The War Is Over...

Global warming has been checked. The flora and fauna of land and sea are safe and sound.

No one is retiring to bed hungry; their education, their health care, their jobs, their retirement, their quality of life...all secured.

The Congress is once again in the compassionate hands of Democrats.

George, Laura and Barney have been dispatched back to Crawford.

The Governator has returned to L.A. where he belongs. Welcome home, Arnold; we missed you.

So little is left to achieve that yesterday progressives had surplus political energy -- and surplus political capital -- to expend in a street rally on behalf of an aggressively partisan political candidate who came under the fire of an equally aggressive political attack launched by erstwhile opponents via a medium almost no one watches.

The irony is that the cable television assault ads knocking Santa Monica councilmember Kevin McKeown almost certainly will boost his candidacy. This is probably contrary to the intended outcome, but you never know. Since he among the possible victors next Tuesday is the one who offers the least threat to the fortunes of the hotels, you almost wonder if they aren't attempting to engineer his reelection deliberately by mugging him.

Think of how much worse off the hotels would be if they had to overcome a more subtle political opponent with skill and clout and the will to give them a real fight. Even in the leadership vacuum of Santa Monica, however, his political skills are such that his councilmates -- who having served so long with him presumably know him best -- hold McKeown in such low esteem they took the almost unheard-of step of denying him an all-but-pro-forma turn as mayor.

The Props: Election 2006 Blog and Hot Topics

"This website features information about the measures on the ballot in the November 2006 election in California...regularly updated through the remainder of the election cycle, and afterward, with to-the-minute details about polls, endorsements, campaign finance data, and news about each proposition....

"These pages are maintained by the Institute of Governmental Studies Library. The Institute of Governmental Studies is an interdisciplinary organized research unit (ORU) at the University of California at Berkeley that promotes research, training, educational activities, and public service in the areas of American and California politics and public policy.

"The Institute of Governmental Studies Library is one of 11 affiliated libraries on campus. The IGS Library is one the nation’s premier libraries of non-trade and ephemeral materials on American public affairs and policy. The core of the collection is comprised of pamphlets and unbound reports from a broad spectrum of public interest organizations, research institutes and government agencies...a strong reference collection of monographs and journals on American political science and public administration...has served the research and public service mission of the Institute of Governmental Studies for over 70 years...and has evolved into a large specialized library serving not only Institute scholars but the University community and the general public." -- from the website. <http://igs.berkeley.edu/library/election2006/>

Municipal Wireless: State of the Market

The MuniWireless State-of-the-Market Report predicts that $3 billion will be spent in the United States from 2006 to 2010 by cities and counties installing wi-fi. This year alone, $235 million will be spent, an increase over the previous forecast of $177 million. Many communities — especially those installing county-wide services — will use it for economic development, digital inclusion and public safety communication.

Print: The L.A.Times stumbles into the future

"The Manhattan Project," LA Observed's Kevin Roderick comments, is not da bomb. The Los Angeles Times' soul-searching won't do much to change the fishwrap's grim prospects. Roderick argues the current staff is ill-equipped to pilot the hulking old-media ship down new-media channels; editor Dean Baquet is out of touch -- he came up at the NYTimes and isn't trained for the kind of street-level journo we need in L.A.; besides, he should already know what his readers want -- that's his yob!, for pete's sake; mission-hunting by committee is useless; publicly announcing the group therapy sessions was dumb -- articles in the press make it sound like the project was dreamed up by The Onion; and naming it after the 60-year-old effort to build Little Boy makes the paper look even more ridiculous than usual.
Kevin Roderick: LA Observed (several stories, scroll around).
Mack Reed's advice to the LAT: LAVoice.Org.