Dan Chmielewski at TheLiberalOC.com first noted this editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

The Case for Bombing Iran
I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.
By Norman Podhoretz

According to Podhoretz, President George W. Bush is "a man who knows evil when he sees it." In this case, the evil is Iran, says Podoretz. He argues that the two current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan must be extended to Iran ASAP.

"It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel," writes Podhoretz. "As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will."

Such a battle should have a name, he said: "I call this new war World War IV."

Podhoretz thinks WW3 was the Cold War. A former Reagan Administration official, he has pushed for aggressive U.S. military actions around the world for four decades.

Kids, what do you think of reinstituting the military draft?

Huntington Beach police have a major break in the duck-stabbing incident first reported yesterday. "Lucky," so named by workers at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center, was first seen with a knife stuck in her back last Thursday, and captured Sunday. Although no arrests have been made, police say a 14-year-old boy is the prime suspect.

Upon reading this story I immediately knew the culprit was an adolescent male. Let's be honest here, the crime fits the profile, doesn't it? Who else but a 14-year-old boy would do something so profoundly stupid? There really is no lowlier creature than the 14-year-old boy, scientifically categorized as the Masterbatorius freshmanus.

Consider for a moment the plight of the 14-year-old boy: no money, no job, no car, no prospects, and has only a handful of friends, at best, of equal or lesser stature with which to commiserate. His stratospheric level of sexual frustration is eclipsed only by his adolescent unattractiveness. His social status is nil. Even the other freshman girls don't want him as they are after his older, more physically robust, employed, and mobile senior competitors. The 14-year-old boy is at the absolute bottom of the American social hierarchy with years to wait before being able to climb it.

I feel bad for the duck, I do, but looking beyond the obvious and frankly disturbing warning-signs of future homicidal behavior, I've got to think that the poor guy was at the end of his freshman rope, hopeless and rejected, broke and nerdy, pimpled and greasy – when he got quacked at – and just decided to stab that god damn duck.

Or maybe he was just hungry. Either way, the kid is at a crossroads. He will either realize that his status will soon improve if he just sticks it out and get's some help, or he will buy a gun and become the Orange County Elmer Fudd – unless of course it's wabbitt season.

The Orange County district attorney's office reports this afternoon that former El Modena High School principal Brent Bailey has been convicted of masturbating in a Fullerton public park.

Bailey, 56, must have forgotten that weenie whacking in public is considered lewd.

After Bailey changed his plea to guilty today, Superior Court Judge Douglas Hatchimonji sentenced him to three years' informal probation, ordered him to stay away from Brea Dam Trails park and is forcing him to attend the Sex Offenders Solutions program. He won't, however, register as a sex offender. Public masturbation is a misdemeanor.

Police say that on the afternoon of Dec. 27, 2006, Bailey stood on a trail in the crowded park and began touching himself when he saw another man approach. Bailey then removed his penis from his pants and masturbated, according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Olivieri. The man, an undercover cop, asked Bailey if he wanted to go to the parking lot with him. No telling what Bailey hoped for during his Christmas break, but he ended up cited and released.

Police officers throughout Orange County have historically conduct undercover operations at public parks. Shopping mall restrooms also seem to attract public masturbation spectacles. You'd be amazed at how many horny men the cops nab.

Our apologies to Oscar Mayer.

• Adios, chocolate! The Hershey Company's closing its California plant -cutting 575 jobs- and opening shop in Mexico.
• It's painful to be pretty: Athlete Allison Stokke of Newport Harbor High has her eye on the pole vaulting state championships. But her unwanted online following would rather she play with a different sort of pole.
• Hate speech or free speech? UC Irvine's chancellor tries to pacify the Jewish community.
• Tsk Tsk: A 14-year-old boy is a suspect in yesterday's duck-stabbing story.
• Suckered by PR? Apparently the Daily Pilot thinks it's news when Ace Hardware hands out fire extinguishers.
• Leaving so soon? The guy who was supposed to become superintendent of the troubled San Juan Capistrano Unified School District in July has changed his mind...after all the crap the last supe stirred up, who can blame him?

Like most people over the age of 14, I was pleasantly surprised when Fox canceled "The OC." But I must say, I was downright shocked to discover that desert residents are genuinely excited about the new Palm Springs-based, teeny-bopper television soap opera "Hidden Palms."

The Desert Sun newspaper wrote a little dilly about the new show debuting tonight, and how it is generating a positive buzz around the community - despite it's admittance that Palm Springs is a shit hole.

"'Hidden Palms,' the long-awaited CW series about Palm Springs, has local tourism officials excited about the youth-oriented depiction of its city.

But tonight's season debut calls Palm Springs, 'not exactly the most happening place.'

'It's all retired gays, grays and streets named after dead people,' says a character who is supposed to be junior at the local high school."

Apparently Palm Spring-ians are hoping that the show will do for their tired old city what "The OC" did for Orange County.

Be careful what you wish for Palm Springs. Pretty soon you'll have your own "Real Housewives" show and then you'll be sorry just like we are.

To read the entire article click here.

It pains me to visit my old haunt, latimes.com/schoolme these days.

Ever since I shipped out to OC, it's occupied a cold place in cyberspace, sitting in suspended animation. But even in its stagnant state, the blog, which I co-authored with Pulitzer winner Bob Sipchen, provided a resource for folks with hardball questions about education. The magnet schools archive (a freebie column by the dynamic Sandra Tsing Loh) and other features were things parents came to look for.

Alas, it looks like they're tearing it down. It's nothing personal, I know. Another day, another fad blog at the LAT. But it still twists my innards as I check back every day, morbidly watching them dismantle my baby.

For weeks, I've fielded questions from people wanting to know why why why School Me had to die. Today, I can finally give a complete answer. Besides my move to the Weekly, my former editor's been named editor-in-chief of Sierra Magazine - the press release went out today.

The Bay Area publication was courting him for months, and rightly so. I can't think of a bigger outdoors-man than Sipchen - who suckered me into a Utah river rafting family vacation a mere month into my School Me stint. (Between the sleeping bags crawling with bugs, peeing in the river and enduring Bob's premature Christmas carols, I'm still not sure how I survived.)

I'll miss ya, Bob. But we both found something cool to do at the end of the day and will wreak havoc from our respective posts.

A question I often get asked is, "How come you have so many right-wing friends?" I don't have that many, but since almost all of them are bloggers and media folk, the ones I do have are quite visible. The short answer is that I decided whether or not to like them long before I knew their voting preferences. The long answer invariably comes back to Cathy Seipp.

Seipp, who recently lost her long battle with lung cancer, was a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and a frequent organizer of gatherings. She was also a contrarian conservative, who loved to tweak liberal friends in the media, while being solidly plugged into conservative circles of Hollywood and beyond via the likes of David Horowitz and Lionel Chetwynd (who don't get along with each other, though both liked Cathy).

And Cathy, once she finally entered the blogosphere, garnered a particularly unique set of regular commenters, who certainly weren't the usual unified cheering section one expects a political columnist to have. The spectrum ran from the likes of a heartily pro-Bush military blogger in Iraq known only as "Odysseus," to the aggressively left-wing self-proclaimed "anarchist" and film critic David Ehrenstein. Surprisingly, we generally all got along, so much so that after Cathy died, many of the regular commenters set up a new blog where they could continue to post in a similar vein.

And so it was that on Memorial Day weekend, I found myself in Oceanside with fellow Cathy-ites "qdpsteve," San Diego science reporter Bradley J. Fikes, and the American Cinema Foundation's Gary McVey, downing pitchers of Bass ale and pomegranate shots. But that's not the real point of interest here.

No, this has all been a really long build-up to yet another story about LYT eatin' weird crap. Bradley took us to one of his favorite local places, simply called The Fish Joint. It looked like a mediocre hole-in-the-wall run by guys who had the appearance of retired professional surfers. But it was a sushi bar.

I'm a bit of a sushi snob, as regular readers and friends can attest. This place looked verrry dubious. The sushi menu even seemed quite limited. But as at all the best sushi joints, the trick is to find out what isn't on the menu.

Fresh sea urchin (Uni).

How fresh? Damn fresh. So fresh they bring you the eviscerated shell and pour sake on it, at which point the spines twitch and try to defend the empty shell that once contained innards. Slices of blood orange on the side. The meat itself was brinier and milder than your standard uni from a wooden box, but my only complaint is that there wasn't enough of it.

(photo courtesy Bradley J. Fikes)

Live sweet shrimp were also served up ("Your dinner just tried to run away!" said one of the chefs), but unfortunately they were dead by the time they made it to my plate. No matter. Shrimp heads are actually tastier deep-fried, but there's an energy to eating them alive that's unique.

Gary and Steve seemed to enjoy their plain ol' fish and chips. The chips did look pretty good, with seasoned salt and all.

But hey, I guess I should have expected them to make the conservative menu choice, right?

The Fish Joint is located at 524 S. Coast Highway, Oceanside. Open noon-3 p.m., 5-10 p.m. daily.

You think these are cupcakes. But in fact, they are "Beasley Poppers," and Paris Hilton likes them.

In the interests of objectivity, since they were sent to me for some reason -- most likely because of my stunning resemblance to Paris Hilton -- I recuse myself from reviewing them, and instead defer to some of my fellow staffers.

Gustavo Arellano [making a shrugging gesture]: "Mm-ph."

Derek Olson: "It's diabetilicious."

Janine Kahn: "Things taste better when they're free."

Vickie Chang: "My chocolate one (with chocolate frosting) was too sweet. (But I still ate it all.) "

You know you're a heartless journo when you see a guy swerve and crash into the curling rail by the 55 North onramp and you stop...

to take pictures.

Fortunately, a good samaritan stopped and sprinted across the street to help the man out of his car.

He seemed unscathed, though pretty shaken up by the ordeal.

Darn you, 55.

Who needs fiction when you have reality?

• Dinner Escapes: Some Huntington Beach idiot stuck a knife through a Mallard - and the duck lived to tell the tale.


• Return of the Deported: Four of 23 OC immigrant workers kicked out of the country earlier this year are back - and they want their money from the janitorial firm they used to work for. The four plan to join a lawsuit filed by others in Pennsylvania to demand that Rosenbaum-Cunningham International pay up.


• More on Azia Kim: Yesterday, we noted that an OC teen managed to fool folks at Stanford into believing she was a student for eight ruddy months. Today, the Times adds that Kim also joined the Army ROTC program at nearby Santa Clara University. The Army's dismissing it as a harmless prank.


• Nerd Alert: A Nietzsche-quoting kid at Anaheim's Esperanza High perfected the gruesome new SAT.


• Today in court: Arraignment is set for Jessica Smith, who used to be on the MTV series Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. She faces DUI charges.

Thanks to the ongoing U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Ceradyne, Inc.'s profits have skyrocketed.

Late last month, the Costa Mesa-based company reported record first quarter sales of $188 million and a whopping 54 percent increase in net income. Indeed, it's gross profit margin for the period was 41 percent of sales.

Ceradyne, which "develops, manufactures and markets advanced technical ceramic products and components for defense, industrial, automotive/diesel and commercial applications," can credit the Pentagon for its good financial times.

On Jan. 31, the military brass placed a $113 million order for the company's ceramic body armor for soldiers. Workers at Ceradyne plants in Lexington, Kentucky as well as in Costa Mesa and Irvine have until September to supply the armor, according to the contract. Company officials say their product is lighter than steel and more durable than plastic.

Yep, Adam Gadahn has made another ranting tape.

Note the new glasses, the leaner face, longer beard and continued flowery rhetoric.

After that, read Nick Schou's excellent piece on Saraah Olson, who remembers Gadahn when he was nothing but a twerp.

Interesting how some things never change, eh?

Like any great actress, Orange County native Azia Kim is skilled in the art of bullshit. So profound are her chops that she successfully fooled an entire 210-resident dorm at Stanford University into believing that she was a second-year biology major. She went so far as to buy textbooks for classes she wasn't enrolled in and attend study sessions for tests she would never take.

I know what you are thinking, but no. This isn't a sequel to the movie Orange County (starring Jack Black where some nerdy boy has a hard time getting into Stanford). This actually happened.

The Stanford Daily broke the story and quoted one of Kim's former roommates who said it all started last September, the day before Stanford's New Student Orientation, when two sophomores agreed to let her stay in their room after Kim told them she did not like her roommate.

"Azia Kim allegedly climbed through this first-floor window in Okada to sleep during spring quarter. The 18-year-old was evicted after her ruse was uncovered Monday night.

Kim, an 18-year-old from Orange County who graduated from Fullerton's Troy High School, lived in Kimball throughout fall and winter quarter. She lived in Okada, the Asian-American theme dorm, until Monday night, when University staff finally caught onto her ruse.

Friends aren't sure of her motive for sneaking onto campus and living a lie, but many speculate that she felt pressure from overbearing parents to attend Stanford — regardless of whether she was admitted.
During the fall and winter terms, Kim allegedly slept in their room or the lounge of the dorm."

Kim would reportedly either sleep in the room of the students she met at orientation or in the dorm lounge. She lived like this, completely undetected, for nearly eight months.

To view the whole article click here.

What's in a name? Well, when the name's Daffodil, and if the past is any indication, people usually want to know. Hippie parents? Did you rename yourself? What's your middle name? (The three most popular.)

So, to diminish the questions, a little background juice: I was the product of a couple who wanted to celebrate their children by giving them wild, musical names that had no connection, as it turns out, to their particular cultural history or first language. They weren't hippies or academic intellectuals. There is no family legacy or history to my and my siblings' names (yes, there are more). My parents were curious, imaginative. They met in San Francisco. They learned English. They loved the flower. They liked the sound of the name. And my middle name held a magical old-world gypsy allusion for them, despite its actual Old Testament roots. They decided the names of their children would tell stories, theirs and others (my sister: Nefertiti).

But there were problems (and signs of what was to come) with the name before I was even old enough to say it. When I was newly hatched, my nervous Catholic baptismo priest refused to douse me with holy love unless my mom changed my middle name from Jemima (that's right) to Maria. Maria! Seems the first name was so problematic for the church and its coterie of old priests that instead of receiving a new name, as tradition has it, my middle name was replaced. So Daffodil Maria it was. Since then, I have left the Catholic church and gone back to my original old school branding.

Since I've started at the Weekly, already I've been asked: Am I speaking with someone from India? Is that your real name? Daffodil? Now, how do you speak Spanish and have that name? And have been incorrectly addressed via email: Thank you Mr. Altan.

I considered eliminating the thing completely and going with my initials, D.J. Altan or just D. Altan, which I've experimented with before. That way, no daughter-of-hippies allusions, no gender specificity, no questions asked, no need to explain. But then I reconsidered. For one, the name (and secret weapon, the middle name) are two of the best interview ice-breakers I've got. But more importantly, by dumping the vowels and double ff's that were slapped on me the minute I popped into the world, I would be doing a disservice to the young couple who had the nerve, and the sense of humor, to go against the grain when the nurses asked for my name. I'm sure there were some double-takes. And I imagine they smiled: That's right, we said Daffodil Jemima.

Image: Original Speedy Signs

Poor Los Angeles Times. It's getting hammered all over, from buyouts to force-outs to ever-shrinking page counts to perceived shoddy coverage of La Lindsey. Now they're getting criticized by conservative news watchers for running a positive review of my book, ¡Ask a Mexican!, without disclosing that I'm a contributing editor to the Times' op-ed pages.

Newsbuster.org contributor Dave Pierre claims this is just more proof of the Times gone amiss. "In other words, Arellano had about as much chance of receiving a negative review as it snowing in Santa Monica this week," Pierre writes. "Honesty and integrity at the Los Angeles Times? Not in this case, folks."

I agree with Pierre on one point: The book review (written by chingona author and Loyola Law School professor Yxta Maya Murray) should've stated I do write commentary for the Times. But Pierre is pendejo to think that my relationship with the Times guarantees me positive coverage for ¡Ask a Mexican!. Indeed, just the previous week before, the Times allowed Latino culture reporter Agustin Gurza to write a scathing attack on my column/book in which he called me the "Paris Hilton of the Latino journalism world" and compared me to Don Imus (he also disclosed my contributing editor gig for his paper). And the day after Murray's review, the Times published a letter by one Rene M. Castro of Long Beach in which he dismissed my "cheap satire" as "meant for Orange County clubgoers who don't mind reading an article bashing Mexicans between the breast enhancement and strip club ads of the OC Weekly."

So why didn't Pierre disclose the above facts to his readers? Quoth GOB: come on! It simply doesn't play into his LA Times-is-liberal raison d'etre. Honesty and integrity at Newsbusters.org? Not in this case, folks.

Vanilla Coke is back!

You might not have realized that it went away, of course, especially if you eat regularly at Rubio's, the only major food chain to keep it on its soda fountains. But yeah, they replaced it with Black Cherry Vanilla a while back, which was decent but not as tasty. Now plain Vanilla has returned, along with Vanilla Coke Zero (which is basically Diet Vanilla Coke with one additional additive that I can't spell off the top of my head).

But as awesome as it is to have VC back indahouse, what isn't so awesome is the new information printed on the twelve-packs. It seems Coca-Cola is trying to push its flavored corn syrup as a healthy choice for exercisers – at their new "hydration" website, and on their beverage containers, the Coke people are touting the following:

"For years, conventional wisdom said that we need eight cups of water daily for
proper hydration. Not so, say new scientific guidelines from the The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science (IOM/NAS). All beverages, including those that contain caffeine,
contribute to proper hydration.

If you're not in the mood for water, it's okay to reach for something else you enjoy, like tea or a soft drink. Of course water is always the best choice; it's just not the only one."

Whiskey's a beverage, right? But the results were not pretty. Now I was still thirsty, but also had a headache and a stomachache.

Technically, the Coke people aren't lying – all beverages contain water, and therefore, the moment you drink them, you've added water to your body, i.e. hydrated. The problem is that alcoholic and caffeinated beverages, like whiskey and Coke, respectively (or mixed together, for another favorite of mine), also happen to be diuretics, which cause you to urinate out more than you take in.

In other words, Coke can really piss me off sometimes.

Best story of the morning goes to John Gittelsohn at the Register for his report on the weekend Strawberry Festival activities of Mark Dornan.

To best appreciate this tale you have to know Mark. The son of legendary Republican congressman Bob Dornan, a onetime congressional candidate himself, onetime Susan Kang (Schroeder) BF and present day OC school teacher, Mark is, well, not shy. If you're in a fight, you want this energetic guy on your side. I've witnessed him put the fear of God in usually arrogant Dana Rohrabacher.

Anyway, here's John:

Mark Dornan saw a man shooting photos of his 5-year-old daughter after the annual Strawberry Festival parade Saturday morning and gave chase.

"I snapped. I was going to get him," Dornan said Monday, still fuming two days after the incident.

Dornan, the son of former Congressman Bob Dornan, was helping his wife run a festival booth selling belts for kids. He said the photographer fled and appeared to be deleting photos from his camera when he noticed Dornan on his trail.

Dornan said he tackled the photographer and wrestled away the camera. He said he saw a handgun fly from the man's pants.

"I go for the gun," Dornan said. "He goes for it. I get the gun. He's laying there deflated, like the air went out of his balloon."

Gittelsohn went on to report that a witness saw the photographer--an off-duty Los Angeles police officer--allegedly taking pictures up the skirt of Dornan's 5-year-old daughter. Dornan held the suspect and gave the guy's camera to Garden Grove police, who did not arrest the cop. An investigation is ongoing.

To see the entire story, go here.

This isn't the only time Mark Dornan has played cop. In Oct. 1996, he performed a citizen's arrest on Stephen Brixey, the then-husband of Loretta Sanchez. During a night in the heated Dornan-Sanchez campaign, Brixey illegally removed Dornan's campaign signs. Mark happened to witness the incident. Brixey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor vandalism and was ordered to pay $640 in fines.

Thirty nine years ago this month, 21 young Orange County residents died in Southeast Asia. They'd answered our government's call to join the U.S. military, travel to the other side of the planet and defend South Vietnam from Communist North Vietnam. We can debate the merits of the war, but not the honor and bravery of these men:

Barry William Van Horn, Los Alamitos, killed at Phuoc Long on May 1, 1968, at the age of 21.

Paul Leonard Abraham, Santa Ana, killed at Bien Hoa on May 2, 1968, at the age of 21.

Steven Allen Sommers, Buena Park, killed at Gia Dinh on May 9, 1968, at the age of 20.

William John Waysack, Orange, killed at Quang Tri on May 9, 1968, at the age of 20.

Joseph Francis Catt, Huntington Beach, killed at Binh Duong on May 9, 1968, at the age of 21.

Edward Andrew Gillaspy, La Habra, killed at Quang Tri on May 9, 1968, at the age of 18.

Barry Lee Hempel, Garden Grove, killed at Quang Tin on May 10, 1968, at the age of 20.

Patrick Leland Finley, Huntington Beach, killed at Kontum on May 10, 1968, at the age of 21.

Tommy Wayne Johnston, Bellflower, killed at Hua Nghia on May 11, 1968, at the age of 22.

Samuel K. Culbertson, Huntington Beach, killed Hua Nghia on May 11, 1968, at the age of 21.

Frank Joseph Makuh, Placentia, killed at Tay Ninh on May 13, 1968, at the age of 21.

Robert Wilks West, Huntington Beach, killed at Gia Dinh on May 15, 1968, at the age of 23.

John R. Oglesby, Tustin, killed at Hua Nghia on May 15, 1968, at the age of 20.

Jerry Dean Wright, Garden Grove, killed at Dinh Tuong on May 22, 1968, at the age of 23.

Russell Udell West, Orange, killed at Quang Tri on May 23, 1968, at the age of 18.

David Eugene Watkins, Los Alamitos, killed at Kontum on May 25, 1968, at the age of 20.

Ronald Curtis McEuen, Garden Grove, killed at Quang Tin on May 25, 1968, at the age of 24.

James Patrick Crawford, Fullerton, killed at Quang Tri on May 26, 1968, at the age of 20.

John Richard Lindel, Garden Grove, killed at Kontum on May 27, 1968, at the age of 21.

Steven Dewill Baker, Santa Ana, killed Quang Tri on May 28, 1968, at the age of 22.

Roddney Allen Roddam, Anaheim, killed at Thua Thien on May 29, 1968, at the age of 19.

Apparel News has an interesting story on Costa Mesa-based RVCA's first retail store which will open in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in July.

Deborah Belgum, senior editor at the publication, writes that "up until now, the company's line of vintage-wash T-shirts, jeans, shorts, fleece hoodies, shirts and caps have been sold at surf and skateboard shops around the country, as well as at contemporary clothing shops such as Madison and American Rag in Los Angeles."

RVCA is owned by OC surfers Pat Tenore and Conan Hayes.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher in the U.S. House of Representatives on 5/22/07:

A tsunami of illegal aliens is sweeping into our country, crowding our classrooms, closing our hospital emergency rooms, unleashing violent crime, and driving down wages.

This is not theory. It is a harsh, threatening reality borne out not by numerous academic studies, but by the life experiences of the American families from California to Georgia and from Iowa to New Jersey.

Our middle class is being destroyed. Our communities are not safe. Our social service infrastructure is collapsing. And, yes, it has everything to do with illegal immigration, illegal immigration which is out of control. And year after year, while our schools deteriorate and our jails fill and our hospital emergency rooms shut down, the elite in this country turns a blind eye to the disaster that is befalling the rest of us, their fellow Americans. The elites obscure the issue and maneuver to keep in place policies that reward illegal immigrants with jobs and benefits, and now, of course, being rewarded with citizenship.

This country, the upper class says, can't function without cheap labor

Well, cheap to the captains of industry and the political elite, but painfully expensive to America's middle class. It's our kids whose education is being diminished, our families who are paying thousands more in health insurance to make up for the hospital costs of giving free service to illegals. It's our neighborhoods who suffer from crime perpetuated by criminals transported here from other countries. And, yes, our livelihoods are being dragged down as wages are depressed and anchored down by a constant influx of immigrants, mostly illegal, some with H1B visas, willing to work at a pittance.

Big business, with its hold on the GOP, in an unholy alliance with the liberal left coalition that controls the Democratic Party, have been responsible for this invasion of our country, this attack on the well-being of our people. This coalition gives the jobs and passes out the benefits that lured tens of millions of illegals to our country. It's no accident. This predicament was predictable. It's been over 20 years of bad policy in the making. If you give jobs and benefits, the masses of people over there will do anything to get over here. And that's what we've been doing. Give it and they will come. Surprise, surprise.

Now the out-of-touch elite has introduced yet another piece of legislation, this so-called comprehensive reform bill that they claim will fix our illegal immigration crisis once and for all. Of course, this is a crisis they created. They are trumpeting the supposedly new enforcement measures and security measures that will be initiated in this bill, the border fence, new agents, new employer sanctions, if only we will swallow hard and give amnesty to those law-breakers who are already here.

Like Lucy holding out the football for Charlie Brown to kick, the bill is yet another effort to trick us. It's an illusion, a scam that will make things worse, not better . . .

Los Angeles Times reporter Alana Semuels wins for the best story of the day. In the business section, Semuels reported on the increasingly comical burger wars in Southern California.

According to Semuels, CKE Restaurants Inc., owners of Carl's Jr. and Hardees, sued Jack in the Box on Friday in Orange County's Ronald Reagan federal court building.

Here's the Times:

The suit cites TV ads that tout Jack in the Box's sirloin burgers and lampoon those made with Angus beef, which happens to be what's in the Carl's Jr. Six Dollar Burger and the Hardee's Thickburger. In one ad, Jack--the mascot whose head looks like an upside down ice cream cone, is asked to point to a cow's 'angus area' on a diagram. He says sheepishly, 'I'd rather not.'"

In another Jack in the Box ad, "employees laugh hysterically when a colleague talks about rivals' 'Angus burgers,'" says Semuels.

The ads have infuriated Carls Jr. folks: While we may "find humorous the aural and phonetic similarities between the words 'Angus' and 'anus,' the link is made to create the erroneous notion that all cuts of Angus beef are derived from the anus of beef cattle."

Nobody can let go of the butt jokes now.

In their lawsuit, Carls Jr. retaliated by claiming that Jack in the Box burgers are made from "frozen sirloin butt meat."

I can't wait for the next Jack in the Box commercial. Their incredibly funny ads are made by Secret Weapon Marketing of Santa Monica. Here is an ad that's unnerved Carls Jr. owners:

It's now been over a month since the Weekly revealed that Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown had a molestation allegation lodged against him in the past. We knew Brown wouldn't comment on the matter (we thought about confronting him yesterday, when he presided over the Confirmation of my brother and others at St. Boniface in Anaheim, but thought better of it), but what has shocked us is that neither the bleeding Los Angeles Times or Orange County Register ever hopped on the story. We understand why the Times wouldn't follow up, but OC's paper of record unfortunately relies on press releases nowadays for religion coverage. In light of that, we can surely expect a news story about sex abuse in the Orange diocese soon, since famed Newport Beach attorney John Manly put out a press release yesterday announcing a new allegation. The text is below:

DIOCESE OF ORANGE ACCUSED OF SHIELDING SEXUAL PREDATOR

The Diocese of Orange today is being accused of shielding a sexual predator who was allowed to have unsupervised access to minors at various South County parish churches after being suspended for sexual misconduct with a minor female in 1995.

According to John C. Manly, attorney for the alleged victim, the perpetrator, a lay employee, was temporarily suspended from his job by officers of the diocese, but was allowed to return to work soon after. He then went on to allegedly continue to abuse the victim after that time.

Manly believes that the Diocese is now aware of an additional victim/s and still but refuses to publicly disclose the abuse or the names of perpetrator.

"In 2001 and again in 2002, Bishop Tod D. Brown and other Diocesan leaders committed themselves to the full disclosure of those credibly accused of sexual abuse," Manly said. "But this alleged perpetrator was not on the list and his name still has not been disclosed. In addition, the Diocese continues to refuse to disclose the names of known perpetrators who operated at Mater Dei."

Manly is calling on Bishop Brown to immediately disclose the name of the perpetrator in South County who was recently suspended, along with the names of any other accused abusers.

In addition to providing these names to the public and law enforcement, Manly says that the Bishop should immediately report all personnel who were aware of the alleged abuse and failed to report as required by California law.

"Obviously, the Bishop and the other members of the hierarchy still don't care about the safety of children," Manly said. "Until law enforcement begins prosecuting those who fail to report and sending alleged perpetrators to prison, the abuse will continue. The fact that the diocese and the Bishop would leave someone in ministry for more than 12 years after they learned that the man was an alleged abuser shows a callousness towards children that is based in arrogance and disregard for the rule of law."

It's no secret that Jim O'Shea's memos magically find themseleves on Kevin Roderick's LA Observed. The Times chief joked about it himself at April's Festival of Books at UCLA, much to Roderick's delight.

O'Shea's latest (published) missive was on the buyouts - 57 staffers are officially on their way out, some voluntary, some not.

Over at his Guardian Unlimited blog, Roy Greenslade wonders aloud if O'Shea had some PR elves help him out with the "euphemistic corporate goobledegook" the editor employed in his "redundancy letter," which Greenslade skillfully dissects over here.

My pals over at OC Blog highlighted today an upcoming television program written by conservative Republicans who've gotten PBS to air a program called "Islam vs. Islamists," according to a press release. The show is happily billed as "the film PBS doesn't want you to see," a less than subtle slap at the so-called liberal media.

According to the May 24 edition of the Washington Times, "the often-disquieting 52-minute film explores the struggles of moderate American Muslims at the hands of their radical brethren and gives details about a "parallel" Islamist society that is slowly but surely developing within the U.S. borders. The film was produced by conservative columnist Frank Gaffney Jr., founder of the Center for Security Policy, filmmaker Martyn Burke and Middle East scholar Alex Alexiev."

It's ironic and surely frustrating for Congressman Dana Rohrabacher that a Republican website would tout Gaffney and his program. Until now, OC Weekly is the only local news organization that informed the public about Rohrabacher's close, lengthy relationships with individuals tied to anti-American terrorism. One of our sources? Gaffney.

Here is just one tidbit of the alarming information that Gaffney discovered:

The Center for Security Policy obtained an affidavit from a former staffer for U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) in December 2001. It described a conversation she had had with Khaled Saffuri in the Congressman's offices in which he acknowledged "sponsor[ing] the child of a suicide bomber." Redacted excerpts of the affidavit appeared in Insight Magazine. Shortly thereafter, Rep. Rohrabacher appeared at the Wednesday Group meeting to provide a personal endorsement for Saffuri.

Mr. Taliban indeed.

That I relied on a credible, conservative Republican like Gaffney to help expose Rohrabacher's hypocrisy greatly disturbed local Republicans. If he's not hailed as a hero in the Bush War on Terror, the congressman--who skipped combat duty during the Vietnam War--gets upset.

I know this firsthand. Last year, he chased me down a street--wet hair, carrying a towel, no shoes and enough anger to fill the Rose Bowl. How dare I question his relationships with certain Arabs the FBI considered terrorist associates, he said. The Jews were out to get him and I'd played into their hands, he continued. Yelling loud enough to drive neighbors from their houses, he pointed his finger in my face and declared that he'd personally risked his life for this country!

Then he asked: Where was my appreciation for this fearless warrior?

Ha.

Let's see if the local mainstream media finally acknowledges the truth about this rogue statesman.

My bet: no way.

Nam H. Nguyen is a little stumpy guy with a bad attitude, no expression and a violent streak from here to Ho Chi Minh City. Among his notable accomplishments: murder and mayhem. Nonetheless, beautiful women inexplicably love the nut.

In December 2002, Nguyen (wrongly) suspected that his ex-girlfriend slept with Ryan Truong Cheung, a 19-year-old Fullerton College student. In the wee hours of the morning, he tailed an unsuspecting Cheung from a Huntington Beach hotel parking lot to the Garden Grove freeway where he shot him to death. Then Nguyen attempted to murder Cheung's best friend who was driving in another car. Luckily, bullets didn't strike that person.

A fugitive in 2003, Nguyen was driving on Interstate 10 in Los Angeles when he got into an argument with Linda Tran, his next girlfriend. For some reason, Nguyen threatened to kill Tran's brother. They argued more and Nguyen took out a gun and, while driving, shot the girl in the right thigh. He then drove behind a shopping center in Temple City, sprayed Tran with lighter fluid and set her on fire.

Like the coward he is, Nguyen fled on foot while the girl burned. An ambulance eventually took Tran to Western Medical Center. She was treated for serious burns on her face, neck and breasts.

Skip ahead to this year. The Orange County District Attorney's office had Nguyen, 32, on trial for murder in the highway killing. Who did I see in court each day giving this thug emotional support?

Sadly, it was Tran.

Jack in the Box's new commercials openly mock the McDonalds Angus third-pounders as being inferior to the new sirloin burgers. But are they?

Certainly the commercials are better. McDonalds' bizarre appeal to Californians to eat lots of Angus burgers so they'll catch on and people in Boston can have them next was odd, to say the least—why do we give a damn what they want in Massachusetts? They elected Mitt Romney, after all.

And the only Mickey D Angus burger I tried was kinda dull, even though I was really hungry and in maximum burger-appreciation mode. But the Jack sirloin burger—pretty dang nice. I could do without the denser, cakier bun, but the pickle spears on it were crunchy, and the tomato slice fresh-tasting.

The chief new gimmick is that you get to pick your cheese ("American," "real Swiss," or "real Cheddar" . . . so apparently American isn't real?) and your onions—grilled white or raw red. But don't bother doing this until after you've specified whether you want a combo or not, and if so, whether you want that combo small, medium, or large—the cashiers don't hear a word you say until after those decisions have been made.

I hate red onions, so went for the grilled, and I didn't really taste them at all. The meat is good, though: If you've had their sirloin-steak ciabattas, you've had a preview—just imagine them all ground up and with less sauce. Is it better than Jack's Ultimate Cheeseburger, their gold standard to date? Maybe . . . depends what mood you're in.

Does anyone recognize "Chad" from his Alltel wireless' recent spate of lame serialized commercials? He plays this sort of blond self-important dickhead behind a kiosk in the mall. His rivals, a wimpy bag of nerds representing the other wireless carriers, are always conspiring to make him stop offering his superior Aryan "My circle" cellular plan, to which he pompously stares at them with his lake-blue eyes and ridicules their love of Dungeons and Dragons.

Well, you know what, "Chad"? You work at a wireless kiosk in the mall—enough said. Furthermore, nobody likes you. The only reason anyone pays attention to you is because you annoy the piss out of them. You're like the new "Dell Dude."

And for the actor who plays "Chad": Get ready for a lifetime of being known as the Alltel wireless guy, and only the Alltel wireless guy. You will never escape this career prison you've built for yourself by continuing to appear in these spots. Welcome to the world of pop-culture flash in the pan. You should have called it quits after maybe two of these ads at the most. Sure, the money is coming easy now, but you've sabotaged any potential acting roles for the future, except maybe to reprise the "Chad" role while being spoofed in some crappy Wayans Brothers or National Lampoon movie.

Good goin', dude.

What kind of guy can go from being state superintendent of the year to an indicted fellow who may be facing four years in the slammer?

Try former Capistrano Unified Superintendent James Fleming.

Last August, Fleming (once the highest-paid education chief in all the Orange land), retired amid accusations he'd created "enemies lists" of his political foes and used public funds to meddle in an election. The charges, filed under seal mid-May, were unsealed just yesterday.

Check out the indictment, the lists and other documents over at the Times.

Also charged: former assistant superintendent Susan McGill.

Photo credit: LAT

*Updated below . . .

Why, none other than our favorite non-racist white supremacist, of course! Martin Millard has made a name for himself in extremist circles thanks to rants against the "Tan Everyman," drawn local ire due to his influence over Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor, and even garnered attention from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Millard's been on a writing tear as of late thanks to the proposed amnesty bill currently in the Senate. He's not happy with it—indeed, he calls it "genocide" for gabachos. Today, this essay received a plug from none other than avowed white supremacist David Duke. The former Ku Klux Klan leader praised Millard as "one of the most brilliant writers and analysts in the European American civil-rights movement." Duke goes on to blame the Jews for this supposed genocide and recommends Millard's other works to his followers. Congrats, Millard, on the endorsement! And so, the question comes up again: Why, oh, why, Mayor Mansoor, did you ever associate with a slimy gabacho mass of glop?

(Hat tip to A Bubbling Cauldron, who's been fighting the good fight in Costa Mesa for a while now. . . . )

*UPDATE: Millard responds to us—we think. His latest post—in his classic rambling, incoherent style—criticizes "people who try to tell others what they think I think and what they think I write about." Then he cryptically refers to the Darwin Awards, annual prizes given to people who kill or sterilize themselves in goofy ways. "I have a feeling," Millard adds, "that we may have a future Darwin Award winner or two in Orange County." Okay, Millard: Rather than allow people like me to try to tell others what they think you think and what they think you write about, and considering the only people who can win a Darwin are those who die or suffer a horribly debilitating injury, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

The battle between lame and lamer is over. After months of weeding out kids with a sprinkling of talent, American Idol's sixth season came down to annoying Justin Timberlake-wannabe Blake Lewis and not-quite-powerhouse Jordin Sparks.

Tonight, 17-year-old Sparks took the title.

But you probably already knew that.

Even if you weren't one of the millions of suckers tuned in, it's hard to elude a story folks at the Times and Register deem worthy of primo web-headline space. Makes you wonder what tomorrow's print editions will look like. Let's see if anyone succumbs to the supreme temptation. . . .

In other news, the Register's "Watcher" thinks the Idol judges have outlived their welcome.

Even the snarky Simon.

Earlier today, representatives from the Arizona Interfaith Network, Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, Kansas City's El Centro and the United Farm Workers set up a teleconference call to argue why comprehensive immigration reform is necessary. They met under the name Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, or CCIR for short. Of course, the famous CCIR 'round these parts is the Mexican-hating California Coalition for Immigration Reform. Given that CCIR head witch Barbara Coe was recently involved in a lawsuit against Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist to wrest control of the Minuteman Project, will Coe sue to keep control of her group's acronym, especially given the fact that said competing group is advocating nothing short of Reconquista?

Stay tuned . . .

Didn't mean to leave everyone in suspense about the Fort Fridge contest, if indeed you were. It was over by Tuesday; here, courtesy of the official press release, is how it ended:

Twenty-five-year-old law clerk Geovannie De La Torre toughed it out against 28 other determined Californians. The third and final GET THE GLASS for Cash competition lasted four days. It started Friday, May 18 at 1:15 p.m at the Block at Orange. With 54 hours under his belt, De La Torre broke the GET THE GLASS for CASH contest record set by 33-year-old ex-Marine Luis Herrera. Herrera kept his hand on the glass for 49 hours during the Fresno competition in April.

"I thought I had a good shot at winning," says De La Torre. "I am used to working long hours, and I don't require I lot of sleep. These are the reasons why I decided to participate."

Second-place winner Nazret Weldeghiorgis, a third-year UC San Diego student didn't walk away empty-handed. Weldeghiorgis made a deal with De La Torre to split the winnings: $5,000 in cash, a year's supply of milk, plus an array of gift certificates and prizes. She released her hand from the glass at exactly the 54th hour.

"I didn't want to miss any more classes," says Weldeghiorgis. "I also needed to write a paper, so I decided to make a deal."

Weldeghiorgis, who also competed in the San Diego contest in April, got eliminated around the 22nd hour. That contest lasted for 28 1/2 hours amid heavy storms.

The Orange County Register's parent company, Blackstone Group, said Red money is good money May 22 as they accepted $3 billion from its newest partner, the Chinese government, according to reports from several news agencies. Blackstone Group is a private equity firm that owns 28 daily newspapers and 37 weeklies in 11 states under its subsidiary Freedom Communications. Talks have already begun about finding a less ironic name for the chain, leading some to suggest "Pander Express," according to rumor.

The announcement comes on the heels of controversy at the New York Post over its owner, Rupert Murdoch, allegedly blocking stories critical of the Chinese government to protect his business relationships.

Whether censorship or editorial favoritism will result from the buyout in the United States' 13th-largest newspaper chain is anybody's guess, but judging by today's lead story on the lifestyle page, titled "Mao Zedong: A great leader, an even better poet," the paper already seems to be warming up the idea.

Over at Pererro, Julie Scott laments the disappearance of Krispy Kreme chains from Orange County:

I already noticed that prett