Hitpiece

I noticed this article about Clarence Thomas in the L.A. Times yesterday, and just by reading the headline I knew it was a biased slamjob. Ken Masugi of the Claremont Institute elaborates on just how much of a ridiculous hitpiece this is.

Happy New Year!

Or as we Chinese sometimes say, "Xin Nian Hao!"

Movin' On Down

As the new year approaches, I will be moving back down to So. Cal. where I've accepted a job with a relatively new and small law firm in Orange County. Hopefully, this job will work out a lot better than the last associate attorney position I held, and civil litigation won't be something that I hate so much.

Although I am sad to be leaving No. Cal., I do plan to make my way back up here in the next 2-3 years.

Just Watch. He'll Be Called an "Uncle Tom" Liberal

Set for publication this week in the Stanford Law Review is a controversial article written by UCLA law professor Richard Sander. In this article, Sander essentially concludes that affirmative action admission policies in our nation's law schools hurts minorities (e.g., blacks) more than it helps them.

As summarized by Terry Eastland at the Weekly Standard(article link via Powerline):

In the picture Sander draws, the admissions preferences for blacks are very large. This is the case with respect to almost all law schools. Which is to say, contrary to conventional wisdom, preferences aren't confined to the elite schools. Indeed, "affirmative action has a cascading effect through American legal education." The top-tier law schools enroll not only the small number of blacks who don't need preferences to get in but also less-qualified black applicants whose credentials would have sufficed to gain them admission under a race-blind standard to a second-tier school. Second-tier schools are then forced to choose between having few if any black students (under a race-blind standard) or using preferences to reach their racial goals. The second-tier schools make the latter choice, and so the effects cascade to the third-tier schools and on down the law-school ladder. There is thus a "system" in place whose net effect is "to move nearly all blacks up a tier (or two) in the law school hierarchy." Only at the bottom--in the lowest-tier schools--do you find black students who are probably unqualified for any law school.

The cascading effect leaves most black students "mismatched" with peers whose academic credentials (in terms of LSAT scores and UGPA) are superior. Which means, as Sander puts it, that "nearly all blacks [are placed] at an enormous academic disadvantage in the schools they attend." And so there are "mismatch effects." In their first year, about 50 percent of black law students end up in the bottom tenth of their class, and roughly two-thirds in the bottom fifth, with only 8 percent placing in the top half. The grades of black law school students go down a bit from the first to the third year. Black students have a much higher attrition rate than white students (19 percent compared with 8 percent). Sander finds that fact unsurprising, since students (of whatever race) with the very worst grades are those who are expelled or drop out. Finally, black law school graduates fail the bar exam at four times the rate of white graduates. Sander concludes that more than 40 percent of black students starting out to become lawyers never reach that goal.

Still Pining for a Gore Presidency

No doubt largely inspired by Barbara Boxer's most recent foray into the ridiculous, California's other left-wing U.S. Senator, Dianne Feinstein, wants to "fix" the national electoral system by proposing a constitutional amendment that would abolish the electoral college. (news link via Hugh Hewitt).

Hi-ho Silver, Eh?

The Supreme Court of Canada has been asked to determine whether the word "kemosabe" (most famously used in The Lone Ranger TV show) is racist. I imagine the Vancouver Canucks hockey team will be looking on with much interest.

Yet One More Reason to Homeschool

How incredibly perceptive of the Plano Independent School District to figure out that when people wear red and green colors around the Christmas holiday, they are trying to proslytyze their Christian faith.

Judge Wears Ten Commandments on Robe

A nice idea, although I personally find it a bit aesthetically awkward (I would have put a discrete, but noticeable, "PX" symbol).

Another Example of How Barbara Boxer is a Freakin' Nut

Images of a raging magalomaniac arise, as the left wing senator from California not so subtly threatens to put the Federal government hammer on college football if the private consortium that oversees the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) doesn't adopt some kind of a playoff system (as it currently stands, the top Division I-A football teams are more or less determined by some mysterious mathmatical formula that, of course, takes into account wins and losses). And oh yeah, Boxer's son is a graduate of Cal, whose football team this year got numerically squeezed out of a BCS bowl game that would have netted the school several million dollars. Quite a coincidence, eh?

Doing God's Work

A woman who has dedicated her life to saving babies from infanticide wins $27 million in the California lottery.

All too often, the ring of Debi Faris-Cifelli's cell phone means there is another abandoned newborn at the morgue, another forsaken child for her to name and bury in a shoebox-size coffin under a white cross in the California desert.

"Maybe it's the children saying, 'Thank you' for taking care of them when nobody else would," Faris-Cifelli said, bubbling with laughter. "It's a gift and one for which we feel an awesome responsibility."

It's what they did next that sets the Cifellis apart.

"That's a lot of money to be responsible for. We want to be really good stewards of that money. We feel like it's a gift," said Debi.

"And the first thing we thought of was a scholarship fund," said Steve.

The Power of Ordination Belongs to State and Federal Judges

So effectively suggests a Connecticut defense attorney who believes that Catholic priests should unionize in order to protect their "careers" from "baseless allegations" of criminal misconduct.

Wonder where this yayhoo was on the day they taught the First Amendment in law school.

That Would Be "Aiya!"

Michelle Malkin posts a story about how Nike is apologizing for running an "offensive" commercial that has since been banned in China, and what China does to folks who dare to exhibit courage.

"Christophobia"

It appears the Vatican is pushing for an adoption of the term by the U.N.

Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican's foreign minister, said anti-Christian feeling had increased, exacerbated by the war on terrorism.

He said Christianity was often mistakenly seen as being inextricably linked with Western political policy, and had suffered as a result in the backlash against the West.

His comments, at a conference in Rome, were primarily aimed at Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, where insurgents have bombed a number of churches.

But he also echoed Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a leading contender to be the next Pope, who said last month that parts of Europe were so now secular that Christianity was being pushed into the margins.

A stupendously bad idea if you ask me. For one thing, a phobia is an irrational psychiactric fear, not an overt expression of ignorant hostility or hatred. Second, adopting this made up term only lends further credibility to ridiculous political words like "homophobia." Seems to me that if you want a word that adequately describes anti-Christianity, the word "anti-Christianity" should be used.

Maybe Target Did A Good Thing

In an unintentional fashion, the controversial decision by the Target Corporation to prohibit the Salvation Army from ringing bells (i.e., soliciting charitable donations) in front of their stores may very well be in the best interest for Catholics. (link via Amy Welborn)

73*



The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

By and Large, AIDS is a Homosexual Disease

This is certifiably confirmed by the fact that over 40 percent of those in America who are afflicted with the disease are homosexual males. Sure would be nice if the "gay community" would fess up to this and admit that their chosen lifestyle is inherently dangerous.

Unhinged

If the Democrat Party doesn't disassociate itself from folks like these, it can forget about ever winning back Congress and the presidency. (link via Michelle Malkin)

Detroit Not Only Has Basketbrawl

They also have Boy Scout troops that throw dinner parties for anti-Boy Scout congressmen. Huh.

SCOTUS Won't Review Mass. Case

The SCOTUS declines to review the blatantly activist decision by the Mass. high court legalizing "gay marriage." Since the rejection was made without comment, one can only speculate that it might be based on the proposed amendment to the Mass. constitution that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Blackballed

For daring to blow the whistle on John Kerry, 'Rat mafiosos (can there be any other way to describe them?) have apparently succeeded in getting Swift Boat vet Steve Gardner fired from his job. (link via Powerline)