Joel Stein smoked the competition this week, easily inhaling the Number 1 spot with his medical pot story. Bill McKibben pulled down the Number Two spot, and he only had to destroy civilization to do it. And the week's Top 10 included quite a few returning champs, among them Sen. Russ Feingold, commencement speaker in training P.J. O'Rourke and Gary Marcus, the brains of our operation. Thanks for reading Opinion L.A., and we'll see you next week:

1. This bud's for you, and you, and you too, by Joel Stein
2. Civilization's last chance, by Bill McKibben
3. Does your brain have a mind of its own? by Gary Marcus
4. Why we need nukes and Gitmo, by Jonah Goldberg
5. Steeling Obama, by Douglas E. Schoen
6. Fairness, idealism and other atrocities, by P.J. O'Rourke
7. Language that makes you say OMG, by Mary Kolesnikova
8. Government in secret, by Russ Feingold
9. South Africa's unseemly alliance, by James Kirchick
10. The Long War fallacy, by Andrew J. Bacevich

In a cover story for the Jewish Journal, Brad A. Greenberg gives a long, fascinating profile of Kevin MacDonald, the Cal State Long Beach professor whose, um, particular interest in The Jews has created a dilemma for the college. The piece is well worth reading in its entirety, but I'll just note that praise is due to: 1) Cal State Long Beach, which is doing a creditable job of balancing MacDonald's academic rights (if you believe such rights exist, as I don't) against the need to protect itself against both anti-Semitism and lawsuits; 2. Greenberg, who seems to maintain a perfectly dry tone in the face of some pretty hair-raising stuff (and I only say seems because I'd never heard of MacDonald before reading this piece and have nothing against which to measure it); and in a strange way, 3) MacDonald himself, who blends creepiness, crackpottery and a surprising forthrightness into a weird form of amiability that I can sort of respect. I hate to use such a hoary cliché, but he's a quintessentially American type of oddball, the kind you don't want to listen to because he occasionally makes you say "Hm, he's got a point." In particular, check out his case for why David Irving's biography of Goebbels should be put back on the shelves; if the book is as he characterizes it, then... Hm, he's got a point. (Experts alert: If it's not as he describes it, the comments are open!)

As I said, I'd never heard of MacDonald before this piece, but in the way of such things, once you're aware of him, he starts showing up everywhere. Interestingly, his real pillars of support are not just among white supremacists. (MacDonald, don'tcha know, isn't against other ethnicities; he's just supportive of his own European roots.) Instead, he attracts some pretty broad interest for his particular case on immigration:

MacDonald's core complaint is Jewish influence on immigration laws. He blames passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, which abolished national origin quotas and made immigration easier for non-Westerners, on a Jewish desire to oust European Americans from the majority.

"European people in this country will be a minority in a few years," MacDonald said. "I don't think that would have happened if we had had a sense of ourselves as a culture worth defending. Now, everything is up for grabs."

Which is weird, because I thought building secure border fences was one of those areas where The Jews and the proud European-Americans were in perfect harmony. This stuff gets so confusing so fast you can drive yourself crazy. And then you get tenure, I think.

Whatever your race, creed, color or religion, enjoy this beautiful weekend.

Aftershocks and rescue attempts continue to make their way through China's battered Sichuan region even as the death toll rises from Monday's 7.9 earthquake, but some inside China are beginning to ask why the country — particularly in its more rural areas — was so ill prepared. Take Melissa Block's NPR report of a high school that collapsed earlier this week, trapping hundreds of students:

The school, just outside the city of Dujiangyan, was expanded from two stories to four, which may have contributed to its collapse...

A man shows a piece of cement from what he says was a pillar. He breaks it in half to show how soft it was — how unable it was to withstand the force of the earthquake.

Other residents say the local education bureau knew the school was dangerous and had allocated money for it to be torn down and rebuilt. But locals say instead the building was renovated and given a coat of whitewash.

Residents seem equally outraged at local government's crisis management. Block explains:

We're hearing a lot of complaints from people here about local officials. They're saying the central Chinese government is good, they're doing a good job, but the local officials, they say, are very bad, they're corrupt, and they only do things for show — they don't care about the people.

It makes Francis Fukuyama's Apr. 29 Op-Ed look practically prophetic.

*Photo: Vincent Yu / Associated Press

Joel Stein gets insider tips from paparazzo Garry Sun on how to avoid celebrity snappers, and "About Alice" author Calvin Trillin extolls the virtues of governing with eloquence. Ronald Brownstein examines John McCain's healthcare plans, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom celebrates the California Supreme Court ruling striking down the ban on same-sex marriage:

The court's ruling affirms the very best of what California represents: our long-standing commitment to equality and justice.

It was 60 years ago that the state Supreme Court ruled in Perez vs. Sharp that the ban on interracial marriage was unconstitutional -- 19 years before the U.S. Supreme Court would come to the same conclusion in Loving vs. Virginia. So in February 2004, when I ordered San Francisco's county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, it was with full recognition that as goes California, so goes the nation.

This is a historic moment for California and our country. We have taken an irrevocable step toward resolving one of the most important civil rights issues of our generation.

The editorial board also cheers on the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage, and batters Broadcom over its deceptive tactics in backdating stock options. The board also mourns for the revamped GI Bill, caught in congressional cross-fire:

College is the essential ticket to upward mobility, and who more deserves a chance at that than the young men and women who volunteered for military service in wartime? The post-World War II experience shows that educating them is good public policy as well. First, it would boost military morale and the quality of recruits -- even though the military worries that it could hurt retention. Second, the investment in education is likely to pay for itself many times over as veterans join the workforce at higher pay rates.

Readers react to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans to balance the budget. Patrick Veesart writes:

The governor wants to close the deficit by borrowing against the lottery -- the stupid tax -- or increasing the sales tax. Either way, the budget is balanced on the backs of those who can least afford it. Why am I not surprised?

*Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf / San Francisco Chronicle

Academy Award-winning actor Julie Andrews pens a spirited defense of the Los Angeles Public Library's funding, and Patt Morrison pickets in front of the June 3 ballot for better voting conditions. Cartoonist Ed Rall slips some snide commentary by the airline industry, and Rosa Brooks tells overbearing parents to give their kids a little independence. Pollster Douglas E. Schoen figures the recent controversies surrounding Obama's campaign may be "the best things that could have happened to his candidacy":

The last six weeks have been a great benefit to Obama -- and may emerge as the most important period of his quest for the presidency.

The poll evidence is unambiguous: He's suffered no short-term damage. A recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows Obama leading McCain in a hypothetical matchup by six points; in February, he was trailing by two. The Rasmussen Reports' estimate of electoral college strength has him leading McCain, 260 to 240. And a recent CBS/New York Times poll reveals that over the last few weeks, Obama's favorability rating actually increased by five points.

The editorial board wonders if the governor's revised budget plan is too clever by half, and calls the House-approved farm bill a lost opportunity for reform. The board also gives a chilly nod to the federal government's half-hearted move to list the polar bear as an endangered species:

Under legal pressure, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne officially -- and historically -- added the polar bear to the threatened-species list, the first time a species has made the list because of global warming. His action Wednesday was extraordinary. Even more remarkable was Kempthorne's blatant undercutting of his own decision with regulatory shenanigans that will almost certainly mean no new restrictions on carbon emissions and no need to scale back on drilling for Alaskan oil....

What we have here is a newly protected polar bear with virtually no new protections.

Readers react to Hillary Clinton's primary win in West Virginia. Anna Shaff asks:

If the next few weeks afford Clinton a single moment of introspection, she should ask herself the following question: Has the fighter become a piranha?

The California State Supreme Court just overturned the ban on gay marriages.

I'm really happy for all my gay friends, but personal bottom line? This is going to cost me a fortune in wedding presents.

Not white and black, or red and blue ... Given how well their campaign slogans mesh together, it's no wonder John Edwards put his defunct catchphrase to good use and backed Barack Obama for president.

The Obama campaign has turned big-name endorsements into an art, revealing a few key supporters every time Hillary Clinton's fortunes seem to be on the rise. Edwards' announcement is no exception — Clinton just swept the West Virginia primary, and according to ABC's Political Radar, had been planning some key fundraisers over the next few days. In addition to hitting her debt-ridden pocketbook, the votes Obama will likely receive from Edwards delegates more than offset the pledged delegates she won last night.

It's not just delegates: As the Radar points out, the move was "a dramatic attempt by the Obama campaign to answer concerns regarding Obama's appeal to working-class voters." The Wall Street Journal's Political Wire sneers:

Edwards could give a boost to Obama’s candidacy by attracting the exact sort of voter that has been Clinton’s strength — white, working-class voters from rust-belt states who are drawn to a populist political philosophy. ...

People close to Edwards have said that he sees deep flaws in both Clinton and Obama. He thinks Obama lacks the fire to wage war against special interests in Washington, and objects that Clinton takes money from lobbyists and is part of the inside-the-beltway aristocracy, which he considers to be the problem with American politics.

If you're looking for hard numbers, NPR points out that 7% of the West Virginia vote went to the former vice presidential candidate, even though he's no longer running. And, at a point when Obama is campaigning against John McCain rather than against Clinton, Edwards might help him finally close the deal — or end the agony, as The Washington Post's The Fix observes:

Edwards is widely seen as one of the major party figures who had remained on the sidelines in the race between Clinton and Obama. That he has stepped in to the fray in hopes of, perhaps, bringing this race to an end should send a powerful signal to undecided superdelegates about the direction of the contest. 

Edwards is the picture of modesty about the power of his endorsement in this MSNBC interview, but you have to wonder about the timing on his end: Is he late to the party or the crucial tiebreaker? Is this a bid for the vice presidency? They'd certainly make a cute ticket.

The Moderate Voice isn't enamored, though. They have a thing or two to say about unifying the party:

If the endorsement is meant to show solidarity by one party member toward one of the candidates, that is a fait acoompli. Unifying the party at this point is likely premature. Unifying isnt done by one person saying ‘unify now.’ It is a far more many layered process that includes more meeting and greeting with many groups and people. That would be later. Not now.

Slate's Trailhead blog, however, says Edward's swing Obama-ward "isn’t the last round of battle; it’s the first round of cleanup":

Enter John Edwards. By endorsing Obama now, Edwards isn’t handing him the nomination. He’s minimizing the damage wrought upon the all-but-inevitable nominee. Clinton insists a drawn-out election isn’t hurting the party. But it is clearly exposing huge holes in each candidate’s armor. By weighing in now, Edwards is reassuring Democrats—and perhaps telegraphing to Kentucky voters—that Obama is a safe choice.

John Edwards: Kingmaker? Deal-closer? Irrelevant? VP material? Post your take below. Also, check out Google's quotes page to judge if Edwards let the cat out of the bag days ago.

Columnist Tim Rutten puts bluntly his opinion of the Los Angeles Unified School District:

Every day, the Los Angeles Unified School District fails its tens of thousands of ambitious students, dedicated teachers and hardworking principals in so many ways that it's difficult to imagine how its elephantine bureaucracy could shamble into some new outrage.

Difficult, but not impossible, because the LAUSD runs this city's schools about like the generals run Myanmar.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has a proposal for reviving King-Harbor Hospital. Dickinson College's Crispin Sartwell discusses the demographic tricks behind political polling. And 27-year-old Erica Sackin says tax rebates won't help her in-the-red generation.

The editorial board encourages Bush to veto a bill that would stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and wonders why Congress is allowing the banning of all flavored cigarettes except the most popular kind, menthols. The board also says environmentalists have more work to do to prevent sprawl on Tejon Ranch.

On the letters page, readers question Nick Turse's Op-Ed linking the purchase of consumer products like Krispy Kreme and Pepsi to supporting Iraq war profits. Thomas J. Weiss of Ft. Hood, Texas, says, "Nick Turse's Op-Ed article has to be one of the most ridiculously alarmist articles I've ever read."

People are talking about the anti-religion comments and sour attitude toward the Chosen People expressed in Albert Einstein's letter to his pal Goodchild, but I think the most interesting phrase is in in a throwaway clause:

And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power.

Einstein produced plenty of random thoughts on the passing scene, most of which strike me more for their banality than anything else. Whether he did or did not believe in Goddess doesn't seem to me probative of much — and like Manley Pointer, I been believing in nothing ever since I was born. In fact, I'm pretty sure appealing to authority to support your disbelief defeats the whole purpose of being a rationalist.

But there's one aspect of Einstein's non-scientific punditry that has always been catnip to me: his abiding, total and frequently repeated hatred of patriotism and the use of force. You can always depend on Albert E. for good anti-bullyism, and his Actonian formulation here is the clearest expression of that philosophy I've seen. What sets it off from sermon-on-the-mount piety is that it doesn't pretend to any great moral position; force and power are bad not because they're wicked but because they're stupid and unhealthy.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg explains what Yucca Mountain and Guantanamo Bay have in common:

Well, there's the obvious stuff. Both have Spanish names. Neither is a great spot for a family vacation. And each is under the control of the federal government.

Oh, and both are essential tools in wars a lot of people claim they want to win.

Boston University's Andrew J. Bacevich argues that Iraq has illustrated the limits of U.S. power and new Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) wants an independent review of the state's revenue. And freelance writer Mary Kolesnikova says KMN (that's "kill me now") in response to a Pew report finding that teens let Internet chat speak into their homework.

The editorial board notes a new study finding that many Iraq veterans suffer from untreated brain injuries, and supports a state bill that would create CalPERS-managed portable retirement plans for private employees. The board also laments the sad state of the Southern California bookstore and the latest one to fall into financial dire straits, Libreria Martinez:

...Libreria Martinez, Santa Ana's nationally honored Latino-themed bookstore, is now threatened. After all, how many booksellers win a MacArthur Foundation genius grant? (Though Rueben Martinez was forced to use some of that $500,000 to pay his store's bills.) For that matter, how odd is it that the landlord forcing the store to move is a charter school for the arts with a well-regarded creative writing program?

On the letters page, readers react to the notion that Barack Obama's biggest problem is his elitism, not his race. Long Beach's Charles Q. Clay III says, "Hogwash! Obama has exactly half as many Ivy League degrees as our current president, who, you might recall, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and was not raised by a single mother on food stamps."

Some recent mail, courtesy of these newfangled interwebs:

Our favorite letter in a long time comes from Pam Anderson (not that one, the one in Glendale), who uses a David Lazarus column as a departure point for a CAPS-HEAVY critique of sky-is-falling circular logic at the L.A. Times:

TOO MUCH LIBERAL WHINING

This letter is prompted by David Lazarus’ article last Sunday in the LA Times business section, " ‘Smart meters’ Aren’t Up to Speed", in which he whines that the utility meters to be installed by Edison, et al, aren’t broadband enabled.  These meters will cost the consumer about $100 he says; while broadband-enabled meters would cost "five times" as much.

We can be sure that if the utilities were forcing consumers to pay for the fancy ones, David Lazarus would whine that it was too costly for lower-income households, when the cheaper one would do the simple job required.

Which bring me to my main point:  there is WAY TOO MUCH liberal whining in this state in general, particularly by LA Times writers such as Steve Lopez, Sandy Banks and David Lazarus.

They whine when house prices are going up: "Poor people can’t afford them!"

They whine when house prices are going down: "A market FAILURE", said one Times writer breathlessly a couple of weeks ago.

They whine when house prices are stagnant: "Home values are not keeping up with inflation!"

They whine if a Wal-Mart is proposed in a small town: "It will drive mom-and-pop stores out of business!"

They whine while the Wal-Mart is being built: "What about the environmental impact!"

They whine while it is operating: "The big corporation doesn’t care about the workers!"

They whine when it’s shut down: "The loss of jobs, jobs, JOBS!"

They whine if it was never built in the first place: "Economic prosperity has passed the town by!"

They whine for socialized medicine:   "People can't afford medical care!"

They [rightly] whine about how bad Social Security, Medicare and government-run hospitals are [such as VA hospitals and County USC], not realizing that this is EXACTLY the way socialized medicine is going to be:   REALLY BAD!!!

STOP THE WHINING, and GROW UP!!

The purpose of government is not to take care of our every problem and stupid decision [like a surrogate parent.] There will always be poor people, rich people, smart people, dumb people, and people down on their luck. Studies have shown that if we took all the wealth and spread it around today, things would be back to the way they are in about five years, because some people are just better at making and keeping money than others.

Education is good, charities are good, but otherwise, you’re pretty much on your own. Grow up and deal with it. It’s better than having government meddling in every aspect of your life.

Pam Anderson
Glendale

So much for all-purpose shaming. Readers have also been weighing in on more specific topics as well. Our back-and-forth Blowback series on the AIDS vaccine continues to get people exercised:

Newsweek correspondent and author Michael Hastings knows too well that war is more than statistics:

While I was in Iraq covering the war for Newsweek for two years starting in 2005, the woman I planned to marry was murdered in Baghdad by insurgents on Jan. 17, 2007. Her name was Andi Parhamovich; she'd come to Iraq to work for the National Democratic Institute, an NGO....

We -- Andi, me, Jeff, Greg, Scott, Ferris -- all chose to go to Iraq, volunteers for our respective causes. We were under no illusions about the risks, though that's a glib way of putting it. I don't think anyone can fully grasp the risks until whoosh, wham, through the looking glass you crash on the way to the rehab center at Walter Reed or a funeral parlor in Ohio.

Iraq often gets treated by pundits, writers and politicians -- all those thoughtful cheerleaders turned war critics -- as an intellectual exercise. It's not.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez reports that people will often ignore their self interest if they can get a fair deal. And New Republic assistant editor James Kirchick says South African President Thabo Mbeki shouldn't stand by as Robert Mugabe ruins Zimbabwe.

The editorial board says no on Prop. 98, yes on Prop. 99, and asks why phone customers should have to pay to keep their numbers unlisted.

On the letters page, Long Beach's Iris Ingram says to those who would ask Hillary Clinton to quit the race: "The primary season ends in June. So suck it up and stick it out."

What were people in the mood for last week? Not bromides about good government, public service or political commitment, that's for sure. P.J. O'Rourke's chainsaw tour of liberal platitudes brought in more than four times the traffic of the next-most-popular item — which was itself another bit of PC iconoclasm: Gregory Rodriguez' skeptical piece on the value of "dialogue." Is it time for the candidates to do something about all this cynicism? I hope not, and I thank you for reading Opinion L.A.

1. Fairness, idealism and other atrocities, by P.J. O'Rourke
2. Dialogue isn't the last word, by Gregory Rodriguez
3. Hillary's 'right' isn't the right thing, Rosa Brooks
4. Does your brain have a mind of its own? by Gary Marcus
5. Give voters a clue, by Jonah Goldberg
6. Government in secret, by Russ Feingold
7. Dust-Up: The new scarcity, by Gregory Clark and Gary Gardner
8. California wine? Down the drain, by Alice Feiring
9. Grand Old Party animal, by Joel Stein
10. China's next-generation nationalists, by Joshua Kurlantzick

Oh, mama!

It couldn't have been coincidence or ''shuffle'' programming that put these movies on cable on Mother's Day:

First, "Saving Private Ryan," a World War II-theme film whose plot is kick-started with the news that some American woman is about to get telegrams, all on the same day, informing her that she is a three-time Gold Star mother: three of her sons have been killed in combat.

And then, the remake of "The Manchurian Candidate," with Meryl Streep managing to get the edge even on the uber-creepy Angela Lansbury as the mother not from hell but worse -- from a sinister global corporation.

What, did I oversleep and miss ''Serial Mom''?

Thanks, Time Warner Cable -- but a card would have been just fine. 

When John McCain launched his Spanish-language website earlier this week, I commented that immigration would be a tough issue for him during the general election (and possibly problematic for Democrats too).

Even Bill O'Reilly gave him a gentle jab when McCain appeared on his show yesterday. Here's an excerpt of the interview from Fox:

O'REILLY: I know. All right, the issue that's hurt you the most among conservatives is the immigration issue. You know that? In fact, you and I had a nice chat in May of 2001. I don't know if you remember that.

MCCAIN: I tried to forget it.

(A quick summary for Opinion L.A. readers who have forgotten: O'Reilly said he wanted troops on the border; McCain said he didn't. Repeat several times, with McCain getting fewer and fewer words in and O'Reilly getting louder and mentioning the Mexican government's handing out "fanny packs" to border-crossers.)

Comes Beyonce Knowles' line of tartwear for little girls.

Where to start with how incredibly inappropriate this is? The come-hither pumps on preschoolers (OK, maybe they're really 7 or 8 years old), or the tight, hip-hugging jeans?

Once upon a time little girls played dress-up in their mothers' clothes, swanning around in gowns that were too long and pointy heels that were too big. This looks like man-hunting nightclub gear.

This isn't pointless fretting. All those people who slather makeup onto their girls' faces, buy them miniature corsets and shove them into Little Miss Artichoke pageants may actually buy this stuff.

Jimmy Carter's mom loooooved the Dodgers -- the Brooklyn Dodgers, he told me in an interview this week; "she adopted the Dodgers as her team because of them letting Jackie Robinson play.''

While Miz Lillian "hated" seeing the team move to Los Angeles, she reconciled herself, and followed the games via a huge antenna set up out by her fishpond in Georgia. Somehow, while Carter was in the White House, Miz Lillian finagled Tommy Lasorda's phone number. "On occasion she would call him on the phone and give him a hard time.'' Now, whenever Lasorda runs into Carter, he reminds the former president "that he's glad that my mother used to have his phone number, but he's kinda glad that it's more quiet now.''

Carter was in town promoting his Mother's Day homage book, "A Remarkable Mother.'' Want to hear the entire interview? Click here.

Tomdispatch.com associate editor Nick Turse shows how consumer firms like Apple and Krispy Kreme profit from Iraq, and columnist Joel Stein scores some (prescription) marijuana:

Sometimes I can't believe how Californian California is. Women walk around half-naked, waiters call patrons "dude," and medical marijuana is legal. But I wondered just how legal. Could anyone buy it? Even me, who doesn't have cancer, AIDS, arthritis, glaucoma or even any previous pot-smoking experience?

Medical marijuana isn't really legal -- in 2005, the Supreme Court said federal anti-drug laws trump state laws -- but California and 11 other hippie states have been flipping off Washington for years.

The editorial board criticizes President Bush for failing to hold the Reading First program accountable, and says California's misuse of the recall process may be one reason the state is in such bad shape.

Readers discuss the election, and whether Hillary Clinton should quit. Palm Springs' Eleanor Jackson wonders, "It's difficult to understand how anyone, particularly a Democrat or independent voter, can dislike Clinton (or for that matter, Obama) so much that they would be willing to not vote or vote for John McCain. Do they not realize the consequences of a Republican victory this November?"

Sorry, Bill Johnson supporters, but your man really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Devoted Johnsonians will recall that the good judicial candidate first appeared on our radar screen thanks to his help with an effort to unseat a group of Latino jurists and get Filipino-Americans get onto the bench. That effort was led by a minister in Carson, who explained his ambition:

"When you're running against a Caucasian, it's kind of hard," the Rev. Ronald C. Tan of Carson said. "As Filipinos, our names are almost the same as Hispanics, so that puts us on co-equal ground."

In Johnson's book they're already on co-equal ground. Amendment to the Constitution, the 1985 book written by Johnson under the alias "James O. Pace," presents the text of the proposed "Pace Amendment" mandating expulsion of non-whites from the United States, along with an extensive, Federalist Papers-style unpacking of the proposed law's text. Here's what the book has to say on Filipinos in its explanation of how folks of various ethnicities will be sent packing:

Filipinos. The Filipinos are generally new arrivals, and many are still Philippine citizens. Accordingly, they can be repatriated without much difficulty. The Philippine government can be encouraged to assist.

This is more mildly worded than Pace's suggestions for assorted Latinos ("The Puerto Ricans should be returned to Puerto Rico," "Central Americans should be returned to Central America," "It should be noted that repatriation has become necessary primarily because of the abuses that the Hispanics have made of our system"). But while Pace allows that "Hispanic whites who are basically indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is the British Isles or Northwestern Europe, need not be repatriated," he is silent on the matter of Filipinos who can pass. (Are there any of those? Is there a whiteometer we can check?)

But I'd rather light a candle than curse anybody's darkness. A few days ago our news side had an interesting story about the proliferation of headline-driven legislation bearing names like "R.J.'s Law," "Adam's Law" and so on.

Would the Pace Amendment have fared better if it had a nice round name attached?

"Ziegfried's Law," maybe?

Incoming University of California President Mark Yudof hasn't even settled into his office yet, and already the university's 2006 pay scandal is coming back to haunt him. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote yesterday about costly repairs for the university's presidential residence, and Contra Costa Times columnist Daniel Boreinstein pointed out last month that the university lowballed Yudof's compensation (a mere $828,000). The real figure, he said, would catapault Yudof to the top of the best paid university leaders:

The more accurate numbers: During his first year at UC, Yudof will receive $924,642 in salary, contributions to his retirement plans and car allowance, compared with his $832,560 in compensation at Texas.

University officials knew that the price for Yudof would raise concerns, especially considering he will receive about 76 percent more than ... outgoing President Robert Dynes.

UC Board of Regents chair Richard Blum (and the Los Angeles Times editorial board) call it a bargain, however. The departing University of Texas head is open to bonding with Gov. Schwarzenegger over a smoke in the governor's cigar tent, according to an interview with the Austin American-Statesman. He also hits the major talking points in today's clearly charmed San Francisco Chronicle:

He chews on a fat cigar and makes jokes about his sparse hair. He sports the burnt orange ties of his employer, the University of Texas, during trips to UC's Oakland headquarters and sucks down Coca-Cola Zero like he's in the Texas heat.

But behind his down-home manner is a man brought in to change the 10-campus university system to its very core.

Cue dramatic music!

Granted, state officials and the media are probably just happy to kick Dynes out the door, but it'll be interesting to see whether Yudof takes advantage all the good karma they're lavishing on him. Let's hope he means what he says about improving state support for the university -- and doesn't mention tuition deregulation.

What would the U.S. do if this happened here? AFP reports:

Authorities have lost track of 41,000 people ordered to leave Canada, and in most cases have stopped looking for them, said a federal watchdog Tuesday.

In a scathing report, Auditor General Sheila Fraser said most of the missing were failed asylum seekers allowed into the country on temporary permits while their immigration or refugee cases were assessed.

However, some of them "may pose a threat to public safety and security," she added.

Oh, wait -- it did happen here.

A Homeland Security Inspector General report (pdf) released last year said that the backlog of immigration cases involving immigrants ordered to leave the U.S. had reached 600,000 -- and the whereabouts of many of those, whether criminal offenders or non-criminal deportees, couldn't be determined. It's important to note that this number represents the backlog, not the number of people missing, as in Canada.

The report put the blame for the backlog, which had been increasing since 2001, on insufficient detention space and systems, along with inadequate staffing. (This focuses on ICE rather than CIS, so it doesn't take into account the long lines legal immigrants face to get in or change their status if they're already here.)

There hasn't been an internal assessment of where the "fugitive" backlog stands more recently. And though Homeland Security has received more beds and staff, it has also stepped up its enforcement efforts, so the backlog may very well still be rising, if at a slower pace.

The Canada case gives occasion to recall that this country's ad-hoc enforcement-first approach doesn't necessarily work as smoothly as advocates hope. And, as the editorial board would argue, it isn't the best approach for the country even when it works as intended.

Whether you're for or against immigration reform, some issues transcend those political borders. The NY Times' report on deaths in detention is one of them:

Word spread quickly inside the windowless walls of the Elizabeth Detention Center, an immigration jail in New Jersey: A detainee had fallen, injured his head and become incoherent. Guards had put him in solitary confinement, and late that night, an ambulance had taken him away more dead than alive.

But outside, for five days, no official notified the family of the detainee, Boubacar Bah, a 52-year-old tailor from Guinea who had overstayed a tourist visa. When frantic relatives located him at University Hospital in Newark on Feb. 5, 2007, he was in a coma after emergency surgery for a skull fracture and multiple brain hemorrhages. He died there four months later without ever waking up, leaving family members on two continents trying to find out why.

Twelve of the 66 deaths occurred in California, and some of the listed causes are frighteningly vague (from "internal injuries [self-inflicted]" to "unresponsive"). You can view the full list here.

This isn't the first time this issue has come up, but it's really been a bad few weeks for immigration enforcement: Homeland Security is facing lawsuits over care in detention facilities, and the feds recently admitted to negligence in the death of Francisco Castaneda, who testified in front of Congress last year:

While at the San Diego Correctional Facility, he notified immigration officials that he had a large, painful, growing lesion on his penis.

Despite recommendations from several doctors, the cancer was never biopsied and Castaneda received no treatment except for pain pills during his 11 months in detention, government records indicated.

A doctor at the Division of Immigration Health Services would not admit Castaneda to a hospital, saying her agency considered it "an elective outpatient procedure."

Castaneda was released last year, went to a hospital and was diagnosed with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma. He died in February.

The pressure seems to have spurred some action: California's own Zoe Lofgren is sponsoring legislation that would set standards for healthcare and require all deaths to be reported to the Justice Department and Congress. While we're waiting for meaningful reform, check out this interactive map courtesy of the Detention Watch Network.

Is North Carolina the fat lady that sang for Hillary Clinton? The editorial board suggested that it's finally over for her, and L.A. Times columnist Rosa Brooks called it way back in March. The Hill reports that backs are turning on her. What are the other papers saying?

The Washington Post editorial board focuses on Barack Obama even as it comes to the same conclusion on Clinton:

Hillary Clinton may, as she promised yesterday, fight on through the next few weeks of primaries, but after her disappointing showing Tuesday she has no plausible route to victory. So Mr. Obama was sounding themes for the coming battle against John McCain.... These are familiar phrases by now, appealing but also insubstantial.

Its columnists Harold Meyerson and George F. Will agree...

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) points out that the John Yoo torture memo is but one example of President Bush's hidden laws. High school junior Tom Stanley-Becker explains why opting out of an Advanced Placement class was a smart move. Columnist Patt Morrison says L.A. muralists have to fight for their work on two fronts -- taggers on one side, and numbskulls with paint rollers on the other. And columnist Rosa Brooks acknowledges that Hillary Clinton may have a right to keep campaigning, but says it isn't the right thing to do:

Tell an American he shouldn't do something, and odds are he'll respond by insisting that it's his "right" to do it, regardless of how pointless, destructive, offensive or downright stupid it may be....

Tell your 10-year-old daughter she's not allowed to buy thong underwear emblazoned with sexy slogans, and she'll give you an angry lecture about her free-expression rights.

Don't fall for it.

The editorial board agrees that it's over for Clinton:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has run a long and admirable campaign for president of the United States. The prospect of her presidency has energized voters, particularly but not exclusively women, and offered working people a champion for their cause in this time of economic malaise. She has demonstrated resolve and character. And yet, she has lost.

The board also praises the Los Angeles Unified School District's new deputy superintendent for disciplining LAUSD officials in a school sex case, and explores whether a new Sprint Nextel broadband venture could expand service across the country.

On the letters page, some readers aren't as enamored with taco trucks as the editorial board. East L.A.'s Omar Loya says, "I now have to deal with grease stains on the street, trash on the sidewalks, generators running late into the night and extra traffic."

Since I'm the resident thought-tormented Ron Paul fan on staff, I've taken a special interest in the Paul supporters who are objecting to the attention we've paid to the white-supremacist past of Paul-connected judicial candidate Bill Johnson.

Thanks, everybody, for commenting. Some clarifications are in order:

Commenter "Tracey," declares that Johnson is not the author of the so-called Pace Amendment. This is incorrect. Johnson confirmed in a phone call with our own Robert Greene that he is indeed the author of the Pace amendment and of the "James O. Pace" book Amendment to the Constitution.

Commenter "blakmira" calls us "lower than scum" for the "smear" on Paul in our editorial about the Johnson campaign, which noted that Johnson had affiliated himself with the Paul-for-president campaign; apparently our mentioning that was clear evidence of counter-rEVOLutionary tendencies. In any event, Paul himself appears to be taking the matter seriously enough that he has renounced his end of the affiliation. Here is an email we just received from Paul's congressional chief of staff Tom Lizardo:

Over the past several weeks, I have also been involved in assisting Dr Paul with the consideration of candidates who are seeking his endorsement for their campaigns.  We have gone through the process of setting up a method by which candidates are to be considered for such endorsements.  During that period, we have also received and reviewed requests from dozens of candidates.

Although Bill Johnson's name ended up on the endorsement list, he did not go through this process.  In light of this fact, and in light of the revelations regarding his past statements and associations, Dr Paul has retracted the endorsement and hopes that, in the future, the process that has been put into place will mitigate the likelihood of similar errors.

Several commenters claim that they know Bill Johnson and he couldn't possibly be a racist. We make no judgments on what Johnson believes in his heart, only on what he has publicly advocated. But Paul, whose attentiveness to such matters has not always been impressive, deserves credit for taking quick action in this case. The claim by another commenter that Johnson is part Japanese is also incorrect, though Johnson does speak fluent Japanese as a by-product of his LDS mission in the land of the Rising Sun. We can confirm that "Turning Japanese" by the Vapours remains one of the finest works of rock orientalism ever recorded.

Finally, a commenter at dailypaul.com claims that our staffer is the same Robert Greene who writes self-help books on "How to crush your competitor," "How to secure the corner office," "How to take over your supervisor's position" and "The 48 Laws of Power." I can confirm that Greene is not that person and that if he ever wrote a self-help book it would be about how you can become a better person by scrupulously reading the fine print of voter information packets in obscure municipal elections. Nor is he the Robert Greene who denounced Shakespeare in his "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a million of Repentaunce." Moreover, Robert Greene confirms that he is a Stratfordian in good standing, though if pressed he would put Pericles, Prince of Tyre in the "disputed authorship" category.

Hope that clears things up.

Well, you can't say the feds aren't getting serious about border enforcement. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is about to "deport" an entire U.S. business. Plans for the fence the feds are building along the Texas/Mexican border will slice the Fort Brown Memorial Golf Course in Brownsville off from the rest of the U.S., locating it onto the Mexican side.

The course is owned by the University of Texas, and will be joined in exile by a Brownsville city park and bird sanctuary that are also located in a tricky bend of the Rio Grande riverbed. These Google Maps images suggest how the rights and property of American citizens ended up getting subordinated to the Department of Homeland Security's desire to build a more or less straight wall:

A spokesman for the golf course says there is a proposal to put a gate in the fence.

KNX 1070 radio has the story, but many questions remain unanswered.

Will golfers need passports?

Will Fort Brown still have to pay state taxes?

Will President George Bush be able to use the new as a holding site for prisoners of war by claiming it's not technically in the U.S.?

By holding a series of immigration hearings this week, Congress seems to be going beyond lapel pins and superdelegate-ship this election season. On Tuesday, the House Committee on Education and Labor considered whether U.S. businesses are hiring American workers before looking abroad for employees (something that they're concerned with across the pond as well). That same day, the House Way and Means Subcommittee on Social Security discussed the Employment Eligibility Verification Systems and agency backlog.

But in a year when comprehensive immigration reform is highly unlikely to happen -- and President Bush's recent mention of it is a case of too little, too late on a policy that might have been the rare jewel in his crown -- the hearings were primarily a chance for Democrats and Republicans to focus on small pieces of the immigration puzzle, and to unite disparate elements of their parties. As the Congressional Quarterly noted, the Democrats do have some internal divisions on this issue, even if they're not as problematic for the party as the split Republicans face.

But the hearings also highlighted another important November event -- that's when the voluntary E-Verify system is set to expire, meaning that the thousands of employers who use it to verify Social Security numbers will be out of luck. Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) testified (pdf) in favor of extending the bill through the SAVE Act, which he co-sponsored with Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) If the Tancredo name alone doesn't set off alarms, reading the fine print of that bill should: it doesn't simply extend the program -- it makes it mandatory, despite the problems that could pose for businesses, employees legal and illegal, and government agencies. The bill would also encourage local law enforcement to act as immigration agents, which is opposed by quite a few law enforcement and elected officials. An alternate proposal by Texas Republican Rep. Sam Johnson uses a different verification system, supported by some who criticize E-Verify, but others say it would lead to similar complications for workers, even if they're citizens.

More hearings should follow throughout the week -- we'll keep updating. And though they may not bring about much in the way of results, they're at least more useful than the summer 2006 hearings organized purely as publicity stunts. Need to refresh your memory on those? Here's what the editorial board said about them....

European policy experts John C. Hulsman and A. Wess Mitchell look to 'The Godfather' for diplomatic pointers:

[Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather"] is also a startlingly useful metaphor for the strategic problems and global power structure of our time. The don, emblematic of Cold War American power, is struck by forces he did not expect and does not understand, as was America on 9/11. Intriguingly, his heirs embrace very different visions of family strategy that approximate the three schools of thought -- liberal institutionalism, neoconservatism and realism -- vying for control of U.S. foreign policy today.

Freelance writer Lionel Beehner has another proposal for smoother diplomacy: pronouncing foreign dignitaries' names properly. Columnist Tim Rutten tells an L.A. version of "A Tale of Two Cities," and contributing editor Erin Aubry Kaplan explores why poet and long-time Watts resident Eric Priestley is fighting City Hall to keep his home.

The editorial board praises a California Supreme Court decision voiding the death sentence of Adam Miranda, presses for a shield law, and says now isn't the time to scold Myanmar's leaders:

It has been clear for more than a decade -- and especially since last year's suppression of the would-be Saffron Revolution -- that Myanmar's odious junta cannot be shamed into reform. It is too isolated and xenophobic to worry about its image, too paranoid to learn from outsiders and too blood-drenched to believe it can survive any loosening of control over its hapless people. The contradictory combination of U.S. sanctions and an engagement strategy adopted by its neighbors has failed to produce any improvement. Attempts to use the catastrophe of Tropical Cyclone Nargis as leverage to pry open the country will almost surely fail as well.

The problem with writing for a family newspaper — or being a screenwriter for a TV show on basic cable, for that matter — is that there are times when the most apt possible word for the situation you’re trying to describe or the dialogue you’re trying to convey is forbidden by company policy, or FCC regulations, or common decency. That is why I am so frakking in love with "Battlestar Gallactica."

The Sci Fi Channel hit didn’t coin the word "frak." It was introduced in the original 1978 series on ABC, though its meaning on that show was quite a bit more benign; the context in which it was used made it clear that it was a substitute for a harmless euphemism like "darn." In the new version of "Battlestar," which is free of blow-dried haircuts, adorable robot dogs or former "Bonanza" stars, the writers make it quite clear that "frak" means exactly the same as a common four-letter English word that starts with "F" and ends with "K." Hence you get words like "motherfrakker" and "clusterfrak," and phrases like, "We are well and truly frakked."

This all might seem a little childish, but it’s actually incredibly liberating. Screenwriters can write the kind of dialogue for basic cable that’s normally only allowed on a pay-cable channel. (I challenge even the stoutest frat boy to take a drink every time somebody drops an F-bomb on the HBO show "Deadwood.") You simply cannot accurately convey the chatter of a bunch of sweaty, tattooed, futuristic fighter pilots, who make up much of the cast of "Battlestar," without throwing in some colorful language. With "frak," you can do that without offending a soul: Even the most righteous member of the Parents Television Council would have a tough time objecting to a curse word that only has meaning in an alternate universe.

Which is why I hope this whole "frak" thing catches on. When you’re writing about government policy, sometimes the situation is so frakked up, involving people who know frak-all about basic economics or the unintended consequences of bad public policy, that you just frakking want to tell them to frak off.
Frak, that feels good.

So we've had all this back-and-forth about the effect of immigrants (legal and otherwise) on the economy, dwindling natural resources and societal well-being, as if it were a one-way street. But what about the economy's effect on immigrants? From NPR:

Fewer immigrants living in the United States are sending money back to their home countries. A survey by the Inter-American Development Bank shows remittances by Hispanic immigrants are flat. But the percentage of immigrants sending money home to Latin America is down dramatically in just two years. The report cites the U.S. economic slowdown and a tougher line on illegal immigrants.

Anti-immigration advocates need not gloat: This isn't doing the home front's economy any good. One undocumented construction worker told NPR he's only saving out of fear that he'll be rounded up: "We're not spending money. What we earn, we save, because we may need it."

So, no silver lining for the U.S. — though there is a catch-22: Restriction of immigration may be fueling the drop in remittances, but if that money doesn't keep supporting families abroad, more people may try to cross into the U.S. to find work. Let's hope Tom Tancredo needs some remodeling done.