The City Council of NY passed a resolution to add the Muslim holy days Eid al-Fitr (the end of Ramadan) and Eid al-Adha (the feast of sacrifice that marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca) to the public schools’ holiday calendar, reports The New York Times: 
 

[T]he vote, which was nonbinding, put the Council in conflict with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has the final say to designate the days off and has said he is resolutely opposed to the idea.

The mayor told reporters before the vote that not all religions could be accommodated on the holiday schedule, only those with “a very large number of kids who practice.”

“If you close the schools for every single holiday, there won’t be any school,” he said. “Educating our kids requires time in the classroom, and that’s the most important thing to us.” …

Some council members have expressed reservations about subtracting more classroom days from the school calendar, though only one, G. Oliver Koppell of the Bronx, voted against it.

After the vote, Mr. Koppell said the existing schedule of religious holidays might have to be reviewed and trimmed, lest other growing religions in New York start demanding their own days off. “Where are we going to end with this?” he asked.

BTW, here’s how The Times decribes how Muslims observe these holy days: “praying in the morning, then celebrating with family and friends, exchanging gifts and sharing a large meal.” Not a word about the inhumane and unhygienic animal sacrifices.

The Grim Reaper’s Favorite Number Is Three

The Washington Post states without equivocation: “Rarely since Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper crashed and died more or less simultaneously in an Iowa cornfield on Feb. 3, 1959, has the Celebrity Death Rule of Three fulfilled itself with such swift efficacy”:

But things aren’t as straightforward as they seem:

[H]ow then to explain the death of David Carradine? He was found hanged June 4 in Bangkok in a reported case of autoerotic asphyxiation, but that's not all that needs explaining. Under the rule of three, he could have been No. 1, making McMahon No. 2 and Fawcett No. 3.

Or was Carradine No. 3 in a previous trinity of death? Or is Jackson No. 1 in a new series? Who's next?

Surely there will be another dead celebrity. There always is.

Much depends, however, on which departed souls count as celebrities, and on how much time may elapse between deaths in a valid triplet. …

Once a couple of celebrities die, there is great pressure to elevate another dearly departed to the pantheon. So this week folks are mentioning Billy Mays in the same breath as Carradine, McMahon, Fawcett and Jackson.

Billy Mays? He's the great pitchman who starred in commercials for cleaning products, and he died Sunday.

If we count [Sky] Saxon [singer and bass player for the psychedelic band the Seeds] and Mays with the more famous four, that makes six, which is two fulfilled rules of three.

With YouTube making an instant celebrity out of everyone from a chubby kid wielding a pretend lightsaber to a singing Scottish spinster (video links), the ubiquitous Billy Mays was a celebrity by anyone’s definition so the death of a salesman should be included in “the pantheon.”

Editorial Note: Check out these Billy Mays videos, courtesy of New York Magazine blog “Grub Street.”

The Stiletto Scoops The Druge Report

Yahoo! Buzz noted Obama’s “icy stare” when he answered [Ed] Henry’s question ... Is it just The Stiletto, or did Obama look like he wanted to wish Henry into the cornfield?

- "If Looks Could Kill," The Stiletto Blog, March 25, 2009

As the summer begins, White House watchers have spotted a new look by President Obama: The Evil Eye! Staffers have joked about the menacing glance, which comes when the president meets with world leaders who are not aligned with his progressive view.

- “Beware The Obama 'Evil Eye'," The Drudge Report, June 30, 2009

Editorial Note: None of Obama’s gangsta glares beat this mirror-cracking puss on Michelle Obama when she sat next to the stunning first lady of France, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, during a memorial service at the Normandy American Cemetery on June 6th in Colleville-sur-Mer: 

† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, What Al Gore Hath Wrought): Just 238 days after Election Day and after “almost 20,000 pages of legal briefs, and millions of dollars in election costs,” the MN Supreme Court unanimously handed the U.S. Senate seat to Al Franken (D) and his opponent, Norm Colman (R), conceded. The “oddly abrupt ending” gives Dems 60 votes “and thus at least the symbolic ability to overcome filibusters,” reports The New York Times:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, signed Mr. Franken’s election certificate early Tuesday evening. Senate Democrats said they would like to seat Mr. Franken as quickly as next week, giving the party a crucial vote as it moves to difficult debates over topics like climate change and health care.

Democrats had held some committee posts for Mr. Franken, potentially including the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that is in the middle of drafting a health care overhaul.

With 60 votes (including those of two independents) now most likely aligned with the Democrats, the party could avoid filibusters.

Um, maybe not, according to McClatchy Newspapers:

On paper, the party now has the muscle to block any Republican filibuster, because it takes 60 votes under Senate rules to end debate and move to a final vote. However:

Two key Democratic senators are battling serious illnesses.

Two others are independents who caucus with the party but aren't certain to vote with the majority.

All senators have diverse constituencies that can lead them to break ranks with the party. …

"It's a numerical achievement, but not necessarily a political one," said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University.

In other words, Democrats still may have to scramble to get the bullet-proof majority.

Where Franken could make a difference in the Senate is on procedural votes, the votes on parliamentary maneuvers that keep legislation moving.

In practical terms, this means that Senate Dems can now invoke cloture and speed legislation to a vote – not such a great idea when bills are being passed in the House so quickly that legislators complain about not having enough time to read them first.

Editorial Note: The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post political analyst Chris Cillizza focus on how Franken won. The take-away message for candidates, according to The Journal: “you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.” While Cillizza calls Franken’s recount effort an “aggressive machine that … simply outworked and outflanked the Coleman campaign,” he believes that, ultimately, it was strictly a numbers game: “When the statewide recount ended, Franken led by 225 votes. … it's hard to overstate how important the fact that Franken was ahead was to setting public perception regarding the legal fight that ensued.”

† Updates To Previous Posts (Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech): Al-Qaeda's North Africa wing is exhorting Muslims to “retailiate” against France after the country’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, stated his opposition to burqa-wearing and the French National Assembly launched an inquiry into the prevalence and desirability of the practice in the staunchly secular nation, reports wire service Agence France-Presse:

"Yesterday was the hijab (the Islamic headscarf long banned in French schools) and today, it is the niqab (the full veil)," Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, head of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was quoted as saying. …

"We will take revenge for the honour of our daughters and sisters against France and against its interests by every means at our disposal."

The group also called on Muslims to retaliate for what it called French "hostility" against the community and its attempt to obstruct Islam's practice on its territory. …

"We call upon all Muslims to confront this hostility with greater hostility, and to counter France's efforts to divide male and female believers from their faith with a greater effort ... (by) adherence to the teachings of their Islamic sharia." [Emphasis, The Stiletto.]

Terroristic threats notwithstanding, in a New York Daily News op-ed, Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens argues that the U.S. should take a page from Sarkozy’s playbook – and likens the burqa to the klansman's hood:

The whole point of the garment is that it weighs you down, restricts your movements and abolishes your peripheral vision. It's like being condemned to view the world through the slit of a mailbox.

But that observation - if you will excuse the expression - brings us to another and even more powerful objection to this mode of dress. It is quite plainly designed by men for the subjugation of women. One cannot be absolutely sure that no woman has ever donned it voluntarily, but one can certainly say that, in countries where women can choose not to wear it, then not wearing it is the choice they generally make.

This disposes right away of the phony argument that religious attire is worn as a matter of "right." It is almost exactly the other way around: The imposition of burkas or even head scarfs on women - just like the compulsory growing of beards for men - is the symbol of a denial of rights and the inflicting of a tyrannical code that obliterates personal liberty.

Western masochism about other people's "culture" often obscures this obvious fact. …

It is depressing that our President, in addressing the Muslim world, takes the most reactionary religious practice as the symbol of rights and identity.

Depressing, yes. But also distressing.

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II): By a vote of 19-8 the AZ Senate has approved legislation allowing people who have concealed weapons permits to carry a gun into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol – as long as they themselves refrain from imbibing. The measure now goes to the desk of Gov. Jan Brewer (R), a gun rights supporter, reports The Associated Press:

Forty other states have approved similar measures, according to the National Rifle Association.

More than 127,000 Arizonans have concealed weapons permits, which require a gun safety course and background check, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

An alcohol-serving establishment can opt-out by posting a sign next to its liquor license disallowing guns on the premises.

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, Empire State Repubs Rise Again): Justice Joseph C. Teresi of State Supreme Court in Albany ordered the 62 members of the Senate to convene at the same place and the same time – that is, as a single body, reports The New York Times:

When the meeting will actually take place remains to be seen; Senate Republicans were appealing Justice Teresi’s ruling and were expected to get a stay that will delay the session.

In any case, the ruling was a victory for the governor, even if the judge criticized the lawyers for both [David] Paterson and the Republican senators for submitting court papers that he said were riddled with “hearsay, innuendo, speculation.”

Mr. Paterson has been trying to force the Senate back to work by ordering the lawmakers to convene extraordinary sessions each day since the regular legislative session ended June 22. With the chamber split in an unprecedented 31-31 tie, the recent sessions held by the Democratic and Republican blocs have yielded nothing, since neither side has the 32 members needed for a quorum. …

“To come into session as separate groups is a fiction,” he said. “It’s an illusion that these elected officials are working as one elected group that is the New York State Senate, and I will not be part of that fiction.”

The only good thing to come out of this meshugeneh mess: A law authorizing a 0.5 percent increase in the sales tax expired. It’s not much of a savings for consumers, but this is one of those rare instances when a tax got lowered after having been raised.

After Anthony Beninati’s hands and arm were badly burned at the September 2005 Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, NV – his third Burning Man visit – he sued the event’s promoters for negligence, reports The Associated Press:

Once the Burning Man topples, participants are invited to throw objects into the bonfire. Beninati planned to contribute a photo of a friend who was supposed to come with him but had recently died in a motorcycle accident.

He walked 7 to 10 feet into the burning embers, with flames on either side of him, threw in the photo, then took a few more steps forward, tripped and fell into the fire.

Beninati’s suit was dismissed on the grounds that he should have known he was playing with fire, and now the First District Court of Appeal has upheld the lower court’s handling of the patently frivolous lawsuit: “The risk of falling and being burned by the flames or hot ash was inherent, obvious and necessary to the event,” wrote presiding Justice Ignazio Ruvolo in the 3-0 ruling.

Understanding Hay Fever

- HealthDay News, June 30, 2009

Legally, Jacksons Face Long & Winding Road

- The Washington Post, June 30, 2009

As Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) and his oft-modified unlimited hangout continue day-after-day, it’s now impossible to ignore his staggering marital and political indiscretions, nicely summed up by Washington Post media analyst-cum-political pundit Howard Kurtz:

a) His "Appalachian Trail" disappearance

b) His choice of an Argentine lover

c) His stream-of-consciousness press conference

d) His wife hanging him out to dry, especially after he asked permission to visit his gal pal

e) His endless apologizing

f) The e-mails

But wait – there’s more! Add Sanford’s admission to The Associated Press that he rounded a few bases with other women, though he went all the way home only with his “soul mate,” Maria Belen Chapur, in what ended up being “a whole lot more than a simple affair; this was a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”

And still more: Sanford has now reneged on his promise to AP to release personal financial records to prove his trips to see his paramour were not funded by SC taxpayers.

But is Sanford’s behavior contemptible enough to make him King Of The Heels, or does that (dis)honor belong to former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC)?

Let’s compare low-blow by low-blow:

† Edwards paying off happily married campaign flunky – a father of three - Andrew Young to pretend that he was the one who knocked up Rielle Hunter is a far more diabolical deceit than Sanford’s pretending to be on a hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail while he was engaged in physical activity of a very different sort in Argentina.

† As far as documentary evidence of marital misdeeds go, the sex tape Edwards and Hunter purportedly made together is an order of magnitude sleazier than the steamy E-mails Sanford and Chapur exchanged (“despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul”).

† And Sanford’s rubbing salt in his aggrieved wife’s wounds by describing his two-timing trollop as his soul mate doesn’t quite rise (fall?) to the vile callousness of Hunter and Edwards discussing what music to play at their wedding, once his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, has shuffled off her mortal coil.

So toting up all the insults and injuries, John Edwards is King Of The Heels.

† Praise The Lord, And Pass The Ammunition: New Bethel Church, an Assemblies of God church in Louisville, KY, held an “open-carry service" Saturday evening – a year and a day after the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller ruling. The event, which was the brainchild of Pastor Ken Pagano, a former Marine and a volunteer chaplain with the Louisville Metro Police Department, was meant as “a show of support” for the Second and First Amendments, reports Time magazine:

He repeated a number of the talking points that he's honed while being interviewed by journalists from Australia to Ireland: pacifism is optional for Christians; society faces more risks from texting and Twittering drivers on the highway than from guns; and "we're not doing anything illegal, immoral or unconstitutional, so why apologize?" He promised to keep the event (it was not a worship service) to about an hour, though it lasted 90 minutes.

Fast-forwarding through the hour-and-a-half service, the congregants sang patriotic songs; watched a video clip of late comedian Red Skelton deconstructing the Pledge of Allegiance and two clips of the magicians Penn and Teller who analyzed the punctuation of the Second Amendment and performed a magic trick designed to illustrate the enduring principles espoused by Bill of Rights; and participated in a raffle in which the included a free NRA membership, a pistol and a video of Lee Greenwood singing “God Bless the USA.”

Despite difficulty finding an insurance carrier willing to cover the service – eventually Pagano found a one-day rided for $700 – the pastor is so pleased with the “bring your gun to church day” event, he plans to make it a yearly celebration of responsible gun ownership.

† Madoff’s Victims: Gullible Or Greedy?: At the time he confessed to pulling off one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history, Bernard Madoff put his household net worth at between $823 million and $826 million. But businessman Jeffry Picower and his family – who claim to be among Madoff’s victims – withdrew $5.1 billion more than they invested with Madoff between December 1995 and December 2008, reports ProPublica via MSNBC. After Madoff trustee Irving Picard filed a federal lawsuit against Picower, ProPublica looked into his relationship with Madoff and Picard’s allegations:

The complaint is larded with the legal catch-all phrase, "knew or should have known," to describe Picower's cognizance of Madoff's fraud, but the intricacies of the relationship are left to the imagination. …

If Picower withdrew $5.1 billion in "profit" from Madoff, where did all the money go? … If someone needed the skills to hide billions of dollars, few would be better equipped than Picower, an attorney and accountant who has been described as a "tax shelter expert." … [O]ur search did not even uncover a boat or plane under the Picower name. …

The court-appointed trustee makes a powerful, albeit still largely circumstantial, case in court filings that Picower knew Madoff's fund was illegitimate. Although Madoff ostensibly produced eerily consistent 10-12 percent annual returns for his clients, the returns he provided Picower were other worldly …

Picower belonged to a select group of Madoff investors who received souped-up returns. A Wall Street Journal story published in May cited unnamed sources saying that prosecutors were looking into eight investors who appear to have received special treatment from Madoff. Among the eight named, Picower seems to have withdrawn the most money, with the bulk of it coming from an account called "Decisions, Inc."

At the beginning of each quarter, the Picowers received sums that grew from an annual total of $330 million in 1996 to $1 billion in 2003. These withdrawals were divided into odd numbers spread over various accounts. Added together, they usually equaled large even sums. For example, on Jan. 2, 2003, Picower withdrew $1,378,852 from his account Jln Partnership. Yet when withdrawals across all accounts were totaled for that day, they amounted to precisely $250 million.

† Media Irrelevancy – A Self-Inflicted Wound: Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten asks, “Too much Michael Jackson?” and explores the reasons behind “the saturation media coverage of Jackson's death - coverage that crowded out virtually every other news story since midday Thursday”:

America's serious news media - whether print, broadcast or cable - are in the grip of a collective nervous breakdown. Embracing popular culture and its icons seems somehow therapeutic on several levels: It appears to address charges that serious media are elitist, as well as the manifest indifference of younger readers and viewers to conventional news. Then there's the fact of simple, brute commerce; popular culture in the form of film, music and TV now provides an outsized share of the financially strapped media's advertising revenue. Finally, there's that source of the news media's anxiety and confusion - and that great enabler of popular culture - the Internet.

Whatever they say, many newspaper editors and TV news producers have begun to allow website hits and social media volume to function as a kind of sub rosa ratings system whose numbers dictate coverage and the play of news stories. What's wrong with that? For one thing, it leads to the sort of irrational excess we've all been through since Thursday. No reasonable editor or producer should ignore the kind of public interest we're seeing. But surrendering utterly to it ultimately undercuts what's genuinely valuable about serious news media.

So … it’s our fault that editors and TV news producers are unable to determine what is newsworthy, and how much play to give a story.

† Updates To Previous Posts (Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech): The Washington Post reports that the prominent role that Iran’s women are playing in anti-government protests is inspiring Muslim women throughout the Middle East:

As Iran's theocracy appears on the verge of silencing the biggest challenge to its authority since it was established in 1979, female activists in the region say they are inspired by the prominent role women are playing in the country's opposition movement. Many hope it will have a crossover effect on the struggle for women's rights in their own countries and help shatter Western perceptions of Middle Eastern women as subjugated in a male-dominated culture.

In a region that reveres men who die in battle, some of the major icons to emerge from the Iranian demonstrations have been women. Neda Agha Soltan, the music student whose bloody death on June 20 was videotaped and broadcast around the world, became an instant symbol of the opposition movement and sparked widespread outrage. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi 's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, has also taken on a prominent role as she accompanied her husband on the campaign trail and more recently spoke out against an election result that the opposition says was fraudulent.

"This is our time, women's time," said Khoulod Al Fahed, a Saudi businesswoman and blogger. "It is the time for women to speak up and demand the rights that have been stolen from us in the name of religion and culture." …

"Everyone is so shocked to see that beautiful young girl dying and looking so modern and secular," said Azar Nafisi, author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

"What's happening in Iran is much more on a larger scale, with huge repercussions and risks," said Baho Abdula, 31, an Egyptian activist. "It does break the stereotype of the Middle East women. And it shows the contradictions inside Iran. …

"The world there looked at women here as if they are all under the Taliban rule. For the first time, they are seeing that the Muslim woman is also a leader and a partner," said Sawsan Zakzak, head of the League of Syrian Women, in Damascus.

Perhaps because they have far fewer freedoms than Muslim men – subjugated not only by repressive regimes but also by their own fathers and  husbands, who at least have the freedom to be omnipotent within the confines of their homes - the women have more reason to fight and to fight hard, according to New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, who notes that the subjugation of women “became a pillar of the Islamic state”:

In a way it is simple: laws that can force a girl into marriage at 13; discriminatory laws on inheritance; the segregated beaches on the Caspian; the humiliation of arrest for a neck revealed or an ankle-length skirt (a gust of wind might show a forbidden flash of leg); the suffocation that leads one artist I know to raise her hands to her neck.

Yes, it’s simple. From the outset, the regime targeted women, calculating that the patriarchal culture of the country would embrace the idea of an Islamic diktat that “put women in their place.” …

Women are angry with the state, of course. But they are also angry with the passive way men have accepted discrimination. Be strong! Fight harder! These are immediate messages summoned from old frustrations. …

Curiously, after cautioning, “I don’t want to suggest that Iran is a nation of women thirsting to cast off their chadors,” Cohen quotes a woman who wants to do just that:

I asked one woman about her fears. She said sometimes she imagines an earthquake in Tehran. She dashes out but forgets her hijab. She stands in the ruins, hair loose and paralyzed, awaiting her punishment. And she looked at me wide-eyed as if to say: do you understand, does the world understand our desperation?

. 

Clearly, Cohen – along with other male editorial writers (second item) and President Barack Hussein Obama, who insist that wearing a hijab or chador represents “freedom” for Muslim women – does not understand.

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on the community of New Bedford, MA, who pitched in to help Eddie Kramer, who lost his arm and leg 19 years ago when he was hit by a truck and dragged for miles, reports WPRI (Channel 12- East Providence, RI):

Eddie Kramer left his wheelchair on the back porch, the next day, it was stolen. …

Kramer purchased an electrical wheelchair for 7 thousand dollars, with the help of insurance and Medicare. …

Without his chair, simple tasks are now difficult and that's why friends and family are helping Eddie buy a new chair, but what he wants is written on a sign by his house ..."please return my wheelchair."

According to WPRI, “total strangers” also contributed money towards the purchase of a new wheelchair for Kramer.

[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]

After a van driven by William Dale Crock of Cave City, AR, was spotted at a suspected drug house in Mesquite, TX, that was under surveillance, police stopped Crock for neglecting to wear a seat belt. Drug-sniffing dogs made a beeline for the casket Crock was hauling in the van, reports The Associated Press. Nearly 100 pounds of pot were discovered under the casket's cover and pillow, and Crock was arrested on a marijuana possession charge, the seat belt violation, plus running a red light and an improper lane change.

Did you ever wonder how Michael Jackson was able to lean forward in the “Smooth Criminal” video without doing a face-plant? MediaBistro’s “UnBeige” design blog explains that Jackson had devised patented “anti-gravity footwear” for that stunt:

That's right, intellectual property fans, Jackson is listed as the first of three inventors on United States Patent 5,255,452, granted in 1993 for a "method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion." Translation: special loafers fitted with heels that can slot into the stage floor to allow the wearer to lean forward, style, at gravity-defying angles.

According to the patent's abstract, the Jackson-devised system relies on "a hitch member movably projectable through a stage surface. The shoes have a specially designed heel slot which can be detachably engaged with the hitch member by simply sliding the shoe wearer's foot forward, thereby engaging with the hitch member."

Say, say, say what you want about Jackson’s troubled personal life and identity issues, but his dedication to his art was unparalleled.

Constipation May Lead To Other Problems

- HealthDay News, June 28, 2009

General Says Iraq Violence Is Counterproductive

- The Associated Press, June 28, 2009

In a horrifying case that confirms the worst fears of those who are opposed to gay adoption, The Associated Press reports that Frank Lombard, associate director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke University was arrested (pdf) in an Internet sting and charged with offering his five-year-old adopted son for sex:

Authorities said that Lombard tried to persuade a person - who he did not know was a police officer - to travel to North Carolina to have sex with Lombard's child.

The detective's affidavit charges Lombard identified himself online as "perv dad for fun," and says that in an online chat with the detective, Lombard said he had sexually molested his son, whom he adopted as an infant. …

Lombard was charged in federal court in Washington with attempting to induce someone to cross state lines to engage in sex with a child. If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The Web site Chattahbox.com cites “unconfirmed reports" that Lombard is gay and that the boy one of two Lombard and his partner adopted, that the child is black, and that he was repeatedly drugged to make him compliant.

Duke has put Lombard on unpaid administrative leave.

[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]

While the media were preoccupied with Michael Jackson’s untimely and possibly preventable death, the House passed a bill to foist a costly-and-theoretical cap-and-trade scheme on American businesses by just 7 votes (219 to 212; 44 Dems voted “Nay”), reports The New York Times:

The vote was the first time either house of Congress had approved a bill meant to curb the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change. The legislation, which passed despite deep divisions among Democrats, could lead to profound changes in many sectors of the economy, including electric power generation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction. …

At the heart of the legislation is a cap-and-trade system that sets a limit on overall emissions of heat-trapping gases while allowing utilities, manufacturers and other emitters to trade pollution permits, or allowances, among themselves. The cap would grow tighter over the years, pushing up the price of emissions and presumably driving industry to find cleaner ways of making energy.

President Obama hailed the House passage of the bill as “a bold and necessary step.” He said in a statement that he looked forward to Senate action that would send a bill to his desk “so that we can say, at long last, that this was the moment when we decided to confront America’s energy challenge and reclaim America’s future.”

But cap-and-trade will cloud America’s future, warns The Wall Street Journal:

[T]he Congressional Budget Office did an analysis of what has come to be known as the Waxman-Markey bill. According to the CBO, the climate legislation would cost the average household only $175 a year by 2020. Edward Markey, Mr. Waxman's co-author, instantly set to crowing that the cost of upending the entire energy economy would be no more than a postage stamp a day for the average household. …

To get support for his bill, Mr. Waxman was forced to water down the cap in early years to please rural Democrats, and then severely ratchet it up in later years to please liberal Democrats. The CBO's analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in. As the cap is tightened and companies are stripped of initial opportunities to "offset" their emissions, the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon. The corporate costs of buying these expensive permits will be passed to consumers. …

When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill's restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.

Obama personally lobbied dithering Dems, perhaps prompted by this new study on the effects of global warming on fish published in the journal Science: Increasing ocean absorption of atmospheric CO₂ is enlarging the ears of fish (an internal structure known as an “otolith”). The study does not explain why fish ears are getting bigger, but may offer some insight about why global warming is of particular interest to Obama.

In Memoriam

Farrah Fawcett, February 2, 1947 - June 25, 2009

† Lower Tolerance For Zero Tolerance (fourth item): In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court held that AZ school officials violated the Fourth Amendment ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures" when they strip-searched 13-year-old honor student Savana Redding on a baseless suspicion that she had secreted ibuprofen in her underwear, reports The Wall Street Journal:

The opinion, by Justice David Souter, who is retiring at the end of this term, exempted the assistant principal who ordered the search from liability, finding that it might not have been clear to him that his action was unconstitutional. But the justices left open the possibility that the school district, in Safford, Ariz., could be liable for the violation.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito … joined Justice Souter's opinion, as did Justice Stephen Breyer.

Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have gone further still, upholding the federal appeals court ruling that left the assistant principal exposed to liability.

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas, as he has before, took the strongest position against student rights and in favor of school administrators' authority.

† Obama Doctrine Taking Shape: Last night, the National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded by Congress, bestowed its Democracy Award to five Cuban dissidents who spent decades in jail for promoting democracy. Bertha Antúnez, the sister of one of the dissidents, accepted the award on their behalf. During the Bush administration, the president would have also made time to meet with the award winner. But Barack Hussein Obama gave the endowment the cold shoulder, reports The Washington Post:

Carl Gershman, president of the endowment, said the organization asked two weeks ago whether President Obama could meet with [Antúnez] … Gershman said he never got a response. …

The endowment had also asked Obama to issue a message to the Cubans to accompany words of support from Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, dissidents who went on to lead the Czech Republic and Poland, respectively. The message from Obama arrived shortly before the ceremony began - after an inquiry by The Washington Post - with an apologetic note from a National Security Council staffer: "I had my dates confused." …

"I am disappointed, and also surprised since the President said in the campaign that Libertad would be the touchstone on his Cuba policy," Gershman said in an e-mail, using the Spanish word for "liberty." …

Antúnez, who moved to Miami a year ago, said she was disappointed not to meet Obama. "What I'd like is to have the opportunity to tell the president about the situation of the country . . . and tell him of the hope the Cubans have placed in him," she said in an interview. She added that she hoped Obama would not alter the traditional U.S. hard line on Cuba, because "any change could give strength to the government."

† Spitzer Makes Wife Stand On Ceremony: What do former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) have in common? Besides being philanderers, that is? Each of them faced the music alone – without his aggrieved, suffering wives by his side – when facing the media to own up to his marital transgression. Politico reports:

The solo confessional marks a recent shift in what had been a well-honed political playbook. …

The traditional rule book for adultery damage control always recommends something like this: cheating candidate confesses, sheds a tear if he can (and it has always been a he), and then pleads for mercy with a pained, tight-lipped wife standing mutely by his side.

That’s how Suzanne Craig handled it when her husband, then Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig, admitted that he pled guilty to disorderly conduct after he was arrested for lewd behavior in a men's bathroom stall. Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter came clean about his involvement in a Washington, D.C., prostitution ring with his wife, Wendy Baldwin Vitter, standing next to him. And a shell-shocked Silda Wall Spitzer, stood next to her husband, then-New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer, after he was caught on a federal wiretap soliciting a high-priced prostitute. …

It was the experience of Silda Spitzer, say experts, that really changed apology attitudes. Although she stood next to her husband through two excursing press conferences, her agonized expression undid any political benefit he might have expected from having her by his side.

† First They Came For The Guns, Then They Came For The Knives (second item): The Obama administration plans to expand the 50-year-old ban on importing "switchblades" to include any pocket knife that can be opened with one hand, reports The Washington Times:

Critics, including U.S. knife manufacturers and collectors, the National Rifle Association, sportsmen's groups and a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, say the rule change proposed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would rewrite U.S. law defining what constitutes a switchblade and potentially make de facto criminals of the estimated 35 million Americans who use folding knives. …

The rule change would affect the interpretation of the Switchblade Knife Act of 1958, which defined a "switchblade" as any knife having a blade that opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button or other device in the handle, or by operation of inertia or gravity. …

The bipartisan Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, boasting one of the largest memberships on Capitol Hill, last week sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who oversees CBP, urging her to quash the proposed rule change. The letter was signed by 61 Republican and 18 Democratic lawmakers. …

In much the same way that gun rights issues have cut across the partisan divide in Congress, the threat of a government knife grab has especially rankled members from Western and Southern states, regardless of their party.

† States’ Rights Vs. The Feds: The Golden Gate Restaurant Association has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari to overturn an enbanc ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit upholding a law requiring businesses in San Francisco with 20 or more employees to provide health insurance to their employees, reports The National Law Journal:

[T]he 9th Circuit reversed a lower court decision, holding that the ordinance was not pre-empted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 because it dealt with contributions, not benefits.

The trade group’s attorney Jeff Tanenbaum tells The National Law Journal that the 9th Circuit ruling is at odds with the 4th Circuit, which came to the opposite conclusion about pre-emption regarding a similar law in MD. Tanenbaum also takes issue with the “novel” distinction the 9th Circuit made between a “contribution” and a “benefit.”

Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria adds that the issue of federal pre-emption of state laws under ERISA may soon be moot because of proposed congressional legislation that would require employers to provide health care coverage: “Why would the court want to waste its time on a complicated ERISA preemption issue that could become moot?”

† Prince Charles Is Carbon Neutral. Now We Are (ROTFL) Amused. (third item): The Washington Post reports that Britain’s Prince Charles, the err-to-the-throne, overstepped the bounds of his ceremonial role to meddle in a construction project, setting off a debate on whether royals should be seen and not heard:

The battle between the outspoken heir to the British throne and Richard Rogers, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect of such iconic buildings as the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Millennium Dome in London, centered on an ultra-modernist design by Rogers's firm for the redevelopment of a former army barracks in West London.

Qatari Diar, the investment arm of Qatar's royal family, which owns the site, had plans for a multibillion-dollar housing project and favored Rogers as the architect. But at some point, according to British news reports, Prince Charles sent the Qatari ruler a letter suggesting - royal to royal - that the family consider a more traditional design. …

The scuttling of the project led Rogers to call for an official inquiry into the powers of the prince, whose behavior he has called "unacceptable" and "totally unconstitutional." It has also sparked a broader public debate between royalists and republicans on the role of the monarchy, and of the prince of Wales in particular, in the 21st century. …

Ten prominent architects, including Norman Foster and Frank Gehry, signed a public letter in April accusing Prince Charles of abusing his royal position in the matter. …

Last month, Prince Charles told a group of architects, "In another 25 years, I shall very likely have shuffled off this mortal coil, and so those of you who do worry about my inconvenient interferences won't have to do so anymore."

Then, with a little smile, he added: "Unless, of course, they prove to be hereditary."

Doctor Guillotin’s drastic cure effectively rid the French of their parasitic royals. Of course mass murder is quite rightly frowned upon nowadays, but for republicans the question remains: What will it take before the Brits pull off a bloodless revolution in England? Liberté, égalité, fraternité!

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, How Did We Get From A Knowledge Economy To An Unskilled And Illiterate Economy?): Now that the unemployment rate has soared to 9.4 percent, skilled workers are hot commodities, reports The New York Times:

[E]mployers are begging for qualified applicants for certain occupations, even in hard times. Most of the jobs involve skills that take years to attain.

Welder is one, employers report. Critical care nurse is another. Electrical lineman is yet another, particularly those skilled in stringing high-voltage wires across the landscape. Special education teachers are in demand. So are geotechnical engineers, trained in geology as well as engineering, a combination sought for oil field work. … And with infrastructure spending now on the rise, civil engineers are in demand to supervise the work. …

For these hard-to-fill jobs, there seems to be a common denominator. Employers are looking for people who have acquired an exacting skill, first through education - often just high school vocational training - and then by honing it on the job. That trajectory, requiring years, is no longer so easy in America, said Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologist.

The pressure to earn a bachelor’s degree draws young people away from occupational training, particularly occupations that do not require college, Mr. Sennett said, and he cited two other factors. Outsourcing interrupts employment before a skill is fully developed, and layoffs undermine dedication to a single occupation. “People are told they can’t get back to work unless they retrain for a new skill,” he said.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Empire State Repubs Rise Again): In a failed bid to compel the state senate to attend to the people’s business, Gov. David Paterson (D) threatened to sic the fuzz on them and to withhold their paychecks. Senate Dems spent all of five minutes in session on Wednesday (Repubs were no-shows). And with both sides questioning the legality of a special session Paterson called for Thursday, Dems held a session that lasted about four minutes – one minute more than the session held by their Repub counterparts.

In the latest development, The New York Times reports, the two parties “appeared close to a power-sharing deal” Thursday evening that could result in “a normal legislative session by Monday.”

Meanwhile, the two-week stalemate will hit unemployed NYers - 8.2 percent statewide in May, 9 percent in NYC - where it hurts most, reports the paper:

A campaign to increase New York’s unemployment benefits for the first time in a decade has been sidetracked by the political stalemate in Albany - possibly for the rest of the recession.

Despite having the support of the governor, labor leaders and advocates for the unemployed, a bill to raise weekly jobless benefits on July 1 and close the gap in the state’s unemployment trust fund was not addressed by state lawmakers before their regular session ended this week.

The maximum benefit, which had been $405 a week for about 10 years until the federal economic stimulus program temporarily added $25 a week, is significantly smaller than those available to residents of New Jersey and Connecticut. New Jersey’s maximum is $584 a week; Connecticut’s is $576.

The issue was not among those taken up by the Assembly in the final hours of the session that ended early Tuesday, nor was it on the governor’s list of measures to be considered by the Senate in special sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Assembly is not currently scheduled to convene until January.

Well, maybe the state legislature can address the disparity in regional unemployment compensation by the time Paterson loses his job.

† Updates To Previous Posts (Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech):

 [Hat Tip: Image courtesy of Free Us Now. Thanks, BettyJean!]

The New York Times marks the 35^th anniversary of the first commercial use of the bar code, which was invented by IBM engineers:

The design was straightforward - 59 black and white bars. And the inventors’ objectives were simple enough, too - to speed up the grocery checkout line and give supermarkets a new tool to track their stock.

But the bar code has become much more than that since it was first used to read the price on a 10-pack of Juicy Fruit gum (67 cents) on the morning of June 26, 1974. Now they are used to board airplanes and track packages. Bar codes help people with diabetes calibrate glucose meters and researchers study the pollination habits of bees. They inspired a hand-held video game, Barcode Battler, in 1991.

BTW, neither IBM nor the team that developed the bar code filed a patent for the invention.

Karen Noyes, 61, was convicted of harassing wildlife, sentenced to three years probation and forbidden to live in her home in rural OR for three years for feeding the black bears that ambled to her door and creating all kinds of havoc in her neighborhood, reports The Associated Press: 

One hungry bear stormed a neighbor's barn and killed 60 turkeys. Another got stuck in a doggie door. …

Witnesses for the state testified that she had been warned to stop feeding the bears as early as 2003 but refused to listen. …

During the trial, neighbors testified they'd become frightened to walk outside their homes because her feeding had attracted so many animals.

Wildlife officials are attempting to chase the bears out of the area.

Things That Trigger Migraines

- HealthDay News, June 26, 2009

Without Treatment, Cardiac Arrest Kills Quickly

- USA Today, June 26, 2009

Last week a jury ordered Jammie Thomas-Rasset to pay $80,000 for each of 24 tracks shared on Kazaa – an eye-popping $1.92 million, or more than five hundred times the cost of buying 24 entire CDs. The excessive punishment for her peer-to-peer music sharing did not sit well – with several recording artists, including at least one whose songs Thomas-Rasset had shared, reports Online Media Daily:

[T]hat judgment could prove surprisingly costly to the Recording Industry Association of America - at least in terms of public relations. …

Richard Marx, one of the musicians whose tracks Thomas-Rasset shared, said Wednesday that he was "ashamed" to be connected with the case. "It seems to me, especially in these extremely volatile economic times, that holding Ms. Thomas-Rasset accountable for the continuing daily actions of hundreds of thousands of people is, at best, misguided and at worst, farcical," he said in a statement to Ars Technica. "Ms. Thomas-Rasset, I think you got a raw deal, and I'm ashamed to have my name associated with this issue."

Musician Moby - not a fan of the RIAA - also took the organization to task over the verdict. "Punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business," he wrote on his blog. "I don't know, but 'it's better to be feared than respected' doesn't seem like such a sustainable business model when it comes to consumer choice." …

[D]efense attorney Ray Beckerman told Online Media Daily that the "outlandish" $1.92 million verdict serves as an example of an instance where an award authorized by the Copyright Act appears excessive.

Heaven only knows that Thomas-Rasset should’ve known better, but kudos to Marx for understanding that it’s playing with fire and a fool’s game when you treat fans of your music as though they had their hands in your pocket.

† Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech: The French National Assembly has created a panel of 32 lawmakers who will spend the next six months examining whether the burqa violated the country’s secular constitution, reports CNN:

Last week 57 lawmakers - led by communist legislator Andrè Gerin - signed a petition calling for a study into the feasibility of legislation to ban the burka in public places.

On Monday Sarkozy declared in a keynote parliamentary address that the burka, which covers women from head to toe, is "not welcome" in France.

"The problem of the burka is not a religious problem. This is an issue of a woman's freedom and dignity. This is not a religious symbol. It is a sign of subservience; it is a sign of lowering. I want to say solemnly, the burka is not welcome in France," Sarkozy told lawmakers. …

Some lawmakers have called for burkas to be banned completely, claiming they are degrading to women. They also include housing minister Fadela Amara, a Muslim-born women's rights campaigner, who has called the garment "a kind of tomb for women."

"We cannot accept in our country women trapped behind a fence, cut off from social life, deprived of any identity. This is not the idea that we have of a woman's dignity," Sarkozy said Monday.

Now, compare Sarkozy’s unequivocal defense of women’s rights with Obama’s craven capitulation to Islamofascist extremism under the guise of religious freedom :

[F]reedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. ... That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it. ...

Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together.  We must always examine the ways in which we protect it.  ...

Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.  We can't disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism. ...

 I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal

The Christian Science Monitor takes note of the yawning chasm between these two - male – Western leaders on what constitutes “freedom” for women:

The difference broadly comes down to one of "freedom to" versus "freedom from." Obama is defending a woman's right to dress as she chooses, especially when it comes to expressing her religious belief. Sarkozy, too, is motivated by a vision of a woman's right, but in his case it's a freedom from coercion by those who would impose a symbol of second-class status. …

In the US, Obama faces criticism from some Muslim women, like Karima Bennoune, an Algerian-American teaching at University of Michigan Law School, who sees Obama's words as accommodating the "law of the Brothers" - family members and community fundamentalists who would impose a symbol of subservience on sisters and other women. …

For some US observers, Obama's stand on the scarf and the burqa has simply been too one-sided. In his Cairo speech, Obama "talked about the right of Muslim women to wear the veil, particularly in the West," says James Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "What he didn't talk about was their right not to wear the veil."

As The Stiletto has pointed out before (second item), the burqa is not a silken Hermès scarf or the much humbler babushka. The burqa is essentially a funeral shroud that covers every square inch of a woman’s body, impeding walking – it’s impossible to run in a burqa - and peripheral vision. As always, Obama is being too cute by a half when he likens being trapped under, and trussed by, yards and yards of cloth as “hair covering.” His wife and daughters should try wearing a burqa for a month and then tell him what they think of their “freedom.” Bet MO won’t last 24 hours – after all, she’ll have to cover up her bionic arms.

For her part, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum gives weight to Sarkozy’s insistence that the burqa is a cultural constraint and not a religious obligation - the Koran only requires that women (and men) dress “modestly” – by highlighting the struggles of the feminist movement in Iran:
 

In the United States, the most America-centric commentators have somberly attributed the strength of recent demonstrations to the election of Barack Obama. Others want to give credit to the democracy rhetoric of the Bush administration. Still others want to call this a "Twitter revolution" or a "Facebook revolution," as if zippy new technology alone had inspired the protests. But the truth is that the high turnout has been the result of many years of organizational work, carried out by small groups of civil rights activists and above all women's groups, working largely unnoticed and without much outside help. …

Not Obama, not Bush and not Twitter, in other words, but years of work and effort lie behind the public display of defiance and, in particular, the number of women on the streets - and their presence matters. Their presence could strike the deepest blow against the regime. For at the heart of the ideology of the Islamic Republic is its claim to divine inspiration: Its leadership is legitimate, as is its harsh repression of women, because God has decreed that it is so. The outright rejection of this creed by tens of thousands of women, not just over the past weekend but over the past decade, has to weaken the Islamic Republic's claim to invincibility, in Iran and across the Middle East.

Beneath the radar of NOW and other women’s rights groups in the U.S., feminists in Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim countries are fighting for equality and the freedom not to wear the burqa if they don’t want to (and only a minority want to, BTW).

† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: A Prince George's County woman fatally shot her husband, Richard Marcellous Wilson, 30, after he violated an active protective order and attacked her, reports The Washington Post:

The circumstances of the incident are unclear, but police think that the shooting "appears to have been in self-defense," said Cpl. Mike Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Prince George's police department. Wilson, police said, had 

Rodriguez declined to name the shooter because she is a victim in the case and has not been charged. Online court records list her name as Tamiko Buchanan and Tamiko Wilson, and neighbors confirmed her identity. She could not be reached yesterday. [Emphasis, The Stiletto.]

Note that the police wanted to protect the identity of the woman because they view her to be a victim, but because a gun was involved The WaPo took it upon itself to out her. So in the eyes of the WaPo she is guilty of exercising her Second Amendment rights and therefore does not deserve

† Who Says TV Isn’t Educational? (second item): Another Discovery Channel TV show is credited with saving a life, reports The Associated Press:

When he realized he'd been separated from his family on a weekend hike in a northern Utah forest, 9-year-old Grayson Wynne's thoughts turned to television.

Grayson watches "Man vs. Wild" on the Discovery Channel every week with his brothers and his dad. On the show, host and adventurer Bear Grylls strands himself in the wilderness and then shows viewers how to survive the sticky situations. …

Grayson started tearing up his yellow rain slicker, despite the intermittent downpours, and tying pieces to trees.

"I just used my hands," said Grayson, who was found safe Sunday after spending 18 hours lost in the forest. "I don't know how many times I tore the thing but quite a lot." …

Grayson created a small shelter overnight under a fallen tree. The next day, he decided to follow a creek in hopes of finding help.

The Daggett County sheriff's office credited the searchers, volunteers and Grayson's common sense for the positive outcome.

The bottom line: You can either waste your time watching TV or invest your time by learning stuff that could save your life – or at least improve it.

† Protected Class Warfare: Black Eyed Peas tour manager Polo Molina gave Perez Hilton a black eye outside a Toronto nightclub after the celebrity blogger and bandmember will.i.am had words, reports The Associated Press:

"He was like 'You need to respect me.' He was in my face. He was obviously trying to intimidate me and scare me," Hilton said. "I was like 'I don't need to respect you. I don't respect you and I did say this, and I knew that it would be the worst thing I could possibly say to him because he was acting the way he was. I said 'You know what, I don't respect you and you're gay and stop being such a faggot.'"

GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) is not amused, reports Los Angels Times blog “The Dish Rag,” and is demanding an apology from Hilton:

These are vulgar anti-gay slurs that feed a climate of hatred and intolerance toward our community. For someone in our own community to use it to attack another person by saying that it is, quote, ‘The worst possible thing that thug would ever want to hear,’ is incredibly dangerous. It legitimizes use of a slur that is often linked to violence against our community. And it sends a message that it is OK to attempt to dehumanize people by exploiting anti-gay attitudes.”

GLAAD has also asked the media not to repeat the slur when covering the story. Good luck with that – it’s not as though the Hilton-will.i.am hissy fit warrants a total media blackout, like a kidnapped New York Times reporter.

For his part, Molina turned himself in and has been charged with assaulting Hilton; he is due in court August 5^th.

† Updates To Previous Posts (What Al Gore Hath Wrought, second item): After a judge’s ruling on a single disputed ballot in a contested election for the Spearfish, SD, City Council failed to break the 126-126 tie between incumbent councilwoman Shawn Dardis and challenger David Baker, town officials consulted state law and discovered that a game of chance is required to determine a winner, reports CNN. The two candidates first rolled dice to see which would get to stick his or her hand inside a purple Crown Royal bag that contained one black marble and a white one. Baker ended up with even odds of extracting the winning white marble or throwing the race to his rival by default. And the winner is …

[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]

† Updates To Previous Posts (Empire State Repubs Rise Again): Open warfare has broken out in the NY State Senate over control of the podium, reports WCBS-TV (Channel 2-NYC), describing footage shot through the window of a Senate door: 

After talks of a power-sharing arrangement broke down, Democrats locked themselves in the Senate chamber, Republicans tried to conduct business on their own and none of the "people's business" got done. …

Yonkers Sen. Andrea Stewart Cousins [stood at the podium] to prevent the Republicans from taking over. The move came shortly after Democrats said talks of establishing a bi-partisan operating agreement fell through because a Republican coalition insisted the Senate president be Bronx Sen. Pedro Espada. …

What happened next was equally incredible. With the Democrats in their seats, the Republicans marched in and tried to take the podium. They were rebuffed, so they held a session form the well of the chamber and passed dozens of bills by acclamation.

The odd thing was when Republican senators start the session with the pledge of allegiance. The Democrats didn't stand to participate and when one tried to stand, he was pulled down. [Emphasis, The Stiletto.]

Gee, could this be why some people think Dems are, um, unpatriotic?

Meanwhile, here is failed Repub presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s opening salvo in his expected challenge of accidental incumbent David Paterson for the governorship.

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, Why We Need Gitmo): Hell, no, Uighurs won’t go! To Palau, that is. The Associated Press reports:

Palau consented to President Barack Obama's request to take the Turkic Muslims as part of plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. …

Palau sent a fact-finding team to the Guantanamo Bay detention center last weekend to assess their needs. But five of the 13 Uighurs declined to meet with the delegation out of concerns that it could not protect them from the Chinese, said Ngiraibelas Tmetuchl, special assistant to President Johnson Toribiong. …

The remaining eight Uighurs expressed similar reservations, but were open to the idea of resettling in Palau.

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Your Butt Will Look Good In These Jeans): It’s OK to gush over Michelle Obama’s “buff arms,” but Canadian magazine Maclean’s reports that a comedian can’t make MO’s butt the butt of jokes without some people being offeded. Tough. Until the MSM gets over its obsession with MO’s muscular arms, The Stiletto is willing to take the risk. Nothing against MO per se – The Stiletto herself has a juicy figure, though she is luckier than MO in that her rounded hips, thighs and butt are balanced with an ample bosom thus all her weight is not concentrated from the waist down – her beef is more with the media.

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on how the passengers on the two star-crossed Washington Metro commuter trains helped each other physically and spiritually after the fatal crash. The Washington Post reports:

In the moments after the crash, passengers made tourniquets out of T-shirts, struggled to pull debris off others and sought to calm the hysterical and the gravely wounded. Inside the worst-hit car, waiting on ambulances and the "jaws of life," an Anglican priest led a group in the Lord's Prayer. On the ground below, a civilian Pentagon employee told a wounded girl that he wouldn't accept her last wish, that she was going to live.

Inside the car, there was dust and broken glass and blood. Seats had been ripped from the floor and thrown around: One man was trapped between two of them, with a leg that appeared broken. A woman was screaming, invisible, buried beneath a pile of seats. …

Dave Bottoms, 39, had just left his job as an Army chaplain at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The Anglican priest was in the back of the front car that slammed into the stopped train. When he saw the train buckling, it looked just like it would in the movies, he said. …

In the chaotic moments after the crash, he went to a young woman who had been pinned between seats. She was hysterical, he said, but he began calming her. …

When first responders arrived, Bottoms and two others initially refused to get off the train, wanting to continue to comfort the young woman pinned between the seats.

"I just talked with her," he said. "I told her to pray." …

Mike Corcoran, 39, who was in another car, said someone burst into his section after the impact and said help was needed at the back of the train. He ran back and saw a man and woman pinned between seats.

Blood splattered the train's windows, he said. Another woman was standing, he said, but her foot was bleeding profusely.

Corcoran pulled off his polo shirt, quickly yanked off his undershirt and tied it around the woman's foot as a tourniquet. He told her to keep pressure on it until help arrived.

Guess which copy editor was asleep at the switch:

- New GOP Tact: Will Sotomayor Uphold Constitution?

The Associated Press, Tuesday, June 23, 2009 (4:18 p.m.)

- New GOP Tack: Will Sotomayor Uphold Constitution?

The Associated Press, Tuesday, June 23, 2009 (4:18 p.m.)

Keep Your Heels Happy

- HealthDay News, June 23, 2009

Iran Unrest Reveals Split In U.S. On Its Role Abroad

- The Washington Post, June 23, 2009

When Daphne Diaz, 23, approached police officers investigating a harassment complaint and told them that their cruiser was blocking her car, they told her they needed a few more minutes to finish interviewing witnesses, reports The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY):

According to police reports she approached them again several minutes later and again insisted they move the car, using profanity in her demand.

When police went back downstairs, they saw Diaz sitting in her green Mazda still waiting to get out. A group of residents who had gathered under a mailbox shelter, advised police that Diaz had just keyed their car.

Police found the gouges on the back quarter panel of the patrol car. They also confirmed through 911 dispatchers that Diaz had contacted them to report the emergency.

Diaz has been charged with criminal mischief.

† What Al Gore Hath Wrought (second item): Contemplating the never-ending MN Senate election, The New York Times’ Matt Bai observes that while “[r]ecounts and postelection wrangling are nothing new in America” and “some elections are always going to end in what is essentially a tie,” “[w]hat's new are the lengths to which losing candidates will now routinely go - and the money the parties will spend - to avoid their certain fates”: 

It used to be that when a candidate lost by a few suspect votes, the first question that arose was whether he would seek a rematch. Richard Nixon, who felt certain he’d been mugged in several states in 1960, exited quickly to begin plotting his return to office. Now, it seems, the first question anyone asks - at least since the 2000 presidential quagmire - is for how long you intend to fight the results in court. The governor’s race in Washington State in 2004 was disputed for eight months. More recently, the recount in a special election for Congress in New York dragged on for more than three weeks amid legal arguments over what did and did not constitute a valid ballot.

What happens in politics, however, can almost never be extricated from the culture at large, and the lost art of losing nobly is by no means an exclusively political phenomenon. At the upper reaches of society, we litigate ever more readily and accept misfortune with ever less stoicism. Being fired from a job becomes the beginning of a negotiation, while a routine school suspension instantly goes to appeal. In part, this is probably the inevitable reckoning for a culture that gives trophies to every Little Leaguer because, as the saying goes, we’re all winners. Shouldering defeat is, after all, a skill that has to be learned early, like speaking Mandarin or sleeping through the night.

In other words, thanks to the misguided liberal notion that self-esteem trumps self-sacrifice, far too many people are unable to suck it up and, um, move on.

† A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ: The AZ state Senate passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa) that requires police to make an effort to ascertain immigration status when there is probable cause to believe someone is not in the U.S. legally, reports The Associated Press:

[I]f approved, Arizona would become the only state to criminalize the presence of illegal immigrants through an expansion of its trespassing law.

While the practical effect of such a law is yet unclear, immigrant rights advocates predict it would lead to racial profiling that would target thousands of Latinos who are U.S. citizens.

And the proposal's constitutionality is also a source of contention.

A few years ago, police chiefs in two communities in New Hampshire charged illegal immigrants with trespassing for being in the state. A local judge in 2005 dismissed the charges as an unconstitutional attempt to apply state laws to a federal issue. …

Under this year's proposed trespassing provision, a first offense would be a top-tier misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.

Subsequent violations would be a felony that could carry a penalty of up to 2 1/2 years in prison.

Agencies arresting first-time offenders would have the option of prosecuting them or turning them over to federal authorities. …

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, whose office helped draft the bill, said even though the federal government has authority to regulate immigration, states have broad police powers that allow them to contribute to the fight against illegal immigration.

† The Revolution Will Be Tweeted: Noting that Twitter “has been identified with two mass protests in a matter of months - in Moldova in April and in Iran last week” The New York Times’ Noam Cohen wonders whether applying the term label “Twitter Revolution” to such uprisings “oversell[s] the technology” and cites six lessons “about the strengths and weaknesses of a technology that is less than three years old and is experiencing explosive growth”:

1. Twitter Is a Tool and Thus Difficult to Censor (“Twitter dreams of being a tool that people can use to communicate with each other from a multitude of locations, like e-mail.”)

2. Tweets Are Generally Banal, but Watch Out (“[T]weets by their nature seem trivial, with little that is original or menacing. … Collectively, however, the tweets can create a personality or environment that reflects the emotions of the moment and helps drive opinion.”)

3. Buyer Beware (“Nothing on Twitter has been verified. … [J]ust as Twitter has helped get out first-hand reports from Tehran, it has also spread inaccurate information, perhaps even disinformation.”)

4. Watch Your Back (“Not only is it hard to be sure that what appears on Twitter is accurate, but … Twitter is thick with discussion of who is really an informant or agent provocateur.”)

5. Twitter Is Self-Correcting but a Misleading Gauge (“A popular, trusted user matters more … [but] Twitter is a certain kind of community — technology-loving, generally affluent and Western-tilting.”)

6. Twitter Can Be a Potent Tool for Media Criticism (“Just as Twitter can rally protesters against governments, its broadcast ability can rally them quickly and efficiently against news outlets.”)

† Updates To Previous Posts (The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II): In an en banc decision, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court struck down two Philadelphia gun control ordinances - an assault weapons ban and a purchase limit of one handgun per 30 days, reports The Legal Intelligencer:

In the same opinion, however, the court also upheld three other city ordinances dealing with seizure of firearms from persons who pose a risk of imminent harm to themselves or others, prohibiting the acquisition and possession of firearms by persons subject to a protection from abuse order and requiring that gun owners report lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement within 24 hours of realizing they're missing.

A seven-judge en banc panel voted unanimously to allow those three ordinances to stand but was split 6-1 in its decision to enjoin the city from enforcing the two others. …

Attorneys on opposing sides of the case seemed to have very different views about what the Commonwealth Court's ruling here means for them.

The NRA's attorney, Carter Scott Shields of Shields & Hoppe in Media, Pa., said he considered the decision a "win" because even though the Commonwealth Court here ruled that the group of organizations, retailers and individuals lacked standing to challenge three of the ordinances, the court had already ruled in the second Clarke v. House of Representatives case that all five ordinances at issue here were pre-empted [contextual link added by The Stiletto].

Nevertheless, he did say the NRA would appeal the standing issue.

The city's attorney, Richard G. Feder of the Philadelphia Law Department, said that because the city was not a party in Clarke II, it is not bound by the decision in that case.

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Why We Need Gitmo): In a New York Times op-ed Stuart Beck, Palau’s permanent representative to the United Nations, takes on what he calls the “myth” that his tiny nation received a $200 million bribe from the U.S. to accept Uighurs released from detention at Gitmo:

In breaking the story that Palau was amenable to President Obama’s request, the Associated Press reported that two anonymous State Department officials had linked Palau’s acceptance of the Uighurs to a $200 million payoff.

Almost immediately, much of the news media took the bait, did the math and asserted that Palau was getting nearly $12 million dollars per Uighur. Within a day or two, The Wall Street Journal was pontificating against a shakedown. …

Palau is a small and peaceful community. Its constitution bans weapons of all kinds. Capital crimes are virtually unknown. Social life revolves around the family. Children wander from house to house. Could anyone believe that the leaders of Palau would risk the safety and serenity of their modern Eden in exchange for money? Is it plausible that these close-knit people would countenance the presence of terrorists in their midst? I can assure you the answer is no.

One Paul Bruneau allegedly entered the Portland (ME) Lobster Co. through a back window and ate his way through 11 cooked lobsters worth about $300, which he washed down with white wine, reports The Associated Press. Restaurant employees later discovered him on a bench, where he was sleeping off his fancy feast.

Why Is The Room Spinning?

- HealthDay News, June 22, 2009

Americans Struggle To Pay For Healthcare: Study

- Reuters, June 22, 2009

In an interview with Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz on CNN, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller said that keeping mum about reporter David Rohde's kidnapping by the Taliban seven months ago was "an agonizing position that we revisited over and over again” and that “we were told by people that probably the wisest course for David's safety was to keep it quiet." Keller agreed because “I also have a responsibility for the people who work for me. I send a lot of people out into dangerous places and their security is also part of my job."s

This would be the same Keller who repeatedly defended his paper’s zealous disclosure of our country’s military secrets, despite pleas from Bush administration officials and national security experts that our troops would be imperiled (second item) and that ongoing efforts to nip terrorists plots in the bud could be undermined.

Here’s the kicker: Keller told CNN: “The more you talk about who did what ... the more you're writing a playbook for the next kidnapping."

The Associated Press reports that The Times kept the kidnapping quiet out of concern for the men's safety and the wire service - along with other media outlets (including Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera) - did the same at The Times' request, prompting Kurtz to ponder whether “the unusual arrangement raises questions about whether journalists were giving special treatment to one of their own”:

"It certainly could appear that way, but it's more complicated than that when a human life is at stake," said Phil Bronstein, former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. "It does involve a news organization keeping quiet and asking others to keep quiet. What shocks me is that it was so successful."

John Daniszewski, an Associated Press senior managing editor, said that "it is not the most comfortable position to be in. Your instinct is to publish what you know. But we felt there was just too high a risk something would happen to him." Daniszewski said the AP also withheld news around the same time when a staffer for a nongovernmental organization was briefly kidnapped in Afghanistan.

Make no mistake: Journos value their lives and the lives of their colleagues more than they value the lives of our uniformed personnel in harm’s way, else Keller Agonistes, et al. would apply the same forbearance when it comes to covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as matters relating to intelligence-gathering.

Bonus: JibJab unveiled a new parody (video) at Friday night’s Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner set to the tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” that depicts President Barack Hussein Obama as (what else?) a superhero-cum-messiah:

When darkness  had descended all across the land

A lone voice in the distance uttered Yes! We can!

He gave good speeches. Never sweat.

He was real good at the Internets.

He’s Barack Obama.

He’s come to save the day.

But what makes a JibJab parody biting and buzzworthy is that no punches are pulled:

He’ll spend the dough! Write the checks!

Disregard the mounting debt!

Stop the globe from getting warm!

Fill your car with nuts and corn! …

You’re Barack Obama

You’ve come to save the day!

So just snap your fingers

And fix the USA!

The Stiletto’s favorite part is the “Batman”-like beacon in the sky with Obama’s enormous ears where the bat wings would be – and the way they flap in the breeze as he flies through the air is a hoot, too.  

In a case of life imitating Looney Tunes, Charles Berube, 53, of Methuen, MA, faces animal cruelty charges for allegedly killing his pet bulldog, Spot, by hitting him in the head two or three times with a hammer because the animal was sick and he couldn’t afford to take him to the veterinarian, reports The Eagle Tribune (North Andover, MA):

According to reports filed in the case by Officer Martha Parkhurst of the MSPCA's Law Enforcement Department, Berube told investigators that Spot, an American bulldog, had been sick for five to six weeks, and had lost a lot of weight.

Spot's legs were swollen and the dog had trouble walking, Berube told investigators.

Berube told investigators he did not have any money to take Spot to the veterinarian, and did not want him to suffer anymore.

He said Spot had been his pet for 10 years. …

Each of the two charges carries a penalty of up to two and a half years in jail and a $2,500 fine.

To commemorate Father’s Day, The New York Times offered an op-ed by John Burnett, author of “Where Soldiers Fear to Tread: A Relief Worker’s Tale of Survival” - who met his adult son after skipping out on him and his mother 27-years earlier – along with a companion op-ed by his son, telecommunications engineer Jason Burnett, who described how he and his father achieved a sort of détente.

Editorial Note:  In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal historian Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-editor of "Franklin's Thrift: The Lost History of a American Virtue," makes the case that Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson believed in a tough love that “[j]udged by today's psychological standards, these 18th century fathers sound harsh and unfeeling” – but that’s what it took to “pass on the passion for freedom, educational excellence and civic virtue to their children and grandchildren.”

† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: A year after the landmark Heller decision sanctioning an individual’s right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment, questions remain about whether this federal right can be restricted on the state and local level, reports The New York Times:

The question of the constitutionality of existing city and state gun laws was left unanswered.

That left a large vacuum for the lower courts to fill. Supporters of gun rights filed a flurry of lawsuits to strike down local gun restrictions, and now federal appeals courts have begun weighing in on this divisive issue, using very different reasoning.

One court this month upheld Chicago’s ban on automatic weapons and concealed handguns, while in April a California court disagreed on the constitutional issue.

The differing opinions mean that the whole issue of city and state gun laws will probably head back to the Supreme Court for clarification, leading many legal experts to predict a further expansion of gun rights. …

A split among the federal appeals circuits, especially on constitutional issues, invites Supreme Court action, said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Californians, Hawaiians and Oregonians have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, but New Yorkers, Illinoisans, and Wisconsinites don’t,” Professor Winkler said. “The Supreme Court will want to correct this sooner rather than later.”

† Gifted Children Left Behind (second item): Cloonan Middle School in Stamford, CT, has abandoned tracking students by academic ability based on their previous year’s standardized test scores in favor of experimenting with mixed-ability science and social studies classes for sixth graders until the end of this school year, reports The New York Times:

These mixed-ability classes have reported fewer behavior problems and better grades for struggling students, but have also drawn complaints of boredom from some high-performing students who say they are not learning as much. …

More than 300 Stamford parents have signed a petition opposing the shift, and some say they are now considering moving or switching their children to private schools. “I think this is a terrible system for our community,” said Nicole Zussman, a mother of two.

Ms. Zussman and others contend that Stamford’s diversity, with poor urban neighborhoods and wealthy suburban enclaves, demands multiple academic tracks, and suggest that the district could make the system fairer and more flexible by testing students more frequently for movement among the levels. …

Educators have debated for decades how to best divide students into classes. Some school districts focus on providing extra instruction to low achievers or developing so-called gifted programs for the brightest students, but few maintain tracking like Stamford’s middle schools (tracking is less comprehensive and rigid at the town’s elementary and high schools).

The district plans to keep a top honors level, but put the majority of students in mixed-ability classes, expanding the new system from sixth grade to seventh and eighth over three years. While the old system tracked students for all subjects based on math and English scores, the new one will allow students to be designated for honors in one subject but not necessarily another, making more students overall eligible for the upper track.

One teacher praised the mixed-ability classes because “the less-motivated students had still learned from their classmates’ example.” The upshot is that the smarter students are not only bored, but they are being made to do the job of parents and teachers in motivating the laggards instead of spending their classroom time learning as much as they can.

† Updates To Previous Posts (Chicago On The Potomac): Sangamon County (IL) State's Attorney John Schmidt Illinois has determined there is not enough evidence to charge Sen. Roland Burris with perjury for statements he made before a state House impeachment committee, reports The Associated Press:

Burris, 71, was appointed to President Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich after the FBI arrested Blagojevich on corruption charges. Those charges include allegations that Blagojevich tried to sell the seat for political donations.

The new senator has been under intense scrutiny because of the circumstances surrounding his appointment and for changing his story multiple times about whether he promised anything for Blagojevich in exchange for the seat. The ethics committee began a preliminary investigation into how Burris got his job, and the Sangamon County State's Attorney was asked to determine whether perjury charges were warranted.

In a taped conversation between Burris and Blago’s brother Robert, Burris promised to "personally do something" to help the ex-gov raise funds for his campaign while lobbying for his appointment to the Senate.

Koogle - a “kosher” search engine (the name is a portmanteau of the Jewish noodle pudding and Google) - was developed to allow ultra-Orthodox Jews to browse the Web, reports Reuters: 

The site … omits religiously objectionable material, such as most photographs of women which Orthodox rabbis view as immodest …

Its links to Israeli news and shopping sites also filter out items most ultra-Orthodox Israelis are forbidden by rabbis to have in their homes, such television sets. …

Nothing can be posted on the Jewish Sabbath, when religious law bans all types of work and business.

[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]

Two teenage girls walked into Plato's Closet and walked out with several hundred dollars worth of second-hand clothing. KCNC-TV (Channel 4-Denver) reports that the Lone Tree, CO, police responded to the scene almost immediately – the station is located across the street from the consignment store – and were able to contact the shoplifters, because they had filled out a card with their names, a cell phone number and an E-mail address. The store’s owner plans to press charges against the two young thieves, and there is a warrant out for their arrest.

City: Workers Must Wear Underwear

- The Associated Press via OpinionJournal.com, June 18, 2009

Who Knew? Consumers Hate Offshore Call Centers

- Marketing Daily, June 18, 2009

Producing just the sort of enterprise journalism that Wall Street Journal editor Robert Thompson is encouraging (or else), the paper combed through Federal Aviation Administration flight records for 14 TARP recipients that have corporate jets registered under their names from October through mid-March and found:

Some executives at banks propped up by government aid have retained a coveted perk: personal use of the company jet.

Flight records show numerous occasions when banks receiving federal money have flown their planes to destinations near resorts or executives' vacation homes, including spots in Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean, south Florida and Aspen, Colo. In some cases, it's clear that bank executives were traveling for personal reasons; for other flights, many of which were over weekends or holidays, the passengers and purpose couldn't be established. …

Disclosure of the flights comes at a time when the Obama administration is setting limits on how banks that receive federal money may compensate their executives. Aid recipients' use of corporate jets, even for business, has been a sensitive matter since last fall, when a flap arose after auto executives flew to Washington on company jets to plead for a public bailout. In January, President Barack Obama berated a major aid recipient, Citigroup Inc., for planning to add to its fleet of jets. Citigroup canceled the order.

You’d have thought that by now that the being the objects of opprobrium from beleaguered  taxpayers would have induced high-flying CEOs to think of corporate jets as toxic assets.

† Empire State Repubs Rise Again: Hiram Monserrate, one of the two turncoat Dems who helped the Repubs flip control of the NY State Senate last week by giving them a 32-to-30 majority, has now done a reverse turncoat by reaffirming himself a member of the Dem caucus – which has created , a 31-31 tie in the legislative body and “its leadership picture more confused than ever,” reports The New York Times:

Democrats moved swiftly to offer Republicans a power-sharing arrangement but were rebuffed. The two sides are due in court Tuesday morning, though a judge has implored lawmakers to try to work the dispute out themselves.

By Monday night, no one really knew who was in charge of the Senate, and an air of unreality continued to prevail in Albany. No legislation was taken up in the Senate, with only four days remaining in the session and several major issues unresolved. …

Democrats chose Senator [John] Sampson as the leader of their caucus, a move that was a concession to Mr. Monserrate, who had insisted on the ouster of Malcolm A. Smith as majority leader. But because they no longer had the 32 votes needed to install Mr. Sampson as president of the Senate and majority leader, Democrats named Mr. Sampson “caucus leader” and left Mr. Smith as their titular leader. …

Even if senators came back, it could be difficult to get much done. The lieutenant governor breaks ties in the Senate, but that office was left vacant when Mr. Paterson ascended to the governorship last year amid Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution scandal.

And that’s not the half of it, according to The Times: Among the casualties of State Sen. Pedro Espada’s switcheroo is a bill already passed by the state Assembly that would result in “the most significant expansion of rent regulation and tenant rights in a quarter-century.” Now that he’s a Repub, Espada opposes the legislation.

† What Al Gore Hath Wrought (second item): Endless appeals of court rulings to settle disputed elections may be fine for states like MN (second item), but in AZ they do things the old fashioned way, pardner. The New York Times reports:

Adam Trenk and Thomas McGuire, both in blue jeans and open-collar shirts, strode nervously into Town Hall with their posses. There stood the town judge. He selected a deck of cards from a Stetson hat and shuffled it - having removed the jokers - six times.

Mr. McGuire, 64, a retired science teacher and two-term incumbent on the Town Council, selected a card, the six of hearts, drawing approving oos and aws from his supporters.

Mr. Trenk, 25, a law student and newcomer to town, stepped forward. He lifted a card - a king of hearts - and the crowd roared. Cave Creek had finally selected its newest Council member. …

In traditional balloting last month, the voters in Cave Creek could not decide between Mr. Trenk and Mr. McGuire the conventional way, giving each man, even after a recount, 660 votes in a runoff for a seat on the seven-member Council.

So, as the state’s Constitution allows, a game of chance was called to break the deadlock. The two candidates agreed on a card game (alternatives from the past have included rolling dice; gunfights were quickly ruled out).

As The Times puts it: “now and then, the state’s Western heritage comes storming through the saloon doors to remind one and all just what this place was like not so long ago.” (The item below is another example.)

† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: One day after a 14-14 tie defeated a measure to permit people with concealed-carry permits to take handguns into restaurants that serve alcohol, the AZ Senate approved the bill 18-10 and sent it to the House, reports The Associated Press:

Under the bill, a permit-holder carrying a weapon into a restaurant serving alcohol would not be allowed to drink. The measure would allow restaurants to deny entry by gun-toting citizens by posting a sign.

It also would reduce the misdemeanor penalty for bringing a gun into a restaurant that doesn't allow the weapons.

† Allegation That There Are Jobs “Americans Won’t Do” Being Examined (second item): Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center For Immigration Studies, refers to this article in The Pueblo (CO) Chieftain and asks pointedly, “You mean Americans will do farm work?” It seems that because of the state’s 8 percent unemployment rate (double what it was a year ago), the number of farmers requesting visas for foreign workers dropped nearly a quarter as unemployed Americans vie for those jobs.  Krikorian adds:

When (if!) the economy improves, many of these legal workers may well return to being "not much interested in these seasonal farm jobs" - unless the wages, benefits, and working conditions improve, kind of like you'd expect in, you know, a market economy.

What a concept (second item): Obey wage and hour laws, as well as applicable health and safety regulations. Any employer who claims his or her enterprise will not be a going concern without flouting applicable laws should not be in business in the first place.

† Sexists And The Feminists Who Enable Them: Having cost CBS an advertiser, David Letterman offered an apology (video link) to Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) that she could accept. It’s pretty rambling and verbose, so The Stiletto condensed a bit:

[T]here was a joke that I told, and I thought I was telling it about the older daughter being at Yankee Stadium. And it was kind of a coarse joke. There’s no getting around it, but I never thought it was anybody other than the older daughter, and before the show, I checked to make sure in fact that she is of legal age, 18. Yeah. But the joke really, in and of itself, can’t be defended. The next day, people are outraged. They’re angry at me because they said, ‘How could you make a lousy joke like that about the 14-year-old girl who was at the ball game?’ … I had no idea she was there. … I understand, of course, why people are upset. I would be upset myself. …
 
It doesn’t make any difference what my intent was, it’s the perception. And, as they say about jokes, if you have to explain the joke, it’s not a very good joke.  … I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. … I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It’s not your fault that it was misunderstood, it’s my fault. That it was misunderstood.” … So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I’m sorry about it and I’ll try to do better in the future.”

This is all well and good, but The Stiletto is still curious as to what Letterman’s intent was in telling that joke - which, BTW, made A-Rod out to be a child molester, and he’s not quite that despicable (last item) yet - as well as the one calling Palin “a slutty stewardess” - which demeans not only her, but all flight attendants.   

BMW is developing a car for senior citizens that will slow down and guide itself to a stop by the side of the road, and notify the authorities of its location if the driver suffers a heart attack, stroke or other medical emergency and can no longer drive, reports Wired’s “Autopia” blog:

The German automaker launched the project with the country’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which wants to improve senior citizens’ quality of life. BMW claims the Emergency Stop Assistant system utilizes a lot of technology already available on its cars and says it will allow seniors to feel more secure on the road.

“Our primary aim is to avoid accidents caused by health-related loss of control - or at least to reduce the severity of such accidents,” Ralf Decke, project manager for Senior Smart at BMW, said in a statement.

The electronic nanny was born of the automaker’s Smart Senior project to develop a wide range of technology intended to make driving easier and safer for seniors.

Miriam Kamens, 10, was flying alone to visit her grandparents in Cleveland, OH. Her father Jonathan Kamens walked her to her gate at Logan International Airport, and craned his neck to watch her walk through the doors to her plane accompanied by Continental Airlines employees. Somehow, she ended up in Newark, N.J., reports WCVB (Channel 5-Boston):

"I realized she was missing when I got a phone call from my father-in-law saying, 'Where's Miriam?'" Kamens said. …

"For 45 minutes I was panic stricken. I didn't know where my daughter was," Kamens said. …

Miriam was escorted by an airline employee to the wrong plane. Her paperwork hadn't been checked.

"The flight crew on the Cleveland flight was supposed to check that they had the right number of passengers, and they didn't do that," Kamens said. "The number of people who must have failed to do what they're supposed to do is mind boggling."

A spokeswoman for Continental confirmed there were two flights departing simultaneously from a single doorway and miscommunication among staff resulted in Miriam boarding the wrong aircraft.

Continental insists Miriam was never out of the sight of its staff, and was rebooked to Cleveland later that day. The airline is willing to refund the $75 fee Kamens paid for her travel as an unaccompanied minor but he vows: “You can bet they’ll be refunding a lot more than that fee by the time I’m done with them.”

[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]

Have A Purpose In Life? You Might Live Longer

- HealthDay News, June 16, 2009

Not Every Child Is Secretly A Genius

- Chronicle of Higher Education via OpinionJournal.com, June 16, 2009

James Allen Wilson, who worked in the billing department of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center between 2003 and 2007, has been sentenced to four years, eight months in prison after pleading guilty one count each of identity theft, insurance fraud and grand theft for stealing patient information to defraud insurance companies of $354,000, reports the Los Angeles Times:

The hospital had sent letters in December to more than 1,000 patients, warning them that their personal information had been found during a search of the home of Wilson was charged with using the information of 12 of the victims, all of them Los Angeles Unified School District employees who had filed workers' compensation claims, to bill insurance companies more than $1.3 million for medical treatment that was never provided.

Prosecutors say Wilson’s scam generated $354K – and he also pleaded guilty to two counts of failure to file income taxes in 2005 and 2007.

In addition to jail time, Wilson was ordered to pay back every dollar in restitution to L.A. Unified, as well as $62K in back taxes and penalties to the CA Franchise Tax Board.

† Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech: Contemplating Obama’s Cairo speech, The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer believes President Barack Hussein Obama “position[s] himself as hovering above mere mortals, mere country, to gaze benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him where ignorant armies clash by night, blind to the common humanity that only he can see”:

Traveling the world, he brings the gospel of understanding and godly forbearance. We have all sinned against each other. We must now look beyond that and walk together to the sunny uplands of comity and understanding.”

“[T]he problem with Obama's transcultural evenhandedness,” notes Krauthammer is that “[t]here are rights and wrongs in all human affairs … [b]ut that doesn't mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight.” He adds:

For all of his philosophy, the philosopher-king protests too much. Obama undoubtedly thinks he is demonstrating historical magnanimity with all these moral equivalencies and self-flagellating apologetics. On the contrary. He's showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect.

Distorting history is not truth-telling but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one's own country.

† Mortgage Loan Modification Less Than Advertised: The New York Times reports that “housing counselors in the New York area have fielded hundreds of calls along the lines of: ‘How do I get one of those 2 percent mortgages?’”:

The answer has often been, “Well, it’s not that simple.”

Housing advocates who work with homeowners in foreclosure or on the verge of it say that while the loan modification program could help thousands of New Yorkers, it has been slow to get off the ground and a majority of people who have applied for help have yet to hear whether they will receive it.

One thing is clear: Homeowners who have a HUD-approved housing counselor championing their cause are more likely to get a modification than those who try it on their own. Housing counselors say they often understand the program’s guidelines better than the people answering phones for lenders, so they know how to pursue a case aggressively.

The paper offers some tips gleaned from interviews with housing counselors - but they may or may not work, as no one seems to understand the guidelines for eligibility under the Obama administration’s dysfunctional homeowners’ bailout program. (Raise your hand if you want to entrust your healthcare to the federal government, too.)

† Never Mind Marxism. Will An Obama Administration Be Totalitarian?: Media Daily News reports that a May 26 article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the upcoming tax evasion trial of local resident Robert Kahre “drew dozens of comments from apparent sympathizers” and now “a federal grand jury has subpoenaed the names, phone numbers, IP addresses and other identifying information” about every one of these folks. Here’s more info from the paper’s editor, Thomas Mitchell, who calls the subpoena “[t]antamount to killing a gnat with an A-bomb”:

There was no indication what they were looking for or what crime, if any, was being investigated, just a blanket subpoena for voluminous and detailed records on every private citizen who dared to speak about a federal tax case. …

Our attorneys are now trying to see if we can limit the scope of the information sought.

What the prosecutors don't appear to understand is that we don't have most of what they are seeking. We don't require registration. A person could use a fictitious name and e-mail address, and most do. We have no addresses or phone numbers.

Mitchell wonders about the “time, effort and tax-funded expenses are being expended by the U.S. attorney's office to track down a bunch of posturing blowhards squandering their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination?” – but legal experts tell Media Daily News that the paper has a good case that “the subpoena violates the people's free speech rights because it's too broad” and that there is legal precedent supporting this argument.

† Skinny Is Out, Curvy Is In: In the fashion world’s equivalent of “Nixon goes to China” Alexandra Shulman, the editor of the British edition of Vogue,  sent what The Times of London is describing as a “strongly worded letter” to top designers in Europe and America that accuses them of forcing editors of fashion magazines to hire models with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” by supplying them with “minuscule” garments for their photoshoots.” The paper reports:

In nearly two decades at the helm of Britain’s leading fashion magazine [she] has tended to side with the industry in the argument over the size of catwalk models.

In the past she has argued that “not many people have actually said to me that they’ve looked at my magazine and decided to become anorexic”. She still maintains that the use of thinner models is “not a health issue” but is simply out of step with what her readers wish to see.

Nevertheless, her decision to take on the top fashion houses has been hailed as a positive step by campaigners and by Baroness Kingsmill, who headed the Model Health Inquiry in 2007 for the British Fashion Council. …

Ms Shulman told The Times: “I don’t want to be too specific about it, but it was very recently. I found myself saying to the photographers, ‘Can you not make them look too thin?”

The problem had become more pressing in recent months. “Quite often I hear the fashion editor say when talking about one model or another, ‘I don’t think she will fit the clothes’. Some of the girls she was talking about … were already very thin.” …

Ms Shulman sent the letter to all the world’s major designers. Domenico Gabbana, John Galliano, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Donatella Versace were all sent the missive noting her concerns. Designers at Burberry, Balenciaga, Valentino and Lanvin were also sent the letter.

She does not believe all designers are culpable, but said: “People say why don’t we use size 12 models. I can’t if I’m going to do any new Prada, Dior, Balenciaga or Chanel collections.”

Shulman  admits that Vogue is now frequently “retouching” photographs to make models look larger – which, of course, raises a whole ‘nother set of ethical concerns, though one could argue that fashion magazines are not expected to apply the same journalistic standards to their images as a news magazine.

† Sexists And The Feminists Who Enable Them: In a follow-up to her thoughts on David Letterman’s sexist and crass “jokes” about Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) and her 14-year old daughter, Willow, The New Agenda co-founder Amy Siskind discusses the larger implications:

It's not your mother's feminism. In fact, it's so revolutionary that the word "feminism" is being updated. The next wave is here. The players are different. The words are different. The asks are different. The weapons and tactics are different. Even the feel is different.

We knew it was coming. We just didn't know when or what it would look like. Quietly, cloaked in the unfortunate choice of David Letterman's words, the next wave has washed ashore, sight unseen by our national media. This explains why the media's constant query of "where are the feminists" is not being answered. The "feminists" are still there, yes. But the media is peeking under the wrong rocks as this next wave sweeps calmly over them and reaches our country's shore. …

Women who have had abortions are joining hands with those whose religion forbids it. Men who voted against Proposition 8 are joining hands with lesbian couples. Women who pulled the lever for a Republican are joining hands with men who voted for a Democrat. All uniting in the name of common decency and the desire to make things better for the next generation. It's a "how did we let it come to this" type of moment. 

CNET News notes that “For most of Saturday, CNN.com had no stories about the massive protests on behalf of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was reported by the Iranian government to have lost to the sitting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” Reports The Nation, “If you want to get the latest on the opposition protests in Iran, you should be reading blogs, watching YouTube or following Twitter updates from Tehran, minute-by-minute.”

A federal court in Buenos Aires dismissed counterfeiting charges against one Marcos Ribles, 65, because the phony 100-peso Argentine notes and U.S. $50 bill he tried to pass off were "so clumsy and crude" owing to the “shoddy printing and poor-quality paper” that "they could not be accepted by most people," reports The Associated Press.

[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]

Have Unused Medications?

- HealthDay News, June 12, 2009

Survey: Family Time Eroding As Internet Use Soars

- The Associated Press, June 15, 2009

For the past two months, Beccah Beushausen, a 26-year old social worker who lives in Mokena, IL, had been posting the progress of a troubled pregnancy on her blog, and has been writing about her faith-driven decision to carry the child to term. It was all a hoax, reports Los Angeles Times:

[T]housands of abortion foes from across the nation logged onto a blog run by the woman who said she was unmarried, pregnant and identified herself only as "B" or "April's Mom." People said they prayed that God would save her pregnancy. They e-mailed her photos of their children, shared tales of heartache and redemption and sent letters of support and gifts to an Oak Lawn, Ill., post office box.

As more people were drawn to the blog - which included biblical quotes, antiabortion messages and a soundtrack of inspirational Christian pop songs - advertisers were queuing up. By the evening of June 7, when the woman blogged that April Rose had survived a home birth only to die hours later, her website had nearly 1 million hits.

There was only one problem with the unfolding tragedy: None of it was true.

The baby in the photos, swaddled in white blankets, was a doll.

"I have that exact doll in my house," said Elizabeth Russell, a doll maker from Buffalo, N.Y., who had been following the blog. "As soon as I saw that picture, I knew it was a scam."

The following day, people vented their anger on dozens of Christian parenting websites.

"She needs to be exposed and held accountable," Russell said. …

"I know what I did was wrong," she said. "I've been getting hate mail. I'm sorry because people were so emotionally involved." There's no evidence that Beushausen benefited financially in any significant way or committed any crime.

Still, Russell said, she does not understand why anyone would create such a tale and prey on people's emotions.

Beushausen said she really did lose a son shortly after birth in 2005.

She started her blog in March to help deal with that loss and to express her antiabortion views, she said.

 Beushausen has posted this apology on her blog.

The New York Times calls her “the loneliest woman in New York” – which is kind, compared to what University of Chicago cultural anthropologist Richard A. Shweder describes her as - “the succubus to Bernie’s incubus”:

She used to get foil highlights every six weeks - her shade is Soft Baby Blonde, and she was religious about color - but the last time she called her Manhattan salon, Pierre Michel on East 57th Street, she was told not to return. “I understand,” she said, according to the salon’s co-owner.

The Amagansett florist who decorated her husband’s annual corporate party in Montauk with lismachia, Queen Anne’s lace and thistles has banned her as a client, saying she will not associate with the wife of one of history’s most notorious financial scoundrels.

Even her sons, Mark and Andrew, who have not been charged by prosecutors but are banned by their lawyers from contact with their parents, have begun to refer to “Mom” and “Dad” as “Ruth” and “Bernie,” according to family friends.

Ruth Madoff, 68, has not been charged with any crime or even questioned by prosecutors. But she has become perhaps the most vilified spouse of a financial rogue in history. … Although no evidence has emerged to date that she conspired or even knew about her husband’s crimes, her plight has evoked no apparent public sympathy. She has been pilloried and turned into a pariah. …

Rightly or wrongly, she is viewed as an unrepentant beneficiary of ill-gotten wealth, a petite and well-dressed embodiment of the collective, bloated greed that helped topple the stock market and the housing industry.