I don't want to second-guess the execs at NBC-Universal who green-lit Cindarella Man, since they probably make ten times what I do, but wouldn't a movie based on the life story of Max Baer have been much more interesting? California fighter, starts off his career being compared with Jack Dempsey because of his power punching, kills a man in the ring, goes into a funk-induced shell as a result, then moves to New York City, adopts a persona as a "Jewish" fighter, destroys Fascist symbols Max Schmelling and Primo Carnera en route to winning the heavyweight title...and that's just the First Act. His son and namesake played Jethro Bodine on "The Beverly Hillbillies", but he was also a decent actor in his own right (The Harder They Fall, etc.)

"We've got an in-house joke here: How much time would he have gotten if he had stolen a color TV?" A slice of Red State Justice, courtesy of War Liberal. Once he completes parole, he will be eligible to vote in future elections; Alabama changed its law a few years back, mainly due to budgetary problems. At least the chap who got life out here for stealing a slice of pizza had a couple of other prior felonies....

The dumbest column ever written.

YBK: When the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act was signed by the President on April 20, one of the predictable consequences was that we would see a surge in bankruptcy filings before the law would go into effect six months later. A similar increase occurred in March and April, 2001, when the same bill almost passed both houses of Congress. Sure enough, since the media first began to focus on the bill as it was winding its way through Congress, in early March, filings have gone up dramatically nationwide, as people delinquent on their debts attempt to get in before the laws become more stringent. Bankruptcy petitions went up 60% in the month immediately after the Senate passed its version, setting a monthly record of 165,459, and were 8.5% higher than they were the previous March. In April, that record was broken: 170,130 people sought bankruptcy protection, a 16% gain from the previous year.

As an attorney who has practiced bankruptcy law for over a dozen years, there has been plenty of anecdotal evidence I can attest to, from a hiring surge at local firms specializing in creditor representation to an increase in inquiries from potential clients, who ask if they can still file bankruptcy “before it’s too late”. One of the ironies of the passage of the recent law is that it has proven to be a boon to bankruptcy professionals, both in the form of higher filings before it goes into effect, and the potential to provide clients with more billable services afterward.

This trend can be seen throughout the country, In Colorado, bankruptcy filings were up 24% from a year ago in March and April; in Iowa, a 25% increase; in Ohio, one district reported a surge of 16% in April, and a 27% increase for the month of May. In Utah, a state whose filing rate has been almost twice that of the national average since 2000, Chapter 7 filings nearly doubled their yearly total in March and April alone, even though the total number of bankruptcies remained steady. And in Hawaii, filings for the month of May were up almost 35% from the numbers for the previous year.

In the federal district in which I practice, the Central District of California, the increase has been more modest; a 3.4% rise in March and April of this year, compared with the same period last year. In terms of bankruptcy filings, the Central District has traditionally had the highest figures in the nation, as well as being on the cutting edge of some of the more innovative forms of bankruptcy fraud. Due largely to the high percentage of immigrants, who are more susceptible to the entreaties of “paralegals”, petition mills and other such scum, the numbers out here were high to begin with, and it has only been in the last 5-6 years that the numbers began to inch downward thanks to more aggressive enforcement of anti-fraud laws by the Justice Department.

Looking inside the numbers, however, a very scary picture emerges. While the total number of filings has remained stable in the Central District, the number of Chapter 7 petitions (the most basic type of bankruptcy, disfavored by the new law) since March has skyrocketed. The increase in filings from the first two months of this year to the next two months, which was approximately 33%, as well as the increase from 2004 (8% over the past two months), has been staggering, with what had been a steady downward trend over the past three years reversing itself overnight. Since that same downward trend continued with Chapter 13 filings, which remain down almost 45% for the year so far, it’s clear that people are opting to file under Chapter 7 in droves rather than seeking the repayment alternative favored under the recent law. And although the official figures for May, 2005, aren't out yet, preliminary calculations indicate that total filings for last month are up close to 17% for the month, with Chapter 7 filings coming in even higher.

So what does it all mean? Well, Chapter 13 filings in the LA area have decreased by almost 2/3 since 2000, a result of the real estate boom lifting the relative wealth of homeowners, who file most such bankruptcies. When a medical emergency strikes, or a job is lost, or credit card debt becomes too onerous, homeowners have the option of borrowing on the equity of their homes, and averting the need to seek bankruptcy protection.

Not filing bankruptcy at a time when personal debt first becomes onerous has a very beneficial impact on the economy; it means that the costs incurred by creditors writing off bad debts aren’t passed along to consumers in the form of higher interest rates and late filing fees. A 1998 study concluded that in order to maintain the same level of profitability, a credit card company needs to pass along the costs incurred by a single bankruptcy on up to 46 billpayers, in the form of higher penalties for late-payments and overcharges. That study notes that those penalties disproportionately effect people who are already in a precarious debt situation, and, in turn, leads to a cycle where filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy becomes a preferable option.

But with residential foreclosures beginning to rise, and adjustable rate interest loans becoming increasingly harder and harder to remain current, the possibility that the “housing bubble” might finally burst may be at hand. If it does burst, or if enough people behind on their mortgages think it’s about to burst before the new law goes into effect, the potential for a bankruptcy panic in September and October of this year may come to pass. A "Perfect Storm", in which the combination of a sluggish economy, overextended credit, mortgage defaults, a housing bubble, and the certainty that after October 17 it will be impossible for many people to escape the burden of their debts, would create an economic Chernobyl that will wipe out the economy.

Don't Believe the Hype: Typically entertaining Michael Hiltzik column, on how a Paris Hilton ad being broadcast only on the West Coast became a national controversy.

Why we loved Elvis:

... [President Clinton] was going over papers with his staff on the upcoming Presidential Medal of Freedom awards. Spontaneously, he launched into a little riff for his assembled aides. His nominee for the prestigious award this year would be none other than the famous [Watergate editor] Ben Bradlee, husband of Sally Quinn.

The aides looked on in puzzled amusement.

"Anyone who sleeps with that bitch deserves a medal!" he explained.

The joy of pets, courtesy of John Cole.

Pardon me if I don't shed any tears for Oriana Fallaci. Having been almost destroyed in the last century by an ideology of racist, anti-Semitic fear-mongering, it is understandable for European governments to have laws on their books that attempt to stop another Hitler from coming to power. In Italy, laws condemning the use of false or slanderous attacks on religions, and the people who follow religions, are clearly designed to prevent something like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or, in Fallaci's case, her latest screed comparing Muslims to rats, from being used to justify death camps, the way they were sixty years ago. That this prosecution is being brought by an independent judiciary, in defiance of the Italian government (in which the modern-day Fascist Party plays a key role in the ruling coalition), and has been denounced by the Minister of Justice, Roberto Castelli, is an example of the robust exercise of freedom, not of a return to fascism, as some bloggers have claimed.

Americans who view this prosecution as an affront to civil liberties should note that libel and defamation laws have been on the books for centuries, both in this country and elsewhere. The doctrine of slander per se, which holds that there are certain statement that are assumed to be defamatory, exists in our own tort laws, and is not inconsistent with the First Amendment. Although I hope we never criminalize slander and defamation in the U.S., it would have less effect on our liberties if we did than most of the Patriot Act has had. And I will certainly not weep if the Robert Faurisson's and Oriana Fallaci's of the world have to spend time justifying their hate in a courtroom.

Castelli, by the way, perhaps let the cat out of the bag in defending Fallaci, telling a radio interviewer that "In Europe we are seeing the birth of a movement that is looking to silence those who don't follow a single mindset, within which it is forbidden to speak ill of Islam, of homosexuals or of the children of homosexuals." Good to know that....

Heard of the "Al Qaeda Training Manual"? For those who are unwilling to accept the fact that some pretty nasty stuff is going on at our gulags rehabilitation centers at G-mo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, the "Al Qaeda Training Manual" (hereafter, the "AQTM", or the "Manual") is what explains why all those terrible allegations about beatings, torture, and Koran-flushing have been made by detainees. You see, the thinking among certain circles in the blogosphere and talk radio (see here, here, here, here, and here) is that the detainees who've been making some of these claims were told what to do and say out of this Al Qaeda playbook (including the detainees who have been released after we concluded they weren't connected to Al Qaeda), so that even though much of the alleged torture was well-documented by our guys (and, in the case of Abu Ghraib, well-photographed), the prisoners are still lying about everything, or at least lying about everything that didn't involve Pvt. England.

Having an hour to kill this afternoon, I decided to read the AQTM, to see how it was that I, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, Newsweek, the Washington Post, and the rest of the MSM had been so completely duped. Let's just say that if I wanted to draft a brief for the defense in this matter, showing that the Koran-flushing tales are little more than an Islamist version of the hippies-spat-on-Vietnam Vets urban legend, the AQTM would probably not be the strongest evidence at my disposal. For one thing, much of the material is clearly dated, as this passage (p. 16) reveals:

The member of the Organization must be Moslem. How can an unbeliever, someone from a revealed religion [Christian, Jew], a secular person, a communist, etc. protect Islam and Moslems and defend their goals and secrets when he does not believe in that religion [Islam]? The Israeli Army requires that a fighter be of the Jewish religion. Likewise, the command leadership in the Afghan and Russian armies requires any one with an officer’s position to be a member of the communist party.

One would hope that our enemies would crack open a newspaper at some point over the past fifteen years, or at least know that their former allies in the Afghani government were not communists. This error is ironic, since later in the AQTM the reader is instructed (pp. 21-2) to avail himself of the benefits of the Free Press:

In order to gather enemy information, the Military Organization can use means such as magazines, publications, periodicals, and official printed matter. Through these means, it is possible to learn about major government events and about the news, meetings, and travel of Presidents, ministers, and commanders.

Thus, it isn't just the violent rhetoric, the apocolyptic attitude, and the bellicose manner that the bloggers of the Right and the jihadists have in common; they also share a parasitic connection to the news media, which they use voraciously (and selectively), all while trying to destroy that very institution. And, assuming the authenticity of the AQTM, both groups apparently have a hard time believing that the Cold War is finally over.

Another interesting fact is that the names "Al Qaeda" and "Osama" never appear anywhere in the manual. In fact, the AQTM seems more consistent with an "old school" terrorist network that concerned itself with the random assasination, kidnapping and spying than on the ambitious program of OBL. There's nothing in the manual that would provide tips on how to get into a flight school, or how to strap enough explosive material onto one's body to blow up the Rose Bowl, or even survival tips for living in caves. Most of is is just common sense advice, such as don't discuss what you're doing with your wife, or don't try to be conspicuous in a crowd.

And a lot of it is quite chilling, too, if one assumes the authenticity of the AQTM, in the same manner that The Anarchists Cookbook isn't an easy read. But unfortunately for the Soft-on-Torture crowd, nowhere in the Manual does it instruct anyone to lie about torture, or to fabricate instances of Koran-abuse. There is a passage (p.16) that instructs prisoners to "...insist on proving that torture was inflicted upon them by State Security [investigators] before the judge," but considering that this was probably written well before 9/11, and was aimed at movements within Arab countries (p.9), such as Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt and Syria, where the torture of prisoners would have been the rule, not the exception, this is merely evidence that they should document the pain inflicted upon them for reasons of propoganda, and can hardly be construed as evidence that our accusers are plying misinformation about their treatment.

As it turns out, the Bush Administration is now acknowledging that they did have reports that the Koran had been deliberately mistreated by interrogators. Better luck next time, fellas.

Quickie Trivia: With his release by the Phillies yesterday, the major league career of Jose Offerman is apparently at an end. Assuming that another major league team is not gullible enough to sign him, Offy will go into the record books as the second player in major league history to have homered in both his first, and his final, plate appearances. Who was the first?

Last night's season finale of Alias sure had the feel of a Final Episode Ever, at least up until the last two seconds of the show. The Rambaldi mystery solved, Sloane saving the day by sacrificing his own daughter to save the planet, and the oh-so-cool offing of the Palpitinesque Derevko sister, Elena...all seeming to indicate a valedictory of sorts for the show, which has finally achieved respectable ratings in its fourth season. Then, out of nowhere, the shocking final moment; I doubt that any show has ever thrown in a cliffhanger on such sudden notice, almost as if the producers tossed in the car crash at the last second once they were assured the show was going to be renewed for another season.

I noticed 24 did much the same thing on Monday. The shot of Jack Bauer walking into the sunrise, having been disowned by the government he served and by the woman he loved, officially a non-person; no cliffhanger, just a dangler for the fans in the event the show (or Kiefer S.) didn't return.

I think it should go without saying that the agreement to let Owen, Brown and Pryor receive floor votes on their nominations should not be seen as setting a precedent for future Supreme Court nominations. The standard should naturally be higher for the nation's highest court than for the Court of Appeals; a judge whose politics may be acceptable in the context of an appellate court with dozens of sitting judges, and whose decisions are appealable, may be deemed too extreme in the context of a smaller court whose decisions are final and binding. And since one of the three judges (ie., Janice Rogers) may be headed for a defeat before the full Senate, it would hardly behoove the Bushies to interpret the agreement as a license to nominate Clarence Thomas for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

In addition, the agreement to maintain the filibuster against at least two other nominees is evidence that the agreement was based more on political horsetrading than on anything that could be used as binding precedent for the future. William Myers and Henry Saad are no less conservative than the Fortunate Three, and there doesn't appear to be anything in the public record that would indicate that either is personally corrupt. Their exclusion was clearly intended by the Gang of Fourteen to be a signal that the filibuster could be used in certain circumstances against judicial nominees, without defining what those circumstances might be. Pretending that this language ties the hands of any Democratic Senator when it comes to the next Supreme Court nominee reflects the stupid tendency of liberals to find defeat in any compromise.

This is not unqualified good news for Democrats. The filibuster remains an option for the future, and it may prevent the rubberstamping of a Clarence Thomas or an Antonin Scalia to the position of Chief Justice. Republican Senators also stood up to the Christian Right on this issue; the long-term ramifications of defying Dr. Dobson and his acolytes will be felt on future nominations. The agreement also affirms the principle that "advice and consent" entails the consultation with members of both parties before nomination, a proviso that Democrats can use in the future to justify any "extraordinary circumstance" triggering a filibuster.

It's also a defeat for Bill Frist, who clearly didn't have the backing of his party's rank-and-file, so that's cool as well. By allowing votes on some of the appellate nominees, the Democrats look reasonable and moderate, while forcing Snowe, Chafee, DeWine, et al., to take a position on the worthiness of Janice Brown and Patricia Owen that is really going to matter; the "threat" of the filibuster allowed them to vote for some of Bush's more extreme picks without fear that their vote would matter, a safety net that at least with some of these picks no longer exists. And lastly, keeping enough Democrats in line on future cloture votes was going to be more difficult than it was last year, when the party had four more Senators, so this deal strengthens Harry Reid enormously.

But the advantage of having a vote on the nuclear option was that if Frist lost, it would effectively act as a vote of confidence on Frist, as well as preventing Bush from stacking the appellate courts with the likes of Janice Brown. If Frist won, it would mean the beginning of the end of the filibuster, which would cause short-term pain for liberals, but as I wrote a week and a half ago, it would also allow the achievement of some wonderful progressive goals in the future. So I guess the best-case scenario would be for Bush to try to nominate some wack-job from Texas or Alabama to the Supreme Court, then have the Senate revisit this issue when more people are paying attention.

Smythe sez...Revenge of the Sith wasn't bad at all; better than Return and Clones, and much better than Phantom. What worked: great effects (if you can, see this film on a digital projection screen, or better yet, IMAX); the two Scottish actors (Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid) playing Obi-wan and the Emporer, respectively; the final 45 minutes, which features the slaughter of the Jedi and the emergence of the Empire. What didn't: uninvolving battle scenes; General Grievous; Natalie Portman and Hayden Christenson, neither of whom strikes a true note in their scenes together.

I saw the movie at the multiplex next to Universal Studios, a place I had not visited in awhile. In fact, I can recall the exact date I was last there: October 11, 1998. That was the day my father died. He had slipped into a coma a few days earlier, and it was clear that it was just a matter of time. I think I ended up seeing a movie, then going to Gladstones, a seafood restaurant which is sort of a pretentious version of Red Lobster, to nosh and watch Game 5 of the ALCS, plus whatever assorted football games were playing that Sunday.

Obviously, I wasn't really in the mood for sports that day, so I came home to be with my dad. I held his hand and spoke to him, read him the battlefield speech from Henry V that he loved so much, as well as speeches from Winston Churchill ("Sail on, O Ship of State...") and John L. Lewis ("It ill-behooves those who sup at labor's table...") that always seemed to inspire him. I don't know if he heard me, but I figured it couldn't hurt. He died that evening, in the middle of Game 4 of the NLCS; like Nick Hornby in Fever Pitch, sports play way too important a role in marking the chapters of my life. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think back to that night, nor a week that goes by without a vivid dream about my father.

Just asking...who is Kylie Minogue?

Santorum Time: It's about time someone went after those little Eichmans in the Senate supporting the filibuster....

Ed Wood Lives: That howlingly bad script Julie Delpy was pitching about the legendary Countess Bathory last year is finally set to come to life, starring the bland/blonde French actress, who will also make her directorial debut, and her frequent screen collaborator, Ethan Hawke.

Credit Where It's Due: Here's one area where No Child Left Behind has been an unqualified success....

Almost four years ago, less than a week after 9/11, Andrew Sullivan made this especially disturbing attack on the patriotically incorrect:

The middle part of the country - the great red zone that voted for Bush - is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead - and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column. But by striking at the heart of New York City, the terrorists ensured that at least one deep segment of the country ill-disposed toward a new president is now the most passionate in his defense.

As someone who lives in one of those coastal enclaves (Los Angeles) and matriculated at another (Berkeley), I took that very personally. Having studied American history, I knew that civil liberties are often a casualty of war, and Sullivan's broadside set off alarms to those of us who were not willing to bow down unquestioningly at the feet of our Maximum Leader. The sentiments expressed in that column was one of the reasons I decided to start this website back in April of 2002.

Having said that, I cannot think of anything that is less important to the issues of 1) Gay civil rights; 2) our use of torture and human rights deprivations at Abu Ghraib, G-mo and elsewhere; 3) the efforts by the Bush Administration to quash the free press when it attempts to look behind the curtains; 4) the troubling state of the Catholic Church, and its declining moral relevance; and 5) whatever else he may be expounding on this week, than what Andrew Sullivan wrote four days after the collapse of the Towers. Certainly, Sullivan's opinions carry no greater weight by how far he has apparently traveled in the past four years, but neither are his eloquent opinions on the above issues diminished in any way by what he said just after the Towers collapsed.

OK, so he had a louder megaphone than the rest of us did four years ago, and in the heat of the moment, he was too quick to find a scapegoat. Like so many other people, he was hopeful when he should have been skeptical, and he got suckered by the Bushies. All of that might be an interesting chapter to his biography, but it also just so happens that the GayCatholicTory is writing the most interesting s*** in the blogosphere lately. What he said four years ago should be no more germane to the present topics than Earl Warren's support for the internment of the Japanese during WWII was at the time of the Brown decision, or Robert Byrd's opinions on civil rights six decades ago are during today's filibuster debate. Grow up.

The Good German: Glenn Reynolds defends the soft-on-torture position.