Some of the FBI agents not busy investigating what you're pulling out of the tubes of the internet are engaged in truly worthwhile work: investigating the imaginative land deals of Congressman Gary Miller (R-Diamond Bar, and one of the 20 most corrupt members of Congress according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington). I'm sure the more accountant-y agents are enjoying Miller's interesting approach to paying taxes, which was touched on in the post, Public Service for Fun and Profit (Gary Miller edition).

In terms of media attention, Long Beach has always languished in the shadow of the colossus of the north, L.A. And of course, it has never provided TV networks with the hours of advertising-delighting conspicuous consumption that OC has (The OC, The Real Housewives of…, Laguna Beach). But tonight the spotlight is on Long Beach-- it's featured in one of the most talked about segments of a top-rated network program. Unfortunately, the program is Dateline NBC and the segment is "To Catch a Predator", which is a sort of Candid Camera for potential statutory rapists. Even more unfortunately, Dateline found enough material (38 arrests) in LBC to make it a two-parter. Part one airs tonight at 8pm, part two is scheduled for February 6.

That's not "us" in the post title, that's U.S.   As in the U.S. federal government.  Because according to a Cnet News story (found via TPMmuckracker.com), while your boss may never find out what you're really doing with your computer when you should be working, the feds just might.

The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed.

Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords. . . .

"What they're doing is even worse than Carnivore," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. . . "What they're doing is intercepting everyone and then choosing their targets."

. . . [Bankston said] the FBI is "collecting and apparently storing indefinitely the communications of thousands--if not hundreds of thousands--of innocent Americans in violation of the Wiretap Act and the 4th Amendment to the Constitution."

Credit where credit is due-- it couldn't have been easy coming up with something worse than Carnivore, but apparently the feds have done it.  They may not be able to catch Osama bin Laden, but our intelligence services are doing brilliantly in the war on civil liberties.

The campaign of an OC Republican candidate named Nguyen has been caught distributing a clumsy bit of fraud. No, this is not another Tan Nguyen and the "Immigrants Can't Vote Letter" post.

From this morning's Times:

The campaign of an Orange County supervisorial candidate, whose slogan is "Honesty, Integrity and Leadership," has been caught doctoring a photo so that it places the politician close to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The photo into which Trung Nguyen was inserted appeared over the weekend in two Vietnamese-language daily newspapers, Vien Dong and Viet Bao Kinh Te. The papers are heavily circulated in Little Saigon, home to the largest Vietnamese community outside Southeast Asia.

Nguyen's campaign variously blamed the alteration on an advertising company and a volunteer.

If all this seems familiar-- particularly that last line about the campaign pointing multiple fingers of blame-- there's a good reason.

Back in November, Gustavo Arellano summed up the Tan Nguyen campaign's attempts to shift the blame for that infamous letter as far away from the candidate as possible.

First Nguyen denied his campaign had anything to do with the forged letter. Then he rescinded the claim, stating he didn't "authorize" or "approve" the letter, and he fired a rogue campaign worker whom he alleged was responsible. Then he rehired her, claiming once again that his campaign had nothing to do with the letter, although he stood by its content. At a press conference two days after the raid by the attorney general's office, Nguyen again denied any ties to the letter, then handed out copies of what he claimed was the real letter, insinuating Sanchez was behind it.

The Trung Nguyen campaign seems to be up to stage two in the blame-someone-else strategy. With Tan's campaign, first it was an outsider, then an overzealous campaign worker. But this latter Nguyen campaign seemed to taking steps one and two at the same time.

Saulo G. Londono, Nguyen's campaign manager, called it "a very stupid mistake made by a third-party vendor. We don't want to go in great detail into what the vendor did, but we definitely made sure it won't happen again."

He said the photos the advertising company used did not come from Nguyen's campaign. Londono said he did not know who provided the company with the altered photo. He would not give the name of the advertising company, which, he said, no longer works for the campaign.

Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Westminster), who is co-chairman of Nguyen's campaign, blamed a volunteer for the fake photo. The volunteer, whom he declined to name, has been reprimanded and removed from working with newspapers and photos, Tran said.

Nice to see that Londono and Tran can at least agree that the responsible party must remain nameless.

It doesn't seem likely that Trung Nguyen will be able to take Tan Nguyen's step 3-- insinuate that your opponent is really responsible-- for the simple reason that the other candidate whose campaign exposed this fraud was Janet Nguyen (no relation). Nguyen hinting that Nguyen was really responsible for the half-assed photo-shopping could prove too confusing.

Even if Nguyen can't follow Nguyen's example by insinuating that Nguyen is really responsible for the phony photo of Nguyen, let's hope that Trung learns from the other memorable achievement of Tran's campaign, and sticks to the 100-foot penis rule.

A report arrives from the cutting edge of science, where wonders never cease.  The cutting edge is currently in Durham, North Carolina, and Dr. Robert Bohannon is busy honing it.

Dr. Bohannon, according to the Associated Press, is a "molecular scientist" (the sort of impressive yet vague job title characters in '50's sci-fi movies often have), who has turned his scientific genius to the task of fusing the molecules of coffee and doughnuts into one tasty treat.  That's right:  he's created caffeinated doughnuts.

Reports the AP:

Bohannon says he's developed a way to add caffeine to baked goods, without the bitter taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the equivalent of about two cups of coffee

While the product is not on the market yet, Bohannon has approached some heavyweight companies, including Krispy Kreme, Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks about carrying it.

The deal with Krispy Kreme may not be done yet, but Bohannon has already done the one thing every scientist interested in improving mankind's lot needs to do-- he's hired lawyers.  Bohannon has patented his pastry caffeination  process and trademarked the names "Buzz Donuts" and "Buzzed Bagels."

While most newspapers are just running with the brief AP account and leaving their readers to ponder that great question first posed by Homer Simpson-- "Donuts.  Is there anything they can't do?"-- the buzzkills at the San Francisco Chronicle have taken a different approach.  This morning's Chron features an anti-caffeinated doughnut, pro-health editorial.  It begins "Is it possible to find a more unhealthy choice for breakfast than a doughnut?" and ends "It's enough to make one lunge for the healthy option of a bowl of fresh fruit."

I don't understand the Chron's objection.  According to an endless parade of conservative opinion-merchants hawking their well-worn goods on TV and in newspapers, San Francisco welcomes every unnatural practice imaginable.  And what could be more unnatural than a caffeinated doughnut?

If so, contact the Tyra show, er, Oprah, um, I mean, Weekly intern Nardine Saad, who is pulling together a story on erroneous messages DMV drones mailed out to thousands of Californians.

Here's where you can vent, early and often: nsaad@uci.edu

Yes, naranjeros: OC Weekly founder/editor/publisher/soul Will Swaim has resigned. Coverage in the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Business Journal, Orange County Register. Our paper? Wait until Thursday...until then, por favor post all thoughts/rants/valentines about our dearly departed Herr below! And do check out our music blog and find out the unofficial Will Swaim playlist!

The Little Hoover Commission* (the bipartisan, independent state commission dedicated to "promoting economy, efficiency and improved service in the transaction of public business") has issued a new report on the state prison system, one that neatly dovetails with recent Blotter posts on sentencing and politics. And for such a nice bunch of technocrats, the Lil' Hooverites are using awfully tough language.

Says the Times:

In a blistering 84-page report, the nonpartisan Little Hoover Commission linked the problems plaguing the correctional system to political cowardice among governors and lawmakers fearful of being labeled soft on crime.

If policymakers are unwilling to make bold changes, the commission said, they should appoint an independent entity — modeled after the federal Base Closure and Realignment Commission — with the power to do it for them.

"For decades, governors and lawmakers fearful of appearing soft on crime have failed to muster the political will to address the looming crisis," the commission said.

"And now their time has run out."

Of course, there's a reason politicians like to engage in the more-brutal-than-thou posturing on penal issue-- it works.

"We're always ever so nice to furry animals and very, very mean to criminals," said Shaun Bowler, a professor of political science at UC Riverside. "It's almost reflexive, the voters' desire to be tough. If the prisons are a cross between a sewer and the Roman Colosseum, their answer seems to be, 'Good.' "

But some criminologists say the public has been misled about just what sort of policies make the streets safer. At UC Irvine, Joan Petersilia said the "cookie-cutter" approach has put a lot of people in prison but failed to deliver much in the way of public safety.

"I don't think the public really understands that all this money we're spending isn't yielding much in return," Petersilia said. California, she noted, may spend more than $8 billion a year on corrections — a 52% increase over the last five years — but roughly 70% of inmates released by the state wind up back behind bars.

And the money being thrown into the prison system isn't just producing little in the way of results, it's also causing "collateral damage". With an ever increasing prison population, comes a greater need for health workers in prisons (sorry, brutality fans-- there are certain federally mandated standards that must be maintained, so the prisoners get medical attention). The results show up in another Times story:

Court orders mandating drastic pay increases for health personnel in California prisons have led to an exodus of workers from state mental hospitals and left the facilities struggling to provide adequate patient care.

Staff shortages at Atascadero State Hospital, where psychiatrist vacancies stand at 70%, have caused the facility to all but freeze new admissions.

All the state's mental hospitals, which like the prisons are also under federal scrutiny, report staff departures for prison jobs that now pay about 40% more. And they fear that many more staffers will leave.

I'm not sure where the patients in state mental hospitals fall on the voters' furry animals-to-prisoners spectrum of concern, but unfortunately I doubt they are close enough to furry and cute to make many rethink their devotion to the Roman-ish aspects of the state corrections system.

---------------------------------------

*The name is a reference to the Hoover Commission, an advisory board headed by ex-President Herbert Hoover, that was created by President Truman in 1947 to examine the structure and workings of the executive branch of the federal government. Since that commission last met in 1955, the name was already a little dusty by the time the diminutive version was attached to the state commission in 1962.

From the Associated Press:

Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio's most populous county.

Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. They also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty.

Prosecutors accused Maiden and Dreamer of secretly reviewing preselected ballots before a public recount on Dec. 16, 2004. They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand, prosecutors said.

[…]

Ohio gave President Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the close election and hold on to the White House in 2004.

Given that there were-- shall we say?-- certain irregularities in the 2000 presidential election, and-- shall we say?-- a number of questions regarding the administration of the electoral process in Ohio in 2004, you might think that this story would be taking up as many minutes on news shows and inches in newspapers as the behavior of the judges on American Idol.

You might think that, but you'd be wrong.

Ryszard Kapuscinski, a great reporter and one of the finest writers of nonfiction, died Tuesday after suffering a heart attack.  He was 74, and had lived a hard life, so perhaps there was nothing surprising about that-- but where he died was a little surprising.  He died in bed, in a hospital in his native Warsaw.  Of course, for most people there's nothing surprising about dying in the hushed, sanitary atmosphere of a hospital, but Ryszard Kapuscinski was nothing like most people.

The Washington Post recounts a scene from Kapuscinski's legendary career as a foreign correspondent for the Polish Press Association:

At the outbreak of the 1967 Biafran secessionist war in Nigeria, Mr. Kapuscinski heard of a road that was blocked by burning roadblocks and from which "no white man can come back alive."

Testing the rumor, he passed the first roadblock but was assaulted at a second by machete-wielding thugs who supported the United Progressive Grand Alliance political party. They took his money and doused him with the flammable liquid benzene.

"The boss of the operation stuffed my money into his pocket and shouted at me, blasted me with his beery breath: 'Power! UPGA must get power! We want power! UPGA is power!'" Mr. Kapuscinski later wrote. "His face was flooding sweat, the veins on his forehead were bulging and his eyes were shot with blood and madness. He was happy and he began to laugh in joy. They all started laughing. That laughter saved me.

"They ordered me to drive on."

Kapuscinski wrote about that incident in his 1992 book, The Soccer War.  The Soccer War, a beautifully written collection of reportage and ruminations, is also the best introduction to Kapuscinski's career, during which he covered 27 revolutions and coups in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

If there's one thing OC Weekly has in plentiful supply, it's Catholics of varying stripes-- devout, cafeteria, lapsed, vigorously lapsed, potential anti-pope-- with colorful and occasionally bizarre stories from their contacts with Holy Mother Church and its numerous franchises and subsidiaries. From nuns on a swimming pool-slide (an image from Steve Lowery's youth) to a priest who insisted that the Virgin Mary once stole his wallet while he was in a public restroom (a very devout fellow I knew. Don't worry, the Virgin didn't do it for the money. She picked his pocket for a higher purpose, or so he claimed.) I doubt there's much from the world of professional Catholicism that could cause jaws to slacken in wonder among Weeklyites-- but I think I may have found something.

William "Bill" Donohue is a familiar figure to anyone who keeps track of people who make their living by being outraged. He's the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (usually reduced to the Catholic League in journalistic shorthand), a rightwing outfit with enough foam at the mouth to make Father Coughlin proud. He's a fixture on cable TV news, since he can be counted on to regularly say something barking mad. Previous highpoint: appearing on MSNBC in December 2004, Donohue barked,

Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex.

Currently, Donohue is still outraged about Hollywood and sex-- though this time nothing anal (except Donohue) is involved. The movie Hounddog premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this week, attracting much attention because of a rape scene involving 12 year old Dakota Fanning. According to the Associated Press,

The disturbing scene lasts a few minutes but is not graphic. There is no nudity, the scene is very darkly lit and only Fanning's face and hand are shown.

Not good enough for our Mr. Donohue.

Even before the first screening of "Hounddog" at the Sundance Film Festival this week, a Christian film critic, citing Fanning's age, decried the movie as child abuse, and Roman Catholic activist Bill Donohue called for a federal investigation.

It should come as no surprise that the 12 year old Fanning is turning out to be much more mature than the gray haired Donohue.

"It's not really happening," Fanning said of a rape. "It's a movie, and it's called acting. I'm not going through anything. Cody and Isabelle aren't going through anything, their characters are.

"And for me, when it's done it's done," she said. "I don't even think about it anymore."

Naturally, Donohue hasn't seen the movie he's calling for the Feds to investigate. The AP, no doubt for reasons of taste, skipped Donohue's justification for not bothering to see what he's condemning. Fortunately Variety, I learned via the Defamer, is not bound by good taste. Variety quotes Donohue as saying:

"If someone tells me that there's a statue of Martin Luther King with an erection receiving oral sex, I don't need to see it."

And that's when my jaw went slack.

Just how mephitic a swamp of rightwing bigotry and twisted sexual frustration does someone's mind have to be for him to come up with that image?

To be fair, maybe Donohue, however misled by feverish thoughts of anti-Semitism and anal sex, was onto something in his 2004 rant. If he's the character who gets wheeled out to represent to the Catholic point-of-view on cable news shows, then maybe the cable TV is run by people who hate "Catholicism in particular" and want to give it a bad name.

(Nah, it's simpler than that: Cable TV news is, for the most part, just the Jerry Springer show with wire service feeds.)

I'm not much of one for sign and portents, the stars aligning, etc., but I was struck by a certain confluence of events yesterday.

First came the news of Watergate felon E. Howard Hunt's death.
Then came the opening statements in Scooter Libby's trial.

Hunt was always irked by the fact that he was remembered for the wrong crime.  His Associated Press obituary notes,

Yet the bulk of his notoriety came from the one thing he always insisted he was not — a Watergate burglar. He often said he preferred the term "Watergate conspirator."

"I will always be called a Watergate burglar, even though I was never in the damn place," Hunt told The Miami Herald in 1997. "But it happened. Now I have to make the best of it."

Likewise, people often get the crime Libby is on trial for wrong.  He's not on trial for leaking information about undercover CIA agent Valerie Wilson (or Plame) to punish a political enemy of President Bush.  He's charged with perjury for lying during the course of the investigation of the leak.

Hunt was bitter about doing prison time, while Nixon was allowed to retire to private life and write tedious books.

Hunt eventually spent 33 months in prison on a conspiracy charge, and said he was bitter that he was sent to jail while Nixon was allowed to resign.

"I felt that in true politician's fashion, he'd assumed a degree of responsibility but not the blame," he told The Associated Press in 1992. "It wasn't my idea to go into the Watergate."

Libby seems to have gotten an early start on bitterness towards the president he served.  Instead of waiting for the jailhouse door to swing shut, he's making it a cornerstone of his defense.

According to [Libby's attorney Theodore] Wells, when the federal investigation of the leak began in the fall of 2003, Libby was not worried about his job, but was "concerned about . . . being scapegoated."  Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary at the time, said publicly that Rove was not responsible for any leaks, Wells said, but did not say the same about Libby.

Libby, Wells said, told Cheney he feared "people in the White House are trying to set me up." Wells then showed the jury the text of a note Cheney had jotted that said: "Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."

Wells said: "That one person was Karl Rove. He was viewed as a political genius. . . . He had to be protected. The person who was to be sacrificed was Scooter Libby." According to Wells, the vice president tried to persuade White House colleagues to publicly clear Libby's name as the source of the leak.

(Washington Post)

And of course, the news regarding both Hunt and Libby came just hours before Bush delivered his State of the Union address-- an address that in at least one important way harkened back to the days when Hunt was a presidential henchman and the Pride of Yorba Linda was in the White House.  ABC reported Monday,

President Bush faces the nation this week more unpopular than any president on the eve of a State of the Union address since Richard Nixon in 1974.

As I said, I'm not really one for signs and portents, but I am struck by the confluence of events, and even wonder a little if there's not a message somewhere in there.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the delightfully named Atticus O. Firey is suing Meguiar's Inc., a car wax manufacturer in Irvine, claiming he was fired after the company's president determined Firey wasn't "on fire for Jesus" and lacked a sufficiently "Christian lifestyle".

Atticus O. Firey, 34, of Newport Beach contends Meguiar's Inc. committed religious discrimination when it fired him in July after nearly 10 years with the company. Company president Barry Meguiar repeatedly urged Firey, then the chief operating officer, to attend church, the suit alleges, and told him he was "robbing this company of the blessing of God by not being on your knees and on fire for Jesus."

An attorney for Meguiar says there was nothing religious about the firing-- Firey was just a crap employee, and this lawsuit is simply a "publicity stunt".

If the suit goes to trial, it should prove immensely entertaining-- and perhaps answer that age old question WWJD (IHWARSC)*?

*What Would Jesus Do (If He Wanted A Really Shiny Car)?

Earlier this month when the governor's budget plan was unveiled, three groups-- poor families with children, teachers, and college students at UC's and CSU's-- were particularly singled out for sacrifice, so the gov. could cling to his no new taxes pledge. CSU students are expect to part with an additional 10% above and beyond than they are paying now. There are many reasons for this proposed increase, and one of the less widely advertised uses for the students' money can be found in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle.

Twenty-eight of the California State University system's highest-paid executives are in line for another pay raise this week -- just days after students learned they could face a 10 percent tuition increase next fall.

The executive salary increase, scheduled to be considered today in Long Beach by the Board of Trustees, has drawn fire from state lawmakers who have criticized the chancellor for seeking additional pay while the faculty is bogged down in labor negotiations.

The across-the-board 4 percent pay raise would apply to 28 of the CSU's key executives -- the presidents of its 23 campuses as well as Chancellor Charles Reed and four of his top deputies. If approved, the pay raise will come with what amounts to a New Year's bonus for the administrators because the higher salary would be retroactive to July 1 -- presumably meaning a fat catch-up paycheck.

[…]

In October 2005, the CSU's top executives received an average 14 percent pay hike plus increased allowances for cars and housing. That pay raise was made retroactive to July 1, 2005.

As mentioned, pay raises are not coming so easily for others at the CSU's.

The CSU's labor negotiators have been bargaining with the faculty union for nearly two years over a new contract. Complaining of foot-dragging by CSU negotiators, faculty members have staged informational picketing and demonstrations at several campuses. The faculty received a 3.5 percent raise in 2005.

So, is it at all embarrassing that CSU upper management will be getting more, while those who do the real work of the university system-- educating students-- are forlornly rattling the beggar's cup? Of course not. Why not? Because the CSU bosses have a CYA report from a consulting firm. (Emphasis added, to make sure you don't miss how the consulting firm's study was rigged structured.)

The proposal relies in part on a study by a CSU salary consultant, Mercer Human Resources Consulting. In its report, the firm said CSU's top executives are being paid 42 percent less than those at their peer institutions. However, the study also shows that when CSU executives' total compensation packages (including perquisites and retirement plans) are taken into account, the gap narrows to about 11 percent. The Mercer study focused on the executive pay at 20 colleges and universities nationwide and includes several elite private colleges and universities with rigorous admissions standards -- where pay rates tend to be higher than those found at state-supported universities with liberal admissions policies.

Nice. Drop in enough oranges with the apples, and you can justify any pay raise.

On the bright side, this episode might teach CSU students some important lessons. Like how management always sees itself as more important and more worthy of generous compensation than those who do the heavy lifting. And how important it is for a salary consulting firm to be able to justify salary increases for bosses, if it wants to keep getting hired by bosses to consult on salaries. And maybe, as they walk around with lighter wallets as the bosses drive by in their university subsidized cars, a little something about growing income inequality in this country.

Update: The raise was approved, almost unanimously. From the Times:

The lone no vote was cast by Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a trustee by virtue of his office. He urged a delay until after decisions about possible student fee hikes and faculty pay are made in coming months. "For certain, this will even further poison that very contentious issue," Garamendi said of the pay hike's effect on faculty contract talks.

_

It's embarrassing enough to the rest of us staffers that Gustavo Arellano's name appears on every other page. But now it's increasingly engulfing the LA "By God" Times, too.

In his pop news column in Sunday's Calendar section,  Chris Lee had an item titled "Offspring's Dexter Holland dips into salsa," which we'd link you to were it not one of those Times pay-to-play dealies. (Give 'em a break; times is bad at Tribune Inc.) You'll recall, of course, Gustavo extolled the praises of that rot sauce two months ago, right here. In his poppy item, Lee begins his second paragraph by noting no less an authority than our ¡Ask a Mexican!™ columnist has hailed the hot stuff in print.

Then the next day, Arellano got his very own byline in the Times above an op-ed piece praising Fox Television for canning The O.C. You can read that one without paying, right here. The headline: "Ding, Dong The O.C. is Dead."

I don't get it?

The Beast, the alt paper that howls at the world from the wintry, chicken wing-splattered wasteland that is Buffalo, now has the 2006 version of its always entertaining 50 Most Loathsome People in America online. The list of the loathsome features those you might expect (Bush, James Dobson, Ryan Seacrest), some you might not (Jesus Christ), and you. Yes, you. Congratulations-- first you were Time's Person of the Year (or as The Beast puts it: "You're Time magazine's person of the year. So was Hitler."), and now this.

True, you are only number 16 on the list, but maybe next year you'll do better.

In a nice bit of timing, on Friday the Times featured Todd Spitzer's rejection of an attempt to rationalize California's criminal sentencing process and take politics out of it, and today the U.S. Supreme Court declared the state's Determinate Sentencing Law unconstitutional.

The Associated Press reports:

"The state," the AP notes, "warned that its criminal justice system would be burdened by having to re-sentence thousands of inmates."  Well, as tough guy ex-prosecutors like Spitzer (so tough he finds execution by drugs even veterinarians won't use to put sick animals out of their misery "humane", and "poorly trained" executioners "professional"), don't do the unconstitutional sentencing, if you can't do the re-sentencing of your prisoners to their properly determined time.

There are rumblings of reform coming from Sacramento. Reforms aimed at starting to straighten out the state's dysfunctional prison system. The Los Angeles Times reports, "the Senate's top Democrats on Thursday moved toward reforming California's byzantine criminal sentencing system."

Unveiling legislation to create a sentencing review commission, Senate leader Don Perata of Oakland and Sen. Gloria Romero of Los Angeles said California should join 16 other states now revisiting the question of who goes to prison and for how long.

It's an attempt to remove politics from the sentencing process. Gov. Schwarzenegger's PR people say he's "thrilled" that the Dems are getting on board with reform. And given that "getting tough" on crime is one of the easiest tricks in the politician's bag of cheap demagoguery, which makes the justice system vulnerable to any good bumper sticker slogan, you'd have to wonder where you could find someone who would object to taking politics out of sentencing.

Where? C'mon, you should know by now-- Orange County.

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) said suggesting that lawmakers "punt to a commission that has no accountability is a nonstarter."

"They want to take the politics out of it," said Spitzer, who was a prosecutor before becoming an elected official. "But in my opinion, the politics is critical to making sure a liberal Legislature does not become more soft on crime."

Todd Spitzer-- wants to preserve his right to get all Republican on convicts' asses. And, of course, maintain the ability of politicians to promise more and more brutal punishments regardless of reason or justice. After all, the promise of revenge is a more reliable vote getter, especially in Republican primaries.

Interestingly enough, Spitzer was last seen in the pages of OC Weekly almost a year ago, demonstrating his expertise in matters penal. Then he was dealing with the other end of penal system, not sentencing, but killing.

Steve Lowery noted in his Diary of Mad County for January 28, 2006:

In a story in The OC Register, Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) says he witnessed the recent execution of four-time murderer Clarence Ray Allen. Spitzer, staunchly pro-death penalty, says he was impressed with how "professional" the procedure was, mentioning that one of the attendants wiped down the 76-year-old Allen's arm with an antiseptic pad before inserting the needle that would deliver the killer cocktail of drugs. … Spitzer later says in the piece that witnessing Allen's death "made me realize that it absolutely is a humane process to put someone to death."

Of course, since then a federal judge has ruled California's death penalty unconstitutional, declaring the "implementation of lethal injection is broken". Where Spitzer saw "a humane process", U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel found the procedure so painful it violated the Eight Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment". (Members of the American Veterinary Association refuse to use the drugs the state uses, because using them to euthanize a sick animal would be to too cruel.) Where Spitzer was impressed by how "professional" the killing was, the judge "said executioners were poorly trained, worked in dim, cramped quarters and failed to properly mix the lethal, three-drug cocktail used to kill condemned inmates." Fogel has given the state until May 15 to submit a plan that won't violate the Eighth Amendment.

So, perhaps Todd Spitzer isn't the first person one should turn to for expertise on penal matters. Unless, of course, you're like Stephen Colbert, and you don't believe that important issues should be decided by " the Factanistas".

So why doesn't Dana Rohrabacher want to talk to his Democratic counterparts in California's congressional delegation in bipartisan meetings?  Sure, we've heard the official version-- and based on that, I concluded Wednesday morning it was probably just another case of small-minded partisanship.  But on Wednesday afternoon, the Surfin' Congressman appeared on CNN's Nativist Variety Hour Lou Dobbs Tonight, and let loose a bleat of wounded pride.  And now that the transcript is available, I have to wonder if there is another reason Dana rejects the meetings.  Maybe Dana's real problem is fear of rejection.

Admittedly, fear of rejection is a problem more often associated with teenage girls than Surfin' Congressmen, but consider what Dana told Lou Dobbs:

ROHRABACHER: I used to call the White House during the Clinton years and I would get a call back from high level administration officials or the president himself would call me a number of times. This president doesn't return calls and underlings, way down the line, return the calls of elected Congressmen. That's arrogance.

Dana, Dana, Dana… true, the Democrats are more powerful than you now, but that doesn't mean they'll treat you as badly as the leader of your own party treats you.  The Dems are the party of Clinton, after all.   And Clinton was good to you, no matter how rude you were about him.

So that's where poor Dana finds himself at the moment.  He doesn't want to attend bipartisan meetings with the Democrats who control Congress, and nobody at the White House above the rank of pool boy wants to talk to him.

Experts warn that fear of rejection can lead to impotence.  Nobody wants an politically impotent congressman.  Don't be afraid to reach out for help, Representative Rohrabacher.

The Los Angeles Daily News reported yesterday that the "newly empowered California House Democrats are extending an olive branch to a group that has shunned them for years: California Republicans."

A meeting is scheduled for this afternoon when, in the basement of the U.S. Capitol, members of the two groups will try to play nice.

[…]

The hope, said meeting organizer Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, is that lawmakers will ultimately strategize bipartisan ways that Californians can bring home more federal money for everything from transportation to anti-terrorism projects.

[…]

The last meeting of a bipartisan delegation was in February 2005, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to town. Since then, Lofgren - who leads the California Democratic delegation - has made five written requests to California's GOP leader, Rep. David Dreier, R-Glendora, for further meetings.

Dreier has never answered any of the letters. Democrats, for their part, take every opportunity to mention that fact.

Dreier wouldn't speak to the News reporter, but fortunately for the paper's readers, the voters of OC have sent a Chatty Cathy to Congress-- Dana Rohrabacher.  And Rohrabacher is no fan of bipartisan meetings.

"The only thing I see coming out of meeting with Democrats is that Democrats try to pressure Republicans from California to be irresponsible and spend more money," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach.

[…]

"They don't have to convince me to support good projects from California," he said. "But this idea that people with different ideologies can get together and find a middle ground, it just doesn't happen.

"Democrats may honestly believe if you get together and hold hands and sing `Kumbaya,' the world is going to be more peaceful. That's not what Republicans believe," he said.

It's a shame the Surfin' Congressman feels that way  After all, he should have plenty of free time for meetings now that his bosom pal Jack Abramoff is otherwise occupied.

And interestingly enough, his attitude marks Dana as being even more blindly partisan than the ragin' Republicans of Texas and Florida, who, as the article notes, regularly meet with their Democratic colleagues.  Less enlightened than either Texas or Florida-- congratulations Huntington Beach!

(via Calitics Soapbox California)

See if by reading its opening paragraph you can guess what sets this story by the San Francisco Chronicle's Greg Lucas apart from the raft of other stories about universal health care that have been appearing in the papers.

Trying to forge a consensus among dozens of powerful special interests, the Legislature will begin work next week stitching together a plan to extend health care coverage to 5 million uninsured Californians.

Answer:  it's from 1990.  Seems very familiar for a 17 year old story, doesn't it?  The only thing about that opening that let's you know it's an antique is 5 million uninsured statistic.  The current number is estimated to be 6.5 million uninsured.

(via The Capitol Weekly's Roundup)

If, as the governor recently asserted, California is both the new Athens and the new Sparta, where the future of America is busily being created, then what the hell is North Dakota? Because in one patch of the future, North Dakota is set to leave California in the dust.

The state best known for frostbite, Fargo, and the Lawrence Welk Birthplace museum (not to be confused the Lawrence Welk Museum in Escondido), is set to become to the first state to have a farmer growing hemp. Not the sort of hemp that makes certain movies watchable, of course, but its sober, hardworking cousin.

The Associated Press explains:

Last month, the [North Dakota] Agriculture Department finished its work on rules farmers may use to grow industrial hemp, a cousin of marijuana that does not have the drug's hallucinogenic properties. The sturdy, fibrous plant is used to make an assortment of products, ranging from paper, rope and lotions to car panels, carpet backing and animal bedding.

Applicants must provide latitude and longitude coordinates for their proposed hemp fields, furnish fingerprints and pay at least $202 in fees, including $37 to cover the cost of criminal record checks.

[State Agriculture Commissioner Roger] Johnson said the federal Drug Enforcement Administration still must give its permission before Monson, or anyone else, may grow industrial hemp.

"That is going to be a major hurdle," Johnson said.

Actually, it may not be that major a hurdle. Because the Monson in question-- David Monson, the farmer who has completed the state application process-- isn't just some random dirty beatnik with hemp dreams, he's a member of the North Dakota state legislature. Presumably that will force the DEA to take the application seriously. Still, the DEA is on the alert for any beatnik-ish tendencies in the chillier Dakota.

A DEA spokesman has said North Dakota applications to grow industrial hemp will be reviewed, and Johnson said North Dakota's rules were developed with the agency's concerns in mind. Law enforcement officials fear industrial hemp can shield illicit marijuana, although hemp supporters say the concern is unfounded.

To allay those fears, Monson will have to cough up $2,293 for the DEA's annual registration fee, "which is nonrefundable even if the agency does not grant permission to grow industrial hemp." The DEA licensing process should be completed in about a month.

You may remember that last year the California legislature passed a bill to allow the farming of industrial hemp (cosponsored by local Christian soldier Chuck Devore, no less), but that bill was veto by the future-loving governor. It remains to be seen what the new Athens/Sparta will do to catch up with a state that until now has had little to boast of in the nation-leading category other than the Largest Historical Quilt and the tallest statue (30 ft.) of a turtle riding a snowmobile. (A giant turtle riding a snowmobile? Apparently the other sort of hemp is also available in North Dakota.)

If you don't stuff your pants pockets with flammable items, you probably assume you may safely drop off to sleep without awaking to find your pants on fire. Luis Picaso of Vallejo must have. The San Francisco Chronicle recounts what happened next.

Luis Picaso, 59, was apparently sleeping on a white, all-plastic lawn chair in his room late Saturday night and was awakened as he was ablaze, said Vallejo Fire Department investigator and spokesman Bill Tweedy.

By the time authorities arrived shortly before midnight, Picaso was on the floor of the bathroom. He was in stable condition Sunday, Tweedy said Monday night. The plastic lawn chair -- a petroleum product causing a high-heat fire -- had melted. Picaso's soccer jersey -- made of quick-burning nylon -- was almost completely burned away.

"I did find one scrap on the floor," said Tweedy.

"Cotton holds up the best," said Tweedy. "The only thing he had on that was cotton was his underwear. Everywhere the nylon was, that's where he got burns."

Tweedy said that from the burn patterns on Picaso's clothes and body, it was clear the fire began in the right front pocket of his polyester-blend slacks.

"There were no matches," Tweedy said. "There were no lighters. He wasn't smoking. The only source was the phone that was in his pocket. I know he didn't spontaneously combust."

The phone. It was the cell phone.

What make of cell phone? you ask.

Tweedy declined to name the manufacturer or model of the phone.

"I don't believe it's a problem with any particular cell phone maker," said Tweedy. "It's a piece of electrical equipment. All electrical equipment can have a malfunction. This is a freak accident. ... It could be any brand of phone that could do that."

Well, we may not learn from the article which brand of cell phone you don't want in your pants while sleeping, or how often cell phones in general burst into flames (the risk is quite minimal, but the only figures available are from 2002-2004-- 83 reported fires out of 170 million phones-- and the number of cell phones in pockets has grown by about 50 million since then), but we have learned one important safety tip. If you carry a cell phone in your pocket, remember two important words: cotton underwear.

Over on CNN.com there's plenty of coverage on the ice storm. If you haven't heard, a massive weather system caused chaos and death from Texas to Illinois, then relocated towards New England. Thousands upon thousands are without power, 36 are already dead, so naturally I'm going to make a snarky editorial comment about CNN's coverage. Specifically I take issue with their choice of headline.

Icey storm slams N.E. after leaving Oklahoma, Missouri in dark

So what's the problem, you may ask? Simple. ICEY is not a word. It's "icy". Even the author knows it's icy--she used it three times in the piece.

See? Sometimes even the pros screw it up. So next time you feel amazing for coming across an error in any paper (even the Weekly), get over it. We have better things to worry about and so do you.

UPDATE: As of 4:20 pm CNN has corrected their error. No longer is the storm Icey. Now it's just Ice. 

One of the things that fuels the belief of some people in some sort of government conspiracy in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the fact that Army Intelligence (along with the usual suspects, the FBI, etc.) was monitoring Dr. King. And now, just in time this year's MLK day comes news that the Bush administration is taking legally dubious steps to make it easier for the Army to spy on American citizens.

The New York Times reports:

Deep into an updated Army manual, the deletion of 10 words has left some national security experts wondering whether government lawyers are again asserting the executive branch's right to wiretap Americans without a court warrant.

The manual, described by the Army as a "major revision" to intelligence-gathering guidelines, addresses policies and procedures for wiretapping Americans, among other issues.

The original guidelines, from 1984, said the Army could seek to wiretap people inside the United States on an emergency basis by going to the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, or by obtaining certification from the attorney general "issued under the authority of section 102(a) of the Act."

That last phrase is missing from the latest manual, which says simply that the Army can seek emergency wiretapping authority pursuant to an order issued by the FISA court "or upon attorney general authorization." It makes no mention of the attorney general doing so under FISA.

Bush administration officials said that the wording change was insignificant, adding that the Army would follow FISA requirements if it sought to wiretap an American.

But the manual's language worries some national security experts. "The administration does not get to make up its own rules," said Steven Aftergood, who runs a project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.

You have to admire the optimism of the aptly named Mr. Aftergood.

If the Army was intensely interested in what Dr. King was up to in America, Dr. King was himself was intensely interested in what the Army was up to in Vietnam. In an excellent column for MLK day, the Washington Post's Colbert I. King (no relation), directs our attention to Dr. King's speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence" , and shows its relevance for our current attempt to recreate the Vietnam War in the deserts of Iraq.

It's a remarkable speech (the full text can be found here), and contains a passage I think sums up Dr. King's career far better than the endlessly repeated "I have a dream". The words aren't Dr. King's-- he quoting the great American poet Langston Hughes-- but a more perfect expression of his civil rights struggles is hard to imagine.

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

The words are from Hughes' poem, "Let America Be America Again". There's no better goal one could aspire to on a day that honors Martin Luther King, Jr., than the one expressed in that poem.

Two quick notes on Iraq.

First, in an interview broadcast on last night's 60 Minutes, President Bush was asked "if he owes the Iraqi people an apology for botching the management of the war". His response, "Not at all", will come as no surprise to anyone who has noticed over the past six years that Bush doesn't do apologies. His elaboration of those three little word was a little surprising, however.

"We liberated that country from a tyrant," Bush said. "I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude."

Um, yeah. Huge debt of gratitude. I'm sure the only reason the Iraqis haven't gotten around to expressing their huge gratitude is that Hallmark doesn't make a card that quite covers what we've done to them.

If that answer suggests that President Bush has lost touch with reality when it comes to Iraq, then his choice of advisors on strategy for Iraq suggests… that he has lost touch with reality when it comes to Iraq.

Consider Fred Kagan, one of the main proponents of our new-and-improved Surge policy. The president has relied heavily on Kagan's council while working out his brave New Way Forward. Currently, Kagan's porcine features may be seen all over cable news in support of the Surge. Fortunately for Kagan, the cable news performers are polite enough not to point out that Kagan's original plan for a surge involved 50,000-80,000 troops, not the 22,000 Bush is sending and Kagan is now yipping in approval of.

So, who is Fred Kagan? A retired military man, with a long distinguished career? No, he's yet another neo-con suckling at the sugar-teat of the American Enterprise Institute, who has never heard a shot fired in anger. But at least he must be an expert on fighting insurgent forces, right? Not quite. But if you want to know the name of Napoleon's favorite horse, Kagan may be your man.

From Talking Points Memo:

Just a note on Fred Kagan – the guy is not an expert on insurgency, civil war, or stability ops. He has a Ph.D in history, with a focus on the 19th century Russian military. His major scholarly book is on Napoleon from 1801-5. From what I can tell, he has no serious background studying the issues that are at the core of his "surge" plan (his AEI bio page is below). So I am completely baffled by the extent to which the media has given him credibility as a "military expert"; one imagines how the surge would have been received if Kagan was accurately identified as "an expert on Napoleon and the early 19th century Russian army." His CV reveals no publications in refereed history or political science journals in the last decade. Basically the intellectual architect of the surge is an oped/Weekly Standard writer whose only substantive expertise is on Napoleon. Great. . . .

Great, indeed. I'm sure the Iraqis would be suitably grateful, if they knew this is the kind of expert Bush relies on.

First for some numbers that aren't as big as you might think, or others might want you to think.

If California were a separate country, it would have the world's sixth-largest economy, one hears time and time again. The governor even repeated the We're Number 6 bleat in his State of the State speech last week. Turns out, the Sixers, from Schwarzenegger on down, have been using out of date numbers.

The Los Angeles Daily News reports:

California's economy no longer ranks No. 6, but rather is the eighth-largest economy in the world.

The state, with about 37 million residents, ranks behind the U.S., Japan, Germany, China, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, according to U.S. Commerce Department and World Bank figures. Spain and Canada complete the top 10.

No California official has bothered to correct the figure's public use. Schwarzenegger, it turns out, has never even governed the sixth-largest economy. The state ranked seventh when he was elected during the 2003 recall election.

California last ranked sixth in 1999 and then bounced in front of France until 2002, the last year it ranked so highly. Since then, China, France and Italy have eclipsed the state.

Ironically, using out of date numbers is what the governor's finance director accused Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill doing, when she delivered some bad news about the administration's proposed budget.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used unrealistic math when he claimed he would eliminate the state budget deficit in his spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1, the Legislature's nonpartisan budget adviser said Friday.

"It seemed to us that there were a number of high-risk assumptions," Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said as she released a report on the $103 billion spending plan for 2007-08 that the governor proposed this week.

The Legislative Analyst's Office report said Schwarzenegger made an "unusually" large number of overly optimistic predictions about how the state could save money and how much it would earn in taxes during the 2007-08 fiscal year.

Hill said if the governor's predictions are wrong, demands on the treasury would wipe out California's rainy-day fund and leave the state in the red.

[…]

Schwarzenegger's finance director, Michael C. Genest, said Hill's criticism was based on old financial data.

Genest, one suspects, is probably not Catholic. Hill's fiercely nonpartisan probity and devotion to crunching the numbers in the public interest have earned her the nickname "the Budget Nun". Someone whose life's path has passed through the valley of the shadow of the Little Sisters of Perpetual Punishment (or any related grouping of Brides of Christ) would instinctively flinch before challenging anyone called a nun (habit or no). You've never heard Genest's boss challenge Hill's numbers, have you? Austrian Catholics know what the thwack of a nun's ruler sounds like.

And now for some numbers that are much larger than anyone would want, and are still growing.

Not only has the war in Iraq now lasted longer than U.S. involvement in World War II, according to the Los Angeles Times, the cost of our president's war of choice is about to drive the cost of Bush's vaguely defined GWoT (Global War on Terror) past that of America's previous model for a quagmire, the Vietnam War.

If U.S. involvement continues on the current scale, the funding for the Iraq war — combined with the conflict in Afghanistan and other foreign fronts in the war on terrorism — is projected to surpass this country's Vietnam spending next year.

And spending all that money has produced results. Of course there not the results one might want. Noted over at Talking Points Memo:

Henry Crumpton, the outgoing State Department terror coordinator . . . [and] ex-CIA operative . . . told NEWSWEEK that a worldwide surge in Islamic radicalism has worsened recently, increasing the number of potential terrorists and setting back U.S. efforts in the terror war. "Certainly, we haven't made any progress," said Crumpton. "In fact, we've lost ground." He cites Iraq as a factor; the war has fueled resentment against the United States.

So, it appears that no matter how grim the numbers on Iraq are now, they will, unfortunately, soon be out of date.

As soon as I read this story last Saturday about Pizza Patrón, a Dallas-based pizza chain that primarily caters to Latino communities, accepting pesos as payment, I wondered how long it would be before I read a story about the company getting death threats.  Answer:  six days.

The Associated Press reports:

The death threats and hate mail poured in almost as soon as the pizza chain's new promotion rolled out: accepting Mexican pesos as well as U.S. currency as payment.

"This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico," one e-mail read. "Quit catering to the damn illegal Mexicans," demanded another.

Very predictable.  A little tedious almost.

So far Pizza Patrón isn't budging.  The program is scheduled to run through February.  Hopefully, if the chain decides not to continue the program after February, those currently sputtering with rage will move on to confronting a true menace to the country:  all those businesses-- and even government agencies-- that accept Canadian dollars!

It's tough to take things too seriously at the beach. Take Mutt Lynch's, for example:

A couple of weeks ago, this infernal blog reported on G. Wayne Eggleston, the San Clemente councilmember who memorably told Los Angeles Times reporter Garrett Therolf, "I wouldn't want to stop in Stanton, much less patrol it," claimed he was misquoted and then told OCBlog readers to "not co-operate with LA Times readers as they are not trustworthy." We forgave the double-negative, but not the charge, especially after Therolf stood by his notes.

Now Therolf tells us Eggleston has dropped the misquoting accusation and apologized to Therolf. Here's the note:

Dear Editor, January 9, 2007

Dana Parson's article January 9, 2007 "Official's Shot at Stanton hits his Own Foot Instead," is absolutely right, I do owe L A Times reporter, Garrett Therolf an apology, but I wish to do it publicly as well as privately as Dana had suggested.

There are character building times for all politicians and this is such a time for me. I have apologized to the Mayor and officials of Stanton for my comments about their city and I now apologize to Garret for any statements I made regarding his reporting.

The Mayor of Stanton was gracious and has invited myself and other council members to Stanton for a visit and we have accepted. I am certain that I will learn a lot about Stanton, and I look forward to the visit.

Hopefully the issue that we are not missing here is the unfortunate demotion of Lt. Hunt by Sheriff Mike Carona. Lt Hunt is a very respected member of this community and was involved in many community activities. His demotion is unfortunate and untimely.
Again, apologies to all concerned.

Wayne Eggleston
San Clemente City Councilman

More on Stanton-gate in next Thursday's de