For the Record

I’m exactly a third of a century old today.

Seems like yesterday I was saying “one-quarter.”  Next up is the dreaded two-fifths mark.

Still Upset?

About yesterday’s ruling in Arizona?  If you’re in Missouri, and you’re registered to vote, you can do something sooner than you think.  Like, this coming Tuesday.

You get out there and vote for Chuck Purgason and Allen Icet, for Senate and Auditor, respectively, on the Republican ticket.  Do you honestly think that Roy Blunt, Mrs. Antolinez, Tom Danforth and Susan Montee are going to solve the immigration question in the way it should be solved?  I know a State Auditor has no direct authority over immigration, but Missouri’s Auditors are always considered to be credible fodder for future Senate and Governor elections.  Obviously, a U.S. Senator Chuck Purgason can made a difference right away.

Mongrels and Mutants. Oh No.

The Hill:  President Obama calls African-Americans a ‘mongrel people’

Nothing but the dogs in them.

UK Telegraph:  Mayor calls Asda shoppers ‘mutants’

“Be Normal:  Shop at Needless Markup.”

TMZ:  Obama Brought to Stammering Halt … By Mel Gibson

Damn you, Mel, sneaking off with the teleprompter like that.  How many times have we told you not to do that?

P-D:  Woman charged with running down ex-boyfriend with car in Clayton

Beyond all her legal troubles, she’s going to have trouble finding another boyfriend.

5:  Police: Florissant bank robber shoves money down his pants

Most guys who are on one of the blue pills are pretty much doing the same thing.

P-D:  Ohio signs for ‘Wildman Road’ swiped too often

Forbid that Wildman Road should have junctions with Routes 69, 187, 420 or 666.

5:  Police: Naked man sets prosthetic leg on fire with crack pipe

The headline is pretty much self-explanatory.

LAT:  One in five Californians say they need mental health care

Meaning the three in five Californians are in denial.

P-D:  A hunt for the most boring story

By all means, tell us, so I can make fun of you for harping on it.

5:  11-year-old gamer receives porn on Xbox

______________ public education __________ sex-ed class____________.  You can fill in the blanks yourself.

Thursday’s Other Stuff

*  When all else fails, blame God.

*  Mazel Tov, Amar’e!

*  Chief Justice John Roberts is in Australia, as a witness to the Oz debate over the necessity of a Bill of Rights.  Notice that the kind of people saying that there should be one are saying so in order to protect the “rights” of “asylum seekers.”  I was hoping Australia would be thinking more along the lines of a 1st Amendment and 2nd Amendment, and actually considering that native born whites deserve them.  Alas, it’s too much to ask.

It’s a New Day (Today’s 48th State Stack of Stuff)

*  Lost in the hubbub over 1070 is that Constitutional Carry goes into affect in Arizona today, meaning that CCW is considered a fundamental right (i.e. does not need a permit) for those 21 and older who aren’t legally prohibited from owning concealable firearms (“handguns”).  What I’m about to say isn’t going to go over too well in certain circles.  I don’t think it’ll be a disaster, but I would have been more comfortable with the state reducing the permit cost and/or lengthening the time validity of a permit and/or reducing the number of hours of training.  I think there are just times when a card permit in hand while carrying a gun is technically and physically safer for everyone.  And I think it’s got to do with race, especially black and Hispanic.  A card permit for Arizonans will still remain available for the purposes of reciprocity.

*  It looks like, after a day of hootin’ and hollerin’, that the other side finally understands that it actually won very little with yesterday’s ruling.

*  Now, you see?  They can still do this today, in spite of yesterday’s ruling.  It’s just going to take awhile for the state to be able to force recalcitrant law enforcement jurisdictions to go along.

*  Boycott?  What boycott?

*  Hard come, but ALIPAC wants to make it easy go.

*  Here’s a little hint of what Arizonans are trying to keep from happening in their state.

*  Chicago’s Mayor bemoans the lack of FBI assistance in squelching gang violence.  Even though his Police Chief is a former FBI agent.

Richard Daley should shake hands with Jan Brewer.  She can empathize.

Taxing Matters

Steinbrenner heirs, John F’n Ketchup Man Kerry and Russ Carnahan to change their personal situations to allay criticism of tax hypocrisy or avoidance.

Speaking of the late George Steinbrenner, here’s something I did not know about him, that he was a convicted felon from 1974 to 1989.  Also, if they let him into the HOF, then they can’t very well keep Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson out, which I agree with, but I could also add Curt Flood.

From the Home Office in St. Louis

Mayor Slay’s Top 10 Reasons to Vote.

My critique:

10.  This is a bromide I’m sick of hearing.  To believe this means that you must think that government has the right to fuck around with you if you don’t vote, or that the only people who have civil liberties/rights/privileges are those who regularly participate in the two-card monte bait-and-switch games known as American elections.

9.  First off, it’s a civil privilege, not a right.  Second, you have as much right not to exercise a civil liberty/right/privilege as you to do exercise it.

8.  I’ve said it before on this medium, and I’ll say it again:  In today’s America, elections are usually procedurally effective but substantively ineffective ways to affect public policy change.  What I mean by that is that, barring voter fraud, (which you can’t necessarily do in St. Louis City), the face with the most vote wins, but even if you elect Republicans to everything, you still get a lot of left-wing policy out of government, especially on the Federal level.

7.  I’ll skip this one

6.  I definitely agree with this one

5.  But will they hear it beyond the ruling class agitprop?

4.  With my mouth?  The only thing I’d make at polling places is enemies.

3.  I’m supposed to be chummy with the kind of people who don’t keep their dogs from pissing on my tires?

2.  One could only hope that the only kind of person that voted in St. Louis City would be old white women from the South Side.  We’d have a lot less craziness out of City Hall.

1.  Not if you’re in the military serving overseas, but it does count twice if you’re dead.

Who Knew There Were Such Big Profit Margins On Generic Food?

ABC:  Al Qaeda No. 2 Threatens More U.S. Attacks

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda’s No. 3 is waiting for the opposite.

P-D:  Huge blast at China factory kills 12, scores hurt

But won’t impact Apple’s production schedule.  Oh no.

Wired:  iPad Owners Are ‘Selfish Elites.’ Critics Are ‘Independent Geeks.’ Discuss.

Hey, don’t be calling iMaxiPad owners “selfish” — They ARE donating big money to ending global warming, after all!

Daily Mail:  The £10 billion king of discount supermarket chain Aldi dies a recluse aged 88

Scandalously, his pantry was full of brand name groceries.

P-D:  2 men convicted in Philadelphia officer’s death

I looked, and the answer is yes.  They’re gonna live a long full life on death row, probably in the same cell block as Mumia.

P-D:  Lt. Gov. Kinder visits El-Amin in federal prison

Was it a conjugal visit?

Wednesday’s Tidbits

What could possibly have gone wrong?  You know something was going to go wrong, just by looking at the picture.

*  Three-quarters of a mile?  What kind of rifle has that sort of range?  (Hint:  I’m not buying the story.  I think the lifeguard was deliberately targeted.)

*  Ironically, Rush H. Limbaugh, Sr. was part of President Eisenhower’s ambassador corps that helped shape the Indian legal system post-independence.

*  “Power hungry,” “unkind” and “30-50″ describe me.  So why am I not an iMoron?

*  A WSJ writer thinks that Microsoft becoming a revenue/dividend machine would force it to spend more wisely.  What it would actually mean is that they’re admitting they’re no longer a growth company, and will hitch their wagon to the cash cows of Windows and Office until they stop giving milk.

*  Once again, black civil rights groups and politicians wanted these disparate sentencing schemes for crack vs powder in the 1980s.

*  Okay, stupid media.  Do you think you can glean an object lesson from this?  I’ll give you a hint:  Tea Party is a movement, not an organization.  Therefore, its leaders and foot soldiers will have debates and disputes with each other.  (Okay, that was a little more than a hint.)  You get a hundred or so “journalists” together on a ListServ, and they all sheepishly baaaahhhh around the same mindset within seconds.

*  Let me turn this into an analogy for you.  If a crowd at a Yankee game vs the visiting Red Sox was 99% Yankee fan and 1% Red Sox fan, would you call that a mixed crowd?  Would you say that a hammer and a nail have a rivalry?  Would you call a business arrangement between Wal*Mart and Freddy’s corner shop a merger?  Okay then, why is anti-Semitic violence in Germany, which is about 95-5 between Muslim and white rightist, called a “shared alliance?”

Open Book Test

AP:

FBI director defends bureau over test cheating

WASHINGTON – FBI Director Robert Mueller  told Congress on Wednesday that he does not know how many of his agents cheated on an important exam on the bureau’s policies, an embarrassing revelation that raises questions about whether the FBI knows its own rules for conducting surveillance on Americans.

The Justice Department inspector general is investigating whether hundreds of agents cheated on the test. Some took the open-book test together, violating rules that they take it alone. Others finished the lengthy exam unusually quickly, current and former officials said.

The test was supposed to ensure that FBI agents understand new rules allowing them to conduct surveillance and open files on Americans without evidence of criminal wrongdoing. If agents can’t pass that test without cheating, civil liberties groups ask, how can they follow them?

Asked about an Associated Press report about the cheating investigation, Mueller said he does not know how widespread the problem was.

“I’ve got a general idea, but I do not know how many,” Mueller testified. “And I am not certain the IG knows how many either. He has pointed out instances orally to me where there may be persons in a particular office where it was widespread and may be attributable to a lack of understanding and confusion about the procedures.”

In Columbia, S.C., for instance, agents said they got approval from the FBI policy office to print the test in advance and use it as a study guide, according to a letter to the inspector general from the FBI Agents Association. The head of the policy office later said that wasn’t true, the letter said.

Making a test easier to pass, in Columbia, South Carolina.

Let me spell it out for you, as this isn’t a spelling test:

A-F-F-I-R-M-A-T-I-V-E A-C-T-I-O-N

SB 1070 Put in Cryogenic Storage

UPDATE:  I’m writing this update at a time later than I wrote the original post, but I’m putting it at the top of the post instead of after the original material, and in bold text, because this is important.

Please, everybody chill freaking out!  Go take a cold shower, and by that, I literally mean a cold shower.

This judge’s ruling has been taken way out of context, not only by some people on our side of the aisle, but also the illegal alien rabble and their white leftist enablers.  Read this whole post to find out why.  To those of you on our side of the issue, it’s hardly the end of the world, far from it.  Don’t go calling for a revolution, don’t demand that the judge in this case be hanged from the highest tree in the country.  (Do think about November 2, though.  Do think about August 24 if you’re in Arizona.)  To the other side, you didn’t win anything, you just got A FEW provisions of a law you don’t like TEMPORARILY put on hold.  To both sides of this issue, notice that of twelve major provisions of SB 1070, the U.S. Justice Department didn’t even challenge six of them, so those will become enforceable law in just a few hours.  Of the six the DOJ did challenge, the judge found for Arizona in two cases, for the DOJ in four cases, but NOT PERMANENTLY.  To net it out, this is a PROCEDURAL decision based on an emergency appeal from the DOJ, not a final say on the matter.

This is a hold on certain important parts of the law, not a ruling of the constitutionality of the law itself.

*  It took the judge 36 pages to stay part of a 17-page law?  That’s lawyers for you.

*  It’s a little surprising that she stayed the parts that she did, as from her line of questioning last week, it did not seem like she was going to stay the parts that she did.  She seemed to show her hand that the “reasonable suspicion” clause was OK with her, from the fact that she just grilled Kneedler over that part.  However, I’m going to have to say it a thousand times in this post, so here’s the first — This ruling wasn’t about her opinion, it was about what she thought other judges would do. Or, to put it another way, the purpose of the hearing wasn’t constitutionality, it was to delay what “some” (ahem grrr) think to be a “bad law” or portions thereof in advance of a constitutional showdown.  She might personally or professionally have no problem with the “reasonable suspicion” clause, but that wasn’t her purview here — she is bound to put it on hold if she thinks that there’s a “good enough” (see below) chance that other Federal judges that could hear this case, either on the trial level in Phoenix, at the 9th Circuit in S.F., or SCOTUS, might knock them back.  If I were in her shoes, I would have probably ruled in the exact same way she did.

*  Democrats/libs benefit in the very short term, but just this partial stay of 1070 by itself flipped another 10 House seats from D to R this November, ceteris paribus.  As for the actual immigration situation, even a fully standing 1070 wouldn’t have made too big a difference, mainly because of ICE’s refusal to do its job, b/c BushObama are trying to enact amnesty by means of non-enforcement.

*  The media keep saying the “reasonable suspicion” clause being put on hold is the biggie, but, as you can read below, it comes down to “must” versus “may” semantics.  The whole net effect is that the parts of 1070 that can be enforced starting about 12 hours from now, in lieu of the parts that can’t be enforced yet, mean that a few big time dope/gun/human smugglers and terroristical boogie-woogies caught in certain illegal alien friendly AZ jurisdictions will beat the rap.  Really, beyond that, nothing changes.

*  This thing is inevitably going to SCOTUS.  No matter who wins at the trial level, the losing side will appeal.  AZ is in the 9th Circus appellate district, so they’ll rule against it.  And of course, SCOTUS will take up a rotten ruling by the 9th, because SCOTUS has had to do a lot of that in recent years.  I don’t see a SCOTUS ruling until June 2012, which, of course, will affect Presidential electoral politics.

*  Several years ago, there was a proposal to create another Federal appellate circuit, mainly to get AZ out of the 9th, and to add a few other western states to it.  It ever got much of anywhere, but if it did, and assuming that the judges of this new appellate circuit were at least fairly conservative, (which, compared to the 9th, isn’t a very high bar to flop over), I get the feeling that the judge who made this ruling today would have let far more of 1070 stand.  Her rationale wasn’t what she thought, it was what the Feds’ chances were based on the route 1070 will take through the FedJud.  And this road inevitably goes through San Francisco.  If AZ were in a different appellate circuit, she might have let more of 1070 stand, as she would have thought that a more conservative appellate circuit would let more of it stand.  Obviously, SCOTUS is the only SCOTUS in the country.

Now, after having read the whole thing, here are the important parts:

The judge allowed these parts of 1070/2162 to take effect:

* The ban on sanctuary cities

* The provision I term the “Jamiel Shaw” law

* The illegal+smuggling minors state felony

* The traffic violation for stopping a car in traffic to pick up day laborers

* Changes to the state law about employers knowingly hiring, having to use E-Verify

* The new gang/illegal fund

* The new state crime that disallows people (citizens or not) to cram jam illegals into houses or cars

* Seizing cars that are used to transport 10+ illegal aliens at a time

The last two provisions in italics that she allowed to stand are ones that the Feds wanted her to stay.  She’s not staying the enforcement of those two (i.e. allowing them to be enforced), because she thinks the Feds don’t have much of a chance of getting them overturned in the Federal courts, not even in the 9th.  The others, the Feds made no argument about, so they’re going to remain enforceable just by default.

Here are the parts that are put on hold, because she thinks the Feds have a chance of overturning them somewhere in the Federal judiciary (like, duh, AZ is in the 9th Circus, so of course they’d overturn these parts):

* The requirement that cops check immigration status upon “reasonable suspicion”

* The requirement that legal aliens carry their legal alien papers

* Applying for or seeking work as an illegal alien being a criminal violation

* The part that allows warrantless arrests of illegals who have committed a crime that the Yankee government would want to start deportation proceedings over (mostly likely to be used for drugs, weapons, terorrism, human smuggling)

***

In her reasoning, the judge thinks that the Feds might be able to prove pre-emption somewhere along the way because they don’t have the resources to process the tsunami of reported illegals that 1070 would alert the Feds to.  However, this doesn’t mean that it will be declared unconstitutional for that reason, or that she thinks it will, or that she believes it is; it’s only grounds enough to halt the enforcement of the “reasonable suspicion” part for now.  Of course, it’s a stupid argument — The Federal gov’t is running a huge debt, and I guess using that reasoning, then no Federal law should be enforced, and no state or local government should be able to tell the Feds that a Federal law is being violated, b/c it would financially strain the Federal government.  The big loophole here is that the “must” requirement for cops is put on ice for now, but she didn’t preclude “may.”  All 1070 was meant to do in this case is to force illegal alien-happy jurisdictions to check when they otherwise wouldn’t check; e.g. Tucson PD haven’t, but Maricopa County Sheriff would and have been all along.  Obviously, ICE’s refusal to enforce was and is and will continue to be the big bottleneck, even if parts of 1070 weren’t put on ice (no pun intended) today.

(UPDATE:  Let me clarify that part.  Please, try to grasp the following nuance.  I know it’s hard, but if you can grok this, then you can understand why you shouldn’t be so mad at this judge’s ruling today if you’re on my side of the fence on this issue, nor that happy if you’re on the other side.  This section of 1070 being put aside temporarily DOES NOT mean that AZ cops can’t check for immigration status based on reasonable suspicion.  The purpose for that section of the law was to force recalcitrant law enforcement jurisdictions in Arizona and its officers to do this when it otherwise would not.  Joe Arpaio and his deputies have been doing this for quite awhile, while in contrast, the City of Phoenix P.D.’s officers have not, because they’re not allowed to, because the Mayor and Police Chief of Phoenix are big time Hispanderers.  This part of the law being enjoined temporarily doesn’t mean that Arpaio has to stop, it only means that the state law forcing Phoenix P.D. and its officers to start is temporarily on hold.  Note that Phoenix is in Maricopa County, and Arpaio and his deputies have just as much enforcement power in the City of Phoenix as the Phoenix P.D. does.  State DPS Officers, equivalent to the MO Highway Patrol or the IL State Police, have jurisdiction over the entire state, and since the DPS in Arizona, like the Highway Patrol in Missouri and the State Police in Illinois, are directly under the control of the Governor, the AZ DPS Officers will do the checks, as they have been doing all along.  That’s good because in some parts of AZ, mainly Tucson southward, all the law enforcement agencies and their leaders are Hispanderers — At least in Phoenix, Arpaio and Maricopa County can come in and do what Phoenix won’t.  But in a county like Pima/Tucson, where pretty much all the king’s horses and all the king’s men already came out and said they weren’t going to comply with 1070, the DPS can ride in and save the day.  And guess what?  They can do that right now, even without SB 1070.  Ironically, the sanctuary city ban of 1070 still stands, the DOJ didn’t even try to get that part enjoined.  So while the state, FOR NOW, can’t make Phoenix P.D. officers check immigration status based on “reasonable suspicion,” as of 2 AM Central Time tomorrow morning, July 29, 2010, the City of Phoenix cannot prohibit its city officials, law enforcement or civilian, from participating in Federal immigration investigations.  As of this moment, Phoenix is a sanctuary city.  Only for a few more hours, though.  Also, the part of SB 1070 that disallows sanctuary cities also applies to the state as a whole, so if a future Democrat or open borders Republican Governor orders the DPS to look the other way when it comes to illegal aliens, the Governor is violating state law, and could very well be impeached by the legislature, and/or brought up on criminal charges by the AG, though 1070 doesn’t stipulate a punishment for running afoul of the anti-sanctuary provisions.)

The judge thinks that the state crime of legal aliens not carrying papers might be preemption because it could give incentive to every state and locality to have way different punishment schemes for not doing so.  However, she didn’t say that they can’t report legal aliens not carrying papers (which they have to do under Federal law) to ICE.

She put the seeking work as an illegal part on hold, mainly because the verve of Congressional target of enforcement on the issue of illegals getting jobs has been on the employers, except if the illegals use fake/stolen docs, in which case the employees are also targeted.

She put the warrantless/likelihood of deportation proceedings on hold because she thinks that those standards are too complex, and ever-changing, and beyond the knowledge and training of Arizona cops, <sarcasm>who must be so dumb that they can’t find their asses with both hands on their rear ends.</sarcasm>  She can’t seem to discern the reason for this part of the law, but like I said above, piggybacking on what the AR poster said last week, it’s to catch big time dope/human smugglers, dope dealers, gun runners and terrorist cabals.  I think if the state made that argument, then that would have given her grounds to say, “a ha, racial profiling!”  I think the state knows that argument, this Federal judge knows that argument, but it was all a matter of hear no, see no, speak no.

Not providing a link to the ruling PDF because it contains her name.  Even though her name is almost a household name by now.  And I think she’s getting a bit of a bad rap on conservative talk radio today — If she were the final say in the matter, I happen to think that very little would have been struck down, based on the questions she asked last week.  For those of you who know her identity, and want to jerk her chain around, don’t — Once again, this ruling of today isn’t her opinion, it’s her opinion of other judges’ opinions, vis-a-vis the arguments that she knows both sides will make in front of them, as they were made in front of her.  On top of that, just because she “enjoined” the few parts of 1070 that she did, shouldn’t even be interpreted to mean (in actuality, or her educated opinion) that the Feds have a better than even money chance to knock them off permanently up the ladder.  It might be that she gives the Feds a 25% chance to nullify the “reasonable suspicion” part up in the 9th circuit, and that’s a high enough chance for her to put that part on hold for now.  It’s just that wherever the line is in her head between a decent chance or no chance, the four parts that she stayed are over those odds, the rest are underneath those odds.

UPDATE 11 PM: Joe Arpaio was just on the Michael Savage show, and more or less confirmed just about everything I said here.  So if you don’t believe my decidedly unqualified position, (“what does that sonofabitch know, he’s not a lawyer”), I’m sure you can believe someone who is directly affected by SB 1070, its powers, and the judge’s decision today.

UPDATE 7/29: The judge’s ruling yesterday wasn’t the end of the procedural motions based on the DOJ’s emergency filing.  AZ will appeal this to the 9th Circus, which will surely find for the DOJ, both in a three-judge panel and en banc.  AZ will then appeal to SCOTUS, and they will hopefully find for AZ when they come back into session in early October on an expedited basis.  However, I should warn you again:  This is the procedural rancor, not the question of constitutionality. If, for example, SCOTUS issues a 7-2 ruling that the trial level judge of yesterday improperly violated long-standing Federal judicial precedent based on the proper procedure for dealing with facial challenges for the purpose of enjoining legislation, (all the hypothetical vulture flying out of my mouth and landing on Mars stories she postulated in her prose), that should not be interpreted to mean that SCOTUS would find 1070 wholly constitutional by a 7-2 margin when it gets to them on that basis.  Likewise, if SCOTUS finds for the DOJ in part or in whole in October, don’t freak out and think that SCOTUS will knock down 1070 when the constitutional proceedings get to them.  They’re two different questions, the procedural part being dealt with now, and the constitutional hearings starting in Federal District Court in Phoenix sometime in the next few months.

UPDATE 7/31: I’ve had a couple of back-and-forths with someone who disagrees with my lack of trepidation, and thought that it was the duty of the judiciary to discern the truth, and not protect each other, as s/he thinks I’m implying by saying that the judge in this matter based her decision on what she thought other judges would do.  Well, most times, it is the duty of the judiciary to discern the truth.  But you can wish in one hand…However, judges thinking about other judges is simply the nature of the legal arena of injunctive relief.  Once the constitutional hearings start, then obviously they should discern the truth and not “protect each other.”

A Trillion Here, a Trillion There, Pretty Soon It Starts Adding Up to Real Money

P-D:  Few blacks are watching Fox News

That’s true.  There are more blacks on Fox News than there are watching it.

Yahoo Sports:  Dez Bryant refuses the chores of a lowly rookie

Too bad for the veterans that forcing him to (fill-in-the-blank) while only in his underwear is something that he doesn’t find embarrassing.

Ben Maller:  Brett Favre says he could play till he’s 50?

What he means is that the can string us out on drama every late summer for the next ten years.

Daily Mail:  Bonfire of the quangos turns into a damp squib

Nothing really, just wanted to throw in something with “quango.”

5:  Detroit worries upcoming TV show will push ‘Murder City’ image

They could spread out some of the bad imagery by also doing a show about Phoenix entitled “Barely Illegal.”

Federal News Radio:  SIGIR: Defense can’t account for $8.7 billion

For you and me, that’s filthy rich.  For the Yankee military, it’s a rounding error.

Exurban League:  Obamas take 4 vacations in 1 month.

That’s what any decent caring empathetic Messiah should expect, at least one vacation a week.  C’mon people, don’t be such stingy bastards!

Guyism:  Police: Finger in the butt results in a knife fight

I can think of one finger that isn’t going anywhere anymore.

Tuesday’s Stuff

*  Ice-T just learned a fundamental lesson of life, in his 50s, no less — One bad turn deserves another.

*  You’re 20 years too late to the party.  Likewise, you didn’t actually think North St. Louis has so many Colorado Rockies fans, did you?  I’ll give you a hint:  CR, Crips Rule.

*  Welcome to Englandistan.  Remember, these are the “nazis” that wave the Israeli flag.

*  Cameron:  Opponents of Turkey in the EU are Islamophobes.

“I know Islam and the EU are compatible.  After all, we’re an Islamic country, and we’re in the EU.”

Take a hint, jackass:  It’s not religion per se.  It’s that I don’t like the idea of 72 million mostly non-white people having the legal right to run around Europe whenever they want and live wherever in Europe they want.

*  Reason Mag has a short missive about the rampant corruption in Illinois politics, while not once mentioning that the state has a Republican candidate for Governor.  It mentions Mark Jerk, AlexiG and Pat Quinn, but not Bill Brady.  Is everyone in the country but Ann Coulter and I blind to the fact that Bill Brady exists?  And let’s not forget that in articles like these, “Illinois” is basically a synonym for “Chicongo” and “Crook County” — Back out Crook County, and IL is a fairly normal state.

*  Obama hack David Poof thinks that the Senate race is “winnable” for AlexiG.  Remember, this is Obama’s old seat in a pretty much blue state, so it ought to be more than just “winnable.”  And notice he said nothing about Brady vs Quinn.

Today’s 48th State Stack of Stuff

*  Elton John might be a liberal, but he’s got enough sense not to let it get in the way of his making money.

*  Now I wonder what moron will want to boycott the Olsen twins.  That tea is made in New York, in case you’re that stupid.

*  What’s going on in Minnesota?  You mean it, too, could have a really conservative Governor who wants 1070-style laws for the state?

I knew there was a reason, other than just avoidance of a monopoly, that I liked Target better than Wal*Martinez.

The Birds and the Bees, 1920

Shorpy’s entries today have been really interesting, all from 1920.  See this, this and this.  The booklet shown in the third pic can be seen in its entirety here.

Notice the top right entry in the first item is from the St. Louis Department of Health.  Also the bottom right placard in the first item uses “whores” as an official term; it’s considered a bit too pejorative for official use today.

Need help from an amateur or professional historian:  Was there a particularly bad outbreak of gonorrhea about 1920?  If so, I could imagine that it happened for the same reason that the 1918 Spanish Flu happened, that being World War I.  For the first time, young American men were mass involved in military conflict outside the United States.  They probably picked up a lot of diseases from European prostitutes, and spread it back and forth between themselves and other soldiers and other prostitutes, and even other European women who weren’t morally loose but were destitute because of war damage, so they had no choice but to trade sex to soldiers for money.  (Likewise, this is where the first wave of mixed-race people in America came from after the WBTS — freed black women, without any economic prospects, sold themselves to the well-paid Union occupiers.)  Even not counting sex, the soldiers easily picked up non-sexual communicable diseases from each other and took them home in a big way.  Hence, the 1918 flu outbreak in America and much of the white world.

As for the booklet, I can provide some historical insights:

*  Page 10:  Note that an actual shower is said to be “equipment everyone can hope to use,” in contrast to the sponge bath, which was ubiquitous in the home environment at the time.  Most American homes didn’t have showers until after WWII.  While I said above that I was the first mass involvement for young American men overseas, II was even far more encompassing.  (For the United States, I was about 1.5 years in one theater.  II was more than 3.5 years and in two theaters, and another half if you don’t count North Africa as the European theater.)  By the time I came around, as you can read, it was already understood that daily cleaning was a necessary component to disease prevention.  But WWI didn’t involve enough men to convince the American public of that, such that the habit of daily or more frequent showering the military instilled into them would translate to civilian life.  That did happen after II — Not only did men actually want daily showers, they also convinced their wives that it was a good idea for them, too, and that’s when all new housing construction had showers, and when older houses were retrofitted with them.  (I think about a quarter of residential construction between the end of WWI and the Depression had showers.  Don’t quote me, though.)  Even in the 1920s, some bigger cities tended to have public baths or showers, mainly for men and boys.  The shower shown here is part of an open communal shower room.  I guess a private enclosed home shower wasn’t really considered, and this might make the statement I just made an urban legend.

While sponge baths were better than nothing, filthy water only has so many cleansing qualities.

*  Page 11:  They’re still screaming eight glasses of water a day, though people really don’t need that much according to credible research.  And why did we once think that evening water consumption was a bad idea?  I think this was because many people still had outside johns, and any late night trip to the bathroom that would obviously come from drinking too much before going to bed would mean having to go outside in the dark, and the trip would interrupt one’s sleep too much.  (Of course, they tell you how much sleep you should get.)

*  Page 12:  The third item has been disproven.  Certain infections make constipation inevitable, it has also been learned over the years.

*  Page 13:  Don’t try sleeping outside now!

*  Page 14:  “Self-abuse” here means masturbation.  Even in 1920, they knew it wouldn’t cause physical harm (i.e. blindness).  And today, it’s thought of as normal, not anything that precludes “vigorous manhood” or is indicative of “stupidity.”

*  Page 15-16:  Wet dreams.  Notice that in that time, it started some time between 15 and 17 in young men.  Now it’s a couple of years earlier.  This is indicative of the average age of puberty declining over the decades — The reason we’re allowed to know for that is better nutrition, and the reason is taboo for us to know is racial differences in the start of puberty.  Even frequent wet dreams isn’t considered a medical problem these days.

*  Page 17-18:  They didn’t understand then, or didn’t want to understand, how often men and teenage boys think about sex.  If thinking about sex necessarily gave you a boner, then no guy would ever be flaccid.  So that one has been debunked.

*  Page 22:  Actually, it does help a lot.  Certain hormones and endorphins are released during sex with other people.  That they didn’t know then.

*  Page 23:  The LeBron James of his day.  Aviators were truly the rock stars and role models of the 1920s.  If ole Charles Lindbergh’s not jacking off helped him fly across the Atlantic, then that was good enough reason for any young man not to play with himself.

*  Page 32:  They didn’t know the half of it.

*  Page 33:  They didn’t know the half of that, either.

*  Page 41:  Humans aren’t the only monogamous species.  Some eagles mate for life, and the father is intimately involved in the development of his chicks through many reproductive cycles between himself and the Mrs.

*  Page 42:  That’s what they all say.  Then or now.  It’s just that now, we don’t have any delusions.

*  Page 5 Women:  The definition of “lame” certainly has changed.

*  Page 7:  Notice the basketball is recommended for girls but not for boys.  I do think that high school basketball for girls and women was just as big or bigger than the same for boys and men in the early parts of the 20th Century in the United States.  Just a conjecture.

*  Page 9:  The platform shoes have only gotten more ridiculous

*  Page 11:  Notice they show no suggestive nudity in the woman bathing compared to the man.  And the only show a robed woman giving herself a sponge bath, not standing naked in a shower.  It’s as if they say women might like showers, but don’t back it up with a visage.

*  Page 14:  They tell the women to drink eight glasses of water a day, but they tell the men 6-10.  Then and now, men are expected to be more physically active, and therefore need more hydration.

*  Page 15-16:  Notice no body diagrams for the men.

*  Pages 17-27, disjointed:  Again, they give women information about both their own path to sexual maturity and what sex horomones do for both girls and boys — The boys only get information about themselves.  It’s only as if only women were to be trusted about the nature of both sexes and the physical process of child birth; men could only be trusted with information about men and only with words and not pictures or drawings; it was too salacious to tell men about the anatomy of a woman.  (It might get them to thinking about sex and give them a boner.)

*  Page 23:  I guess it’s easy to tell which side of the heredity vs environment debate they took.  Hereditarianism, and the racial sciences that were a natural implication, were pretty much the standard fare for official America until after WWII.  Environmentalism as an “intellectual” pursuit was taking shape in those years, but the Hitler atrocities were the killer app for that way of thinking, that which the enviros pointed to to demonstrate that “we were right,” the moral “superiority” of their position and the “defective” nature of hereditarianism.

*  Page 34:  Now, we call it the hook-up culture.

*  Page 36:  The Travelers Aid movement was founded in St. Louis.

*  Page 41:  True, but they weren’t heeding the message then, and we aren’t now.

*  Pages 43-48:  They were still plenty of decades away from the concept of a Mr. Mom, and of what has almost become a reversal in gender roles today.

Overall:  There is no implication that girls and women can masturbate, which they obviously can.  Men get no detailed drawings of their own unique anatomy, while women do.  They don’t suggest women do push-ups, sit-ups and knee bends, like they do men, even though those exercises by themselves are more beneficial for women than men, come to find out.  (Hint:  There’s only so much muscle development that can come from your own weight being your resistance.  Hence, the weight rooms in gyms that us guys love to use so much.  But that much muscle on a woman is just plain unattractive.)  And why didn’t they think women can’t get constipated?

I suppose that this was as far as Official America would tolerate discussion of sexual behavior.  Radio was just about to come into being, but talk of human sexuality on the public airwaves wouldn’t happen that explicitly until at least the mid-1960s.  I don’t know when the sex taboo was broken in mainstream Hollywood cinema, but I do know that there was a Doris Day movie from perhaps the early 1960s where she openly used the word “sex” a few times.  Any sex talk before then was purely a matter of implication outside official educational material.

Remember, the booklet was fundamentally about sex.  All the talk about sports and exercise and hobbies and great books were put there is suggested diversions to sex, and the discussion about expected family life was put there to show the consequences of correct behavior.  Everything else is an implication of the bad consequences of screwing around, for both genders.  This is why I’m guessing there was a gonorrhea/syphilis outbreak in the U.S. after WWI.

Barack Obama, 1983

This is from a Columbia University student weekly, March 10, 1983.  It’s mainly about campus anti-militarist organizations.

The future President spends five paragraphs on the re-implementation of the selective service system three years prior.  That being in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was President.  Obama also reacted to the Solomon Bill, which eventually did become law, linking registration to Federal student aid.  He noted that some of his fellow men wound up registering because they feared prosecution, but then later came back to him and said they wouldn’t have if they realized that the threats of prosecution were all bark and no bite.  Yeah, that was the case for the rest of that decade and the next, but something early in the decade after that caused the Feds not only to start enforcing selective service, but also to prosecute those that lie about their military service, medals and honors.  That being 9/11.  AFAIK, you can be prosecuted at any time in your life for never registering when you should have, no matter how old you are, even if you, like Obama’s contemporaries at Columbia, are well past the oldest age where a man could potentially be drafted, and that is 25.

Remember, this is the same President has no problem with everyone having to buy health insurance as a matter of Federal law, and giving you a five-year bid in Club Fed for not doing so.

The last four paragraphs also jump out at me.  The theory that rich interests bankrolled the rise of Hitler is tempting to the American mind, but it’s largely a distortion.  To the extent that Hitler had any help from very rich Germans, it was only after his Nazi Party gained credible chops, and ONLY because the rich Germans were more worried about the Communists and wealth expropriation, that they chose the Nazis as the lesser of the legitimate evils.  Obama contrasts that part of German history to the rise (at the time) of the Green Party in West Germany.  Now, if anything was bankrolled from afar, it was the West German Green Party, and even the Green Party of a reunited Germany to this day.  In the 1980s, I think it was a disjointed double-blind combination of American and Soviet intelligence services funding the Greens in West Germany to keep a lead anchor around the legs of the German economy, (the CIA’s interest), and I think the KGB thought that a Green Party that gained power in WG would kick Yankee and his nukes out, leaving the Soviets free to take over all of Europe.  Today, I think it’s entirely an American/CIA thing trying to do sorta the same thing — keep a united Germany’s economy as anchored down as possible, and to create an artificial “leftist threat” to scare conservative Germans into throwing in with the lamestream conservative party (Christian Democrats), when they might otherwise consider a more nationalist party.

Of course, all this might be moot, because I think the whole student anti-nuke anti-military movement of both the United States and Western Europe of the time that Obama gushes over was secretly funded by the KGB.  That water is not only under the bridge, but it’s flowed on down the river past the horizon, so forensic accounting might be impossible, unless there are some secret Soviet era documents that either haven’t been released yet, or have been and censored over here, to demonstrate Soviet bankrolling of American/Western European anti-nuke/military movements, all as a cynical ploy to disarm the “enemy.”  I think it’s entirely possible, because it has already been proven that a lot of “research” that the MSM ran with in the early Reagan years to “prove” that certain weapons systems amounted to “wasteful spending” was nothing more than agitprop of think tanks whose funding lines went straight back to Moscow, with a few way stations between them.

There are a few snarky references to South Africa, i.e. it’s apartheid policies.  Ironically, 1983 was the year that the American government essentially signed South Africa’s death warrant, by implementing the economic boycott.  The two people most responsible for it happening?  The answer is ironic, considering that this is a Barack Obama-authored article, but one is the President for whom he has so much scorn, Ronald Reagan, and a man who might be his 2012 opponent, Newt Gingrich.

How Times Have(n’t) Changed (Today’s Headlines)

Newsbusters:  Oliver Stone: ‘Jewish-Dominated Media’ Prevents Hitler from Being Portrayed ‘in Context’

Hey, Oliver Dumbass.  If someone wanted to kill you, would you be dwelling on ‘context’ with a rod in your face?

NYP:  Jacko kicked backo with Nazi vids

Maybe it was just a psychological effect of becoming white.

P-D:  Obama’s message to voters: Things could be worse

Now there’s a slogan to get 70,000 people to crowd into a football stadium to get inspired over.

Entertainment Weekly:  N.J. Governor Christie says ‘Jersey Shore’ is bad for his state

I’d be jealous too if I weighed more and had a higher IQ than all the cast members put together.

CNS:  U.S. Spent $314,613 Studying Increase in Family Violence After NFL Upset Losses

Detroit has plenty of reasons to be violent — Every Lions loss is expected, so that’s one fewer thing to fret.

P-D:  Blagojevich possessions set for auction

How much can they really get for a horse’s head?

Monday’s Musings

*  Okay, where to start with the outrage?

The party line at least in the source in question is that they could be out of prison in months.  And who said misdemeanor murder was a Chicago proposal or a New Orleans meme?

The bigger outrage in my mind is that the two murderers in question only got 4.5 and 3.5 years, respectively, as their original sentences.  Then the Lindsay Lohan formula kicked in to arrive at an actual sentence of several months.

*  The Americanization of Britain marches on.  Seems like the only thing not making the smooth transition across the ocean is certain civil liberties as typified in Amendments 1 and 2.

*  Jailbreaking (i.e. the iCabal “smart” phone) is now legal.  Fine, good decision and all, but the easiest jail to break out of is the one you never get booked into to begin with.

It’s not that hard to root an Android device (that process is mistakenly called jailbreaking, which is a faulty comparison, as the Android OS is open source — all you’re doing when you root your Droid is morally the same thing as calling up a terminal in any Linux distribution and sudoing/su- as root with your password, or creating a way to log in as root graphically under whatever DE/GUI you use).  But virtually everything that you need to jailbreak an iCabal “smart” phone to do, you can do in Droid without having to go into root.

Oh, and as a tribute to the iCabal, considering today’s news:

The language barrier should be no issue if you’re up on the recent tech news.

1070 T-Minus 3 Days (Today’s 48th State and Environs Stack of Stuff)

*  Thursday’s the day.  It doesn’t look like the Federal trial level judge will stay the entire law, if most one section.  So it seems like certain non-legal residents of the state have read the tea leaves and are hawking what junk they can’t haul, packing up the rest, and finding refuge in more illegal alien-friendly states, at least until they pass their own 1070 style laws.  Don’t be in too much of a hurry to drop anchor.

Now, they maybe these illegal aliens are a lot of things, but flat dumb isn’t one of them.  I know that Obama’s ICE (and neither would have Bush’s ICE, Bill/Hillary Clinton’s ICE, or the ICEs of the probable open borders Republican that could replace Obama in 2012) won’t process these illegals that 1070 nets, so they shouldn’t fear 1070.  So why do they?  Answer:  Their fear probably proves the theory of an AR poster from late last week, that the ones fleeing the state aren’t simply here illegally; they’re here illegally plus slinging/transporting dope.

*  Also reading the tea leaves is the MSM.  This is in the P-D, but it reads like AP copy.  However, it’s not an AP byline, so I just have to presume that it’s a P-D byline.  Whatever it is, it mostly reads like Glenn Spencer could have written it.  Meaning the media are, as Winston Churchill said of Americans in general, doing the right thing after having exhausted all other options.  No need to lie/distort/take things out of context anymore when 1070′s gonna make it.  There are a few inane parts to this missive.  For example, there are enough legal alien and citizen Hispanics in Arizona to do these supposed “jobs Americans won’t do,” if that’s your only concern.  Most of the state’s rapid growth in recent decades have come from whites being driven out of Mexifornia, to flee somewhere where Mexifornia isn’t happening, and damned if it isn’t being replicated there.  And always take accusations about anti-minority racial slurs with a grain of salt until there’s actual credible evidence.  Yes, Pelosi with your big ass gavel and John Lewis, I’m looking at you.

*  Here’s a hint of what the law that will begin to be enforced on Thursday seeks to prevent.

*  Since 1070 seems to have won, and the relevant targets of the law are shipping out and the media are mostly telling the truth, I’ve noticed that talk about girlcotting the 2011 All Star Game in Phoenix has died down — The only kind of players in recent days talking about girlcotting are the kinds of fourth string catchers that would never make the ASG to begin with.  However, there’s another big sports event in Arizona (actually Glendale) sooner than that — The 2010 Season (January 2011) college football national championship game cycles to the site of the Fiesta Bowl this time around.  I expect to hear some minor talk but no action about a girlcott.  I have not yet heard any chatter; it’s just a premonition.

*  For now, Moody’s has lowered the credit rating of Arizona’s state government.  But fear not — Within several months, there is going to be noticeably less demand for its social services.  (IIRC, the state sales tax rate went up by a percent as a response to the budget hole.  That should be a clue to the Obamaites that want to let the tax cuts from last decade expire in order to impress Sugar Daddy Hu Jintao.)

Prediction for Back To School 2011 Shopping Season

Eric S. Raymond thinks that smartphones are black holes of sorts, sucking various electronic devices of similar form factor into it. Examples would be portable music players like those produced by the iCabal and start with an “i,” digital cameras, e-book readers, handheld and automotive GPSes, dumbphones, digital video recorders, digital voice recorders. ESR thinks that marine radio receivers could be sucked into the singularity next. If the technical problems with that particular idea are overcome, and the comments suggest that it’s not a gimme that it could happen right away, then I think the VHF/UHF handheld ham transceiver is next. My Droid Incredible has an FM analog tuner, so the hw/sw to do at least analog rx of ham-style frequencies is possible.

I think that graphing/scientific/financial calculators could be next. Now, the big hangup is twofold:

(1) Real keyboards on real calculators help a lot with usability.

(2) Educators wouldn’t want students using their smartphones as their calculators on standardized or course tests, because the potential for cheating with highly communicative and connected devices in the room is sky high. (Duh, Google the question to get an answer, txtmsg the answers between friends in the testing room, or use functionality on a calculator app that isn’t permitted — SAT/ACT/AP/etc tests prohibit certain TI/Casio/HP/Sharp high end calcs on certain tests — At least with (a) given calculator model(s) that is/are permitted/prohibited, the proctor knows that everyone taking the test doesn’t have access to prohibited electronic assistance.)

That said, I think Texas Instruments engineers and execs are shitting bricks as I write this over their future profit margins from their anything-beyond-basic-four-function calculator segment.

Consider this:

My Droid Incredible cost $200. You get a 1 GHz processor, a Li-Ion rechargeable battery that puts out 3.7 volts at 1300 mAh, meaning 4.81 watts of power at full charge, an 800×480 OLED display that is capable of 32-bit color depth, but OS bottlenecks it to 16-bit color depth, 512 MB RAM, and 8 GB of onboard Flash storage. (I’m not counting communications capability here, as they’re not germane to calculating power.)

The TI-89 Titanium, the “preferred” handheld calculator for high level college math, goes for about $140 retail. That gets you a 16 MHz processor, which needs four AAA batteries to run (1.4 volts for a fully charged NiMH AAA battery, times 4 batteries, times 1200 mAh for the highest capacity AAA rechargeable NiMHs at the time of this writing, for 6.72 watts of peak power). The display is 160×100, 1-bit grayscale, 188 KB RAM, 2.7 MB onboard Flash storage.

The TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, the “preferred” handheld calc for high school math and all but the most rigorous college courses, goes for about $130 retail. That gets you a 15 MHz processor, same battery requirement as the 89. The display is 96×64, 1-bit grayscale, 128 KB of RAM (the OS bottlenecks this to 24 KB), 1.5 MB onboard Flash storage.

So, at prices that are more than half that of the Droid Incredible, you get functionality that is as comparatively as minute as paying $1 for a burger or $2 for the whole cow.  The only advantage that the calcs have is the higher available power, and that battery life for a freshly charged set of batteries is much longer than that of a smartphone, because of the drastically less demanding calc hardware specs, and you’re presumed to use a smartphone for a lot more than just calculating, even considering non-talktime apps.  Though I should say that my Droid Incredible is rated for 146 hours of standby time on a full charge, meaning that you get almost 5 months at an hour of standby use (i.e. running apps but never talking on the phone) per day.  (I don’t talk on the phone much for personal reasons — The problem I have with talking on the phone is that there’s usually someone on the other end. In case you’re wondering, the Shaniqua calls have ended.)  My experience with my almost 13-year old TI-86 is that I need to charge my AAA NiMHs once every four months, averaging an hour usage per day.

OS development at TI isn’t that costly. And the labor on all these devices is cheap Asian/Oriental, so that’s a level playing field. They’re relying on their scholastic mindshare to keep these profit margins on ancient hardware specs going.

Prediction: The aforementioned TI calcs will cost half or less of what they do now at next year’s back-to-school shopping season.

Sunday Wrap-Up

*  Amazing.  This must be the only black man in the recent history of the U.S. Armed Forces that the Pentagon didn’t affirmative action promote to the level of insanity.  And yet, he’s one highly improbable election away from being a U.S. Senator.

*  Liar, liar, badge on fire.  I was both alive and conscious during the campaign for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative in 2006.  Therefore, I know that Mike Cox was the only Michigan politician or wannabe politican of credible statewide or Congressional chops to come out for MCRI.  Ergo, Mike Bouchard, who was Debbie Stabenow’s token challenger in 2006, is lying.  If Pete Hoekstra tries to jump on the bandwagon, then you’ll know he’s lying as well.

*  Lot of rumors about this Zeta-Laredo thing.  The most credible story seems to be that all the violence is on the “Mexican” side of the drainage canal.  Of course, if it spilled across the fiction that some think is a border in that part of the country, it’s still in Mexico, because other than welfare checks, everything on the “American” side is Mexico.  Point remains — IF it does spill over, the Democrats are done for in 2010.

*  Welcome to St. Louis.  If not for the piegon shit, your concert would have been drowned out by the noise of the cicadas.  But the Kings of Leon still have a long way to go before buring every bridge between themselves and St. Louis; they’re not in Guns-n-Roses territory just yet.

*  Yeah, really.

*  If Choice #5 wins, then Dave Checketts is going to shit a brick.

*  WTF?  They don’t know how to live on an eighth floor?  Some people in Chicago and New York pay really big money to live on an 80th floor.

And a few headlines.

5:  Minorities, women need greater presence in workforce, says East St. Louis mayor

WTF?  If you’re not a black woman working in ESL’s city government, you ARE a minority.

P-D:  With [Jeff] Smith in jail, hoops tourney gets assist from friends

Don’t know if they’re printing up “Free the Cracker Queer” T-Shirts for the event.

5:  “Pitch clock” approved for NCAA baseball games

Even if you don’t like baseball in general, the college game isn’t that boring, because the “ping” wakes you up.

AP:  Less money for dead people: Obama signs waste law

“But the turnout from the cemeteries won’t be any lower, right, Rahm?”

Fuzzy Math

St. Louis Clergy Coalition + Better Family Life = Street Peace.

Rather, that is the hope.

As it turns out, the “truces” and “moratoria” that BFL requests don’t seem to be working, so I guess they’re throwing in with the local yokel cabal of cracker jack box theology degree black preachers in order to get on the good side of a higher power.

Hard Labor

The usual suspects are bitching about the lack of minority participation on the New I-70 Mississippi River Bridge project, even though the overall project exceeds Federal recommendations for minority and women participation. (As an aside, even though they say “women,” all this MOKAN cabal really wants are blacks; they just throw in women as a cynical ploy to drive a wedge between the genders among whites.)

The protesters aired their grievances yesterday in a back-and-forth walk across the Eads Bridge. This article doesn’t mention it, but KMOX radio’s version states that various volunteer groups were there handing out cups of water at various way stations on the bridge to people on the quintessential St. Louis July day. Now, I don’t know how far they walked across the bridge before they turned back, but assuming they walked from one end to the other and back again, “end” being on actual solid ground on both sides of the river, it would have been just short of two and a half miles.

So you’re telling me that people who have to drink water every half mile or less while doing relatively slow strolling in 95-100 degrees and 105-110 heat index have the energy to work heavy construction five days a week in the same weather?

St. Desperation, Missouri

Walk Through

I just did something today I haven’t done since April, and that is read SB 1070.  I wanted to read it again with a different mindset than in April — Then, I was concerned about how well it was written and what its chances were to stand up in Federal court.  Now, this AR comment from yesterday has piqued my interest:

The incredible thing about this situation is what a complete farce it is.

Arizona never intended to pull people over to check status. All this is a smokescreen for what they are really doing. Pulling over mexicans, popping the trunk of thier cars to find all the drugs that are there.

Nobody has ANY illusions about any mexican pulled over and found to be an illegal alien (and nothing else). ICE will probably be contacted (and refuse to show up for them). That person will be released immediately and continue their life as a blood sucking leech on American taxes. They do not want HIM. They want his brother with the $10 million of cocaine in the trunk of his car. There is simply no way THAT guy is going to walk once caught.

Arizona is simply engaging in racial profiling (because that is who is doing all the crime) and is heading off criticism with this red herring issue.

Of course, since almost all mexicans are in the US to participate in various ways with the drug trade, this has the side effect of driving them out of the state of arizona. It is simply not safe being able to be pulled over at any time because the officer sees that you are mexican, when you have large amounts of drugs on your person.

Nobody understands all this better than the mexicans themselves…..but they don’t dare say it.

I could be wrong about that…..wouldn’t it change the immigration issue dramatically if they did?

Let’s walk through the relevant language in 1070.  I’ll net it out in bullet points,  Some of these points were already law; if you read the version I read, the parts in blue capital letters are SB 1070, i.e. the changes in existing state law.  SB 1070 actually creates very little new in the way of state laws, most of it amends existing laws.  Sections 2 and 3 create the most new legal language, but do so by amending existing sections of state law.

Section 2

*  State (and by definition, local) immigration enforcement of immigration law must be no more or no less strict than Federal law allows.  Any difference between state and fed must be fed-allowed.

*  There has to be some other lawful contact with a person to begin with, and if the LEO has a “reasonable suspicion” that he is seeing an illegal alien, then he must cross-check the person with ICE.

*  Jail or prison inmates who are about to be released, if it is known that they’re an illegal alien (though this part doesn’t require the warden to check if they don’t know — I presume they know whether they’re illegal or not after being booked in), must be handed over to ICE or CBP.

*  Cops can do warrantless arrest of illegals where there is a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed the type of crime that the Feds would want to bounce him out over.

*  No more sanctuary cities in Arizona.  Phil Gordon, tee hee.

*  People can sue sanctuary cities for being sanctuary cities.  Presumably in response to illegals committing violent crime in sanctuary cities, a la the Jamiel Shaw case.  The sanctuary cities must pay between 1 and 5 kilobucks to the state’s gang/illegal intelligence unit per successful lawsuit.

*  However, individual cops who work for LEAs in sanctuary cities are immune from these lawsuits; 1070 presumes the fault of the underlying city and not the individual cop.  E.G. a Phoenix P.D. Officer shouldn’t be responsible for what is about to be the disposed sanctuary city policy of the City of Phoenix.

The “infamous” Section 3

*  The Feds or someone with Fed authorization to determine immigration status must make the final determination on legal or illegal.

*  Any jail or prison sentences given out in this section cannot be plopped into an SIS or commuted, except presumably by the Governor (depends on the constitutional terms of pardons/commutes for the Gov., it varies from state to state)

*  On top of the actual time, illegals have to pony up anywhere in between 500 and 1000 bucks to go to the state gang/immig intelligence fund, and then jail costs on top of that.

*  Mere illegal presence is a Class 1 misdemeanor (most serious misdem. class in AZ).  Circa 6 months in county.

*  However, mitigating factors can mean more serious time and it being upgraded to a felony:  Possession of drugs, guns, meth precursors, terrorist-oriented ordinance.  Other factors which bump it up to felony are smuggling children, being a frequent violator of these laws.  The most time (Class 2 Felony, 5-10 years state prison) is for those who smuggle children either without an adult family member nearby or with the force of arms.  Drug+illegal is a Class 3 Felony, 2.5-7 years in state prison.

Section 5

The first part is about day laborers, and the second part is about drop houses and transporting illegals.  The day laborer part seems to be aimed at both the employer and employee, and seems to want to keep the flow of traffic normal, (jammed traffic on arterials because of stalled cars whose drivers are picking up day laborers is a big problem in Phoenix and Tucson), while the drop house/transporting part is mainly aimed at citizens.  Confining 10+ illegals to a drop house or transporting them in cars being driven by drunk/suspended license/uninsured/reckless drivers is a Class 6 Felony — those are the most serious crimes in this part.

Section 6

This is the part about knowingly hiring illegals.  The AG can investigate employers that knowingly hire, as long as, among other things, the person complaining about an employer hiring illegals isn’t making this accusation based on race alone, i.e. you can’t accuse the auto body shop in South Phoenix of knowingly hiring illegals just based on the fact that its employees are 100% Hispanic.  There are all sorts of clauses about suspensions of business licenses.  Employers can use entrapment as a defense.  Obviously, “knowingly hiring” leaves open the obvious loophole fake/stolen/appropriated IDs/papers/SSNs on the part of the illegals, which of course is dealt with in other state and Fed laws, mostly Fed.

Section 8

Employers must use e-verify.  No punishment specified for not doing so (unless it already existed), but the next section is a carrot-stick involving state economic development and business grants.

Section 9

Not related to immigration per se, but this is the section listing the laws that already gave the state the grounds to impound a car.  1070 adds to them knowingly harboring/transporting illegals.

Section 10

Establishes the gang/immig intel fund.

Section 11

The insectability clause.  Definitions must rely on Federal immigration law, and Federal civil rights law must be followed whilst enforcing 1070.

Section 12

SB 1070′s official name is “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act.”

***

Now, here’s the rub:  Several weeks after 1070 passed, HB 2162 passed, which adds a lot more “no racial discrimination” language (even though that was made abundantly clear in the original 1070), eliminates the mandatory fine for illegals punished under the “infamous” Section 3 for the gang fund, and most worrisome of all, does away with the Class 3 Felony crime of illegal+dope/gun/terror.  AFAIK, the Class 2 Felony of illegal+kidnapped minor remains.

But even after 2162 amending 1070, 1070 does seem to make life a lot harder for dope dealers and runners.  Especially if they keep the kidnapped minor part, I’m presuming that kidnapped minors are kidnapped for the sake of prostitution, and prostitution and drugs go together hand-in-hand in any number of ways.

While 1070 may not succeed in the long run when it comes to preventing the Mexicanization of Arizona, especially considering that ICE won’t do its part, and most “deportation” orders are hollow promises, and many if not most Mexican- or Hispanic-Americans in Arizona are citizens (naturalized or 14th Amendment/Birthright), it will probably divert a lot of dope trafficking/dealing and associated violence linked to Latin American cartels out of Arizona and into neighboring states, though since “deportation” orders are usually a farce, it won’t necessarily keep them in Mexico — It might force the dope runners to try Texas, New Mexico, California or other crossings.

We found out yesterday that the judge hearing the Feds’ challenge to 1070 has the most problems with Section 3.  If that part ultimately does not survive, the conclusion I just drew still stands.  Section 3 doesn’t have the illegal+drug felony language now anyway, thanks to 2162.  I think this particular judge would have less of a problem with it if that language wasn’t repealed in 2162, as even the Democrats want you to think they want to do something about dope running illegals, though it’s all probably a hollow promise — From where would most Democrat voters get their dope if not for the Latin American gangs?

SB 1070′s Day In Court

Yesterday.

From what I understand, the Federal trial-level judge, a Clinton appointee no less, grilled the Feds far more than she did the state.

I’ll have to be really careful with my blockquoting here, because her name is all over the place.

KSAZ-Fox-10 Phoenix:

It appears the judge may have an issue with Section 3 of the law, which makes it a state crime to be here illegally. Federal lawyers argued that that steps on the government’s toes.

The judge also pointed out that 1070 contains a severability clause, which means she could strike down parts of the law, not necessarily the whole thing.

It is possible that the judge could, for example, say it’s unconstitutional to bring undocumented immigrants to jail on a state crime, but she may be okay with requiring officers to ask about someone’s status and turn them over to ICE.

The insectability clause (from “insect,” which is itself from the Latin “insecare,” to divide into sections) of SB 1070 was one of its best features in terms of keeping its survival prospects as high as possible, showing once again that the authors had their act together.  Just as an insect won’t die if you cut off one of its parts, all the other parts of SB 1070 can stay alive if a judge knocks back one part of it, like the one in this case just might.  However, the argument I would make for Section 3 is that as long as the state is relying on the Federal definition of “illegal alien,” and not deviating from it as much as one iota, then they’re on firm ground.

Now it’s time to make a fool out of an Obamaite.  Same source:

Deputy solicitor general Edwin Kneedler, who’s argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, said SB 1070 infringed on the federal government’s unquestionable and exclusive power to enforce immigration law.

Now from the New York Daily News:

Kneedler explained that Arizona’s law would burden federal agencies with more cases than it could handle.

Don’t forget that Kneedler could have the “deputy” taken off if Elena Kagan makes SCOTUS.

Now, the same man in the same courtroom before the same judge on the same day tried to say that 1070 infringes on Federal responsibility, and then turned right around and said that it would cause too much work for ICE.  If the state helping to enforce Federal immigration law causes a big workload at the Federal agency that Kneedler wants to have exclusive control, then why wouldn’t exclusive Federal enforcement cause the same intolerably high workload for ICE?  One can easily imply from his contradictory set of arguments that the Feds don’t want to enforce their own immigration law, but that implication in turn makes his first argument foolishly hollow, and boosts the state’s case in a moral sense, e.g. implying why the state needed to pass 1070 to begin with.

Don’t Blame Me: I’m Turning Into My Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather Before My Time

P-D:  Mo. woman loses lawsuit over ‘Girls Gone Wild’ video

Lawsuits gone mild.

WSJ:  Wal-Mart Radio Tags to Track Clothing

Oh no, someone’s trying to steal the $30 jeans that cost $2 to manufacture in China.

P-D:  App helps San Fran police track stolen iPhone fast

Complaining about your iPhone getting stolen is sorta like worrying that the stray cats scratching up your lawn furniture might go missing.

P-D:  Poll results: Kenyans to pass new constitution

Wonder if it contains the phrase “natural born citizen.”

YouBeenBlinded:  Floyd Mayweather Not Too Chicken For Cockfighting

But is scared of a widdle ole Filipino.

5:  Palestinian children attempt setting basketball dribbling record

It was either that or get strapped with a backpack bomb.  The career guide for youngsters in Palestine is a rather thin booklet.

5:  Study: MTV leads in showing gay characters on TV

Bravo is losing its way.  (You were expecting me to say something snarky about music videos, weren’t you?)

P-D:  Cash into me: Shimkus supporters plan fundraiser at Dave Matthews concert

Shimkus is a Republican, so I can’t make an “Ants Marching” pun go over so well.

Ben Maller:  NFL stars groupie sends photos of his stuff around web

She didn’t mean any harm; she just wanted to see him get nominated for the annual Visanthe Shiancoe Award.

P-D:  Are we destined to turn into our parents?

If everyone is destined to turn into their parents, then this means the first human parents in history had a big precedent to set.

Friday’s Other Stuff

*  Ladies and gentlemen, transgendered and transvestites, I present to you the end of the world:

I know what you’re asking:  Who’s that ugly scrawny little white girl driving around Sean Kingston?

I know what I’m thinking:  200 kilobuck car, two major label recording artists, but not an ounce of talent in sight.

*  Tee Hee.  A ding dong ditch gets a guy in his underwear chasing after you.

*  Well, surprise surprise.  Another big taxing liberal hypocrite.  I guess this all means that John F’n Kerry wants to join the Carnahan World Empire.

*  Don’t celebrate just yet, iDrones:  Remember the UNT&T’s monthly bandwidth cap, because it’s the shittiest network on Earth.

No, Hell No or Fuck No

Pick one of the three.

To this question.

As far as I’m concerned, the law should default to juror ID secrecy for all cases.  And not just because of the dangerous nature of the defendant, e.g. mob, gang, etc., but also because of the other side of the ledger — I’ve heard cases where jurors on a tax case who found the “tax evading” defendant not guilty were suddenly audited, and where jurors who found those accused of child abuse not guilty became a target of CPS/DFS investigations.

Yeah, Race Still Matters

WRAL-CBS-5 Raleigh, N.C.:

Study: Race plays role in N.C. death penalty

Raleigh, N.C. — A new study by two university researchers has found that someone convicted of killing a white person in North Carolina is three times more likely to be sentenced to death than someone who kills a black person.

Michael Radelet, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Glenn Pierce, a research scientist in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston, examined 15,281 homicides in North Carolina between 1980 and 2007, of which 368 resulted in death sentences.

They obtained information on all death row cases in which the victim was either black or white, and they looked for any additional factors, such as multiple victims or homicides accompanied by a rape, robbery or other felony, that might explain the disparity in death penalty sentencing.

These additional factors partially explained death penalty decisions, they said, but even after statistically controlling for their effect, race remained an important predictor of who was sentenced to death.

“It’s just kind of baffling that, in this day and age, race matters,” Radelet, one of the nation’s leading experts on the death penalty, said in a statement.

I think they forgot another mitigating factor:  Black homicide victims tend to die almost exclusively at the hands of black murderers, while white victims come at the hands of some white and some black (and increasingly in NC, some Hispanic) perps.  And especially in states like NC which have passed affirmative action in executions law (which is why this study was done), the DAs are afraid to pursue the death penalty if the suspect is black.  Put the two together, and you see why the murderers of black victims almost never get the DP, b/c they’re almost entirely black (and protected) themselves.  In spite of what they say were controlled factors (I’m sure John Lott is already picking it apart), I still think another mitigating factor is the brutality of the murder — I would imagine that white victims, no matter the race of the perp, are murdered more brutally or as a result of more felonies as a lead-up to the murder on the part of the perp, than black victims.

I wonder if this study broke matters down across both gender and race.