This article from the SF NBC website which made The Drudge Report details Berkeley standing down from its measure to ban the Marines.

A choice bit from the article:

“Subtly stated in the resolution is perhaps an impugning of the soldiers fighting for us in Iraq and other places,” Berkeley City Councilman Laurie Capitelli. “And that was never the intention but that really needs to be cleared up. As I walked to my car that night I realized I regretted it and I had made a mistake.”

The institution that called the Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” claims this was PERHAPS a subtle impugning. It wasn’t perhaps or subtle, and it was greater than impugnment. It was pretty heinous. Now that the city is threatened with the loss of 2.3 million in federal revenue it is backing off, and who knows if it learned a lesson or not.

Here’s another one:

“Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Barbara Lee said they plan to fight the Republican bill”

Good luck with that, ladies! I’d love to see that day on the House/Senate floor. Also, Wozniak, one of the original dissenters, made a comment that was meant to be an olive branch but does nothing to hide Berkeley’s other forms of crazy:

“Berkeley is supposed to celebrate diversity and free speech and we welcome homeless people here. We welcome illegal immigrants. We give them sanctuary. We should welcome the Marines. I mean they’re basically dedicating their lives to protect their country.”

I’m sure February will provide the community of crazies and those who live with them a wholly new outrage to keep our spirits up. This is one thing that Berkeley has done for me–I won’t expect that anything will ever be strange again.

From The Daily Cal’s website:

“In response to a Marine Corps recruiting office established in Berkeley last year, local activists are trying to make it more difficult for future recruiting centers to open in the city.”

This is how they intend to make it more difficult:

“If passed by a majority of Berkeley voters, a proposed initiative would require military recruiting offices and private military companies in Berkeley to first acquire a special use permit.

To obtain this permit, a business must hold public hearings and a public comment period.

If the initiative passes, recruitment offices could not be opened within 600 feet of residential districts, public parks, public health clinics, public libraries, schools or churches.”

Also, military recruitment offices have been compared to “pornographic stores“:

“In the same way that many communities limit the location of pornographic stores, that’s the same way we feel about the military recruiting stations,” said PhoeBe sorgen, an initiative proponent and a member of the city’s Peace and Justice Commission. “Teenagers that really want to find them will be able to seek them out and find them, but we don’t want them in our face.”

For those of you who aren’t acquainted with the non-residential areas of Berkeley, this process would make getting a recruitment office nearly impossible. First, the proposed recruitment office would have to have a special permit that they’d have to obtain through the “public hearing and public comment” process, which means entangling themselves in Berkeley’s sizeable and slugglish bureaucratic net. If they were successful, the 600 foot regulation basically covers anything they could be next to. The assumption that they have to be far away from public entities like schools, parks, and clinics indicates that the city still believes recruiters are “preying” on poor, weak, minority citizens. However, churches? Those aren’t “public” in the same way the other institutions are, and shouldn’t be put in that category (the whole church and state thing).

My elementary analysis: This is the “nice” way of banning military recruitment without actually doing it. I hope the public outcry is loud. But what am I saying, this is Berkeley.

update: welcome, Michelle Malkin readers. Come make yourselves at home!

From the San Francisco Chronicle, a federal judge ruled earlier today the City of San Francisco can continue with its law providing universal health care for adults.

From the Chronicle:

A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the city’s request to suspend a federal judge’s Dec. 26 ruling striking down a key funding provision of the ordinance. That provision requires large and medium-size companies to offer insurance to their workers or pay a fee to the city.

The appeals court said the city was likely to prove that U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White was wrong when he ruled that local governments lack the power to require employers to make financial contributions to a health care program. Today’s decision allows the city to enforce the entire ordinance while it appeals White’s decision.

While it has been talked about in the ruling, one of my first questions is what government body if any has the right to mandate and administer health coverage like this? I don’t think any of them do.

If the law is upheld after all the appeals are settled, what effect will it have upon San Francisco? While more employees will have some kind of health coverage, there will be other unintended side effects. If a company that does not offer health insurance suddenly has to pay fees, they will have to cut costs. Since it is money that is ultimately being spent on employees, some businesses will take this money out of the salary of their workers or even lay some off.

This requirement will also discourage companies from setting up shop in the city. If a business owner wants to open offices, he will have a reason to avoid San Francisco and find a nearby city without such a law.

As for the coverage itself, there is no guarantee of quality with any kind of government backed plan. While the current medical insurance industry has problems, companies or individuals that buy into it have the option of switching to a different provider. With the government backed coverage, there is no choice. Unless people can opt out of the program (from what I know they cannot), if the coverage quality nosedives they will still be stuck paying for bad insurance.

Health coverage is important and there will always be people willing to pay for it. The government should stay out of the process and let people and companies keep more of their money and make their own decisions.

Some preliminary links to keep you entertained while we wait for Nonie. Gateway Pundit detailing the events slated for tonight; with the exception of the event at Pepperdine, which is cancelled due to fires.

7:11 event begins with an introduction from BCR President Ross Lingenfelder. “The purpose of Islamo-Fascism awareness week is to bring attention to our common enemy, radical Islam”

Nonie, as you are aware, is the daughter of the general who invaded Israel in the 60’s, and was brought up in a Jihadist family. Her speech is sponsored by David Horowitz.

7:14 Ms, Darwish takes the stage to jeers of “Fascist; you are nothing but a tool of the United states”. Shouter is rebuked and removed.

Ms Darwish: “As an American, I cherish the freedom of speech”. What a fitting start. “This is not a discussion of good, peace-loving muslims…but an ideology of violence and hatred”

(more…)

On the same vein as my previous posts, “Your Black Muslim Bakery” has been the subject of investigation. Via Michelle Malkin, the establishment is bankrupt and apparently owing quite a bit of money.

According to court documents and public records, Your Black Muslim Bakery owes about $200,000 to the IRS; $100,000 to a creditor, Richard Stovall; and $11,000 to another creditor, Patricia Hill. In 2005, the bakery borrowed $625,000 from an Oakland mortgage company, Davis Mortgage Investment Fund.
The bakery did not file W-2 forms to the IRS in 2005 or 2006, and other filings showed discrepancies in wages paid to employees, Patricia Montero, an IRS attorney, told the judge Thursday.

Barbara Lee rescinds support:

“At the request of representatives of Your Black Muslim Bakery, my office provided a letter to a federal agency related to the bankruptcy,” Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said in a statement issued Thursday. “Like many people, I historically supported the bakery because it has been an important institution in the community, but it is clear that is no longer the case. Knowing what we know now, we would not have provided such support, and we are reviewing our casework intake process in an effort to avoid any such circumstance in the future,” Lee said.

What Lee and others’ “support” constituted (from LGF):

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland found themselves in the unwelcome spotlight this week over the letters of support they wrote on behalf of the notorious Your Black Muslim Bakery, but they aren’t the only politicos who have supported the group over the years.

At the height of its power back in 1996, the splinter Muslim group - whose members were implicated in last week’s slaying of newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey - got the city to approve an advance on a $1.2 million federal redevelopment loan to launch training program for health care jobs. Within three months, the group had burned through $275,000 without turning out a single graduate.

They did, however, spend $650 a month to lease a Cadillac.

When asked to explain what was going on, the Black Muslim Bakery cadre - in one of their typical tactics - marched in unison from the bakery to City Hall, then entered the council chambers like a precision drill team, lining up along the room’s back walls.

“The message was very clear - we are watching you,” said City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, who cast one of the votes against the group’s request.

Sorry for all the blockquoting, but it’s better if I don’t introduce typos in trying to transfer all this information. My elementary analysis is that this is indicative of corruption in Oakland. If police had to wait on a year-long investigation when this sort of information was readily available, they don’t have enough resources (this is a given). The result of this being a murder after so much other legal trouble surrounding the bakery shows that there isn’t enough enforcement, or the consequences aren’t severe enough. And that the officials don’t think to research the diverse groups they support (or just don’t care) shows that their priorities are off. The waste of so much money (from the taxpayers) is lamentable seeing as it should go towards law enforcement so that ordinary people who pay it can be safe from this sort of preventable violence.

(caveat: most of this is blindingly obvious. Apologies.)

Even though the action against the marijuana dispensaries happened last week, there is a legal side I have not seen covered enough. (I also want to know if Mickey is around and will comment on this.)

The use of pot is popular in Berkeley. It is accepted, encouraged, and practiced by many people. Then there are those pesky federal laws. From The Oakland Tribune:

The Berkeley Patient Group was notified Monday that its bank account was frozen by the Los Angeles Police Department during a joint operation with the Drug Enforcement Agency. The operation targeted about 10 dispensaries in Los Angeles, including the California Patients Group, a sister organization to the Berkeley-based business.

The assets of the drug dealers were frozen. They are crying foul because they were in compliance with local and state laws. The federal law was not on their side. More from the Tribune:

The Berkeley Patients Group serves more than 5,000 medical marijuana clients in Berkeley and Oakland. It is one of three legalized dispensaries in the city and also provides community services such as a hospice and free delivery of organic fruit and vegetables to hospice clients.

City Council member Kriss Worthington said the city should do all it can to protect the group and the two other dispensaries now operating in the city.

Since there are conflicting authorities claiming the same power, which entity of the government (or no part of it at all) has the authority to set policy on drugs? When the federal government and the City of Berkeley are in conflict, my policy is to favor the federal government until compelled otherwise. However, I missed the part in the Constitution about Congress making drug laws.

If the laws are important enough to be on the books at the federal level, they are important enough to be enforced. If they are enforced, they can be challenged legally. If they are struck down, maybe similar unconstitutional bills can be stopped before they become law.

Medicine or Mischief?
I don’t know anyone who uses marijuana for medical reasons. All the people I know who use it do so for recreational purposes. There are also people who claim a medical reason for marijuana without the need. Lets not forget this report from the Patriot and the accompanying flyer.

It came out yesterday that a veteran Oakland Post reporter Chauncy Bailey was fatally shot by a “masked gunman” in broad daylight in Oakland. From the NBC website:

Holmgren said the 58-year-old journalist was shot multiple times in the 250 block of 14th Street near Alice Street, which is near a large post office on 13th Street and a McDonald’s restaurant at 14th and Jackson streets. Holmgren said witnesses told police that a lone gunman dressed in black clothing and black headgear approached Bailey, shot him multiple times and then fled on foot. Holmgren said he has no initial explanation for the motive of the shooting and no initial knowledge of any threats that had been made against Bailey.

and also:

Holmgren said he knew Bailey because Bailey covered Oakland City Hall as well as police matters and described Bailey as “a very assertive person who spoke his mind and addressed controversial topics.

While the info is still new, the police are saying it looks like a targeted killing. Furthermore, I noticed more this morning here:

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - Authorities say more than a dozen people were detained early this morning in Oakland as the result of a yearlong police investigation. Just what exactly was being investigated has not been detailed. One of the four locations that was raided by authorities was the often-troubled Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland. (…) Also, longtime Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey was reportedly researching an investigative piece into Your Black Muslim Bakery before he was shot and killed just yesterday morning.

The late founder of the bakery, Ysuf Bey, was of some interest to the law, and his sons were identified as those who vandalized liquor stores in oakland (which I have linked to before but can’t find it at the moment). Here is the bakery’s URL: http://www.ybmb.com/ , go check it out.

Police weren’t clarifying whether the raid was part of the Bailey investigation, but we’ll see where it goes.

I came across a story in the San Francisco Weekly. It moves me to sadness and anger. The article follows the lawyer Tom Frankovich who sues and threatens to sue small businesses over Americans with Disabilities Act violations. His clients claim establishments are not accessible and difficult if not impossible for people with disabilities to navigate.

There are a few general concerns I brought out of this article by Ron Russell.

The abuse of lawsuits. Frankovich has a few “frequent fliers,” disabled people who have filed cases with him multiple and even hundreds of times against business owners for providing inadequate faculties for people with disabilities. One of the people is reported to have visited four different places in less then 24 hours and subsequently filed suits against all of them. If these people really wanted to affect change, they would have brought their problems to the owners’ attention before starting litigation. A manager can start changes on that day, while the courthouse is a long walk or ride away.

The conflict between different laws. A federal disability law and a state law are in conflict and compliance with both is sometimes impossible.

People can get away with nonsense and even crimes by claiming to represent the voiceless and helpless. Every time a frivolous lawsuit is filed in the name of greed, the real concerns of the minority are hurt. A few bad apples can sour the whole batch of ADA cases and ruin the important ones.

The article relates how Frankovich sees people who do not comply:

He sees non-ADA compliers as “scofflaws” who merit no sympathy. “Lawsuits are the only language these people understand,” he says. “Unless you pound them into submission, nothing will ever change.”

However, if a person who used a wheelchair were to visit the office of Frankovich, s/he would be out of luck. From the SF Weekly again:

Nineteen steps above the street and without an elevator, the yellow three-story building that has served as the nerve center for countless ADA lawsuits is itself inaccessible to the disabled. The man who’s built a career tormenting the law’s non-compliers as scofflaws — and making them pay — must arrange off-site meetings to confer face-to-face with anyone in a wheelchair.

If the impression I get from the article is correct, there is a very hot place in hell prepared for people like Frankovich.

Today I had the privilege of participating in jury duty. As I was called two years ago and served a day, I knew what to expect. Both times I was in the selection pool but never sat for a trial. The last time I was in a courthouse was about a year ago, but that is unrelated.

The day started at 7:45 when I reported to the Orange County Superior Courthouse. I was one of about 150 prospective jurors. After we watched a short feel good video about jury duty, they parceled us out to different courtrooms.

From the pool of prospective jurors, people were called out and sent to specific rooms in groups around 50. In each courtroom the presiding judge gives a quick summary of the matter being tried. My case involved the taking of an automobile (it was only taking a vehicle with the intention of depriving the owner of its use, which I was told was not as bad as other vehicle thefts). Since it was a criminal case, they selected 12 people at random from the pool and 6 alternates to sit in the jury box. The judge had every prospective juror state their basic information and asked them case specific questions like their experience with car theft (from both sides). He also asked if anyone had a reason to distrust the police or any of the witnesses based on their language or ethnic background. The attorneys wrote themselves notes on Post-its about each of the jurors as they were questioned.

The judge also asked jurors if they understood different legal ideas. He used examples to explain concepts like hard v. circumstantial evidence and accessories to a crime. While the judge who presided over the case did use humor, his stories were not as enjoyable as the ones I heard from the judge during my previous service. The following example is from a Judge at the Westminster Courthouse I heard two years ago.

Possible v. Probable
Every Wednesday morning before coming to work I put my trash cans on the curb in front of my house. As I am pulling out of my driveway I see the garbage truck a few houses away picking up the neighbor’s trash. I never see the trash man empty my garbage cans, but every Wednesday I come home and find my cans as well as all the other ones on my street empty. Then I came home one Wednesday and a neighbor kid tells me my trash was not taken by the man in the garbage truck, but instead by aliens from Mars. Is it possible aliens from Mars took my trash? Yes. Is it probable the aliens took my trash? No.

Back to today, a number of people gave reasons why the current time was a bad time for them to serve on a jury. While some of the people’s excuses were legitimate, some were attempts to get out of serving on the case. The judge explained he could defer their service by a few weeks, but they would still be back in to serve. After realizing this, many of the people decided serving then was as good as later.

After the judge excused a few people, replacements were called to the jury box; I was one of them. After the defense and prosecution talked and questioned the jury for 15 minutes the action quickened. Each side could kick off 10 jurors for any reason. The little Post-its of the defense and prosecution then came in handy. They alternated rejecting people. There was no hesitation; both of them knew exactly who they wanted to kick off.

On its first or second opportunity, the prosecution kicked me off the jury. I was shocked and semi-offended. I think I would be the kind of disciplinarian who would send someone to the chair for stealing a bike. This happened last time two years ago; the prosecution kicked me off at the first chance. There is something prosecutors don’t like about me being on a jury. Maybe Physics and Classical Civilization are a secret code for I vote for acquittal.

After I was excused from the case I returned to the jury assembly room and they told me I was not needed anyone. I left at 2:30 in the afternoon.

During the day I remembered something Charles Wiley had said when he spoke on campus last year. When he was a young man during WW II, he was drafted into the executive branch and served for four years in the military. Today we are drafted into the judicial branch and asked to serve for a few days a year.

I hope we all respond to the call as our grandparents did.

The immigration bill is currently resting in the Senate, thought Harry Reid intends to revive it next week. There are a lot of problems with the bill, however some of the aspects are good, but I take more issue with how the debate is being presented. A lot of the discussion is missing some important points, and instead of continuing to yell at my TV, I’ll list a few.

As I said, the bill has some good amendments and some bad, but most of the border security and beaurocratic measures already exist, and aren’t enforced. This bill is adding good-intentioned layers of uselessness, and doesn’t target the real problem, which is that rules aren’t being enforced. Rather than spending the money this bill intends to fill social programs for the potential recipients of Z-visas, enforcement should be beefed up.

Along the lines of enforcement, there’s another point that’s been floating around that “we can’t round up and deport 12 million people” and it’s true, it would be a huge hassle. But we can enforce companies not hiring illegals by raising (and enforcing in every case, no exceptions) the fines. Also, if companies were forced to pay at least minimum wage there would be no incentive to continue hiring those who will “work for less”. If companies actually feared the consequence of hiring illegals, they would stop doing it, and there wouldnt be any jobs for illegals. Without recourse, the hope is that they would go home and try to re-enter legally. That’s just one way a little more enforcement could save us from spending a ton in “deportation”.

Another thing that bothers me is the discussion that this bill gives a provision so that “criminals” wouldn’t be able to get Z-visas. There’s a problem here with the illegals already in this country: because they’ve crossed our border, they are already criminals. They shouldn’t be rewarded for breaking the law with a visa. Those who are in line, waiting and abiding by the laws, should.

Also, there is no reason we as a country need to feel like it’s our duty to cater to illegal immigrants because they are “only looking for a better life”. They are absolutely looking for a better life, and I support giving asylum to people threatened by despotic governments, but the problem these people are escaping is not the US’s fault. The fault lies with Mexico, which is a country that is still developing and is going to encounter problems, but still has a duty to it’s people. If people were streaming from the US to another country, that should be a good indication of SOME kind of problem, right? Mexico has some issues that it needs to deal with, and of course we can help as a neighboring nation (and I’m not going to get into that now because there are all sorts of issues just within that statement). But the US and the American people are not beholden to immigrants; we are willing to help but not to hold their hand and we shouldn’t be expected to.

I hope you like my elementary analysis. Until next post!

I just heard about the scandal over at Diablo Valley College, one of the many prominent junior colleges around the Bay Area. This Contra-Costa times article which was published in May confirms that as many as 400 poor grades were changed via the records department over three years in exchange for money, sometimes up to $600, and possibly also sexual favors. Bay Area junior colleges are big sources for transfer students at Cal, it is possible that some of your classmates may have been admitted based on lies and bribery. The scholastic world is continually more cutthroat, which drives students to break some legal and moral boundaries has been seen before by The Patriot, like in a May 2006 Patriot article on prostitution.

The fault lies with the students for not taking responsibility for their failures and for cheating, and it also lies with the administration for taking bribes and permitting the rules to be broken. Any DVC alumns with comments out there?

With the immigration bill dying (or maybe just resting?) in Washington right now, it’s time for some thoughts. Is this bill a good thing? Necessary? Too much? Not enough?

My view: as a compromise bill, no one is going to be completely happy. Also, with a leaky boat you patch the leaks first, right? Most of the measures I have heard of so far (and this thing is long, so that’s probably not much) would be great if they were enforced, but I see nothing to motivate a Republican or Democrat administration to actually enforce.

How ’bout you guys? What do you think?

Ignacio De la Fuente has reaffirmed Oakland as a “city of refuge”, meaning they accept and welcome illegal immigrants and will “discourage” federal immigration raids. Law-breaking? check. Obstructing the government’s job? check. Stupid economic move? Check. Here’s what I mean.

First, it’s illegal. The immigrants are here illegally or have stayed longer than legally allowed, and the companies that hire them (occasionally) get punished, meaning it’s not ok to hire them. (Caveat: companies that hire illegals need to be punished much more severely and consistently or else no message is sent and bad behavior is condoned. Fines won’t hurt big companies too much, but enough to actually get them to comply). So it seems to me that all the folks who support this are accessories to a crime, or crimes. You can spin it however you want, but it is STILL ILLEGAL. Yes, they are people, yes they are looking for a better life, yes we need to change the system, but it’s still illegal.

Also, preventing (although the media uses the much more vague term “discourage” or “not co-operate) the federal agents from conducting raids is an obstruction of justice. If you are preventing justice from being served by refusing to co-operate with those searching for illegals, it is no different than destroying or withholding evidence in a murder case. How can these things be different? They aren’t. The difference is that these leftist areas don’t like to obey laws that don’t suit them.

I will of course recognize the economic benefit of those who will work for less than native born Americans. (Although I also take issue with it, see the Swift meat-packing plant example in Chicago, can’t find the link at the moment, but the story went: after the raid, there were lines around the block of the area’s low income blacks and whites looking for jobs that supposedly Americans “won’t do”). So, we gain cheap labor, but we also gain higher health care costs from emergency room visits, etc.

How will this affect Oakland? And how will it affect Berkeley, considering the proximity?

I realize that the topic of internet piracy/intellectual property has probably been hashed over on CalPatriot blog already, I’ve probably even read about it. But I have two cents to add!

The discussion about piracy was inspired by a discussion with my father. I’d asked him to email me a song (”Another Day” by Paul McCartney’s Wings) as an attachment for iTunes. His reply was suprise that the email “let him do it”; he assumed that he would be unable to export the mp3 that he had uploaded from a CD. Like some DVDs are rip-protected from copying, he thought CDs would be protect too, under copyright law as intellectual property. The debate ensued.

Piracy of music is similar to other copyright law violations, but they each have their dimensions. Software comes with a liscense, an explicit agreement not to copy it. Use of written material from books requires citation to prevent plagarism, movies and TV require permission to show elements of their broadcast material. Musical lyrics� should be� cited too, similarly to books. Copyright law also protects from stealing musical matieral by other artists, case in point the Beatles being sued by the Supremes for having similar musical riffs. My take on all of this is that� these media need to be considered separately especially regarding internet use, while protecting intellectual property.

First off, if someone buys a CD and burns me a copy, is that a gift or illegal? Is that different than making a mix-tape by recording from radio or other media? I realize that the intended use of the reproduction is also key. Using the music as personal entertainment is different than selling copies on the street corner, and I think they ought to be treated differently. If� a listener� is not selling or profiting or stealing components from music or other intellectual property, should they be dealt with differently? Is there a difference between downloading music from a torrent or other program and getting it from someone who has purchased the material?

There is a caveat for the purpose of education, which� I support, that material exclusively used for education doesn’t need permission to be used. There is the understanding that money is not being made from it. But what about our class� readers? Does every professor get permission from the publishers before copying their texts? Because they are sold by copy centers and not the professors themselves, does that maintain the integrity of their use “for education”? (Because I would certainly love to get free readers!) My mother ran into this issue. As a nurse, part of her job is to educate her patients. However, since they are paying for the service, we discussed whether or not she could defend giving them photocopies of written material as a reference.

But back to the internet. The internet and digital communications are certainly the future of technology, so I see no reason why entertainment shouldn’t follow. (For the record I support “obsolete” media for it’s own sake, I don’t want you to throw away your vinyl). Programs exist like iTunes where you pay for your music, ringtones, movies, etc, and that makes sense. However, nothing compels music users to obtain their music legally at this point, at least, no regulatory feature of the internet like the one my dad expected to encounter in his email. Should the internet have regulation of property built in? Should all downloaded material charge a fee to our monthly internet bill? Is it even possible to enforce?

These questions are all reasons I support looking at piracy and copyright laws with regard to the internet, and not just because I don’t want to pay $20 for a CD.