Am I not the only person concerned that Ahnolt's campaign is shaping up to be little more than a stand-in for Pete Wilson? If anything can rally the base behind Cruz Bustamante(or even Gray Davis), it's the prospect of having that racist behind the scenes, using his Austrian beard to wage more wedge issue attacks on Latinos and blacks. Anyways, the notion that S-n-g-r is an "outsider" really won't wash anymore: like Perot, when he plunges, he will fall hard.

Proving, as always, that she's five minutes behind the cultural zeitgeist, Maureen Dowd columnizes about blogs, or rather, the blogs of Presidential hopefuls.[link via TalkLeft]

As I predicted, the kids picked the good girl over the gorgeous one last night. Dad seemed heartbroken; Ms. Fichtner's refusal to allow him one last kiss was the only honest moment on the entire series. It is not surprising that this show came out at roughly the same time as Ahnolt's campaign to be governor and Bush's "Op Gun" flight; each represents a nadir for our culture, a rejection of the authentic in favor of the manufactured moment. Which isn't to say I'm not going to need my Christy Fix real soon.

A bunch of polls are now out, with the most recent, by NBC, showing that Ahnolt has a sizable lead over Cruz Bustamante. The article emphasizes the obvious horse race numbers, but ignores the really big story, which is that the unknown Cruz Bustamante has 18% of the vote. Sw'n'g'r is known by just about everybody, but already about half the public has decided that under no circumstances will they vote for him. Besides getting the hard-core partisan Democratic vote, the "deputy governour", as the BBC referred to him the other night, stands to gain a huge boost from Latino voters, many of whom might be drawn to the polls to vote both in favor of the recall and in favor of electing California's first Latino Governor in 150 years.

Reading between the lines here, one can surmise that Ms. Fichtner lost tonight, and/or that she is about the least self-conscious bitch-on-wheels in the country. According to an article in her hometown paper, the former beauty queen admitted that she saw Who Wants to Marry My Dad? as a possible way to jump-start her career as a TV hostess: "I didn't do it as a dating opportunity...I did it as a career opportunity."

She also had a few words to say about the woman she bested in the '86 U.S.A. pageant, Halle Berry:

"I wouldn't trade my life for hers...Obviously we took very different paths in our lives. There are things I could have pursued, but chose family over a career at the time. She has yet to have children."

Meow !!

For those of you wondering, Georgy Russell filed her papers for Governor yesterday...one of the more recurrent themes that defenders of the circus have used is that with all the celebrity candidates, this election will make politics "more exciting" for the average voter. B.F.D. When Hamilton and Burr faced each other in a duel, it certainly was "exciting" politics, but I fail to see how that benefitted the public. The trick is for people to feel that politics is more relevant to their lives, not for politics to be more entertaining to the Fourth Estate.

Just saw my nephew for the first time. It is an unbelievable feeling to hold a days-old infant. His potential is limitless.


UPDATE: Charlie, and his Uncle Smythe.

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.

How is Dick Riordan supposed to beat this? If I decide not to run, I'm endorsing Georgy !!

Things to cross off my to-do list: attending a Manchester United soccer game. As sports go, soccer is especially fun to watch when it is well-played, and even though yesterday's game was just an "exhibition", it was clear from the start of the second half that this wasn't the M.L.S. The crowd of just under 60,000 was split down the middle; for all the talk about the Beatles-of-sports World Tour, Los Angeles is a hot bed for Mexican soccer teams, particularly Club America, to the chagrin of xenophobes like Jim Rome. If Chivas were to play its home games at the Coliseum, they would out-draw the Raiders.

Perhaps the clearest sign that the whole nation is now laughing at us is MoDo's column this morning. Dowd, who is always about ten seconds behind the cultural zeitgeist, pans the effort, portraying it as another example of how money (in this case, Darrell Issa's) has debased politics. [link via California Insider]

No mention of my candidacy, but she does allude to the Governor's wife, Sharon Davis, who, unlike her husband, is eligible to run in this election. If his Grayness were truly machiavellian, he would run his better half in that election, where she might actually win (unlike her husband, she wouldn't need to get a majority of the vote). If the people then support the recall, she would become governor, creating a situation not unlike Alabama in the late-60's, when Lurleen Wallace was elected to replace her husband, who was term-limited out of office, with the express intention that her husband would still run the state.

Voters of Orange County, Unite: Blogger Digby points out that the recall provision so beloved by the far right in this country actually originated in revolutionary France (!) in 1870, and was supported by none other than Karl Marx. As I was saying...SMYTHE FOR GOVERNOR

Slate reviews the dismal history of dictators' sons, including Oday and Qusay Hussein, Baby Doc Duvalier, and the particularly creepy "Nicu" Ceausescu, who purportedly spent his years in Romania raping women at will, including, allegedly, gymnast Nadia Comaneci. Interestingly, the daughters of dictators have turned out rather well when given the reigns of power, although readers of this site know that hasn't always been the case.

One son in particular who comes in for some rough scrutiny is Saadi Ghadafi, number three son of the Libyan strongman. Like Oday, Saadi runs his country's soccer federation, as well as large shares of Italian power Juventus, the European Champions Cup runner-up (Angelenos who complain about moronic owners like Donald Sterling should note that the team Juventus lost to, AC Milan, is owned by Italian President Silvio Berlusconi, who is literally a Fascist). Ghadafi is not just a team owner, though; he also starts for the Libyan national squad, and was recently signed to a two-year contract to play for Italian power Perugia in Serie A.

So far, his work ethic has failed to impress his new coach or teammates: blowing off practices, insisting on living without roommates on the road, roaming the streets of Italy with a "posse" that includes most of the dregs of the sports world, including Ben Johnson and Diego Maradona. In short, he is acting like the North African version of Allen Iverson. The owner of Perugia, Luciano Gaucci, who received attention when he cut the Korean player who had scored the goal to knock Italy out of the World Cup last year, insists that signing the spawn of Moammar is not a publicity stunt.

Jesse Taylor, the twisted avatar of Pandagon, is blogging up a storm today, for charity. He's participating in Blogathon 2003, in which he will be posting every 15 minutes for 24 hours. So far, he's already written yet another devastating Peggy Noonan parody. To contribute, sign up here. Go Blue !!!

Consider the possibility that the Bush Administration will dump Condi Rice on the voters of California in the upcoming election. They get rid of an embarassment who seems to have a hard time getting her story straight on UraniumGate, and the State GOP gets a candidate with impeccable D.C. credentials who has had no connection whatsoever with state government. The more clowns in the race, the better for me !!!

SMYTHE FOR GOVERNOR !!!
What was once merely a dream of the pipe variety is now a fledgling possibility. On October 7, an election to decide a recall of Gray Davis will be on the ballot, diverting millions of dollars from our booming economy into what is, in effect, a mulligan for the Republican Party. Whilst normally I would question whether such an expenditure is a worthwhile use of taxpayer money (particularly since the reason for this election is the governor's attempt to close the pending budget deficit with, gasp, a tax increase), I don't much like Davis, didn't vote for him last November, and will not mourn his passing from the political scene.

I now have less than three weeks to decide if I will enter the campaign to replace Gray Davis. Since the two ideal G.O.P. candidates were killed yesterday in a gun battle in Mosul, the most likely outcome of this election is that a human cyborg will be governor (that is to say, Davis will either win, or be replaced by Ahnolt). The only condition I have towards running is that I refuse to spend any of my own money, although my good friend in the Universal Studios legal department has supposedly already promised that she "will spend whatever it takes" to ensure my election. However, promises like that are cheap.

What I really need is a commitment from my supporters that will guaranty that my sacrifices over the next three months won't be in vain. To raise that money, I have gotten "jiggy" with the Internet, as the kids might say, and put a "Paypal" button on my website. No anonymous contributions, please (unless, of course, they're legal under California law; I really haven't read up on the subject). I will need 3,000 dollars American to even get my name on the ballot, and I figure I will need at least twice that to put on an adequate media campaign. So give generously; after all, whether you call it a campaign contribution or a bribe, it's all speech, and I will remember who "spoke" loudly on my behalf at this crucial time.

If this story is true, then the Eagle County D.A. has no choice but to drop the charges. Not just the fact that five witnesses said she was bragging about the incident, including trumpeting his size, but also the fact that someone who was supposedly a rape victim was at a teen party just a few days after the alleged attack. At least, that's what I was told back in law school: a prosecutor is obligated to dismiss charges once he determines that there is no likelihood of success.

And, of course, if the story is false, it's precisely why it's a good policy not to publicize the victim's name. [link via TalkLeft]

There are two kinds of people in this world, blondie: Perhaps the most interesting thing I have ever read about Jimmy Carter is the fact that his favorite film is "Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo".

Yesterday was the biggest day ever for my site, as far as unique visitors are concerned: approaching 2000, without a single new post (until now). The reason, interestingly enough, is that I am the only person to date listed by Google under this search category. Not bad, considering I've pretty much avoided the issue until now; a policy I intend to follow, at least until some of the evidence in that case becomes public, or the people of Colorado actually take the case to trial. But as the invaluable LA Observed notes, others have been less scrupulous, publishing the young girl's name, address, e-mail, phone number, pictures, etc.

Regardless of how you feel about these charges, or about the credibility of the alleged victim, there is something distinctly rank about that sort of thing. There is a good reason the public has frowned on outing women who have brought rape charges, even when it is entirely possible that the allegations are false: anything that might lead to the further humiliation of the victim will discourage other women from coming forward in the future. The act of rape is inherently one that humiliates the victim. It would be counter-productive to intensify that humiliation, particularly when the accused is a wealthy, popular public figure with access to the media.

More to the point, it is the flip side of the criminal ambulance-chasing practiced by Nancy Grace or Dominick Dunne. The courts, by and large, do a pretty effective job sorting out the innocent from the guilty, and where they fail, there are plenty of watchdogs who will point that out. If the woman involved is some nutso groupie with a penchant for basketball stars, or an over-emotional flake seeking attention with these charges, that truth will come out eventually. It does not help matters to attempt to intimidate her (and other women) into silence just because she points the finger at a beloved public figure.

Excellent take on the favorite newspaper for "people who are too lazy to watch television." I've always wondered if any of the bylines for the New York Post are actually legit; Jayson Blair is probably too scrupulous with the facts to get a job there now.

That eclectic multi-city pop festival known as the International Pop Overthrow plays today at Johnny Foxx's in West LA, with shows in the afternoon and evening. Included in today's festivities is reclusive Yooper folkist Annette Summersett, who is both "visually appealing" and a "strong singer-guitarist". Yippee !!!

Which reminds me, I have to get out to a Dodger game sometime soon. It's not that I expect to be entertained by some of the most dull, lifeless athletic performances outside of Serie A. As this article points out, going to Dodger Stadium is an event in itself, encapsulating everything that is sweet and wonderful (and a couple of the things that are crappy--arriving late and leaving early is an expression of our baseball savvy, but it still leaves a bad impression) about living in L.A. The classic steam/grilled Dodger Dog is one of the main reasons to go on living, no matter what bad cards (or Cubs) you're dealt.

Eric Alterman makes some honest but politically incorrect remarks about the causes of hatred in France, the mouthbreathers take violent exception, and then he gets nasty. BTW, what are the odds that some of them will have a logical explanation for this abomination. [link via MaxSpeak]

Well, the good news is, the Lakers figured out what they're going to do with Derek Fisher.

Noted journalist William Greider seems to get the wonderousness that is the b-sphere. He has started a blog, and today he weighs in with questions that would be asked of the President if our country really had a loyal opposition and independent media.

A day like any other...I had one of those experiences that makes me proud to be a lawyer.

A bit of background, first. To supplement my income, I do court appearances for other attorneys, where I can use the same cunning and guile that all of you have come to know and admire. The two areas I usually get work are in bankruptcy and unlawful detainer (ie., the procedure by which the owner of a property evicts a tenant), although for the right price, I will handle other sorts of cases as well. There are about four attorneys who use me exclusively to do their appearances, and it provides me enough money to get by, even when my normal caseload isn't high.

Last night, one of my sources decided to freelance my services. Just before midnight, I get a phone call asking if I would be available to do an appearance at the downtown L.A. Superior Court on a motion to set aside an entry of default. The way the intermediary described it, the hearing would be a slam dunk: our client had been improperly served with the complaint in the unlawful detainer, filed a Motion to Quash Service, only to have the court enter default the following day. An entry of default, btw, is a clerical ruling which notifies the court that a party has been served with a complaint but has not filed a response. If you are a defendant and the other side has entered default, that is a bad thing. The hearing had been held over a day due to the other side not stipulating to having the case heard by a commissioner, and the attorney of record had to be in Victorville (about 150 miles away) on another matter.

Since I was going to be downtown anyway, on another case, I agreed, and gave him my home phone number, which also doubles as my fax number. Bad Move !!! First, because the attorney he was working for didn't get around to actually faxing me the documents until two in the morning. Second, because said attorney decided to fax over eighty (80) pages of repetitive filings in that case. Third, his fax machine couldn't handle the strain, so it frequently broke down in the wee hours; that, of course, meant that my phone rang repeatedly between two and four in the morning. And fourth,...we'll get to that later.

With only a few hours sleep, I drag myself down the Cahuenga Pass to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse downtown. As I'm arriving, I get a phone call from someone who identified himself as "Joe Marmon", counsel of record for my client. He basically tells me that the hearing is a slam dunk, and that there is no way I can lose, and that the judge told him at the initial hearing yesterday that he felt that the opposition was in such bad faith that he wanted to impose sanctions. My bullshit detector immediately went off.

Arriving in court, the judge immediately called our case, and began grilling me as to how I was retained in this matter. After about five minutes of obtaining the minutiae of my legal background and education, he asked if I had ever met Mr. Marman or my clients, what I knew of them, etc. As it turns out, at the appearance the day before, a number of other attorneys had recognized him under another name, as a lawyer who had been disbarred a decade ago. According to the right honorable judge, the only attorney licensed to practice law in the state of California named Joseph Marman practices law up in Sacramento, and that this case was news to him.

As you might have guessed, things didn't go well from there. Regardless of whether the judge bought my story, I had been exposed in a courtroom full of lawyers as a "front", an attorney whose practice exists only to provide a public face to a grifter engaging in the unlicensed practice of law. Needless to say, the judge threw out the motion, adding insult to injury to the real victims of this scam, the clients who had unknowingly retained a conman to prevent their eviction.

This can't be good: Miramax Studios, which rose to prominence in the mid-90's when it took a flyer on Pulp Fiction, has decided to bifurcate the next Quentin Tarantino movie, cleverly titled Kill Bill. Besides the fact that the plot synopsis reveals a movie that might well suck big time, directed by Hollywood's biggest self-parody this side of Brian de Palma, and includes a cast consisting of largely washed-up performers (what, no Demi Moore?), is chopping a film in two really the best way for an independent film to be sold to the public?

A Thought for Bastille Day:

"There were two 'Reigns of Terror', if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the "horrors of the... momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror - that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves."

--Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

My favorite right-wing columnist, Jill Stewart, is at it again, attacking a number of worthies who are backing Gray Davis in his attempt to survive the GOP mulligan that is the recall attempt. It's worth reading, both as an example of her hyper-charged writing style, and because she has a point, which is that the Democratic governor of California is as purchased as most Republican office-holders (in fact, many of Davis' contributors are Republican, such as Jerry Perenchio).

However, I do have a problem with one itty-bitty little thing. She probably could have used the help of a fact-checker. At one point, she refers to Stephen Bing, who gave $100k to the governor, as a "brat New York heir". In fact, I happen to know that is untrue. The Bing and I attended the same high school, in North Hollywood, back in the day. His parents are big-time donors to Stanford University. His grandfather did make his money in New York, but the whole point is kind of stupid, anyway. What difference could it possibly make, unless "New York" is supposed to be a euphemism for something else?

Bing is, in fact, a brat Los Angeles heir, who happens to give generously to many philanthropies and worthy causes. He has also written scripts for crappy sit-coms and movies (incl. Kangaroo Jack), and has just directed a movie. He got a bad rap for insisting that Elizabeth Hurley take a paternity test to prove he was the father of their lovechild (a not unwise decision, considering the fact that Ms. Hurley was a very active woman during the brief time they were "dating"). He may well be a dirtbag, for all I know, but I would assume that a reason he contributed money to the governor is that he believed, perhaps naively, that Davis is doing a good job, and shouldn't be recalled. But that would require actually accepting that people can disagree with you and not be the spawn of Satan, a concept that may be difficult for Ms. Stewart to understand.

At the command of MaxSpeak, I add William Greider's website to my list of worthies to the right. The "Regular Rants" feature has the potential to metamorphosize into a blog, which would be really keen.

Tonight is the annual Vicki Zale B-day Bash at Joxer's in Culver City. It's open to the public, there will be great music and drinks, and the only present you need bring is a pleasant disposition.

Here's a cagy way out of the California budget impasse: have the State Supreme Court declare that some item (ie., education, assistance for the blind, etc.) is a fundamental right, and order that the legislature approve its funding by majority (as opposed to 2/3) vote. The state gets its budget, the GOP doesn't have to vote on a tax increase, while still getting to play its recall games, and life can go on. Not that I'm supporting such a stunt....

What's wrong with this picture? CBS reports that the White House knew that the information Bush used in the State of the Union address about Iraq buying uranium from Africa was not true (or "might not be true") before he made the speech. Bush uses that information anyway. The White House acknowledges this week that the information was bogus. To date, no one responsible has been fired, no resignations accepted, no heads have rolled, for allowing the Commander in Chief to publicly misstate the facts before the American people. Thus, there is a presumption that the President endorsed the misstatement, at least retroactively.

So why shouldn't we place the blame with the President? Whatever happened to "the buck stops here"? Professor, if I go into court and say something that is untrue, and that untruth is critical to my argument before the court, and I don't take steps to correct the record, I'm gonna get sanctioned big time by the judge, and probably by the State Bar as well (see State Bar of Arkansas v. Bill Clinton). It doesn't matter if I simply garbled my words, or made a statement that I thought to be true at the time; as an "officer of the court", I have an ethical responsibility once I know the truth to act appropriately, and not allow any misstatements I might make to sway the court. If you don't promptly correct a misstatement, you've lied.

One of the more underrated men in American history is Bob Moses, who played a critical role in organizing the voting rights movement in Mississippi forty years ago. Anyone who has ever read the histories of that period will run into his name again and again, whether it be in Taylor Branch's magisterial two-volume biographies of MLK, or Todd Gitlin's memoir, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, or anyplace else that touches on that period in American history. Moses was a reluctant warrior, whose "leadership style" often consisted of asking indigent sharecroppers what they thought their problems were, and how best they thought their problems could be solved, rather than dictating solutions from on high.

In The Nation this week, a number of writers take up the theme of "American Rebels". Included among such noted rabblerousers as Walt Whitman, I.F. Stone, Dorothy Day, and Paul Wellstone is Bob Moses. While it is gratifying to see Mr. Moses get his due, the tone of the article, written by Tom Hayden, as well as the company in which he is kept (the other nine people profiled are dead), is funereal. Far from eulogizing someone who is still amongst the living, and refighting ancient battles from the 1964 Democratic Convention, Mr. Hayden should have spent more time discussing Moses' latest endeavor, The Algebra Project, which attempts to give low-income students the necessary math skills to succeed in the 21st Century. Not every progressive battle need be viewed in the past tense.

A great thing about reading Bill James is that you develop a resistance to the moronic statistical analysis laid out in this Slate article, about the 2003 All-Star Game. Listen, dude, batting average is a cricket stat; don't use it to analyze Troy Glaus, Brian Giles, and Scott Rolen.

The difficulties of fighting terrorism: Newsweek profiles the "Jihad" soccer team, which for a time was both the best team in Hebron and one of the most terrifying collection of suicide bombers in the Middle East.

Requiem for a Sycophant: a devasting "obituary" of Mr. Samgrass, by a former protege. The money quote:

D.C. has finally gotten to him. That must be the main explanation. Yes, there are other factors to consider, but the D.C. Beast frames and distorts the thinking. Few on the Beltway's A List fret about crushing other countries. They enjoy it. They like the view from atop the growing pile of bodies. Always have. You can't live among these types for 20-plus years without some of their madness infecting your brain. And I'm afraid this madness, and the verbiage that covers it, is becoming more evident in Christopher.

I can barely read him anymore. His pieces in the Brit tabloid The Mirror and in Slate are a mishmash of imperial justifications and plain bombast; the old elegant style is dead. His TV appearances show a smug, nasty scold with little tolerance for those who disagree with him. He looks more and more like a Ralph Steadman sketch. And in addition to all this, he's now revising what he said during the buildup to the Iraq war.

In several pieces, including an incredibly condescending blast against Nelson Mandela, Hitch went on and on about WMD, chided readers with "Just you wait!" and other taunts, fully confident that once the U.S. took control of Iraq, tons of bio/chem weapons and labs would be all over the cable news nets--with him dancing a victory jig in the foreground. Now he says WMD were never a real concern, and that he'd always said so. It's amazing that he'd dare state this while his earlier pieces can be read at his website. But then, when you side with massive state power and the cynical fucks who serve it, you can say pretty much anything and the People Who Matter won't care.

[link via Atrios]
More pathetic, though, is the fact that Hitchens doesn't seem to care that the quality of his work has slipped, even though it effects his credibility not only on what he writes now, but what he wrote in the past. Anyone who dowdifies (or is it sullivanates)Paul Begala, here, or, even more recently, is unable to distinguish between John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer calls into question whether he was as careless fact-checking when his subject was Henry Kissinger or Mother Theresa. Or maybe the booze caught up with him.

This doesn't mean much, but according to this test, my ideal Presidential candidate is a tie between John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich, with John Edwards right behind.

I don't think this story deserves much comment until prosecutors decide whether to proceed, but here is the LA Times story on the arrest of Kobe Bryant.

Her legion of devoted fans will no doubt be overjoyed at this news: English character actress Phoebe Nicholls will be returning to American TV screens later this year, in Prime Suspect 6. Phoe-Nix and Helen Mirren, together at last: what a time to be alive !!!

Some thoughts on the 4th:

... Independence Day was designed by the first state propaganda agency, Woodrow Wilson's Committee on Public Information (CPI), created during World War I to whip a pacifist country into anti-German frenzy and, incidentally, to beat down the threat of labor....
-Noam Chomsky

Discuss.

After a six hour drive, I can now begin a long weekend in the Bay Area. The holiday is tomorrow, and my sister's baby shower is the day after. Other then that, the weekend is open....

As matters stand entering tonight's action, the Dodgers are 4 1/2 games behind in the NL West, and a game and a half back in the wild card, but you could hardly tell that if you live here. The contempt for the team locally is almost palpable, especially after getting swept by the Angels last weekend, scoring only two runs in the process. The Dodgers not only reek in comparison with the defending champions, but also their hated rivals from the north, the Giants, and this year's media darling, the Oakland A's.

The team has remained in contention entirely because of its formidable pitching staff; if Gagne, Perez, and Nomo were to pull up lame, the Dodgers would be as bad as the Padres. Outside of LoDuca (and maybe Jordan, who's now on the DL), the everyday lineup is atrocious, while former scapegoat Gary Sheffield compiles MVP numbers in Atlanta.

The problem starts at the front office. News Corp. originally purchased the Dodgers for all the wrong reasons, but principally to corner the local sports cable TV market. It succeeded, but Rupert the Mad has done little, if anything, to correct the atrophy that began in the front office with the death of Walter O'Malley in 1979. The team took pride in the fact that its players played baseball "the Dodger way", but failed to take account of the changing nature of the sport.

Dan Evans, therefore, is merely the latest in a series of incompetent general managers, going back to the 1980's. It started during the tenure of Al Campanis, who, for all the controversy later associated with his name, actually provided the tools for the long-term growth of the team in the '70's. However, beginning in 1982, he made a series of colossally stupid trades (Sutcliffe for Orta, Dave Stewart for Rick Hunnycutt, Sid Fernandez for Bob Bailor), and had he not put his foot in his mouth on Nightline in April, 1987 (Quickie Trivia: Name the other historic sporting event held that same night--winner gets the usual night on the town, compliments of me), he would have been fired in a year or two anyway. Fred Claire did make a couple decent moves to help the team win the '88 Series, and he pretty much forced Lasorda to play the products of the farm system after the '92 season, but otherwise failed spectacularly, and his tenure will forever be linked to the Piazza trade (which, ironically, he didn't have anything to do with). Kevin Malone actually seemed to know what he was doing, rebuilding the farm system, trading for Shawn Green, and sending a message to the rest of the baseball by signing Kevin Brown, but never survived his boast about being the "new sheriff in town", and ultimately was bullied out of town by the local media.

Now it's Dan Evans' turn. One would be hard-pressed to find a sensible trade or personnel move since he took over. Although he's only been in charge for two years, he has the misfortune of being the exact opposite of Billy Beane the same year MoneyBall gets published. Beane is famous for signing players almost exclusively based on their ability to get on base; the Dodgers don't seem to know what OBP means. Beane makes a virtue out of necessity by ignoring the conventional wisdom, and drafting players according to their potential to do some very elementary things, like draw walks; the Dodgers draft high school pitchers in the first round. The A's value their farm system; the Dodgers use it to acquire Terry Mulholland at mid-season for the pennant drive.

As a fan of the team for what is now going on thirty-two years, I would almost be relieved if they were to fall out of contention in the next few weeks. At the very least, it would speed up the time table for Fox to sell the club. But most importantly, it would alleviate any pressure on Dan Evans to make a quick-fix trade. Better just to wait til the end of the season to blow the whole dang thing up.

Thanks to the oft-overruled progressive Ninth Circuit, it looks like I can update my blogroll, as this post is no longer operative.

As long as we're talking about bigots, check out this diatribe. If I were a Palestinian, and I thought that most Israelis shared this writer's racist sentiments, I would join Hamas tomorrow. Non-violent political action is worthwhile only if the other side is willing to acknowledge your humanity. [link via Michael Totten]

The reviews are in: NaziPundit's latest screed is, shall we say, a little short in the fact department. Incidentally, a thought experiment for those who believe that the above nickname is unfair: simply replace the word "liberal" (or any variation of same) with the word "Jew", and don't tell me that the quoted passages don't read like something out of Mein Kampf.

Although I have supported, and will continue to support, his inevitable promotion to the Supreme Court, I have to say that Prof. Volokh uses a very imperfect analogy in defending Clarence Thomas against the attack that he has used race to get to where he is, only to "pull up the ladder" once he got there. The issue isn't whether Thomas' opposition to affirmative action is based on principle, on how he reads the Constitution. While contrasting that stand with his personal history (I think it's safe to say that he was not the most qualified person for nomination to the high court back in 1991) is amusing, it's no more so than noting Hugo Black's membership in the KKK in light of his subsequent liberalism on civil rights. One can argue that it is a sign of growth that someone can look at the advantages one has received and question their fairness. In any event, as far as I can tell no one is demanding that he vote to preserve affirmative action solely because he has benefitted from it.

What is at issue with Justice Thomas is his recurring use of race (and racism) to defend himself. He can't have it both ways: denouncing affirmative action as little more than "racial aesthetics", while making semi-annual pronouncements of his victimization for not "toeing the line" on the lib'ral civil rights agenda, is going to piss a lot of people off. I, for one, will start taking his opinions as seriously as I take Scalia's the moment he cans the self-pity.

And he apologizes to Anita Hill.

Jesse Taylor of Pandagon has happened accross a blog posting that may well challenge Andrew Sullivan's infamous attempt to parody a Maureen Down column as the dumbest thing ever published over the Internet. George Santayana was right.

Rumor has it that the Charlie's Angels sequel just out this week leaves a lot to be desired in the plot area, which for me makes it an ideal moviegoing experience. Films that are more substance than style can be viewed more comfortably (and cheaply) in the privacy of one's home, whereas a movie like this (or last week's example, The Hulk) needs to be viewed on a big screen to be wholly appreciated.

BTW, it's only been out a day, and I'm already tired of the hype about Demi Moore. Of course she looks great--she's Demi Freaking Moore. And if I could spend $400k on plastic surgery and a makeover, I bet I'd also look damn good in a pair of Speedos.

This story is impossible to read without having your heart broken: a mother's reaction to the death of her son, soccer star Marc-Vivien Foe.

I often disagree with him, but Michael Totten speaks quite eloquently in this post, about the non-response by the U.S. to the ongoing tragedy in Liberia.

As expected, LaBron James was the first pick in the NBA draft, taken by the Cavaliers (dig their new unis !) The Lakers selected Brian Cook out of Illinois, and Luke Walton, whose dad still owes us for '77, from Arizona. Special congrats to Tommy Smith of ASU, who got drafted by the Chicago Bulls in the second round: he's the uncle of my former lawclerk's son, and is a tremendous shotblocker who moves like a point guard.

FREE AT LAST !!

"State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision...."
--Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting opinion, Lawrence v. Texas

Hmmm, Governor Steve Smith...it does have a nice ring to it.

Since he can no longer fashion a coherent argument, Mr. Samgrass has now taken to defending the human rights record of North Vietnam in the 60's and 70's, in an attempt to slam the war record of John Kerry, to wit:

"...not even the most Stalinized of the Vietnamese leadership ever ran a regime, or proposed an ideology, as vile as that of Saddam Hussein. Indeed, Ho Chi Minh in 1945 modeled his declaration of independence on the words of Thomas Jefferson, appealed for American help against France, and might have got it if FDR had lived. Uncle Ho shared in the delusion that there could be an anti-colonial and anti-dictatorial empire."

Pardon my french, but, is he shitting me? Try going into Fullerton or Costa Mesa sometime and saying that. Uncle Ho, Pol Pot, and the rest of those SOB's could match Saddam, corpse for corpse.

Remember the story a couple of months ago, that various documents had turned up showing that a British M.P., George Galloway, had taken payoffs from the Iraqi government. Well, as it turns out, one set of the documents turned out to be forgeries.

Many visitors to this site don’t spend every waking hour, either at the office or in their mom’s basement, glued to the blogosphere. For those of you who don’t know who George Galloway is, he is a bete noire among the far right, a left-wing British politician who was publicly opposed to our great adventure in the Persian Gulf. After the war, a journalist for an English tabloid, the Daily Telegraph, “discovered” documents purportedly linking Galloway, through a Jordanian third-party, to a scheme in which he was to be paid a percentage on barrels of oil sold by the Iraqi government. A couple of days later, the Christian Science Monitor published an article concerning documents that showed direct payments to Galloway.

The usual suspects in the b-sphere jumped all over this; for them, it proved that a “Fifth Column” actually existed, that opponents of the war were acting not out of sincere disapproval to aggressive action, or out of skepticism at the tall tales concerning WMD’s, but out of a desire to coddle fascist dictators. In combination with the “mass graves” argument, it was an effective rejoinder to those who had any questions about the direction of American foreign policy.

As it turns out, though, the documents published by the CSM were forgeries. Their source had been an Iraqi general who had also attempted to pass forged documents implicating Galloway to another English tabloid. Since the forged documents had been potentially more damning, dealing as they did with direct payments to the M.P., rather than efforts by a third party to obtain some bakhsheesh using Galloway’s good name, that would have seemed to stick a fork in the “scandal”. After all, the “self-correcting” mechanism that is supposed to be inherent in the blogosphere, that is supposed to make what we do the next stage in the evolution of journalism, would demand that those bloggers who hyped the story in the first place make the appropriate apologies, retract their earlier posts, and hopefully promise to be more careful (and more skeptical) in the future.

But that is not what happened. Instead, the response has been to downplay the CSM’s retraction, even asserting that the article “authenticates” the Telegraph’s documents. No references to their earlier posts, when they based so much of their attack on the tangible “proof” that Galloway had taken bribes from Saddam Hussein; instead, it is as if their original post had never been published. How Rainesian. Blogosphere loses.

In fact, in order to keep this story going, they use a bit of dowdification in citing the CSM article. The Monitor alluded that the experts they employed to analyze their documents also reviewed copies of the Telegraph’s documents, and concluded that they “seemed genuine”. This gets trumpeted to mean that those experts had determined that those documents were not forgeries. But, in fact, the article doesn’t conclude that.

For one thing, the Monitor’s experts were dealing with copies of the documents, and could not therefore make any analysis as to the ink, the paper or any other aspect that might have called the original documents into question. More importantly, however, was the context in which the experts reviewed the copies of the Telegraph documents. According to the Monitor, the determination made by the experts concerned whether the Monitor documents and the Telegraph documents were textually consistent with other documents generated over the years by the Iraqi government. Their expert concluded that while the Monitor documents were too neat, seemed to advance too quickly through the bureaucracy to be genuine, and were too direct in naming the officials in question, rather than using euphemisms, the Telegraph’s documents were “…consistent, unlike their Monitor counterparts, with authentic Iraqi documents he [had] seen.”

The above passage is the only reference to the alleged authenticity of the documents purported to have been discovered by the Telegraph. What isn’t mentioned is that the above review only called into question the authenticity of the Monitor documents; it wasn’t until they analyzed the ink and paper that they concluded that the documents in question had been recently generated, and were therefore forgeries. No such review was done by the Monitor’s experts on the Telegraph documents. It is therefore disingenuous to suggest that the Telegraph documents were authenticated, when the originals weren’t even reviewed. And, of course, where two of the three sets of documents contemporaneously discovered on this subject turned out to be forgeries, a fair-minded observer might wonder about that third set.

No one blames the bloggers in question for running with the story when it first came out. It was juicy, it seemed to come from a reliable source, and it allowed them to smear their adversaries without a second thought. However, if the blogosphere is going to maintain its credibility, it must be quick not only to respond to errors, but to make the appropriate retractions when we make mistakes. Our blogs are our own little newspapers, and the permalinks we set are our sources. If we screw up, then we are obligated to go public, and not stonewall behind bogus interpretations of the truth. That sort of thing makes bloggers no better Jayson Blair.

I haven't bought (and hadn't really intended to buy) either the Sidney Blumenthal or the Hillary Clinton memoirs; autobiographies really aren't my cup of tea, and spending upwards of $35 on a hard-cover book that I probably wouldn't read for months anyways does not appear to be a good investment. But I'm starting to vacillate on The Clinton Wars, especially after reading this Richard Cohen column today. As he points out, the twisted mentality of the right during the Clinton Presidency has survived, and many of the same people in both the government and the media who pushed the "scandals" of that era are in power today. Blumenthal's history of that era covers events that are still fresh in the memory, and certain people have a vested interest in trying to discredit the messenger.

The Supreme Court's split decision on the affirmative action programs at Michigan is the big news today. I'm not going to read the decisions for awhile (those who care for more thorough legal analysis should go here, here, or here), but I can't help but think that this is at least a huge symbolic victory for supporters of the policy. Since the Bakke decision, there had been an inexorable movement in the courts towards banning race-based remedies, and I think that a lot of people assumed the Supreme Court would definitively strike down affirmative action this time. Although the Court's ruling left state laws like Prop. 209 in California on the books, it takes a lot of the momemtum away from affirmative action opponents, who must now acknowledge that government programs that seek racial diversity as a goal are constitutional.

Excellent piece by Michael Kinsley on why George Bush's dishonesty in leading our country into war hasn't resonated with the public, a sizable percentage of which believes that we have discovered WMD's. [link via Roger L. Simon] It's a cynical take, though, and one that I don't necessarily buy. I think that the issue will linger, in much the same way that the public expressed hostility to the efforts to drive Bill Clinton out of office, but nevertheless remembered Monica L. at the ballot box in 2000. When conservatives like George Will, Bill Keller, and William F. Buckley say that the non-discovery of WMD's matters, it matters.

Two other points bear repeating. First, public opinion in America always believes that we are in the right, at least initially. It believed that invading Mexico was justified in 1846 (and almost ended the career of an anti-war congressman named Abraham Lincoln in the process). It believed that the Spanish really blew up the Maine. It believed that the U.S. really was attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. For many people, patriotism literally means, my country right or wrong.

Second, it is always important for our elected representatives to tell the truth, especially about matters of policy. Those who say that it doesn't matter that Bush stretched the truth a little to trick us into a war, since Saddam was an evil dictator, have a hard time explaining why we should believe him on that issue, or anything else (ie., Iran). Supporters of the President can't plausibly use the discovery of "mass graves" as a justification for the war, as a point of comparison to the liberation of Auschwitz and Treblinka at the end of World War II, since the U.S. didn't start that war: we were attacked, remember. FDR didn't invent Pearl Harbor.

Debuting Monday: NaziPundit. Somehow, I doubt that site will be a fixture on my blogroll.

It's funny, because it's true: For all who have ever attended law school, and for the people who still love them, Prof. Volokh has provided a handy set of maxims on "equity". To which I add, O Equity, where is thy sting?

If there actually was such a thing as the "liberal media", it would look like this. [link via Altercation]

The second edition of Valley Beat is out. This time, other than the cover story (about cyber cafes in Northridge attracting the wrong sort of crowd), there is but a solitary article that has anything to do with the Valley, concerning a West Hills woman who abandoned her baby in a hospital parking lot (unless you count the brief note about the proposed lap dancing ordinance as "Valley-related"). The remaining 55 pages are LA Weekly-lite, with the exception of an "anti-PC" slam at the LA Times (concerning the infamous Carroll Memo, covered here) that was commonplace to the point of banality at the late and lamented New Times L.A..

In any event, nothing's changed. The restaurant review, in a weekly purportedly serving half the city, was about a taqueria in Hollywood. No Casa Vega. No Jill Stewart. A disturbing trend developes.

Blocking the confirmation of a number of judicial nominees has become the painless way for Democrats to act out the role of an opposition party, to paint the President as an extremist without having to take any hard positions on their own. The pending nomination of former Ken Starr protoge/hatchetman Brett Kavanaugh is a sign that the Bush Administration is no longer serious about significantly altering the ideological position of the federal courts: by picking a nominee who has no chance of confirmation, and who can be filibustered even easier than Charles Pickering or Miguel Estrada, he sends a message to his base that he's on their side, without having to concern himself with the possibility that his nominee will embarass him with a controversial ruling from the bench before the next election.

For Democrats, this will be like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel. Besides writing the Starr Report, Kavanaugh was one of the more obsessive investigators hunting leads on the death of Vincent Foster, at one point arguing before the Supreme Court that the attorney-client privilege expires upon the death of a client. This nomination allows Senate Democrats the chance to conjure up the spectre of Kenneth Starr, a prospect that already has the party base salivating. Bush, on the other hand, appeases his base, then gets the political benefit of nominating a less reactionary candidate when a Supreme Court vacancy opens up. Both sides win by this doomed nomination; the only loser is the hapless Mr. Kavanaugh.

This sort of mythomania would be hilarious if it didn't impact public policy so gravely: the non-partisan website Spinsanity reports on the invented charge that Senator Robert Byrd criticized the cost of President Bush's stuntflying on board the USS Abraham Lincoln last month. Because Byrd has a well-earned rep for delivering pork to his constituents, the media could charge him with being a hypocrite. Too bad the charge wasn't true: when the senior Senator from West Virginia made his May 7th speech on the well of the Senate, he didn't mention whether taxpayer funds were burned for the photo op. In fact, it was Henry Waxman who requested that the GAO investigate.

It is a thing to behold the Fourth Estate at work...by the time the media got done, Senator Byrd's eloquent speech had been turned into a shrill partisan denunciation. It's not hard to fact-check something. With my limited resources and staff, I still have access to Google, and thanks to the magic of the Internet, I was able to read the Byrd speech on my own; I would venture a guess that almost all of the people quoted in the Spinsanity piece had access to Nexis, and/or other more powerful search engines, plus interns, a secretary, a staff, editors, etc.

And yet each of those writers chose to propagate a falsehood. Coming on the heels of some other recent myths (ie., the stories of Jayson Blair, the Whitewater "scandal", allegations that Al Gore claimed to have "invented" the Internet, the false claim that the New York Times disproportionately covered the discriminatory policies at Augusta, etc.) that have gained credence, it is fair to wonder if a "free press" continues to serve any useful social purpose. If a reporter does not care about the truth, then what exactly is the Constitution protecting?

No point on trying to improve on this blogger's take on the story that the President is accusing yet another country of having WMD, except to point out what I wrote last week. Oh, what a tangled web we weave....

American sports fans are often surprised at how relatively low the salaries of European soccer players are. A variation of the reserve clause, long outlawed in American sports, continues to exists overseas, allowing a team to keep a player indefinitely. In the case of a few star players, some freedom of movement does exist, but the teams can keep salaries within reason by "transferring" a player to another team, in effect swapping a star for cash.

Such is what happened today, when the world's most famous athlete, David Beckham (as in Bend It Like...) was sold today to Real Madrid for $41 million. The former Manchester United star, who is sort of a combination of Kobe Bryant and Ben Affleck (according to a recent poll in his new home country, he is second behind Brad Pitt in terms being the "sexual fantasy" of Spanish women--btw, that same poll has me in third), and whose rabid following has been known to do some rather unusual things in honor of their hero, will earn about $9 million a year from the transaction, making him one of the most well-paid soccer players in Europe, which is still less than what the average free agent makes in baseball or basketball. Chuck Finley and Brad Radke made as much money last season. Zydrunas Ilgauskas "earned" even more.

Selling a player, rather than trading him straight up for other players or draft picks, allows the team to control the market for the services of athletes. Beckham's only leverage was to refuse the deal, a move he made last week when he refused a deal that would have sent him to FC Barcelona, but he did not have the ability to put his services up to the highest bidder. Obviously, playing in America is no option, as it was back in the glory days of the North American Soccer League; only a few national leagues have teams that have the wherewithal to financially compete for the top players, creating a system dominated by less than a dozen teams. Anyone who thinks that "small market" teams have it bad in baseball should take a look at the English Premier League, where every year the league title is a foregone conclusion for United or Arsenal.

blogomania (bläg‘ō mān‘ēو) n a persistent compulsion to post entries in one's weblog (or "blog"), based on the irrational belief that in doing so, one is providing a benefit to the public.

United no more: our "special relationship" with Great Britain has now been rocked by our ally's unwillingness to share its secrets.

The last word on l'affaire Raines goes to Frank Rich. Remarkable how the three most significant pundits of the past thirty years were not political reporters, but instead were an ad-man turned speechwriter (Safire), a drama critic (Rich), and an economics prof (Krugman). [link via Matt Welch]

If the owner is a man of his word, today the Sherman Oaks Lounge will celebrate its last day on the planet (at least until the football season starts, when it has (hopefully) reopened at its new address) with a real wake: all beer goes for a buck. They ran out of Chimay last night, and the pool table is gone, but still...you can't beat that.

UPDATE: Not a man of his word !! The place was shut all day (and I checked, on several occasions). What I hate about it is that I knew there was a good chance he was lying to me at the time, and he knew I knew he was probably lying, but he made the above promise anyways.