Good God. Can just anybody post at OTB nowadays? Yeesh.

Now that it’s become pretty clear to just about everyone in the world except Wendy “All Rape Charges Are Real” Murphy and Nancy “What She Said” Grace that the real criminals in the Duke lacrosse rape shakedown case are Mike Nifong and Crystal Gail Mangum, can anyone offer me a rational explanation of why the identities of Collin “I didn’t do it, buttmunch” Finnerty, David “what mustache?” Evans and Reade “I wasn’t even there, asshole” Seligman are plastered all over the news media but Mangum’s name is not? I understand the general policy of respecting the privacy of real rape victims, but even even that doesn’t really make sense in the case of a stripper, who is unlikely to be any more shamed by being named as a rape victim than the rest of us are to be shamed by becoming victims of any other violent crime, whose victims’ identities do not receive any such protection. Think about it, Mangum’s career consists of stripping for drunk, horny kids, and her panties have been found to contain the DNA of just about every able-bodied male in Durham who doesn’t play lacrosse. What the hell kind of shame could news of a real rape cause to her? If anything, it would provide further shame to her attackers, as it would be evidence that the uberslut from hell will have sex with just about anyone except them. Besides, we’re far past the stage where anyone in his right mind believes a rape occurred. The real story now is that idiot D.A.’s decision to follow up on her obviously false accusation, the falsity of which becomes even more obvious when you Google a name like Crystal Gail Mangum rather than a politically correct euphemism like Duke lacrosse exotic dancer. Now that she’s far more likely to be a criminal than a victim, I say she should be entitled to NO privacy, certainly not any more than her victims got.

Does anyone really think I’m wrong? If so, why? Anyone? Bueller? Mangum?

More here.

If you are thinking of purchasing a Garmin StreetPilot 320 GPS navigation device for your car, beware. According to the link, that company’s GPS devices are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, and their promise to get you from Point A to Point B has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Yesterday I blogged about a rather difficult exchange with L.A. Times Readers Rep Kent Zelas regarding the Times staff’s New Year’s boner on AB 849, the blatantly unconstitutional gay marriage bill vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. I promised to keep you apprised of any changes, even while cautioning against the holding of breath. I received a followup today that gives reason for cautions optimism:

Thanks for your further thoughts. I believe I have a better understanding of your position and have taken it to the editors who oversaw that opinion piece.

Kent Zelas
Asst. Readers’ Rep.

At this point, if the paper doesn’t correct itself, we’ll have it, not the Readers Rep, to blame.

UPDATE: Patterico sez I’m tilting at windmills. Time will tell.

UPDATE x2: I’ve since been contacted by a senior editor, confirming that the message was indeed passed on to the editors. Apparently, their misunderstanding (which, alas they have yet to acknolwedge as such) was based on the Legislature’s self-serving statement that Prop 22 applies only to marriages conducted outside California. Were the courts to accept that hackneyed theory, then AB 845 could indeed have allowed same-sex marriages to be conducted inside California. It still wouldn’t have spared the courts anything, though; to accept that interpreation of the scope of Prop 22, the Supreme Court would have to rule on Prop 22, else the Court of Appeal precedent of Knight v. Superior Court stands, and Prop 22 applies to in-state and out-of-state marriages alike. Seeing as the tired “California Proposition 22 only applies to non-California marriages” meme apparently won’t die, perhaps a reader can explain the rationale behind it. It’s clear why Prop 22 opponents want to construe Prop 22 as narrowly as possible, but does anyone really think California voters intended to vote for a law that prohibits the state from recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, while recognizing same-sex marriages conducted in-state? If so, why on earth?

Readers of Patterico, Boi from Troy and others are aware of a recent moronic editorial that ran in last week’s L.A. Times with regard to Ass. Bill 849 and the ongoing court challenges to Proposition 22. In that moronic editorial, the L.A. Times staff argues that Governor Schwarzenegger could have headed off the court challenges to Prop 22 by signing AB 849 rather than vetoing it. These legal eagles write:

IT COULD have been different. If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had signed a bill in 2005 legalizing same-sex marriage instead of vetoing it, the California Supreme Court would have been spared the task of deciding, as it probably will this year, whether a voter-approved ban violates the state Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Apparently, the Times staff’s opinions were too important to be sullied by Article II, Section 10(c) of the California Constitution, which says this:

… or even to read Section 8 of AB 849 itself, which says this:

The Legislature finds and declares that this act does not amend or modify Section 308.5 of the Family Code, as enacted by an initiative measure, to the extent that Section 308.5 addresses only marriages from other jurisdictions. The Legislature further finds that Sections 300 and 308.5 of the Family Code have been declared unconstitutional by a state coordination trial judge appointed by the Judicial Council, and the Legislature declares that the purpose of this act is to correct the constitutional infirmities of Section 300, which was enacted by the Legislature.

Thus, by Leno’s own written admission, passage of AB 849 would have resulted in two dueling statutes in the California Family Code, reading as follows:

300. (a) Marriage is a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between two persons, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary. Consent alone does not constitute marriage. Consent must be followed by the issuance of a license and solemnization as authorized by this division, except as provided by Section 425 and Part 4 (commencing with Section 500).
(b) Where necessary to implement the rights and responsibilities of spouses under the law, gender-specific terms shall be construed to be gender-neutral, except with respect to Section 308.5.

308.5 Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Put those two statutes together, and you’re left a California law defining single-sex unions as “marriages” that are neither “valid” nor “recognized” in California, hardly a result any SSM advocate would be proud of. The Dog Trainers make a really, really lame attempt to dodge this problem, noting the alleged constitutional infirmities of Prop 22:

But Schwarzenegger said he had to respect Proposition 22, approved in 2000, which states: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Whether committed same-sex couples will be relieved of second-class status now depends on the state Supreme Court. And as Superior Court Judge Richard A. Kramer’s ruling notes, the state Constitution trumps any ballot question and entitles same-sex couples to what he called “the last step in the equation: the right to marriage itself.”

Kramer’s opinion was reversed on appeal, so I’m not sure why the legal eagles see fit to cite it as authority, but even so, neither his opinion nor any other published or unpublished opinion of which I am aware authorizes the legislature to usurp the role of the courts in determining the constitutionality of any statute, let alone an initiative statute they do not like. Even Ass. Bill 849′s author, Mark Leno, was not that brazen, writing further in Section 8 of the bill that:

The Legislature further finds that the constitutional infirmities of Section 308.5 of the Family Code, which was enacted through the initiative process, cannot be corrected by the Legislature and that the California Supreme Court is the governmental body that has authority to make a final determination regarding the meaning, validity, or invalidity of Section 308.5.

Thus, whatever merit there may be to the view that Governor Schwarzenegger should have signed a blatantly unconstitutional (and therefore meaningless) bill, there is none whatsoever to the notion that doing so would have mooted the court challenge rather than complicating matters further. I alerted “Readers Rep” to the error, which – surprise, surprise – was deemed not correctable. The email exchange appears below the fold.

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Please, enough with this pissing match over whose civil war is the real one. For once, could w all agree on a few basic, incontrovertible facts about the Middle East? How about these:

• Palestine sucks. It may be fun to gloat about it since the U.S. had nothing to do with it, but it still sucks.
• Iraq sucks. It’s less fun for warbloggers to gloat about that, since invading the country and toppling Saddam was supposed to leave a country in its place that didn’t suck, but it still does.
• Iraq sucked in 2003, and for decades before that. During some periods, the U.S. supported the regime to an extent. During most others, it didn’t. But during all of them, it sucked, and there wasn’t a damned thing we could do to change that.
• If we hadn’t invaded Iraq, Iraq would still suck. Probably even more than it does now. All the nastiness that existed before wouldn’t have simply vanished into thin air. Even the Dixie Chicks, for crying out loud, are not ready to make nice. Neither is Ragh(e)ad Hussein, and if her father Saddam and her brothers Qusay and Uday were still around, you can bet your sweet ass they wouldn’t be ready to make nice, either.
• The Middle East sucks. All of it.
• No matter what U.S. foreign policy may be, the entire Middle East will continue to suck, for at least a decade to come, probably three.
• Yes, I know Israel is in the Middle East. It sucks, too. If it weren’t surrounded by a bunch of crazies who want to annihilate it and filled with ‘splodeydopes eager to blow themselves up in the process, it wouldn’t suck. By the same token, if your aunt had balls, she’d be your uncle. Gotta take the world the way you find it, so through no fault of its own, Israel sucks, too, and will continue to until the rest of the area is brought under control.

Most memes spread because Blogger A tags Blogger B, thereby making Blogger B feel obligated to answer a series of stupid questions. Patterico has a kinder, gentler approach which I’ll follow here as well: rather than tag five bloggers, let five readers volunteer to answer the questions on their own. The meme has three parts:

1. Take this retarded quiz and tell us how you scored.
2. Tell us five things about you that we don’t already know.
3. Tell us about some things that lawyers appreciate. If you’re not a lawyer and don’t know any of them well enough to answer, feel free to answer about your own profession instead.

Here are my answers:

How I Did on the Retarded Quiz:

That depends. I took the retarded quiz twice. The first time, I refused to answer all questions that either (1) were retarded or (2) offered no possible answers that weren’t retarded. The second time, I answered every question, frequently forcing myself to choose the lesser of two retards. I’m not sure which methodology is worse, but for what it’s worth, I scored a 19 (mildly liberal) on the first go, and 31 (barely to the right of Jack Kemp) on the second.

Five Things About Me You (Probably) Didn’t Already Know:

1. I am one of the few living individuals who know what it is like to drown.
2. I may be a lawyer, but I totally suck at golf, almost as badly as dKos sucks at logic. Always have. I’ve gotten a few hole-in-ones here and there, but not if you count the strokes I took before that one that finally got the damned thing into the hole.
3. I chipped a few pieces of the Berlin Wall three days after it “fell.” Unfortunately, all have been lost in transit since.
4. I’ve visited every state in the union except West Virginia and Ala*a.
5. Marriage Amendment: I actually voted for it, before I voted against it.

Things I Appreciate As a Lawyer:

One of the things I appreciate the most is that most lawyers are very rational people. I have a limited tolerance level for liberal people, but I have zero tolerance for irrational ones. I don’t just don’t run into that many of them in my line of work.

Similarly, lawyers are paid to argue, which has the fringe benefit that few take disagreement personally. Andrew Sullivan could never make it as a lawyer. Somehow, Jeralyn Merritt does, and rumor has it even Glenn Greenwald did for a while, but that’s another story.

As a solicitor rather than a barrister, I appreciate that I am paid to privatley tell my client what is right, not to publicly spin my client’s wrong to make it look right to a judge or jury. Not that I have anything against paid advocates. Some of my best friends are paid advocates, either as lawyers or in other arenas. Getting paid to advocate a particular position favorable to a particular party is a perfectly fine thing to do. It’s just not what I do.

Oh yeah, it also pays well. But you knew that already.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Everything (BATFE) rarely misses an opportunity to throw the book at anyone found in violation of the most arcane gun law, but so far has been a bit slow on the draw against one particular criminal, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg. On Tuesday, January 23, Bloomberg and his junta will meet for a one-day summit at the DC Capital Hilton, at 1001 16th St. NW in DC. The Virginia Citizens Defense League is holding a counter-rally calling on the government to prosecute the real criminals in this matter.

The full VCDL announcement appears below the fold, with a few links added by yours truly.
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In an interesting twist, incoming Congressman Keith Ellison announced he will be sworn in using a Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson. Personally, I was hoping he’d scrap the idea of a Koran and take his oath instead on a signed copy of Dennis Prager is a Big Fat Idiot by Dennis Prager, but Jefferson’s Koran is a close second. I’m sure Virgil Goode, who represents Jefferson’s district, will agree.

Is here.