elections

I am very grumpy today. Not with blogger but with the state of California.

When I moved from Santa Barbara at the end of the summer, I sent in my change of address form to the DMV and checked the box to change my voter registration. I never received a new voter card or anything which made it virtually impossible for me to vote yesterday. I was told I could have driven back up to Santa Barbara and probably voted but who is going to drive for six hours to vote? I'm not that much of a patriot.

However, the election went exactly as most expected for the state so I suppose I can take comfort in the fact that scary propositions were all shot down. However a few propositions I was in favor of also went down.

I honestly believe that if California doesn't dump a ton of money into alternative fuel research, no one else will. The whole accountability thing was a red herring since NSF isn't expected to produce specific results. They are expected to keep track of the research they fund and to not continue to fund unproductive research programs. Most folks would agree that that's reasonable and there was nothing said to indicate the new research program in California would not have done likewise. Sadly the state fell prey to the huge advertising campaign funded by the oil companies claiming that it would raise gas prices. This is in spite of the fact that FactCheck.org did an independent analysis showing that if it did raise prices, it would be so minimal as to not have an effect on the state budget or consumers.

Maybe next time.