It's Been Awhile Since I Posted A "Strange Things In California" Post

No, I'm not going to talk about Schwarzenegger's 13-year-old son that few knew about until a few days ago. I mean, seriously, is that "strange"? Sad, perhaps, but certainly not out of the ordinary.

No, there are two stories I came across today that show that we're a bit off here in the land of fruits and nuts. In the first, the Speaker of the state Assembly (lower house of the legislature) has seemingly lied, or at the very least hasn't corrected miscommunications, about his status as a college graduate:

But the record is wrong: Pérez dropped out of UC Berkeley and never returned.

For a decade, Pérez's designation as a UC Berkeley graduate went unchallenged in newspaper articles, biographies and public pronouncements - until after he won his first Assembly race in 2008.

Since his election, Pérez has emerged as one of California's most powerful officials. He was elected Assembly speaker in 2009. As speaker, he is also an ex-officio regent of the University of California.

His latest official biography says he attended UC Berkeley. But until 2008, biographies of Pérez often said he had graduated from the prestigious public university, records show.

As you might imagine, this will not be news in California, and his position as Assembly Speaker is no doubt safe. Neither a college degree nor honesty is required for the job.

This next one is one of those flaky stories you don't think will every really happen until it does, and then, wow, you learn it's working its way through the legislature:

Lawmakers have taken a step to make California more relevant in presidential politics, voting to give the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote.

That's right, boys and girls, Candidate A could win the popular vote in California but all of California's electoral votes could go to Candidate B if Candidate B wins the national popular vote! Since California now votes reliably Democratic, expect this law, if passed, to go by the wayside the next time a Republican wins the national popular vote.