Lowering the Bar

Alleged Car-Stealer Charged With Stealing Car to Get to Hearing on Car-Stealing Charges

2009-11-07T15:50:24-08:00

The California Highway Patrol got a report of a stolen car on November 3 and were able to track it down quickly because it was equipped with LoJack. They found it parked near a courthouse in Vallejo, about a 30-minute drive north of Oakland, and arrested the driver when he returned to the car. He turned out to be Samuel Botchvaroff, a 24-year-old Oakland man who had been at the courthouse for an arraignment. Specifically, his arraignment, on charges of auto theft.

Police said that Botchvaroff's own car had been impounded after a prior arrest (for something other than car theft that time), so he apparently stole another one to make sure he didn't miss his arraignment in Vallejo. He didn't, but now he's got another arraignment to worry about.

For future reference, you can take BART from Oakland north to El Cerrito and then catch the 80 bus from there to Vallejo. Get off at York and Marin, and then go east on Georgia to the courthouse. You will have to catch the 8 a.m. BART train to make a 9 a.m. arraignment, and it's a pretty long walk down Georgia Street. That's a real pain in the ass, but at least it's legal.

Link: Vacaville (CA) Reporter
Link: Vallejo Transit

Latest Bad Disguise(s): Drawing on Your Face With a Sharpie

2009-11-06T13:00:23-08:00

I have to go back and make sure my numbering is consistent, but I think these would be Bad Disguises Numbers 6 and 7:

I am going to count these as two Bad Disguises even though they are fundamentally based on the same idea. I mean, you wouldn't lump together all the works of Michelangelo and Da Vinci just because they were both painters.

Link: The Smoking Gun

Colonel Sanders Appears at UN to Seek Membership for Grilled Nation

2009-11-05T11:31:57-08:00

United Nations officials in New York said they were "still trying to find out exactly what happened" to enable a man dressed as Colonel Harlan Sanders to get past security and into the UN building on October 22. Reports suggested that a UN security guard and apparent Sanders sympathizer had personally escorted the Colonel past security barriers and into the General Assembly.

A spokesman for the current President of the General Assembly, Dr. Ali A. Treki, denied rumors that the president had actually met with Sanders, though that statement seemed to be undermined by this photo:

The spokesman stuck to his guns. "I wouldn't call that a meeting," he said. "No appointment [was] scheduled." He eventually conceded, though, that Sanders did experience "a brief encounter with the president of the General Assembly." That was getting a little too close to "romantic interlude" for my comfort, but the spokesman then clarified that Treki just shook hands in order to be polite.

It appears that KFC dispatched the Colonel (actually a look-alike named Bob Thompson) to the UN as part of an effort to promote its new grilled chicken products. The Colonel bore an official letter from KFC's president, Roger Eaton, asking that what he called the "Grilled Nation" of KFC-lovers be registered as the 193rd UN member state. A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon made clear that the letter would not accomplish its goal. "That letter is absolutely void to us," she said, thus resolving the long-disputed question whether, under international law, a letter from a fast-food company could legally create an officially recognized United Nations member state made up of people who happen to eat grilled chicken products. "It has no meaning whatsoever." She suggested that the UN was considering legal action, but given the UN's overall track record I'm not sure KFC has much to worry about there.

During his visit, the Colonel also posed for this picture beneath the UN logo inside the assembly chamber, the spot from which world leaders address representatives of member nations. Sadly, he did not take the opportunity to deliver any remarks himself. He can't possibly have made less sense than Muammar Qadhafi (also officially a colonel), who recently addressed the Assembly for 95 minutes in a speech so rambling and loony that the translator - his own personal interpreter - actually gave up. "I just can't take it any more," he said, and reportedly collapsed. If Colonel Qadhafi gets to address the UN, why can't Colonel Sanders?

By the way, the real Harlan Sanders (who died in 1990) did have the right to the rank of Colonel, although it was an honorary rank, not a military one. According to Kentucky's Secretary of State, "Kentucky Colonel" is the "highest honor awarded by the Commonwealth," granted by the governor and secretary "in recognition of noteworthy accomplishments and outstanding service." Others granted this exalted title have included Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and Billy Ray Cyrus, at least two of whom I think have also addressed the UN.

In other grilled-chicken news, KFC was sued recently in San Francisco by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which says consumers should be warned that grilling chicken creates carcinogens. It apparently does, but as I have noted before, so does cooking any kind of meat, and so it is not a coincidence that the PCRM's primary motivations are animal rights and the promotion of a vegetarian diet. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) As it conceded in 2007 in connection with a similar lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is not a fan of its approach because it says such warnings would wrongly "imply that cooking poultry somehow renders the poultry unsafe or unwholesome." (Disclosure: our firm represents defendants, although not KFC, in certain food-related lawsuits. Another disclosure: I eat meat. Tasty, tasty meat.)

In San Francisco, members of the Grilled Nation did not seem too concerned when told about the lawsuit by a local paper. "I think anyone that eats here already understands that they are eating . . . unhealthy food," said one KFC patron. "Is it fair that you poison people with food?" he continued. "Not really, but people are eating here willingly, and people that don't know that they're eating poison here are idiots." He then went back to being willingly and yet unfairly poisoned by food that KFC had blatantly cooked for him at his request, or something like that.

Link: National Post (Oct. 26) and again (Oct. 27)
Link: NY Daily News (Oct. 28)
Link: Mission Local (SF)
Link: The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels

Blagojevich Can Appear on "Celebrity Apprentice," Says Judge

2009-11-05T05:30:00-08:00

A federal judge has ruled that former Illinois governor and loony pseudo-celebrity Rod Blagojevich can indeed appear on "Celebrity Apprentice" in March. U.S. District Judge James Zagel decided on October 20 not to block Blagojevich from appearing on the show, though he expressed concern that the former governor, whose corruption trial is set for next June, may cause problems by saying too much on the show about his case and thus opening the door for prosecutors to use his words against him.

"There are significant confessional elements on that show," said Zagel during a status hearing in the case. (It wasn't clear if he had watched it for purposes of the case or if he is just a fan.) "People do say things about themselves."

Surely not Blagojevich, though, just because he appeared on every talk show in the known universe during the 48 hours before his impeachment to say things about himself, who not too long ago subjected innocent members of the public to his Elvis impersonation, and who now is voluntarily appearing on a show run by Donald Trump. Surely he of all people will keep a low profile and exercise good judgment. Frankly, the chance that Rod Blagojevich might say something deeply incriminating on national television is the only thing that could get me to watch Celebrity Apprentice, although the possibility of a shoving match between him and Trump is also appealing.

The judge asked the two sides to confer and see if they could agree as to what Blagojevich could and could not say on the show, and maybe they will, for whatever good that might do.

After the hearing, one of Blagojevich's lawyers argued that his client should be free to say whatever he wanted and that the idea it would "open the door" was ridiculous. "Open the door to what?" he said. "These people [prosecutors] tape-recorded the inner sanctum of the governor's office, tape-recorded conversations he was having on the telephone." Yeah, we call that a "wiretap," and for this one they probably even had a warrant, quaint as that may be. Besides, what's the argument there? That he couldn't possibly come up with anything worse than what he's already said on tape? Granted, they did tape him referring to the opportunity to appoint a senator a "gold mine," but I have faith that he can come up with something much worse than that. Don't underestimate this man's ability to come up with stupid things to say.

Blago apparently did not bother to show up for the hearing to determine whether or not he could be on the show, because he was already in New York taping the show. Low profile, good judgment, you're fired.

Link: Chicago Tribune

So Long, Guy Who Refused to Marry Interracial Couple

2009-11-04T05:30:00-08:00

"I do hereby resign," began the only sentence anybody was interested in hearing out of Keith Bardwell, who until November 3 had been Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. Everybody has been calling for him to get out of the justicing business since early October, when he refused to sign a couple's marriage license because one is white and the other is black.

No matter where you practice law or what kind of law it is, it's probably a good idea to take a look at the case reports at least once a decade, because the law, it do change occasionally. Race-based restrictions on marriage have been illegal for, oh, 42 years now, since the Supreme Court's decision in Loving v. Virginia. Pick up a paper every once in a while, Bardwell.

As a ridiculous historical note, here's the fine tradition that Bardwell has apparently been following: in Loving, the trial judge stated in his opinion that "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix." Not that it's really necessary to respond to that, but if He had really separated the races, and done so because He did not intend for the races to mix, He would not have left three of the continents connected so the races could walk back and forth between them. Give the Guy some credit.

Ridiculous historical note #2: the Supreme Court also noted in its decision that the Virginia statute that prohibited intermarriage at the time made only one exception, for certain people descended from American Indians. Specifically, it provided that "persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons." Why that one odd exception? According to the sources cited by the Court, it was intended to recognize "as an integral and honored part of the white race the descendants of John Rolfe and Pocahontas . . . ." Pocahontas!

Anyway. Bardwell doesn't seem to have known that all this was held unconstitutional in 1967, or didn't care. When questioned about his refusal, he admitted that he routinely avoided marrying interracial couples, but claimed he was doing it on behalf of the children. "I'm not a racist," he insisted. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children [of interracial couples]," he said, who he apparently believes will inevitably suffer from a crippling stigma that may render them forever unable to, let's say, become President of the United States. PICK UP A PAPER EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, BARDWELL!

Bardwell has maintained that he didn't do anything wrong, and was still saying that even after he resigned. CNN quoted Bardwell as saying he had been advised "that I needed to step down because they was going to take me to court, and I was going to lose." They was taking him to court -- they done filed a civil-rights lawsuit on October 20 -- and they still is. The couple's lawyer pointed out that Bardwell's resignation did not make their discrimination claims moot.

Senator Mary Landrieu and Governor Bobby Jindal both expressed extreme gladness that Bardwell had decided to resign and end his "embarrassing tenure in office."

Link: msnbc.com
Link: Wikipedia (all about Pocahontas)