to say that this post made me feel warm and happy.
I agree that Newsom is going to be the governor and none of these people have a chance. But this one made me laugh (not in a mean way, because the only person you were remotely mean about was Newsom and he can handle that), and I badly needed a laugh today.
God bless California and all who re-invent themselves who live there!
I'm a power engineer. I promise not to evaluate Shellenberger's policy positions on mental health if you'll promise not to evaluate his policy positions on nuclear power.
This is nice.
Due to the outsize impact that California's economy has on the way the rest of the country does business (and enjoys their rights) *if* there was a state that I broke my 'let other democracies make their own choices' rule for, it would be CA.
But, no. I think that it is extremely important to not mess with the choices made by other free people.
Instead of a book review contest we should have a gubernatorial candidate review contest (although the elections come up at different times, of course). I don't expect Scott to write about the other 49 states, but I would love to see some more of these, because this was very entertaining.
This was extremely funny
Shellenberger seems like he's the best choice here by far, to the point where it's not even a contest. I'd vote for him in a heartbeat if I lived in California. Sure, he's not perfect, but none of them are. And judging by your descriptions, he has the unique distinction of getting far more right than he gets wrong. Maybe it's partly because he codes as one of those rare Blue-Gray types, and as a Blue-Gray myself, it's very refreshing to see anyone with similar leanings actually run for office or be in the public eye at all. I was really rooting for Carrick Flynn too, for similar reasons.
I suppose my distant second pick would be Tony Fanara. Mostly because he's 1. not a conservative, 2. not a Bernie-style radical leftist, 3. not some other sort of weird crackpot, and 4. not Gavin Newsom. Though Woodrow Sanders III is tempting too, because "make the bureaucrats do their jobs better" is probably more likely to have an actual positive impact than any grand vision, and it displays an admirable level of pragmatism and intellectual humility.
Frederich Schultz's campaign website is fred4ca.com.
I would like to congratulate Mr. Zacky on having passed a difficult test in American political life: plausibly convincing me that he actually wears Carhartt on days he isn't filming campaign ads.
Heather Collins' idea to build parking-like structures to provide basic accommodation to the homeless is a very good one and I support it (but not her as governor). They could be designed as panopticons and built and run very cheaply, but still provide much better accommodation than most current homeless shelters.
Came for the entertaining review, but found the conclusion remarkably heartwarming. Great work! Room for a docuseries on the interesting political candidates of america.
Does Dave Barry get a co-author credit on this?
What’s interesting to me, as an outsider, is how little of America’s cultural wars are being fought here. Some of the Republicans are anti vax, but that’s old hat. One guy opposed to the WEF. Some opposition to blm but it’s rare. On the other side no demands to fight white supremacy, increase the number of genders officially to 150, defund the police, replace all “o”s in gendered languages with “x”s.
Is twitter lying to me about what is Important, or does that stuff only matter at a federal level.
Thank you for a great article and all the research.
Great writeup, made my day.
"I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many of them are immigrants. Immigrants believe in the American Dream. Maybe they’re the only people who still do. Back in Mexico or India or wherever, they heard that America was a magical place where ordinary people governed themselves and anyone could get ahead."
I'm an immigrant too, and this is a good lesson for everyone living in the US. Yes, there are many social, political, and economic problems, but you're a paradise of equality and opportunity compared to most countries on Earth, and compared to any time in history more than 50 years back. Here, your abilities and your hard work actually matter, not just how well connected your father is or how many officials you can afford to bribe. For anyone coming from a country where corruption is a fact of life, where justice is merely the advantage of the stronger, and where the average person would envy America's homeless, America really is the land of dreams. That's not because immigrants are all naive starry eyed dreamers; sometimes it's because they are comparing America to other human societies and not to the Kingdom of Heaven.
This was a really fun one to read! It's kind of a shame that the Republicans decided to unite around Dahle, when (Shawn) Collins would probably have been a better choice -- the national Republicans recruited him to run against Katie Porter and he fundraised pretty impressively, but then redistricting screwed him over and he decided to try for Governor instead of running in a seat that already had a Republican incumbent (he's in Young Kim's seat now). Not that Newsom is going to lose, but if some kind of absolutely improbable lightning strikes I think Collins would be a very marginally better candidate than Dahle, whose main qualification is just good connections to the state-level California Republican Party. Which shouldn't be a strong qualification for anything.
Hilarious.
Being European, I always thought that I would be a staunch democrat in the US. However, I now see that my aspiration to own a ranch one day clearly makes me republican. The more you know!
Pausing my reading halfway to just say a big "I love you America". You are the best. Also the worst, but still the best.
(To be developped)
Two thoughts:
1: I would watch a reality tv show featuring these people. Or, better yet: a show where, due to some constutional [mumble mumble] they find themselves collectivly as absloute rulers of CA, but they all have to work together.
2: Scott, or anyone else for that matter, who do you think would be the best govenor, distinct form questions of electability?
Scott, I recommend you stop using Adblock Plus and switch to Ublock Origin, the first switched to a "pay us to let YOUR ads through" business model. Also, good article.
"Although his first wife left him for Donald Trump Jr. (?!), he is happily remarried and has four children named “Montana”, “Hunter”, “Brooklynn”, and “Dutch”.
"Dutch" was Arnold Schwarzenegger's character's name in the 1987 movie Predator. Arnold Schwarzenegger was of course also governor of California. His co-star in the film was Jesse Ventura, and coincidentally or not, he later served as governor of Minnesota. This makes me think that Gavin Newsome is a shoo-in for re-election.
Then again, Sonny Landham, who played "Billie" in the film, ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary election for Governor of Kentucky in 2003. Lots of political aspirations among the cast of this movie, strangely.
One is tempted to laugh at states like Alabama, given the success of college football-affiliated candidates there like Tommy Tuberville. But clearly the phenomenon is not limited to red states, and at least he had to deal with a real world problem, like slowing down Alabama's running game, whereas Arnold and Jesse were just actors. They'd get more points from me if they fought a real alien.
re Shellenberger:
"I oppose sweeping institutionalization of the mentally ill, he’s for it."
I think this is incorrect.
Shellenberger advocates it only for homeless, drug addicts who aren't effectively cared for iirc.
distinct from what you described. and much less dubious....
When I lived in California I heard the rumour that everyplace was bussing the homeless to California. Turns out it's true, but with the key caveat that California is also bussing its homeless everywhere. In fact California is probably a net exporter of homeless people. Municipal governments like to find contacts for homeless people ("So you have a sister in Peoria? Maybe she'd take you in?") and buy them bus tickets.
Best article I've seen on the subject, with some numbers:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study
Putting aside policies and ideas, the important thing is to pick someone who _looks_ gubernatorial.
Ron Jones looks promising, he's just one slightly more expensive haircut and one much more expensive suit away from looking like a state governor from central casting. Lonnie Sotor is basically similar but as far as I can tell from his picture has no eyes, which is a problem.
Hanink looks like he turned up for the wrong casting call -- he looks more like he wants to be a philosophy professor. What's that? You already are a philosophy professor? Great, keep that up, it suits you.
Shawn Collins: I'm not sure if he's governor material with that haircut, but his wife looks like definite First Lady material. Maybe we can pair her off with a different candidate?
Brian Dahle has the sort of goatee that says "I definitely peaked in the 90s" and the confident smile of a man who is the boss of something, but it's not something very important". I would expect to see him as a very effective county school board president, or chairman of a local soccer club.
Gavin Newsom is clearly the corporate CEO bad guy from some kids TV series.
Jenny La Roux looks like the "who farted y'all?" beauty queen meme in middle age.
Reading the Major Williams section I was all poised to make some comment about how actually socialists and communist’s often have found themselves at opposite ends of the rifle. Then I read that his kid’s name was Lord and realized Major was probably his first name, not his rank. Then my brain broke.
This brightened my day. Thanks!
Jenny Roux never worked at Bain Cap, she worked at Bain & Co. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyraeca/ The two firms have shared ancestry (first spun out of second) but are completely separate. First is a LOT more prestigious / hard to get into than second. She was an AC i.e. lowest level grunt at bain & co for a couple years, basically standard finishing school fare for ivy league grads these days.
As a citizen of California, I appreciate your making my choice so much easier. I'm definitely now going to stay home and stress-test my couch instead of driving three blocks to the middle school to vote for any of these vegetables. Thanks!
> when I inspect that emotion further I find it has a flavor of “I could fix him”, which I’m told is not a good way to choose one’s relationship partners or governors.
It might be fun to try to contact him?
This was funny but I think it sort of preserves a very Republican point of view by where the jokes land.
It accepts a lot of Republican framing of the problems of California and hand waves a lot of problems with standard Republican positions.
For example, "California has a worst in the country business climate."
Like that is going to go up in an ad with scary music on a black and white clip of Gavin Newsom with a "paid for by the GOP"
By contrast, most of these the Republican candidates are pro life. This is treated as just wacky fun and to be expected. No comments or scary text on what that actually means for people with difficult pregnancies or who are pregnant via rape or incest. No mention of how this is a gap in any stated commitment to cut bureaucracy and red tape. Between the jokes about hair, there wasn't room for one about how being pro life means being pro "adding a bunch more government bureaucracy between a woman and her doctor"?
The tone of the piece kind of laments that Gavin Newsom is probably going to be reelected. It attributes a lot of it to him looking the part and having good hair without acknowledging that most people in California also prefer the policy positions of a generic Democrat.
Thank you so much for this beautiful, kind, hilarious post.
What ARE good ideas for solving the homeless problem? Seems like we should from the outset admit that at least 50% of our concern for the homeless is we don't want to see them, but we also wish them well to the extent it doesn't cost us too much.
I like the idea of giving them high-rise parking lots as a thought experiment. The first effect is it makes them less visible to the rest of the public, without changing their circumstances much from living homeless at street level. It hides them from view and takes them off the sidewalks we wanted to pass down.
It breaks all regulations immediately, as all good ideas do. A big problem with homeless shelters is they are too expensive to build and maintain because progressives love to regulate things to an insane degree.
A parking garage is a nice start because it is a big fuck you to all the progressive notions of what a perfect homeless shelter should be.
Now, a high-rise parking lot for the homeless will cause problems for its neighbors. Many of the residents will need money and drugs in that order. Perhaps the drugs can be delivered inside the parking garage, but the money is likely to be searched for it in nearby blocks outside of it. This creates externalities for neighboring businesses or residents.
Maybe the homeless parking garage should look like this:
Floor 1: This is where local charities give out food. Nobody actually sleeps on this floor because who wants to live on a first floor?
Floor 2: Religious institutions offer services and counseling for those who want it.
Floor 3: Secular minded altruists offer practical advice on getting a job, getting skills training, perhaps other practical survival advice.
Floor 4: Closely monitored living and sleeping conditions for those who choose it. I imagine this would include a lot of women who want to feel safe from attack.
Floors 5-8: People who want to live in relative anarchy. Who want to smoke crack, drink mouthwash, whatever floats their boat.
Outside fundraising can be used to distribute limited cash in some sort of equitable way among residents. (not sure how best to do this.) Those who want to better themselves and escape homelessness can use the cash for that; those who prefer to be drug addicts can use the cash for that -- which prevents them from harassing neighbors for cash.
What are other good or bad ideas?
The last link links to the "unspeakable" New York Times!?! What happened to "NYT delenda est" and "Écrasez l’infâme!" ?! - I only read it, cuz it's only 50 cent a week. Promised! And will get out asa the price goes up - or earlier. - Thanks for the insights into politics on the other side of the world. Was great fun. And very sad. As a good story should be.
My favorite bits are the enthusiasm for immigrants and the idea of using a campaign to advertise one's advertising business.
On the Joe Rogan episode Shellenberger mentions reading the scout mindset, and reading substack. Maybe he reads SSC. As Rogan would say it's entirely possible. You might get your chance to fix him yet.
I think Gavin names his kids based on where they were conceived.
In another comment I mentioned how unrealistic a freshwater pipeline from the interior to the coast was. I maintain that it's ludicrous, but an opposite proposition is being seriously considered and makes a lot of sense. The Great Salt Lake is an endorheic lake with no outflows, so it's naturally far saltier than the sea. Unfortunately it's been drying up, due to increased population in the same watershed.
A not as unreasonable as you might think solution may be to pump seawater from the pacific into the Great Salt Lake. Nobody will mind pumping water out of the Pacific, it has plenty and it's not fit for human consumption, but it's actually less salty than the Great Salt Lake is already. This would not be drinking water for Utah, but it would prevent exposure of the dusty lakebed, cool the environment, and make it possible to keep drawing from the current inflows without drying it up altogether.
https://wswrp.com/great-salt-lake/ - Unfortunately this was a bit optimistic about timelines but it may happen.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/editorial/2022/05/22/loony-idea-pacific-ocean/ - Environmentalist opposed to the idea because it doesn't involve raising water prices, and might disrupt the "Great Salt Lake's ecological balance" which is essentially just Brine Shrimp and flies, and declining every year as is.
What a great piece. Informative and insightful, hilarious without being smug or demeaning. Thanks!
I'm not sure if you've commented on it, but its striking how hard it is to vote in primaries (or even generals). There's a list of candidates most of whom lack a website or any clearly stated positions beyond one "slogan." The ballot gives the impression of choice, but it feels like a lie. I dont have enough time to determine which downballot races to vote on this year. Democracy feels dead.
What happens in California if you try to give your kid a regular name? Does a judge make you change it or something?
The Controller race is probably an even better example of this than Governor, where an immigrant woman with no political experience is spending millions of dollars of her own money to run for Controller, just to prove she can.
Thanks for this, it made me LOL several times.
It seems very unlikely that a republican candidate will be competitive in a state-wide election anytime soon. Given that, a moderate alternative to the democratic party may be beneficial. I've registered my party preference with the "California Common Sense Party" and I encourage others to consider doing the same. And if anyone thinks doing so is harmful, I'd be curious to learn why.
https://cacommonsense.org/
Thank you for correcting the error about my position about Suboxone, but you make another error claiming I support “sweeping institutionalization of the mentally ill.” That’s simply false. I address this issue at length in my books and writings. Please correct it.
Scott, I'm way late to the game here, but just want to say, in response to your obviously tongue-in-cheek overview of Gavin Newsom, that I worked with a fellow who would have replied "Heh heh, now actually your assessment of Gavin is not quite right - you see, he IS ALREADY the governor, so the fact that his name is Gavin actually wasn't actually a major deterrent for voters. You should really do a little more research next time!"
They are real, and they walk among us.
You really ought to read Klaus Schwab's book instead of calling Zacky wacky