A lot of interesting stories this week, so we won’t get too deep into any of them. There is no joy in Mudville, mighty Arnold has struck out. Actually, everybody struck out in the special election Tuesday . Common sense tells us that the incumbent governor would now quietly bow out of his plans to run for reelection, but rich action movie stars aren’t necessarily endowed with common sense. The election results do ensure that if Arnold still wants to run, the Democrats will be drooling, and he will attract some opposition from his own party. A couple of notable surprises from the election. The initiative sponsored by the prescription drug industry to supposedly provide discounts for seniors went down, but the alternative initiative on the same topic went down even harder. The state’s voters apparently saw both measures as money they didn’t want to spend. And I was surprised to see that Nevada County voters went along with the rest of the state in rejecting the initiative about parental consent for minors seeking abortions. That should put a lid on Sue Horne’s campaign on that subject, but it probably won’t.

I liked that angle on the story about Warren Beatty and Annette Benning dogging Arnold around the state trying to crash his campaign parties. Even at events that were billed as open to the public, Arnold’s security people wouldn’t let Beatty in. Does this mean that Warren Beatty wants to be our next movie star governor?

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Saddam Hussein’s lawyers are dropping like flies to assassins. Would you like to answer a help wanted ad for that job? The news out of Iraq is always a little hazy, no matter who’s distributing it, but it looks like Saddam Hussein may never go to trial. They might as well just send him to Guantanamo to keep company with all those other people who’ll never get a trial.

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Bush in Argentina–reminiscent of Nixon in South America about 50 years ago, except that the factor of rage against the U.S. has increased about tenfold. Nixon got pelted with rotten fruit. These days they have better security. I don’t think for a moment that Bush has been thinking up any policies on his own, but he was a Bozo in Brasilia and a punk in Mar Del Plata. Thousands of demonstrators hit the streets just because he showed up. Hugo Chavez ate him for breakfast. His message to Latin America was, "We intend to dominate your economy, and there’s nothing you can do about it." Not much different from the U.S. relationship to the rest of Latin America for as long as I can remember.

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The House of Representatives has passed a bill to trump the Supreme Court on that imminent domain thing, where the Supremes said local governments could take your house and land to let private developers build whatever they want. It’s not over yet. The concept still has be sold to the Senate and slide through the Oval Office.

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I enjoyed the story this past week about Mike Brown, the head guy at FEMA, who resigned after the feds botched the response to hurricane Katrina. At the time, I thought he was probably a scapegoat, but the press got a look at his Emails and found out he was primarily interested in how he looked on TV. Somebody had to tell him to roll up his sleeves to look like he actually was working.

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A couple of items about, for lack of a better term, personal privacy. This story has been developing on multiple fronts. Obviously, security issues inspired by terrorism are a big part of it, but it’s a lot more than that. Your right to be left alone is being attacked on other fronts, as well, not the least of which is the retail realm. We’ve talked at least once before about those discount cards with bar codes that grocery stores hand out. I hate ‘em. My attitude is, "Just tell me your price and I’ll tell you if I’m willing to pay it." Supposedly, they use them to assemble information with which to devise their marketing strategies. They learn what you’re buying so they can decide what to put on their shelves and promote. Do you believe that? I can think of a lot of other uses for that information, and I’m not naive enough to think it’s not being used in other ways. At the very least, you know your grocer is selling it to other retailers.

This week, I went into a local grocery store to make a small purchase with cash–you know, that paper that says, "legal tender for all debts public and private." The clerk demanded that I tell her my zip code. I declined, saying, "I’m buying merchandise you have for sale with US currency. You don’t need any information from me." The clerk punched in a zip code at random, and advised me that her cash register would not ring up my transaction unless she punched in a zip code. The zip code information actually is a pretty low level of snooping, but the idea that someone would ask me for any personal information as a condition of making a purchase with cash scared the hell out of me. I suspect we’re rapidly moving toward a situation where retailers will refuse to accept your money unless you give them information which is none of their damn business. "Geez, Mom! I couldn’t buy that loaf of bread because I didn’t know your maiden name and your Social Security number."

Along the same lines, and apropos some comments a few weeks ago about airlines moving toward an all first class clientele, the U.S. Department of Transportation is planning to adopt regulations allowing airlines to let you skip past security checks if you submit to fingerprinting and a background check. The airlines, of course, would get paid for extending this privilege to you. A pilot program going on right now in Florida charges 80 bucks to let you get on an airplane without taking off your shoes and emptying your pockets, if you are willing to be investigated.