My Comcast cable modem has been down the past few days so I haven't had a chance to surf the web and blog about interesting articles (I make a concerted effort to NOT blog while in the office).   There is, of course, a fair amount of interesting news floating around that I wanted to throw a few cherry bombs at

• Cali-Recall - The whole recall mess is a perfect example of what a zoo California politics has become.   The people are getting what they deserve from their government.   You wanted more than 2 parties / candidates to choose from?  Here's 135.  Don't appreciate the way political parties serve to clarify / winnow out the weaklings?   How about splitting your vote across 40 Democratic challengers.   Cali state legislature often feels like a mini-UN / EU assembly.   If there's been a wacky political wind in the last 50 years, you can bet it's been tried in California.   Quasi-socialists control the statehouse.   Their power comes from their Kantian "do what feels right" message to the electorate but once they've got the power, the tactics are inevitably twisted by the backroom dealing.   FWIW, I'm actually warming up to Arnold as Gov.   I almost never read Coulter (she's often the Right's version of Michael Moore) but she is right in this piece about how wacky this state sometimes is.   My Man Sowell, provides much of the same polemics.
• Books - did a Victor Davis Hanson double header while on my vacation - Mexifornia and Carnage & Culture.    Mexifornia was deeply outside the traditional VDH "comfort zone" and focuses on the social / cultural / economic issues stemming from the tide of illegal Mexican immigrants flooding California.  Yes VDH has a pretty "conservative" world view but the majority of the book is actually sympathetic to the plight of the illegal alien and the end-to-end system that simply screws them over.  I'll never be able to drive past the huddled illegals just off of El Camino Real in San Mateo, Menlo Park, and Atherton without shuddering.
• Laci Peterson - I'm sick of this story.   The rest of the SF Bay Area, apparently, can't get enough of it.  
• Like Glenn Reynolds says, Ralph Peters doesn't "mince words" when it comes to chastising Europe