Well, this would certainly explain a lot about the depravity exhibited by that sham of a court, wouldn’t it?  How’s this for irony?

One of the highest-ranking federal judges in the United States, who is currently presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles, has maintained a publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos.

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged in an interview with The Times that he had posted the materials, which included a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. Some of the material was inappropriate, he conceded, although he defended other sexually explicit content as “funny.”

Kozinski, 57, said that he thought the site was for his private storage and that he was not aware the images could be seen by the public, although he also said he had shared some material on the site with friends. After the interview Tuesday evening, he blocked public access to the site. …

In all fairness, dude is a Reagan appointee, but when someone needs a whackin’, a whackin’ they shall get.  At any rate, I wonder if his affinity for such “material” will result in him being recused from presiding over the L.A. obscene p0rn case.

As Newsbusters points out, the national MSM was all over the pedophile Catholic priest stories like Obama on an argula quiche from Whole Foods.  But when a core leftie ally does the same thing?  “These things happen.”

A major child sex abuse scandal has erupted in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Where’s the national media?

• Steve Thomas Rooney faces 13 felony sex-related counts, including charges that he had unlawful sex with two female students, ages 13 and 14, during the time he was an assistant principal at a middle school. And here’s the kicker: In August 2007 LAUSD assigned Rooney to his job even though it knew that police had investigated him about an alleged sexual relationship with a student at his previous job at a high school. The former high school girl has since testified that Rooney impregnated her. (LAT coverage)
• KNX 1070 Newsradio has reported “21 teachers and administrators have been yanked from schools in the past year because of allegations of inappropriate sexual contact with kids.” Most of the cases happened since only January of this year.
• Two LAUSD administrators face criminal charges for failing to report suspected child abuse by a substitute teacher. Yet LAUSD has sent the pair back to work at school! (LAT)
• During interviews, LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer has often come across utterly uninformed on the scandal. (Listen to this must-hear KNX audio.)
• When LAUSD Deputy Superintendent Ramon Cortines was questioned over the phone about the scandal by KNX reporter Charles Feldman, Cortines became agitated and hung up on Feldman. (Hear the audio.) In discussing the scandal with KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, Cortines defiantly responded, “This is not out of the ordinary for school districts all over the nation. These things happen.“

“These things happen”?!? Hold on. LAUSD has been through this before. In 1986, an LAUSD teacher was sentenced to 44 years in prison on 30 counts that he molested 13 students at 68th Street Elementary in South Los Angeles. Even after years of complaints about the teacher, officials had failed to report the suspected molestations to Los Angeles police. In 1990, the District paid a multi-million dollar lawsuit as a result of the case. …

NB goes on to explain how just the Boston Globe alone ran almost 1,000 stories about the Catholic church scandal over the last six years. As NB also suggests, imagine the level of outrage if some higher-up in the Catholic church shrugged off the raping of kids with “these things happen”.  The MSM would get angrier than Michelle Obama at a singing of the national anthem.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Where else would you expect this kind of naked judicial activism other than Californiastan?  From LA’s Daily News:

Shawn Sage long dreamed of joining the military, and watching “Full Metal Jacket” last year really sold him on becoming a Marine.

But last fall, a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner dashed the foster teen’s hopes of early enlistment for Marine sniper duty, plus a potential $10,000 signing bonus.

In denying the Royal High School student delayed entry into the Marine Corps, Children’s Court Commissioner Marilyn Mackel reportedly told Sage and a recruiter that she didn’t approve of the Iraq war, didn’t trust recruiters and didn’t support the military.

“The judge said she didn’t support the Iraq war for any reason why we’re over there,” said Marine recruiter Sgt. Guillermo Medrano of the Simi Valley USMC recruiting office.

“She just said all recruiters were the same - that they `all tap dance and tell me what I want to hear.’ She said she didn’t want him to fight in it.”

Sage, 17, said he begged for Mackel’s permission.

“Foster children shouldn’t be denied (an) ability to enlist in the service just because they’re foster kids,” he said. “Foster kids shouldn’t have to go to court to gain approval to serve one’s country.”

Mackel, a juvenile dependency commissioner at the Children’s Court in Monterey Park, declined through a clerk to speak about any court case or comments she may have made in court.

Transcripts of juvenile court hearings require a special release from a judge. Court officials said a transcript of the Sage hearing, if released, would not be available for a week or more.

After Sage submitted a winning entry to the lawmaker’s Write a Bill Challenge, Assemblyman Cameron Smyth introduced legislation last month that would allow foster teens to enlist in the service without express permission from a judge.

Instead, AB2238 would allow foster children 17 or older to sign up with the consent of a foster parent or social worker.

“Here is one impressive young man who somehow made it through the challenge of the foster system, had a clear sense of a career path and was denied that opportunity by a judge basically because of her personal bias,” said Smyth, R-Santa Clarita, who will honor Sage today at a Royal High assembly.

“I find that to be a horrific abuse of her power.” …

Did the judge say that a law was unconstitutional?  Nope.  The wench just said “I hate the war and the military, and so does my bailiff, so that’s all that matters.  Up yours, kid!”  I don’t know if her position is an elected one or not, but I sure hope so.

The rich don’t get that way by being stupid.  From QandO:

They may be rich, but they’re not dumb:

“When California faced a Mount Everest-sized $14 billion deficit in 2003, one of the major causes for the red ink was the stampede of millionaire households from the state,” says a report called “Rich States, Poor States” by economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore. “Out of the 25,000 or so seven-figure-income families, more than 5,000 left in the early 2000s, and the loss of their tax payments accounted for about half the budget hole.”

They’re not the only ones leaving either. The report, published by the American Legislative Exchange Council points out that not all jobs are leaving the US, but many, if not most lost jobs simply move to other states.

“States are in direct competition with each other for human capital and business investment. State governments that think they can attract jobs and people, and grow their economies, by taxing their citizens at a higher rate than their neighbors are sadly mistaken,” said Democratic Arkansas state Sen. Steve Faris, ALEC’s 2008 national chairman. “Legislators should take a close look at where their state ranks in this book and use it as a tool to help them improve.”

In the meantime, for every loser, there’s a winner:

According to the findings, a record 8 million Americans moved from one state to another in 2006, revealing which states have the most dynamic and desirable economies and which are “has-been” states, according to Laffer and Moore.

And they moved for pretty obvious reasons:

The report provides economic competitiveness rankings for all 50 states based on 16 policy variables with a proven effect on the migration of people and investment capital in and out of states. States with the lowest tax, spending, and regulatory burdens win the competitiveness contest. These are primarily in the South and Southwest regions of the nation.

Huh. Sounds very similar to the reasons given for the British brain drain I noted here. 

States like CA have yet to learn their lesson, though, and their low-tax neighbors like NV have reaped the benefits of their economic ignorance.

By now, most of you are aware that Berzerkeley’s city council referred to the Marines as “unwelcome intruders”, and when U.S. Senators (no Dems, of course) threatened to cut off federal aid to their moonbat magnet of a town for obstructing the Marines there, the city council did what punk #ss liberals do best: they surrendered.  How French of them!

Well, the abnormal denizens of the moonbatosphere were unrepentant.  While they were busy being “patriotic” and “peaceful” like this…

 …they were also busy being the violent (i.e. anti-peaceful) rubes that we know them to be:

Protesters began gathering as early as Monday night outside City Hall in anticipation of the Tuesday night meeting. By Tuesday morning, some confrontations had become physical, and police in riot gear moved in to separate the groups. At its peak, 2,000 protesters had gathered outside City Hall, police said.

Three protesters were arrested for minor scuffles with other demonstrators - and a fourth for allegedly slapping a police officer - in what was one of the largest demonstrations in the city in years. 

Hey, I can’t take four morons and somehow make it look like it was typical behavior from the rest of the burlap-wearing, non-bathing, granola-eating hippie retread miscreants!  Nope, I can’t…so I’ll refer to the scores of others who got away with their violence.

In other words, violence against the Marines and cops is acceptable, but violence against bloodthirsty camelhumping jihadists who want their empty pinko gourds sawed off with a dull butter knife is not acceptable.  Got it.  Thanks for the clarification, moonbats.

Thoughts about yesterday’s primaries:

1.  Schmuckabee is angling to be Juanny Mac’s VP.  After his impressive performance yesterday, I say he gets his wish.

2.  All the polls showing Romney with a 7-8% lead in CA were crap.  McLame won by about 9%.

3.  As I mentioned yesterday, one poll showed Her Highness taking CA comfortably while the other showed Osamabama taking the Golden State with east.  The latter poll was crap, as Shrillary won CA by about 10%.

4.  Barry O won some, the Hildebeast won some, and the delegate total on the left side is nearly even.  While Juanny Mac has the GOP nomination locked up, the Dems are still fighting each other.  Pass the popcorn.

Polls are about as useful as the UN.  Need proof?

Survey USA: Hilldawg by 10%.

al-Reuters:  Barry O by 13%.

That’s a pretty big discrepancy, wouldn’t you say?

Hat tip to Darleen Click (via the American Thinker) for this one:

I’m still fuming over the banning of the incandescent light bulb … done, no doubt, because we lowly peoples just can’t be trusted to act in our own interest … regardless of all the real problems with CFL’s, including inducing migraines and causing skin cancer. Now comes word of a proposed change to California Title 24, “236 pages of state-mandated standards for building energy efficiency”

What should be controversial in the proposed revisions to Title 24 is the requirement for what is called a “programmable communicating thermostat” or PCT. Every new home and every change to existing homes’ central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT beginning next year following the issuance of the revision. Each PCT will be fitted with a “non-removable ” FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose. During “price events” those changes are limited to +/- four degrees F and you would be able to manually override the changes. During “emergency events” the new setpoints can be whatever the power authority desires and you would not be able to alter them.

In other words, the temperature of your home will no longer be yours to control. Your desires and needs can and will be overridden by the state of California through its public and private utility organizations.

Oh goody. 

Yeah, yeah, I know: “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help!”

Exit question: if the state is going to control your thermostat, is Big Brother going to pay for your electric bill?  After all, they are the ones who controlled it!

It’s official: Hell has frozen over.  From Contra Costa Times:

Flag-waving demonstrators far outnumbered a group of peace advocates who were protesting a U.S. Marine Corps recruiting center in downtown on Wednesday.

But groups on both sides of Shattuck Avenue slowed traffic and jammed sidewalks as they shouted back and forth at each other.

Police kept the two competing groups across the street from each other; there were no arrests.

One protester who was burning something was cited by police after he was warned by officers not to burn anything in public, said police spokeswoman Sgt. Mary Kusmiss.
…
This is 2007, and we support our troops. We are not going to let CodePINK disgrace our military heroes,” yelled Deborah Johns, a Granite Bay woman whose 23-year-old son is preparing to head to Iraq for his fourth tour of duty. “My son is a hero, and so are all the others who served this country.”

Berserkley has shown the world that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then.

From Neal Boortz:

According to this story from WorldNetDaily, California government schools have banned the words “Mom,” “Dad,” husband,” and “wife.” Well .. at least that’s the argument from the Capitol Resource Institute, and since we’re talking about California here … they may not be too far off. All it will take now is a lawsuit or two to get things rolling. Governor Schwarzenegger signed the bill which also orders government schools to allow boys to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms and vice versa.

One of the bills signed is SB777, which ban anything that could be interpreted as negative toward homosexuality, bisexuality and alternative lifestyles. Another is AB394 which targets parents and teachers with “anti-harassment” training.

Any text, reference or teaching aid that alludes to the idea of marriage as only between a man and a woman is banned. Any materials that say that people are born as either male or female – and does not offer an ‘in between’ option – is officially banned. Any sources that do not include transsexual, bisexual and homosexual historical figures can no longer be used. And sex education materials must offer the option of a sex change.

Moving on, homecoming kings can no longer be limited to just males. The same goes for homecoming queens. And students can choose which restrooms and locker rooms they want to use, the restrooms that correspond to what they believe their sexual orientation to be.

This same bill will promote these issues by using taxpayer money to create publications, postings, curricula and handouts for students, teachers and parents. It also says that parents who refer to marriage by only its “traditional” terms in the presence of a gay teacher could be convicted of harassment. And students who believe that you are born just male and female could be reported as a harasser.

Analysts are afraid that this legislation will affect schools across the county. This is because textbook publishers must cater to their largest purchaser … and that is often-times California. It would be too expense (sic) to have separate editions of textbooks for other states.

Californiastan…who knew?