I have received a few emails this week from faithful Orange Juice readers who don’t think you can comment anonymously on our new blog. Never fear! You CAN post anonymously on this blog. Here’s what you have to do - make up a name and email and post your comment. It will go to our administrators for moderation, so we can filter out comments laden with the “F” word. Unlike the red and blue blogs in town we DO approve 99% of posted comments.

And for those of you wondering about our SAUSD posts, I am told by Sarah that she will have them imported over the weekend. We plan to feature them in a special section on one of our sidebars as well. Hang in there. The posts will be up very soon. In the meantime we have put up a temporary Open SAUSD Thread. And yes you CAN comment there anonymously!

Lastly, a big thank you to Sarah Michelle Spinosa, our co-blogger. She has spent literally a week working day and night to update this blog to the version you are reading now. I cannot thank her enough. There is no way I could have done all this on my own.

I understand there is some consternation out there, but please be patient. Our new blog format is A LOT more powerful than our old format. It will allow us to do what we do on an even grander scale. Thanks for reading the Orange Juice blog.

People have been asking for a SAUSD thread so here it is. Our ISP tells us that we should have all of the databases imported by tomorrow. I know, I know, they’ve been saying that for a while, but I think we finally have it figured out, so with no further ado, go ahead and leave your comments here.

Understand this - when I was a Republican, there was a time when I led protests against gay marriage. I even got a minister at my church defrocked for promoting homosexuality in his sermons. Obviously I have a lot to make amends for.

I was raised in a very conservative, fundamental, and somewhat crazed protestant church, called the Seventh Day Adventists. Suffice to say that after having my brain screwed with in that manner all the way up to the eighth grade, it has taken me some time to let go of my Old Testament leanings.

In the past few years I have however changed my opinion, drastically, about homosexuality and about gay marriage. I used to buy the conservative arguments that gay marriage would destroy marriage in general. But let’s take a closer look at that charge.

The fact is, straight people can’t seem to figure out marriage. Here are a few facts for your consideration:

• As of 2003, 43.7% of custodial mothers and 56.2% of custodial fathers were either separated or divorced. And in 2002, 7.8 million Americans paid about $40 billion in child and/or spousal support (84% of the payers were male). (Divorce Magazine).

Read more…

Apparently Laguna Niguel Mayor Paul Glaab, who is also an OC GOP consultant, is trying to connive other council members in south Orange County into supporting Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters as a replacement for our former Sheriff, Mike Carona. See the email below which Glaab has been sending out to his peers in south Orange County:

From: Paul Glaab [mailto:paul@glaab.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:45 AM
To: Paul Glaab
Subject: Chief Paul Walters Meet & Greets and Santa Ana Jail Tours

For those of you interested in meeting Chief Paul Walters of Santa Ana and or taking tours of the Jail, we have the following dates and times available.

Meet and Greet is set for both May 20th and May 21st at the Claim Jumper on La Paz each day at 530p.

Santa Ana Jail Tours are set for 1030a the following days with Jail Administrator Russell M. Davis.

Read more…

I just wanted to drop a note to our readers that let you all know that the server migration is finally almost complete. All of the features work and our hosting company tells us the missing articles, including the highly popular SAUSD thread, should finally be available on this site this weekend. Thanks for your patience and thanks for visiting Orange Juice!

SMS

5/15/2008 by Ron & Anna Winship

Funny how things happen in life….sometimes they happen by accident and sometimes they happen by chance and sometimes on purpose. In any event, the new format for our OC Juice is pretty interesting….NOT good yet…but interesting. The story is that we love better technology. Not just new…but better!

Henry Samueli and his buddy Henry Nicolas are Orange County heroes. They give cash to the right organizations and charities. They are considered the richest people around. Today Samueli is under an SEC Federal lawsuit….all about fraudulent stock option transactions. Paying off his closest buddies with billions. Backdating the Options so as maximize the profits …isn’t exactly Hoyle….but that rarely bothers those that consider themselves above the law.

But who are we to be assumptive and accusatory. If he did wrong…he needs to fix it…doesn’t he? What is thing about Broadcom? Samueli stepped down as CEO because of the pending SEC lawsuit. Will he do time in one of America’s great prisons?

Oh, who is to know. His pal Nicolas has been busy trying to do “dogooder work” and giving $10 million dollars to Santa Ana after school programs. Yep, Nicolas is the same guy that had the Playboy cave with prostitutes from the Eastern Block and drugs from around the world. Hey, but just another rich guy with personality problems….hardly anything for the “not so rich” to worry their pretty heads about!

All in all, the fun here in “The OC” is getting pretty funky. Supervisor John Moorlach….tried an end run on the Sheriff interviews with the Board of Supervisors. He wanted June 3rd …as the date to interview all the candidates! Well, he had a minor uprising and his fellows on the board bolted with an array of reasons for not having these interviews (which were to be broadcast) on an Election Day!

OK…back to new stuff and blogging and how we do stuff. It kind of goes like this..if it is easier…if it is better….and if it keeps it’s integrity….then we will be for it. Since all of what we have written since this changeover happened has suddenly evaporated from the new blog format….we will not be logging in on that format. We will continue to write on this format and if our words get out…then
great. If not…no biggie!

First the California Supreme Court hands down the splendid it’s-about-time decision that our gay friends are worthy of the same rights as us breeders, including the right to be married. Then after an almost indecently brief interval - wingnut heads are still exploding, the mess is nowhere near mopped up, the party shops are fresh out of confetti - what happens? CONGRESS STOPS FUNDING FOR THE WAR. From True Majority.com:

The House of Representatives just voted 149 to 141 to cut off funding for the war in Iraq.

This was followed by votes to put significant restrictions on President Bush’s war policy, including a timeline for withdrawal, and creating a new GI Bill to help returning veterans.

OK, as you notice 149 + 141 = nowhere near the total of Congressmen. This victory was made possible by most Republicans voting “present” rather than “yes” or “no” - you see, they wanted more war funds than were in the bill, but were terrified to vote NO on a war funding bill after years of painting no votes as abandoning the troops. (Either that or they’re finally running away from the unpopular war but in a cowardly way - or a combination of both?)

This, the day after such big endorsements for Obama, which (apologies to my Hillbot friends) just helps us get that much closer to kicking McSame’s butt in November, and - hey! This is turning back into the country I always knew it could be! ON TO NOVEMBER, say the Spirit of ‘76 trio.

(AP Photo)

I just received this in my email from the L.A. Times.

I’ll be following the story closely.

Stay tuned for more on the issue as information is released.

SMS

“Mimi Walters appears to be running one of the wingnuttiest campaigns in California history in her bid to get elected to the State Senate,” according to Robert Cruickshank, at the California Progress Report. Cruickshank is absolutely right! He also reported that “Now she is touting her anti-immigrant credentials, even at the cost of fiscal responsibility on the state budget.”

Look no further than MImi’s latest crazy mailer. I posted part of it above. And check out the image below.

Read more…

If Larry and Art get to do this, then here’s this Huntington Beach Progressive Democrat’s picks for the June 3 Primary Election. In order of importance:

1. NO on 98, YES on 99. Will have a whole post up on this later this week. Thank you to Larry for inviting me to a forum on this at Chapman University, but the 98 spokesman was just not convincing, and the anti-98ers were. And 99 is of value in its own right beyond just being an anti-98 measure. 99 = real (albeit modest) eminent domain reform; 98 = a trojan horse with anti-rent-control and anti-environment effects.

2. Democrat candidate for US Reprentative 46th District, Debbie Cook. Well, duh. Except Dan Kalmick is a brilliant young man with lots of great ideas and I hope he runs for state Assembly in 2010 - why can’t some people start out smaller? Don’t get tempted to vote for Dan though because, in order to attract the big donations she needs, Debbie should win the primary OVERWHELMINGLY.

3. If you’re a Republican in the 46th, vote for Ron St. John in the primary! I’m not just saying that as a Democrat “concern troll” - of course Ron won’t beat the name recognition and big money of Crazy Dana, but he represents a direction the OC GOP should want to start going in - toward more inclusiveness (to immigrants etc.) and back to core GOP values of small government. At least I’d vote for St. John if I were Republican; I understand a lot of Republicans consider Dana an embarrassment, between his eccentric behavior and his complete ineffectiveness. Read more…