There may not be any more posts throughout the weekend (at least until Sunday), as One Fine Jay accomplishes my transfer to WordPress and Hosting Matters.

As part of the process, I have to close all comments and ask all guest posters not to post.

We’ll see you again, perhaps Monday.

UPDATE: If I don’t manage to get all comments closed, then any comments you leave for the rest of the weekend may be lost. Fairly warned be thee, say I.

WaPo–U.S. Troops’ Role in Iraqi Elections Criticized

The United Nations’ top elections official, Carina Perelli, sharply criticized U.S. military forces in Iraq Wednesday for distributing material urging Iraqis to vote in the country’s elections Sunday.

Perelli and other U.N. officials are concerned that such U.S. military involvement is compromising efforts to convince the Iraqi public that Iraqis are directing the elections.

Perelli said she and the top U.N. election official in Iraq, Carlos Valenzuela, have been “asking, begging military commanders” to stop the distribution of material promoting the elections. Officials from the U.N.-backed Iraqi Electoral Commission have also asked the United States to stop, she said.

“The U.S. military have been extremely, I would say, overenthusiastic in trying to help out with this election,” she told reporters. “And we have been basically saying that they should try to minimize their participation, because this is an Iraqi process.”

Given the stellar efforts of the UN at…highlighting the stellar efforts of the UN, such meaningless turf wars are not surprising coming from the UN. After all, if the UN can’t adequately provide aid to tsunami victims, oversee elections, inform voters, and basically do its job–then their only option is to bitch and moan at the US for doing the UN’s job and doing it better.

On a more coherent note, does this REALLY call into the question the Iraqi role in the elections? Is the notion that the US has a vested interest in a viable election remotely surprising or even controversial? Unless troops are promoting specific political parties, then they are doing nothing at all objectionable.

US troops have far more contact with Iraqis than do UN officials. And only an idiot/UN official/reporter would think that Iraqis don’t realize that the US wants elections to be viewed as legitimate and accordingly, would try to get people to participate. That’s kind of assumed in the whole reason why we’re over there. As soon as the UN even HAS a get-out-the-vote effort, then we’ll talk. Until then, all the UN will do is talk.

(cross posted to LegalXXX)

LAT–Court Upholds La Habra’s Ban Against Lap Dancing

In a decision that La Habra officials believe could encourage other cities, a federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a city ordinance that effectively bans lap dancing by requiring exotic performers to stay two feet from their customers.

I’m not sure which is dumber, the ordinance or the defense of it.
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Trib–How firm beat city set-aside program

The company’s actions include creating a spinoff concrete firm in the 1980s to win city business reserved exclusively for minority-owned companies. Martin, Richard and James Ozinga–all white men–enlisted the help of two African-American churches in Chicago’s depressed South Side, giving nine church members 51 percent ownership to technically meet the city’s rules.But two of the African-American church members now say the spinoff company was bogus and that minorities had little control of the business. “It was a classic front,” church member Henry Washington says.
…
When the Ozingas’ business venture with the churchgoers did not work out, the Ozingas replaced them in the early 1990s with an African-American, a Cuban-American and a native of Indonesia.

Because even though the company was majority owned by minorities, and when questions surrounding that control arose, the company explicitly turned over control to minorities, it still wasn’t quite good enough. I think this does a fair job of underscoring the twisted logic that racialist politics results in.

(cross posted to LegalXXX)

After posting my recent L.A. Times year in review in two parts, I received many e-mails. One particularly interesting one was sent by Prof. David Klinger, a professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Prof. Klinger has agreed to let me post his e-mail in its entirety. Here it is:
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Sobering words from Brooks Jackson:

Bloggers are ill prepared to deal with the tests they will be facing soon, mainly how to deal with lawsuits. I doubt that pro-bono legal representation will go very far in keeping a blogger going in the face of a big libel suit from a determined corporate opponent, or from an aggressive prosecutor. I suspect blogging is (legally speaking) right now about where Napster was, before the record industry went after it.

I hope he is wrong about this.

P.S. I originally mistakenly attributed the opinion to Jay Rosen. The comment is indeed posted at Jay’s site, but was actually made by Brooks Jackson, who is one of many people whom Jay asked to name “one thing you changed your mind about.” Unfortunately, when I quickly scanned Jay’s post this morning, the Brooks Jackson quote caught my eye, but I entirely missed the context.

Marcel Matley is not happy with the Thornburgh/Boccardi report. (Via RatherBiased.com.)

A great Johnny Carson tribute from Larry Miller. (Via Power Line.)

Sen. John Cornyn has this op-ed today in support of Alberto Gonzales’s nomination for Attorney General.

For anybody from my era, Johnny Carson was who you watched every night before you went to bed.

I don’t have much else to say about him. But this may be the best Johnny Carson tribute I’ve read.

Ed is right: it is the end of an era.