Wilson Statue to Receive Regular Visitors… Out of the corner of my ear, I picked up last night on the TV news something about Enrique Morones, self-anointed moral compass on all things racist, announcing he will conduct regular weekly protests of the Pete Wilson bronze statue unveiled last weekend in downtown San Diego.  Since this non-news is just that, I won’t mention the station that chose to include it as such.

Let’s see, if Morones can educate 10 persons every Saturday as to Wilson’s racist tendencies, assuming no days off and no population growth whatsoever, he will have a majority of city denizens convinced by about year 3507.  I guess the time spent is better for him than doing something constructive.  

The bright side: For the next several decades, the PD will always have a first lead if anything happens to the statue.  The big question: Would such vandalism be considered a hate crime?

If you missed my FlashReport Commentary of last Sunday, "A Pete Wilson Statue and Prop 187," read it here.

Iran Divestment in National Review and Human Events… AB 221 is getting more notice in the conservative news pubs, even cited as an impetus for similar legislation around the nation.  In Human Events, Ericka Andersen writes, "California Assemblyman Joel Anderson became a leader in the movement after he introduced an Iran divestment measure that may soon be signed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger," going on to quote Anderson extensively.

The piece also notes the momentum in Congress: "Most recently, The Iran Sanctions Enabling Act, introduced by Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass), passed through the House of Representatives by a vote of 408 to 6."

On an ironic note, it’s a safe bet that when Anderson got elected to the legislature, he probably didn’t think that as a rookie he’d be mentioned in the same article as Barney Frank.  (And, now, he’s just been mentioned in the same sentence.)

Asides aside, National Review also hi-lites Iran divestment, Michael Barone effectively focusing on the wrong-headedness of CalPERS in opposing such efforts:

Many of these bills have met with opposition. Pension fund administrators, such as those at California’s giant CalPERS, have opposed them. They argue that divesting would cost them money. But the fact is that U.S.-based companies already are prohibited from doing business in Iran. Firms that do the most business in Iran are French (Alcatel, BNP Paribas, Total), Italian (ENI), Korean (Hyundai), Chinese (PetroChina), and Russian (Statoil). The potential losses to pension funds are almost certainly minimal; a fund can find plenty of international stocks for its portfolio without touching those who do business in Iran.

At the same time, divestment can hurt the targeted companies enough to persuade them to change their ways. We learned this 20 years ago from the divestment movement directed against apartheid South Africa, which targeted many U.S.-based firms. Some of them withdrew from South Africa — a fact that helped persuade South Africa’s white rulers to end apartheid.

Good stuff.  Yet, in the case of CalPERS and CalSTRS, it’s not about logic…or doing what’s right.  It’s about conceding any control to lawmakers.

Here are the two articles in their entirety:

-Human Events – Give Me Your Pension

-National Review – Divest Iran, Something we can do

Have a great Labor Day and a fantastic week!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.