California

The Worst Sting Of All

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
Not funny, not clever, not necessary. Just cruel.

Not funny, not clever, not necessary. Just cruel.

The combination of the 24-hour cable news glut and the internet causes some significant  distortions in public perception. The public periodically thinks that sharks are mounting an organized assault on humanity, for example, which is bad for sharks. The public believes that gun violence is suddenly worse than ever in the U.S., when it is in fact dropping dramatically, which is good for hysteria-based gun control efforts.  It believes that storms like the recent tornadoes are more frequent and more deadly than they have ever been, leading ignorant news reporters and Congressmen to link the deaths to global warming. This good for Al Gore. In my case, stories like this one, which I would have blissfully been unaware of earlier in my life, come across by computer screen every day, leading me to contemplate moving to Pago Pago, or Mars out of despair for the decline of fairness and intelligence in the human race. I will steady myself and presume that without more detailed evidence, it is foolish to conclude the police and the schools are not, in fact, in league with Satan.

Only some of them are.

In Temecula, California, an undercover cop masquerading as a student orchestrated a drug bust in a Temecula Valley Unified School District high school by befriending and manipulating an autistic boy into obtaining small amounts of marijuana. You can read the whole awful tale here (the boy’s family is suing). Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal)

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments
I'm so disgusted with Nancy Pelosi that I can't tolerate seeing her face on the blog, so I'm posting a picture of one of my favorite animals, an Okapi...which would, by the way, be a likely improvement in over Pelosi.in Congress.

I’m so disgusted with Nancy Pelosi that I can’t tolerate seeing her face on the blog, so I’m posting a picture of one of my favorite animals, an Okapi…which would, by the way, be a likely improvement in over Pelosi in Congress.

Count the dishonest, idiotic, misleading, unethical statements in this jaw-dropping interview exchange. I count eight. I may have missed one or two, because I was vomiting by the end:

REPORTER: Since the IRS happened on President Obama’s watch, how much of a hit — or do you think at all Democrats will take a hit on the IRS in the 2014 midterms?

REP. NANCY PELOSI:  Well, you said it happened under his watch. (1) It happened under the appointment of the head of the IRS, who was appointed by President Bush. His length of stay extended into President Obama’s stay.  I think that points to the fact — (2) why is this a politicized issue?  We all are concerned about how the IRS does what it’s supposed to do but does not do it in a selective way. I said before what they did was wrong. The Inspector General has said over and over(3)  it is not illegal.  The committee wants to challenge the Inspector General on his findings, so that will unfold. But again (4) the IRS is an independent agency.  (????)  So the inference to be drawn happened on his watch is that it happened on his watch the way some other cabinet agency of government would. (5)  No, this is an independent agency is headed up by a Bush appointee. What they did was wrong. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Selective review. We don’t like it on our side or their side. It has no place.

REPORTER: Doesn’t the buck stop with him? Should he have known about these things but he said he didn’t know about any of this? Continue reading →

Law, Ethics and Gender: California’s “Bathroom Bill”

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
Barry Bonds identifying as female...kind of like he identified as "not being on steroids"

Barry Bonds identifying as female…kind of like he identified as “not being on steroids”

The fur is flying in California and also in the internet culture wars over California’s latest foray into social engineering, officially known as Assembly Bill 1266, and popularly known as “the bathroom bill.” In its current form, the proposed legislation states…

“A pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs, and activities, and facilities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

Here is such a wonderful example of the inherent limitations of laws as opposed to ethics that I’m considering having it framed and mounted. Continue reading →

Fire Brandi Hucko

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments
The Horror.

The Horror.

Let’s stop being mild and measured, shall we? Heads need to role, messages need to be sent, and a culture needs to be saved.

Fire Brandi Hutto.

If she can’t be fired because a union insists that fools and hysterics be allowed to abuse our children and warp our culture, then parents have to boycott the school, while flooding local papers with letters and petitions protesting the lunatic who is running the Garden Gate Elementary School in Cuperino, California. That is, unless this silly, incompetent, stupid, stupid woman gets down on her knees and begs forgiveness from young Braden Bandermann and his family, while also apologizing to his class and the schools itself for making the child feel like a criminal and trying to turn all the other children into trembling, terrified, weenies.

Fire Brandi Hutto. Continue reading →

When A Frivolous Defense Isn’t Frivolous, Or Why Ethical Lawyers Represent Unethical Clients

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments
Mr. Friedman, wasting time and money, and proud of it.

Mr. Frieman, wasting time and money, and proud of it.

I don’t know if Jonathan Frieman is an Occupy Oakland refugee, a failed lawyer, a scofflaw, a dummy or just a trouble-maker, but he decide to game a California “2 or more persons” car pool lane by  “sharing” his vehicle with corporate documents. Thus, when he was pulled over, he  handed the Highway Patrol officer incorporation papers that were in the passenger seat. Get it? The corporation is a “person,” legally, so there were two “people” in his car! The officer ticketed him anyway, since his defense was ridiculous. But funny! Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “What’s Next for the Alisal Union School District…John Dillinger High School?”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment
Dillinger. Such a pleasant looking fellow!

Dillinger. Such a pleasant looking fellow!

This is the first of two informative Comments of the Day regarding this post. 49erDweet is correct, of course: the decision to honor Tiburcio Vasquez is a disgrace, and the comment shows that it is even more outrageous and irresponsible than I thought. I have read some of the claims on the web that Vasquez was “framed,” and that he didn’t commit the crimes attributed to him. None of them offer any proof other than the fact that mainstream scholars and historians, which naturally are biased against Mexicans, chronicled his activities, and none explain this mystery: if Vasquez didn’t commit all those crimes, what the heck did he do that was so remarkable? The only reason he is famous is because of his crimes. If he really was innocent, then he was a non-entity.

Here is 49erDweet’s Comment of the Day on the post, “What’s Next for the Alisal Union School District…John Dillinger High School?”:

“The Alisal school district’s area is directly adjacent to mine but in the same community, so I’m a tiny bit familiar with the issue. I’ve disbelievingly read most of the few published responses of a couple of their board members and their superintendent. For some reason the other board members haven’t been available.
From what I’ve read it’s apparent the individuals involved, all of whom have Hispanic surnames, believe the available published history concerning California is biased and untrue, and Vasquez should be considered a popular hero in the same vein as was Robin Hood. For the crimes he committed against his own people, which they believe were minor, they readily forgive him. And to their way of thinking he’s a folk hero who should be idolized.

“I believe this is sad, bad community leadership, obviously a major ethics fail, and is more than passingly ironic because the area they represent is one of the major Mexican prison gang battlefields currently in crisis in California. They are preparing to hold up a killer, thief, robber and rapist as a person their future students should emulate. Which, for a gang area, should build up the prison population and a much shorter than normal life expectancy.

“My heart breaks for the students who will be negatively impacted by this dreadful decision.”

What’s Next for the Alisal Union School District…John Dillinger High School?

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

OK, so he was hanged for murder. Nobody's perfect.

OK, so he was hanged for murder. Nobody’s perfect.

According to the University of Southern California historical archives, Tiburcio Vasquez (1835- 1875) was California’s second most notorious bandit. At the age of 14 he stabbed a constable, then embarked on a life of crime. He became the leader of his own gang, which ranged up and down central and southern California, robbing and killing. Vasquez was convicted of horse-stealing and sentenced to San Quentin prison in 1857, escaped, stole more horses, and was finally released in 1863, after playing a role in four prison breaks that resulted in the deaths of twenty inmates. For the next ten years he and his gang committed a string of burglaries, robberies and murders in the San Benito County area, finally ending with his capture in 1874. Convicted of two murders of the six attributed to him, Vadquez was sentenced to death, and executed by hanging the next year. Shortly before the noose was placed around his neck, Vasquez dictated an explanation for his actions:

“A spirit of hatred and revenge took possession of me. I had numerous fights in defense of what I believed to be my rights and those of my countrymen. I believed we were unjustly deprived of the social rights that belonged to us.”

I know what you must be thinking: “What a perfect historical figure for the Mexican-American community to honor by naming an elementary school him!” Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Month: Ken At Popehat

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“Evil exists. Good people should fight evil. But government is often the wrong instrument to fight evil. The people doing sick and contemptible things to children in the name of “curing” homosexuality very likely feel as strongly as I do, and might — if they got their way — use government to achieve their ends. People who love liberty must fight with their heads, not just their hearts.”

—– Ken, the First Amendment besotted lawyer/blogger/libertarian/wit who reigns at Popehat, writing about his doubts regarding California’s ban of so-called “conversion therapy.”

I recommend that you read the whole post, and everything Ken writes, basically.

I’m somewhat less conflicted than Ken in my opposition to this legislation, and wrote about the ban earlier this year, here, and here.

“Progressive” Totalitarianism In California: Legislative Quackery, and Wrong

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

Well, they did it.

If you think Jerry’s moonbeam has expired, you should see Linda…

The California Sate Legislature,  spurred on by State Senator Ted Lieu and with the approval of erstwhile “Governor Moonbeam” (nobody calls Jerry Brown this anymore since he went bald and gray, but he’ll always be that in my heart! ), has decreed that if you think your son or daughter may be confused about their sexuality, you’re out of luck, or you’d better move to a state that hasn’t made political correctness mandatory—which is to say, to this degree, anyway, any of the rest. It’s a truly sickening law, and the fact that none of the news reporting of it indicates that the reporters are properly nauseous scares the pants off of me.

I wrote about this despicable measure when it was still a twinkle in California’s jaundiced eye, and I’m not going to repeat myself—except to reiterate that my objections have nothing to do with believing that “gay conversion therapy”  is usually anything but a wishful and desperate brainwashing attempt by parents who are homophobic and whose religion teaches them that Satan just chose to give their son the Pervert Virus. Nonetheless, therapists talk, and this is a law that tells them what they can and can’t talk about. Ethics Foul I: abuse of power and violation of  Free Speech.  Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Officials of the Month: The California State Legislature

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

California knows what’s best for your maybe-gay child, not your child’s therapist. Resistance is futile…

California’s legislature is poised to pass legislation that would ban state doctors, counselors and therapists from offering sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) treatment for minors, and parents from seeking them. The rationale is a tangle of research, opinion, politics, ideology and political correctness that makes distinguishing legitimate reasons from illegitimate ones impossible. The end result, however, is a law that tells counselors and therapists what is appropriate treatment regardless of their expertise and the wishes of parents, because, of course, the typically moderately IQ-endowed legislators know best, or rather the gay rights advocates who dictate to them do. Either way, this is a serious intrusion of government into the counseling profession, free speech, parental authority and individual freedom, and any competent elected official would see that the second such an over-reaching and presumptuous bill reached his or her desk. Continue reading →