Patterico's Pontifications

Posted 12/06/2003 12:11:00 PM by Patrick
AUTHORITIES FLOAT PHONY STORY: Via How Appealing comes the latest news regarding the murder of the Assistant U.S. Attorney from Baltimore, which I first mentioned here.

This story says that authorities "suspect the killing was the result of a personal relationship that turned violent and was not linked to his work."

I don't buy it.

Obviously, I don't know what the authorities know. But this story may be part of a campaign of misdirection, designed to make the true suspects believe they are no longer under suspicion -- which could cause them to be careless and make some mistake that would give them away.

This possibility seemed to me even more likely once I read this story in the Washington Post, and learned that the stab wounds were

shallow puncture wounds described as "prick marks" on his chest, neck and head, suggesting he had been tortured, according to a coroner who examined his body.

Let's review the facts, as set forth in the two stories linked above. A prosecutor receives on his cell phone a late-night phone call that causes him to go to his Baltimore office, where records show he (and his car) were at 11:20 p.m. His body is found at 5:30 the next morning, in the same car, which is nose down in a creek in rural Pennsylvania. The body is fully dressed in suit and tie, with a work identification badge. He was apparently tortured and murdered. And he left his eyeglasses and cell phone in his office -- things that you would think he would take with him if he had voluntarily left the office to go home for the night.

Are we to believe that, in under 48 hours, the authorities eliminated the possibility that there is a link between his death and any case that he ever worked on?

For that to be true, they would have to know who did it and why. Because they couldn't arrive at that conclusion that quickly through the process of elimination.

It's a phony story, folks. The authorities don't know who did it, but the possibility that it was related to his job has not been eliminated, in my opinion.

UPDATE: The FBI is stating that nothing has been ruled out.

Posted 12/06/2003 08:22:00 AM by Patrick
VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN: Wizbang's 2003 Weblog Awards are open for polling. Patterico's Pontifications is nominated for Best Marauding Marsupials Ecosystem Level Blog. If you enjoy Patterico and would like to vote for his blog, you can do so by clicking here.

I need your vote!

And you can vote early and often. You can vote once every 12 hours, through December 14, 2003. So bookmark the location of the Marauding Marsupials contest, and give your voting fingers regular exercise!

P.S. The Ecosystem is explained here. The list of Marauding Marsupials is here. The list is fluid, based on ever-changing hit counter statistics; it is where this blog was at the time of the nominations.

P.P.S. In the first iteration of this post (up for only about 10 minutes) I incorrectly stated that Patterico was the only Bear Flagger nominated in this category. I don't know how I overlooked e-Claire. In any event, this poses no problem for the League. Vote for whichever you like best -- but if you feel torn between us, vote for one of us in the first 12-hour period of the day, and the other in the second 12-hour period! That way you will be elevating the Bear Flaggers above the rest, without favoring one over the other.

P.P.P.S. Patterico is now tied for the top spot with "The Bitch Girls." Hmmm.

I note it now because I expect this can't last. Anyway, thanks for the votes.

Posted 12/05/2003 06:26:00 AM by Patrick
HELP WIZBANG: Kevin Aylward at Wizbang has lost his job, just in time for Christmas. This would be a good time to hit his tip jar (located on his main page, or directly accessible by clicking here).

Kevin is, of course, the man behind the 2003 Weblog Awards, the Bonfire of the Vanities, and the ever-handy Wizbang Trackback Form. As he says in the comments to this post below, he gives and gives and gives!

I think it would be very cool if every single Bear Flagger dropped some amount, however small, in Kevin's tip jar. Think of it as a Christmas collection, like at your office. You give a little, but when everybody does the same, it adds up. I count 41 current Bear Flaggers. If we all left Kevin some small amount, it would not only make a noticeable difference for him over the holidays, but it would be a real show of support -- a statement that Bear Flaggers will come together to help worthy people in times of need.

Posted 12/05/2003 05:53:00 AM by Patrick
THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN: The winners in this week's Watcher's Council vote have been announced. Congratulations to Alpha Patriot for the winning Council entry: President Bush Visits Iraq; and to USS Clueless for the winning non-Council entry: A letter from Tehran.

Posted 12/04/2003 08:44:00 PM by Patrick
NEWS FLASH: In breaking news, Fox News has a story with the shocking headline: FBI: Terrorists Could Use Planes as Weapons.

Posted 12/04/2003 08:04:00 PM by Patrick
TRUTH IS MORE IRONIC THAN FICTION: In a story that sounds like a parody but is not, the Dog Trainer today reports that a rap label previously called "Murder Inc." has changed its name to "The Inc.":

"It seems as though no one is really looking at the talent," label chief Irv "Gotti" Lorenzo said at a news conference in New York, where he was joined by label stars Ja Rule and Ashanti. "All of these big records, and people would still come back and focus on the negative word 'murder.'"

You can't make up stuff this good.

P.S. Tends to remind one of the rapper named C-Murder who was convicted of -- well, I'll let you guess.

Posted 12/04/2003 06:37:00 PM by Patrick
FEDERAL PROSECUTOR MURDERED: This is disturbing. (Via How Appealing.)

Posted 12/04/2003 05:55:00 AM by Patrick
BRITS EXPLAINED: Via Dave Barry's Blog comes this story, about people deliberately ingesting worms for medical reasons. The story has so many priceless quotes that one is tempted to advise readers (InstaPundit-style) to Read the Whole Thing.™

For example, the doctor who recommends this therapy says:

People have what I consider an irrational fear of worms. Nobody wants to go to the toilet and look into the toilet and see something wiggle.

How utterly irrational. Another good quote:

Another person feeling the benefit of a worm infestation is academic researcher Alan Brown . . . Dr Brown examines his own faeces under the microscope to try to gauge how many worms currently reside within him.

"Given the number of eggs there, there's about 300 hookworms in my guts."

Can't you hear the pride in his voice?

Finally, the story offers this insight: "One third of Britons carry the toxoplasma parasite in their brain."

I have no idea what the "toxoplasma parasite" is, but I feel oddly certain that this parasite is somehow responsible for much of the confusing behavior displayed by many Britons as of late, including:

* Those statements by the mayor of London that George Bush is "the greatest threat to life on this planet" whose policies will "doom us to extinction";

* The actions of the Britons who toppled George Bush's statue in Trafalgar Square; and

* Eating kidney pie.

UPDATE: As you can see, Patterico's Pontifications just posted priceless phrases from a piece about people across the pond proudly partaking of parasites. What luck that Venomous Kate's letter of the day is "P"!

Posted 12/04/2003 05:55:00 AM by Patrick
WELCOME: To new Bear Flagger Little Miss Attila.

Posted 12/03/2003 10:37:00 PM by Patrick
MY KINGDOM FOR A SCREENSHOT: I just checked N.Z. Bear's Ecosystem rankings. This can't last, but -- Patterico is currently sitting just above Balkinization -- the blog of my extremely liberal former Con Law professor Jack Balkin.

My God, that is sweet.

Posted 12/03/2003 10:00:00 PM by Patrick
SCHIAVO UPDATE: Calblog has the latest on the right to ~~die~~ kill in Florida. (Via Xrlq.)

Posted 12/03/2003 09:57:00 PM by Patrick
WATCHER'S COUNCIL NOMINATION: For the second time, I have been nominated for best non-Council post in the Watcher's weekly contest. Regardless of the outcome, the nomination is an honor.

Posted 12/03/2003 06:30:00 PM by Patrick
HINT TO TEACHERS: Don't tell your first-grade students that there's no such thing as Santa. (Thanks to reader Dean L. [aka Dean I] for the pointer.)

Posted 12/03/2003 06:10:00 PM by Patrick
IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE! IT'S . . . STEVE LOPEZ!: Dog Trainer columnist Steve Lopez says that Abercrombie & Fitch has decided to discontinue what sounds like an incredibly tasteless catalog:

Abercrombie & Fitch, the incorrigible clothier that proudly markets thong underwear to adolescent girls, has suddenly yanked a Christmas catalog that touted group sex and made Victoria's Secret models look like choir girls.

"It's been rotated out of stores to make room for the new fragrance," said Hampton Carney, A&F's New York flack.

From descriptions I have read, it does sound as though the catalog was in very poor taste, given that the store targets some very young customers. But why do you think the company discontinued it? Do you think the decision was due mainly to the tens of thousands of people who threatened a nationwide boycott? Or was it due to Steve Lopez's single column on the issue?

Here's what Lopez says:

Carney claimed the decision had nothing to do with my giving A&F a good beating two Sundays ago, or with several boycott campaigns around the country. They just needed to clear space to "launch" the new perfume.

"You expect me to believe that?" I asked Carney.

Yup, Steve Lopez gets results. Oh, and tens of thousands of potential customers across the country may have helped . . . a bit.

In unrelated news, Lopez recently had a column titled Handing Out Hope, a Dollar at a Time, about a retired Roman Catholic priest who hands out dollar bills to people on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. Lopez writes movingly of the hordes of people who line up to get the dollar bill, which will pay for food -- or liquor, or perhaps 20% of their next crack fix.

The column is interesting because it marks Lopez's realization that even one dollar can be a lot of money to some people. Lopez, who gets paid $300,000 a year to write three columns a week, had previously mocked people who looked forward to saving an average of $140 each on their car taxes. Several weeks ago, I wrote a post taking Lopez to task for this insensitivity.

Lopez claims that his sudden realization of the value of a dollar had nothing to do with my giving Lopez a good beating in my previous post.

You expect me to believe that, Steve?

[Warning for irony-impaired: May not have really happened. Lopez's denial may be fictitious.]

UPDATE: Post linked to Outside the Beltway's Traffic Jam.

Posted 12/03/2003 05:49:00 PM by Patrick
THE ~~MORE~~ LESS THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE IDIOTS STAY THE SAME: It's official. Batzel v. Smith, 333 F.3d 1018 (9th Cir. 2003) is still the law, and the people who threatened to sue Justene at Calblog are still idiots.

Posted 12/03/2003 06:50:00 AM by Patrick
CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES: Begging to Differ hosts this week's Carnival of the Vanities.

Posted 12/03/2003 05:53:00 AM by Patrick
BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES: Wizbang's Bonfire of the Vanities is up, here. It has the worst posts of the blogosphere. Not surprisingly, one of mine is included.

Posted 12/02/2003 09:17:00 PM by Patrick
SCHIAVO UPDATE: According to Fox News, an independent guardian has said that there is "no reasonable medical hope" that Terri Schiavo will improve -- but also recommends swallowing tests to see if she can learn to eat on her own (something that the probate judge has consistently opposed).

I'm not sure why he wants the swallowing tests if he has already concluded that there is no reasonable hope for them to work. Sounds like he's not so sure. . .

Posted 12/02/2003 08:45:00 PM by Patrick
THE FOOTBALLS ON DEAN: Little Green Footballs has a very amusing post criticizing certain statements that Howard Dean made on Hardball. Dean apparently said that it would be fine with him if the International Criminal Court at the Hague tried Osama bin Laden -- despite the fact that the Hague is not entitled to impose the death penalty. LGF also notes that Howard Dean says we should rely on the Soviet Union to address Iran's nuclear capabilities -- despite the fact that no such country exists.

Scary stuff, and good observations from Little Green Footballs.

UPDATE: Patio Pundit has more on Dean's appearance. (Via The Southern California Law Blog.)

Posted 12/02/2003 06:37:00 PM by Patrick
WIZBANG'S 2003 WEBLOG AWARDS: Nominate a blog for Wizbang's 2003 Weblog Awards. Should you wish to second Patterico's self-serving nomination based on Ecosystem categories, he is currently a Marauding Marsupial. Or you could "fourth" his nomination for Best New Blog.

Or, I suppose, you could nominate some other blog. If you really wanted to.

Posted 12/02/2003 06:01:00 AM by Patrick
BYRON YORK ON THE DEMOCRATIC MEMOS: Interesting analogies in this essay by Byron York on the leaked Democratic memos.

UPDATE: Melanie Kirkpatrick at the WSJ also asks why the press is so silent. As if she didn't know. You never heard of liberal bias, Melanie?

She also points out that the memos were not, in fact, purloined. Sen. Leahy's folks failed to put up a firewall, so that all staffers, Republican and Democrat alike, could read everything that was on the shared server. So it appears that no skullduggery was necessary to obtain the memos.

Posted 12/02/2003 06:01:00 AM by Patrick
TRACKBACKS WITH BLOGGER: Reader C.J.A. saw a trackback I did on someone else's blog, and wrote to inquire how I was able to do that from a Blogger blog. The secret is Wizbang's Standalone Trackback Form.

Thanks, Wizbang -- both for the trackback form, and for the pointless Paris Hilton Traffic! The perverted visitors are continuing to roll in. . .

Posted 12/01/2003 10:10:00 PM by Patrick
20 QUESTIONS WITH RICHARD POSNER: How Appealing's excellent monthly interview with an appellate judge is a special treat this month, as Howard Bashman interviews Richard Posner. Read it here.

It is a sad commentary on the perversion of our nominations process that this brilliant judge says he would have a difficult time being nominated today.

Posted 12/01/2003 09:08:00 PM by Patrick
MADSEN'S PATHETIC DEFENSE: Wayne Madsen has this pathetic defense of his ridiculous column (discussed here Saturday) on Bush's alleged "6 a.m." Thanksgiving dinner with the troops -- you know, the one that was really at 6 p.m., except that Madsen screwed up the time and wrote a whole column based on that mistake.

Madsen's explanation? I don't really understand it; you'll have to read it yourself. I think he's saying that he got the timing wrong, and it's George Bush's fault, somehow. Or maybe he didn't get the timing wrong, and there is some conspiracy out there to cover up the true facts. I can't really tell which.

(Via Volokh.)

Posted 12/01/2003 06:04:00 AM by Patrick
GOOD POINT: I saw a pretty convincing letter to the editor regarding gay marriage in yesterday's Dog Trainer:

Convicted murderer Lyle Menendez, who is serving a life term without possibility of parole, was wed in prison to a woman he never knew before his incarceration and with whom he will never be allowed to consummate the marriage (Nov. 21). So much for the argument that marriage is a unique union of two individuals for the purpose of procreation.

The absurdity is that a man who killed his parents in cold blood and will never set foot outside the state penitentiary has greater legal rights to protect the so-called sanctity of his relationship with the person he loves than law-abiding, taxpaying citizens who happen to be gay or lesbian.

Robert J. Switzer

West Hollywood

Hard to argue with that.

Posted 11/30/2003 11:46:00 AM by Patrick
SPLITTING INFINITIVES: Xrlq's excellent post on an error-laden Ass. Press story got me thinking about split infinitives. I noticed that the AP story in question split an infinitive, and I thought that it was about the only thing in the story that the AP got right. I think that splitting infinitives is sometimes necessary to avoid sounding stilted.

Since people have generally teamed up against me on the quotation mark controversy and the "an historical" controversy, I figured I'd offer bloggers yet another chance ~~violently to disagree~~ to violently disagree with me on a grammatical issue.

UPDATE: Xrlq notes that this is (as you might think) a debate that others have already had. The good Prof. Volokh has previously weighed in, in favor of split infinitives -- to which Xrlq responded with this rather complicated discussion. Xrlq appears to (basically) agree with Prof. Volokh and me, but argues that it's not really splitting an infinitive because the "to" is not part of the infinitive. [Previous grammatical awkwardness in the preceding sentence corrected, thanks to an observation by Xrlq in the comments. Gotta be careful with your grammar when you're talking about grammar!] Xrlq denies that this is hairsplitting, but I'm not so sure. Read his post and reach your own judgment.

In any event, it's nice not to have people swarming to disagree with me the way they did the last couple of times. (I'm still right.)

Posted 11/30/2003 10:57:00 AM by Patrick
CALBLOG ON ANTI-SEMITISM: Calblog has a nice essay on Anti-Semitism and the Cure, bringing together some of the recent outrages that show this particular form of discrimination is still alive and well in the world. Justene's solution: teach your children about it.

Posted 11/29/2003 08:42:00 PM by Patrick
WELCOME: Welcome to the two new Bear Flaggers: eTALKINGHEAD.com and Jockularocracy.

Posted 11/29/2003 12:45:00 PM by Patrick
INCREDIBLY STUPID COLUMN EXPOSED, OR, WHY YOU SHOULD THINK TWICE WHEN YOU'RE THE ONLY GUY IN THE WORLD WITH AN AMAZING INSIGHT: Hahahahahahaha. A guy named Wayne Madsen at a leftist site called CounterPunch has an entire column making fun of George Bush for supposedly forcing military personnel to eat that famous Thanksgiving dinner at 6 a.m. The only problem, as Brian O'Connell points out, is that they ate the dinner at 6 p.m.

Based on his sloppy mistake about the time, Madsen writes a whole piece mocking the supposed 6 a.m. dinner. In the process, he makes plenty of idiotic statements. For example, he claims that

our military men and women were downing turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and non-alcoholic beer at a time when most people would be eating eggs, bacon, grits, home fries, and toast.

He also says:

I would have thought most of the troops, many of whom are support personnel who work relatively normal working hours, would have been more surprised when they were ordered to get up before sunrise to eat Thanksgiving dinner between 6:00 and 7:30 A.M.

Madsen is proud that he is the only guy who figured this out. He says that "the abysmal and sycophantic Washington and New York press corps seems to have completely missed the Thanksgiving 'breakfast dinner.'" So why does he think nobody else remarked on the unusual timing of the dinner?

Chalk that up to the fact that most people in the media never saw a military chow line or experienced reveille in their lives. So it would certainly go over their heads that troops would be ordered out of bed to eat turkey and stuffing before the crack of dawn.

Or, Mr. Madsen, you could chalk it up to the fact that you are an idiot.

This is rich. Hurry and look before they figure out how stupid they were and take it down. Maybe one of you computer-savvy types can even save us a screen shot, to preserve the evidence. That way we can all laugh at this imbecile for years to come.

(Via Pejmanesque.)

UPDATE: It gets better. O'Connell confronted Madsen with the evidence (click on the O'Connell link above for the update), and Madsen is sticking with the story! He is basing his argument on a Washington Post report that contains an obvious typo. O'Connell pointed out the mountain of proof that the dinner really took place in the evening (again, see O'Connell's update), and Madsen appears to be ignoring it.

This means that the ridiculous piece will probably stay up at Counterpunch, as a powerful testament to liberals' desperate need to believe the worst about Bush -- even when doing so proves them to be utter fools.

UPDATE x2: Thanks to Eugene Volokh for the mention, but the credit goes to Brian O'Connell for catching this nonsense. Make sure to visit his posts (linked above) for the full story.

UPDATE x3: A commenter to this post says Madsen has "apparently retracted" the story. Well, sort of, but not really. As Brian O'Connell notes, Madsen has a statement at Indymedia which acknowledges that the story is bogus. But the original article is still up at Counterpunch, with no retraction or admission of error as of 9:15 a.m. Pacific time on Sunday, November 30. That ain't much of a retraction, in my book. [UPDATE: Actually, O'Connell says in the comments to this post that he e-mailed Madsen about this "retraction" and Madsen says that the Indymedia statement is not his. So there has been no retraction at all -- not even one of the half-assed variety.]

Madsen's bogus story is still making its way through the loony portion of the internet. The Counterpunch version is linked at anti-war site WHATREALLYHAPPENED.COM and is copied at the Jeff Rense site. Until Madsen issues a correction at the source, this lunacy will continue to spread -- to the great amusement of many like myself.

UPDATE x4: Anticipating Madsen's inevitable decision (still not forthcoming!) to remove this idiocy, intrepid reader Richard has saved us a copy, here. Bookmark it, as an enduring document of the left's persistent willful blindness to obvious facts in their pursuit of Bush-bashing.

Posted 11/29/2003 12:02:00 PM by Patrick
WOULD THIS BOTHER YOU?: The other day I was driving home from work, waiting to get onto the freeway, when I saw something that made me mad. I wonder whether other people would react the same way.

On this particular stretch of road, cars line up to access the freeway onramp during the evening commute. Inevitably, when cars line up like this in Los Angeles on a predictable schedule, you will see street vendors and/or beggars. On this block, I always see the same two people: a guy selling flowers (roses for $5) and another guy who just stands there and begs for money. I sometimes buy roses from the one guy; I never give anything to the other one.

Usually these two fellows are separated from each other. The flower guy tends to stand on the curb offering his flowers. Sometimes he has fruit. By contrast, the beggar walks up and down the rows of cars, trying to make eye contact with you, and forcing you to respond to his request for money.

But on this particular day, the two were standing right next to each other: the one guy with the inexpensive flowers, and the other with nothing to offer but his outstretched hand. In front of me, I saw a car pull up to the two of them, lean out the window, and give money -- to the beggar.

Understand: both men are clearly poor. The only difference I could see between them (other than their differing races) is that one of them was offering goods in return for money, and the other was not.

It made me angry that someone would give money to someone who was doing absolutely nothing to earn it -- right in front of the nose of the guy who was working for his meager living.

Am I the only one annoyed by this?

Posted 11/29/2003 11:23:00 AM by Patrick
AMMUNITION TO RESPOND TO LIBERALS: For the next time you are in an argument with a liberal, you can respond with the following facts when he/she says:

Why isn't the President regularly attending military funerals, like his predecessors did? They didn't.

Why do we never see any public show of support by Iraqis for the American presence? We have.

Posted 11/29/2003 11:23:00 AM by Patrick
FROM THE "EVERYTHING'S NOT COMPLETELY PEACHY" FILE: Comes this Fox News story about powerful explosives apparently abandoned and concealed in haste on the outskirts of Albuquerque.

Posted 11/28/2003 10:27:00 PM by Patrick
IT'S FREE, AND YOU CAN FIND IT RIGHT HERE: Click here for what you're looking for. . .

SEE YOU AT PATTERICO.COM!

posted by Patterico
8:13 PM

If you are not immediately redirected to patterico.com, please click here.

Posted 11/28/2003 10:27:00 PM by Patrick
SPY WIPER HELP: For those looking for help because their browser was hijacked by Spy Wiper, read this post and the comments. A potential fix is in the comments; let me know if it works.

UPDATE: I am keeping this post at the top of the page for at least the rest of the day, and possibly longer, due to the interest this is getting from people victimized by this company. This also means that you may be missing new posts if you stop reading with this one.

UPDATE x2: Xrlq has useful links on the topic.

Posted 11/28/2003 08:42:00 PM by Patrick
JEFFREY TOOBIN, LEGAL GENIUS: Regarding the Michael Jackson case, renowned legal ~~idiot~~ expert Jeffrey Toobin says: "The Jackson team trashed this kid, and that's an interesting approach."

"Interesting" how? As in "unpredictable"?? We never thought Mark Geragos would trash the victim??? What in the hell are you talking about, Toobin?

Idiot.

Posted 11/28/2003 08:01:00 PM by Patrick
THE INDEPENDENT GOES GOBBLE-GOBBLE: The British rag The Independent shows it is a serious news publication with this headline about Bush's trip to Iraq: The Turkey Has Landed. (Hat tip: Calpundit.)

Posted 11/28/2003 08:00:00 PM by Patrick
I ~~HATE~~ STRONGLY DISLIKE ~~HATE~~ SPEECH: From Best of the Web comes this silly story:

Gonzaga University has reaffirmed the value of freedom of speech after unfairly disciplining a student group for posting fliers with allegedly 'discriminatory' language," the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education announces in a press release.

As we noted last month, the Young Americas Foundation chapter at the Catholic campus in Spokane, Wash., got in trouble for using the word hate -- though it was merely citing the title of guest speaker Daniel Flynn's book, "Why the Left Hates America."

"Administrators chose to place a disciplinary letter in the group's file for using the words "the left hates" on the fliers, suggesting that that use of the word 'hate' was 'discriminatory' and might constitute 'hate speech.' " This presented administrators with a logical conundrum, since if the word hate is "hate speech," all they can say without running afoul of their own stupid rule is that it might constitute "speech."

I assume that administrators will not be troubled by the conundrum, but will rather apply adapt Congress's age-old rule that "the rules we make don't apply to us."

Posted 11/28/2003 01:22:00 PM by Patrick
WHY THE UNITED NATIONS IS USELESS: Israel cannot even get a resolution passed by the United Nations calling for the protection of Israeli children. As explained in this BBC story:

Israel has withdrawn its first United Nations draft resolution in nearly 30 years in the face of strong opposition. The Israeli draft, which called for the protection of Israeli children from terrorism, mirrored one on Palestinian children passed earlier this month.

But mostly Arab opponents of the text introduced changes Israel could not accept, ambassador Dan Gillerman said.

(Via Watcher of Weasels.)

Posted 11/28/2003 01:22:00 PM by Patrick
THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING A U.S. CITIZEN: Meet the only guy on the planet who wishes that he were a Mexican citizen rather than an American citizen: David A. Garcia. Yesterday, Garcia was arrested in Mexico for the murder of a Burbank police officer, and was turned over to U.S. Marshals. As our local Dog Trainer explains:

Mexican authorities have previously resisted returning fugitives to the United States to face the death penalty, but most of those cases have involved Mexican citizens. Garcia, like his parents, is a U.S. citizen.

Too bad.

Posted 11/28/2003 10:51:00 AM by Patrick
GREAT AGGREGATOR: I have discovered a great aggregator called BlogLines. It was recommended by The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. It has many advantages over AmphetaDesk, which I had previously used. It requires no downloads. It allows you to organize your blogs into folders. Most important, it remembers what you have read so that you don't need to scroll through miles of already-viewed items.

This tool will save you hours of time. Check it out now.

Posted 11/28/2003 08:13:00 AM by Patrick
COUNCIL WINNERS: The Watcher's Council has spoken. The winners are:

Winning Council entry: The Weaseliest of Weasels by Free Will

and

Winning non-Council entry: Revolution - Beyond Instalanche by The Politburo Diktat (aka the Commissar).

A special congratulations to the Commissar for the latter post, which is (like most of the Commissar's entries) quite entertaining. And I'm not just saying this because I have a place (Pattericosk) on the Commissar's Map of the Blogosphere, which is explained at this post.

Posted 11/27/2003 08:14:00 PM by Patrick
THE HAMMER COMES DOWN: Michael Jackson's attorney Mark Geragos recently said: "We will land on you like a ton of bricks, we will land on you like a hammer, if you do anything to besmirch this man's reputation."

In unrelated news, the Los Angeles Dog Trainer today reports that certain unnamed sources say Jeffrey Borer, the XtraJet Executive being investigated in connection with the surreptitious taping of Jackson aboard an XtraJet aircraft, has been an FBI informant for years. The Dog Trainer has also learned that Borer was in federal prison. Borer vigorously denies having been an FBI informant.

The story says: "Geragos could not be reached for comment." Very interesting, since Mark Geragos is very rarely unavailable for comment. But I'm sure the unnamed sources have no connection to him, or to the threat quoted above.

Posted 11/27/2003 12:32:00 AM by Patrick
SPY WIPER HIJACKING UPDATE: I have noticed that I have been getting a lot of Google hits from people looking for information on Spy Wiper. Apparently due to my recent post about how my browser was hijacked by this company, Patterico is high on the Google list when you search for "Spy Wiper." Moreover, Patterico is apparently the top site not maintained by the company (and thus the first site that people click on if their browsers were also hijacked).

BoiFromTroy has disclosed that he had the identical thing happen to him, quite recently. He reports that the offending company is called "Mail Wiper, Inc." and is based in Georgia. Given his report, other similar reports, and the numerous Google searches, I believe that this is an experience many people are having right now. I would therefore like to invite comments on two topics:

1) If you have had your browser hijacked by this company, describe your experience in the comments. Tell us the date and exactly what happened. I sense there is a lot of frustration out there. Please vent it here.

2) I would also like to hear from anyone with insights on what can be done to stop this company's hijacking of people's browsers. I am less interested in technical fixes, virus software, etc. and more interested in legal opinions as to steps that can be taken against the company. Is this illegal? To whom should people complain? Any and all relevant suggestions are welcome.

UPDATE: I put a potential fix in the comments. It worked for at least one person. Please leave feedback as to whether it works for you.

Posted 11/26/2003 09:34:00 PM by Patrick
POOR, POOR RETALIACRATS™: The Washington Post decries the tactics of the Republicans in Congress, who the Post says have not been negotiating sufficiently with Democrats. The Post calls this "contempt for the minority." To use a favorite phrase of Angry Clam's, boo freakin' hoo. What about the contempt for the majority shown by Democrats who filibuster perfectly qualified judicial nominees?

UPDATE: Reader L.V. writes with this thoughtful comment: "4 radical freaks you moron. Jackass conservatives tried to filibuster 60 the last time around. Like that wasn’t a waste of my tax dollars. [expletive]ing hypocrite."

Another leftist helping to raise the level of discourse. Thanks, L.V., and a Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Posted 11/26/2003 08:45:00 PM by Patrick
NEW HOME PAGE: After two awful days of having Talking Points Memo as my home page (to avoid the home page that browser hijackers Spy Wiper forced on me), reader and General Good Guy Steve G. has taught me how to edit my registry and reset my home page. Patterico is now my home page. Thank you, Steve!

P.S. I also finally managed to fix the permalinks, which I broke by adding comments.

Posted 11/26/2003 05:34:00 PM by Patrick
FROM THE P.C. FILE:

Los Angeles officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms "master" and "slave" on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive.

. . . .

Dennis Tafoya, director of the affirmative action office, said in a separate memo that an "exhaustive search" had been undertaken to find all such labels and replace them with more "appropriate" ones. A form was sent to all departments to identify equipment carrying the labels "master" and "slave" or any other offensive terms.

Your tax dollars at work.

Keep this story in mind the next time some liberal argues that waste in government is a myth.

(Thanks to reader Steve G. for the pointer.)

UPDATE: This is apparently going all around the blogosphere. I have to say that Baldilocks has the best comment I have seen on it so far. Something about Ritzes. Go see it for yourself.

Dale Franks says: "Next thing you know, male/female connectors will be named patriarchal/oppressed connectors."

UPDATE x2: Even Kevin Drum thinks this is stupid.

Posted 11/26/2003 05:29:00 PM by Patrick
PROOF THAT GOD UNDERSTANDS IRONY: First there was the guy who was critically injured while being initiated into the Ku Klux Klan. And now comes another example of God's sardonic sense of humor, via this story from the Anchorage Daily News:

A local businessman who had just finished testifying against a proposed no-smoking ordinance in Homer collapsed with a heart attack in the city council chambers Monday night and could not be revived.

Robert Keys, 70, a former smoker, told a packed city council meeting he thought businesses should have the option to decide for themselves how to limit smoking. He said he sat at a table of smokers every morning for coffee and conversation at a local restaurant without trouble.

"It hasn't bothered my health any. I'm 70 years old and still kickin'. Pretty good, too," Keys testified. In fact Keys, a veteran, said he'd just had an echocardiogram about six weeks ago at the hospital at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

"They told me I had the heart of a very young person. So I think all this baloney about it affecting people's health is just that. Baloney."

Keys returned to his seat in the council chambers. Less than five minutes later, gasping noises from Keys interrupted further testimony. The room was cleared and emergency help summoned. . . . Attempts to resuscitate Keys en route to the hospital were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest in the emergency room at South Peninsula Hospital, Homer Fire Chief Bob Painter said.

Thanks to reader Laudio (Dean I) for the pointer.

Posted 11/26/2003 06:14:00 AM by Patrick
Q&A WITH DISABILITIES ADVOCATE: Those who have followed the Schiavo case may be interested in this Q & A with disabilities advocate Stephen Drake regarding end-of-life planning.

Posted 11/26/2003 06:10:00 AM by Patrick
LET THEM SING IT FOR YOU: This is interesting. Bonus points if you can guess each song and artist. (Via Dave Barry's Blog, as pointed out by reader Dean L.)

Posted 11/25/2003 08:43:00 PM by Patrick
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Regarding the secret taping of Michael Jackson by "XtraJet", Jeffrey Borer, an XtraJet corporate officer, defended the company's decision to investigate the possibility of selling the tapes. According to Borer, once the tapes were discovered, the company "explored the opportunity as any businessperson would."

Now that's good business.

Posted 11/25/2003 06:00:00 AM by Patrick
ARNOLD TERMINATES LICENSES FOR ILLEGALS: Arnold is having an effect already.

UPDATE: Xrlq is suspicious.

UPDATE x2: Or maybe not. See comments.

Posted 11/25/2003 06:00:00 AM by Patrick
SCRAPPLEFACE SCORES AGAIN: If you haven't read it already, you must put down that bag of Cheetos and immediately read the ScrappleFace Interview with the Chinese Premier. Brilliant.

Posted 11/24/2003 09:36:00 PM by Patrick
TED RALL, SCUMBAG (REVISITED): I first learned that Ted Rall supports Howard Dean at xrlq's blog, here. Eugene Volokh has a good explanation why Dean should be embarrassed. And I have posted about Rall a couple of times myself, here and here.

Posted 11/24/2003 06:10:00 AM by Patrick
COMPUTER PROTECTION RACKET: Some company has started an internet protection racket. They somehow commandeered our browser and changed our home page. Now, when we open Internet Explorer, we are taken to a page that tries to sell us a program called "Spy Wiper." This page does tricks like popping our CD-ROM open, or launching Notepad. Then we get a warning that says (I am paraphrasing): "If your CD-ROM popped open, or your Notepad launched, you need to download our program."

I'd give you the link, but I'm afraid that if you went there, the same thing might happen to your computer.

If I had the people responsible for this here, it would be simple; I could just strangle them. As it is, I must settle for some other solution. If you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments.

UPDATE: I have received requests from computer-savvy people for me to publish the URLs of the site that hijacked my browser. Here they are -- but beware: if you don't know what you're doing, don't click on them:

http://default-homepage-network.com/index2.html

http://default-homepage-network.com/index3.html

The first one is the one that pops open your CD-ROM and launches a menacing message on Notepad.

Through a comment at xrlq's site, I saw a link to something called "Hijack This." But how do I know this isn't another scam program? (By the way, it's probably just coincidence, but this all started about 24 hours after I installed and ran Ad Aware 6.0 -- a program I downloaded after reading about similar problems others had been having.) I don't know what programs to trust anymore.

UPDATE x2: It happened to BoiFromTroy too.

UPDATE x3: Well, I fixed the problem in a strange way. I first followed BoiFromTroy's advice, and installed all Windows updates and got rid of all cookies. This didn't fix the problem. Then I remembered that the liberal blog Talking Points Memo has a feature whereby you can make that site your home page by clicking on the appropriate link. So I did that, and Spy Wiper's page was gone.

I had previously set the Drudge Report as my home page, and frankly, I'd rather have that (or Patterico, for that matter) as my home page, rather than Talking Points Memo. But Josh Marshall is preferable to Spy Wiper, so until someone explains how I can take back control of my computer, this will have to do.

UPDATE x4: Problem fixed, thanks to reader Steve G. No more having to look at Josh Marshall's self-satisfied mug every time I open a new browser. Thanks, Steve!

I still want to make this company pay. I am soliciting suggestions as to how to accomplish that, at this post.

Posted 11/23/2003 08:01:00 AM by Patrick
WEEKEND BEAR FLAG LEAGUE REVIEW: It's four days since the last Bear Flag Review. What can Bear Flaggers do in just four days? Take a look and see:

Aaron has this provocative rant about Islam.

Ith's blood boils.

Deb, who is very busy, gets her 20,000 visitor while she snoozes.

The Angry Clam has a photo of a goofy guy and a pun to go with it.

Baldilocks notes the anniversary of the death of a good man on November 22, 1963: C.S. Lewis.

Blogosferics does its own linkfest.

BoiFromTroy attempts to bump up his Google standings for the benefit of people looking for the Paris Hilton video.

Justene is now truly the mother hen.

CaliforniaRepublic.org now has e-mail updates. You can subscribe by e-mailing them at subscribe@californiarepublic.org

Citizen Smash says that, like Howard Dean, he has had back pain. But he came by it in a different way.

Cobb notes some interesting public opinion polls, including religious divides on gay marriage.

Bill Quick says (in strong words) that the Dean medical deferment is irrelevant to his campaign for President.

Dale Franks says that Afghanis feel safer than they did three years ago. Can we let them vote in the 2004 presidential election?

Xrlq has a brilliant translation of the Infotel demand letter to Justene.

E-Claire has disturbing information about turkey & gravy-flavored soda pop -- that information being that such a thing exists.

Spooky reports on the prescription drug plan.

Howard Owens says that real writers write because they love to do it, not to build a large audience. That's also why you do a Bear Flag Review.

Infinite Monkey David says Lee Harvey Oswald was sent from the future.

The Interocitor whacks the wacky Ninth Circus.

The Irish Lass reminds us of her post on 100 Things You Should Do in California -- a post well worth a reminder.

The Left Coast Conservative has ended his affair with Mountain Dew. I say you're better off without her. By the way, the secret ingredient in turkey and gravy-flavored soda pop is: turkey and gravy.

Lex Communis is on a road trip, but had a post noting a discussion on inclusive language.

Michael Williams slams the ACLU's incessant yapping, and has a scary theory to boot.

Miller's Time discusses a real-life episode of Gilligan's Island.

Molly recommends a stocking stuffer, for those who like this kind of thing: a talking Ann Coulter doll. I can think of a few liberal in-laws who would enjoy this. . .

The Mulatto Advocate sheds the s88239886 identity. Isn't it nice to be a name and not a number?

Pathetic Earthlings has a different gift idea for those who don't want the Ann Coulter doll: flourescent fish.

Patio Pundit has this disturbing picture of a turtle chowing down.

Patrick Prescott asks you not to wish him a "Happy Turkey Day." I would add only this: make every day Thanksgiving. Every person reading this has a lot to be thankful for. Don't take life for granted.

Patterico has comments! (Well, I have a comments feature, anyway. I'm still working on the actual comments. Help me out by leaving one!)

PrestoPundit discusses Hayek and gay marriage.

The Right Coast has a recipe for scotch and water. It's more involved than you might think. The secret ingredient is: scotch. (Blended scotch.)

Breaker blasts John Dvorak's dissing of blogs. Drop Breaker a comment to prove Dvorak wrong.

Bryon Scott is back!

The Shark fisks notorious jerk Ted Rall.

SoCalLawyer keeps us up to date on lap dancing in L.A.

Tone Cluster says World War III is on our doorstep.

The Window Manager discusses the Pulitzer awarded to genocide denier Walter Duranty.

UPDATE: As a bonus, BoiFromTroy (who often shoulders the work of the Review) is presenting a Rocky Top Sampler. It is given in honor of the "alliance" (whatever that means) between the Bear Flag League and the Rocky Top Brigade.

Posted 11/23/2003 01:46:00 AM by Patrick
BERLIN PHIL AT DISNEY: I saw the Berlin Philharmonic at Disney Hall Friday night. They performed Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta" and Schubert's Ninth Symphony. The Bartok is familiar to anyone who has seen Kubrick's "The Shining." It is great music -- very spooky, and well suited to a horror film. Unlike Esa-Pekka conducing Haydn's Creation (which I saw recently), Rattle trusted the acoustics of Disney Hall to carry the softest pianissimos to the highest points in the hall. When the few dozen audience members afflicted with tuberculosis were not hacking away, Rattle's calculation was very successful.

As when the Vienna Phil performed the Schubert Ninth in Orange County a year or two ago, I noticed a wonderful crispness to the woodwind section, especially during the repeated triplets in the first movement. But unlike the Vienna Phil, the Berliners really have swing. You can tell that each individual player really feels like both an accomplished artist on his/her own, and a part of an organic unit. The players really get into the music in a visible way I have never seen with any other orchestra.

The usual L.A. standing ovation was greeted with unusual behavior by a conductor. Rattle travelled throughout the orchestra. shaking hands with individual players in the woodwind, brass, and percussion sections. He rarely bowed from the podium, choosing instead to stand among orchestra members, as if to deprecate his own position as conductor, and rather to acknowledge the huge talent of the orchestra itself. It was a welcome and appreciated gesture.

Posted 11/23/2003 01:46:00 AM by Patrick
RIGHT-WINGERS: In a fairly rare "Nixon goes to China" moment, I would like to open a discussion about some things that right-wingers tend to believe that I think are wacky positions. (And now that I have comments, you can tell me why I'm wrong.) For example:

The environment. Any position in support of the environment is derided as "tree-hugging" by conservatives. Why? Do we really want the whole country to have the same air quality I enjoy here in Los Angeles?

Cigarette smoking. It's unhealthy. It's annoying. It's an unfortunate addiction some people have. Like most addictions, most of the addicts would like to kick it. Why is the ability to smoke all over the place somehow a big civil rights issue for conservatives?

Animal rights. Yes, PETA is a pack of idiots. But we can't define those who support animal rights by the actions of the morons at PETA. (I hate it when left-wingers define my beliefs according to some stupid thing Ann Coulter said.) Many animals have thoughts, emotions, and some ability to communicate. Why is it considered comical to speak on their behalf?

I am sure there are more, but let's start with these. Plenty here to offend most regular readers, I'm sure.

Posted 11/22/2003 11:56:00 PM by Patrick
COMMENTS: Despite blog comments leading someone to get threatened with a lawsuit recently, I have decided to experiment with allowing readers to leave comments. Tell me what you think by, well, leaving a comment.

This is highly experimental. I like controlling the content of the blog, and I'm reluctant to give that up. However, I have had at least one loyal reader repeatedly pester me to do this. (You know who you are . . . Dean.)

UPDATE: I am tempted to imitate Citizen Smash and start an "open thread." Since my traffic is much, much lower than his, it would be pretty hilarious -- kind of like watching a talk show on a public access cable channel.

Posted 11/22/2003 10:27:00 PM by Patrick
BAD WRITING IN THE NEW YORK TIMES: This NYT story about Howard Dean's draft-dodging has this curious sentence: "His back condition did not affect his skiing the way the rigors of military service would have, he said, nor did it prevent him from taking odd jobs like pouring concrete in the warm months and washing dishes when it got cold."

Yup, nothing affects your skiing like the rigors of military service.

Posted 11/22/2003 10:00:00 PM by Patrick
WATCHER'S COUNCIL: The winners are listed here. This week goes to the patriots. Alpha Patriot has the winning Council entry, Where are the Factory Jobs Going? Patriot Paradox has the winning non-Council entry, Iraq is Better Off.

Posted 11/22/2003 07:54:00 PM by Patrick
ADDITION TO BLOGROLL: The Politburo Diktat has earned a place on Patterico's blogroll. I first mentioned this site in this post from three weeks ago. It just keeps getting better and better. Visit the Commissar today.

P.S. The Commissar currently has great advice on how to build your blog audience.

UPDATE: I have also added Dean's World, another blog I visit regularly.

Posted 11/22/2003 01:39:00 AM by Patrick
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD -- TO PRISON: Phil Spector has been charged with murder. Spector has long deserved a lengthy prison sentence for the murder of the Beatles album "Let It Be." However, efforts to charge him for that offense foundered recently, when the victim surfaced unexpectedly, stripped naked, and apparently sounding great.

Posted 11/22/2003 01:03:00 AM by Patrick
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Via Drudge:

A Silicon Valley computer programmer has been arrested for threatening to torture and kill employees of the company he blames for bombarding his computer with Web ads promising to enlarge his penis.

. . . .

[Charles] Booher threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company, to "disable" an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said.

I think we have all had similar thoughts. No jury would convict Booher.

The president of the company, Douglas Mackay, denied sending the spam. He "blamed a rival firm which he said routes much of their unsolicited bulk e-mail through Russia and eastern Europe. Mackay said such firms gave a bad name to the penis enhancement business."

Is that like giving a bad name to Infotel?

Posted 11/22/2003 12:58:00 AM by Patrick
MORE HENTOFF ON SCHIAVO: Nat Hentoff continues his Schiavo crusade with an article titled It's Not Only About Terri Schiavo. Hentoff makes some chilling comparisons between the Schiavo situation and the Nazis' disregard for the lives of those who were disabled. Here are some excerpts:

In 1920, a prominent German lawyer, Karl Binding, and a distinguished German forensic psychiatrist, Alfred Hoche, wrote a brief but deadly book, The Permission To Destroy Life Unworthy of Life. . . . Binding and Hoche emphasized that "the incurably ill and the mentally retarded were costing millions of marks and taking up thousands of much-needed hospital beds. So doctors should be allowed to put them to death."

Then came Adolf Hitler, who thought this was a splendid, indeed capital, idea. The October 1, 2003, New York Daily News ran this Associated Press report from Berlin:

"A new study reveals Nazi Germany killed at least 200,000 people because of their disabilities—people deemed physically inferior, said a report compiled by Germany's Federal Archive. . . ."

. . . .

Among the defendants at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders and their primary accomplices in the mass murder were German doctors who had gone along with the official policy of euthanasia. An American doctor, Leo Alexander, who spoke German, had interviewed the German physician-defendants before the trials, and then served as an expert on the American staff at Nuremberg.

In an article in the July 14, 1949, New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Alexander warned that the Nazis' crimes against humanity had "started from small beginnings . . . merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the physicians. It started with the acceptance, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived." That shift in emphasis among physicians, said Dr. Alexander, could happen here, in America.

. . . .

Not long before he died, Dr. Alexander read an article in the April 12, 1984, New England Journal of Medicine by 10 physicians—part of the growing "death with dignity" brigade. They were from such prestigious medical schools as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Virginia. These distinguished healers wrote that when a patient was in a "persistent vegetative state," it was "morally justifiable" to "withhold antibiotics and artificial nutrition (feeding tubes) and hydration, as well as other forms of life-sustaining treatment, allowing the patient to die." They ignored the finding that not all persistent vegetative states are permanent.

After reading the article, Dr. Alexander said to a friend: "It is much like Germany in the '20s and '30s. The barriers against killing are coming down."

Please do not e-mail me to tell me that I am claiming that anyone who thinks Terri Schiavo should be allowed to die is no better than a Nazi. I do not believe Hentoff is making such an argument, and I would endorse no such argument. I fully understand that, at least in theory (as determined by some probate judge in Florida), this is a decision that Terri Schiavo made herself.

But I do share Hentoff's concern that we be careful about labeling lives as not worth living. Of all the slippery slopes in the world, this is one of the worst. Best to stay on completely level ground.

Posted 11/22/2003 12:58:00 AM by Patrick
PROOF THAT PLEDGES ARE BAD: See? If I had taken the "no Michael Jackson posts" pledge, how should I show you his face melting?

Posted 11/22/2003 12:58:00 AM by Patrick
NEW WORD: A woman discussing Michael Jackson on the radio tonight used the word "scenarioalize." She said: "I just can't scenarioalize that."

And that is how this post was inspirationalized.

Posted 11/21/2003 06:05:00 AM by Patrick
THIS COULD ALSO EXPLAIN WHY THEY EAT KIDNEY PIE: Via Reason comes this true story about a woman who suffered brain damage from a stroke, and started speaking with a British accent as a result. (It's apparently not a hoax, but an instance of a rare but documented medical phenomenon which is further explained here.)

I have suspected that a British accent is a sign of brain damage ever since I read those quotes about Bush from the mayor of London (who, I am informed, speaks with a British accent). My belief was reinforced yesterday as thousands of people with British accents toppled a statue of George W. Bush in Trafalgar Square.

UPDATE: I am experimenting with tracking this post back to Outside the Beltway. Not easy with Blogspot. Wish me luck!

Posted 11/21/2003 06:04:00 AM by Patrick
BUSH WANTS SCHIAVO CASE TO GO TO A JURY: Lawyers for Gov. Jeb Bush are seeking a jury trial to decide whether Terri Schiavo really wanted to die instead of being fed though a feeding tube.

Where have I heard this argument before? Oh, that's right -- here, in my article about Schiavo at CaliforniaRepublic.org. That article discusses other appropriate procedural protections for Ms. Schiavo as well, if Bush's lawyers are interested.

P.S. In the linked story (first link on this post), Bush's lawyers defend Terri's Law as providing an "extra layer of protection" for Schiavo. Her husband's attorney, George ~~Feiger~~ Felos, mocked this argument, saying: "An extra layer of protection? That's a nice sounding platitude. Who does Terri need protection from? The courts?"

Uh, no, George. From your client.

Posted 11/20/2003 08:47:00 PM by Patrick
OUCH!: When you look up "dislocate" in the dictionary, you see this picture. (Via Dave Barry's Blog.)

Posted 11/20/2003 07:37:00 PM by Patrick
DEAN'S PLEDGE: Dean Esmay is making a pledge not to talk about Michael Jackson for 6 months. He invites others to make similar pledges.

For me, this would be a little like pledging not to discuss toe lint. I have no interest in the subject and don't expect to. However, having failed at a previous quasi-pledge not to discuss a certain topic (Schiavo), I am reluctant to jump on the pledge bandwagon. I can only pledge not to discuss that which does not interest me.

UPDATE: To clarify for those who like to read things the wrong way, my point is not that I don't care about child molestation. It is that I don't care about Michael Jackson.

Posted 11/20/2003 06:06:00 AM by Patrick
THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE MEMOS: Here are .pdf versions of the memos obtained by the Wall Street Journal regarding judicial nominations, as discussed in this post from Sunday. (Via How Appealing.)

In addition to the language I quoted on Sunday, there's more gold in these. For example, take this quote by a Democrat staffer: "most of Bush's nominees are nazis." Or the quote that certain civil rights organizations "would like to postpone actions on these nominees until next year, when (presumably) the public will be more tolerant of partisan dissent."

Such predictably cynical sentiments. . . Read it all.

Posted 11/20/2003 06:06:00 AM by Patrick
JOHN BURTON SAYS YOU ARE A RACIST: That is, if you oppose the ridiculous law providing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. According to this Sacramento Bee story, Burton says the grassroots efforts to reverse this silly law are "fueled by racism":

"I say the issue is racism," the San Francisco Democrat told reporters Tuesday. "Do you think if these people were white and not brown skinned we would be talking about it? I don't."

(Via The Southern California Law Blog.)

Posted 11/20/2003 06:05:00 AM by Patrick
PEACE IN OUR TIME: Beldar Blog reports on this New York Times article, which states:

The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency is scheduled to take up a resolution this week by France, Germany and Britain that seeks to compel Iran to halt enrichment and reprocessing of uranium and holds out the lure of cooperation, including sharing nuclear technology for civilian use.

Sounds good to me. Make the same deal with Al Qaeda too, and we will have gone a long way towards peace in our time.

Taking a page from the book of the mayor of Londontown, I say: Europe may well be "the greatest threat to life on this planet" whose policies will "doom us to extinction."

P.S. Beldar says:

I would very much like to see each Democratic presidential candidate asked the following yes/no question: "Do you support the notion of 'sharing nuclear technology for civilian use' with Iran?"

Me, too. Ain't holding my breath.

Posted 11/19/2003 10:49:00 PM by Patrick
WHAT INFINITE MONKEYS REALLY PRODUCE: In honor of the Infinite Monkeys blog, I would like to resurrect a post of mine from May, which relates the results of a scientific experiment which actually placed a bunch of monkeys in a room with a computer and a keyboard.

What happened? Shakespeare? Uh, not exactly. Go here to find out.

Posted 11/19/2003 08:05:00 PM by Patrick
SATIRE OR REALITY? YOU BE THE JUDGE: ScrappleFace reports: NARAL to Pay Half of Scott Peterson's Legal Fees:

The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) today announced it would pay half of the legal fees for the defense of Scott Peterson, who is accused of killing his wife and unborn son. Mr. Peterson was bound over for trial in California yesterday after an 11-day preliminary hearing.

"We don't know whether Mr. Peterson is guilty of killing his wife," said NARAL President Kate Michelman. "But no matter what he did to the fetus, it's okay because the fetus is not a human. It's an outrage that the court is putting Scott Peterson on trial for something that America's fine abortion doctors do legally hundreds of times every day."

NARAL is so outlandish it often provides its own satire. As a result, when I saw this headline on my news aggregator, I initially thought it was for real.

Posted 11/19/2003 05:40:00 PM by Patrick
LIEBAU ON THREATENED INFOTEL LAWSUIT: Over at California Republic, Carol Platt Liebau has this post about scumbag outfit Infotel's threatened lawsuit against Justene Adamec of Calblog. Liebau compares the threatened lawsuit to a threat "to sue the owner of a bullhorn because some thug walked by and yelled something actionable into it." Good analogy. Read her whole post. (Via Xrlq.)

Posted 11/19/2003 05:38:00 PM by Patrick
BEAR FLAG ROUNDUP: The Accidental Jedi has the latest from the Bear Flag League here.

Posted 11/19/2003 06:05:00 AM by Patrick
MORE ON RETIRING THE TERM "HOMICIDE BOMBER": Regarding the synagogue bombings in Istanbul, James Taranto reports:

Fox News Channel reported Saturday that "Turkish police aren't sure yet if the explosives were set off by homicide bombers or remote control." So according to Fox, those who murder people using remote-controlled bombs aren't "homicide bombers."

Good point. This is the perfect illustration of a point that Taranto and Patterico have both made before: the term "homicide bomber" is not as descriptively accurate as "suicide bomber."

Everybody understands that suicide bombers are generally trying to commit homicide. But if you just say "homicide bomber," you leave out crucial information about whether the bomber was trying to commit suicide. This can lead to ridiculous results, as the Fox News example shows.

Posted 11/18/2003 10:06:00 PM by Patrick
OVER 10,000 HARANGUED: As of yesterday, the site has had over 10,000 unique visitors.

UPDATE: That's according to Site Meter. According to Extreme Tracking (which I think I installed earlier), I passed 10,000 several days ago.

I was also interested to learn that almost half of those 10,000 visitors are from last month. I had almost as many visitors in October as I had the entire year leading up to October. So things are really picking up.

Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: A reader says my Schiavo coverage is responsible for the increase in traffic, and praises my decision to ignore the boycott by my long-time reader. I don't know whether the Schiavo coverage is the sole explanation, but whatever the reason, I appreciate the interest.

Also, I am happy to report that the long-time reader's boycott is (I believe) over, despite my persistence with the Schiavo story.

Now let's all hold hands and sing Kumbayah.

Posted 11/18/2003 09:47:00 PM by Patrick
GWB VS. KIDNEY PIE: The London Times quotes the mayor of London as saying that George W. Bush is "the greatest threat to life on this planet" whose policies will "doom us to extinction." (Via The Interocitor.)

I thought the greatest threat to life on this planet was British food.

Posted 11/18/2003 06:27:00 AM by Patrick
ADVICE TO ARNOLD: Arnold Schwarzenegger is now our Governor. If I could give Governor Schwarzenegger any advice on how best to succeed, I would tell him:

* Keep state money flowing to the local governments for basic local services like police and fire departments. If you don't, the backlash will be broad and fierce.

* Don't let your success be defined by things you can't control -- such as whether you can work with the Democratic majority in the Legislature. President Bush made this mistake when he promised to "change the tone" in Washington. He reached out to your uncle Teddy on several issues. Now Teddy Kennedy is saying that the justification for the Iraq war was a "fraud" that was "made up in Texas." You can't control the pit of Democratic vipers in Sacramento. Go above their heads to the people.

* You ran on an image of leadership. Live up to that image. There are tough choices to make. Don't dodge these difficult decisions. Make them, and justify them to the people. This will not be easy. You must show strength and determination. If you do this, the people will follow.

(Cross-posted to the CaliforniaRepublic.org blog.)

Posted 11/17/2003 12:23:00 AM by Patrick
UPPEDANTE, MEET DIM. DIM, MEET UPPEDANTE: Yesterday, I wrote a post that purported to quote the demand letter sent by Infotel lawyers to Justene Adamec. (For the background, see her post here.) The letter was (I thought) a clear parody of the Nigerian e-mail scams that practically everyone on Earth has received in their in-boxes at one time or another.

Nevertheless, some guy named uppedante came completely unhinged and started posting comments calling me a racist all over the place (so far I have seen them here, here, and here). On Calblog, uppedante called the letter a "desperately needy and awkward attempt at thinly-disguised racial humor." And on Xrlq's site, he called it a "pathetic attempt at racial humor." And on the leftist Atrios blog, uppedante said the letter "absoltuely reeked of smarmy racism."

If I "absoltuely" must explain the joke, I refer you to snopes.com, where the Nigerian e-mail scam is discussed. If you read the link, you will see that the Nigerian e-mails are poorly-written letters from stupid con artists who are obsessed with making a buck at any cost. I can openly say such nasty things about Nigerian scam artists, who will almost certainly not serve me with a frivolous lawsuit.

At least the Angry Clam got it.

Finally, because I am all about bringing people together, I would like to introduce uppedante to another clueless buffoon who trolls comment boards making inane, insulting, and inaccurate statements. Uppedante, meet Dim the Army Janitor.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

UPDATE: The real letter is at Xrlq's site, here. I leave it to you to decide which letter (the parody or the real thing) contains more grammatical mistakes and generally idiotic statements. I know what my vote is.

UPDATE x2: I have to admit, the contents of this letter are amusing.

For instance, as an example of "invasion of privacy" this lawyer quotes a comment that states: "Suffice it to say that the head honcho Gofdon Frank, drives a Porsche, late model of course, and owns a Harley Davidson." By terming it an "invasion of privacy" the lawyer, of course, confirms this information -- but how could publishing what a guy drives be an invasion of privacy anyway??

And then there is a line in the letter referring to a recording a commenter claimed was made up by the company. Here is the line from the letter, complete with a "sic" added by the lawyer: "I'm confident that we can make them go away, but hopefully putting [sic] the recording up will help others." Apparently the lawyer was disturbed by the correct spelling of "putting."

Posted 11/17/2003 12:23:00 AM by Patrick
TALK LIKE YOUR GOVERNOR POST: I don't have the energy to participate in this Talk Like Your Governor Day thing all day long. For me, humor comes rarely, in quick bursts, and takes too much energy to keep up constantly. (Plus, when I do attempt humor, people sometimes don't get it -- see the post above for one example.) But here is one post honoring the day, in anticipation of this afternoon's inauguration:

I am happy to be here in the Sacramento, so much closer to Stanford, where you know I have been spending some time lately and all those kinds of things.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Posted 11/17/2003 12:22:00 AM by Patrick
GOAL: FEWER HANDS RAISED: This Steve Lopez column about some eighth graders visiting a fancy restaurant as a reward for academic diligence rang a bell with me. He relates that, at the meal, one of the students asked an assistant principal if she had ever seen someone shot in the head. Lopez says that another student spoke up, and another.

And now it seemed as if everyone at the table had a story about a shooting. The student next to me said he had been shot at and was with a friend who was shot and killed, and he proceeded to go into great and graphic detail about the gang activity in his neighborhood.

This reminded me of a similar question I once asked of fifth-graders in Compton. I was teaching a weekly class about the criminal justice system, and there was a skit that involved someone being shot. I asked the students to raise their hands if they had ever heard gunfire from their houses.

Every hand in the room went up.

I asked them to raise their hands if a family member or friend had been shot.

Every hand but two went up.

Again, these were fifth-graders.

I don't have a simple solution, but this is a pretty good indication of what the problem is.

Posted 11/17/2003 12:20:00 AM by Patrick
RADICAL PROPOSAL: DEPORT ILLEGAL ALIENS WHO ARE CRIMINALS: Here's a story you'll never see in the Los Angeles Dog Trainer, but that did appear in the L.A. Daily News: Is L.A. Soft on Illegals?. The story recounts how Daryl Gates ordered LAPD officers to "stop asking suspects, witnesses and victims about their immigration status." The policy might make sense for witnesses and victims, but for suspects?

The most amazing thing in the article is this:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stationed in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Twin Towers Correctional Facility check the immigration status of inmates and decide whether to deport them when their term is finished, jail Lt. Tim Murphy said.

Decide whether to deport illegal immigrants who are in jail?

Look, I understand that we don't have the resources to deport all illegal immigrants. But it seems like a no-brainer to start with the criminals. If a single immigration agent is worrying himself with illegals who have not already been convicted of a crime serious enough to warrant jail time, while illegals are being deliberately released from jail, there is something seriously wrong.

Posted 11/17/2003 12:19:00 AM by Patrick
ANTICIPATING THE BERLIN PHIL: The New York Times offers this account of the Berlin Philharmonic's Carnegie Hall appearances under Simon Rattle. It's whetting my appetite for the upcoming Disney Hall concert by the Berliners (they are giving two, but I am attending only one.)

Posted 11/16/2003 06:49:00 PM by Patrick
SPAM HARVESTERS REJOICE: Via the Angry Clam comes these e-mail contacts for Infotel Publications.

gf@MEDIACORP.COM

hostmaster@CA.INTER.NET

The spambots will no doubt pick up these addresses, but that is the unfortunate side effect of telling you where to write your angry letters about this.

Posted 11/16/2003 12:03:00 PM by Patrick
IT'S CONFIRMED: ESTRADA WAS BORKED DUE TO HIS ETHNICITY: The Wall Street Journal has obtained Democratic staff strategy memos from when the Democrats were in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2001-02. You can read excerpts here.

The most interesting thing in the memos is their discussion of Miguel Estrada. The memos confirm what we knew all along: Estrada was borked in large part because he was Latino.

A November 6, 2001 memorandum to Democrat Senator Dick Durbin informs Durbin of a scheduled meeting with leaders of liberal interest groups regarding "the most controversial and/or vulnerable judicial nominees." A follow-up memo from the next day states:

November 7, 2001/To: Senator Durbin

. . . .

The groups singled out three--Jeffrey Sutton (6th Circuit); Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit); and Caroline [sic] Kuhl (9th Circuit)--as a potential nominee for a contentious hearing early next year, with a [sic] eye to voting him or her down in Committee. They also identified Miguel Estrada (D.C. Circuit) as especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible.

There you have it, straight from the ass's mouth.

Now sit back and watch the mainstream media ignore this.

Posted 11/16/2003 10:24:00 AM by Patrick
DEMAND LETTER MADE PUBLIC: I have obtained that demand letter from Infotel lawyers to Justene. (For background on this, go here. Briefly, the situation is that a blogger has been threatened with a lawsuit for comments made by other people on her site -- despite clear law saying she can't be held liable under such circumstances.) I think that the demand letter should be published for all to see:

FROM:MRS. M SESE-SEKO

DEAR FRIEND,

I AM MRS. SESE-SEKO, WIDOW OF LATE PRESIDENT OF MOBUTU SESE-SEKO AND ALSO ATTORNEY FOR INFOTEL. WE HAVE REVEIWED YOURE STATEMENTS ON YOU'RE WEB SITE. WHAT THE PEOPLES ARE SAYING IT IS NOT THE TRUE. MY SONS JAMES KONGOLO AND BASHER NZANGA SAY ALSO THE STATEMENTS ARE DEFFAMATORY. SO I AM MOVED TO WRITE YOU THIS LETTER.

COMMENTS ON YOUR SITE ARE SAYS OUR COMPANYS HAVE SCAMMING CUSTOMERS. I AM NOT SEEING SUCH OUTRAGEOSITY SINCE I ESCAPED OUT OF DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (DRC) TO ABIDJAN, COTE D'IVOIRE. ALL THESE THINGS ARE NOT SCAMMS. BETTER BUSINESSES BURAEU SYAS YES BUT IT IS NOT IN KNOWLEDGE OF EVERYTHING> AS YOU ARE OPERATING WEBB SITE THIS IS NOBODYS FAULT EXCEPOT YOURS.

OUR COMPANY HAS BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO SPNED ON LAWSUITS, COLLECTED FROM SETTLEMNT WITH LAURENT KABILA AFTER MY HUSBAND DIED OF CANCER DISEASE. DO NOT BE ENTANGLED WITH US OR WE WILL BURY YOU.

AFTER LAYING LOW AND STUDY THE SITUATION, WE DEMAND THE SUM OF EIHGTEEN MLLION UNITED STATE DOLLARS(US$18,000,000,00.) FOR THIS DEFFAMATION. MY SON ( KONGOLO ) SHALL PUT YOU IN THE PICTURE OF WHERE THE FUNDS MUST BE DEPOSITED AND DISCUSS THE OUT MODALITIES WHICH WILL INCLUDE TO PLACE THE MONEY DEPOSITED IN SWISS BANK AND OTHER COUNTRIES INTO OTHER FORMS OF MONEY CODED FOR SAFE PURPOSE.

NO COPS.

BEST REGARDS,

MRS M. SESE SEKO

It's worse than I'd thought.

(Caution for irony-impaired: may not be actual letter. Beware possible parody.)

UPDATE: If you have never heard of the Nigerian e-mail scams, and you really need the joke explained to you, click on this link.

Posted 11/16/2003 09:08:00 AM by Patrick
LEARN MORE ABOUT INFOTEL: Via Right on the Left Beach comes this link, showing the numerous complaints that the Better Business Bureau has received about Infotel Publications, the scumbags who threatened to sue Calblog.

The BBB says:

The Bureau has received numerous complaints concerning this company's selling practices. Most complaints claim their business was billed for a directory listing which was never ordered, or that Infotel sales personnel claimed to be asking for a renewal of a listing when none existed.

. . . .

This company has an unsatisfactory business performance record with the Bureau due to a pattern of complaints claiming deceptive selling practices, a pattern of complaints concerning credit and billing procedures, and for failure to eliminate the cause of those complaints.

They forgot to mention that their lawyers apparently like to harass people with plainly frivolous lawsuits.

Posted 11/16/2003 08:54:00 AM by Patrick
GOOD TAKE ON FILIBUSTER: Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday just made a good point: the filibuster of Bush nominees by the Retaliacrats™ appears to violate the sacred principle of "Let Every Vote Count."

Here, we know how the vote would come out -- the Bush nominees would win. But the Retaliacrats don't want the vote to take place. They're closing the polls. They're harassing the voters. They're taking every undemocratic step possible to keep the "Neanderthals" (as Teddy K. sensitively termed nominees like black woman Janice Rogers Brown) off the courts.

Don't let anyone tell you this is anything but unprecedented. I have seen no evidence that Republicans ever blocked any Democrat nominee that provably would have won a floor vote. That is what is happened here, and it is an outrage.

"Count Every Vote" and "Let Every Vote Count"!

Posted 11/15/2003 09:06:00 PM by Patrick
COMMENTARY ON STUPID THREATENED LAWSUIT: BlogoSFERICS has this roundup of commentary on the ridiculous threatened lawsuit against Justene of Calblog.

Posted 11/15/2003 01:30:00 PM by Patrick
TERRI'S LAW IN JEOPARDY: It looks like Terri's Law is about to be struck down. Apparently it would violate her constitutional right to be ~~murdered by her husband~~ left alone by the Florida Legislature.

Posted 11/15/2003 01:48:00 AM by Patrick
ANAGRAMS FOR INFOTEL PUBLICATIONS:

A felon, but in politics
Polite, lunatic! No fibs!

Posted 11/15/2003 12:06:00 AM by Patrick
DEATH TO ~~TED RALL~~ INFLAMMATORY RHETORICAL DEVICES: John Scalzi is again defending Ted Rall (sort of). Scalzi, whom I generally like, and whose literacy drive I support and link to below, has the misfortune of being Rall's friend. Scalzi has previously published a quasi-defense of Rall's cartoon making fun of the surviving family members of those murdered by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists. (I say "quasi-defense" because Scalzi is always careful to say that he is not really defending Rall -- but then he always seems to be sort of sticking up for the guy.)

Anyway, you will remember from my post below that the latest Ted Rall flap concerns his column in which he assumes the voice of an Iraqi soldier bent on killing Americans. Rall really seems to get into it, to the point where it's difficult to separate the views of the "character" from the views held by Rall. Part of the problem is that you know that Rall agrees with much of what he has the soldier say. For instance, the Iraq war is referred to as "Dick Cheney's cynical oil war" in which many "poor and uneducated" soldiers "do not understand that they are being used as pawns." There is no doubt that Rall believes this.

After Rall has his soldier say these anti-American things -- things that we know Ted Rall believes -- Rall then has the soldier say more anti-American things, like this:

Unfortunately, we can't help these innocent U.S. soldiers. They are victims, like ourselves, of the bandits in Washington. Nor can we disabuse them of the propaganda that an occupier isn't always an oppressor. We regret their deaths, but we must continue to kill them until the last one has gone home to America.

You really have to wonder if Rall agrees with this point of view too. When you read the piece as a whole, it really sounds like he does. But Scalzi says people should not jump to that conclusion, and explains that Rall's apparent desire to see American soldiers killed may be simply an "inflammatory rhetorical device."

When I read Scalzi's explanation, I thought to myself: what a great idea! Why not publish my own piece using an "inflammatory rhetorical device" regarding what some other people might think should happen to Ted Rall?

I immediately started drafting a satirical piece called "TED RALL MUST BE KILLED." Much as Rall's piece "took the point of view" of an Iraqi who wanted to kill American soldiers, my piece took the point of view of people so offended by Rall's commentary that they might want to kill him. I thought that I made this point of view seem very rational indeed. I noted that Rall's commentary (as exemplified by the cartoon and column mentioned above) not only appeared to be reflective of a fundamentally soulless and evil human being, but also amounted to something close to treason, by giving aid and comfort to the enemies of this nation.

The piece did not reflect my opinion, of course. It goes without saying that nobody deserves to be killed in this country, except murderers executed through due process of law. The First Amendment protects Rall's right to be the unbelievably offensive asshole that he is. I began writing the piece simply to show that the use of an "inflammatory rhetorical device" can be so incredibly inappropriate as to be indefensible. The draft I began was, I thought, compelling in its verisimilitude. And I thought it made a pretty good point, about Rall's outrageousness (unlike Rall's piece, which -- if not intended as a tract favoring killing our soldiers -- is utterly inexplicable and pointless).

But I couldn't finish it. Part of the problem is that I just can't lower myself to Rall's level, even for purposes of satire. Another part of the problem is that what I wrote didn't come out funny -- at all (kind of like Rall's cartoons and columns). If there is a witty way to satirize views as repugnant as Rall's, it will have to be done by someone far more clever than I. (Perhaps the inestimable Xrlq is up to the job; I'm not.)

So, no, I don't wish death for Ted Rall, and I can't even say so as a "joke." But I would love to see his brand of thoughtless, offensive commentary die a slow and horrible death.

UPDATE: Here's a guy who sounds like Ted Rall from the right -- and he's not even trying to be funny. Disturbing stuff.

Posted 11/14/2003 09:44:00 PM by Patrick
FROM THE "REPUBLICANS SUCK AT P.R." DEPARTMENT: How are the Retaliacrats™ getting away with making it appear that their filibuster is somehow the Republicans wasting valuable legislative time?

P.S. And how did they convince anyone that the legislative time was valuable, or that wasting it is a bad idea?

Posted 11/14/2003 09:25:00 PM by Patrick
FROM THE "DUH, I IS A LAWYR BUTT I CAN'T REED SO GUD" DEPARTMENT: Justene, the operator of Calblog, is being threatened with a lawsuit based on comments published on her blog -- comments that were written by other people.

Whether such a lawsuit could succeed is not even a close question. Section 230 of the 1996 Telecom Act provides that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." In plain English, you can't be sued for comments made by someone else on your blog.

This language was applied by the Ninth Circuit (presumably the relevant jurisdiction for any lawsuit against Justene) in the case of Batzel v. Smith, 333 F.3d 1018 (9th Cir. 2003).

I think the more interesting question is whether Justene can countersue for malicious prosecution. I tend to think she can.

UPDATE: Jeff notes that she would first have to win the lawsuit, since successful termination of the underlying suit is an element of a malicious prosecution claim.

UPDATE x2: The Interocitor has this recent and disturbing ruling from a California state court.

UPDATE x3: Here are anagrams for Infotel Publications, the company that threatened to sue Justene.

UPDATE x4: Read what the Better Business Bureau says about this company here.

UPDATE x5: I have obtained a copy of the demand letter sent to Justene and have posted it here.

Posted 11/14/2003 08:51:00 PM by Patrick
LITERACY DRIVE: Donate money to John Scalzi's literacy drive. Read about it here.

Posted 11/14/2003 07:20:00 PM by Patrick
NEW HENTOFF COLUMN: Nat Hentoff asks: Was Terri Schiavo Beaten in 1990?

Posted 11/14/2003 07:40:00 AM by Patrick
TED RALL, LONG-TIME SCUMBAG: Many bloggers (like this one and this one) have been pointing to this piece by Ted Rall as evidence that he is a scumbag.

But much worse is this cartoon of his, which mocks the families of those murdered on September 11, 2001. Anyone who has seen this cartoon does not need further evidence to decide that Ted Rall is a despicable, soulless being.

UPDATE: Instapundit has more on "the Rall backstory."

Posted 11/13/2003 08:52:00 PM by Patrick
SHEESH, ANOTHER XRLQ-PATTERICO "DEBATE": Miller's Time thinks Xrlq and I have been having a "debate" about the whole a/an thing.

This reminds me of when Xrlq and I allegedly had a "debate" about partial-birth abortion. Everybody always thinks we're debating, even when it seems to me like we're agreeing.

Posted 11/13/2003 06:12:00 AM by Patrick
A OR AN?: Infinite Monkey Ben gets it right. (The original discussion, with update, is here.)

Posted 11/13/2003 06:03:00 AM by Patrick
POP VS. SODA VS. COKE: Via faithful reader Dean comes The Pop vs. Soda Page, graphically detailing regional variation in the use of the terms "pop," "soda," and "Coke."

(Full disclosure: I am from Texas. There, when you ask for a Coke, people say: "What kind?")

The site is full of interesting detail. A large interactive map of the country, broken down by which term is used, is here. A detailed chart of the statistical incidence of different terms in different states is here.

UPDATE: A reader named Ruth from Texas takes issue with my generalizations regarding Texas: "Texas is a big state. I'm from Texas, too. When I say I want a coke, I mean coca cola, nothing else, specially not an RC! Maybe it's an age thing, but I suspect it's regional. I've lived in Odessa as a young child, then in high school in Rockport. I also have managed to make it to 67 without liking any cola but Coca Cola, maybe it is the REAL thing."

I'm with you, Ruth. No Pepsi, no RC -- Coke!

Posted 11/13/2003 06:03:00 AM by Patrick
CARNIVAL IS UP: Check out this week's Carnival of the Vanities.

Posted 11/12/2003 06:09:00 AM by Patrick
A HISTORIC MOMENT: (Warning: I'm going into Safire mode here, so if you don't like grammar rants, you can safely skip this post.) I was recently reminded that I get annoyed when people say "an historic" something. It's getting to the point where it's a historic moment when people don't use the word "an" in front of the words "history" or "historic."

Don't get me wrong. This is not really an huge pet peeve; hearing this usage is not going to give me an heart attack or anything. I don't mean to sound like I'm in an huff about it. It's just that this usage might have made sense across the pond, back in the days of 'enry 'iggins. But there's no point to it anymore, at this point in our hhhhistory.

P.S. I don't like to rely on style manuals to tell me how to speak or write properly; I'd rather trust my instincts. But for those who like to go by the book, read the column at this link, which explains that

The Wall Street Journal Guide to Business Style and Usage calls for a with historic because the h is sounded, just as it is in a holy man or a honking horn.

The general rule today is to use a before sounded consonants and an before vowel sounds or unvoiced consonants, including the pronounced y sound as in a year or a utopia. But of course, it's an apple or an hour with a vowel or vowel sound.

But an historic or an historical event regularly rears its ugly head -- a vestige from British usage that once called for an when the first syllable was unaccented: a history, but an historic or historical event. Nowadays, even in Britain, using an with historic or historian is considered an affectation.

There you have it, straight from an horse's mouth.

UPDATE: Xrlq properly points out that one of the rules cited by the WSJ in the quote above sounds silly: the part about using "an before vowel sounds or unvoiced consonants, including the pronounced y sound as in a year or a utopia." I should have read the whole quote more carefully before seeming to agree with it. "An utopia"? "An year"?? Uh-uh. Nope.

I did say that I rely on my own opinion rather than that of the experts -- this is a good illustration of why.

Posted 11/12/2003 06:07:00 AM by Patrick
THE BONFIRE IS BURNING: Don't miss the blogosphere's worst posts of the week at the Bonfire of the Vanities.

Posted 11/12/2003 06:07:00 AM by Patrick
BEAR FLAG REVIEW: BoiFromTroy has the latest Bear Flag Review.

Posted 11/11/2003 10:10:00 AM by Patrick
FINAL LETTERS HOME: The New York Times today publishes excerpts from the final letters of some of the soldiers killed in Iraq.

Posted 11/10/2003 09:11:00 PM by Patrick
TODAY'S MUST-READ: Stop whatever you are doing right now and read this post by Stuart Buck, about Miguel Estrada. It is the best commentary I have ever seen on the Estrada nomination. Buck argues that, if Title VII were to apply to the judicial nomination process, Estrada would have a very good lawsuit, based on the transparently false justifications Senate Democrats have advanced for rejecting him.

Although Estrada gave up some time back, Buck's post still has quite a bit of relevance, in light of the current railroading of Janice Rogers Brown.

Posted 11/10/2003 08:09:00 PM by Patrick
HENTOFF ON SCHIAVO: Via LilacRose comes the latest Nat Hentoff column, which rationally discusses the case of Terri Schiavo.

Also, thanks to LilacRose for linking to my column on CaliforniaRepublic.org regarding the court system's failure to protect Terri Schiavo's life the way it protects the lives of capital murder defendants.

Posted 11/10/2003 06:00:00 PM by Patrick
HIGH COURT WILL HEAR GUANTANAMO APPEAL: The AP reports that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the captives being held at Guantanamo may contest their captivity in U.S. courts.

Eugene Volokh predicts that the Court will find jurisdiction lacking. Since the good Professor is generally parsimonious with his predictions, I'd lay money on this one.

Posted 11/10/2003 05:57:00 PM by Patrick
MCCAIN-FEINGOLD DECISION WEDNESDAY?: Crediting law professor Rick Hasen, Eugene Volokh reports that we could have a decision on the notoriously unconstitutional McCain-Feingold law on Wednesday.

UPDATE: Wrong again, Hasen!

Posted 11/09/2003 10:31:00 PM by Patrick
END OF THE WORLD: Described here. (Via Aaron's Rantblog.) (Shockwave presentation -- not for those who avoid profanity.)

Posted 11/09/2003 01:02:00 AM by Patrick
WATCHER'S COUNCIL WINNERS: A couple of great posts won the weekly Council vote. Xrlq had the winning Council entry with Gun Control "Logic." Rosemary Esmay had the winning non-Council entry: a post with the wonderful, wonderful title Why I Left the Democratic Party.

It was my honor to be nominated for the category of best non-Council entry, but I have to say I really enjoyed Rosemary's entry. It is required reading for the wife today.

Posted 11/09/2003 12:19:00 AM by Patrick
RETIRED GROCERY CLERK'S OP-ED ALMOST CERTAINLY NOT WRITTEN BY UNION LAWYER: Anyone else read the op-ed by the retired grocery clerk in yesterday's Dog Trainer? It had the clever title Grocery Retirees Have a Beef Too. I have to say, it was pretty damn well-written for a piece by a former grocery clerk. I especially liked the references to Greek mythology. Now that I think about it, running bananas and milk over a supermarket scanner is a lot like the eternal struggle of Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain.

Great stuff. I was sure when I read it yesterday that it wasn't ghost-written by union officials or lawyers. I'm even more convinced now that I have read actual examples of writing by actual grocery employees, as featured by Xrlq.

If the guy really wrote this himself, I suggest that he use his considerable writing skills to freelance and make some money, rather than bitching about his retirement package. His sore hip obviously presents no impediment to his writing, and he won't have to feel like Sisyphus forever fighting the bananas and milk.

UPDATE: Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to imply that one cannot have a blue-collar job and still be a good writer. Take this cabbie, for example. (Warning: linked item contains profanity.)

Posted 11/08/2003 02:32:00 PM by Patrick
MAYBE IT'S NOT ADULTERY, BUT IT'S ALSO NOT HAPPENING TONIGHT, MISTER: Via Eugene Volokh comes the word that the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled yesterday that oral sex is not adultery.

Many people (like Prof. Volokh) read this and think: "Bill Clinton is now vindicated" (disclaimer: vindication valid only in New Hampshire).

I read it and think: I'd hate to have been a fly on the wall last night at the homes of the married male Justices of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. I'm guessing that was an ugly scene.

Posted 11/08/2003 12:29:00 PM by Patrick
COLUMN AT CALIFORNIAREPUBLIC.ORG: I have an column up today at CaliforniaRepublic.org. You can read it by clicking here.

The column argues that the court system should treat the life of Terri Schiavo with at least the same respect as it treats the lives of suspected or convicted murderers. This is a subject I have mentioned before, but the column is a more comprehensive look at the way the lives of capital murder defendants receive more protections than that of someone in Ms. Schiavo's situation.

Posted 11/07/2003 06:07:00 PM by Patrick
QUIZ: Pick the best answer. Recently, Al Sharpton:

1) Finally admitted Steven Pagones didn't rape Tawana Brawley, and said he would pay the judgment he owes Pagones for defamation, instead of buying another expensive new suit for the next presidential debate.

2) Apologized for his role in instigating deadly race riots in New York City.

3) Said that Democrats should not filibuster Janice Rogers Brown.

You probably already know the answer, but if you don't, it's here.

Posted 11/07/2003 05:52:00 PM by Patrick
WELCOME TO "HOW APPEALING" READERS: Thanks to How Appealing for linking to my post below on Judge O'Scannlain's Federalist Society talk. Welcome to any readers who found their way here from How Appealing. If you enjoy what you read here, please bookmark the site, drop me an e-mail, and visit again.

Posted 11/07/2003 06:05:00 AM by Patrick
BEAR FLAG LEAGUE MERCHANDISE HAS ARRIVED: Yesterday I received the Bear Flag League merchandise that I had ordered from The Bear Flag League Store. Coffee cups, a shirt, and a mouse pad. It all looks very sharp. As the holiday season approaches, these are obvious gifts for your friends who enjoy conservative internet commentary.

Posted 11/06/2003 06:25:00 PM by Patrick
JUDGE O'SCANNLAIN SPEAKS AT FEDERALIST SOCIETY MEETING: Today I attended a meeting of the Los Angeles Federalist Society, at which Ninth Circuit Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain gave a talk on splitting the Ninth Circuit. Among those in attendance were Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, and Bush nominee Carolyn Kuhl.

Judge O'Scannlain began by noting Judge Kuhl's pending nomination, and stating his belief that judicial confirmations are far more difficult today than when he was confirmed in 1986. He said that only 6 weeks passed from the day that President Reagan first called him to inform him of his nomination, to the day he was confirmed by the Senate. He acknowledged that the confirmation process has since become much more difficult. He said that he hopes Judge Kuhl will be confirmed soon -- a statement that received a warm round of applause from those in attendance.

Judge O'Scannlain then moved on to his main topic: splitting the Ninth Circuit. Many of the reasons he cited in favor of splitting the circuit were similar to the reasons he gave in this interview with Howard Bashman. Judge O'Scannlain distributed a handout with numerous charts demonstrating that the Ninth Circuit is unique in terms of its size, geographical breadth, and heavy caseload. In addition to workload concerns, the huge size of the circuit creates the danger of inconsistent precedents. For these reasons, Judge O'Scannlain clearly believes that a split is going to happen sooner or later.

What interested me were some of the non-statistical arguments he made in support of a circuit split. For example, he cited the recent en banc decision allowing the California recall election to go forward as an argument in favor of a circuit split. Judge O'Scannlain reminded the audience that he was on the eleven-judge en banc panel which voted unanimously (11-0) to allow the election to go forward. But, he noted, the original panel was unanimous (3-0) in favor of the opposite result. In light of that fact, Judge O'Scannlain wondered whether the judges on the en banc panel were truly representative of the entire circuit. He noted that there were more than 11 active judges who participated in neither the original decision nor the en banc decision -- enough to form a completely different en banc panel that could (in theory) come to a different decision. Judge O'Scannlain favors a small enough circuit that all active judges can participate in an en banc panel without its becoming too unwieldy.

Judge O'Scannlain also said that he thinks there is more recent momentum in Congress favoring a circuit split because of the Pledge of Allegiance case. He said that this was a bad reason to split the circuit, and that the case for the circuit split should rest on the statistical arguments he gave, not on the existence of cases like the Pledge of Allegiance case. The Ninth Circuit's reversal rate was another factor that Judge O'Scannlain said should not be considered as a valid reason to split the circuit.

Judge O'Scannlain discussed some of the different proposals for splitting the circuit, which he had already discussed at length in his interview with Howard Bashman. Judge O'Scannlain said that, in his opinion, much of the angst over the precise manner of splitting the circuit was unnecessary. After all, he said, the new Twelfth Circuit would almost certainly adopt Ninth Circuit precedent as its governing precedent on day one -- just as the Eleventh Circuit had adopted Fifth Circuit precedent on the first day after the split of the Fifth Circuit. Also, he noted that any of the proposed splits would still result in a majority of Democratic appointees in the new circuits.

Posted 11/06/2003 06:28:00 AM by Patrick
INTERESTING TIDBIT ABOUT THE JUDGE WHO BLOCKED THE PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN: I have read several stories about yesterday's injunction blocking enforcement of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, including stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. But I have yet to see one that mentions that the judge who issued the injunction, U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf, is the same judge who ruled Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban unconstitutional in the landmark decision of Stenberg v. Carhart.

This seems like relevant information. I wonder why it is not more widely reported.

Posted 11/05/2003 11:05:00 PM by Patrick
DOG TRAINER HYPOCRISY? SAY IT AIN'T SO!: PoliPundit has a nice observation about some (more) hypocrisy by the Dog Trainer. (Via BoiFromTroy.)

Posted 11/05/2003 10:41:00 PM by Patrick
BUSH'S REMARKS ON THE PBA BAN: Don't get me wrong. Putting aside those pesky constitutional questions, I think the bill banning so-called "partial-birth abortion" (so-called because that's what it is) makes an important statement. The procedure resembles infanticide. It is repugnant. I have no problem banning it.

But let's not kid ourselves. The bill doesn't save the life of a single baby. All it does is force doctors performing late-term abortions to use an alternate technique for killing the fetus -- dismembering the fetus inside the womb, instead of collapsing its skull while part of it is outside the womb. If you keep that fact in mind, some of Bush's remarks from today's signing ceremony don't make much sense:

Today, at last, the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defense of the innocent child.

. . . .

The best case against partial birth abortion is a simple description of what happens and to whom it happens. It involves the partial delivery of a live boy or girl, and a sudden, violent end of that life. Our nation owes its children a different and better welcome. The bill I am about to sign protecting innocent new life from this practice reflects the compassion and humanity of America.

. . . .

We're asked by our convictions and tradition and compassion to build a culture of life, and make this a more just and welcoming society. And today, we welcome vulnerable children into the care and protection of Americans.

How have we "come to the defense of the innocent child" if the innocent child is going to be killed anyway? How does dismembering a child in the womb constitute a "better welcome" that reflects "compassion and humanity"? How does giving birth to body parts "welcome vulnerable children into the care and protection of Americans"?

Posted 11/05/2003 07:13:00 PM by Patrick
PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT SIGNED, BLOCKED: President Bush today signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, the Associated Press reports. The law took effect for less than an hour, and was then blocked by an injunction issued by a federal judge.

The scope of that injunction is discussed here. For all practical purposes, we are unlikely to see any prosecutions under the statute before the Supreme Court rules -- or for that matter, after it rules, since it will probably be held unconstitutional.

Posted 11/05/2003 06:25:00 PM by Patrick
CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES: Fresh off of tearing us down with the Bonfire, Wizbang lifts us back up again with the latest Carnival.

Posted 11/05/2003 06:42:00 AM by Patrick
MORE ON THE MISLEADING DOG TRAINER STORY ON UC ADMISSIONS PRACTICES: Remember that story in the Los Angeles Dog Trainer that we discussed on Monday, titled Overall, Race No Factor for Low-Scoring UC Applicants? Mickey Kaus -- a bit late to the party but welcome nevertheless -- publishes his criticism of the story here.

Kaus notes the exact point made by Patterico Monday morning: the Dog Trainer saved the information on Berkeley and UCLA until after the jump. Patterico is happy to have Kaus's high-publicity magnifying glass trained on this misleading story.

P.S.: Kaus also makes the argument first made by Brendan Smart: that comparing the rates of admission is misleading, because the numbers could be skewed somewhat by the overall number of minority applicants with high SAT scores.

I continue to think that this is not too big a deal. After all, Kaus's numbers show that "65% of the students actually admitted to Berkeley and UCLA with low SATs are 'underrepresented minorities.'" So, as it turns out, the differential in the rate of acceptance is about the same as the differential in the percentage of overall students accepted: about 2-to-1.

What I want to know is why the numbers cited by Kaus and the Dog Trainer seem to be so different from the numbers in this Oakland Tribune article, which found that 89-90% of the low-scoring students admitted to Berkeley in 2001-2002 were minorities.

UPDATE: Kaus has filed an update acknowledging the superior response time of this blog and BoiFromTroy on this story. (Two days: an eternity in the blogosphere!) He also makes a good point that, while obvious, needs to be said again and again: a central issue is "whether these low-SAT students actually do wind up succeeding at the university." (Kaus wonders why the LAT doesn't do this analysis, presumably knowing the answer: they are scared of what they'll find.)

Posted 11/05/2003 06:22:00 AM by Patrick
DIDJA THINK THAT PART WASN'T RELEVANT?: Yesterday's New York Times ran an op-ed by someone named Mark Medish, arguing that Iraq's debt should not be forgiven. At the end of the column, NYT's described Medish as follows:

Mark Medish, a lawyer, was deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury from 1997 to 2000.

But when the Washington Post ran a similar piece by Medish in October, the disclosure at the bottom was a bit more detailed:

Mark Medish is a lawyer in Washington and was a senior Treasury and National Security Council official in the Clinton administration. He represents international corporate creditors of Iraq.

Emphasis by Patterico. Complete omission by the New York Times.

(Via HipperCritical.)

Posted 11/05/2003 12:33:00 AM by Patrick
WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH NAT HENTOFF?: Someone explain Nat Hentoff to me. I remember this guy as a liberal. But lately he has been writing rational columns supporting the nomination of Charles Pickering. And now comes this: a sensible op-ed on the Terri Schiavo case.

I don't get it. Am I mixing him up with someone else? Or did he used to be a wild-eyed liberal? Somebody help me out here.

Posted 11/04/2003 10:08:00 PM by Patrick
CHEAP FLIGHTS: Courtesy of Xrlq comes this information: $200* round-trip flights to England. I hate to sound like an advertising guy, but that's pretty good.

*$300 with fees.

Posted 11/04/2003 07:14:00 AM by Patrick
RUN, MARY, RUN: Mary Carey is making a, uh, film about her run for Governor. As shown in this workplace-safe photo, Cruz Bustamante will be played by porn star Ron Jeremy. The resemblance is striking, at least from the waist up. (Via Throwing Things and Pathetic Earthlings.)

According to confidential unreliable sources, Gray Davis lobbied to play himself in the film. "The women in the movie are all taxpayers, right?" Davis was overheard pleading to producers. "Nobody has more experience screwing California taxpayers than I do."

Posted 11/04/2003 06:52:00 AM by Patrick
DEBKA SAYS NYC, DC, LA TARGETED SOON: Yesterday DEBKA warned: "A new message was posted in the last few hours by the Jeddah-based al-Qaeda-linked Al-Islah (Reform) society calling on Muslims to flee New York, Washington and Los Angeles in advance of major al Qaeda attacks in those cities." (Via Tonecluster.)

I'd flee if it weren't for this damn day job. Stupid eight-hour work day. First I can't listen to Hugh Hewitt, and now this.

Posted 11/03/2003 10:50:00 PM by Patrick
BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES IS UP: When you link to the Bonfire of the Vanities, you are basically saying: "Go read my worst post -- again!"

But it's worth visiting, to see the other awful posts.

Posted 11/03/2003 10:03:00 PM by Patrick
FROM THE "SHUT UP AND GO HOME" FILE: Today the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Roy Moore's appeal of the decision preventing him from displaying the Ten Commandments on government property. Judge Moore, shut up and go home.

Also, Bob Graham announced that he will not be running for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Great; another seat up for grabs. Now shut up and go home.

(But do keep us up to date on the application of your scalp medication!)

Posted 11/03/2003 06:59:00 AM by Patrick
THE POWER OF THE JUMP™: Yet another installment in our semi-regular series, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Dog Trainer's use of its back pages to hide things it doesn't want you to see. (Previous entries in the series can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Today's entry is from a story titled Overall, Race No Factor for Low-Scoring UC Applicants. Here is the lead paragraph:

Latinos with low SAT scores are admitted to the University of California at rates only slightly higher than whites and Asians, while blacks who score poorly are significantly less likely to get in, according to a Times analysis.

Of course, the controversy hasn't been over the UC system "overall," but rather at the system's two elite campuses, UCLA and Berkeley. It is at these institutions that an overwhelming favoritism has been shown towards minorities with low scores. For instance, according to this Oakland Tribune article:

According to an analysis by this newspaper, 90 percent of the 332 students admitted to Berkeley in fall 2002 with SAT scores 1000 or below were minorities. In 2001, 89 percent of the 388 students with low scores were minorities.

So, the real issue is not the UC system overall, but what is happening at the elite UCLA and Berkeley campuses. Does the Dog Trainer's analysis contradict that of the Oakland Tribune on that issue? Let's read further, shall we? A few paragraphs down, we find this:

UC Berkeley, the original focus of the admissions debate, admitted low-scoring blacks and Latinos at twice the rate of Asians and whites with similar scores.

UCLA was about a quarter more likely to admit low-scoring African Americans and Latinos than whites and Asians.

I am reading this online right now. I guarantee you that when I trot outside and pick up my print version, I will see two things:

1) This story will be on the front page.

2) The language I just highlighted will not be on the front page, but rather on the back pages.

The Dog Trainer editors know: studies show that hardly anybody reads the stuff on the back pages. So when there is information you are ethically bound to report, but you don't want people to see, you simply bury it on the back pages -- after the "jump." For most people, this is as good as not reporting it at all.

I will now go get my print version of the paper. Just hang tight -- I'll be right back.

Okay, I got it. You will not be surprised to learned that my predictions -- which I assure you were typed out before I retrieved the print version of the paper -- turned out to be correct. The information highlighted above appears on page A16. It couldn't be buried any deeper.

Thus, by sleight of hand, the Dog Trainer editors make it sound like the original controversy -- whether the elite UC schools were giving racial preferences in violation of Proposition 209 -- was just a tempest in a teapot. In fact, the findings indicate that Proposition 209 is still being violated at these elite schools. But nobody will know this, because it's after the jump.

I hereby take back the credit that I mistakenly bestowed upon the Dog Trainer for publicizing this story to begin with.

UPDATE: Brendan Smart says that the numbers were also skewed by comparing the acceptance rates of different races, rather than comparing the percentages of each race ultimately admitted. I'm not sure that the Dog Trainer's method is as misleading as Brendan seems to think, but I agree that both comparisons should have been done and reported.

Posted 11/02/2003 09:40:00 PM by Patrick
NYT PUFF PIECE ON MICHAEL SCHIAVO: Get out your hankies and read about poor Michael Schiavo here in the New York Times:

He is a nurse who works the graveyard shift, often pulling into his driveway as his neighbors walk their dogs in the moist Florida dawn. He has a meticulously kept yard, a screened-in pool where his friends sometimes gather, a golden retriever, a girlfriend and a year-old daughter.

'My brother is a normal guy who this tragedy happened to,' said Brian Schiavo, one of the four brothers with whom Mr. Schiavo shared an unremarkable childhood in Levittown, Pa., near Philadelphia."

But because of the tragedy of Mr. Schiavo's wife, Terri, 39, who suffered brain damage when she collapsed one night 13 years ago Mr. Schiavo is also at the center of one of the most debated court cases in the nation. He wants to remove her feeding tube, paving the way for her death against the wishes of her parents and supporters who have rallied to their cause.

For this, Mr. Schiavo, 40, has been depicted as a heartless fiend.

And it goes on like that.

The piece does have one revealing quote, from a friend of Mr. Schiavo's named Russ Hyden: "He's got ethics and values that most people don't have, much less the strength to adhere to them."

You said it, Russ. After all, how many people adhere to the ethics and values of (allegedly) trying to hasten their wife's death so they can finally afford that trip to Europe?

Posted 11/02/2003 09:26:00 PM by Patrick
BERNSTEIN AT LOYOLA: Volokh Conspirator David Bernstein will speak at Loyola Law School on November 4, 2003. Details are here.

Posted 11/02/2003 08:37:00 PM by Patrick
WORD OF THE DAY: A fun word to say out loud is Babaganoush.

Okay, I'm working at getting something appropriate for the Bonfire of the Vanities. So sue me. (Invitation not applicable to Donald Luskin.)

It's still a cool word to say out loud. Try it.

UPDATE: As it turns out, this entry was a dud. While it fulfills the requirement that the post be bad, it doesn't have any references to sex -- apparently a common theme of Bonfire posts this week.

For the sex-starved coming here from the Bonfire, may I recommend this post regarding porn star Mary Carey.

Posted 11/02/2003 03:11:00 PM by Patrick
ACCEPTED WISDOM: It is Accepted Wisdom™ that:

We should not enact divisive laws that burden illegal immigrants. These immigrants are necessary to our economy, because they do jobs nobody else wants to do for the same wage.

And at the same time:

The federal government needs to impose strong sanctions against corporate executives who employ illegal immigrants, to send a strong message that it is illegal to hire undocumented workers. (As argued in this editorial from the Dog Trainer.)

Accepted Wisdom™ is a semi-regular feature of this site.

Posted 11/01/2003 03:19:00 PM by Patrick
DAILY WHIRL AND THE COMMISSAR ADD PATTERICO: Patterico has been added to The Daily Whirl, a site that provides headlines from over 100 legal news and information sites. Patterico sez: check it out.

Another interesting site that recently added Patterico to its blogroll is The Politburo Diktat, whose motto is: "Exposing Imperialist Lackeys, Capitalist Reactionaries, and Zionist Running Dogs." The site is well represented by this post endorsing Al Sharpton for President, for reasons including his defamation of Steve Pagones, his praise of Fidel Castro, and his role in starting race riots in New York City. Reset the levels on your Irony Tolerance Meter and pay the Commissar a visit.

Posted 11/01/2003 01:36:00 PM by Patrick
SO-CALLED "DEBATE" OVER CONSTITUTIONALITY OF PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT: Xrlq and I have a "debate" about the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act up at CaliforniaRepublic.org. It is called: "Banning Partial Birth Abortion: Congress v. SCOTUS..." and you can read it by clicking here.

Xrlq and I are pretty much in agreement that it is not really a "debate," because neither of us takes issue with the position of the other. It's more of an exploration of the statute's constitutionality from different angles. But people who read it seem to think it's a debate. As Xrlq says, it doesn't matter what you call it. Just read it.

It's an honor to have something published at CaliforniaRepublic.org. If you don't visit this site regularly, you should.

Posted 11/01/2003 12:36:00 PM by Patrick
BEAR FLAG MERCHANDISE IS HERE!: Get your Bear Flag League merchandise at The Bear Flag League Store at CafePress.com. I have ordered several items already, and look forward to drinking my coffee from my BFL coffee mug.

Kudos to Jeff of The Southern California Law Blog and Justene of Calblog for getting the store up so quickly. Once you have ordered your BFL merchandise, go visit their sites.

Posted 10/31/2003 07:19:00 AM by Patrick
DOG TRAINER BASHING: Mickey Kaus has a post called Bonus Gratuitous LAT-Bashing. And below that post is still more Dog Trainer bashing. Click on the link, if you like that sort of thing. (And what are you doing reading Patterico if you don't?)

Posted 10/31/2003 07:13:00 AM by Patrick
RICH GUY STEVE LOPEZ IS HAPPY TO PAY HIS TAXES: Steve Lopez says Arnold should quadruple the car tax. I agree with one of his points: that if the car tax is reduced, some other way must be found to fund local police and fire departments, and other public safety agencies. But I have to admit I chuckled when I read Lopez's line: "Excuse me, but I'm happy to pay my car tax."

Of course he is. Why wouldn't he be? Lopez gets paid $300,000 a year to write three columns a week -- and thinks it's hilarious that you, the average citizen, are excited about saving an average of $140 on your auto registration.

There sure are a lot of rich liberals who mouth off about how happy they are to pay their taxes, and how they wouldn't mind paying even more. I wonder how many of these folks donate a few extra thousand to the IRS every year -- just because they wouldn't mind.

Posted 10/31/2003 06:41:00 AM by Patrick
BEAR FLAG REVIEW: Click on the link and check out what some of the other Bear Flaggers have been saying.

Also, coming soon: Bear Flag League merchandise!

Posted 10/30/2003 09:42:00 PM by Patrick
GO NAT! GO NAT!: The final chapter of Nat Hentoff's three-part defense of Charles Pickering appeared today at this link. (Read about the first two installments here.) Hentoff begins:

I write this final column on Charles Pickering because, in some 50 years as a reporter, I have seldom seen such reckless, unfair, and repeated attacks on a person -- not only by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee but also by organizations that gather financial contributions because of their proclaimed dedication to civil rights, civil liberties, and honest research. (People for the American Way, Alliance for Justice, et al.)

This is stern stuff coming from Hentoff, a lifelong liberal. But the sternest stuff comes at the end of the column, as Hentoff says that certain liberals' very reputations depend on the outcome of the vote on Pickering:

Not only Pickering's nomination rides on this nomination. So do the reputations of those Pickering opponents who demonize him. And that includes The New York Times' editorial writers. Now, on the floor, how many Democrats will vote for Pickering?

Ironically enough, the answer came today, even before Hentoff's column came online:

Senate Republicans on Thursday failed to break a Democratic filibuster of U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering's promotion to the federal appeals court, continuing a two-year standoff tinged with accusations of racial, religious and regional politics.

So much for the reputations of Chuckie S. and his pals at the New York Times -- in Hentoff's eyes. In the eyes of many of us, their reputations were shot to hell years ago.

Posted 10/30/2003 09:06:00 PM by Patrick
"HOW APPEALING" TO INTERVIEW STEPHEN REINHARDT: Howard Bashman reports that Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt will be the February 2004 participant in the "20 questions for the appellate judge" feature at the indispensable How Appealing web site.

Howard Bashman continues to land the big fish. One suggestion: when you're done with the interview, Howard, throw this one back.

Posted 10/30/2003 08:40:00 PM by Patrick
STILL MORE SLOPPINESS AND/OR DUPLICITY FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES: Re the Schiavo case, a reader alerts me to the similar case of a California man named Robert Wendland.

Wendland was not in a "persistent vegetative state" but rather a "minimally conscious state," but the case was otherwise very similar to that of Ms. Schiavo. The spouse and other witnesses said that he had told them he didn't want to "live like a vegetable." His mother and sister argued to keep him alive.

The California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a conservator could not refuse life-sustaining treatment for Mr. Wendland. (Wendland had died of pneumonia by the time the decision was issued, but the court decided the case anyway, due to the importance of the issues involved.) The court reasoned that, since he had not specifically indicated a desire to refuse such treatment in a formal way while competent, there was no "clear and convincing evidence" of his wish to die. The court stated that this ruling might be different if a patient were in a persistent vegetative state. However, in my opinion, the California Supreme Court's approach is well-suited to the Schiavo case.

While reading about Wendland, I learned a very interesting fact in an article about his death. The article says that his wife, who had argued that he should die,

praised Dr. Ronald Cranford, a Minnesota neurologist and bioethicist, for providing her with medical and moral advice during Robert's final days. Cranford, a consultant in several high-profile right-to-die cases, did not personally treat Wendland but advised doctors on his care. His presence at the hospital enraged some pro-life activists, who fired off a statement Tuesday denouncing his involvement.

Does the name "Ron Cranford" sound familiar? Maybe you remember him from the New York Times article I discussed here titled In Feeding-Tube Case, Many Neurologists Back Courts. As I pointed out in my post, the article failed to live up to its headline, because only one neurologist who had viewed the tapes believed that Ms. Schiavo had no chance of recovering: Dr. Ron Cranford.

The Times article mentioned that he had testified for Mr. Schiavo, and I discounted his opinion accordingly. But the article didn't mention that he also regularly takes a pro-death position in litigated, high-profile "right-to-die" cases.

In these cases, Cranford's opinion carries about the same credibility as that of Jack Kevorkian. To be accurate, the Times's headline should have read: "In Feeding-Tube Case, One Right-to-Die Activist Backs Courts." Wow! Stop the presses!

Posted 10/30/2003 08:03:00 PM by Patrick
MORE SCHIAVO INFO: Via Mickey Kaus comes this April 2003 Newsday.com story on Terri Schiavo -- packed with information I had not read previously. For example, a childhood friend named Diane Meyer testified that Terri

once uncharacteristically lost her temper when Meyer told a joke about Karen Quinlan. "What is the state vegetable of New Jersey?" Meyer asked Terri in the summer of 1982. The punch line was "Karen Ann Quinlan."

"She said the joke wasn't funny and did not approve of what was going on in the Quinlan case," Meyer testified, referring to the legal battle to remove the woman from life support. "I remember one of the things she said is, 'How did they know she would want this?'"

Other friends and relatives testified that Terri described Michael Schiavo as "mentally abusive," and repeatedly talked about divorcing him, as late as days before her collapse. Also, as mentioned on this blog before, a guardian ad litem was appointed who "concluded that he had not found clear and convincing evidence that Terri would have rejected life support." The probate judge rejected this recommendation.

New to me was this astounding evidence:

The Schindlers had contacted a woman Michael dated in 1991 who told them Michael had confessed to her he did not know what Terri would want. Although the woman refused to sign an affidavit, it bought the Schindlers some time. And with it, they found Trudy Capone.

A former co-worker of Michael's, Capone signed an affidavit on May 9, 2001, stating "Michael confided in me all the time about Terri . . . He said to me many times that he had no idea what her wishes were."

How was some probate judge able to find "clear and convincing evidence" of her wish to die, given these facts??

Posted 10/30/2003 06:07:00 AM by Patrick
TAKING A STEP BACK: THOUGHTS ON THE SCHIAVO CASE: Much of the blogging I have seen on the Terri Schiavo controversy is driven by day-to-day events. This is understandable, given the fast-paced nature of the story. (For instance, just yesterday we learned here that Michael Schiavo's lawyers (as expected) filed court papers challenging the constitutionality of "Terri's Bill.") But I think it might be worthwhile at this point to take a step back and look at some of the issues raised by the controversy, without getting bogged down in whatever happened today.

The Schiavo case is remarkable for the depth of feeling it inspires in people on both sides of the issue. I have received more letters on this topic than any other topic I have discussed since this blog began. I have had a regular reader tell me he is boycotting my site because he disagrees so violently with my opinions. Many others have written me to support my point of view, to share their thoughts, and to encourage me to continue the discussion.

The emotions people feel are understandable. Although there are far more serious issues in the world, this one has a deeply personal aspect to it. Many people have had a relative or friend in a similar position, and have had to make difficult decisions about life-or-death issues -- often based on limited information regarding what their friend or loved one would really want.

Even if you haven't been through such an experience, it is very easy to imagine yourself in the position of someone in the case. We wonder what we would do if we were the Schindlers, or Mr. Schiavo. Worst of all, we can't help but imagine what it would be like to be Ms. Schiavo herself.

Unfortunately, as often happens when people feel strongly about an issue, many are allowing their feelings to cloud their judgment. People (mostly from the political left) have been heard making all sorts of unreasonable arguments, and discarding compelling evidence on the flimsiest basis. For example, I had a debate with a woman on a leftist internet site in which she discounted three affidavits (filed by a nurse and two nurses' aides) because they were all notarized by the same person. When you start making objections based upon such trivia, we are in OJ-land.

To my knowledge, Terri Schiavo never killed anyone -- but many on the left advocate treating her worse than they would treat a convicted murderer. Early on in this debate I noted the irony that, at the same time a court had ordered Terri Schiavo to die in a manner (forced starvation and dehydration) that appears cruel, our United States Supreme Court had granted a stay to a man convicted of murdering two people, sparing him from a lethal injection -- because he has collapsed veins.

This is not the only way in which Ms. Schiavo has received less consideration than an accused or convicted murderer. Criminal defendants are constitutionally entitled to have their cases decided by a jury -- bringing to bear the collective experience and wisdom of a group of diverse people -- rather than by a single judge. Criminal defendants are also entitled to have their guilt decided according to the "reasonable doubt" standard -- whereas Ms. Schiavo was condemned to death based on findings made according to the less stringent "clear and convincing evidence" legal standard.

If nothing else, this case suggests that the procedural protections available to criminal defendants should be available to people who can't speak for themselves, whose very life or death hinges upon the trial court's decision. Is not Terri Schiavo's life worth at least as much as that of someone charged with a deliberate, cold-blooded murder? Why, then, do we not accord her at least the same protections under the law that we would accord to the suspected murderer?

We should also recognize that, even with all of these protections, the courts are fallible. Courts get things wrong, every day. Judges and jurors are people like you and me. They have preconceptions and biases. They make mistakes. You think the O.J. jury got it right?? You think O.J. deserved custody of his children??

If you have any doubts about the fallibility of trial courts, just look at the dozens of provably innocent people who have been on Death Row in this country. I support the death penalty in principle, but if you think that no innocent people make it onto Death Row, you just haven't been paying attention.

Yet the left continually argues that "19 judges" have ruled for Mr. Schiavo. This argument ignores the fact that the only judge whose opinion really mattered was the trial judge, who made the factual findings in this case. After that, appellate judges deferred to the trial judge's findings. For better or worse, our legal system depends to an incredible extent upon such findings of fact, and it is well-nigh impossible to obtain a reversal based on an argument that the factfinder got the facts wrong.

By the way, the deference that appellate courts show to factual findings made in the trial court is the main reason that innocent people on Death Row are rarely freed through the orderly workings of the justice system. Far too often, a defendant's innocence is revealed not by layers of judicial review, but rather by the efforts of activists -- who usually have to fight the judicial system to obtain a defendant's release, even when the defendant's innocence is clear.

Consistent with their other bizarre positions, leftists also purport to be outraged at the idea that the Florida Legislature gave the Governor the power to stop the starvation of Ms. Schiavo. If she had murdered someone, these same leftists would likely praise a commutation of the death sentence -- even though such an order is (like Gov. Bush's order in this case) an executive order that directly overturns a valid judgment rendered in a court of competent jurisdiction. But Gov. Bush's order was in essence a stay of execution for Ms. Schiavo. So what made it so outrageous -- the fact that she hadn't murdered someone before she was condemned to die?

The media, which often operates in effect as an arm of the political left, has been equally complicit in making silly arguments, distorting the facts, and generally behaving in an irrational and irresponsible fashion. As I have documented on this site, a one-sided view of the story has been presented in virtually all forms of available media, including news articles and editorials in major newspapers, articles in national magazines, stories on the radio, and TV talk-shows.

But here's the thing. Even after you strip away the silly arguments discussed above, society is still faced with a very difficult decision. We all have to admit that we don't really know what Ms. Schiavo would want in this situation. We can make the best judgment we can, based on the facts we know. But there will inevitably be facts we don't know, and will probably never know.

So what to do? I don't have all the answers. Here's what I do know:

Absent a clear written directive, issues of life and death should be resolved by a jury, not a judge, applying a stringent evidentiary standard. If this standard can be met by hearsay testimony from people with glaring conflicts of interest, the standard is too low.

I am not inclined to put blind faith in doctors, any more than I would in the courts. There are too many credible stories of people who were written off by doctors as vegetables and lived to tell the tale. If you are rabidly in favor of killing Terri Schiavo, I would like to introduce you to Rus Cooper-Dowda and Stephen Drake. Tell them that we need to trust the doctors. Tell them that when a doctor diagnoses someone as a "vegetable" with no chance of recovery, the doctor must be right.

Finally, I will agree with Mr. Schiavo and his attorney on one point: this case highlights the need to reduce to writing your wishes regarding such important decisions.

At the risk of seeming flippant, I think it also highlights the need to be careful whom you marry.

Posted 10/29/2003 08:30:00 PM by Patrick
YET ANOTHER ARTICULATE FORMER "VEGETABLE": Add Stephen Drake (author of this L.A. Times op-ed) to the list of people who were written off by doctors as vegetables -- yet lived to tell the tale:

I was born brain-damaged as a result of a forceps delivery. The doctor told my parents I would be a "vegetable" for the rest of my life -- the same word now being used for Schiavo -- and that the best thing would be for nature to take its course. They refused. Although I had a lot of health problems, surgeries and pain as a child, I went on to lead a happy life.

It's impossible not to wonder: how many Stephen Drakes or Rus Cooper-Dowdas weren't so lucky?

Posted 10/29/2003 07:34:00 AM by Patrick
BARKING MOONBATS ON THE RECALL: Troublemaker Mark Ridley-Thomas and "Expert on Everything"™ Erwin Chemerinsky have a joint op-ed in this morning's Dog Trainer titled Now That It's Finally Over, Let's Revamp the Recall.

They make a number of suggestions, starting with this one: "First, it is far too easy to qualify a recall for the ballot." This is clearly a major problem, since the state had to spend millions on a recall that, ultimately, was unsuccessful and changed nothing in Sacramento.

Right, Erwin? Is that the problem, Mark?

They state that their "most important" suggestion is that, "in the event of a recall, there should be no race for a successor." Rather, they argue, the lieutenant governor should succeed the governor in the event of a successful recall. Their reasoning? "We believe this would dramatically depoliticize the recall process."

Like the guy on the mattress commercials says: "Hey, Erwin!" The recall process is a political process! When a law professor starts talking about how he wants to "depoliticize" a political process, that's when you should get nervous.

Ridley-Thomas and Chemerinsky end with this lovely speech:

We know that everyone is exhausted from the events of the last few months, and it is tempting to pretend that this was a unique political earthquake never to be repeated and to just move on. But we owe it to the future of California to learn from what we have experienced and to create a better recall process.

Ignore the whole thing.

Posted 10/29/2003 06:31:00 AM by Patrick
QUESTION FOR ANTI-WAR PROTESTORS: I have a question for anti-war protestors: do you explicitly support the enemy and want the United States to fail? Assuming you answer "no," perhaps you should know that the groups putting together your anti-war rallies include a group that does, explicitly, support the enemy.

It appears that International ANSWER, a group which helped organize a recent anti-war rally, says on its web site: "The anti-war movement here and abroad must give its unconditional support to the Iraqi anti-colonial resistance."

As Eugene Volokh notes, "the Iraqi anti-colonial resistance" refers to the people we are fighting in Iraq. You know, the enemy. The ones killing our soldiers. That enemy.

Make no mistake. This group is saying: "We are explicitly and unconditionally supporting the enemies of the United States." So the next time you plan to attend an anti-war rally, realize with whom you are associating yourself.

Posted 10/29/2003 12:32:00 AM by Patrick
DOG TRAINER CANCELLATION NUMBERS: L.A. Observed reports here that over 9,000 people cancelled their subscriptions to the Los Angeles Dog Trainer because they were upset by the Arnold hit piece, and by the paper's recall coverage in general. This is just a bit more than the 1,000 cancellations we'd heard about originally.

Posted 10/28/2003 11:27:00 PM by Patrick
FOR ANYONE CONVINCED THAT TERRI SCHIAVO SHOULD BE KILLED: Go to this link and listen to this four-minute interview with Rus Cooper-Dowda. Her doctors once thought she was in a "persistent vegetative state" and stood around her bedside talking about when they were going to kill her -- as she listened in horror. She barely managed to convince one nurse, who (acting against orders) documented her ability to respond -- contrary to the wishes of her husband.

She is now fully recovered. Oh -- and she is divorced.

I have discussed this woman previously in an update at the bottom of this post -- but her story packs a bigger wallop if you actually listen to her tell it in her own voice. Anybody who can hear this and shrug it off is as closed-minded as they come.

Posted 10/28/2003 11:07:00 PM by Patrick
BOX CUTTERS SHOWING UP ON PLANES AGAIN: They have been found on two US Airways flights: one in Philadelphia and another on a commuter plane at Logan Airport in Boston. (Links via Drudge.)

Posted 10/28/2003 08:06:00 PM by Patrick
L.A. OBSERVED: Patterico has made the list of blogs that have a permanent link at L.A. Observed. While I may not always agree with Kevin Roderick, he runs a great site with must-read commentary on the local media. Check out his site today.

Posted 10/28/2003 07:45:00 PM by Patrick
TIME TO MAKE A STAND: So, now that it's clear that the elite schools in the UC system are violating Proposition 209 (the Angry Clam has more) -- what are we going to do about it?

Pacific Legal Foundation? Are you listening? Is anyone there?

Posted 10/28/2003 05:51:00 PM by Patrick
GAME THEORY IN REAL LIFE: Good Lord. How can I get one of these -- and more importantly, keep you from getting one? (Via Hit & Run.)

Posted 10/28/2003 06:45:00 AM by Patrick
READER REACTION: I have received much thoughtful feedback from readers regarding the Schiavo controversy. This case arouses emotions like few other. Many people have been through similar experiences with a loved one, and view the controversy through the prism of their own experience. I have tentative plans to write a piece summing up my feelings on the whole controversy. In the meantime, your feedback:

I have received yet another e-mail from a reader working in state government telling me to ignore the wishes of my reader who is temporarily boycotting the site due to my Schiavo coverage. This reader says: "Let your regular reader continue the boycott. Were it not for you, I would not know this stuff about Beelzebub, er, Michael Schiavo."

[My reader is, I believe, speaking hyperbolically and/or a bit tongue-in-cheek. Nobody is actually saying Mr. Schiavo is the devil incarnate, okay? So please, do not send me e-mails in response to this post, saying that by printing this reader feedback, I am thereby portraying Mr. Schiavo as the devil. It is true that I have formed a distinctly negative opinion of Mr. Schiavo as I have learned more and more about this controversy. As I have documented on this site, I think there is significant reason to worry about his credibility. But there is a possibility that, as venal and self-centered as he may appear to me, he could be telling the truth about Terri's wishes. I don't think he is the devil. My opinion is that he is an incredibly self-absorbed and not very trustworthy person.]

Reader O.C. writes that

most people would not watch a dog starve to death, let alone a person. I don't care if she is brain dead. To die with dignity is for people who consciously make that choice when they are dying. That is not the case with Terri Schiavo. I also don't believe that food, via feeding tube or spoon, is "artificial." It's just basic.

O.C. goes on to say that if she were Mr. Schiavo, she would look for ways to make Terri's life the best it can be.

Reader A.M. from Maryland writes a long, thoughtful post. He chooses not to express an opinion on what should happen with Ms. Schiavo, having faced difficult decisions himself with respect to his mother.

Despite his lack of a strong personal view on this controversy, A.M. has been noticing the media bias on the story. He saw a segment on the "Today" show which made plain the view "that State intrusion into this affair was ill-advised and politically driven."

A.M. also describes hearing part of the Diane Rehm Show on NPR. According to A.M., Rehm says that there should be no discussion of "Michael Schiavo's conduct, including his live-in relationship and out-of-wedlock child" because (as A.M. characterizes Rehm's views)

it's inappropriate to bring this "sub-text" into the discussion, which should stay focused on Terri Schiavo's medical condition. Host and guests concurred that Michael Schiavo's conduct is irrelevant, and that, as husband, his role as the guardian of Terri's wishes and interests must be respected.

A.M. says:

I found this discussion to be a fascinating and disturbing journey into NPR-Upside-Down-Land. I say this as an NPR [financial] contributor, and a pro-choice Democrat (for what it's worth). For all its moral anguish, the facts as they are known about the husband's conduct are quite germane, and quite troubling. Mr. Schiavo suffers acute conflicts of interests that the let-Schiavo-die proponents seem unable to recognize. Yet, how can conflicts of interest possibly be construed as a "sub-text" that's "inappropriate" to consider? The mind boggles.

(Emphasis by Patterico.)

A.M. concludes: "it's truly a sad spectacle, witnessing people I'd hitherto respected jump with such alacrity into moral and logical swamps of their own making."

Thank you so much for these thoughtful e-mails. Keep them coming!

Posted 10/27/2003 10:35:00 PM by Patrick
SHOCKING NEWS: PROP. 209 BEING VIOLATED: In shocking news, the Oakland Tribune reports that the overwhelming majority of students admitted to the elite UC schools with SAT scores under 1000 were minorities. (Via Weintraub.)

Please save your nasty, knee-jerk e-mails. The point is not that minorities are stupid or inferior. I know many of you would love to conclude that this is my point, so that you can feel all self-righteous and write me e-mails saying I'm bigoted. But save it. There are plenty of applicants of all races with substandard qualifications. But you wouldn't expect such underqualified applicants to get into prestigious universities -- unless they were minorities.

When the Los Angeles Times first broke the news that thousands of applicants to the elite UC schools with SAT scores over 1400 were getting turned down, while hundreds of others with below-average scores were getting in, it didn't take a rocket scientist to surmise that Proposition 209 was being blatantly violated. All that remained was for someone to dig up the proof. Now someone has.

That's the point.

Posted 10/27/2003 10:13:00 PM by Patrick
MORE PRAISE FOR JANICE ROGERS BROWN: From Clint Bolick and Larry Solum.

Posted 10/27/2003 07:46:00 PM by Patrick
SCHIAVO ON LARRY KING: I just finished watching Michael Schiavo on Larry King. It is difficult to imagine a more sympathetic interview. King asked one or two tough questions, but left scores more unasked.

King was, as usual, completely unprepared. For example, he expressed surprise when he learned that Schiavo has had a child by his current girlfriend.

King asked nothing about the allegations, made in an affidavit under penalty of perjury by a registered nurse named Carla Iyer, that Michael Schiavo said: "When is that bitch going to die?" and exulted in how rich he was going to be when Terri was dead. There were no questions about whether (and why) Schiavo allegedly ordered Terri's television and radio to be left on the same station at all times.

Other aspects of that nurse's affidavit were discussed, however: namely, descriptions of Terri's responsiveness. The explanation given: Mr. Schiavo yelled at the staff a lot, because he was very concerned that Terri receive good care. Apparently the staff got mad at him as a result. So, they made these things up.

So, we are to believe that a registered nurse and two nurses' aides swore out declarations under penalty of perjury, accusing a relative of things like mental torture, denying rehabilitative care, and wanting to kill his wife for money -- because a concerned relative had yelled at them?

Does this pass the smell test? A caller seemed sufficiently doubtful that she asked Schiavo whether he would take a lie detector test. His lawyer stepped in and said that the best lie detector was the fact that "20" judges looked at the case (earlier in the program it had been only 19, so I guess a 20th judge reviewed the case during the first half hour of the program). To his credit, King pressed Schiavo on this a little, noting that he still could take a lie detector test. Schiavo, looking quite uncomfortable, said he would decline to answer the question.

Concerning the videos, Schiavo said that there is other film that shows Terri to be unresponsive. When King asked if CNN could go in to film her independently, Schiavo and his lawyer declined, arguing her right to privacy.

Schiavo maintained that he hasn't abandoned Terri; if anything, the family has. He didn't explain why the parents keep trying to visit her, and why he keeps preventing or restricting those visits -- and how this is all consistent with his assertion that the family has abandoned her.

King asked Schiavo why he didn't just walk away and let the parents take care of her. After some talk about how he loved her and owed it to her to kill her, Schiavo said that, anyway, he would never turn over Terri to her parents because of what her dad testified to at the trial. According to Mr. Schiavo, her dad had testified that he would cut off all her limbs, to satisfy his own personal desire that she stay alive. Wow -- that's pretty odd, huh?

Schiavo's attorney, George ~~Feiger~~ Felos, stepped in at that point to explain what had really happened at the trial. Felos said that he had asked the father at trial: if Terri had a medical condition that required you to authorize amputation of a limb to save her life, would you? Answer: yes. Question: a second limb? A third? A fourth? Mr. Schindler apparently testified that he would authorize amputation of all her limbs if it were necessary to save her life.

This testimony is hardly shocking, coming from a parent. But Mr. Schiavo had made it sound ghoulish, as if the father had testified to some sadistic urge to take a chainsaw and personally cut off all of his daughter's limbs. This was a clear example of Mr. Schiavo twisting the words of another to suit his own purposes -- and we are supposed to trust him that he didn't do the same with Terri's words.

But, Mr. Schiavo said, he was not the only one who had heard Terri say she didn't want to be kept alive by tubes. "Two other people" said this. However, Mr. Schiavo didn't volunteer that those people were his own brother and sister-in-law.

To me, the most revealing moments were when Schiavo was asked what the parents' motives are. He responded right away that Terri's father just wanted her money -- not for her, but for himself.

But Schiavo also claimed that most of the money is gone. (He said about $50,000 is left. That's not much if you are Terri's parents and plan to spend it on rehab -- but it's plenty enough to give Schiavo and his girlfriend a nice vacation in Europe. That's one of the things that Mr. Schiavo allegedly told RN Carla Iyer that he wanted to do with the money he hoped to inherit.)

So, King asked, if most of the money is gone, why are the parents still pursuing this?

King asked the question twice, and Schiavo gave different answers. The first time, Schiavo seemed dumbfounded by the question. He then argued that the parents know very well that Terri has no hope of improvement. In the next breath he said that the parents are getting fooled by their lawyers and the right-wing right-to-lifers. (Damn right-wingers! I knew they were behind this!) In the next breath he asserted again that the parents know perfectly well she won't get better.

Later in the program (perhaps having forgotten that he asked it before), King asked the question again. Why are the parents trying to keep her alive? Schiavo replied that he guessed the parents were just trying to make his life a living hell.

That was very revealing. When you strip away the veil, and his attorney doesn't step in quick enough to answer the question for him, the truth comes out. It's all about him.

UPDATE: Here is the preliminary transcript of the interview.

Posted 10/27/2003 06:38:00 AM by Patrick
DISNEY HALL: Last night I saw pianist Evgeny Kissin give the first recital at the new Walt Disney Concert Hall here in Los Angeles. I came away very impressed with Kissin and the Disney Hall.

Disney Hall is a remarkably intimate space. Virtually everything inside is made of wood. Many of the seats are crowded right around the stage, with large groups of seats above the stage to the left, right, and rear. I sat in a $15 "bench" seat (padded and very comfortable) behind the stage. I was in the front row of this section of seats, which is called "orchestra view." I felt it was one of the best seats in the house, and the people sitting next to me said the same.

In a choral concert or vocal recital, audience members in these seats will be looking at the back of the singer(s) head(s), but in a piano recital, you are simply on the left side of the piano instead of the right. Although the lid of the piano is swung open to send the sound in the opposite direction, the acoustics are so good that you can't tell the difference. Visually, it felt almost as though you were sitting in a living room watching someone play the piano. From my vantage point, I could not see Kissin's hands working their magic, but from about 30-40 feet away I had a clear view of his face (below the wild hairdo) making interesting expressions indicating intense concentration. Every so often as he played, he would shoot a glance our way as if he were thinking: "Hmm. I'm not used to seeing people sitting to my left."

Part of the phenomenon of good acoustics is that, not only you can hear the music very well, but you (and presumably the performer) can also hear the annoying audience noises better than ever. You almost felt as though you needed to hold your breath so as not to disturb the performer. Every cough from any section in the hall was like a gunshot. I was certain that everyone in the hall (including Kissin) could hear, for example, the idiot next to me undoing the velcro on his binoculars case, as well as the inconsiderate woman behind me noisily turning the pages in her program. It is unfortunate that the audience members did not all treat the hall, the music, and the performer with the respect they deserved.

Kissin started with the beautiful Schubert Bb sonata. He took the first two movements slowly, with feeling. The slow pace worked very nicely for the first movement, but was a bit too slow for my taste in the second movement. Some of the more lyrical passages lacked a flowing legato. After a chorus of coughs in the space after the first movement, Kissin dove right into the subsequent movements. The third movement was bouncy and fun, and the last well-executed. After an intermission, Kissin had a chance to show off his chops with some Liszt. He played four transcriptions of Schubert songs, as well as a couple of original (and naturally showy) Liszt pieces. He received several enthusiastic standing ovations, and played four encores. The concert ended up lasting almost 2 1/2 wonderful hours.

I have a slew of tickets for various Disney Hall concerts in the upcoming season, and I have to say I am excited. If the sound of a piano can fill this hall the way it did last night, it is almost impossible to imagine what a full orchestra will sound like. I had read that the members of the L.A. Philharmonic are learning that the acoustics of the hall are changing the way they play, increasing the subtlety and nuance. The orchestra can finally really hear itself play. I feel confident that the various visiting orchestras (including the Berlin Philharmonic in November) will respond with equal enthusiasm to the hall. Now the main obstacle to making this hall the perfect place to see a concert is making sure the experience is not spoiled by inattentive, noisy audiences.

Posted 10/26/2003 11:14:00 PM by Patrick
PICTURES OF THE CALIFORNIA FIRES: Are here. (Via Michael Williams.) We are in no danger here, but you can smell the smoke inside our condo when the windows are open.

Posted 10/26/2003 04:15:00 PM by Patrick
MICHAEL SCHIAVO TO BE ON LARRY KING: Monday night, 9 p.m. EST. (Via Abstract Appeal .)

UPDATE: Apparently no such invitation has been made to the Schindlers, according to this.

Don't expect Larry "Eight Wives and Counting" King to be too tough on Mr. Schiavo -- especially on the whole multiple wives thing.

Posted 10/26/2003 03:49:00 PM by Patrick
FISKING THE NYT: David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy has a nice fisking (which you can read here) of the NYT editorial opposing the confirmation of Janice Rogers Brown. (I mentioned this editorial on Friday.)

Posted 10/26/2003 02:54:00 PM by Patrick
JUST THE FACTS, SIR: An op-ed by a deputy public defender in our local Dog Trainer yesterday is titled War on Drugs Takes a Toll on the L.A. Justice System. The author claims that LAPD has enough officers, but they are simply misused in the war on drugs:

I have gained firsthand knowledge of the misguided priorities of the LAPD. I've witnessed the vast number of police personnel engaged in the failed prohibition against illegal drugs, the central feature of which is the so-called 'buy-bust' operation. During these elaborate undercover sting operations, involving 15 to 25 LAPD officers, a pathetic street person — who is usually a homeless, mentally ill, drug-addicted black or Latino parolee — is approached by an undercover officer and offered an inflated price for a rock or two of cocaine.

After the target seizes the opportunity to make a quick profit to feed his drug habit and sells to the undercover officer, the other officers swoop in to complete the arrest.

My wife and I have about 14 years of criminal law experience between us, all in Los Angeles. Neither of us have ever heard of an undercover operation designed to catch a single person, involving 15 to 25 officers. In a typical street narcotics operation where several sales are taking place over time, you might have two officers watching the sales activity, perhaps two to four more to chase down the buyers, and (if it's an undercover operation) one more officer working undercover. That's maybe seven officers total, who will make several arrests of multiple buyers, as well as the seller(s). But 15-25 officers on an operation against one guy? That would be outrageous -- which is why it doesn't happen.

Now, reasonable people can debate whether the "war on drugs" is wise. There may be a valid argument that LAPD would have sufficient resources to address other crime if it wholly abandoned its duty to arrest drug offenders. But let's get our facts straight.

If anyone has examples to the contrary, feel free to let me know.

Posted 10/26/2003 02:32:00 PM by Patrick
HOW MANY IS "MANY": As long as my regular reader is boycotting us, let's talk Schiavo some more. I just finished reading a piece in the New York Times titled In Feeding-Tube Case, Many Neurologists Back Courts. The story continues the theme of the headline: that "many" neurologists support killing Ms. Schiavo. Acknowledging the existence of a videotape made by the parents that appears to show Ms. Schiavo responding to stimuli, the story claims:

To many supporters of Mrs. Schiavo's parents, who say she should be kept alive on a feeding tube, the tape demonstrates that she can still think and react. But many leading neurologists say that it [the videotape] means no such thing, that the appearances of brain-damaged patients can be very misleading.

Reading this, you might think that the story is about to give you "many" examples of independent neurologists who have examined the tape and say it proves nothing about whether Ms. Schiavo can think or react. In fact, the story contains not one such opinion -- unless you count a guy (Dr. Ron Cranford) who testified for (and was presumably paid by) Mr. Schiavo.

Is this their whole story -- that one guy who testified for Mr. Schiavo thinks the court made the right decision? Apparently so. Let's look at the other experts cited in the story, and what they actually do say:

* Dr. James L. Bernat "said he had not examined Mrs. Schiavo or seen any videotapes." He says: "Assuming she is in a vegetative state, I can say with medical certainty that there is no realistic hope that she'll recover." Verdict: didn't view the tapes; is assuming away the central question. Strike one.

* Dr. Richard Neubauer, director of the Ocean Hyperbaric Neurologic Center in Florida, said in an affidavit that said he found Mrs. Schiavo "not in a vegetative state" and "at least semi-responsive to her environment." He was seeking to treat her by putting her in an oxygen-rich pressure chamber. Verdict: said Ms. Schiavo can think and react to a degree. Strike two.

* Dr. Michael P. McQuillen, a professor of neurology at the University of Rochester, describes a famous case of a "minimally conscious" state. The case was "that of a woman who appeared vegetative but, on overhearing her sister on the phone making funeral arrangements for a favorite uncle, began to cry."

That doesn't sound too supportive of the courts. Of course, later in the story, Dr. McQuillen does say that keeping Mrs. Schiavo alive artificially could be a burden on her:

For many terminally ill patients, he pointed out, "food is an absolute burden — it increases secretions and makes them uncomfortable."

Problem: she is not terminally ill. Verdict: describes how people might appear vegetative and really not be; clueless as to whether Ms. Schiavo is terminally ill. Strike three! You're out!

It may be that "many" independent neurologists have reviewed the tapes and still support the decision of the courts. But if the Times is going to make this claim, the Times ought to tell us who they are.

UPDATE: Turns out the one neurologist to opine in a way consistent with the headline is a "right-to-die" activist who regularly testifies for the pro-death side in high-profile "right-to-die" cases. More details here.

Posted 10/26/2003 11:24:00 AM by Patrick
TOM TOMORROW -- A HYPOCRITE TODAY: Liberal cartoonist Tom Tomorrow has this take on what he believes is Republican hypocrisy. I think many of his points are valid. Yet, in an ironic twist, every single one of these points could be turned around to demonstrate mirror-image hypocrisy on the left -- a fact to which Tomorrow seems blind.

I'll just give you one example. Tomorrow alludes to Republicans' defense of Arnold after the groping scandal, and says that this means that we have "learned from Republicans" that "sexual misconduct isn't such a big deal after all."

Cute. But it is just as hypocritical for Democrats to criticize Arnold, if they defended Clinton's sexual misconduct (or worse, his lying under oath and obstruction of justice). I'll bet every person reading this knows some liberal who is furious about Arnold's alleged transgressions, but winked at Clinton's crimes.

If you look at the cartoon you'll see that this exercise can be repeated in each panel. My guess is that Tomorrow's next cartoon will make this exact point. I will now sit here and hold my breath until that happens. Blogging may be light over the next few decades.

Posted 10/26/2003 11:10:00 AM by Patrick
ARKIN RETURNS: ~~Alan~~ Bill Arkin is back in the Los Angeles Dog Trainer this morning with a piece called A General Bind for Rumsfeld.

I count no fewer than 20 words or phrases within quotation marks. Are they accurate quotes? characterizations? sneers? random words placed within quotation marks? It's anyone's guess.

Posted 10/26/2003 10:46:00 AM by Patrick
RE-START THE CLOCK: Mickey Kaus has a compelling post on bias in an NPR story on the Schiavo case. Interesting stuff.

I have a reader who is boycotting my site for three consecutive days every time the Schiavo case is mentioned. I had hoped to swear it off the other day, but the Kaus piece is just too good. I should never say that I am not posting on a topic any more, because that promise will hold only until I become interested in the topic again. [UPDATE: After reading this post, my reader complains: "Made the mistake of getting on your site, thinking 'day three' may have come and gone. Not only do I find an entry on Schiavo, but a veritable deluge of Patterico propaganda. Your site is beginning to have a Stalinist tinge to it. I am extending my boycott to at least a week."]

Since I have lost this reader for the next ~~three~~ seven days, I might as well tell you some other interesting facts about the case that I found recently. I suppose you may have already heard these facts, perhaps on talk radio, but I haven't seen this level of detail in any of the online commentary I have seen. If you have already read allegations that, for example, Mr. Schiavo mentally tortured Ms. Schiavo by ordering her radio and TV set to be kept on the same channel at all times, or that he openly exulted about how rich he would be if she died, you can probably skip the rest of this post.

I have expressed frustration at my inability to access the original Schiavo court documents. However, I have recently found what purports to be copies of many of those documents -- including affidavits from a nurse and two nurses' aides. This material is contained here, deep within a huge document that appears to be a call to action by activists writing before the Legislature acted.

Knee-jerk folks from the "kill Schiavo" camp will naturally say that we don't know these are the actual affidavits, given the site where they are republished. But they sound genuine to me. If what is contained here is accurate, it's worse than I had thought.

Perhaps the most dramatic affidavit is from Registered Nurse Carla Iyer. Here are some excerpts:

One time I put a wash cloth in Terri's hand to keep her fingers from curling together, and Michael saw it and made me take it out, saying that was therapy.

Terri's medical condition was systematically distorted and misrepresented by Michael. When I worked with her, she was alert and oriented. Terri spoke on a regular basis while in my presence, saying such things as "mommy," and "help me." "Help me" was, in fact, one of her most frequent utterances. I heard her say it hundreds of times. Terri would try to say the word "pain" when she was in discomfort, but it came out more like "pay." She didn't say the "n" sound very well. During her menses she would indicate her discomfort by saying "pay" and moving her arms toward her lower abdominal area. Other ways that she would indicate that she was in pain included pursing her lips, grimacing, thrashing in bed, curling her toes or moving her legs around. She would let you know when she had a bowel movement by flipping up the covers and pulling on her diaper and scooted in bed on her bottom.

When I came into her room and said "Hi, Terri", she would always recognize my voice and her name, and would turn her head all the way toward me, saying "Haaaiiiii" sort of, as she did. I recognized this as a "hi", which is very close to what it sounded like, the whole sound being only a second or two long. When I told her humorous stories about my life or something I read in the paper, Terri would chuckle, sometimes more a giggle or laugh. She would move her whole body, upper and lower. Her legs would sometimes be off the bed, and need to be repositioned. I made numerous entries into the nursing notes in her chart, stating verbatim what she said and her various behaviors, but by my next on-duty shift, the notes would be deleted from her chart. Every time I made a positive entry about any responsiveness of Terri's, someone would remove it after my shift ended. Michael always demanded to see her chart as soon as he arrived, and would take it in her room with him. I documented Terri's rehab potential well, writing whole pages about Terri's responsiveness, but they would always be deleted by the next time I saw her chart. The reason I wrote so much was that everybody else seemed to be afraid to make positive entries for fear of their jobs, but I felt very strongly that a nurse's job was to accurately record everything we see and hear that bears on a patient's condition and their family. I upheld the Nurses Practice Act, and if it cost me my job, I was willing to accept that.

Here is the most amazing part of the nurse's affidavit:

Throughout my time at Palm Gardens [one of Ms. Schiavo's nursing homes], Michael Schiavo was focused on Terri's death. Michael would say "When is she going to die?," "Has she died yet?" and "When is that bitch gonna die?" These statements were common knowledge at Palm Gardens, as he would make them casually in passing, without regard even for who he was talking to, as long as it was a staff member. Other statements which I recall him making include "Can't anything be done to accelerate her death - won't she ever die?" When she wouldn't die, Michael would be furious. Michael was also adamant that the family should not be given information. He made numerous statements such as "Make sure the parents aren't contacted." I recorded Michael's statements word for word in Terri's chart, but these entries were also deleted after the end of my shift. Standing orders were that the family wasn't to be contacted, in fact, there was a large sign in the front of her chart that said under no circumstances was her family to be called, call Michael immediately, but I would call them, anyway, because I thought they should know about their daughter.

Any time Terri would be sick, like with a UTI or fluid buildup in her lungs, colds, or pneumonia, Michael would be visibly excited, thrilled even, hoping that she would die. He would say something like, "Hallelujah! You've made my day!" He would call me, as I was the nurse supervisor on the floor, and ask for every little detail about her temperature, blood pressure, etc., and would call back frequently asking if she was dead yet. He would blurt out "I'm going to be rich!" and would talk about all the things he would buy when Terri died, which included a new car, a new boat, and going to Europe, among other things.

Certified Nursing Assistant Heidi Law:

During the time I cared for Terri, she formed words. I have heard her say "mommy" from time to time, and "momma," and she also said "help me" a number of times. She would frequently make noises like she was trying to talk.

The only stimulation she had was looking out the window and watching things, and the radio, which Michael insisted be left on one particular station. She had a television, and there was a sign below it saying not to change the channel. This was because of Michael's orders.

As a CNA, I wanted every piece of information I could get about my patients. I never had access to medical records as a CNA, but it was part of my job duties to write my observations down on sheets of paper, which I turned over to the nurse at the nurses station for inclusion in the patients charts. In the case of Terri Schiavo, I felt that my notes were thrown out without even being read. There were trash cans at the nurses stations that we were supposed to empty each shift, and I often saw the notes in them. I made extensive notes and listed all of Terri's behaviors, but there was never any apparent follow up consistent with her responsiveness.

Certified Nursing Assistant Carolyn Johnson:

I remember seeing Michael Schiavo only once the entire time I worked at Sabal Palms [another of Ms. Schiavo's nursing homes], but we were all aware that Terri was not to be given any kind of rehabilitative help, per his instructions. Once, I wanted to put a cloth in Terri's hand to keep her hand from closing in on itself, but I was not permitted to do this, as Michael Schiavo considered that to be a form of rehabilitation.

I cite this evidence only because I find it interesting, and because I find it reassuring that the right thing has happened. I don't expect to convince people on the "kill her" side of this issue. Their minds are made up, no matter the evidence.

For example, I was in a debate with some people at one particular internet site in which a woman named "Anne," who had read the above affidavits, discounted them because they were all notarized by the same notary public! Here is a direct quote from Anne: "Who is Patricia J. Anderson, Notary Public? What is her interest in all of this."

I don't mean to say that there aren't rational arguments on both sides of the issue. I think there are. But people like Anne are in OJ-land. The above evidence won't change their minds, because no evidence on earth could.

Posted 10/26/2003 08:31:00 AM by Patrick
FRIST PLEDGES TO WIMP OUT: I just watched Bill Frist on Fox News Sunday, discussing the anticipated filibuster of Janice Rogers Brown. Tony Snow and Brit Hume pressed him to say what he and other Senate Republicans are going to do to stop this. He first tried to evade the question. When pressed, his answer concentrated much more on the downside of taking action than it did on addressing the problem.

I said yesterday that there is little hope for Brown if the Retaliacrats™ can tell lies about judicial nominees and suffer no consequences. Frist's performance this morning has done little to reassure me.

Posted 10/25/2003 07:02:00 PM by Patrick
WOULDN'T IT BE SHORTER IF YOU SAID WHAT YOU GOT RIGHT?: Our local Dog Trainer today prints this rather elaborate correction.

Posted 10/25/2003 07:00:00 PM by Patrick
JANICE ROGERS BROWN NEWS: Thomas Sowell defends Brown in three separate columns. Here are Part I, Part II, and Part III.

If you're not in the mood to be disgusted, don't read this account of the confirmation hearings so far.

I am not optimistic. If someone as qualified as Miguel Estrada can be shot down by a campaign of lies -- with no consequences for the liars -- then there is little hope for Brown.

Posted 10/24/2003 09:47:00 PM by Patrick
WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED?: I am shocked -- shocked! -- to see that the New York Times opposes the confirmation of Janice Rogers Brown.

Posted 10/24/2003 07:00:00 PM by Patrick
WATCHER'S COUNCIL WINNERS: Spiced Sass had the winning Council entry: American Sleepers Awaken. Stefan Sharkansky had the winning non-Council entry: A Brief History of the Imminent Threat Canard.

Posted 10/24/2003 06:35:00 PM by Patrick
MORE PROOF THAT CONGRESS IS STUPID: The passage of the bill calling for the FTC to set up a ~~please send me spam list~~ do not e-mail list.

You guys go ahead and sign up for that and let me know how that works out for you.

Posted 10/24/2003 06:31:00 PM by Patrick
I MAY BECOME A NAT HENTOFF FAN: Nat Hentoff is quickly becoming my favorite liberal. Back in July I noted his crusade against the Supreme Court's Michigan Law School affirmative action case. Lately he has been writing about Charles Pickering, in two columns titled The Ordeal of Charles Pickering and A Judge Who Did Justice. The former column has the wonderful subhead: "Are [New York] Times Editorials Fact-Checked?"

And he has another one coming next week!

Posted 10/24/2003 08:07:00 AM by Patrick
ANOTHER QUOTATION MARK CONTROVERSY: James Taranto reports here how CNN doctored President Bush's statement in connection with the partial-birth abortion ban.

See if you can spot the difference between the original quote and the CNN version. Here is the quote from Bush's written statement:

I applaud the Senate for joining the House in passing the ban on partial-birth abortion. This is very important legislation that will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America. I look forward to signing it into law.

Here is how CNN altered the quote in its story:

"I applaud the Senate for joining the House in passing the ban on 'partial-birth abortion,'" Bush said in a written statement. "This is very important legislation that will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America. I look forward to signing it into law."

Did you see the difference?

As Taranto points out, the CNN version adds quotation marks around the words "partial-birth abortion." Although the story purports to quote Bush's statement, the story adds quotation marks that were not in the text of that written statement.

Now, for the mainstream media, sneering quotation marks around the words "partial-birth abortion" are second nature. As a journalist, when you see the words "partial-birth abortion," your finger, in a conditioned reflex originating in the cerebral cortex, moves straight for the quotation mark key on your keyboard. As the CNN story shows, this reflex is so ingrained that trained journalists have been observed distorting the meaning of quotations through the use of these sneering quotation marks.

Bush believes that partial-birth abortion is just that, and it is a substantive misrepresentation of his beliefs to place non-existent sneer quotes around the term -- particularly when quoting a written statement. This is because, as everyone knows, the use of sneer quotes indicates a belief that the word within the quotes is inaccurate.

It appears that "journalists" like this CNN reporter, or Maureen Dowd, or ~~Alan~~ Bill Arkin apparently need remedial training in the art of quoting people. As a public service, I will now present some simple rules for these accuracy-challenged folks. First: Only direct quotes go in quotation marks. Characterizations do not, if there is the slightest risk that the characterization could be misinterpreted as a quote. (The "Arkin rule.") Critical context must be supplied, and ellipses must not be used to distort the meaning of the quote. (The "Dowd rule.") And quotations must not add or delete quotation marks contained in the original quote -- especially for sneering purposes. (The "CNN rule.")

I bet even Xrlq, who was uncharacteristically forgiving of the Arkin misquotation fiasco, thinks this one is beyond the pale.

Posted 10/24/2003 07:45:00 AM by Patrick
COMPARING BANS: Jacob Sullum compares the ban on partial-birth abortion with the ban on so-called "assault weapons" in this column at Reason.com.

Posted 10/24/2003 07:25:00 AM by Patrick
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: I criticize the Los Angeles Times a great deal, because there is a great deal of reason to do so. But I think it's appropriate that I also mention when this paper does something right. I think the Times has done a nice job recently in its reporting on admissions standards at the elite UC schools.

As the paper states the issue today:

At UC Berkeley and UCLA, several thousand students with SAT scores exceeding 1400 were not admitted to some programs in recent years while hundreds of others with below-average scores gained entrance to the prestigious campuses.

This is an important story with obvious potential ramifications regarding affirmative action. It appears likely that Proposition 209 is being violated. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for the Times to ignore the story (or treat it as a non-story), and keep the P.C. elements in the newsroom happy.

Instead, the paper broke the news with this story, which revealed the findings of a confidential report criticizing UC Berkeley's admissions practices. The paper followed up yesterday with a similar story about UCLA. Throughout, the paper has given the story appropriately prominent play.

Let's give credit where credit is due. These stories have revived an important debate about the role of affirmative action in admissions processes. If the confidential findings had been buried or spiked, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I say kudos to the Times for reporting this story in the way it has.

UPDATE: Beware. It is written, somewhere, that praise of the Times by myself and Xrlq in the same week is one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

Posted 10/24/2003 07:24:00 AM by Patrick
FROM THE ONION: The most recent Onion has the following "man on the street" feature:

An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration recommended that the 11-year ban on the sale of silicone breast implants be lifted. What do you think?

My favorite response was from Wilma Hines, Political Activist: "The ban should not only be lifted, but separated, as well."

Posted 10/23/2003 10:59:00 PM by Patrick
FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T HEARD IT: The Bill O'Reilly interview with Terry Gross is here. At least one Patterico reader has heard it and believes that the interview was unfair -- a position agreed with by the NPR ombudsman.

Posted 10/23/2003 10:33:00 PM by Patrick
RICHARD POSNER TO BE INTERVIEWED IN HOWARD BASHMAN'S "20 QUESTIONS FOR THE APPELLATE JUDGE" FEATURE: Read about it here. I am looking forward to December.

Posted 10/23/2003 10:22:00 PM by Patrick
KEYWORDS ARKIN, XRLQ, MISQUOTATION, HUGH HEWITT, PATTERICO, AND LILEKS: Xrlq says of the Arkin misquotation controversy:

Critics of Arkin, including Hugh Hewitt, Patterico and Lileks, have been quick to pounce on the fact that Arkin put quotation marks around the word jihad, despite the fact that Boykin had (obviously) never used that word himself.

Now, the main reason I excerpt that quote is because I just love seeing in print the phrase "Hugh Hewitt, Patterico and Lileks."

Still, I feel I must unfortunately express rare disagreement with my respected blogging colleague Xrlq. It seems to me that many people unfamiliar with the whole Boykin controversy might have been misled by the quotation marks. Arkin devoted an entire column to criticizing the way that Boykin expressed himself. In this context, it seems to me (and Hugh Hewitt and Lileks!) that Arkin had a special responsibility to make sure that words within quotation marks, which refer to Boykin's alleged beliefs, reflect things that Boykin actually said.

We've all seen roadside billboards that read something like this:

Exit 203, in 35 miles: Annie's Roadside "Cafe" featuring Annie's "fresh" apple "pie"!

My suggestion: Arkin should be "fired" from the Dog Trainer, and should be put to work creating these sorts of roadside billboards with superfluous quotation "marks" that mean "nothing."

Posted 10/23/2003 09:31:00 PM by Patrick
CARTOON OF THE DAY: The only good thing about the Los Angeles Dog Trainer is cartoonist Michael Ramirez. Today he scores with this cartoon about partial-birth abortion.

Posted 10/23/2003 09:26:00 PM by Patrick
VOLOKH ON JANICE ROGERS BROWN: Don't miss Eugene Volokh's explanation of how "People for the American Way" misrepresented basic facts about Janice Rogers Brown's record, in their bogus press release opposing her nomination.

Posted 10/23/2003 07:41:00 AM by Patrick
HEWITT ON ARKIN, AND CORRECTION WATCH: Today in the Weekly Standard, Hugh Hewitt asks: Who Is William Arkin? The short answer is that he is the guy who said General Boykin "believes in Christian 'jihad'" -- putting "jihad" in quotes, although he admits the general never used that word.

We are still waiting for a correction from the Los Angeles Dog Trainer, which printed this misquotation. Meanwhile, this far more important correction was reported in this morning's Dog Trainer:

Leather price — A caption accompanying the Wanted column in last Thursday's Home section incorrectly stated that a leather hide embossed with a crocodile pattern costs $440 a yard at Michael Levine fabric store in downtown Los Angeles. The price is for a hide that is about 55 square feet.

Thank God that's been cleared up.

Posted 10/23/2003 06:51:00 AM by Patrick
GOODBYE TO SCHIAVO CONTROVERSY: A reader asks me to shut up about Terri Schiavo already, and I think it's time to comply. What better way to say "goodbye" to this controversy than by directing your attention to a glib editorial about the case in today's Los Angeles Dog Trainer?

Although much of the editorial is serious in tone, I can tell that it was written by the idiot who does their light-hearted cutesy editorials (remember the one about the acronyms?). Bad choice. This one is "cleverly" titled To Be or Not To Be, and has lines like this: "By the way, there's a lingering family feud over $plitting a medical malpractice settlement." Get it? It's funny because of the dollar sign!

This editorial is worth discussing because it is an object lesson in how the news media does not give you the whole story. Like many of the news articles I have mentioned over the past few days, the editorial gives no hint of the peculiar facts (described in detail here) that set this controversy apart from many "right to die" cases.

Omitted from the editorial is any hint that maybe Mr. Schiavo shouldn't be the one making this decision. Omitted are the references to the nurse's affidavit saying that Mr. Schiavo asked, "When is that bitch going to die?" Omitted is the fact that Mr. Schiavo has been fighting rehabilitation for Ms. Schiavo, after collecting on a civil judgment obtained largely through the promise of pursuing such rehabilitation. Omitted is the fact that a world-renowned expert and Nobel Prize nominee has testified that Ms. Schiavo is not in a "persistent vegetative state," or that ten other physicians testified or gave statements to the same effect. Omitted is the fact that Terri once had a guardian ad litem who recommended against dehydrating her to death.

The Dog Trainer editors don't think you need to know this information. After all, it would interfere with the message they want to convey: that this is a simple "right to die" case. And the news media loves to accuse the public of being too simplistic.

Ultimately, the advocates of Ms. Schiavo's death would have you rely on the opinions of (some of) the doctors who examined Ms. Schiavo and have deemed that her vegetative state is "persistent." "Trust the doctors," we are told.

If the differing medical testimony I describe above doesn't make you think twice about putting blind faith in the opinions of doctors, perhaps this story will. It's about the recent wildcat strike by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputies. If you haven't heard about this, deputies are striking for a better contract. Many have come down with a case of the "blue flu" and called in sick, paralyzing the jails and courts. As reported here, an Orange County judge issued a temporary restraining order early this month, barring further sickouts. However, "hundreds of deputies called in sick in the days that followed." For example, at the Central Jail, two-thirds of the deputies called in sick one day.

But, you see, it's okay. They all really did just get sick all of a sudden, at the same time that they were having a labor dispute. We know this really happened, because doctors said so: "Outside court, union President Roy Burns said all of the deputies had doctors' notes that excused them from work for that day."

UPDATE: For those who put their trust in the doctors, please read Rus Cooper-Dowda's piece entitled When I Woke Up.

Also read recent articles by Wesley Smith, including from Oct. 20, 21, and 22. (Via Tonecluster.)

UPDATE x2: No sooner do I announce that I am cutting off posts on the subject than I hear from a different reader who wants me to continue to follow the story, especially in light of reports like this one indicating that a guardian hasn't been appointed, and that Mr. Schiavo may be playing games again. I appreciate this reader's concern, and I recommend that he and others consult WorldNetDaily, which seems to have the most up-to-date coverage.

UPDATE x3: Sorry, can't resist this. A Reason article concludes that Schiavo should be allowed to die, but also reports:

Minnesota neurologist Ronald Cranford told the Washington Post, "There has never been a documented case of someone recovering after having been in a persistent vegetative state for more than 3 months."

Pretty convincing. But wait! There's more!

However, the journal Brain Injury reported the case, of a 26-year-old woman who, after being diagnosed as suffering from a persistent vegetative state for six months, recovered consciousness and, though severely disabled, is largely cognitively intact. However, it is generally agreed that if a patient doesn't become responsive before six months, his or her prognosis is extremely poor.

Looks like "Minnesota neurologist Ronald Cranford" didn't get the memo! But trust the doctors! Also, note that a lack of responsiveness after six months means the prognosis is "extremely poor" -- not "hopeless."

Posted 10/22/2003 11:49:00 PM by Patrick
COMEDY RELIEF FOR THE DAY: John Allen Muhammad's opening statement. Key to his defense is the cookie jar incident. Read it to see what I mean.

But Mr. Muhammad may not be as stupid as he looks, or sounds, or our best testing indicates. He has now reinstated his lawyers.

Posted 10/22/2003 07:47:00 PM by Patrick
SCHIAVO NEWS: Here is Michael Schiavo's statement, issued today. Here is a New York Times article about the separation of powers argument against the Florida Legislature's action. (This article, like the TIME article discussed below, omits the main evidence that Schiavo has a conflict of interest -- see that post for details).

UPDATE: The Associated Press reports here:

The family of a disabled woman now under treatment by orders of Gov. Jeb Bush is barred from seeing her because her husband won't allow it, the family's attorney said Wednesday.

Xrlq explains that this is, like everything else, according to Terri's wishes:

Michael Schiavo, the selfless, loving husband who is only acting according to his wife's dying wishes, has suddenly recalled a second private conversation with Terri. As it turns out, not only did Terri confide that she wanted to die if she became incapacitated, she also told him that she hates her family and never wants to see them again.

If the family is truly being barred from visiting Ms. Schiavo, what is the reason -- other than pure spite? If Mr. Schiavo were trying to prove that he is a selfish person not interested in his wife's best interests, he couldn't do much better than this.

UPDATE x2: He apparently changed his mind.

Posted 10/22/2003 06:39:00 AM by Patrick
PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN: Other than Terri Schiavo's winning a chance at life, yesterday's big news was obviously the passage by the Senate of the partial-birth abortion ban. President Bush is certain to sign the measure soon, so its validity will depend upon the outcome of court challenges, inevitably ending in the Supreme Court.

I believe that this bill is constitutional. However, I believe that it will be found to be unconstitutional. Let me explain what I mean.

Prompted by the bill's passage, I sat down last night and read the text of the bill for the first time. The thing that struck me about the law -- and this is something you will probably not fully appreciate until you read it for yourself -- is that Congress has essentially characterized the issue as a power struggle. It's smackdown time: Congress vs. the Supreme Court. And that is why I think that the bill will ultimately be found unconstitutional. Because the thing about power struggles between Congress and the Supreme Court is, the Supreme Court gets to decide them.

The bill argues that the Supreme Court decision that struck down Nebraska's partial birth abortion law, Stenberg v. Carhart, was based on flawed factual findings by the trial court. The trial court had specifically found that the partial-birth procedure can minimize health risks in certain circumstances, and indeed was actually safer than other procedures. In the bill, Congress basically says that these findings were wrong. Congress goes on to make findings of its own -- findings which are wholly contrary to those relied upon by the Supreme Court in Stenberg. Then, Congress states:

These findings reflect the very informed judgment of the Congress that a partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman, poses serious risks to a woman's health, and lies outside the standard of medical care, and should, therefore, be banned.

Translation: in your face, Supreme Court!

Congress clearly has a point. The facts underlying the partial birth abortion debate are hotly contested by both sides. A significant portion of the citizenry has a strong interest in the subject. Yet the resolution of these facts has been largely decided, not through public debate, but by some trial judge in Nebraska -- after a trial that received virtually no public attention. For example, this trial received only a tiny fraction of the coverage that Kobe Bryant's preliminary hearing has received.

But this is not about rationality. I repeat: it is a power struggle. And so I suspect that the Supreme Court will not accept Congress's argument. The Court will reject Congress's position politely, of course -- on the surface. The Court will explain that the Stenberg decision was based only in part upon the trial court's findings. Also important to the decision was the significant disagreement in the medical community on the necessity for the procedure, as reflected in various amici briefs as well as testimony in the trial record. Etc., etc. But if you read between the lines, the ultimate message will be: right back at ya, Congress!

I think the new law is indeed constitutional, but not for the reasons that Congress says. Congress has to accept the Supreme Court's landmark abortion decisions (Roe and Casey) as correct statements of constitutional law; Congress can't just say that those cases were wrongly decided. But they were. There is no point in my trying to explain why. Justice Scalia did it better than I could, in his dissent in Casey. That dissent has many wonderful quotes and should be read in its entirety, but to me the essence of his argument is that

the best the Court can do to explain how it is that the word "liberty" must be thought to include the right to destroy human fetuses is to rattle off a collection of adjectives that simply decorate a value judgment and conceal a political choice.

Scalia argues that such political choices should be left to, well, the political branches of government:

The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.

But, you may say, Roe and Casey are the law now, and they have to be applied. But the problem is that the applicable standard, announced in Casey, is completely unworkable because it is so vague. Under Casey, courts must determine whether the bill places an "undue burden" upon the supposed right to choose. This "test" is so nebulous that it is no test at all.

Again, Justice Scalia explains it best, so I will quote extensively from his dissent in Stenberg. Scalia explains that whether the statute creates an "undue burden" on abortion is a

conclusion that can not be demonstrated true or false by factual inquiry or legal reasoning. It is a value judgment, dependent upon how much one respects (or believes society ought to respect) the life of a partially delivered fetus, and how much one respects (or believes society ought to respect) the freedom of the woman who gave it life to kill it.

Because there are no consistent standards to be applied, Scalia argues, the argument really isn't over application of clear, neutral principles. Rather, the argument is over whose value judgment prevails. For the dissenters,

[t]he most that we can honestly say is that we disagree with the majority on their policy-judgment-couched-as-law. And those who believe that a 5-to-4 vote on a policy matter by unelected lawyers should not overcome the judgment of 30 state legislatures have a problem, not with the application of Casey, but with its existence. Casey must be overruled.

Given how contentious this issue is, Scalia concludes, he cannot understand why people persist in the belief that the Supreme Court,

armed with neither constitutional text nor accepted tradition, can resolve that contention and controversy rather than be consumed by it. If only for the sake of its own preservation, the Court should return this matter to the people -- where the Constitution, by its silence on the subject, left it -- and let them decide, State by State, whether this practice should be allowed. Casey must be overruled.

I couldn't have said it better myself (which is why I let Justice Scalia say it). For all the reasons in Justice Scalia's dissents in Casey and Stenberg, I think this new bill is clearly constitutional. Unfortunately, Justice Scalia's rational and reasoned view has not carried the day so far, and it probably won't this time around either.

Ultimately, I am afraid that the new law will accomplish nothing other than to give us the chance to read another brilliant and persuasive dissent from Justice Scalia.

UPDATE: Xrlq has this critique of the ban on federalism grounds. I claim no expertise on the proper interpretation of the Commerce Clause, and I think it's debatable how the current Court would rule on the question. (You can look at the comments to Xrlq's post for competing viewpoints on the issue.) In any event, Xrlq has a plausible argument. Check it out.

Posted 10/22/2003 12:08:00 AM by Patrick
THANK YOU TO HUGH HEWITT: I would be remiss if I did not thank Hugh Hewitt for his kind words about my blog. Hugh brought me more visitors in the last 24 hours than I sometimes get in a month. I appreciate it.

I hope that readers who enjoy what they see here will take Hugh's advice and bookmark the site. I'd love to have you as regular readers. Also, I'd love any feedback -- which, until I move my blog to Movable Type, must be accomplished by e-mailing me at the link to the left.

Thanks also to Prof. Eugene Volokh for mentioning this blog the other day.

It's an honor to have these people as readers.

Posted 10/21/2003 07:30:00 PM by Patrick
THE DEEMING IS THE HARDEST PART: In my continuing quest to learn more about the husband's side in the Schiavo case, I present this TIME magazine article. Since it's TIME, you can be sure it is not taking a reflexively right-wing position. I doubt that any document short of Michael Schiavo's court filings will present a more sympathetic view of his arguments.

The article does not mention Michael Schiavo's "When is the bitch going to die?" comment. Nor does it mention the fact that he won a bunch of cash from a jury by arguing that he wanted to rehabilitate her, and then -- after the cash from the verdict had hit his bank account -- refused to pay for her rehabilitation. Only then did he mention that she had supposedly told him she did not want to stay alive through the use of extraordinary measures. These facts, which I find more compelling than any others, are nowhere in the article.

The story quotes an associate director of neuropsychology (who watched the videos of Ms. Schiavo) as saying: "There are many, many behaviors that look like conscious behavior that are reflexive or automatic." This guy says of the videos: "This is not compelling evidence. It's interesting and suggestive. But most of these responses could occur in a vegetative state."

This opinion appears to be different from what my friend -- a former head of neurology at a major metropolitan hospital -- told me based on his watching of the same videos (as described in this post immediately below). Still, as support for the Michael Schiavo position, the TIME expert's statement is underwhelming, to say the least. "Most" of these responses "could" occur in a vegetative state? This does not strike me as compelling enough evidence to justify killing someone when we don't know for sure that they want to die (because we can't trust the person who's telling us -- for details, read my posts here and here and the links in those posts).

My favorite part of the TIME piece comes after the main text of the article. There is a feature called called "Altered States" which is meant to describe varying degrees of consciousness. It contains this gem of an explanation: "A vegetative patient may recover; one deemed permanently vegetative will not."

Got that? It's all about the "deeming."

Posted 10/21/2003 07:20:00 AM by Patrick
A NEUROLOGIST ON THE SCHIAVO VIDEOS: Those people who defend the starvation of Terri Schindler-Schiavo often point to the opinions of so-called experts (like this guy), who claim to know that her apparent conscious reactions are "reflexive actions" that simply mimic ordinary human actions. I am highly suspicious of such explanations, because I wonder: how do they know?

As I said Saturday, I decided to pose the question to a friend of mine who is a brilliant neurologist. He was until recently the director of neurology at a major metropolitan hospital. He left that hospital to work at the hospital where his wife works, where he is now the sole full-time neurologist, and is working on setting up a center to treat multiple sclerosis.

I e-mailed my friend with a link to the videos of Terri. I asked him to answer the following question: "is she/could she be in a 'persistent vegetative state' -- and should it be okay to starve/dehydrate her to death?" I decided that, unless my friend objected, I would print his opinion regardless of which way he came down. Here is his e-mail to me (with emphasis added by me):

Hey Pat,

The responses she demonstrates indicate that her brain is functioning above the level of the foramen magnum and therefore she is not brain dead. Therefore, it is inhuman to stop feeding her or giving her hydration.

I don't know what exact medical condition led to her present neurological state but I saw that she was admitted to the hospital in 1990.

What usually happens in this case is that a person is admitted to a SNF -- Skilled Nursing Facility -- where nutrition (via PEG or by mouth) is given, other general medical issues are covered by the house doctor and whatever therapy is indicated gets done.

These cases go on all the time and if there is money involved, it gets messy.

I don't know what he means by that last sentence, and I am almost afraid to write him back and ask. Does he mean that people who are really not in a coma are being starved and dehydrated to death all the time, by people who want their money?? Is this case not unusual?? I'm not sure I want to know. . .

In any event, I respect my friend's opinion much more than the opinion of so-called experts whom I don't know personally. I am more convinced than ever that, as my friend said, what is happening here is inhuman. I pray that the Florida Senate acts on Terri's Bill this morning, and that something can be done to prevent what appears to me to be a deliberate, premeditated, state-sanctioned murder. That phrase -- often glibly misused by death penalty opponents protesting the execution of cold-blooded murderers -- seems to fit these facts distressingly well.

UPDATE: I have already reported this in updates to the post immediately below: the Florida Senate has passed the bill. Gov. Bush has signed it, and has ordered the feeding tube re-inserted. It will be when it is safe to do so. For further information, consult the links at the end of the next post.

UPDATE x2: Many readers are used to reading that most neurologists agree with the courts on this issue. But if you take a look at some of the stories making this claim, you'll see that it's not necessarily as cut-and-dried as it has sometimes been portrayed.

For example, see the post immediately above this one (here), showing that the key issue is whether Ms. Schiavo's vegetative state has been "deemed" permanent. Or read this post, which shows that a New York Times story on the topic fails to deliver what the headline promises.

Evidence about the case can be found all over this site, but this post has lengthy excerpts from affidavits by nurses and nurses' aides -- both about Terri's condition, and Mr. Schiavo's (alleged) incredible behavior throughout. And here is my reaction to a recent interview of Mr. Schiavo by Larry King.

I don't know all the answers, but I am looking at things with a critical eye, and I hope readers will as well. I have posted my reflections on the controversy here.

Posted 10/21/2003 06:59:00 AM by Patrick
TERRI'S BILL: It appears that the Florida House has overcome the obstacle I mentioned last night, that Terri's Bill is unrelated to "business incentives to get the Scripps research facility along the I-4 corridor." Xrlq, via Justene of Calblog, reports here that the Florida House has passed Terri's Bill. Xrlq says that debate in the Senate begins this morning at 8 a.m. -- meaning it should have begun about an hour ago Eastern time.

However, WorldNetDaily reports here that the President of the Senate, one Jim King (a Republican!), is known to oppose the bill. This may be why the staffer whom I quote in this post from last night said any bill on this issue coming from the House "would go over to the Senate to die." (Also, I am not clear as to whether it needs a 2/3 majority in the Senate as well. The whole Scripps incentives thing again. K. Lo from the Corner says yes, but I don't know if she's right.)

Sen. King's e-mail address (which I just love) is king.james.web@flsenate.gov. I don't see how it could hurt to write him, even if you don't live in Florida. I just did.

And for any smart-alecks intending to write Sen. King and tell him to oppose the bill, please read the opinion of my neurologist friend in the post immediately above this one. He says what is happening here is "inhuman."

UPDATE: The bill has passed.

UPDATE x2: Apparently, Sen. King had a change of heart, as this story describes him as a "supporter," albeit one with second thoughts. The e-mails and phone calls must have done some good.

UPDATE x3: Gov. Bush has signed the bill and ordered the feeding tube re-inserted.

With what we know, I think we have to be happy at the outcome; Mr. Schiavo's assertions regarding what Terri Schiavo wanted were not reliable, in my view. Still, one never knows for sure. I certainly hope this is what she would have wanted.

UPDATE x4: Kathryn Jean Lopez at the Corner says that a judge in Florida "has denied Michael Schiavo's request for a court injunction to deny the governor's order for the reinstatement of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube." But don't expect this to be the last attempt by Michael Schiavo to reverse Gov. Bush's order.

UPDATE x5: She is currently receiving fluids by IV. She's not ready for the feeding tube yet, because she has been starved and dehydrated for six days, pursuant to court order. (Via Xrlq.)

Posted 10/20/2003 07:24:00 PM by Patrick
GOOD EDITORIAL FROM THE GREAT WHITE NORTH: The Toronto Star editorializes against the starvation of Terri Schindler-Schiavo here:

Whatever one's view of euthanasia, Terri's plight is a dreadful advertisement for Florida's current law.

Absent an explicit directive, whose wishes should prevail in such cases?

The wishes of family who are willing to assume the burdens and costs of preserving life, not ending it.

The law must protect those who cannot protect themselves.

Amen. (Via Tonecluster.)

Posted 10/20/2003 07:07:00 PM by Patrick
FROM THE INAPPROPRIATE HEADLINE DEPARTMENT: Today's New York Times editorial has the unfortunate title New Look at Silicone Breast Implants.

Posted 10/20/2003 06:17:00 PM by Patrick
TERRI SCHIAVO AND THE SCRIPPS FACILITY: Kathryn Jean Lopez at the Corner reports that a Florida legislative staffer is not optimistic about Terri's Bill (an emergency measure described by Xrlq here), which appears to be Terri Schiavo's last hope to live. (Read more about her situation here.) The reason for pessimism, according to the staffer:

The session has been called for "the purpose of introducing a package of business incentives to get the Scripps research facility along the I-4 corridor" . . . "Any legislation outside that purpose would require a 2/3 vote for introduction in either chamber and, while that might possibly happen here, such bills would go over to the Senate to die."

It sounds like Terri Schiavo might be able to live if someone can successfully argue that preserving her life is somehow relevant to the far more important issue of business incentives for the Scripps research facility. Makes sense, right?

Patterico readers are a clever and resourceful lot. If anyone has an argument as to how preventing the murder of this woman could help attract the Scripps research facility, e-mail me at the link to the left.

Posted 10/20/2003 06:49:00 AM by Patrick
TO KILL THE MESSAGE OF "MOCKINGBIRD": The Indianapolis Star editorializes here in support of the decision of an Indianapolis High School to cancel a production of a stage version of To Kill a Mockingbird. (Via Volokh.) Why the cancellation? I think you can guess. Yup, black parents and the NAACP protested due to the use of the "N" word.

Eugene Volokh has the best comment I have seen on this:

Say, doesn't the "C" in NAACP stand for "colored"? Outrageous! Everyone knows that "colored" is a pejorative term nowadays; people would be very offended if you called them "colored." High schools should stop using texts that contain the organization's name.

Heh.

(By the way, if this organization is going to be renamed to conform to the terms used nowadays, I suppose the new name would have to be the "National Association for the Advancement of African-American People," or "NAAAAP." Hmmm. Maybe that's why they're sticking with "Colored.")

Prof. Volokh also says: "When an NAACP chapter objects to To Kill a Mockingbird, and a high school agrees, we've come to a strange, strange place, folks." I agree with this, but I would add that we've always been in that strange place.

For example, for as long as I can remember, there have been black activists somewhere trying to ban Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- certainly among the top anti-slavery books ever written in this country. As explained in this essay, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been banned and challenged ever since it was first published in 1885. The initial objections came from the literary establishment, which saw the book as too lowbrow. But beginning in the 1950s and lasting to the present day, the objections to the book have come from black activist groups -- apparently composed of people who had never read it.

I'm afraid that, as long as there are people who don't bother to read the great books, there will be people who will be offended by what (they think) is in them. The To Kill a Mockingbird controversy is, alas, nothing new, and you can expect this sort of nonsense to crop up again.

Accepting the inevitability of such controversies, I still agree with Prof. Volokh: it's bad enough that the parents are doing this; even worse that the NAAAAP folks are participating; worse still that the school is caving to the pressure; but worst of all is the fact that the local newspaper supports the school's decision. But here again I am less surprised than Prof. Volokh. The political leanings of newspaper editors (even in the relatively smaller urban areas, as this shows) often cause them to embrace absurd "pro-minority" policies and viewpoints -- even when they know that these policies and viewpoints are wrong and/or harmful. This is another regrettable aspect of American society that I don't see changing anytime soon.

Posted 10/20/2003 06:20:00 AM by Patrick
THE SCOOP ON WILLIE BROWN: Mickey Kaus thinks that Willie Brown has abandoned his previously expressed intention of running for the state Senate seat currently held by John Burton (who gets termed out next year) (and good riddance). Kaus explains that Arnold is "wildly unpopular" in the district, so Brown's joining Arnold's transition sends a signal that Brown will not be running for elective office there. Plus, apparently Brown's unfavorability rating there is a high 40 percent.

No John Burton, no Willie Brown. My, my. Retaliacrats™ will have to come up with some other clueless buffoon to run the Senate for them.

I have confidence in their ability to do it.

Posted 10/19/2003 10:12:00 AM by Patrick
DOG TRAINER CORRECTION: As fresh potatoes first noted, on October 5 (before the election) the Los Angeles Dog Trainer printed an absurd article claiming that bureaucrats would defy Arnold if he tried to reverse the car tax by executive order. (As noted here, the Dog Trainer soon reversed itself without acknowledging that it had done so.)

The original article reported the startling news that "Jon Coupal, president of the [Howard Jarvis] taxpayers association, acknowledged that rescinding the hike could require court action." This sure seemed like a confirmation of the Dog Trainer's ridiculous premise. After all, it had been widely assumed that what the Governor had done by fiat, could be reversed by fiat. For the president of the state's principal anti-tax group to say that court action would be required was a big deal -- and flew directly in the face of what the Republican candidates were saying.

The problem is that Coupal never said this. Coupal immediately disputed the statement in a letter to the editor, which (as far as I can tell) was not printed in the Dog Trainer. The letter was reproduced at CaliforniaRepublic.org on October 7. (Scroll down to entries for 10/7/03 -- no permalinks). Coupal's letter stated:

Dear Editor: In your October 5 edition, Jennifer Oldham, in her story on efforts to roll back the car tax, says, "But Jon Coupal, president of the [Howard Jarvis] taxpayers association, acknowledged that rescinding the hike could require court action."

I did not acknowledge, say, state, imply, or even hint that this might be the case. As an attorney and expert in tax policy, it is my unequivocal opinion that a new governor can rescind the illegal raising of the car tax with the stroke of a pen.

Sincerely, Jon Coupal - President, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

Why am I discussing this now? Because yesterday, October 18 -- 13 days after the original article was published, and 11 days after Coupal's letter was printed at CaliforniaRepublic.org -- the Dog Trainer finally printed this correction:

Vehicle license fee — "An Oct. 5 story in Section A said that Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., acknowledged that rescinding the state car-tax hike could require court action. While Coupal acknowledges that a rollback of the car-tax hike could be challenged in court, he believes that the governor does, in fact, have the power to rescind it."

Hey, these things take time. We all know how thorough the Dog Trainer is. Better incredibly, inexcusably late than never . . . right?

Posted 10/19/2003 08:05:00 AM by Patrick
FRESH XML POTATOES: Spooky at fresh potatoes has a new XML feed. Add him to your aggregator now -- I just did. If you don't have an aggregator, or don't know what I'm talking about, visit him anyway (and then learn about the aggregator I use here.)

Posted 10/19/2003 07:21:00 AM by Patrick
SCHIAVO "RIGHT TO MURDER" CASE REVISITED: Terri Schiavo's parents are still trying to save her life. But it's not working.

Posted 10/18/2003 11:25:00 PM by Patrick
VOLOKH ON EASTERBROOK: As usual, Volokh has a sensible opinion. Calm down, folks!

UPDATE: isntapundit is right too. (Via Daily Pundit.)

UPDATE x2: Dean Esmay is not only also right, but puts it very well, calling the criticism of Easterbrook "over-the-top outraged bloviating." I love that word.

Posted 10/18/2003 11:18:00 PM by Patrick
LOCKYER COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET: Democrat Bill "More Prison Rape" Lockyer voted for Arnold. (Via Wizbang -- via The Southern California Law Blog.)

Asked why he didn't vote for Mr. N-Word Cruz Bustamante, Lockyer said: "You know the people in your profession really well. You know who works hard and who doesn't. Cops know that about cops. Doctors know that about doctors. I know that about politicians."

Ouch!

UPDATE: Weintraub omits this comment and says: "Lockyer didn't directly criticize Bustamante Saturday but said he looked at the list of candidates and it was 'a crappy list.'" A little misleading, Dan! The comment above is close enough to "direct criticism" to tell your readers about!

People make mistakes, but I have a deeper concern here: are the editors, with their hyperprotective attitude towards Mr. N-Word, keeping the truth from us? (An admittedly paranoid concern, but when you're talking about newspaper editors, a little paranoia is realistic and healthy.) Or (more likely) did Dan just miss this? I've e-mailed Weintraub to find out. (Do they edit his e-mails?)

UPDATE x2: Weintraub wrote back to say that I had a good point. He said that Lockyer had made the comments after his speech, while Weintraub was still blogging. He said he didn't catch up to the comments until later, and said he would do an update. The update is now on the site.

Pretty quick work, too. The update was up within a half-hour after he wrote me back. Which makes me wonder: did Weintraub have to call his editor on a Sunday morning to run this minor update by him? Does he have some freedom to post certain items without editing? If so, does that freedom apply only to items certain not to raise P.C. hackles? Inquiring minds want to know.

UPDATE x3: Inquiring minds won't find out. I e-mailed Weintraub with the question, and wasn't surprised that he (very politely) declined to discuss his arrangement with his editors.

Posted 10/18/2003 11:14:00 PM by Patrick
SHOW US YOUR TALL MAN: Nothing says "Boston" like this picture.

Posted 10/18/2003 11:13:00 PM by Patrick
SCHIAVO: I am not forgetting about Terri Schiavo. How could I? I have sent an e-mail to a friend from college who is a neurologist and a hell of a smart guy, asking him to look at the videos and tell me his opinion. If I hear back, and he says it's okay to publish it, I'll let you know what he says.

Posted 10/18/2003 10:57:00 PM by Patrick
FIND THE MAN'S HEAD: This is kind of fun. It took me a little over 5 seconds. (Maybe closer to 10, on reflection. I didn't time myself.)

But no pressure.

P.S.: I think I see a finger in there too.

Posted 10/18/2003 07:06:00 PM by Patrick
MUSIC QUIZ: Since I have a few new readers, I thought I might send you to this music quiz that I posted back in March. It's one question: can you identify the piece? You need some working media player and speakers.

Posted 10/17/2003 09:52:00 PM by Patrick
SCALIA AND GRAMMAR: A while back I ranted about how Justice Scalia's views were (once again) being wildly misrepresented by an out-of-control news media intent on taking his quotes out of context. In particular, I was upset that news outlets stated that Scalia had said he had "nothing against homosexuals" when what he really said was: "Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. . . "

Today, grammar pedant William Safire writes about how Scalia might have avoided this particular misquotation by correctly using the possessive before a participle. (The idiots intent on clipping his quote would have had to clip off, not only a few words, but also an apostrophe from the final word.) Safire even interviews Scalia regarding his grammatical decisionmaking in penning his dissent. It's all here, for those who like this sort of thing.

Posted 10/17/2003 06:09:00 PM by Patrick
THE DOG TRAINER'S NEW "AIR QUOTE" POLICY: The other day, the Los Angeles Dog Trainer (aka L.A. Times) ran an op-ed by one Bill Arkin, about that general named Boykin who has dared voice his religious beliefs. In that op-ed, Arkin wrote:

Boykin is also in a senior Pentagon policymaking position, and it's a serious mistake to allow a man who believes in a Christian "jihad" to hold such a job.

Incredible. This general used the word "jihad" to describe our war on terrorism? Well, actually, no. He didn't. Hugh Hewitt interviewed Arkin the other day, and describes the interview here. Hewitt asked Arkin about the "jihad" line, and says:

Arkin admits in my interview that Boykin never used the word jihad, even though it appears in quotes in his article. Arkin states it is a characterization. Right. In quotes.

James Lileks imagines the conversation he would have with his editor if he did this:

But he didn't say that.

Exactly? Well, he meant it, though.

He meant it.

Yes, and that's why I put it in quotes.

Quotes. Which are usually reserved for, you know, quotes.

Right, but I used them here to set the word apart. You know, show that it was a paraphrase.

By using the means we use to indicate direct transcriptions.

Well, sometimes, sure. But I meant them more as, you know, those air quotes you do with your fingers?

To my knowledge, the good folks at the Dog Trainer have not issued a correction of this non-quotation placed within quotation marks. Apparently they needed to save valuable space for this important correction, which ran this morning:

Critter-resistant container -- The Web site listed for the Bearikade Expedition Mark II that ran in the Outfitter column of the Outdoors section Tuesday was incorrect. The Web site is http://www.wild-ideas.net, with a hyphen.

You got that? With a hyphen! It is apparent that the pursuit of accuracy is Job Number One at the Dog Trainer!

You know, I think this whole schtick of placing "characterizations" inside quotation marks is the wave of the future. It really offers a tremendous freedom of expression. I think that today I will adopt the new Dog Trainer "air quotes" standard, exemplified in this critique of Arkin's column:

I just finished Bill Arkin's column on General Boykin, and I think it's a little over the top. I was taken aback that Arkin thinks that "anyone who expresses a belief in Christianity" is "necessarily a wild-eyed zealot" who "should not even be permitted to walk the streets." And I don't think that Bush's decision to appoint Boykin to a high military post was "a more evil act than any perpetrated by Hitler, Stalin, or Mao." Clearly, Arkin needs to choose his words more carefully and avoid hyperbolic exaggeration.

Yup, now that I am using the Dog Trainer's standards as my benchmark for journalistic accuracy, there's no limit to the fun I can have.

Posted 10/17/2003 12:25:00 AM by Patrick
REST EASY: Undercover agents have smuggled "knives, a bomb, and a gun" past screeners at Logan Airport. But don't worry. The federal security director at Logan says Logan is "no better or worse" than other airports around the country. Whew! That's a relief.

UPDATE: And today, bags were found on two Southwest airplanes, each containing box cutters, modeling clay formed to look like a plastic explosive, and bleach (a corrosive liquid not permitted on airplanes). Read about it here. Southwest says that each bag also had a note that "indicated the items were intended to challenge Transportation Security Administration checkpoint security procedures."

According to the story, the FBI has caught the perpetrator, who said he was demonstrating gaps in security. Intensified security checks were ordered with no disruptions to service expected. Meanwhile, the guy who left the bags will likely face federal charges, as "proceedings were expected Monday in federal court in Baltimore." Patterico welcomes feedback from readers on the issue of what should happen to this guy.

I say: force him to pay any restitution to anyone inconvenienced, give him a misdemeanor with a chance of expungement -- and then give him a ticker-tape parade. Or at least an investigative job at a news agency. I think he has performed a public service. What in God's name is the government thinking? Why do we keep reading about successful attempts to smuggle dangerous weapons (or facsimiles thereof) onto airplanes? When is the federal government finally going to get serious about airline security?

A round of applause for the soon-to-be "convicted criminal."

Posted 10/16/2003 09:10:00 PM by Patrick
DEBATE: There is a lively debate going on in a couple of comment threads at L.A. Observed, where myself and some other folks have been debating the Jill Stewart/John Carroll imbroglio. The comment threads, where you can read the debates, are here and here.

Of special interest are some vitriolic comments attacking me, posted by this ex-newspaperman dude called "expat." His specialties include ad hominem insults and misreading the English language. Sample expat comment: "By now we're all familiar with Patterico's little reading comprehension problem, so no surprise at the response." (You will not be surprised to learn that the guy has a little problem interpreting the written word himself.)

It's scary that this guy was once actually a reporter somewhere, perhaps even at our very own local Dog Trainer.

Posted 10/16/2003 08:15:00 PM by Patrick
WORM?: There are an awful lot of internet sites down right now. Could there be a worm moving through the system that we haven't heard about?

UPDATE: The Southern California Law Blog reports here that the problem is an "intentional denial of service attack" at a very popular blog hosting company called "Hosting Matters."

Posted 10/16/2003 08:04:00 PM by Patrick
NO, THIS STORY IS REALLY NOT FROM THE ONION : The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that George Bush

told his senior aides Tuesday that he "didn't want to see any stories" quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.

Hey, I'm a conservative, but irony is irony.

Of course, there's not much danger that Bush will see any such stories anyway, because Bush generally doesn't read newspapers. As Bush told Brit Hume in a recent interview transcribed here: "I glance at the headlines just to kind of a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves."

Meaning that when Bush said to his staff: "I don't want to see any stories quoting unnamed administration officials," his staff thought, in unison: "Okay, we won't show you any."

Posted 10/16/2003 05:43:00 PM by Patrick
JILL STEWART CORRECTION: Jill Stewart has issued a correction to that piece that I mentioned to you the other day, in which she sets forth her interview with a Dog Trainer staffer. The correction is at the end of the interview and reads as follows:

Note: In a previous version of this interview, the source stated that betting pool of 113 journalists conducted at the Times showed about 25 percent thought Schwarzenegger would win and recall would win. However, reporter Ken Reich, who conducted the pool, says this information is wrong and offers the following correction:

"Of the 113 participants, 74 picked both the recall to pass and Schwarzenegger to win the replacement race.... Of the 113, by the way, 101 picked Schwarzenegger to win the replacement race, 11 Bustamante and one McClintock."

Not sure what to make of this. On one hand, it appears to show that the interviewee was dead wrong about the betting pool. On the other hand, the betting pool was one of the most minor of several easily verifiable facts stated by the interviewee -- and this is the only fact that I have heard disputed by anyone at the Dog Trainer.

Patterico says: the jury's still out. Mickey, we need you!

Posted 10/16/2003 07:33:00 AM by Patrick
CUTESY EDITORIAL WATCH: The idiot who writes the cutesy editorials for the Dog Trainer is at it again. Today's topic: acronyms. Beware.

One day, perhaps all of this writer's editorials will be gathered together in a single volume, which we can then hurl onto a bonfire.

Meanwhile, I am guessing the editors are telling Mickey Kaus they're too busy to talk to him about Jill Stewart's piece.

Posted 10/16/2003 06:49:00 AM by Patrick
STILL MORE ON SCHIAVO: A reader e-mails regarding the Schiavo case to say the husband apparently has "some evidence of early tests including a brain wave probe that showed no response."

I wish I had access to more original court documents on this case. Perhaps after work today I will dig into it some more.

Here is more of the other side. I found this on my own. This New York Times article quotes Kenneth Goodman, director of the Bioethics Program at the University of Miami, as saying: "Very often, people in persistent vegetative states have reflexive actions that mimic for all the world an ordinary human action. If it's someone you love, you are inclined to attach meaning to it."

I can see this. For example, a director of bioethics may speak in apparent complete sentences, yet an expert like myself can tell that he is actually in a persistent vegetative state.

Posted 10/16/2003 06:45:00 AM by Patrick
MORE ON SCHIAVO: Regarding the Schiavo case, Xrlq asks: "Couldn't the Legislature convene tomorrow and vote to prohibit the intentional starvation of anyone who hasn't executed a living will?" Good question. They could even call it the "The Bitch Isn't Going to Die Yet, Mr. Schiavo" law.

Posted 10/16/2003 06:39:00 AM by Patrick
KAUS ON . . . BASEBALL: Nothing yet from Mickey Kaus on the John Carroll/Jill Stewart controversy. He's talking about that guy who caught the foul ball in Chicago.

Posted 10/15/2003 10:25:00 PM by Patrick
HUGH HEWITT ON THE POWER OF THE BLOGOSPHERE: Hugh Hewitt's Weekly Standard piece on the Los Angeles Dog Trainer is now available here. My favorite quote relates to the power of the internet to affect the bias inside the newsrooms:

The left-leaning newsroom isn't going to be corrected by editors sending memos, but by market forces feeding on the Internet's destruction of the oligopoly in news distribution. Stewart pens her article, I link to it here, it's then blogged by folks who never visit her site, and it gets posted and chewed over at various bulletin boards everywhere from FreeRepublic to DemocraticUnderground. The Times can neither make the story go away nor spin it because opinion elites no longer depend upon news elites to set the table. They can order in.

Patterico plans to remain right here, serving up the truth at discount prices.

Posted 10/15/2003 08:46:00 PM by Patrick
SCHIAVO: I heard on the radio today that the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler-Schiavo has begun. She is the woman whose situation I discuss below.

I have looked extensively at the site her family has put together in an effort to save her life. The family has made videos of her, in defiance of an order from the judge in the case forbidding the family from providing her rehabilitative care or taking pictures or video of her. (What kind of an order is that?) Her husband's lawyer compares her to a "houseplant." It's clearly not true. Watch the videos.

I have searched the web for the other side to this story. I am just not seeing it. Here are the arguments I have seen or heard in support of the husband's position. All seem easily refuted:

Schiavo says his wife wanted to die. I have seen no contradiction of the following facts: She has executed no living will. Her husband argued to a jury that he wanted to rehabilitate her and bring her home, and he collected big -- $1.3 million. About $750,000 of that went into a trust fund, the remainder of which he will inherit if she dies. Just months after the dough hit the bank, he claimed that she had told him she would not want to live by artificial means. He is the only witness to this statement. Meanwhile, he has ordered nurses not to provide stimulation, has not kept his promise to the jury to provide rehabilitative care, and has gotten the courts to order the family not to provide such care either. He has been heard repeatedly wondering aloud when she will die. A nurse has executed an affidavit quoting him as saying, "When is she going to die," "Has she died yet?" and "When is that bitch going to die?"

The courts have ruled for Schiavo. True enough. The courts also gave O.J. custody of his children. The courts sometimes screw up. The courts say she is in a "persistent vegetative state." Watch the videos.

Court-appointed doctors say she isn't responsive. Watch the videos.

If she were on Death Row, Governor Jeb Bush could issue a reprieve. But she's not being killed for having murdered someone, so the governor is powerless to help her.

My invitation to present the other side remains. Meanwhile, Terri Schindler-Schiavo has begun the agonizing process of starving to death, starting at 2 p.m. EDT today.

Posted 10/15/2003 07:20:00 PM by Patrick
DOG TRAINER UNDER SIEGE: I find I am currently interested in nothing other than the ongoing saga of how the Los Angeles Dog Trainer came to publish (and defend its decision to publish) the Arnold hit piece.

Hugh Hewitt is promising a Weekly Standard column on the topic tomorrow. We have the results of Mickey Kaus's investigation to look forward to. As I have said, the story isn't going away. I'll keep you up to date.

Sometimes I think I should change the slogan of this blog from "Harangues that just make sense" to something like "Refuting Los Angeles Times propaganda in my spare time."

Posted 10/15/2003 06:23:00 AM by Patrick
KAUS ON THE JILL STEWART PIECE: Mickey Kaus is deferring comment on Jill Stewart's explosive piece that I discussed last night, saying: "In a sudden flare-up of journalistic responsibility, I'm staying out of this one until I try some reporting of my own."

Kaus doesn't need exclamation points to convey irony! In any event, the potential for some independent reporting on Stewart's story is an interesting development. I predicted last night that this story is not going away; that prediction is already sounding prescient.

Posted 10/14/2003 06:29:00 PM by Patrick
MUST-READ OF THE DAY: Jill Stewart's response to John Carroll (and lots more) is here. Unfortunately, it's my wife and son's birthday (both!) and I don't have time to pick out quotes, offer my own observations, etc. All I can do is say: read the whole thing, now.

My only comment is this: if a lot of what Stewart says sounds familiar, it's because I already said it here.

UPDATE: Festivities are over, and I am free to expound on Stewart's piece a bit.

Stewart's piece consists of three parts, but only two are interesting: her response to John Carroll, and an interview with a Times reporter. (A final section, setting forth the opinion of an alleged expert, is superfluous and uninteresting.)

Stewart's response to Carroll is well-stated, but obvious. As I said, I have already made most of the same points. I can't be the only one to have done so.

To summarize: Carroll is either guilty of not reading the relevant criticism of his paper (much as he accuses the Dog Trainer's critics of not reading the Arnold hit piece), or he is deliberately misstating the criticisms, because he can't respond to the actual criticisms. Either option is inexcusable, because this man has defended the Arnold story in a very visible and very personal way. For those who are paying attention, the name "John S. Carroll" is synonymous with a defense of the Arnold hit piece -- a defense that, it is becoming increasingly obvious, just doesn't add up.

The real potential revelation is Stewart's interview of a long-time Times reporter. If the interview is accurate, and the allegations made in it are true, then it is explosive.

Why do I say this? Not just because the reporter quoted in the interview says that Carroll took a number of steps that he had to know would delay the story. That would be bad enough, if true. But what would be worse is that Carroll would be publicly revealed to be a dissembler we haven't seen since the likes of Bill Clinton. The main point of Carroll's defense is that the Arnold hit piece was not timed to run at the last second. Stewart's interviewee says that it was -- and that the principal culprit was John Carroll.

If Stewart's interviewee is telling the truth, Carroll's defense is substantially false. I have already suggested that some of Carroll's phraseology appears Clintonian in its potential for hairsplitting. Stewart's interview suggests that this may not be an accident.

Now, I have no idea whether Stewart's allegations are true. For one thing, Stewart's interviewee has not put his or her name on the record. If what the interviewee is saying is true, the interviewee's motive for staying anonymous is obvious. Nevertheless, the anonymity of the source raises troubling questions regarding the reliability of Stewart's piece -- questions similar to the same questions that many critics raised about the Arnold story.

Also, even if Stewart is accurately reporting what her interviewee said, that person could be spinning a tall tale. I have heard enough credible praise of Carroll that I want to believe he is not that dishonest.

But at the same time, what I hear about Carroll is at odds with a very strong, reasoned opinion I have formed about the bias of the L.A. Times over the course of a decade. I have collected examples of this bias on this site for the better part of a year. This bias didn't start with John Carroll, and it sounds like he has tried to get it under control. Even Stewart's interviewee says so. Nevertheless, Carroll has been the editor of the Times since I started documenting the paper's bias on this blog. He bears the ultimate responsibility for what any reasonable observer must conclude is a clear history of skewing the news to conform to the views of a small cabal of editors.

Some may say that I am being extreme when I point out that Howell Raines was brought down by allegations that were arguably less serious than this. But I don't think this is an extreme observation at all. It is not outlandish to suggest that -- if Stewart's allegations pan out -- this incident could end up leading to Carroll's resignation. As I say, this reporter is all but accusing Carroll of having out-and-out lied to his readers, in the most public way possible. If this were proven, how could Carroll survive?

What is missing now is some clear corroboration of what the interviewee said -- like the clandestine taping of Raines's admissions of favoritism toward Jayson Blair. We don't know if such proof exists; as a result, we don't know what the ultimate effect of Stewart's piece will be.

But I will make one prediction: this story is not going away. The L.A. Times should not continue to sit still, remain mute, and hope it all blows over.

Posted 10/14/2003 06:45:00 AM by Patrick
OUR COURT SYSTEM, HARD AT WORK: Xrlq reports that a cognitively disabled woman is about to be legally starved and dehydrated to death in Florida, by court order.

As described in this article about her case, her death is expected to be agonizing, and will take 10-14 days. She's not terminally ill, or posing a danger to anyone -- but it's what her husband says she wants. A court is deferring to the husband's wishes, even though a nurse has overheard her husband asking "When is that bitch going to die?"

Why is he so eager for his wife to pass on? Well, he collected over a million bucks in a malpractice suit, refused to pay for her medical care, and is now engaged to be married again. But he can't get remarried and start living the good life until his wife finishes getting starved to death. Who can blame him?

In unrelated news, reported here, the Supreme Court has blocked the execution by lethal injection of a convicted murderer, to review his claim that lethal injection would be unconstitutionally cruel because he has collapsed veins.

Apparently, in this country it's okay for you to die a slow, agonizing death -- but only if you haven't murdered anybody.

UPDATE: A reader complains that I am not reporting all the facts, and that I should tell you (at a minimum) that the woman has been bedridden for 13 years. Fair enough. My opinion remains the same. I have no personal knowledge of this situation. There could be another side. If anyone has a link to evidence from the other side, send it to me and I will post it. However, from the evidence I have seen, I think the other side is exactly what I have said. In any event, I can confidently say three things:

1) She should not be starved to death, no matter what. If the law says this is the only option, the law has to change.

2) Based on available information, I do not feel comfortable having her husband making these decisions.

3) For anyone who knows only the husband's side of the story, please watch the videos at this link, showing her supposedly "persistent vegetative state."

From the available facts, this case seems to be a perfect example of why many of us are suspicious of the "Right to Die" movement. Under some circumstances, it becomes closer to a "Right to Murder."

Posted 10/14/2003 06:44:00 AM by Patrick
I GUESS THAT'S HOW HE ADDRESSED IT: I dislike Patt Morrison, if for no other reason than the unnecessary second "t" in her name. [What about the second "t" in Patterico? -- Ed. Necessary!] But she makes a good observation in this column: that before the election, when asked by Tom Brokaw when he would address the groping allegations, Arnold said: "soon as the campaign is over, I will." Arnold's comment after the election? "Old news."

(Offered with the usual caveat: you saw it in the Dog Trainer, so don't assume it's necessarily true.)

Posted 10/14/2003 06:43:00 AM by Patrick
GOOD QUESTION, MICKSTER: Mickey Kaus pulls apart the bogus Dog Trainer poll that showed the recall close, and asks: "How badly do you have to embarrass the paper (when the whole world is watching) to get fired at the LAT?"

Posted 10/14/2003 06:41:00 AM by Patrick
THE RELIABLE TEAMSTERS: I am not taking sides in the grocery workers' strike, but I was amused to read here about the support the grocery workers are getting from the Teamsters:

Meanwhile, the Teamsters union is throwing its support behind the UFCW. Its drivers have vowed not to cross the picket lines, and on Sunday many drivers parked their trucks outside stores or just down the street.

. . . .

Other Teamsters gathered outside the stores, keeping checkers and clerks company. "I'm just here lending a little support," said Ralph Ochoa, a driver sitting outside a Pasadena Ralphs.

Good ol' reliable Teamsters. Whenever they see other people not working, you can always count on them to pitch in and start not working themselves.

Posted 10/14/2003 06:36:00 AM by Patrick
ONE LESS FREEBIE FOR THE ILLEGALS: Gray Davis has vetoed the bill to give free community college tuition to illegals. In his veto statement, the Governor said: "Ah, what the hell. I'm outta here."

Posted 10/13/2003 07:59:00 AM by Patrick
DOG TRAINER PORNOGRAPHY AND KEN STARR: In a post below, I offer a complete fisking of John Carroll's failed defense of the Arnold hit piece. In this post, I want to focus on a particular comment Carroll made that really astounded me. After unsuccessfully responding to various strawman arguments against the Arnold hit piece, Carroll compared the coverage of this story by the internet and other electronic media to "pornography":

The electronic revolution has brought us many blessings, but it has also blindsided us with a tidal wave of pornography. In similar fashion, we are now getting a faceful of rotten journalism — journalistic pornography, actually — in which ratings are everything and truth is nothing.

It is richly ironic that Carroll used the word "pornography" to describe the coverage of the Arnold groping story by other news outlets. You might remember that the Arnold hit piece published by Carroll's own Los Angeles Dog Trainer felt it necessary to include the following alleged quote from Arnold:

"Have you ever had a man slide his tongue in your [anus]?"

If you have read the stories, you know that this is just one of many explicit descriptions of Arnold's alleged groping and off-color comments. Just who is the "pornographer" here, Mr. Carroll?

Naturally, Carroll defends this level of detail, saying that the story is "certain to strike you as vulgar, perhaps even obscene. My wife informed me that I'd strayed far over the line in publishing one of the anecdotes. But such is the behavior at the heart of the issue." In other words, according to Carroll, the Dog Trainer had to print the sexually explicit details because they were critical to the story.

Does this defense sound familiar? It should, because it's similar to the explanation Ken Starr gave for including sexually explicit details about President Clinton in the Starr Report:

Many of the details reveal highly personal information; many are sexually explicit. This is unfortunate, but it is essential. The President's defense to many of the allegations is based on a close parsing of the definitions that were used to describe his conduct. We have, after careful review, identified no manner of providing the information that reveals the falsity of the President's statements other than to describe his conduct with precision.

And what did the Dog Trainer think of Starr's defense then? As quoted here, the Dog Trainer said of the Starr Report:

Its goal is almost too transparent: not only to lay out the relevant facts in a legal dispute but to present reams of unsavory detail that will embarrass Clinton and undermine his public support . . . .

Of course, unlike the Dog Trainer, Starr's stated purpose for disclosing sexually explicit detail was not to publicly disclose alleged sexual misconduct by a politician. The sexually explicit detail was necessary to corroborate allegations of criminal activity by the President of the United States. As the above quotation shows, presenting this detail to the House was the only way to get job done.

Moreover, although Starr was constantly accused of publicizing unnecessary details, people forget that Starr urged the House to keep the details confidential. In a letter to Reps. Gingrich and Gephardt accompanying the report, quoted here, Starr said:

The contents of the referral may not be publicly disclosed unless and until authorized by the House of Representatives. Many of the supporting materials contain information of a personal nature that I respectfully urge the House to treat as confidential.

Even if you believe that Starr knew the House would disregard his request to keep the material confidential, Starr did everything he could to keep the material confidential, short of failing to include it at all. But, as John Carroll said about the details in the Arnold story, "such is the behavior at the heart of the issue."

Dog Trainer editors have finally seen the light: if sexually explicit details are critical to an understanding of sexual harassment by a politician, those details must be included -- even if people may be offended. It looks like the Dog Trainer owes Ken Starr an apology. I didn't see the apology in this morning's editorials, but I'm sure it's coming soon.

Posted 10/12/2003 08:01:00 AM by Patrick
JOHN CARROLL BLUDGEONS THE STRAWMEN: In this morning's Dog Trainer, John Carroll offers this paltry defense of the Arnold hit piece. Carroll is an expert at the technique of defeating the strawman argument. Meanwhile, several legitimate criticisms of the story remain unanswered.

Carroll's technique is to say: "It was written that [insert strawman argument here]. Fact: [Carroll destroys strawman]." In each case, the strawman argument is an argument that I have not heard credibly stated anywhere -- but that bears some similarity to a less extreme, more credible allegation that Carroll fails to address.

For example, Carroll writes:

It was also written, for example, that Davis was the puppeteer behind the Times stories. Fact: None of the information in the Times stories came from the Davis camp, as we said in the articles when we published them.

I never heard anyone credibly allege that "Davis was the puppeteer behind the Times stories." But I sure did see a credible allegation that one of the women came forward at the behest of a long-time Democrat operative, Davis colleague, and friend of Bob "100 Days" Mulholland. What's more, according to Bill Bradley, who broke this story, a columnist for the Dog Trainer (George Skelton) acknowledged the ties between the operative and Davis -- and said that the Times reporters and editors must not have known about it.

To my knowledge, this information has not been reported in the Dog Trainer. In this context, it is Clintonesque hairsplitting (at a minimum) to continue to assert that the allegations didn't come from the Davis camp, without telling readers where some of them did come from.

Carroll continues:

It was written that high Democratic officials were kept apprised of the newspaper's probe, step by step. Fact: No Democratic officials were apprised. Because the paper was interviewing many sources, the existence of the investigation was widely known, but the details were not. The Davis people may have learned that the investigation was underway from Web sites, which mentioned rumors about it repeatedly.

Who said that "high Democratic officials were kept apprised of the newspaper's probe, step by step"? I never saw that reported anywhere. What I did read was that the Davis campaign was told about the story before it broke, perhaps no more than a day early (according to Mickey Kaus).

Now, I have no idea whether this very serious accusation is true or not. But Carroll does not clearly deny it. Carroll's statement that "[n]o Democratic officials were apprised" refers to his characterization of the strawman claim that Davis officials were "kept apprised of the newspaper's probe, step by step." By exaggerating the claim that was actually made and then denying it, Carroll appears to be leaving himself some wiggle room -- again, in a style reminiscent of our friend Bill Clinton.

Carroll takes a sledgehammer to a final strawman with this quote:

It was written that the paper failed to follow up on reports that Davis had mistreated women in his office. Fact: Virginia Ellis, a recent Pulitzer Prize finalist, and other Times reporters investigated this twice. Their finding both times: The discernible facts didn't support a story.

I never heard anyone say that the paper "failed to follow up" on these reports. Rather, Jill Stewart has said that the paper did follow up on the story. Stewart has detailed very clearly the allegations that the Dog Trainer had uncovered, as well as the various sources of corroboration for those allegations. Stewart says that the story was spiked it because it was based on anonymous sources. If true, this allegation shows a clear double-standard, since the Arnold piece was also largely based on anonymous sources.

As regular readers know, I have implored Carroll to address this issue head-on -- to specifically state what the sourcing standards are, and how they were met by the Arnold hit piece and not the Davis story. I have asked him to say whether Stewart is lying about why the Dog Trainer never ran the Davis story. I have been assured that my request was passed on to John Carroll personally.

Carroll has failed to address the specifics of Stewart's allegations. His defense echoes the defense by the "Readers Representative," which I mentioned the other day. In essence, the defense is simply this: "Trust us. We looked into it. There was nothing there." Carroll offers no specific denials of Stewart's allegations regarding the allegations that the Dog Trainer had uncovered regarding Davis, or the reasons that the story was spiked.

The obvious question is: why? After all, Carroll does not shy away from calling Stewart a liar with respect to her report that the Dog Trainer sat on the story for two weeks. Why can't he address the allegations regarding the Davis story -- directly, with specifics??

The answer is so obvious it insults your intelligence to say it out loud: Carroll offers no defense because there is none. The Dog Trainer has employed a clear, undeniable double standard here. Carroll's piece puts to rest any doubts a reasonable critic could have on this point.

By the time Carroll gets to the end of his piece, he has demolished enough strawmen to make several bales of hay. But he completely fails to address the legitimate questions raised by the Arnold hit piece. This is disappointing, to be sure -- but entirely predictable. The Dog Trainer's shameful handling of this episode is an indelible stain on the paper's reputation -- such as it was.

P.S. While I was re-reading Carroll's piece, I noticed that he made a comment about electronic journalism (in particular the internet) being the news equivalent of pornography. This comment brings to mind all sorts of thoughts that really deserve their own post -- and that's where I have put them. You can read that post (which is immediately above this one) here.

Posted 10/11/2003 05:07:00 PM by Patrick
E-MAIL ADDRESS ENCRYPTION: Today I changed my template to encrypt my e-mail address using the Dynamic Drive Email Riddler. As the inventors explain: "Email Riddler is an online tool that encrypts and transform your email address into a series of numbers when displaying it, making it virtually impossible for spam harvesters to crawl and add your email to their list." I recommend this tool to bloggers, to reduce spam.

Posted 10/11/2003 05:01:00 PM by Patrick
DO NOT CALL OR I DO NOT BE POLITE: I hung up on my first telemarketer this morning. I have always been polite and said, "no thank you" -- but I feel differently now that I have signed up for the Do Not Call list. I signed up for the list after 9/1, so legally telemarketers can still call me for a while. But they shouldn't. Responsible telemarketers should take steps to get the newest list possible, and should not call people on the list, even if they can do so legally. So this morning, as soon as I learned it was a telemarketer, I hung up without a word.

I don't know if I'll continue to do this or not; I understand the callers are working for a living, and I'm generally a polite person. But I feel entitled to now.

Posted 10/11/2003 11:20:00 AM by Patrick
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE, BY WHICH I MEAN TO SAY, IT'LL JUST TAKE A SNAP OF THE FINGERS: fresh potatoes has the scoop on a fairly major contradiction in our local Dog Trainer, which two days before the election said the car tax could not be repealed by fiat, in an article titled Efforts to Roll Back Car Tax Likely to Stall, Experts Say:

A new California governor probably could not rescind a recent tripling of the car tax within hours of taking office, experts say, contrary to repeated claims by two leading candidates in the recall election.

The candidates making those claims were, of course, the Republicans. Stupid Republican candidates with their repeated incorrect claims! You know what to do to them come election time, readers!

Now that the election is over and the car tax will easily be repealed by fiat, the Dog Trainer sings an ever-so-slightly different tune with its article titled: Bringing Car Tax Down Is Easy; Keeping It Down May Be Hard.

Hmmmmmm. I'm rubbing my eyes here . . . Did I read that right? I thought the "bringing it down" part was the hard part?! Apparently not any more. The article opens by saying:

With a snap of his fingers, Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger can roll back state vehicle license fees the instant he takes office -- contrary to what the Los Angeles Times reported just days ago.

Well, okay, I made up that last part in bold. Actually, the story nowhere acknowledges that the Dog Trainer had reported the exact opposite story just days ago -- two days before the election.

PrestoPundit asks a good question: "Does John Carroll ever get embarrassed?" But I have a different question: is it just coincidence that the story changed now that the election is over?

Posted 10/11/2003 11:11:00 AM by Patrick
LOU GRANT ON ALL-TIME TOP MASS MURDERER JOSEPH STALIN: The Rantblogger reports that Ed Asner has said: "I think Joe Stalin was a guy that was hugely misunderstood."

What did we misunderstand, Ed? Did he kill more than 40 million people?

Ed Asner is, of course, one of the people on the long list of Hollywood liberals I compiled in response to Tim Rutten's statement that "liberal Hollywood" is just "mythology."

UPDATE: The guy who made the claim about Asner has retracted it. The retraction is bizarre, and worth reading. It makes you wonder how in the world the guy ever reported this to begin with. Anyway, I am leaving my original post up along with this update, as a lesson that you can't believe everything you read.

Posted 10/10/2003 10:39:00 PM by Patrick
YET ANOTHER STEVE LOPEZ ~~SCREED~~ COLUMN: Steve Lopez is the guy is so desperate to force his thoughts down readers' throats, he has said he is prepared to reach into his massive pile of jack and start buying papers for the people who have canceled their subscriptions. This morning, seeing his fourth column in as many days, I wondered whether he is now so anxious to share his insights with the world that he has decided to earn his $300,000 per year by writing a daily column. Could it be?

Then I saw that his regular days are switching from Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday to Wednesday/Friday/Sunday. I guess this is just transition week.

The content is typical Lopez: predictably narcisstic (the word "I" appears a couple dozen times) and glibly snide. Lopez recounts how he called Arnold spokesman Sean Walsh and said: "I want to be the first one to hear the fiscal relief and rescue plan." After quoting Walsh as saying that Arnold's plan will not be complete "[u]ntil he sees the books," Lopez tells his readers:

Wait a minute. I thought Arnold had been telling us for two months that he knew exactly what Sacramento needed. And by the way, the books are already open, and they always have been.

This is a great soundbite for the limousine liberals who devour Robert Scheer's columns. But accurate? Steve Lopez, meet Daniel Weintraub, who recently wrote:

But unlike skeptics who laugh off the audit as a meaningless delaying tactic, I think it would be useful to have in one place at one time a comprehensive analysis of all the shifts and diversions in the budget -- legal and illegal -- to give us a complete sense of the state’s fiscal condition. The Legislative Analyst has done some of this kind of work, but I have seen nothing yet that lays out the entire picture in context.

With every passing day, Lopez slides further and further towards an emulation of the lazy, corrupt journalism of Robert Scheer: sacrificing accuracy and fairness in favor of increasingly predictable and partisan one-liners.

Posted 10/10/2003 07:00:00 AM by Patrick
HARASSING THE SPAMBOTS: If you are a spambot, take that! and that! and that! and that!

If you are a human, you need not click on any of the links -- unless you are curious how they cause distress to spambots, in which case you should click on the first link to learn more.

Posted 10/10/2003 06:19:00 AM by Patrick
THE BEAR GUY: Three letters about the guy killed by bears in Alaska: two people who get it, and one clueless boob (second letter). As the former park ranger who wrote the first letter notes, the worst thing this guy did was to habituate a number of bears to humans, "possibly endangering other people and bears through his actions." The only thing I don't understand is why he hadn't been banned from the park for his repeated and deliberate violations of park rules.

Posted 10/10/2003 06:12:00 AM by Patrick
"SCHWARZENEGGER": Has anyone else noticed that the Dog Trainer has suddenly found room for Arnold's last name in the headlines, rather than using the term "actor"?

No, you say, we haven't. Because we canceled our subscription.

And I think that it's these cancellations that has caused the change in the headlines.

Posted 10/09/2003 10:22:00 PM by Patrick
CONTEST: Jill Stewart says that some politicos call the Thursday before an election "Dirty Tricks Thursday." Man, does she ever have the Dog Trainer over a barrel -- if she's right. After all, that's the exact day that the Dog Trainer ran the Arnold stinkbomb.

Problem: I ran a Google search with the term "Dirty Tricks Thursday" -- and struck out. Every marginally relevant result quoted Jill Stewart.

Bonus points to the first reader who can find evidence of the phrase "Dirty Tricks Thursday" being used before Stewart used the phrase the other day.

Posted 10/09/2003 10:09:00 PM by Patrick
HUMOR TIME: Reader Steve sends some things you shouldn't say to cops. My favorites include:

I can't reach my license unless you hold my beer. (OK in Texas)

Are you Andy or Barney?

I thought you had to be in relatively good physical condition to be a police officer.

You're not gonna check the trunk, are you?

When the Officer says "Gee, Son.... Your eyes look red, have you been drinking?" You probably shouldn't respond with,"Gee, Officer.... Your eyes look glazed, have you been eating doughnuts?"

Also, Xrlq has a good one.

Posted 10/09/2003 08:31:00 PM by Patrick
THE CLINTON KISS OF DEATH: Michael Williams wonders why people are so eager to have Bill Clinton campaign for them. Michael makes a pretty good case (complete with pictures) that you don't want this guy coming anywhere near you.

Posted 10/09/2003 08:11:00 PM by Patrick
THE DOG TRAINER RESPONDS, SORT OF -- REDUX: Apropos my post recounting my inquiry to the Los Angeles Dog Trainer regarding the Davis/Arnold double standard: I have received another (I assume final) response. Reader Representative Jamie Gold says:

I'll put it this way, no one involved with the then-investigations has given the reason Stewart gave for why the investigation didn't end up in the paper. People here now who investigated it then said just what I told you. Standards on that front haven't changed -- if it's rumor and nothing that is substantiated enough to run, then it doesn't run.

I'll forward your point to John Carroll that you think the paper should address her allegations head-on.

For completeness' sake, I'll add that I have received information regarding people who worked on the story, who are now with another publication. I e-mailed both of these fellows on Sunday (October 5) with the same question. No response.

I am guessing this is the end of the line. If anyone thinks John Carroll is going to address this issue, raise your hand.

I see no hands.

Posted 10/09/2003 06:58:00 PM by Patrick
HUGH HEWITT CONFUSES ME AGAIN: I don't understand how Hugh Hewitt can campaign for Weintraub's independence, and still say: "I find it both amazing and repugnant that Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll permitted his columnist Steve Lopez to describe Arnold as 'Der Gropenfuhrer.'"

Either you're for independence or you're not. It shouldn't matter whether the particular manifestation of the independence agrees with your politics.

UPDATE: A reader tells me I'm wrong, arguing that the term Gropenfuhrer "seems way over the top, near that area of the law we call slander."

I agree that it's way over the top. I emphatically disagree that it is anywhere near slander.

Let's say that a regular columnist for a newspaper is reacting to the proposal by Mr. N-Word Cruz Bustamante to put price controls on the price of gasoline. The columnist makes reference to "Commissar Cruz" and his "Five-Year Plan" to lower energy prices. You're the editor. Liberals might scream that the comparison to Stalin, who murdered more people than Hitler, is "way over the top." But it's clearly not slanderous, and this is your regular columnist. Do you prevent him from printing this??

Of course not. If you did, there would be a justifiable outcry.

That's my point.

Posted 10/09/2003 06:29:00 PM by Patrick
WILLIE BROWN??????: According to Weintraub, Arnold has named Willie Brown as part of his transition team. (Learned via The Angry Clam.)

Okay, Arnold Supporters. You have shown a remarkable ability to defend this guy on every issue. Defend that.

UPDATE: Sure enough, they're trying. A reader who voted for Arnold says that naming Brown is "a brilliant move. Do you think it will make the head of the Retaliacrats more or less likely to try to recall Arnold? It's all about respect, man."

I think three things. One: in two years, Brown's criticism of Arnold will be just as wild and unchecked as Ted Kennedy's rhetoric about Bush. Two: I want the Retaliacrats to try to recall Arnold, because it will kill their party in this state (though I understand why Arnold wouldn't want that.) Three: to paraphrase my friend The Angry Clam: Willie freakin' Brown??

But thank you for the use of the term Retaliacrats.

UPDATE x2: By contrast, Bryon Scott is speechless.

UPDATE x3: BoiFromTroy offers a defense here.

Posted 10/09/2003 05:57:00 PM by Patrick
ARNOLD AMENDMENT: Orrin Hatch is already proposing the Arnold Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I knew this was coming, but I didn't know it would be this soon.

Posted 10/09/2003 05:44:00 PM by Patrick
YOUR MERETRICIOUSNESS IS SURPASSED ONLY BY YOUR FATUITY: George Will whacks the Arnold supporters and uses a lot of big words in the process. Another fine example of why I really don't like George Will.

Posted 10/09/2003 05:43:00 PM by Patrick
THIS TIME, DEFINITELY: The Dog Trainer says that Arnold's first day was An Encouraging Start because he called the notorious State Sen. John Burton, and intends to get along with him.

Heh. I said the other day that this is all reminding me of when George Bush took office and pledged to "change the tone in Washington." He spent a lot of time trying to make nice with Senator Ted "Killer" Kennedy. That worked out real well. Just the other day, Kennedy showed how much the tone had changed with his comment that the justification for the Iraq war "was made up in Texas . . . This whole thing was a fraud."

Yeah, but it'll be different with Arnold.

Posted 10/09/2003 06:19:00 AM by Patrick
STEVE LOPEZ: YOU REALLY NEED TO READ STEVE LOPEZ: Apparently trying to earn his $300,000 a year, Dog Trainer ~~blatherer~~ columnist Steve Lopez is writing four columns this week, instead of his usual three. Clearly, this man feels it's very important that you know what he has to say.

How important? So important that you're going to hear his opinion whether you want to or not.

Today, Lopez says he may win $100 in some kind of election pool. (By the way, it's "quite a spectacle" to see Lopez "so delirious" over the possibility of winning $100, given that his annual salary is 3000 times that amount.) If Lopez wins the pool, he says he's buying copies of the Dog Trainer for the people who canceled their subscriptions because of the Arnold stinkbomb. Lopez recounts his daydream of his unwanted columns forced onto the front porches of the unwilling:

Every day, another one lands on their doorstep.

Day after day after day.

They voted, at least. Don't they deserve the best coverage available?

They sure do, Steve. They sure do.

That's why they canceled.

But why stop with free papers? With the kind of jack Lopez is pulling in, he could afford to hire some guys with bullhorns and place them on a dozen major intersections in the city, shouting Lopez's wisdom at confused passersby. Or Lopez could hire teams of skywriters to belch his thoughts across the firmament (somewhere behind the smog) -- every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.

Steve Lopez has something to say. And you are going to listen.

Posted 10/08/2003 10:47:00 PM by Patrick
A CARTOON IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS: See if you can guess why I find this cartoon so amusing.

Posted 10/08/2003 10:37:00 PM by Patrick
FUNNY STUFF: Howard Dean said the recall wasn't a statement against Democrats, but against an incumbent paying the price for George Bush's policies. Xrlq has uncovered proof that Dean wasn't just spinning.

Posted 10/08/2003 08:27:00 PM by Patrick
THE DOG TRAINER RESPONDS, SORT OF: As I mentioned the other day, I wrote the Los Angeles Dog Trainer's "Reader Representative" (Jamie Gold) to ask why the paper apparently found anonymous sources to be a sufficient basis for the Arnold stinkbomb, but not for the story that Gray Davis has physically abused government workers, including women.

In my e-mail, I had specifically noted:

Jill Stewart has said that the reason the Times never ran the story about Gray Davis throwing ashtrays, shaking workers, and screaming the f-word is because the paper didn't want to run a story against a major political figure based on anonymous sources. That rationale would appear to have applied to the Arnold hit piece on Thursday as well.

I asked whether the standards had changed, and why they hadn't run the Davis piece if it was indeed based on similar sourcing as the allegations against Arnold.

I heard back from Ms. Gold today. She politely apologized for taking so long to respond, explaining that she has been very busy. She then gave this "answer" to my question:

The Times did have reporters more than once look into these allegations. However, articles are published only when editors and reporters find the facts verifiable and the story credible. In this case, they didn't.

That's it! That's the entire justification!

Here is my response:

Thank you for getting back to me. I understand that you are probably swamped nowadays with inquiries and complaints from people furious about the Arnold hit piece.

However, the "answer" you gave me was a non-answer. Jill Stewart has said that she was told that the Davis story was spiked because the paper would not print a piece with negative information against a major political figure using anonymous sources. I pointed out that, if she's right, the paper seems to have changed its standards. If you have actually read her story, you know that the allegations, while made by anonymous sources, were corroborated in many respects by numerous witnesses.

Is Jill Stewart wrong? Have the specific standards changed since 1997? If not, what specific standards apply, and how were they met by the Arnold story but not the Davis story?

Your paper would benefit by getting this all out in the open. People across the country have raised questions about the apparent double standard. While John Carroll has defended the timing and the content, nobody has explained with any specificity why these particular serious allegations -- which would no doubt shock many voters -- were not reported, while the ones against Arnold were.

It does not address readers' suspicions simply to assert that the Arnold allegations were verifiable and credible, and the Davis ones were not -- without explaining what the specific standards were, and how they were met by the one situation and not the other.

The election is over, but unless this issue is addressed head-on, it will never be entirely forgotten by those who suspect the L.A. Times of a double standard. I think it would serve not only your readers, but also your newspaper, for Mr. Carroll to publicly address the specifics of why the Times has never printed the Davis abuse allegations.

As always, I'll let you know if I hear anything.