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From their joint statement:

"This has been a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us," the statement read. "After a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion and prayer, we came to this decision together. At this time, we are living apart while we work on the future of our relationship.

"We are continuing to parent our four children together. They are the light and the center of both of our lives. We consider this a private matter and neither we nor any of our friends or family will have further comment. We ask for compassion and respect from the media and the public."

Shriver and Schwarzenegger have been married for 25 years. It must be a difficult transition for both of them. I wish them and their children all the best.

California Gov. ArnoldSchwarzenegger announced Wednesday night that he will veto legislation allowingsame-sex couples to marry.The announcement,made through his press secretary, Margita Thompson, said that the bill is inconflict with Proposition 22 a ballot initiative passed in 2000 to preventCalifornia from recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere...

",0]);D(["mi",8,2,"10398be269634c83",0,"0","C&L","C&L","crooksandliars@gmail.com","FinnsAgain","7:52 am (15 hours ago)",[""FinnsAgain@aol.com" "],[],[],["C&L "],"May 1, 2005 7:52 AM","Re: Roundup: May 1","",[],1,,,"Sun May 1 2005_7:52 AM","On 5/1/05, C&L wrote:","On 5/1/05, C&L <crooksandliars@gmail.com> wrote:"]);D(["mb","Finn, WHat is the form of punishment the Opus Dei goes do to themselves whne they whip themsleves? an important story about Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You Run Arnold, We Run Jennifer Yellow Dog Blog

Video Clip Special: Jon Stewart on Osama's latest video!

Video

The "Daily Show" on the Osama tape, Bush, Kerry, Cheney,Springsteen and Arnold on the campaign trail.

If you didn't see John McCain's weasel defense of Sarah Palin quitting her position as Governor after he vouched for her character when he chose her to be his VP, you should. David Gregory even listed his own political history, which included scandals, personal attacks and being tortured to list a sort of character building for not quitting, and asked again, "How could she just quit?" His responses were very weird. Palin threw in the towel when it got rough and walked away from the voters of Alaska to make a fortune of doubloons.

If anybody should quit a governorship, it should be Arnold because he's led the great state of California into financial ruin in tandem with the legislature. Is California worse off than Alaska? You betcha. Did Arnold quit? No...I kinda wish he would.

(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

I wanted to report back on my post from Friday, warning that Gov. Schwarzengger was about to cut over 200,000 state worker's salaries down to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 -- a ploy in a political game being played by the Governor. He's trying to hold state workers hostage to try and place pressure on the Democrats instead of the Republicans who are holding up the budget.

Today, I have good news and bad news. It's Arnold's birthday. No, that's not the good news.

The good news is that over 28,000 of you stepped up and signed the petition to Schwarzenegger. The same day, he delayed signing the executive order that would have put the policy into effect.

The bad news is that he only delayed it to Thursday.

We delivered your petitions to the Governor on Monday and created a funny, snarky video you can see above, about our adventure trying to get someone to accept the darn petitions. It helped to have an Assemblymember along with us and a bunch of cameras and reporters, or else we would have been sent straight to the mailroom.

We have about 24 hours until the Governor signs the executive order. Which means we still have time today to pressure Arnold to stop holding state workers hostage to his political budget negotiation games.

On behalf of hundreds of thousands of state workers, please pick up your phone right now and call Arnold. Click here for the phone number and a form to report back your call.

UPDATE: We've already received some interesting call reports, like this one from Gary:

Staff member tried to convince me that things will be alright with our finances because my partner, who is a teacher, can get a zero-interest loan since the banks know that the employees will be getting the money eventually. I told her that we didn't want to be pawns in their political games and that the governor & legislature need to work it out. She said she would pass it along.

The Courage Campaign has been trying to raise awareness in California over the latest electoral power grab on the part of Republicans that I blogged about here. You can sign the petition protesting the "Dirty Tricks" initiative here. However, when confronted with whether or not he supported the initiative, Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger dodged by saying he hadn't read the initiative.

Well, that just doesn't fly here in the Golden State. So Calitics' Julia Rosen asked the blogosphere to supply Arnie with a copy of the initiative and 2,148 Courage Campaign members came through:

On August 23, Gov. Schwarzenegger said:

"I haven't looked at the language and I'm not saying I'm against it or I'm for it or anything."

Well, now he has 2,148 opportunities to read the thing and say whether he is for it or against the dirty trick initiative. Thanks to you.

We asked the blogosphere and thousands of Courage Campaign members to send him a copy and boy did you deliver. I had to get my weightlifter friend to help me cary them in to the Governor's office. Mind you it is about 100 degrees in Sacramento today. [..]

Like Rick Jacobs, the Chair of Courage Campaign says:

Thousands of Californians have made one simple request of the governor: please spend five minutes and read the initiative closely. The next time the Governor is asked publicly about this initiative, he will no longer have an excuse to play dumb about this partisan dirty trick.

The Republicans are pushing this dirty trick in an attempt to steal the election and our "post-partisan" governor is claiming ignorance. Has he failed to grasp the lessons of the 2005 election? In California, partisan power grabs are unacceptable and divisive. It is time for him to do the right thing.

Thank you to all who took action. If you have not done so already, please join the Courage Campaign and pledge to defeat this initiative. No matter where you live, you can help us beat back this dirty trick.

As a Californian, I'm happy that we're having more of a say in the nomination process, but I'm afraid that ultimately, this will mean that the candidate with the biggest war-chest at the beginning of the season gets the nomination.

Reuters:

Seeking to give Californians a voice in choosing the next U.S. presidential candidates, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law on Thursday a bill to move the presidential primary election in the nation's most populous state to February 2008.

"Moving up the primary from June to February gives California the influence it deserves in choosing the next presidential candidates," Schwarzenegger said at a news conference to commemorate the bill's signing.

In recent years, California has had little impact in choosing presidential nominees for the Republican and Democratic parties because they have selected early in the primary process and there is no race left by June.

This year, many U.S. states are considering moving their primaries to February 5, 2008, including other big states such as New Jersey, Florida, Missouri, Michigan and Texas.

This has always been the most ludicrous talking point to me. For every Barbra Streisand and Michael Moore that the right loves to demonize--and Lord knows they do, every chance they get--the left could more credibly point out Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Charlton Heston--in positions to actually make a difference--as "Hollywood Values". However, this story demonstrates quite well why Hollywood values are nothing to scoff at.

Reuters AlertNet :

The rich and famous in the West are getting into Africa in a big way these days, and we're not just talking about adopting babies.

The latest trend for Hollywood players fresh from filming in Africa is setting up funds and trusts to give something back to the communities where they've been working, Christian Science Monitor reports. The Constant Gardener Trust is the brainchild of the makers of "The Constant Gardener", filmed in Nairobi's Kibera slum. The trust has already done some work in Kibera - one of the biggest slums in the world - building a few new sanitation facilities with toilets and showers. It may not sound very generous from a group awash with money, but in a place where "flying toilets" - plastic bags in which people defecate and then dump in the ditches - are the norm, new facilities are a welcome change. Other projects, including mobile clinics, are in the pipeline. Read on...

And then, just as I finished up this post, I get a tip from reader GM with the searing question: Who Would Jesus Give A Cauliflower Ear To? So maybe we should scoff, just a little.