Those who work in the criminal justice system or in the schools have  long been aware of the horror show that is the Los Angeles Unified School District Police force.

High-Five to Max Taves and the L.A. Weekly for some excellent work.  Here’s the article.  It is well worth a read:  LAUSD’S FINEST

In honor of Rickey, here’s a list of the 25 best Rickey Henderson quotes and stories. We found it at NYSportSpace

1) Rickey… on referring to himself in the third person: “Listen, people are always saying, ‘Rickey says Rickey.’ But it’s been blown way out of proportion. People might catch me, when they know I’m ticked off, saying, ‘Rickey, what the heck are you doing, Rickey?’ They say, ‘Darn, Rickey, what are you saying Rickey for? Why don’t you just say, ‘I?’ But I never did. I always said, ‘Rickey,’ and it became something for people to joke about.”

2) In the early 1980s, the Oakland A’s accounting department was
freaking out. The books were off $1 million. After an investigation, it was determined Rickey was the reason why. The GM asked him about a $1 million bonus he had received and Rickey said instead of cashing it, he framed it and hung it on a wall at his house.

3) In 1996, Henderson’s first season with San Diego, he boarded the team bus and was looking for a seat. Steve Finley said, “You have tenure, sit wherever you want.” Henderson looked at Finley and said, “Ten years? Ricky’s been playing at least 16, 17 years.”

4) This one might be my second favorite. This wasn’t too long ago, I think it was the year he ended up playing with the Red Sox. Anyway, he called San Diego GM Kevin Towers and left the following message: “This is Rickey calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play baseball.”

5) This one happened in Seattle. Rickey struck out and as the next
batter was walking past him, he heard Henderson say, “Don’t worry,
Rickey, you’re still the best.”

6) Rickey once asked a teammate how long it would take him to drive to the Dominican Republic.

7) Moments after breaking Lou Brock’s stolen base record, Henderson told the crowd – with Brock mere feet next to him – “Lou Brock was a great base stealer, but today, I am the greatest of all-time.”

8 ) Henderson once fell asleep on an ice pack and got frostbite – which forced him to miss three games – in mid-August.

9) A reporter asked Henderson if Ken Caminiti’s estimate that 50 percent of Major League players were taking steroids was accurate. His response was, “Well, Rickey’s not one of them, so that’s 49 percent right there.”

10) Henderson broke Ty Cobb’s career record for runs scored with a home run. After taking his usual 45 seconds or so around the bases, Rickey slid into home plate.

11) On being Nolan Ryan’s 5,000th career strikeout: “It gave me no
chance. He (Ryan) just blew it by me. But it’s an honor. I’ll have
another paragraph in all the baseball books. I’m already in the books three or four times.”

12) San Diego GM Kevin Towers was trying to contact Rickey at a nearby hotel. He knew Henderson always used fake names to avoid the press, fans, etc. He was trying to think like Rickey and after several attempts; he was able to get Henderson on the phone.
Rickey had checked in under Richard Pryor.

13) I didn’t believe this one at first. However, I emailed a few
contacts within the Sox organization and they claim it actually
happened. This is priceless, it really is.

The morning after the Sox finished off the sweep against St. Louis last October, Henderson called someone in the organization looking for tickets to Game 6 at Fenway Park.

14) The Mets were staying in a hotel less than a mile from Cinergy Field in Cincinnati. While some players walked, most took the team bus. A few minutes after they arrived – again it was less than a mile – the last players off the bus noticed a stretched limo that had just pulled up.

Of course, Rickey emerged from the back seat.

15) A reporter once asked Rickey if he talked to himself, “Do I talk to myself? No, I just remind myself of what I’m trying to do. You know, I never answer myself so how can I be talking to myself?”

16) a few weeks into Henderson’s stint with the
Mariners, he walked up to Olerud at the batting cage and asked him why he wore a batting helmet in the field. Olerud explained that he had an aneurysm at nine years old and he wore the helmet for protection. Legend goes that Henderson said, “Yeah, I used to play with a guy that had thesame thing.”

Legend also goes that Olerud said, “That was me, Rickey.”

Henderson played with Olerud on the Blue Jays and the Mets.  [Note from Johnny California:  This quote is disputed]

17) Rickey was asked if he had the Garth Brooks album with Friends in Low Places and Henderson said, “Rickey doesn’t have albums. Rickey has CDs.”

18) During a contract holdout with Oakland in the early 1990s, Henderson said, “If they want to pay me like Mike Gallego, I’ll play like Gallego.”

19) In the late 1980s, the Yankees sent Henderson a six-figure bonus check. After a few months passed, an internal audit revealed the check had not been cashed. Current Yankees GM Brian Cashman – then a low-level nobody with the organization – called Rickey and asked if there was a problem with the check. Henderson said, “I’m just waiting for the money market rates to go up.”

20) In June 1999, when Henderson was playing with the Mets, he saw
reporters running around the clubhouse before a game. He asked a
teammate what was going on and he was told that Tom Robson, the team’s hitting coach, had just been fired. Henderson said, “Who’s he?”

21) This is my all-time favorite. Rickey was pulled over by a San Diego police officer for speeding. As the officer was approaching Rickey’s car, the window went down a few inches and a folded $100 bill emerged. The officer let Rickey and his money head home without a ticket.

22) When he was on the Yankees in the mid-1980s, Henderson told
teammates that his condo had such a great view that he could see, “The Entire State Building.”

23) During one of his stays with Oakland, Henderson’s locker was next to Billy Beane’s. After making the team out of spring training, Beane was sent to the minors after a few months. Upon his return, about six weeks later, Henderson looked at Beane and said, “Hey, man, where have you been? Haven’t seen you in awhile.”

24) To this day and dating back 25 years, before every game he plays, Henderson stands completely naked in front of a full length locker room mirror and says, “Ricky’s the best,” for several minutes.

25) In the last week of his lone season with the Red Sox, Chairman Tom Werner asked Henderson what he would like for his ‘going-away’ gift. Henderson said he wasn’t going anywhere, but he would like owner John Henry’s Mercedes. Werner said it would be tough to get the same make and model in less than a week and Henderson said, “No, I want his car.”
Turns out the Sox got Henderson a Red Thunderbird and when he saw it on the field before the last game of the season, Rickey said, “Whose ugly car is on the field?”

Congrats Mr. Henderson.

We do not condone threats of violence against Yes-On-8ers, but at the same time, this lawsuit goes way too far.  Forget Prop 8, think about the effects of this on other ballot propositions.  2008′s  Prop 10 would have used state bonds to reimburse purchasers of natural gas vehicles; the  measure was funded by T. Boone Pickens, the largest supplier of natural gas in the country.  Or what about Prop. 6 -a so-called anti-crime bill funded by a guy charged with drug-trafficking.  This is information people should have access to.

Boycotts are part of the risk of owning a business. Threats of violence should be handled by the criminal justice system. The problem isn’t availability of information.

But do the Yes-On-8ers have a case?  Election law expert Richard Hasen tells the SF Chronicle:

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld mandatory campaign disclosure laws in 1976, including a requirement to identify donors of as little as $10. That ruling cited the public’s need to know about possible sources of corruption of political candidates, but comparable reasons also support disclosure of contributors to ballot measures, said Richard Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and an authority on election law.

“If I hear that a ballot measure is being funded by Exxon or backed by the Sierra Club, that may be all I need to know to decide how to vote,” he said.Even after an election, Hasen said, contribution reports may reveal political corruption, allow researchers to study campaign financing and suggest ways to improve it, as well as provide a check on the truthfulness of campaign committees.

On the other hand, he said, organizations like the Prop. 8 committee may have a case for exemption from disclosure under a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Socialist Workers Party to conceal its contributors because of past attacks and threats.

Lawyers in Thursday’s suit cited the Socialist Workers case in seeking court orders that would excuse Prop. 8 supporters from filing a report of donors of $100 or more on Jan. 31 and require the state to remove any pre-election financial disclosure reports from the public records.

Ya gotta love the Yes-On-8ers taking the same side as the Socialist Workers Party.

Here’s a copy of the lawsuit:

Protect Marriage Complaint

The new Cyberybullying law takes effect on January 1st.  Kids can get suspended or even expelled from school for “bullying” fellow students via text message or social networks.  We’re writing up a detailed look at this law, there’s some serious problems with it.  [SacBee]

Oldish News from when we were on break:  Chris Kelly, the Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook may also run for California Attorney General in 2010.  The Democratic Field is getting crowded, but it won’t matter — Kamala Harris will win.  [TechCrunch]

But what about the budget crisis?  Well, through some procedural loophole where they classify “taxes” as “fees”  they can raise taxes by a simple majority vote rather than the impossible-to-get 2/3 vote usually required to pass a budget.  Check out Assembly Speaker Karen Bass  break it down:

The LA Times breaks down the details:

The Democratic gambit to raise $9.3 billion, scheduled to be voted on tonight, would increase sales taxes by three-fourths of a cent and gas taxes by 13.5 cents a gallon [this means the gas tax would now be 39 cents a gallon] . The plan would also add a surcharge of 2.5% to everyone’s state income tax bill.

In addition, the Democrats said they would cut $7.3 billion from schools, healthcare and other programs. The complete package would total $18 billion and nearly halve the state’s budget shortfall, projected to reach $41.8 billion within 18 months.

The SF Chronicle has some additional details:

State contractor taxes: The plan seeks to raise $2 billion in one-time funds by requiring businesses that hire independent contractors to withhold 3 percent of their pay rather than allowing the contractors to pay a lump-sum income tax.

Shifting some school taxes: The state would raise $1.6 billion by changing a financing system set up several years ago to repay bonds that were used to bridge an earlier budget deficit. Under that plan, the state’s sales tax was raised by a quarter-cent to repay the bond, while local sales tax was reduced by the same amount.

Revenue loss to local government was restored by shifting property tax funds set aside for schools to local government. Money for schools in turn were restored by the state’s general fund.

Under the new proposal, the local sales tax would be raised by a quarter-cent and the state would halt payments to schools, resulting in the $1.6 billion savings in the general fund.

But not everyone is on board.  First, the Governor needs to sign off on it and he’s not so into it yet, so says the SacBee:

But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger balked at details of the plan, prompting lengthy, closed-door negotiations between the governor and Democrats on Wednesday night.

Aaron McLear, Schwarzenegger’s spokesman, said the governor does not support the proposal as unveiled.

“As the governor has said, we need a balanced proposal that includes legitimate cuts, real revenues and economic stimulus,” McLear said, citing as examples the creation of public-private partnerships and changes enabling private companies to bid for both designing and building state projects.

And the GOP, of course, is having none of it:

Even if the governor goes along, GOP leaders said they expect the maneuver to be the subject of a legal battle.

“Obviously, I and my colleagues – and I’m sure a lot of other people in the state – will believe that what they’ve done is illegal,” said Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto.

Oh good, a court fight! That will solve everything!

Stay tuned…