Author and Pomona College alumnus Verlyn Klinkenborg has another of his Editorial Observer pieces about California in today's NYT. The subject this time is the forecast that our fair state will hold 60 million people by mid-century, instead of the 37 million or so we have today. He writes:

The numbers in themselves are frightening enough, but what I find terrifying is the bland assumption that a two-thirds increase in population is inevitable and that the main problem will be creating the infrastructure necessary to house, feed, educate, transport and govern all those people. To me, the main problem is how to keep them from showing up in the first place.

His take has so far met with the usual reaction out here — silence — but in New York, Gawker's Choire Sicha replies under the hed The Menace of California Must be Stopped:

Somehow, Klinkenborg gets through the op-ed without using the word "Mexico," which is a neat trick! But more importantly, California already sucks the will to live out of the country—as it grows into a nation-state, with the all-powerful cyborg Governor-For-Life, it will surely decide to take a clue from history and seize more territory. (OMG, not Tempe and Reno!) Should we not bomb the holy hell out of it now while we still have a chance?

Gawker also turns to the Bible for guidance on the rumor that In-n-Out plans to invade Manhattan with L.A. burgers