Classic move !! I just drove about 60 miles north on the 5 before I realized I forgot my wallet.

I'm off to the Bay Area to visit my nephew, and hopefully hook up with friends and bloggers. Does anyone have any appropriate suggestions for the speech I'm supposed to be making at the bris on Monday?

The first sign of a potentially disturbing trend in the Kobe Bryant case: whites are more likely than blacks to presume the Laker star guilty. The Harper Lee, black-man-accused-of-rape-by-blond-girl aspect to this trial is the great unmentioned undercurrent, just as it was in the early days of the O.J. case. BTW, it's been almost a month; when is celebrity ambulance-chaser Dominick Dunne going to see some face time?

Apparently, NaziPundit gets a little bit of help ensuring her books make the best-seller list [link via TalkLeft].

Nephew Blog !!!


Charles Henry Ruderman

I know this is going against the grain here, but Ahnolt's entry into the race probably helps Davis more than it hurts. Riordan had strong cross-over appeal with Democrats, he would have beaten Davis had he been nominated last year, and his presence on the ballot would have salved the anxieties of liberals who were concerned with this recall being another in a string (after Florida, Colorado, and Texas) of right-wing coup attempts. In all likelihood, the announcement on the Tonight Show means that the former L.A. mayor will sit this one out (does that mean the L.A. Examiner will post something again?).

Political campaigns are popularity contests, but they are not just popularity contests. Schwarzenegger has more credibility among political reporters and pundits than he does with the average voters, many of whom still think of him as a self-parodying bodybuilder. Celebrity candidates have a very spotty track record (remember Governor Janet Reno? Senator Geraldine Ferraro? Governor Steve Largent?), and as sycophantic as most of the journalists and pundits who cover politics are, they will seem like Sonny Liston compared with the adulatory coverage Schwarzenegger has received from entertainment "journalists". Moreover, the freakshow aspect of this election will be accentuated by his candidacy; after all, why should he be taken more seriously than Gary Coleman or Dennis Rodman? The more people who see the replacement election as a joke, the more likely it is the recall will lose in two months.

But more importantly, he will not be the only candidate on the replacement ballot (assuming, of course, that the State Supreme Court allows the election to go forward; the law is kind of vague on that issue [ed-never mind !). While Davis simply has to beat one opponent, himself, Schwarzenegger must convince the public both to recall Davis and vote for him. In doing that, he will have to face other opponents besides Davis who will be motivated to knock him out. For all the talk about Davis' use of "puke politics", it is the other candidates in this race that will have to go negative to have any chance to stand above the crowd, while Davis is the only one whose stature in the race improves if he stays positive, and focuses the negativity on the process itself.

The BBC is reporting that Ahnolt is running for governor, where he will have a fight for his life against...Arnold !! Arianna announced today, while the steady and sober Senator Feinstein has decided to take a pass. Come to think of it, for all the grief she's gotten for selling campaign thongs, Georgy Russell is more qualified, and is more thoughtful, than most of the "serious" candidates in the freakshow.

The latest gambit from the GOP on the issue of judicial nominations is to accuse the Democrats of acting out of "anti-Catholic" prejudice. The idea, as I understand it, is to say that because William Pryor, et al., oppose abortion rights, and purportedly base said opposition on the teachings of the Catholic Church, anyone who opposes their nomination is doing so out of religious bigotry.

The logic of that attack is ridiculous, as Joshua Marshall points out here; by that logic, the right is basically stating that Catholics can avoid being held accountable for anti-abortion opinions, but that non-Catholics, or those who wish to restrict abortion rights for reasons not connected to religious principles, are out of luck. For other reasons, though, I hope the far right keeps up the attack. It shows that these wack-jobs have as little understanding of mainstream Roman Catholicism in the U.S. as they do of every other non-white, non-male, non-straight and/or non-Baptist in the country.

The typical American Catholic does not belong to Opus Dei, and does not believe that Cardinal Ratzinger speaks for him. We not only support abortion rights, in numbers greater than non-Catholics, but most of us think that priestly celibacy, the male priesthood, the bans on contraception and divorce, and the reliance on clerics to dictate the tenets of our faith are historical relics. Many of us support gay marriage. And just so you don't think it all goes in one ideological direction, quite a few "cafeteria Catholics" support the death penalty, and backed the war in Iraq, in defiance of the teaching of the Holy Mother Church. In short, we think for ourselves.

So if Senator Santorum wants to follow this strategy, BRING 'EM ON. Lord knows, the Democrats are going to need every Catholic vote they can get next year.

Having received no contributions, utterly betrayed by the lethargy of my supporters, and preoccupied with the pressures and time-constraints of unclehood, I have decided, after close consultation with family and friend, to withdraw from the recall election currently scheduled for October 7. In the meantime, those of you who want to ensure that our message will be heard should feel free to back the candidacies of Neal Pollack, Georgy Russell, and Brian Flemming, who has electrified the state by promising to resign should he prove victorious. Or perhaps the sobering candidacies of Larry Flynt and/or Arianna Huffington, for those of you inspired by the notion of having the state led by former Politically Incorrect regulars. Or better yet, you.

As of one hour ago, I became an uncle for the first time. Congrats to my baby sister Cat, bro-in-law Dan, and to Charles, for getting a crack at making the world a better place. Wherever you are, Dad, you finally have a grandkid !!

Blogger Charles Kuffner had an opportunity recently to appear on a FoxNews panel, where he would have had a chance to dis the President on taking a month-long vacation/photo op at his "ranch". He is one of the few bloggers who actually has a job, though, so he didn't get the message until it was too late. Even so, he is unsure he would have taken the gig, and thereby add to the drone of the media whores and junior orwells who pass themselves off as TV pundits.

Just so there's no confusion, I have no such trepidation. If need be, I will go on any news or cable show at one hour's notice and spout whatever opinion is needed to get face time. Even the O'Reilly Factor.

I can only imagine what his 341(a) meeting will be like. Not surprisingly, Tyson going double toothpicks represents a trend that is all too common among athletes and entertainers. They make an enormous amount of money early in their adulthood, mistakenly think it will last forever, and surround themselves with people who are well-versed in spending other people's wealth. Life, however, has a funny way of outlasting the earning potential of even the most athletically (or creatively) gifted.

What's French for "Orenthal"?: This is one of those stories that would be covered much differently if it had happened here [link via Emmanuelle.net, which also makes reference to the fact that Paris Paris in Vegas has just re-raised the tricolore several months after the recent unpleasantness].

Pot, meet kettle: Christopher Hitchens, whose idea of a joke is to refer to the Dixie Chicks as fat whores, and who has spent the past year sycophantically parroting the Administration's positions on Iraq, pens an obituary ripping Bob Hope for not being funny and for doing stand-up at Que Sanh. At least Hope never glorified David Irving....

This morning's Los Angeles Times notes that over the last six games, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been outscored by the Los Angeles Galaxy, 9-5.

UPDATE: The Times overlooked (and I forgot ) that the Galaxy played three games recently in the World Peace Cup, where they scored once and were shut out twice. As the Dodgers have scored four runs since I originally posted this, over the last nine games, the Galaxy lead the Dodgers by only one goal, 10-9.

This is really journalism at its worst. This evening, ESPN's website flashed a headline, "Case Against Kobe". The article states that "sources close to the prosecution" (who, of course, are nameless) have revealed that prosecutors plan to introduce evidence that the women sustained injuries during the encounter that would indicate that the encounter wasn't consensual, and that Kobe Bryant made "inconsistent" statements to the police.

Well, duh !! I think we already knew that the woman in question had some physical injuries, and even an innocent person who spends more than 10 minutes being interrogated by the police is going to make some inconistent statements, particularly about sex. At the very least, I had already assumed that they would be able to show those two points; to win, one would anticipate that they had a couple of eyewitnesses inside the room, or a recording of some kind. Unless the physical evidence in question is a knife wound, neither point goes to the question of whether she was raped, or had a consensual encounter with a much larger man (which I will assume is the defense position).

If that's the best "evidence against Kobe" the prosecution's office could anonymously leak, they should pull up their tents and go home.

What to do, what to do. Alias is in reruns, 24 has disappeared, and The Shield and The Sopranos will be on whenever. It's the slow time of year for sports, and both of the local baseball teams are falling out of contention. Oh well, only six days til the next episode of Who Wants to Marry My Dad?

Up until now, I've successfully avoided Reality TV, in all of its manifestations. I saw the final episode of Joe Millionaire, and most of the last episode of Survivor 2, but that's it. It's not that I'm a snob or anything, but I'm just not into middle-brow culture. If something's not good enough to bear repeated viewing, the way I could when I had seven different HBO channels during the first season of Six Feet Under, I don't bother.

Who Wants to Marry My Dad? is something different, a reality show without a smidgen of reality to it. The basic premise is that the children of this affluent resident of Glendale, California, have to judge a group of women, hand-picked by the producers, who are candidates to be their future step-mom. Each week, they eliminate one woman, usually after a series of highly personal questions are asked while she is hooked up to a lie detector. At the end, presumably, one woman will be left, and she and the dad will get married and go on a honeymoon.

In short, it's a car wreck waiting to happen. One of the women last night confirmed under polygraphic examination that she had fallen in love with Dad, who was forced to admit to his children that he felt nothing for her. Perhaps to avoid having the poor lass do something extreme, the children decided to keep her, and dump another hapless contestant, who was made to disappear by 80's-era magicians Penn and Teller. Almost everything about the show is cheesy and cringe-inducing, from the slow-mo reaction shots of the kids as they watch the polygraph examinations, to the voyeuristic scenes of them watching Dad make out with one of the ladies on a TV monitor.

But that's not the real reason I watch. Christy Fichtner is. Ms. Fichtner, in case you don't know, was the 1986 Miss U.S.A. winner, a contest particularly famous for its runner-up, a certain Miss Ohio named Halle Berry. According to this site, she is the most beautiful first runner-up in Miss Universe history, and may arguably be the most gorgeous Miss U.S.A. winner ever. Divorced for over five years, with three sons, competing against assorted thirty- and forty-somethings in this idiotic contest, she dominates the same way Randy Johnson would against a high school team. Ms. Berry deserved to lose then, and she would lose again now.

As I understand, though, she is not the favorite to win. That would be in keeping with her shock loss in the 1986 Miss Universe pageant, when she went in heavily favored, only to lose to Miss Venezuela, a result that still rankles objective observers of beauty pageants in the same way that Roy Jones Jr.'s loss in the 1988 Summer Olympics does to boxing fans. In fact, as the controversy over Miss Universe 2003 indicates, boxing is the most appropriate sports analogy to the world of beauty pageants: regional biases abound, and knowing who the promoters are will give a pretty good indication of who is most likely to win.

Whether her attitude rubbed people the wrong way back then may be a subject of speculation (she would hardly be the first contestant to fly to and from the pageant in her family's private jet, and at least she didn't spook one of her rivals by telling her how "fat and ugly" she looked in a swimsuit), but she is definitely having problems getting her potential step-daughters, who have made ominous complaints that she doesn't love their dad, she's just wants to win, yadda yadda yadda (that was after she dove into the family pool in a very elegant bikini to start their first date), to warm to her.


Christy Fichtner

Any way, her potential step-sons seem to like her. She has made the final three, and with two episodes to go (assuming that there isn't a "best-of" episode before the finale), America will hold its collective breath to see if she can finally win one. After that, I think I'll kiss off reality TV for good.

UPDATE: She made the Finals !!

California is not the only state where the Republicans are trying to get a Mulligan. Charles Kuffner's blog has been providing encyclopedic coverage of the Texas redistricting scam, and the rebellious Democrats in the minority who have now sought asylum in the free state of New Mexico. If for nothing else, Tom DeLay should be thanked for having revitalized the Texas Democratic Party.

Michael "Terrorism Trumps Everything" Totten has changed his address, so please adjust...I might be joining him soon (not on his obsession with the Middle East, but on his move to Moveable Type), so if someone can tell me whether you can post photos within your posts there, it would be greatly appreciated.

Enterprising investment bankers might be keen on this: the Pentagon is establishing a "commodities market", where savvy investors can bet on when the next big terrorist event is going to take place, including whether/when King Abdullah of Jordan or Yasser Arafat gets capped...sort of like a Dead Pool for Young Republicans. Interesting, this program is under the supervision of one John Poindexter, a figure of some notoriety from the Reagan Administration.

And as you might expect, some bleeding heart Senate Democrats are up in arms about this, trying to thwart the next stage of capitalism from developing. [link via Talking Points Memo] Figures....

UPDATE: The bleeding hearts won...the Pentagon has decided that trading futures in suicide bombings wasn't such a good idea after all.