Congeries of cross connected concepts
California just can’t catch a break. I think that M[c]Clintock would be a far better governor for California than any of Davis, Bustamante or Schwarzenegger but he’s not going to be elected due to the apparent death wish of the California citizenry. And even if he was, he wouldn’t be able to break through or hold to account the California legislature which is even loonier, more cynical and less responsibility than Governor Davis [I stand by that - note that all of the crazy things Davis has done sailed through the legislature and Davis had actually vetoed some of them previously].
There was some hope that Ahnuld, while like McClintock he will be unable to implement real reforms, would be able to take on the legislature in the media battle. But it looks now like Ahnuld is proactively surrendering. His latest policy plan is to push for fuel cell cars and “stations for hydrogen-powered cars every 20 miles on major Interstate highways by 2010”. Yeah, that’ll clear up the budget problems right quick. And of course it’s a policy that hostage to the vagaries of technology development. Not exactly a low risk, conservative plan for fixing the state government. I’m waiting for someone to ask him where the money to pay for all of these stations will come from. I’ll skip over the fact that the overall environmental benefit is disputable (hydrogen doesn’t magically appear in the storage tanks) and wonder why should California pay for all of this to “inspire Detroit to build vehicles powered by fuel cells”. That’s exactly the kind of looniness that’s brought California to its current situation.
Of course, it’s for a good cause — Ahnuld said “By the end of this decade we will have hundreds of thousands of cars driving with hydrogen fuel rather than fossil fuel”. Yeah, the power plants to make the hydrogen will be running on fossil fuels but hey, not in California! Or maybe this is Ahnuld’s back door support for nuclear power? Maybe he’s smarter than I think.
