Smythe's World

As expected, the Senate Judiciary Committe approved the nomination of Miguel Estrada this morning, 10-9, on a straight party-line vote. Since the President needs at least nine votes from the other side to impose cloture, this provides a possible sign that maybe the Democrats have started to fight back on judicial nominations. One of the more unfortunate aspects about being a liberal, however, is that our interests are too often represented by a party that contains a substantial accomodationist wing. Senators like John Breaux, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, and Mary Landrieu pay lip service to defending civil rights, choice, etc., but are never willing to do what's necessary to uphold those beliefs (of course, Zell Miller is a Dixiecrat, and makes no effort to hide his Republican leanings). Failure to support a filibuster in this situation is tantamount to a Yes vote on the Bush nominees, and no amount of whining about Ralph Nader's last campaign will change our responsibility to fight the politicization of the judiciary by any means necessary.

One of the pet political causes of the Green Party is to mandate proportional representation in Congressional races, together with an "instant run-off", where your second pick for an office gets your vote once he's eliminated. We used the latter system at Berkeley for student elections, and it allowed people to vote the Boring Party slate before they got around to selecting the people they really wanted to see in office. Proportional representation, on the other hand, is an idea whose time has definitely not come, as one can see from this week's election in Israel. Although it might be good to have some reasonable threshold for enabling small parties a chance to elect candidates without having to seriously compromise its views, like, say, ten percent, the notion that a candidate or party supported by one out of twenty voters can gain office strikes me as absurd. Fifty percent is a mandate, thirty percent is a movement, five percent is a fringe. And unless Sharon can convince some Fifth Column within the Labor Party to join his government, he probably will have to call new elections. Again.

Hopefully, the President's view that "different threats require different strategies" will be followed in dealing with this newest member of the "axis of evil".

Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee has its first contentious vote of the session, on the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Estrada, who has no judicial background, is a far-right lawyer favored by the Coulter wing of the GOP to be the first Latino to be picked for the Supreme Court. If you want to stop the next Clarence Thomas before he starts, and stick it to the Bush Administration by stalling his nominees to the federal court, contact the members of the Judiciary Committee before the vote. Better yet, focus on Arlen Specter; remind him that he once promised never to approve the nomination of a fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, and has to run for reelection next year in a Blue State.

Since the Knicks and Hawks were in an all-important battle to determine their lottery positions for next year's draft, I missed most of the State of the Union last night. However, one of the sets in the corner at Yankee Doodles did have the speech on, and from my brief glimpses, I could have sworn that the President now has light brown hair. Since most of the recent photos taken of W indicated that his hair was, in fact, gray, I was stunned. Certainly, the man who brought integrity back to the White House would not be trying to pull a fast one on the American people, to pretend he's something that he's not, to do something that metaphorically indicates that he's not comfortable in his own skin.

Well, as it turns out, I wasn't having a buzz-induced hallucination. He not only is dying his hair, he's doing a really lame-o job of it, almost as if Carrot Top were now his fashion consultant. [Link via Eschaton]

With the Super Bowl fresh in everyone's mind (btw, I like how JJ Abrams and company incorporated that Victoria's Secret ad involving J-Garn into the show Sunday; you guys might eventually get an audience with stunts like that, but I still think you should bring back Anna Espinoza), one media website is hosting a debate about the racist nickname of the Washington NFL team. Scroll down for Prof. Stephen Carter's suggestion; it's the best of the lot.

One of the more inexplicable failures of the news media has been their collective failure to investigate the missing year in George Bush's Air National Guard duty in the early-70's (a convenient time-line can be found here). One would think that it would be an easy story: at a time when the President is threatening to send Americans into harm's way, thereby starting a war of dubious value to our national security, his own background deserves to be scrutinized. If, in fact, he did serve a full term in the National Guard, the media could help to discredit one of the favorite shiboleths of the left, that the President "went AWOL" for a year from his military service.

Likewise, if Bush can't account for himself during the year in question, then it goes not only to his credibility as a leader, but also to his lifelong ability to get ahead through family connections, the so-called "white affirmative action" that he has benefited from since he used a 560 verbal SAT to get into Yale. In any event, bogus conspiracy theories are not the sole province of any ideology: for every fabricated story about "Whitewater" and Vince Foster, there were similar tales about Reagan paying off the Iranians before the 1980 election, and those "scandals" weren't discredited until someone actually went out and did some reporting. If the media ignores this story, it isn't going to go away.

There is no joy in Oakland this morning, after yesterday's 48-21 debacle. Hopefully, this will be the last hurrah for Al Davis, uber-jerk and classless twit, who has to watch a second coach he's driven away win a Super Bowl.

The Raiders remain the most popular football team in LA, notwithstanding their return home in 1995, a fact which continues to baffle me. The team's last eight seasons in the city involved a series of threatened moves elsewhere, incessant whining about the stadium and level of fan support, and an increasingly violent collection of fans at the Coliseum, for which the predominantly Yuppified fans in the East Bay are a weak substitute. The team got a little better in the early-90's (for a while they seemed to own John Elway), but they were never all that exciting, and fan support vacillated. The team refused to market itself, other than putting its dumb slogan ("Commitment to Excellence") and logo on MTA buses, without a mention of the team, ticket info, etc. Since the colors and logo had come to be adopted by local street gangs, the only effect it had was to convince many locals that the Crips had developed some market savvy. Invariably, the team never put its tickets on sale until June, which meant that early season games were poorly attended; there were enough football fans in the region to assure that its games at the end of the season would be sold out. Davis would ignore the late games, and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get a stadium deal out of Oakland, or Sacramento, or Irwindale.

After the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, the Coliseum sustained a little damage, but was otherwise good to go for the football season. While the rest of the region struggled to rebuild actual damage to our homes and businesses, including having to rebuild substantial sections of the 14 and 10 Freeways, Davis used the occasion to bitch about some small cracks to its foundation, and threatened a move out of town. After hearing his spiel for ten years, this area finally gave up. To this day, even the threat that the Raiders might return is enough to sink any stadium deal. Now he's Oakland's problem, and the good people of Alameda County have now experienced their share of complaints about the stadium, attendance, community support, etc.

When the Raiders left, the city was without a football team. Since pro football truly is the national pastime, the NFL was not going to disappear from the psyche of local sports fans, so we adapted. Many fans continued to root for the Raiders, and they remain surprisingly popular with Latino and African-American fans. The Cowboys, the Browns, the Packers, the Eagles and the 49'ers also have significant followings; oddly, although the Raiders remain popular, the Rams, the area's first major league sports franchise, are all but ignored, even when they were winning the Super Bowl several years ago.

Back around 1997, I decided I would adopt a team. Having lived in this area my whole life (so far), I didn't have any ancestral tie that I could use to root for, say, the Giants or Bears. The Rams and Raiders were out. I grew up hating the Broncos, Cowboys and Niners, and couldn't easily reverse those feelings. The Browns had a large local following for years, but at the time had abandoned Cleveland for Baltimore. So I looked around for a team that had no local following, a team that would be uniquely mine. And thus, I have been a Tampa Bay fan for the past five years.

In the past, I've questioned whether the CIA was allowed to gather intelligence on domestic entities, such as SD-6. It was my understanding that such activities were verboten. But last night's episode really begs credulity. I mean, the Company doesn't actually have a SWAT team that they can send into Downtown LA office buildings, shooting willy-nilly, making arrests, etc., does it?

As the streets of San Diego fill up with the I.T. providers and tech-support geeks playing dress-up that comprise RaiderNation, we will be treated to one of the least predictable Super Bowls in ages: the top offense, heretofore unstoppable, playing the best defense. That would be Tampa, a team that plays with the thuggery and nastiness of the classic Raider teams of the 70's and 80's. Looking back at past Super Bowls, it seems whenever a great defense has been matched against a great offense, the defense has prevailed: B-more two years ago, the Giants in XXV, the Bears over New England, the Steel Curtain over the Cowboys, etc. The only exception that comes to mind was the inexplicable loss by the Vikings in Super Bowl IV. With that in mind, go with the Raiders Buccaneers.

How the mighty have fallen. Check out Mr. Samgrass' response to a stinging letter sent by Studs Terkel, on the subject of his departure from the Nation magazine. Sometimes, it's just better to let something drop, or people will think you've become a bore.

Good timing, Smythe. The week I decide to rip the LA Weekly a new one is the week it publishes a valentine to my brother, the sort of story Howard Fineman might write about Bush if W ran a Downtown music club. Understand that my criticisms about the Weekly were limited to its coverage of the Valley, not its typically prescient music columns.

Adam Felber has discovered a Newer Testament: the Book of Lieberman.

Another good reason never to go to trial is what happened to me (or rather, my clients) today: a near-total defeat. I need a drink.

A sidenote about yesterday's post: I must reiterate that having a prospective competitor to the LA Weekly is a good thing, even if the initial set of contributors are the type of hack-pundits usually published by the L.A. Daily News. For those of you who live outside of LA County, one of the things you have to remember is that half the population in the city lives in the San Fernando Valley, myself included. I cannot remember the last time the Weekly published an informative or intelligent story about the Valley; during the recent secession vote, the only times it could be bothered to comment on the issue was to say that it was a movement of, by, and for, racists. As skeptical as I was about secession, quite frankly the notion that this was some sort of white separatist movement is bullshit.

Normally, I would be infuriated by that sort of take, as it derives from the outdated view that the Valley is a predominantly white enclave, which hasn't been true since Yorty was mayor, as well as unintentionally endorsing the view, widely shared west of the 405, that the rest of the city has a parasitic relationship to Valley homeowners. But the Weekly's coverage of this area is so bad (its restaurant guide lists more restaurants from the "trendy" Silverlake area than from the Valley) that I find the throwaway to be more a testament to provincialism than something I need to take seriously. In some ways, it resembles the cliched view that East Coast sportswriters have of California, as a place too "laid back", too "Hollywood", to be passionate about our teams. I am optimistic enough about the forward progress of human development to believe that such opinions will eventually die out, hand-in-hand with the morons who share them.

Considering that the alternative is the execrable Daily News, a newspaper whose only worthwhile attribute is that it reprints the NY Times crossword puzzle every day, a new weekly holds the possibility that the other half of Los Angeles is finally going to get covered in a serious manner. And for that reason alone, I am mildly excited by the debut of the Examiner.

For those of you who have neither read Jonathan Harr's classic book, A Civil Action, nor seen the movie, let me recap its moral, a lesson I have come to appreciate after Day Three: never, ever go to trial if you can somehow avoid it. There are just too many factors involved that are beyond your ability to control. Your success is dependent on unpredictable witnesses, evidence that might never see the light of day, and other factors that are just plain unforseeable. One moment you're convinced your client is about to be hung out to dry, the next, the other side commits some unbelievable blunder, on an issue not connected to the merits, that imperils its case. And then the next day, the positions are reversed. With one more day to go, I still have no idea how this is going to end, but there is no way I will ever go to trial again unless I have literally no other option.

With the recent demise of NewTimes, Los Angeles has been without competition in the free weekly department for the past few months (which was just the way the publishers of LA Weekly wanted it; the Justice Department has been investigating the deal they made to shut down their rival). The good news is, former Mayor Riordan is about to bankroll a new tabloid-style weekly, one that its editor, Ken Layne, insists will be "very big on sports, and we're also going to have a big gossip section right in the middle", and which will be available to the public in June. The bad news is, well, get a load of whom the LA Times reports will be writing for the new LA Examiner: "...Lynda Obst, Billy Crystal, James Q. Wilson, Joel Kotkin, Jill Stewart ...Susan Estrich, Gene Lichtenstein and Andy Klein." I guess Michelle Malkin and Norah Vincent weren't available. Too bad this venture, backed as it is by some of the top figures in SoCal blogging, doesn't possess a little more creativity in that regard. But at least it's something. [link via Matt Welch]

Day One of the trial is complete. I am not by training a trial lawyer, and have only done a few of these since I "got made" over thirteen years ago, but each one produces an incredible rush of adrenaline going into court. It's a feeling I haven't had since I ran high school track, just an enormous high mixed with nervousness, anger, frustration and intellectual fire; I can see why so many successful litigators turn to alcohol, since it's one of the few socially-sanctioned ways to come down afterwards. And the thing of it is, I have pocket briefs to prepare, will probably be up all night, and I have to be in court again at 9 a.m. tomorrow. I'm not cut out to do this.

Frank Rich explains it all...is there some way he could be persuaded to keep his column, or at least start a blog?

Tomorrow I begin a trial at the U.S. District Court, so I will be indisposed for most of the week. If anything of interest happens, I'll share.

I'll say this for major league baseball: having a zero-tolerance policy towards gambling has its advantages. Anybody who makes a bet on any game knows that it could mean disgrace, ignominy, and the end of his career. Although I feel that the sport's treatment of Pete Rose has been a travesty, based on a ridiculously biased report drafted by someone who could give Ken Starr a pointer or two about selling a slanted investigation, at least the punishment makes sense. Bet on a game, even if it doesn't involve your team, and you're out.

Overseas, the policy is a bit different. Rather than aggressively trying to keep the sport clean, the governing bodies for soccer have a different approach: unless the player bets against his team, it's not a problem. Mainly, that policy grows out of the tolerance for legalized gambling that exists in Europe, particularly England. As with college sports in this country, it is easier to find athletes willing to fix games because the salaries aren't extravagant, and the temptation is much greater.

Perhaps the best English player of the moment, and one of the most feared strikers ever, Michael Owen, is currently having to justify having established an off-shore account for purposes of betting, including wagers on Premier League soccer. The reaction of the Football Association has been telling: as long as he keeps his bets on the ponies and on Man Utd. and Chelsea, and doesn't bet on his team, Liverpool, to lose, there's no problem. Putting aside the fact that an athlete who is dropping a small fortune to bookies is likely to be an easier target for blackmail, the whole message this sends to fans and to other players is that the sport is more willing to coddle athletes and appease gambling interests than to deal with the appearance of corruption.

So that was Ming Yao? He scores six early, two in the fourth, and another two at the end of OT, but was otherwise the Asian continent's version of Shawn Bradley (who, I should also point out, is a pretty good shotblocker). Shaq took him to school, a point soon to be forgotten in light of the Rockets' 108-104 victory Friday, and about the kindest thing you can say was that Yao did not lose his composure. Steve Francis, on the other hand, was unreal, scoring 44, including a three at the end of regulation to tie the game, faking out the refs with the elan of an Argentinian soccer player in drawing a flagrant foul in OT, and absolutely dominating the pathetic backcourt of the Lakers. While Yao's dunk with ten seconds to go in overtime got in the highlight reel, it was Francis dribbling out the shot clock, drawing the entire Laker defense to him, that enabled Yao to be so open in the first place. All in all, the best game of the regular season so far.

Well, now we know what the Republican solution to exorbitant medical costs is: blame the lawyers. Or rather, attempt to punish victims of medical quackery by proposing a law for no other reason than to slap a potential opponent in next year's election, John Edwards. Explain again, how does putting a cap on pain-and-suffering damages discourage frivolous lawsuits? I mean, if a lawsuit is frivolous, there aren't any damages to begin with; thus, there's nothing to cap. And if a jury awards a patient huge damages, then, at least according to the twelve people who heard the case, that lawsuit wasn't frivolous.

Bush's latest stunt is in the same tradition as basing the entire policy for education reform on blaming the teachers' union. In fact, passing the president's latest proposal will increase lawsuits, even if it works as advertised, since incompetent doctors are less likely to be weeded out by increasing malpractice costs. As I noted when discussing last year's bankruptcy "reform" bill, an enterprising lawyer will always know how to game the system to his advantage.

Believe it or not, there may be something to Pete Townshend's excuse for downloading kiddie porn. I was a bit bothered when his explanation was almost word-for-word identical to David Westerfield's: that he was just doing research to see what was out there. Well, as it turns out, he actually wrote a paper on the subject of how easy it was to obtain child pornography on the internet, and published it on his website. [Link via Cursor] If this controversy doesn't provoke some civil libertarian discussions about the free use of the internet, than nothing will.

For years, there was this flaky billionaire named Marvin Davis, who was always threatening to purchase either a football franchise or a film studio. Whether it was the Tampa Bay Bucs or United Artists that were up for sale, Davis' name would always be in the news, before, surprise, surprise, he would back down, and the prize would go to someone else. For a short time, he actually did own a studio. After a while, though, it became clear that he wasn't serious, so he began to be politely referred to as a "tire kicker", someone who interested in looking but wasn't really a player. Perhaps the nadir was when he let his name be linked to a move to build a football stadium next to the Inglewood Forum several years ago, when the NFL was looking to put an expansion team in LA. Just having his name tied to the project was enough to discredit what had been a serious proposal, one that was almost a done deal when Al Davis was still in town, and the league actually went back to negotiating with the Coliseum; better that, they reasoned, then to be dicked around by someone they knew was going to back down in the end.

The last ten years, Marvin Lewis has been the Marvin Davis of the NFL. Unquestionably a terrific defensive coach, his name has been on the short list of almost every vacancy in the head coaching ranks, pro or college, since 1996. After his defense in Baltimore won the Super Bowl two years ago, he was all but offered the head position in Buffalo, but had cold feet at the last second, and stayed with the Ravens. Last season, California was set to announce his hiring when he backed down, and decided instead to become an assistant coach under Steve Spurrier with Washington. He was considered for jobs at Carolina and Tampa Bay, but by then, his reputation was as someone who wanted the attention, not the job, and he got passed over both times. Only a month ago, he was offered the head position at Michigan State, but turned it down. Just when it seemed like he was about to get a reputation for being someone too gutless to be a head coach, he agreed tonight to accept the job with the worst franchise in football, the Cincinnati Bengals. It is hard to imagine a worse situation for him; he will now be a coach for a team that won't spend the money, that is notorious for incompetent drafting, and has little talent to speak of. And they went 2-14 last season. Good luck.

EJ Dionne is all wet on this analogy. John McCain fights special interests; Joe Lieberman is their supplicant.

On a whim last week, I rented the DVD of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I won't pretend that it's one of the greatest movies of all time, but it remains one of the few films I've seen that never gets boring. The DVD is a revelation; one of the reasons why the movie has remained so memorable was just how beautifully it was shot. Apparently, the principal reason the film was even made was to hype a candy bar that Quaker Oats was selling, which, as it turned out, disappeared almost immediately. The commentary track, which consists of the five child actors, is a gas. As you might have guessed, the alternate language tracks are also worth a few minutes of your time; one hasn't lived until you hear Julie Dawn Cole dubbed into French !!

Yesterday, the Buffalo Sabres became the second NHL team in a week, and the fourth in the last eight years, to file for bankruptcy protection. As I noted before, this represents a very disturbing trend in the sport, especially since neither Ottawa nor Buffalo are really the weak sisters of the league; the franchises in Tampa, Carolina, Phoenix and Anaheim have attendance and media problems that are at least as severe, with no hope that things are going to get better anytime soon. And of course, the labor contract expires at the end of next season, although this is one problem that can't be blamed on greedy players, who, after all, are paid far less than their counterparts in basketball and baseball.

The best case scenario may well be that only a couple of teams will fold; the worst case is that the league may well go the way of the NASL. However, I do not believe that the long-term prognosis for the sport is all that bad. Even if the league dies, or is truncated in a dramatic fashion, I would expect many of the franchises to live on. There is clearly sufficient international interest in the sport to survive even the roughest of patches, and if it came down to it, I would expect to see a stronger, and more realistic, ice hockey league exist with teams in Europe and North America.

If this is true, then I don't see why we don't enlist the help of a few expatriate Nigerian bureaucrats as well. All is fair in the war against terror. Speaking of which, Neal Pollack is back, with an expose on the evil doctor who now leads the Senate.

I'm a couple of days behind on this story, in large part because it reflects something very rarely seen in public figures: moral courage. The last part of Governor Ryan's speech against the death penalty exhibits how even the most ordinary of men can sometimes achieve greatness. It's the best piece of oratory in years. [link via Jeanne d'Arc]

Kudos to the PGA, for holding its first tournament of the year at a pitch-and-putt course on Maui. The sponsors of the Mercedes Championship may want to consider holding next year's competition on a course that could at least challenge me. Try adding a rough, or sloping the greens, or placing a bunker or two in front of the greens, or something to prevent the winner from having to shoot 31-under par.

I have to admit, I did not see the twist coming at the end of Alias last night. It's to the credit of the writers and producers of the show that almost no one else did, either; none of the spoilers published on the various fansites even mention the reversal involving Sloane and his wife. In fact, the hints I had been receiving seemed to indicate that the big surprise was going to be in the next episode, airing after the Super Bowl in two weeks. Good job !!

Gee, what a surprise--the Bush Administration is now blaming Clinton for our deteriorating situation on the Korean Peninsula. Well done; I was wondering when they would get around to following their modus operandi; after all, admitting mistakes is something no Republican President has done since Francis Gary Powers was shot down. Economy bounces from recession to stagnation to recession, after Bush enacts an ill-conceived tax cut for millionaires; blame Clinton. America is attacked by terrorists, in large part because we seem to be more concerned about Iraqi oil that Al Qaeda; blame Clinton. Enron and other companies perpetrate a fraud on American investors for ten years, then help finance the selection of Bush to the Presidency; blame Clinton.

I'm certain that Jen and Barb's drinking will be blamed on Bubba, sure enough. Of course, it would be equally unfair to say that Bush is entirely responsible for each of those problems, particularly concerning corporate fraud. Nobody, myself included, likes to dwell on screw-ups. Nevertheless, however predictable this reaction might be, the tendency not to acknowledge its errors is one of the most troubling political aspects of this Presidency. The 50-50 split within the country necessitates that Bush make a special effort to draw the other half of the country behind his policies. In the aftermath of 9-11, he did that, speaking to us as Americans, not conservatives, and the nation supported most of his proposals to fight terrorism. Now that memories of that terrible day have faded, the partisan divisions have returned. No consensus has been formed about tax policy or Iraq, but this president seems to think that the country will give him a pass if he ties it in to the "war" on terror. Or if he just blames his predecessor. It would be nice if the country had a president whose word we could trust on matters of policy, someone who could admit to, and learn from, his mistakes. Someone like, say, Clinton.

The David Broder of SoCal bloggers, Matt Welch, has returned after a lengthy hiatus (if he's the broder of LA blogs, then I guess Kevin Drum is the EJ Dionne; I guess I'd be one of the Post's lame-o sportswriters, like Tony Kornheiser)

This is inappropriate on so many levels, I wouldn't know where to begin. "Justice" Thomas is still on the Supreme Court, and there's always the off-chance that one of the companies involved in the publication of his memoirs might have an issue or two that may one day be decided by the Court. Obviously, as hard as this might be to fathom, he might write something that is false, or even defamatory; in fact, since he probably won't admit he perjured himself back in 1991, I think it's a safe bet that he will do so. As pleasing as the thought of this bum being sued in a civil action while on the Court, especially in light of what he did to the previous President, such a suit would further damage the prestige and credibility of the judicial branch. More telling is just the fact that this is so classless.

The election is still some three weeks off, but if recent polls are to be believed, Ariel Sharon may be in some serious trouble. This was supposed to be a contest that would solidify the Likud Party's position in the Knesset, while discrediting the dovish wing of the Labor Party. It's not turning out that way, though.

The Fox Network lacks courage for not picking up Joe President; it would have been a perfect lead-in for 24.

He's not in my Humor section, since most of his posts are straight political takes, but every now and then, Jesse Taylor of Pandagon channels Peggy Noonan sooooo perfectly, I pee in my pants. We're barely two weeks into the new year, and he's already clinched a '03 Koufax Award for this brilliant parody.

Today's bankruptcy filing by the Ottawa Senators, the third such filing in the past eight years, is probably a good indication that the NHL may be the first of the major sports leagues in this country to seriously retrench. As much as I love the sport, ice hockey is a terrible TV draw (for example, two of the USA matches in the last World Cup got higher ratings on ESPN than all but one of the games of last season's Stanley Cup Final, even though the hockey games were on in prime time, while the soccer games started in the wee hours of the morning). Attendance around the league is wildly inconsistent. It draws talent from such a narrow base in North America that the star players in the sport are disproportionately from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Yet the NHL continues to play out the fiction that it is one of the major sports leagues in America, and maintains an assortment of franchises in the Sun Belt that are prime candidates to follow the Senators, Kings, and Penguins into bankruptcy protection.

Joshua Marshall has finally given Bush's Korean policy the doctrine it deserves: Strategic Ridiculousness.

It appears blogger John Ellis has lost one pound in the past week. Wow !!

The problem with hyping the "five men from Canada" into some elite team of international fugitives comes the next time the Administration wishes for us to take a threat seriously.

Big Brother once again punishes a man for freely exercising his Second Amendment rights. Or maybe it was because Tennessee State ran a poor transition game. Whatever.

I've always been partial to athletes who were absolutely hated by the beat writers covering them. Well done, Eddie Murray, for a memorable career, and for having the dignity and grace not to stick a bat down the throats of the scumbags of the fourth estate. Especially when you were with the Mets.

This might actually be a fun two years, if liberals are so willing. Bush's economic proposals are as tone-deaf as his father's; he actually believes that the reason the country is hurting is that Wall Street has to pay taxes on dividends !! He's just renominated Owen and Pickering to the federal circuit courts, only three weeks after the resignation of Trent Lott put an ugly spotlight on the piss-poor civil rights record of modern conservatism. The Administration "policy" about handling North Korea is almost deliberately incompetent, unable to distinguish between negotiations and "appeasement"; ironically, the reemergence of the PROK likely means that even if Bush starts a war with Iraq, the intended boost to his polling numbers will be as short-lived as they were for his dad. His reelect numbers are starting to plummet. And for the first time since 9/11, the Democrats are starting to fight back. Class Warfare, indeed. To the Barricades !!!!

Memo to Giants' fans: QUIT WHINING !!! Bad calls are a part of life, so get over it. Your whole raison d'etre seems to be based on the assumption that the refs would have called pass interference, then your kicking team would have made a field goal that it had botched on two separate occasions in the previous four minutes. Well, ask yourself this: how were the Giants' robbed if they couldn't hold a 24-point second half lead? Jeez, you guys are worse than those Cardinals' fans who still moan about Don Denkinger costing them the '85 Series.

The campaign to make Mother Theresa a saint hits a roadblock, in this well-reasoned piece by Jeanne d'Arc that peels away the hype, and suggests a more-deserving candidate, Archbishop Romero.

Rough day at work. I haven't been able to shake whatever sickness I have, and feel depleted and lethargic. I took on an appearance today at a confirmation hearing for a Chapter 13 debtor, but was not given a complete file, so I had to live through the embarassment of finding out the facts of my case in open court, in front of the judge, trustee, and opposing counsel. Still, I got the plan confirmed. Then I went to work on preparing another case for trial, but had repeated arguments with the chief trial lawyer, who was second-guessing everything I was doing. Finally, I just had enough, and went home. If it were up to me, I'd just tell her to go to hell, and let her handle the case the rest of the way, but it's my principal source of income right now.

I can gripe about this Administration's policy concerning North Korea 'til the proverbial cows come home, but Joshua Marshall has provided an encyclopedic analysis of the crisis. It's the reason blogs exist.

Interesting post by labor lawyer Sam Heldman on unjudicial behaviour by a certain Ninth Circuit judge, Alex Kozinski. I'm sure many of you have received links to various opinions by a certain Texas District Court judge, Samuel B. Kent. His opinions are often hilarious, nasty and cutting, very well written, and contemptuous of the fools who appear before him in his court. He is, in my opinion, the worst person on the Federal Bench. Similarly, Kozinsky is a rabid ideologue and bigot, whose opinions are in the same tradition (btw, his wife, Marci Tiffany, was the former US Trustee for the Central District of California, a political appointee by the first Bush, and a diletante whose obnoxiousness was tempered only by her aversion to hard work. For that, all local bankruptcy lawyers should feel some debt of gratitude). He is also very funny, which, unfortunately, is not his job.

In Los Angeles County, if you don't like the judge you've been assigned, you have at least one opportunity to recuse the judge, and you may do so for any reason, however petty. Although there are supposedly standards by which a Federal judge is supposed to recuse himself, it is an exceedingly rare process, and it's entirely up to the judge to decide whether he has a financial interest that may be affected (the appeals court might ultimately have a differing view, but such oversight is worthless when the parties have limited financial resources to challenge a bad ruling). At a time when the Federal Judiciary has become another political branch, and its judges have lifetime appointments, as well as unlimited power to settle scores and impose their beliefs on the parties that appear before them, such a policy invites the sort of judicial corruption exemplified by Alex Kozinski, Manuel Real, Lawrence Silberman, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia.

If a party to a Federal suit could recuse a judge at the beginning of a lawsuit, whether it's at trial or on appeal, it might discourage a judge from abusing his power in that matter. I have the impression that most judges, at least, aren't doing it for the paycheck. They love holding court, and gaining a reputation for being a local a-hole that parties either do not want to appear before, or wish to appear before them only because their views are so predictable, is one no judge truly wants.

Vacation over. Back to work.

The cruise did not end well. The gala event of every cruise, the final day of the "snowball" Bingo tournament, was a fiasco, as the P&O policy of allowing rugrats into the gambling room backfired terribly. Dozens of elderly players (and myself) were compelled to stand at the back of the room because some jackass parents thought it would be cute to bogart the seats with their obnoxious brat children. A ship the size of the Star Princess simply does not generate vacations as enjoyable as smaller cruise ships; it's way too big, and there are too many people on board. Also, my grandmother got sick, and I came down with something resembling a flu, except I already had my flu shot; I guess it's a stillborn flu. The only good news was the surprise win last night of Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, and the fact that four cubans entered the country successfully.

Strange day. Today we had our last stop of the trip, in Cabo San Lucas. Unlike the other ports, the ship was there for only six hours, which is almost nothing to me since half of that time I'm still asleep. By the time I was motivated enough to get out of bed and go ashore, I could do little more than walk around the city in a daze. Again, I stopped at a sports bar for a couple of hours and watched ESPN News, thereby getting all facets of the Parcells-to-America's Team story while developing a nice late morning buzz. As I was walking back to the tender that would take me back to the ship, I was accosted by a lady who wanted to sell me a doll for $5. I thought it would be nice to buy for my secretaries' kids, so I asked for two, and was able to bargain the price down to $8. Then I checked my wallet, and found out I had nothing. The expression on that woman's face; I wanted to cry.

The first day of the New Year was spent in Mazatlan, a "resort" town of about a million people that consists largely of luxury hotels and slums. I spent the day at a couple of sports bars in the "Golden Zone", a shopping area that seems largely designed to attract American tourists. One of the bars, The No Name Cafe, is apparently owned by a Chicago Cubs fan, and serves incredible shrimp dishes. And yes, they had all the games this afternoon. Cheap drinks, great food, I'm in heaven.

Ah, New Years Eve--champagne, streamers and horns, and casual sex with gorgeous young strangers in red cocktail dresses. If only....