I've thought it odd that the Bush Administration hasn't been as obsessed about the Oil-for-Food "scandal" as their cheerleaders in the blogosphere. You'd think anything that shows the U.N. in a bad light would be like manna from heaven for these guys, but it turns out, they may have had reason not to dwell on corruption in someone else's backyard. The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the even more questionable activities of the Development Fund for Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars are unaccounted for under American supervision.

When you can't even count on the character of Nancy Grace, what is our legal system coming to?

Desperate Housewife? Laura Bush lied !!!

I don't care how reactionary this makes me sound, this billboard sickens me. As a lifelong Angeleno, I have been more than willing to accept, even laugh at, jokes and ridicule about my city. But for some media conglomerate, in a desperate reach for ratings, to link Los Angeles with a corrupt pseudo-democracy, ruled by a one-party oligarchy in thrall to oil companies, kleptocrats, and the scions of a few elite families, a government possessed of not a shred of human decency, backward and intolerant to the core, paying only lip service to civil liberties and due process, and utterly contemptuous of the rights of minorities, in total betrayal of its own honorable revolutionary past, is, to me, vile and repugnant.

It almost makes me wish someone would put up a billboard linking Los Angeles to Mexico....

Prof. Warren informs us of a cute little valentine Congress included in the "reform" act it just passed, a 30% increase in the filing fee for debtors. Ostensibly to finance the appointment of 28 new judges to the Bankruptcy Court, which will be all-the-more necessary to deal with what the bill's sponsors promised would be a steep decline in filings under the new law, the professor points out that the math just doesn't add up.

Although she sees the surplus from the fee hike going into general revenues, acting as a hidden "tax increase" upon the segment of the population most vulnerable, there is another explanation as to how the money will be spent. In the past, filing fees have gone up in direct correlation with the increase in the minimum assessment paid out in what are called "no asset" cases to the Chapter 7 Trustee, the court-appointed administrator who oversees the debtor's estate in every filing. The Trustee makes money off the big estates that he liquidates on behalf of creditors, for which he receives a pre-set percentage, but his office keeps afloat on what he earns from the "no asset" cases, which constitute the overwhelming majority (say, at least 80% of the cases assigned to him). When there are a lot of estates to administer, that assessment is a steady source of income, and if it's too low, the ability of the Trustee to go after estates with larger assets suffers.

Bankruptcies, of course, are likely going to go down, at least initially, when the act goes into effect in five and a half months. In addition, asset cases will become a rarity under the new law, since debtors with substantial assets free and clear of liens will be forced (along with everyone else whose income exceeds the local average) into Chapter 13, where creditors are repaid through a court-approved plan, or even into the more expensive (and complicated) Chapter 11.
So why the increase? Clearly, Chapter 7 Trustees will continue to play a vital role in the new system; I suspect that the U.S. Trustee will be forced to rely on them to bring many of the motions called for under the new law, including those that seek to convert or dismiss many of the cases that have now been defined as having been filed in "bad faith". But with fewer filings, those administrators will have less money to work with, while incurring exponentially higher costs. In fact, it is precisely this additional paperwork that will make bankruptcy law even more lucrative for its practitioners.

Thus, the seemingly ludicrous fee increase is being promoted to finance some of the chaos that will ensue at the end of the year, when the new law goes into effect. The Trustees are going to see their minimum assessments increased, the court administration will see an increase in its funding, and judges will receive a reduction in their workload, thanks to the appointment of the 28 new judges. And of course, lawyers like myself are going to do quite well under the new law. The only people who lose are going to be the poor suckers who are forced to resort to the bankruptcy courts for relief from their debts. But then again, that's the whole point, isn't it?

The War on Terror: How we lost.

In the movie Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg creates a scene where the mother of the title character gets the horrible news about her other sons by showing a convoy of automobiles converging on her house, each carrying a representative of the military who will inform her that her children have died in the service of their country. According to the LA Times, such a scene was an anachronism: the military didn't start that practice until Vietnam, for the most part sending telegrams in earlier wars. The entire procedure of notifying the next of kin is quite moving, with the military assuming a responsibility for the lives of its own that one wishes the rest of the government would emulate.

Pajama Party: Perhaps I'm missing something, but this sounds like it might be a pretty good idea. In the tradition of United Artists Films, a number of uberbloggers have decided to pool their resources and create the New Media version of U.S. Steel, a conglomerate that will do to blogs what AOL did to the Internet, transforming Our Thing from a hobbyist's playground into a grand entrepreneurial venture. The idea is to aggregate the muscle of some of the more popular websites into something more attractive for big-time advertisers, creating an economy of scale that would allow smaller sites affiliated with the big boys (such as the site you're reading) to wet their beaks, as it were. In addition, they hope to create a blogger "news service" that would provide better access to a wider range of websites, particularly overseas. In short, a mighty ambitious calling.

I have no idea whether these people will ultimately make a fortune, but I'm pretty certain that a business along these lines will inevitably succeed. Someone will eventually bring together the independent blogger and corporate advertiser, and it makes sense that the first people willing to travel into this brave new world are proprietors of websites that already reach hundreds of thousands of readers. The fact that many of them are conservatives (but not all; one of the prime movers is an editor at The Nation) has no relevance; who even knows what politics the creators of E-Bay or Amazon have. This isn't a liberal or conservative idea; it's the future.

Noel Gallagher?
Bono, on Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin:

When told recently that Martin would eventually like to take U2's place, Bono seemed flattered. "Well, they may be the ones to do it," he said. "They have the legs to go a long way if they keep their concentration. Chris is a songwriter in the high British line of Paul McCartney and Ray Davies and Noel Gallagher.

I assume the Gallagher reference is Bono's little joke, like a baseball manager saying that "Milton Bradley is in the high line of great power hitters, of Henry Aaron and Ted Williams and Willie Aikens."

Anyways, what is with Robert Hilburn's obsession with British rock groups? At least three times a year, the LA Times rock critic will hype some Brit (ie., The Jesus and Mary Chain, Blur, Prodigy, Coldplay, etc.) as being the next Great White Hope, the group or singer that will reestablish British hegemony over the pop music scene in America, and end the collective slump that nation has had since the mid-80's. It's become as boring as his biannual column debating which '70's icon belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and, surprise, surprise, the predicted British Invasion never seems to take root much beyond the teenagers of Pacific Palisades or Rolling Hills Estates. Hilburn reminds me of the old farts in my youth who used to predict that rock 'n roll was just a passing fad, and that Big Bands were going to make a comeback, sure enough. Just give it a rest.

Blair Lied.

Something to think about when the "nuclear option" gets debated: more than half the members of the U.S. Senate won election to that body by margins greater than twenty percent of the vote, and most of the Senators who won by less than ten percent were Republicans.

Usually an overlooked tournament staffed by NHL underachievers and foreign "stars" not good enough to play in the league, the Hockey World Championships begin Saturday in Vienna with an unusually deep pool of talent. For the couple of dozen hockey fans still left, it will present a unique opportunity to watch some of the stars we knew and loved back when they still played the sport in North America.

Sith Happens: Silent Bob loves Revenge of the Sith !!

Frumpishly cute actress Maggie Gyllenhaal* is one of the select cabal of celebrities hired to blog on the upcoming Arianna Huffington website, and she's already proven her New Media bona fides by making an asinine remark about America's "responsibility" for 9/11. I can't defend the substance of her remark, which is tantamount to saying that the victims of any warcrime bear some responsibilty for their injury. What I admire, though, is the fact that when the s*** hit the fan, she didn't back down, or claim that she was misquoted, or in any way avoid responsibility for the tenor of her remarks. If she's willing to piss off a large chunk of the population by speaking her mind, and not have her site run by her publicist, the way most celebrity blogs have been, her blog might actually be worth reading.

*Class of '95, Harvard-Westlake

As I suspected, the real Gannon Scandal wasn't that he got to playact as a "reporter" in the White House, but that someone in the White House allowed him to use that dodge for other purposes. Secret Service records show that Mr. Guckert paid dozens of visits to the White House on days when there were no scheduled press briefings, and other times failed to check out after visiting, contrary to policy concerning day passes. Either the Secret Service is the world's most incompetent law enforcement agency, or Guckert was seeing somebody important.

McDiarmid Watch: Benedict XVI--Jedi or Sith? You make the call....

OK, in the alternative universe depicted on 24, there has been a massive train wreck, the kidnapping of the Secretary of Defense, a nuclear meltdown, a Downtown blackout, and the shooting down of Air Force One, and with it the near-killing of the President, all occurring within a sixteen-hour period in the greater Los Angeles Area. This comes in the wake of other recent nightmares, in which terrorists have blown a plane out of the sky, tried to assasinate a Presidential candidate, detonated a nuclear warhead in the Mojave Desert, and unleashed a deadly bioweapon in a local hotel.

Yet tonight, the villain, Habib Marwan, somehow managed to find a club just east of Downtown that was still open, with resiliant local patrons drinking, dancing, and partying like it's 1999, oblivious to the fact that several 9/11-events have once again happened in our community, all on the same day. I suppose if Bauer just tortures the club owner, we could get to the bottom of this.

This afternoon I attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which is said to be the largest of its type in this country. It's a two-day festival, and most of the panels I would have wanted to attend occurred yesterday, but seein' is how the NFL Draft conflicted, I would rather have followed the Odyssey of Aaron Rodgers than hear Hugh Hewitt bloviate about the Brave New World of the blogosphere (and btw, is there anything more laughable than a blogger whose motto is "Democrats must be destroyed" opining about moral deficits in his opponents; anyone who encounters the violent partisanship of his blog comes away with the clear impression that the compassionate message of Jesus Christ is not one that has left much of a mark on his life). So today was the day I visited the Kingdom of Wooden.

The Festival is spread out over the enormous campus, with much of the space devoted to a wide assortment of book publishers. There are anywhere from 10 to 15 panels going on at once, and obtaining tickets beforehand (they are free) is necessary to assure oneself of a seat, although stand-by seating is available for the early bird. There are also readings by noted authors, such as Walter Mosley, that are open to the public, as well as an assortment of stages and a food court (one served a pretty decent BBQ tri-tip). Unless you plan to walk over a mile, it is suggested that you avail yourself of the free shuttle buses from the campus parking lots. If you are unfamiliar with UCLA, you should use some of your free time to check out where your next panel is going to take place.

I managed to attend two panels. The first appealed to the former history major in me, a panel on the art of the biography, where a number of writers explained the process of creating compelling stories about historical figures as disparate as Marie Curie, J.K. Galbraith and the daughters of George III. The second panel was a discussion of whether the U.S. is making the world "safe for democracy", and, if so, whether the way we are going about doing so is the optimal method over the long haul. Held in the cavernous Royce Hall, the discussion, while enlightening, was marred by the propensity of the audience members to applaud like trained seals every time one of the panelists appealed to their prejudices, which, in this audience, were decidedly left-of-center. The beneficiary of much of the audience's love was one Amy Goodman, who co-hosts a public radio show, and who seems to have a soft spot for the former Haitian weakman leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide , who is a prime example of how the current fetishization of "democracy" by Clintonites and neo-cons alike is one limited to preserving the legitimacy of Third World elites, rather than creating just and prosperous societies.

The gabfest I really wanted to see, a discussion with Vanity Fair writer (and blogger) James Wolcott, turned out to be one of the more popular panels. I had crashed another panel, with former GE CEO Jack Welch, to hook up with a friend, the lovely, ambitious Natalie Panossian, and I figured that I accomplish the same across campus. No such luck; the stand-by line snaked around the building, and the relatively tiny auditorium where Wolcott spoke could not accomodate the high demand for seating. My loss.

Quickie TV Trivia: Who are the only two actors to have portrayed both the archvillain on Batman and the murderer on Colombo? Answer via e-mail....

Los Angeles [A] 6, Cleveland 5: First baseball game of the year, compliments of Welch pere, ended in dramatic fashion. Angels score once in the 8th, 9th and 10th innings, the winning run coming on a solo blast by Orlando Cabrera down the left field line, to overcome some uncharacteristically spotty pitching by Jarrod Washburn and some superlative defense by Indians outfielder Coco Crisp (and is that a great name or what?). Great seats, decent ballpark chow, and, most importantly, a vintage Rally Monkey comeback; also, I lost my wallet (second time in three seasons that I've had wallet problems at ballgames), only to have it quickly returned with credit cards intact, a phenomenum unlikely to occur at Chavez Ravine.