Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

We’re going to take our son to see “Tangled” this weekend. We’re not big moviegoers but we like to go as a family. When I was a child, a birthday highlight was going to see “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

“Did you know Tangled is based on an old fairy tale called Rapunzel?” I said to my son. “Yes Dad,” he responded, as if I’d just heard about the Lindbergh kidnapping.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend. (Note the “widescreen” format, not formatted for WordPress.)

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This from the Wall Street Journal: “AUSTIN, Texas—Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s conviction for money laundering in a state court here could inspire prosecutors in other states to target the methods used by politicians to raise and deploy corporate contributions.”

“The outcome will likely reverberate throughout the other 22 states with similar bans on corporate contributions, discouraging politicians from employing similar techniques and emboldening prosecutors to go after them using the same strategy, some legal experts say.”

“It will put more people on notice that something which by one perspective might be considered as legal on the other can be characterized as money laundering,” Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia University Law School told The Journal.

The article is here.

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Life is about choices, and holiday shopping is no exception.

“Black Friday” got off to a healthy start, according to retailers, with department stores such as Kohl’s opening in the middle of the night. Some stores, such as KMart, opened on Thanksgiving Day.

“At a Best Buy in San Carlos this morning, one man had ice on his nose. Others had taken blankets, and plenty mentioned they had put back a few shots of alcohol to keep warm, and help the time pass. Most huddled for warmth and some bailed out of line, giving up their spot, to warm up in their cars,” according to a blog report from the San Jose Mercury News.

Amazon.com also offered “Black Friday” specials online.

Around here, Cornish Christmas starts Friday in Grass Valley and continues weekly through Dec. 17.

Victorian Christmas kicks off Wednesday, Dec. 1, in Nevada City and continues Wednesdays through Dec. 15 and Sundays, Dec. 12 and 19.

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State Senator Leeland Yee responded to the tea party’s effort for an Arizona-style immigration law:

“Once again, local tea party activists want to push a xenophobic initiative on our community that would devastate California.  Unfortunately, this is not the first time they have turned to the obscene use of race-baiting as a means to promote their cause.  Last year, they employed anti-Semitic posters for their events and now they are going down a similar path in an attempt to strike fear within immigrant communities and break up families. 

In order to advance their repulsive and extremist objectives, the sponsors are trying to leverage our current economic situation to foment resentment against undocumented immigrants.  As we celebrate Thanksgiving, it is important that these incendiary acts do not go unchallenged.  If this initiative qualifies for the ballot, we will fight to ensure that the people of California vote it down and send a very clear message that such bigoted policies are unacceptable in our state.”

Exit question: Will our “electeds” Tom McClintock and Dan Logue support this initiative?

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Here’s some excerpts from an unflattering review of George Bush’s new book – “Decision Points” – in the New Yorker:

“- There are hardly any decision points at all. The path to each decision is so short and irresistible, more like an electric pulse than like a weighing of options, that the reader is hard-pressed to explain what happened.
- In Bush’s telling, the non-decision decision is a constant feature of his Presidential policymaking.
- Very few of its four hundred and ninety-three pages are not self-serving.
- The rare moments of candor come at other people’s expense.
- What’s remarkable about “Decision Points” is how frequently and casually it leaves out facts, large and small, whose absence draws more attention than their inclusion would have.
- What he cannot explain is why he allowed Iraq to descend into a nightmare of violence, year after year, until, by 2006, millions of Iraqis were fleeing the country. Perhaps he didn’t know what was going on.
- “Only after the sectarian violence erupted in 2006 did it become clear that more security was needed before political progress could continue,” he writes. It’s a statement to make anyone who spent time in Iraq from 2003 onward laugh or cry.
- Was Bush this rigid and incurious all his life?”

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