Subject: Arnold Schwarzenegger

• Mostly Grim

  Grim news from beyond our shores. The bombing of the Askariyah shrine in Samarra has pushed Iraq closer to a full blown civil war. Grim news from our shores. Not the Bush administration's secret deal with Dubai Ports, but the public disgust with the Schwarzenegger administration's handling of coastal issues. Only 28% of respondents in a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California gave Schwarzenegger a favorable rating on the state of the state's beaches. Worse still for Schwarzenegger,

  February 23, 2006

• Of Swallows, Schwarzenegger, and Swift Boats

  The faithful of Orange County have traditionally been willing to pretend to believe in miracles, even when they know better. Consider the swallows of San Juan Capistrano. Anyone in San Juan Cap with eyes to see, or a freshly washed car to be shat on, knows the birds return March-ishly each year, and not bang on time on March 19, St. Joseph's Day, as the storyline of the miracle insists. But the miracle of the annual return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano each St. Joseph's Day (presumably

  March 9, 2006

• Coming Attractions

  Cast your mind back to one of the grimmer spectacles of the grim days of 2004: the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign. If you recall, it was impossible to tell the difference that year between the official functions of President Bush and the fearmongering and pandering of Candidate Bush. Every official function was staged like a campaign event. Campaign events looked like official functions as cabinet officers and other administration officials hit the campaign trail for Bush. Even the nation's sec

  March 29, 2006

• Backing or Backpedaling?

  Governor Schwarzenegger took a stand on cutting greenhouse gases yesterday. His stand? Going on the commonly held theory that most readers never get beyond the headline and first paragraph of a newspaper story, unless they have some compelling interest in the story, his stand depends on what city you live in. The Los Angeles Times story has the headline, Gov. Calls for Curbs on Emissions, and begins: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday threw his political weight behind a drive to curb green

  April 12, 2006

• 43 vs. 43

  On On Politics, the San Jose Mercury News' political news blog, Kate Folmar reports: An internal poll conducted by Democratic pollster Mark Mellman of The Mellman Group out of Washington, D.C. recently found that the governor's race was a dead heat, I'm told. Forty-three percent of respondents favored Treasurer Phil Angelides and another 43 percent wanted to re-elect Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The remaining 14 percent were undecided. The poll of 800 concluded on June 11, after Angelides emerged

  June 20, 2006

• State Secret: Arnold's Big Night Out

  How desperate is Governor Schwarzenegger to avoid reminding people that he belongs to same political party as George W. Bush, let alone remind them that he was one of the featured speakers supporting Bush at the 2004 Republican Convention? Desperate enough to sneak across the country and into the White House yesterday, while trying to hide his trip from reporters. Yesterday, a statement from the governor's press office drily explained that there no official business scheduled, because the gover

  July 11, 2006

• The Game Goes On

  You may remember this Arnold Schwarzenegger commercial from the recall election, which described how Sacramento works: "Here's how it works. Money goes in. Favors go out. The people lose. We need to send a message. Game over." Well, if you thought you were sending a message by voting for Schwarzenegger, you were wrong. Because in the land of Governor Schwarzenegger, it's still Game On. In this morning's San Diego Union-Tribune, Bill Ainsworth reports that "Schwarzenegger has carried on the

  August 28, 2006

• Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ethnologist

  This morning's Los Angeles Times has a story based on a six minute audio tape, "obtained by The Times, of a meeting with some members of his inner circle last spring. At the time, Schwarzenegger was struggling to persuade Republican lawmakers to embrace his plan to place billions of dollars in borrowing on the November ballot." My first thought was that Schwarzenegger's people deliberately leaked the tape, to reassure voters who aren't sure that Arnold's election year conversion to a moderate-w

  September 8, 2006

• Cognitive Overload as a Motorsport

  There's good news if you're one of those people infuriated by the sight of some idiot behind the steering wheel with a cell phone pressed to his head talking and not paying attention while driving-- that idiot's days are numbered. Come Summer 2008, that idiot will be replace by the new and improved idiot behind the steering wheel with a cell phone headset welded to his head talking and not paying attention while driving. Governor Schwarzenegger is scheduled to sign SB1613 into law today. The

  September 15, 2006

• The Leafy Green

  There are now 171 cases of people sickened by E. coli tainted spinach from Salinas Valley. But don't worry, the Schwarzenegger administration has a plan. True, the source of the infection hasn't been identified yet, though the Sacramento Bee reported last week, The spinach-packaging company in the cross hairs of an investigation into a nationwide E. coli outbreak has struggled to manage its wastewater and is in violation of a state water disposal permit, according to public records and state o

  September 25, 2006

• The Distance Between Things

  Who knew Newton's laws of motion applied to flying politicians? Consider the case of President Bush, Governor Schwarzenegger, and Newton's third law, which states: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." President Bush flies into California to campaign for two Republican politicians, Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy and Rep. John Doolittle of Rocklin (both of whom recently made Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's list of the Most Corrupt Members of Congress)

  October 4, 2006

• The Broken Bone and the Big Bucks

  No doubt Governor Schwarzenegger was really looking forward to all this week's inaugural celebrations. Then came the accident on the ski slopes of Idaho. So out went his participation in the public celebration. Kevin Yamamura of the Sacramento Bee reports: Sidelined with a broken leg requiring more rest than previously thought, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger backed out Wednesday from his only scheduled public inaugural appearance despite earlier assurances he would attend all events to kick off

  January 4, 2007

• Arnold's New Era Begins

  In his inaugural address last Friday, Governor Schwarzenegger announced the beginning of a new chapter in California history, the "post-partisan" era, explaining, "The question is not what are the needs of Republicans or Democrats? The real question is what are the needs of our people?… Post-partisanship is Republicans and Democrats actively giving birth to new ideas together." So, how's that going to work in practice? One answer can be found in the Los Angeles Times today, the first fu

  January 8, 2007

• Healthy Skepticism

  The first thing to notice about Governor Schwarzenegger's plan, which is being billed as a universal healthcare plan, is that it isn't a universal healthcare plan. It's a mandatory health insurance plan. It will not make sure a sick person gets the treatment he or she needs-- the treatments, drugs, doctors and hospitals, an insurance carrier or HMO are willing to pay for are still left up to the corporation the person buys insurance from. Anyone who has spent hours on the phone with an insura

  January 9, 2007

• Healthcare and that Jolly Ol' Elf

  There's been a lot of talk about the governor's universal healthcare plan, but once you get past all the talk you discover… well, that plan may be too strong of a word. The governor's universal healthcare good intention may be more accurate. Anthony York explains in the Capitol Weekly. (emphasis added) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger received international attention when he unveiled his plan for universal health-care coverage. The plan made the front page of the New York Times and the Washin

  February 2, 2007

• Arnold Speaks

  Nixon may have inspired him to become a Republican, but Arnold Schwarzenegger completely lacks The Pride of Yorba Linda's flair when it comes to taped conversations. Consider, for example, this lecture on history captured by the Oval Office taping system. Nixon explains why the Soviet Union is superior to the U.S., England, France, the Catholic Church, and even the later Roman Empire: Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags…. You know what happene

  February 5, 2007

• Them That's Got

  If you belong to one of the groups targeted for a good squeezin' called on to sacrifice in the governor's budget plan-- college students, public school teachers, families on welfare-- rest assured that the truly needy will still be well taken care of. Kate Folmar reports in the San Jose Mercury News: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to boost spending on his personal office next year by more than 5 percent, even as a lean budget prompts him to limit welfare grants and ask college students to pay

  March 26, 2007

• Your Multi-tasking Governor

  "Schwarzenegger had proof of some multi-tasking dexterity," writes LA Times columnist George Skelton, after having a cozy chat with Schwarzenegger in the governor's smoking tent in Sacramento. The column isn't really worth reading, since it mainly recounts Schwarzenegger's very high opinion of Schwarzenegger-- and the Times has a much better story today about what a multi-tasker the governor is. For example, Governor Schwarzenegger can rinse-and-spit on command while busy making decisions abou

  April 2, 2007

• Ho no, Pimp yes

  As one of the more obnoxious members of the East Coast media elite, a man with a long history of spewing racist and other repellent nonsense, may have finally damaged his career by using the word "hos", the governor of the West Coast's largest state is about to publicly embrace "pimp" style.   As the current issue of Newsweek explains, Governor Schwarzenegger will be appearing on the April 22nd episode of MTV's "Pimp My Ride", to promote green technology for cars.  But as the San

  April 10, 2007

• Orange County developers snared in hot lesbo love in!

  Don't know if you caught this buried in the LA "By God" Times' Jan. 12 front-pager on Governor Big Lippy sending his chief-of-staff out to court his big-money Republican donors: their first get together will be this coming Wednesday, Jan. 18, at the Irvine Co.'s "Fantasy" Island Hotel (formerly the Four Seasons; don't worry: you still can't afford it) at Newport Center. Co-hosting this little confab will be the comedy tag-team stylings of George Argyros and General William Lyon (no doubt still i

  January 13, 2006

• NEWSFLASH! Ahnuld Terminates Hummers!

  It says right here that our Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger has sold his eight Hummers after converting to the cause to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You'll recall that then-action star Schwarzenegger was the one who convinced Hummer's manufacturer to sell the all-terrain military vehicles to civilians, becoming the first person to purchase one in 1992.

  September 22, 2006

• Arnold Cuts Some Gas

  We keep waiting for Arnold Schwarzenegger to show his true colors, especially with the media reports over the weekend indicating that while the country may swing left in the next election, California may swing back to the right. Surely, then, Schwarzenegger is just biding his time, waiting for more Republicans to get into office so that he can ditch this moderate/left-of-center shit and be the goose-stepping Reaganite he's always dreamed of being. Well, if that's the future that awaits us, ol'

  October 16, 2006

• Monday's Headlines. No Surprises: Pot not a drug, says Schwarzenegger

  To catch an arsonist: "We will hunt down the people responsible for (the Santiago Fire). We will not fail," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said over the weekend. "If I were one of those people who started the fire, I would not sleep soundly." Strong words, but how much weight do they carry? Four years ago, a man was witnessed starting the fire that killed four people and burned more than 200 homes in San Bernardino. Was he ever caught? Nope. Still on fire: Though containment is now at 65 percent, t

  October 29, 2007

• Schwarzenegger Sacks Shriver

  Governor Schwarzenegger sent a message to every one of his appointees this week by effectively firing the chair and vice-chair of the California State Parks and Recreation Commission. Bobby Shriver, chairman of the Commission, is a Santa Monica City Councilman and the Governor's brother-in-law. Clint Eastwood, vice-chair of the Commission, is Clint friggin' Eastwood. Earlier in the week, both men learned they would not be asked back to their chairs, despite both having submitted requests to be r

  March 20, 2008

• Schwarzenegger Fragged by Lieutenant

  Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi has just fragged Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger over the 241 (Foothill-South) toll road. The road, proposed by the Irvine-based Transportation Corridor Agencies, would cut through the Donna O'Neill Land Conservancy, itself mitigation for the Talega development, and the inland portion of San Onofre State Beach, not to mention disturb a site sacred to the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians. In Vietnam, it was not unheard of for unhappy soldiers to toss a fragmenta

  April 7, 2008

• True Liar: Gov. Schwarzenegger brings deceit to real life

  "All [California lawmakers] know how to do is spend, spend, spend . . . Then they realize they are spending too much and so they tax, tax, tax. I will not raise your taxes. I will not cut education."--Arnold Schwarzenegger in October 2003, while campaigning to unseat then-Gov. Gray Davis in a recall election because Davis wanted to raise taxes to end an $8 billion budget crisis. Fast forward to today and Gov. Schwarzenegger, the liar, has proposed raising taxes by a whopping $14.3 billion and cu

  December 31, 2008

• I Am the Eggman

  April 29, 2004

• !Ask a Mexican!

  February 22, 2007

• Total Recoil

  October 16, 2003

• Not a 'Stiff,' Nor a 'Loser'

  WEB EXCLUSIVE! The OC Weeklys Statewide picks

  November 2, 2006

• A Friend in Weed

  Pot coulda been a contender in DeVore race. Then the Terminator harshed his mellow

  November 2, 2006

• Diary of a Mad County

  Dec. 14-20

  December 22, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  November 17, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  September 15, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  September 1, 2005

• Capitol Punishment

  How Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped worrying and learned to love selling out to special interests

  June 2, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  May 5, 2005

• Scoring the Quiz

  November 25, 2004

• Diary of a Mad County

  October 14, 2004

• Diary of a Mad County

  September 9, 2004

• Burning Bush

  August 26, 2004

• Diary of a Mad County

  August 5, 2004

• Diary Of A Mad County

  June 3, 2004

• Roll out the Schwarzenkegger!

  January 15, 2004

• Cleaning House!

  September 4, 2003

• Theyre Back

  July 10, 2003

• Lets Roll!

  February 14, 2002

• Total Rehash

  November 23, 2000

• Screw the Budget, Says Schwarzenegger, Let's Lawn Bowl!

  With his approval rating at an all-time low, five of his six upcoming ballot propositions headed for defeat and constituents sending him mixed messages (spare education from budget cuts but don't raise taxes), Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at least has to good sense to focus on what's really important to Californians right now.Lawn bowling.The Southwest Division of the United States Lawn Bowling Association is crowing over Da Gov's sanctioning of Saturday's California Lawn Bowls Day, which will fin

  May 5, 2009

• Feds and State to Californians: Ride Out Swine Flu Alone

  CNN carried a report this morning on physicians at the University of Kansas telling students to avoid coming in to the campus health clinic if they contract the H1N1 swine flu virus and that they instead ride it out in their dorm rooms. That's keeping with federal guidelines California public schools plan to follow this flu season, when more swine flu cases are anticipated, to keep campuses open as long as possible, closing schools only as a last resort. It's like U

  September 1, 2009