Tag: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Categories
Common Sense

Craigslist, eBay and Twitter

Could California’s budget crisis be solved by a triumvirate of Internet services, Craigslist, eBay and Twitter?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is raiding the state’s storage sheds to sell off unneeded items on eBay and Craigslist. His signature on a California fleet car adds, it is estimated, $400 to its auction value.

He got the latter idea from one of his million Twitter followers.

Wow. I have nowhere near a million Twitter followers. I’m told that I should envy the governor’s Twitter cred, but … I’m not the jealous type; I won’t seek any “Tweet” revenge. Still, I’d be happy if all my listeners joined, and I got some usable ideas for raising money.

Unfortunately, neither I nor my sponsor, Citizens in Charge Foundation, have a vast resource of unneeded inventory to sell off. Nor do I have the cachet of the actor-​turned-​governor: My signature won’t add much value to a Ford Focus. 

Yep. Someone paid $1,625.01 for a state-​owned Focus with over 110,000 miles on the odometer. The governor signed the visor.

That’s better than a car once owned by Jon Voight!

The only new thing here, really, is using Craigslist and eBay. This isn’t a singularity in the progress of civilization. From this no miracles follow. But it is a healthy sign of thinking slightly outside the proverbial box.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
term limits

Arnold Loses His Strudel

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger no longer likes term limits. He explained why in an interview with the LA Times.

Says Arnold: “[O]riginally I felt very strongly that it was the greatest thing ever done. Because I despised the idea of guys being so locked in and safe in their positions, staying up in Sacramento and doing their deals and all this stuff.

“Now ’ve been there for four years and I say to myself, ‘Oh my God, this is a disaster.’… It’s going to hurt the state, because we have to start all over again, getting acquainted with these new people coming in.… John Burton, whom I’d just gotten used to working with; he used to bring me delicious Austrian coffee and apfelstrudel. Now he’s gone.”

Gee, competitive elections are so inconvenient, aren’t they? With the people coming and going and all this stuff? Not to mention the strudel crisis.

U.S. Term Limits president Phil Blumel observed: “Yes, Arnold ‘learned’ the lessons most politicians learn after a while in office: that government is the solution not the problem and that staying in office is better than leaving it.’

Blumel is right on. And I’m happy to report that California citizens ignored Arnold’s recent brainstorms and his endorsement of Prop 93, a devious term limits extension measure, defeated in February by Golden State voters. If the governor is still sad, well, maybe somebody can bring him some jelly doughnuts as a consolation prize.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.