THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† The Uh-Oh-prah Effect?: University of Maryland economists Craig Garthwaite and Timothy Moore reckon that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement netted Barack Obama 1,015,559 votes in the caucuses and primaries by correlating subscriptions to O: The Oprah Magazine and sales figures for books she has touted with results from various polling precincts. A Fordham University political scientist had previously determined that the boost Oprah gave to Obama came at her expense (second item).
† Some Questions Are Best Not Asked: UCLA School of Law professor Richard Sander filed a writ petition asking the state Supreme Court to direct the CA State Bar to provide historical bar exam data, reports The Recorder.
Joining his efforts to compel the State Bar to honor his request for the data - which it has repeatedly rejected on privacy concerns - are the former State Bar governor Joe Hicks and the California First Amendment Coalition. For Sander’s purposes the data can be redacted to shield individual test takers’ identities, according to The Recorder:
Sander has been trying since 2006 to get the Bar's data to build on a 2004 study he did that suggested affirmative action might be responsible for black students' high bar failure rates nationwide. He postulated that race-based preferences had opened the doors of elite law schools to minority students who were academically unprepared, and that as a result, there were far fewer black lawyers in 2004 than there would have been if more minority students had attended - and thrived - at less elite law schools. …
Sander and his allies have previously tried to reassure the Bar that the information would be kept confidential, and to allay any fear that they had an agenda to use the information to undermine affirmative action.
CFAC Executive Director Peter Scheer maintains that the records Sander wants are public, and should not be treated as proprietary by the State Bar, and adds that what’s really going on is that “some people don't want the research to continue to its conclusion, because it may be a conclusion that is politically incorrect, and that is something that should not even be considered by the State Bar.”
† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob rejected a request by GeorgiaCarry.org to allow licensed gun owners to pack heat in unsecured areas of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport while its suit against Atlanta and airport officials for declaring the entire airport a “gun-free zone” is pending, reports The Associated Press:
The legal showdown erupted when the state law that allows people with a concealed weapons permit to carry guns into restaurants, state parks and on public transportation took effect on July 1. …
GeorgiaCarry.org sued the city and the airport, claiming that the airport qualifies as mass transportation under the new state law. …
The judge's ruling was a defeat for GeorgiaCarry.org, a two-year-old group that has won a string of victories reversing city and county firearm restrictions around the state.
According to AP, Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) supports the lawsuit, and would like his wife to be able to carry a gun when walking between the parking lot and the airport's terminal, but critics argue that allowing licensed guns owners to have their weapons on them would “pose a dire threat” and that an accidental discharge “could cause mayhem.”
Regardless of whether GeorgiaCarry.org ultimately prevails, House Homeland Security Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) has threatened Congressional intervention if the Transportation Security Administration doesn’t ban guns from parking lots and other public areas of airports nationwide.
† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, How Did We Get From A Knowledge Economy To An Unskilled And Illiterate Economy?): Arthur Mkoyan, 17, a 4.0 student and the valedictorian at his high school in Fresno, CA, had been accepted to the University of California-Davis to study chemistry. His achievement is even more impressive when you consider that Arthur is not native-born.
Arthur came to the U.S. as a toddler when his parents fled Armenia after his father, Ruben, “exposed corruption at the government office where he worked; the family's house was burned down and a shop they owned was ransacked,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denied an asylum plea because it was not persuaded of a “well-founded fear of persecution” if he returned to Armenia. While Ruben was held at an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in AZ, federal immigration officials magnanimously agreed to put off deporting the family just long enough for Arthur to give the valedictory address at his graduation.
On that bittersweet day, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) gave Arthur one heckuva graduation present: She introduced a private bill in the Senate that freed his father from confinement and staves off deportation proceedings while the bill is pending. The Chronicle reports that Arthur got another unbelievably generous gift from Sherry Heacox of Danville, CA: She has pledged to foot the bill for Arthur’s studies – not just tuition, which runs $25,000 a year for residents of the state, but also fees, books, room and board.
Heacox and her husband, Hank, just finished putting their daughter through the University of California-Santa Barbara, and are not wealthy by any means, but she was so upset over Arthur’s plight that she decided, “Sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is.”
If Arthur’s past academic history is any guide, by the time Feinstein’s bill comes up for a vote two years hence he will be entering his junior year as a straight-A student. Though fewer than three percent of such private bills pass, according to the Chronicle, The Stiletto hopes that Feinstein’s colleagues will see the wisdom of granting permanent residency to a brilliant young man and his family.
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