While you were away I saved some clips;
and these are just the religion quotes

The Pope’s problems: Hari is a well-known reporter with a good rep. What the The Independent’s logic was behind assigning this sort of “consumer advisory” story to him I have no idea.

But at least Hari didn’t bring up Pope Joan.

Still, before Catholics start worrying about a woman Pope, they have this to think about.

And while we're on the topic of women...The Tablet argues the liberal Catholic view.

Meanwhile, Hawking is still hedging.
--
The persistence of evil: It is, as Theodore Dalrymple notes, always with us.

That evil has not disappeared pari passu with German measles puzzles and troubles us. Evil remains a conundrum, as evidenced by Marxist literary theorist Terry Eagleton’s recently published book On Evil. Eagleton is not one of those Marxists for whom, like the late historian and Stalin apologist Edward Hallett Carr, the problem of evil does not exist. “I don’t think there are such things as bad people,” Carr once said. “To us Hitler, at the moment, seems a bad man, but will they think Hitler a bad man in a hundred years’ time, or will they think the German society of the thirties bad?”

Eagleton sees clearly that this will not do. Helping him in this recognition is that he is a Christian as well as a Marxist, and no Christian can believe wholly in social determinism. The problem of the human heart is real, not just a remediable social artifact. The relationship between society and human behavior is dialectical, Eagleton believes. Society has its effect, but it is acting on an already imperfect nature, which in turn is bound to produce an imperfect society.
Significantly, Eagleton begins his book by citing the case of two ten-year-old British boys who abducted, tortured, and killed three-year-old Jamie Bulger in 1993. Here is the opposite of childhood innocence, for the two boys knew that what they were doing was deeply wrong but went ahead and did it anyway. The human mystery is that neither their environment nor their nature can fully explain them. Man is not only wolf to man; he is mystery to man.

So the Enlightenment project has failed, at least in explaining man fully to himself. However successful it has been in other regards—and we are all, even its bitterest enemies, children of the Enlightenment—we do not know ourselves any better than we did in Jenyns’s and Johnson’s day. Self-understanding may even have regressed since Johnson, for no man was better at self-examination than he. If more people proved adept at it, perhaps the prevalence of evil would decline. Johnson was highly imperfect, knew himself to be so, and always struggled against his imperfections without expecting more than partial victory. He did not approve of Pope’s theodicy, but he could agree with the famous lines summing up the human predicament:

Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Theodore Dalrymple, a physician, is a contributing editor of City Journal and the Dietrich Weismann Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

--
‘Hipsters’ are ruining Christianity.
--
Pass the mustard: Galilean banquets 12,000 years ago

Humans were organizing mass banquets to foster community spirit 12,000 years ago, scientists learned.

A team excavating a burial cave in Galilee, northern Israel, uncovered the remains of at least 71 tortoises and three wild cattle.

The shells and bones showed evidence of the animals being cooked and butchered for human consumption.

The finds were in two specially crafted hollows linked to burial rituals, said the researchers writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Tortoise shells were placed under, around and on top of the remains of a ritually buried shaman.

Meat from the tortoises alone could probably have fed around 35 people, according to study leader Dr Natalie Munro, from the University of Connecticut, United States.

"This is the first solid evidence that supports the idea that communal feasts were already occurring - perhaps with some frequency - at the beginnings of the transition to agriculture," she said.

The Independent/UK

Bollywood does Jesus, reverentially, they swear.

Believe as much of this one as you like:

Cecil B DeMille has been there before, of course. As have Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Rossellini, Mel Gibson, Franco Zeffirelli and Martin Scorsese. So maybe it was only a matter of time before Bollywood not only succumbed to the temptation but went one better by making its version in the subject's native land. Yesterday, India's Aditya Productions unveiled plans for a $30m (£19.5m), two-hour-15-min biopic which will be shot in the Holy Land and which it said would be "the first ever – in 79 years – Bollywoodian film on the life of Jesus Christ".

Although the picture will – unusually – mainly feature child actors, it will have an as yet unspecified role for the Bollywood megastar Pawan Kalyan – introduced to reporters at Jerusalem's King David Hotel yesterday as the "darling of millions".

Summing up the appeal of the story, which will be "a very faithful representation of the life of Jesus" from "birth to his crucifixion" with particular emphasis on his youth, the producer, Konda Krishnam Raju, said: "It is remarkable that this man who started his mission from a small village became within a short span of three years a force that influenced mankind for over 2,000 years and is worshiped by millions of people."

Stressing that the film – which will be made in English, Hindi, Telugu and Malayalam, will start shooting here in October and should be ready by late 2011 – was high budget, Krishnam Raju said simply: "It is going to be a huge one."

To judge by the almost reverential tone of Indian entertainment journalists being beamed into the press conference by video link from seven cities in the subcontinent, he is right. Although fewer than 3 per cent of Indians are Christians, Kalyan, who declined to say what part he would be playing, explained: "There are millions of people in India who follow Christianity. It is a great faith, a great religion. There is a great tolerance for other religions; there is a great audience for such a film in India."

The actor underlined his delight at being involved in the project by describing how, six months before he was approached for a part in it, his five-year-old son hurt his knee in a fall. "The first thing that came into my mind was mother Mary and what she must have been through seeing her son [on the cross]." As a result, he explained, when the producers contacted him about the film. "I felt a kind of connectivity with it." Kalyan said there would be music but not "song and dance like in other Bollywood films".

--
All religions have their whackos

9. Let's face it, all religions have their whackos. Catholics have O'Reilly, Gingrich, Hannity and Clarence Thomas (in fact all five conservatives who dominate the Supreme Court are Catholic). Protestants have Pat Robertson and too many to list here. The Mormons have Glenn Beck. Jews have Crazy Eddie. But we don't judge whole religions on just the actions of their whackos. Unless they're Methodists.

Judge denies everything

by Tom Nadeau

Visiting Judge John Darlington denied Friday all the motions made by both the defense and the prosecution to reconsider his previous rulings in the Yuba County matter of People v. Santana, Vasquez, CRF-#08-825.

Neither side was happy with his reconfirmed ruling. Each indicated they would, “take it to a higher court,” as the old song goes.
+
In early August, Darlington granted some – but not all – of the motions Yuba-Sutter attorneys Jesse Santana and David Vasquez had made seeking dismissal of charges they violated rules of law and ethics during settlement talks between boss-sex attacker Joseph Griesa and his employee-victim, “S.A.”

Friday’s proceedings allowed the lawyers one last pitch to persuade him to change his mind and possibly revise his earlier actions.

Darlington listened, but after a 20-minute recess, he returned to court to say that nothing the lawyers had said changed his mind. The two would have to stand trial.

Letting the previous rulings stand means that – if and when the case ever goes to trial – that Vasquez will face three criminal counts, including one of bribery, while Santana will face only two counts. The more serious bribery allegation was thrown out against him..

Defense attorney Michael Barrette later said the indicted attorneys would meet a two-week deadline to file a writ of mandamus asking the state’s Third District Court of Appeals to negate Darlington’s rulings.

Lead prosecutor Supervising Deputy State Attorney General Michael Canzoneri declined to comment following the hearing. However, he clearly indicated the prosecution’s intention to also ask the 3rd DCA for further action.

Darlington’s ruling means this landmark case can finally go to trial after two years of preliminary hearings – in theory anyway.

In fact, both sides have a battery of options open to them that could keep this legal beast – one Darlington has called, ruefully, “the Moby Dick” of criminal cases – alive and kicking around county, state and federal trial and appeals courts for years to come.

The defense has until Sept. 10 to get their writs filed. Then the prosecutors have a set period of time to reply to the writ. The justices at the 3rd DCA are then likely answer within 90 days.

The attorneys in Santana, Vasquez return to Yuba County Superior Court 1 p.m. Oct. 1 to enter a plea -- remember, they have yet to be arraigned in this two-year-old case -- and to have a tentative pre-trial calendar set.

The appeals justices could refuse to consider the writs, which will place everything back before the Yuba County Superior Court. Or, the justices could take the issues raised in the writs under advisement and render a decision. Everything would be put on hold at the county until the 3rd DCA justices ruled.

Sound complicated so far? Well, it only gets worse.

The matter of People v. Santana, Vasquez could conceivable wend its way through the state and federal district courts all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Not many legal cases make it that far. But this seemingly obscure Yuba County dispute actually calls into question so many bedrock rules of American legal procedure, rights and customs it could very well get there.

Lawyer-client-court issues raised include:
-- How much must a client tell the lawyer when seeking his or her advice?
-- How often must a lawyer repeat possible consequences a decision entails?
-- If the clients, attorneys and the court are fully aware of what’s going on, who gets to be the goose if an error is alleged or discovered? The first to be told, or the last to hear it?

People v. Santana, Vasquez is further complicated by the other main issue that everyone knows about, that has echoed around various courthouses and law offices, yet few dare talk about: the brazen politics behind it all.

Santana was in the running for a judgeship on the Sutter County Superior Court bench. He was a prominent defense attorney. His long, excellent professional record was sterling, unassailable. He was even Hispanic. Why, the Governor’s pen was practically poised to ink Santana’s appointment.

But, alas, Santana was not the relatively young prosecutor forces within the Sutter County District Attorney’s Office preferred to have ruling on their cases. Somehow, Santana had to be derailed. A useful tool was found. Too bad Vasquez had to go down with him. But, as they would say in another closed clan, “Bidness was bidness.”

Suddenly, the district attorney in the other twin-cities county across the Feather River discovered something to talk to the Yuba County Grand Jury about involving Santana. A witness was produced, Joseph Griesa.

Griesa had been linked to law enforcement in both counties. At the time he had an investigation pending against him relating to allegations made by some of the female employees at his tow truck company. One of them was “S.A.” Santana represented her.

Several charges against Griesa waited in the wings. Some were state. Some were federal All could be magnified or minimized, pursued or postponed. Or Griesa could tell the grand jury how much he disliked about being pressured to cough up a financial settlement with victim “S.A.”

Abracadabra! Presto-Chango! Grand jury indictments suddenly materialized. The governor appointed the golden girl prosecutor to the Sutter County bench. (A mere coincidence, of course.) All the two district attorneys had left to do was ignore Santana and Vasquez until they went away, either by cutting a quiet plea deal or otherwise vanishing, the noiselessly the better.

But when did a lawyer ever remain silent?

Thus, the DAs’ preferred outcome was not to be, and People v. Santana, Vasquez was launched.

 Couldn't find space view, but this shows driver frustration.

Racism good bidness, ask any Amurkan patriot

Jim Beckwourth

A solution to the WTC-9/11 mosque kerfuffle will be reached, I think, but it will be dressed up in the costume of a “compromise.” In truth, however, it will amount to a complete cave-in to the rightwing and provide yet more proof that the US has lost its heart and soul, showing once and for all that America’s purported openness and tolerance were themselves myths to begin with.

The Indians – Native American Indians – could tell us a few things about that, I’m sure.

I live in Marysville, Calif., which is located in Yuba County. It is, like Minneapolis-St. Paul and Siamese twins, joined at the hip with a town called Yuba City just across the Feather River.

Marysville-Yuba City have a speckled history of separate religions and races getting along with each other fairly well – well, for the most part, anyway. Instances of intolerance and prejudice have prospered, but mostly on the edges.

Maidu Indians came first to this part of California first, of course, but they were soon killed off or driven away by new arrivals.

Then the Spanish came. These were full Spanish, mind you, not the Hispanic-Indian mix that came up from Mexico later. That group went on to create a vibrant and valued part of this community.

After the Spanish came the whites. Then the African-Americans. Then the Chinese. Then the Japanese. Then the Sikhs. Then the Hindus. Then the Muslims. That was the general pattern of the steady in-flow..

It was a black man – Jim Beckwourth, who had lived with the Indians and married an Indian woman – that guided some of the city’s earliest settlers here. Of course, when he went to the all-white Marysville City Council to collect for his services, they refused to pay him.

A small African-American community still resides here. It is represents the last remnant of what was the first recognized black neighborhood west of the Rockies.

The Chinese first came here to work the 1849 gold strikes just up river. They were smuggled in by whites. Some settled in what is still known as Marysville’s “Lower End.” There, between First and Second and B and D streets, a prosperous Chinatown bloomed.

More Chinese came with the building of the railroad and the Marysville Chinatown enclave became significant enough for Sun Yat-Sen to hide out here during the Chinese revolution against the fading dynasty.

The Japanese farmers who came a bit later built their own identifiable Japantown around the edges of Chinatown.

Obon dancers

Sikhs began coming to this area just before 1900, with most Sikh-Punjabis settling on the Yuba City side of the Feather River.

When the Punjabis first arrived, no Punjabi women were allowed in the US, so the earliest Sikh men married Hispanic women. This created an interesting sub-group that now has a ever-decreasing population base.

There were ups and downs in community relations, of course. When the Japanese were rounded up for internment at the outset of World War II, white businessmen and farmers swooped in and confiscated their properties – properties that were for the most part never returned.

The Sikhs became prosperous orchardists – prosperous in part because they contrived to import relatives from the Punjab, paying them little more than room and board, all the better to fatten the purses of the established land-buyers.

Sikh Temple Yuba City

For many years the Sikhs kept a generally low profile. Not until recent years to they start emerging on ballots running for offices. Instead, they contributed heavily to local white politicians’ campaigns – contributions the white faces were only to happy to extort.
All in all, if you asked me, I'd have to say that, in my opinion anyway, the least ethical and the most destructive people who came here were and are, by far, the real estate-construction business types who bought up rich, productive farmlands only to pave them over for car lots and housing developments.
No, the various ethnic groups who have been living alongside each other in Yuba-Sutter for getting on to 160 years did it successfully and, for the most part peacefully. That is to say, they have lived together – if not exactly the proverbial “side by side” – at least they have been able to do so it in a fairly friendly and cooperative way.
Oh, there have been some unhappy incidents. I’d be more surprised if there were none.
When it was about 75 percent completed the Tierra Buena mosque was significantly damaged by arson. The arsonist was never caught.

Some suspected white racists. Others thought it stemmed from an internal Muslim community dispute. It might just as well have been a random event unconnected with religion.
As it so happened, I was the Sacramento Bee’s Yuba-Sutter correspondent when 9/11 occurred. I was on the scene.
During the earliest, most tense hours and days, things remained relatively quiet between the various populations. There were some overly dramatic displays of ultra-patriotism staged by white organizers.

At one major event, I was standing there, watching things unfold. It appeared to me that the conservative types parading about giving impromptu patriotic speeches were clearly torn between showing their faith God and Country and making a profit by selling the confused and concerned public little stars-and-stripes buttons, Old Glory banners and baseball caps emblazoned with “Proud to be an American” sentiments.

There is always a buck to be made in the good ol’ god-fearing USofAmurka.

As the patriots blathered on with their loudspeakers, I asked a young man what he thought about it.

Did he realize, I asked, that the speakers were calling for the restriction or revocation of the first, fourth, fifth and probably amendments to the US Constitution than I could name right now?

His answer chilled me to the bone, and I always remember it when I hear about things like this bogus Wall Street mosque.

“Well, if it keeps us safe, I guess it’s OK,” he replied.

The only real inter-racial incident reported at that time, though, was something involving pickup-driving cowboy-types attacking a turban-wearing Sikh. The wannabe bronco-busters, were apparently unable to distinguish a Sikh from a Muslim from a Hindu. I told the editors I thought the perpetrators were probably not home grown, but just passing through.

Hindu temple Yuba City

But back to the point at hand.

If these flag-waving Christian GOPers on Fox TV and radical right radio can bully the mosque temple out of New York's financial district, then we will have really shown our true colors as a failed nation.

Tierra Buena mosque

The sad truth is, the ignorant and the intolerant have us out-numbered by far. And their numbers are growing with every Glenn Beck broadcast.

Frankly, I would say we probably have more to fear – soon and direct – from those self-satisfied, uninformed-and-determined-to-stay that-way whites who call themselves patriotic fundamentalist Christians than from anyone else.

Simlick prelim set for Sept. 8

by Sam Pierce

A Sutter County judge set a preliminary hearing Wednesday into charges Joseph Hayden Simlick falsely imprisoned a girl and then caused her parents to be burned to death in a fire at their Sutter home July 29.

Superior Court Judge Chris Chandler scheduled the hearing for 1:30 p.m. Sept. 8. Meantime, Simlick, 21, of Rio Linda, remains held without bail at the Sutter County Jail.

People v. Simlick, cases #10-1786 and #10-1787 charge Simlick with special circumstances murder in the deaths of Jack and Susan Martin and with false imprisonment for holding their daughter elsewhere against her wishes.

As so far disclosed by law enforcement, Simlick held the Martin’s youngest daughter for some five days prior to the parents’ deaths.

Simlick has pleaded innocent to all charges.

If convicted of the murders, Simlick could be sentenced to death or life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Chandler’s courtroom, Department #1 upstairs at the Sutter County courthouse on Second St., Yuba City, was again packed with spectators, mostly the victim’s family members.

The hearing was held under heavy security, with eight lawmen – bailiffs, transport deputies and detectives – guarding Simlick and ringing spectators in the public gallery. That would be about half the security force displayed at the arraignment hearing.

Defense attorney Linda Parisi, of Sacramento, said Wednesday that she has been retained to represent Simlick – an issue that remained unresolved at the end of the arraignment.

with Tom Nadeau

Mourners recall famous prosecutor

Memorial services for G. Dave Teja were heavily attended Wednesday with the assemblage of family and friends, prosecutors, defense attorneys and cops representing his seven decades of life and service in Sutter County. @NotableTrials

SEP candidate on collapse of capitalism

He outlines the socialist response to growing social inequality, militarism and war and environmental destruction and opposes the reactionary nationalist campaign for “border protection” and “sustainable population” launched by the major parties, including the Greens.@WorldSocialist

Claiming to be 'socialist' doesn't make it so

The political process now going on in Europe -- the transmogrification of several passably democratic societies into undisguised fascist states -- is also in full progress here in the US and has been for some while.

In fact, the "Nazi-fication" of cops and courts in some jurisdictions was boldly demonstrated in a Sutter County case Wednesday. Notable Trials will have more on that matter later today.

Now, from WSWS:

The [Greek] truck drivers are fighting for their survival. Most are owner-operators and have invested their entire life savings (up to €300,000) to buy the required license. The subsequent resale of the license forms the basis of their pensions. The abolition of the licensing system, as demanded by the government, not only opens up the Greek transport system to the big European haulage firms, destroying the livelihoods of the Greek truck drivers, it also nullifies their pensions at a stroke.

The liberalization of trucking and many other occupations—taxi drivers, lawyers, pharmacists, architects, accountants, etc.—is one of the key conditions demanded by the EU and the IMF in return for the 110-billion-euro aid package for Greece. In this manner, the cost of the financial crisis and the bailout of the banks is to be offloaded onto the poor, the working class and wide layers of the self-employed.

Herein lies the deeper significance of the deployment of the military in Greece.This country is to serve as a testing ground for the implementation of the austerity programmes that are being planned across Europe. These measures are so broad and so severe that they cannot be achieved by democratic means.

Because such large sections of society are involved, including layers that once considered themselves part of the middle class, many of the traditional conservative parties are in crisis. In Germany, Chancellor Merkel’s coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) is paralyzed by internal conflicts. In Italy, Berlusconi’s governing party (People of Freedom) has broken apart. In France, Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) has slumped in the polls. This is why in many countries the ruling elite is turning to the social democrats and their middle-class “left” satellites to enforce the attacks against the working class.

In Greece, the replacement of the conservative Karamanlis government by Papandreou’s PASOK was the precondition for the implementation of the current austerity programme. In Germany, a deliberate campaign is underway to promote the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens. The two parties, ruling in coalition under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, imposed the Agenda 2010 welfare “reforms” which did more to impoverish broad layers of workers than the current conservative government under Angela Merkel (CDU).

But such social democratic governments can only be a temporary solution. They owe their electoral success largely to the decline of the conservatives, the propaganda of the bourgeois media and the support of the petty-bourgeois pseudo-lefts. They have lost their social base among workers and largely rest upon the bureaucratic apparatus of the unions and their own party apparatus. Once in government, they are exposed to the same process of political erosion as the conservatives.

Therefore, efforts are being made to find new, authoritarian forms of rule. These preparations can be seen in one form or another in all European countries.

In Hungary, the right-wing nationalist Fidesz and the openly fascist Jobbik have benefited from the decline of the social democrats and are now seeking to consolidate their rule by inciting racism, raising tensions with neighboring countries and developing authoritarian structures.

In Holland, the racist Freedom Party of Geert Wilders has provided the majority for the government and will be formally incorporated into the coalition.

And in France, the government is seeking to mobilize the followers of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front through provocative legal initiatives against Roma and Muslims.

The increased social weight being afforded the military is also a general phenomenon. Conscript armies are being replaced by professional armies, which are being brutalized in battle in Afghanistan and in other foreign missions. The use of the military at home is being discussed openly under the pretext of “fighting terrorism.” In Germany, an open conflict is raging between the two chambers of the Supreme Court, who are arguing whether such military operations should now be approved following 60 years during which they were banned.

In this context, the use of the military against striking truck drivers in Greece sends a warning to the entire European working class. The extent of the austerity measures that either have been agreed upon or are being planned make violent social conflict inevitable. The Social Democrats, the trade unions and their petty-bourgeois “left” supporters play a key role in enforcing these attacks. By restraining and paralyzing the working class, they give the ruling elite the necessary time to prepare more right-wing and authoritarian forms of rule.

---

Griesa cuts a deal; sentencing set for Aug. 20

The beleaguered Joseph Griesa canceled Tuesday a second trial in Yuba County Superior Court on charges relating to his alleged conduct with under-aged female employees at Mitchell Towing Service.

After some last-minute waffling and sidebar dickering between his attorney, the prosecutor and the judge, Griesa announced that, all things considered, he would settle instead for a light sentence for the 10 crimes he’s already be convicted of.

The most serious penalty Griesa will face when he returns to court for final sentencing at 11 a.m. Aug. 20 stems from count #11 in his original 18-count charge sheet. That count charged him with Penal Code Section 278:

Every person, not having a right to custody, who maliciously takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals any child with the intent to detain or conceal that child from a lawful custodian shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or both that fine and imprisonment, or by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years, a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or both that fine and imprisonment.

The other heavy-duty penalty Griesa is looking at is he will now forever more have to register authorities as a sex offender.

All other penalties would be waived in the arrangement, Deputy District Attorney John Vacek said.

Vacek had initially insisted that Griesa, 45, also give up any right to appeal. Having to forsake that last, sinking-ship hope appeared to be what prompted Griesa’s dramatic 11th-hour stall. Following some in-chamber discussions, Vacek dropped that demand.

Informed court-watcher Sam Pierce noted that Vacek had actually conceded very little, since any appeal Griesa might mount would, based on the appellate court’s record, probably be rejected anyway.

Defense attorney Kenneth Rosenfeld said Griesa will present character references and other exculpatory information at the August sentencing hearing.

Griesa hopes to persuade visiting Judge Ersel Edwards to hand down a sentence that involves a multi-year probation period and a possible middle-term prison sentence of two years, which would be suspended pending successful completion of probation.

Griesa was tried last year onPeople v. Griesa. That proceeding ended with a decision split three ways.

He was found guilty of 10 charges relating to: annoying a child; contributing to the delinquency of a minor; unlawful detention; failure to report earnings, and; failure to pay taxes.

He was found innocent of four criminal counts, including sexual battery, penetration with a foreign object and oral copulation with an underage person.

A hung-jury mistrial was declared on the remaining charges. The remaining charges included allegations of indecent exposure, intimidating a witness, sexual battery, false imprisonment and assault with a deadly weapon.

It was on those last charges that Griesa was to be tried, but his Tuesday agreement ended that fight

Vacek seemed pleased with the outcome. The most serious charge stuck; the court’s time was saved; justice was served over all, and; best of all – after two years of paperwork fighting that requires 20 pages of computer printout to list – the matter of people v. Griesa was finally over.

“It closes a chapter,” defense attorney Rosenfeld agreed.

Griesa was clearly irked at how life had treated him and seemed ready comment, but Rosenfeld cautioned him not to. Hence, we have nothing straight from the defendant.

However, Rosenfeld had some interesting observations on the whole circus surrounding the intricately linked cases of People v. Griesa and People v. Santana, Vasquez.

Those cases have so far stretched over two years, directly involved several prominent attorneys, has riveted the attention of lawyers up and down the state and the end is not expected soon.

So important is this seemingly endless Saturday afternoon double feature horror show, it will likely lead to a “landmark” published opinion by the state appeals court and possibly some kind of written opinion by Attorney General Jerry Brown.

In California state law, you can’t get much higher that.

As background: Yuba County District Attorney Pat McGrath sought and got a 2008 grand jury indictment of attorneys Santana and Vasquez for alleged bribery and ethical violations in their handling of a sex claim one “SA” had brought against her boss, Griesa.

It allegedly involved a payment of $100,000 that was never consummated.

While settlements may be fairly common in civil cases, they aren’t in criminal cases, Rosenfeld explained..

Having read through the documents in both cases and followed the proceedings closely since taking over as defense attorney, Rosenfeld called it, “kind of a unique situation.”

From a professional point of view, Santana and Vasquez may have acted wrongly, Rosenfeld said, but he reserved any further comment until the case was decided.

But he did offer a plainly-worded opinion based on his direct observation of attorney Timothy Evans’s testimony at one pre-trial hearing on Santana, Vasquez.

“It was nonsensical,” Rosenfeld said.

For the moment, the next action in People v. Santana, Vasquez remains somewhat vague. Visiting Judge John Darlington, who is handling the matter, is set for 1:30 p.m. Aug. 8, but he may issue his crucial ruling on a defense motion to dismiss the case as early as some time this week.

---

Griesa trial set to go amid hints a deal’s been cut

The second compartment in the legal portmanteau of People v. Joseph Griesa and People v. Santana and Vasquez is scheduled to open in Yuba County Superior Court Tuesday, but doubts are being muttered that it will

Several signs are in the air that a deal may be imminent in the Griesa matter.

For one thing, Sacramento defense attorney Kenneth Rosenfeld was either hedging his bets or milking the situation for suspense, when he dodged Appeal-Democrat reporter Rob Young’s question whether the trial would finally start next week, or not.

“Anything could happen,” Rosenfeld coyly replied.

Griesa aces his second trial on charges arising from sexual harassment complaints by one “SA,” a 17-year-old dispatcher at the Griesa-owned Mitchell Towing Service.

Griesa was convicted last year of misdemeanors cited in that complaint, but the whole jury could not arrive at a verdict on the felony charges involved in the same case. This second Griesa trial deals with charges leftover from the first trial.

Those trials and the People v. Santana, Vasquez matter are locked together, body and soul.

Attorneys Santana (representing “SA”) and Vasquez (for Griesa,) were in the midst of negotiating a financial settlement in a civil suit “SA” had proposed when the Yuba County District Attorney jumped in to take the matter to the grand jury instead.

Griesa’s testimony to the grand jury led Santana and Vasquez being indicted on felony charges, including bribery. Santana and Vasquez have vigorously denied the allegations.

The attorneys fought back with a slew of motions that have kept the matter mired in pre-trial hearings for two years. Consequently, not even a preliminary hearing has been held yet for a judge to rule on whether there is sufficient evidence to merit a trial in Santana, Vasquez..

The most recent action in Griesa was a ruling last week denying a defense motion to disqualify an out-of-town judge from trying the case.

Visiting San Joaquin County Judge Bernard Garber ruled retired Nevada County Superior Court Judge Ersel Edwards was sufficiently impartial to proceed with the case.

During his tenure on the Nevada County bench, Edwards’ earned a reputation not only for being fair and impartial, but also for not taking any guff or dilly-dallying from attorneys.

In a written response to the motion to recuse him from the Griesa case, Edwards griped that, “The only apparent affirmative preparation the defense has made in this case is to prepare motions to recuse the district attorney and the judge.

Moreover, he hinted he was suspicious of Rosenfeld’s timing of his motions.
“Each of these motions have come on the eve of scheduled jury trials,” Edwards wrote.
The tone and tack of the motions may not have pleased him, either.

As Young reported:

In motions Edwards has not yet ruled on, Rosenfeld contends that Griesa was "duped" into cooperating with the Yuba County District Attorney's Office; that the case cannot proceed until a different judge rules on motions in the case of two attorneys charged with trying to bribe the girl; and that that trial must be postponed to protect Griesa's constitutional rights.

Edwards is expected to rule on those motions Tuesday.

Meanwhile, there is hallway chatter about Griesa “pleading out” his case, possibly as early as Tuesday. There are also signs that the community in general is getting tired of hearing about this two-years-and-counting case.

For instance, readers commenting on Young’s recent article about the motion to disqualify the judge, suspicious readers had this to say:

So here we have a case of a defense attorney assuring himself a longer stint of employment by trying to drag this tired old thing out even further. Guess times can be tough for lawyers too... --Ninkasi

And, even more to the point in terms of local politics, another reader insisted:

This must be costing Dad a Fortune. -- Thinker

Griesa is the son of the man who started the Mitchell Towing Service and there have been lingering rumors there may have been a falling out over the expenses being run up in his defense.

If the money is drying up for Griesa, now at least in his third attorney, that could explained Sacramento-based Rosenfeld’s hint that a concluding deal may be in the works.

These two cases, Santana, Vasquez and Griesa have been keenly followed by family members and long-time professional associates of the two attorneys and the legal community stretching far away, up and down the state.

There is an unfailing peanut gallery of supportive attorneys at all Santana, Vasquez hearings. Others not attending are cagey in what they will say about it. The current president of the Yuba-Sutter Bar Association has yet to return a request for comment on this courthouse-consuming controversy, notwithstanding its serious nature.

by Tom Nadeau, with Sam Pierce

Clipped from: 'The trouble with intuition'

Intuition means different things to different people. To some it refers to a sudden flash of insight, or even the spiritual experience of discovering a previously hidden truth. In its more mundane form, intuition refers to a way of knowing and deciding that is distinct from and complements logical analysis. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman nicely contrasts the two: "Intuitive thinking is perception-like, rapid, effortless. ... Deliberate thinking is reasoning-like, critical, and analytic; it is also slow, effortful, controlled, and rule-governed." Intuition can help us make good decisions without expending the time and effort needed to calculate the optimal decision, but shortcuts sometimes lead to dead ends. Kahneman received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 2002 for his work with the late Amos Tversky that showed how people often rely on intuitive heuristics (rules of thumb) rather than rational analysis, and how those mental shortcuts often lead us to make decisions that are systematically biased and suboptimal.

Gerd Gigerenzer, director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and author of Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious (Viking, 2007), takes a more benign view of intuition: Intuitive heuristics are often well adapted to the environments in which the human mind evolved, and they yield surprisingly good results even in the modern world. For example, he argues, choosing to invest in companies based on whether you recognize their names can produce reasonably good returns. The same holds for picking which tennis player is likely to win a match. Recognition is a prime example of intuitive, rapid, effortless cognition.

Gigerenzer's book jacket describes his research as a "major source for Malcolm Gladwell's Blink," but the popular veneration of intuitive decision-making that sprang from Blink and similar works lacks the nuance of Gigerenzer's claims or those of other experimental psychologists who have studied the strengths and limits of intuition.
The idea that hunches can outperform reason is neither unique nor original to Malcolm Gladwell, of course. Most students and professors have long believed that, when in doubt, test-takers should stick with their first answers and "go with their gut." But data show that test-takers are more than twice as likely to change an incorrect answer to a correct one than vice versa.

Intuition does have its uses, but it should not be exalted above analysis. Intuition can't be beat when we are deciding which ice cream we like more, which songs are catchier, which politician is most charismatic. The essence of those examples is the absence of any objective standard of quality—there's no method of analysis that will decisively determine which supermodel is more attractive or which orchestra audition was superior. The key to successful decision making is knowing when to trust your intuition and when to be wary of it. And that's a message that has been drowned out in the recent celebration of intuition, gut feelings, and rapid cognition.

There is, moreover, one class of intuitions that consistently leads us astray—dangerously astray. These intuitions are stubbornly resistant to analysis, and it is exactly these intuitions that we shouldn't trust. Unfortunately, they are also the intuitions that we find the most compelling: mistaken intuitions about how our own minds work.

More...

---

122º in the shade; East Indians dropping dead

Record temperatures in northern India have claimed hundreds of lives in what is believed to be the hottest summer in the country since records began in the late 1800s.

Extinction nears for basic elements we're using up:

So for all intents and purposes the world must do without element 87 [Francium], and we are none the worse for that.

Gallium, though—

Hard look at what's for sale and for how long

Anyone who believes that housing is on the rebound, and that now is the time to buy, should take a very hard look at the numbers I dredged up for my spring lecture and luncheon tour.

There are 140 million personal residences in the US. Today, there are 26 million homes either directly or indirectly for sale. [What is "indirectly for sale"?] According to a survey by Zillow.com, a real estate appraisal website, 20 million homeowners plan to sell on any improvement in prices. Add to that 4 million existing homes now on the market, 1 million new homes flogged by companies like Lennar (LEN) and Pulte Homes (PHM), and 1 million bank owned properties. Another 8 million mortgage owners are late on their payments and are on the verge of foreclosure, bringing the total overhang to 34 million homes.

CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE SECTIONS
cited in People v. Hagins, YCSC CRF-09-283

COUNT #1:
Rape in concert w/ Armed Offense:

220(b) Any person who, in the commission of a burglary of the first
degree, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 460, assaults
another with intent to commit rape, sodomy, oral copulation, or any
violation of Section 264.1, 288, or 289 shall be punished by
imprisonment in the state prison for life with the possibility of
parole.

12022.3 For each violation of Section 220 involving a specified
sexual offense, or for each violation or attempted violation of
Section 261, 262, 264.1, 286, 288, 288a, or 289, and in addition to
the sentence provided, any person shall receive the following:
(a) A 3-, 4-, or 10-year enhancement if the person uses a firearm
or a deadly weapon in the commission of the violation.
(b) A one-, two-, or five-year enhancement if the person is armed
with a firearm or a deadly weapon.

--

COUNT #2:
Burglary in 1st degree w/ special allegation of violent felony:

459/(1st) Every person who enters any house, room, apartment, tenement,
shop, warehouse, store, mill, barn, stable, outhouse or other
building, tent, vessel, as defined in Section 21 of the Harbors and
Navigation Code, floating home, as defined in subdivision (d) of
Section 18075.55 of the Health and Safety Code, railroad car, locked
or sealed cargo container, whether or not mounted on a vehicle,
trailer coach, as defined in Section 635 of the Vehicle Code, any
house car, as defined in Section 362 of the Vehicle Code, inhabited
camper, as defined in Section 243 of the Vehicle Code, vehicle as
defined by the Vehicle Code, when the doors are locked, aircraft as
defined by Section 21012 of the Public Utilities Code, or mine or any
underground portion thereof, with intent to commit grand or petit
larceny or any felony is guilty of burglary. As used in this chapter,
"inhabited" means currently being used for dwelling purposes,
whether occupied or not. A house, trailer, vessel designed for
habitation, or portion of a building is currently being used for
dwelling purposes if, at the time of the burglary, it was not
occupied solely because a natural or other disaster caused the
occupants to leave the premises.

[Note: No specific prison time given.]


667.5. Enhancement of prison terms for new offenses because of
prior prison terms shall be imposed as follows:
(c) For the purpose of this section, "violent felony" shall mean
any of the following:
(21) Any burglary of the first degree, as defined in subdivision
(a) of Section 460, wherein it is charged and proved that another
person, other than an accomplice, was present in the residence during
the commission of the burglary.

[Note: No specific prison time enhancement given.]

--

COUNT #3:
ADW w/GBI, Force:

245(a)(1) Any person who commits an assault upon the person of
another with a deadly weapon or instrument other than a firearm or by
any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury shall be
punished by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four
years, or in a county jail for not exceeding one year, or by a fine
not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both the fine and
imprisonment.

Count #4:
Threat to terrorize:

422 Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which
will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with
the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or
by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a
threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out,
which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made,
is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to
convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an
immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes
that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own
safety or for his or her immediate family's safety, shall be punished
by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by
imprisonment in the state prison.

For the purposes of this section, "immediate family" means any
spouse, whether by marriage or not, parent, child, any person related
by consanguinity or affinity within the second degree, or any other
person who regularly resides in the household, or who, within the
prior six months, regularly resided in the household.

"Electronic communication device" includes, but is not limited to,
telephones, cellular telephones, computers, video recorders, fax
machines, or pagers. "Electronic communication" has the same meaning
as the term defined in Subsection 12 of Section 2510 of Title 18 of
the United States Code.

[Note: Did the ‘txt msg’ count as a threat in this case? I could not read the small hand-written dispay Pomeroy gave and neither he nor Duprés-Tokos read it aloud.]

Count #5:
236/297 False imprisonment by viol:

236 False imprisonment is the unlawful violation of the personal
liberty of another.

[Note: Not given in filing but this defines possible prison term: 236.1. (a) Any person who deprives or violates the personal liberty
of another with the intent to effect or maintain a felony violation
of Section 266, 266h, 266i, 267, 311.4, or 518, or to obtain forced
labor or services, is guilty of human trafficking.
(b) Except as provided in subdivision (c), a violation of this
section is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for three,
four, or five years.]

237(a) False imprisonment is punishable by a fine not exceeding
one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail
for not more than one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment. If
the false imprisonment be effected by violence, menace, fraud, or
deceit, it shall be punishable by imprisonment in the state prison.

[Note: No specific prison term cited.]

Tom:

The problem's a little more complicated than the well-meaning people with the oil removal video idea may think: depth.

The bulk of the oil does not float near the surface, as depicted in the hay absorption demonstration video.

Instead, it is sinking down and moving away in huge, escaping plumes, as the NY Times reported today. Researchers have said, "the shallowest oil plume the group had detected was at about 2,300 feet, while the deepest was near the seafloor at about 4,200 feet.

For the hay solution to work, it would have to be air-dropped or strewn on the surface of the ocean and then be forced to sink that deep before it could start collecting the oil. Then it would have to be retrieved and removed. No easy task

See full article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?hp

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.”

[--]

Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.

[Note: Some informed reports put the leak rate 10 times greater.]

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.

“The answer is no to that,” a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”

The undersea plumes may go a long way toward explaining the discrepancy between the flow estimates, suggesting that much of the oil emerging from the well could be lingering far below the sea surface.

[--]

Interviewed on Saturday by satellite phone, one researcher aboard the Pelican, Vernon Asper of the University of Southern Mississippi, said the shallowest oil plume the group had detected was at about 2,300 feet, while the deepest was near the seafloor at about 4,200 feet.

I only wish the two well-meaning guys were right. They certainly put shome thought into it, and then a lot of work into producing the video.

Again, see full article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?hp

---

A lousy time for US; Sam Smith sees it, says it

This is a lousy time. We're in the worse economic collapse since the 1930s depression. We can't get out of one war we were never able to justify. We are escalating another war we can't even explain, let alone justify. The environment is deteriorating. Nobody around the globe seems to respect America any more, including many of our own politicians. Our manufacturing economy caved, and so did the hedge fund economy that replaced it. Our Constitution is gaining the feel of a long out of print book. Our politics have never been more corrupt. And the president who was meant to be our messiah has turned out to be only the first syllable of that dream.

We've been in a lousy time for some time. What's happening is not new, only worse. We're finally reaping the full harvest of thirty years of greed, corruption, intellectual dissembling, political intrigue, environmental contempt, and journalistic adultery in which the media deserts its readers and viewers to have endless affairs with its sources.

America as a nation is in a state of collapse. The First American Republic is over. We don't talk about it that way because it's too shocking and embarrassing, but our politics, economy social values, and culture seem to be in free fall and there doesn't seem [to be] anyone who is both interested and powerful enough to do anything about it. This does not, however, mean our communities or even our states are in a similar state of distress.

Sam Smith | Progressive Review

---

6: Mickey Spillane, dead at 88

Mickey Spillane, author of 13 Mike Hammer novels, made himself out to be not too bright, but he was bright enough.

His Mike Hammer hard-boiled novels had no real style, Spillane claimed, but they were stylish enough to be imitated by many.

But Spillane was entirely himself.

He wrote this way, if you'll pardon this brief imitation:

I never heard the leather sap coming down on my skull. I didn't feel it 'til I came to a couple of minutes later.

The buxom blond snitch I was quizzing was there beside me on the bloody floor. Her throat was slit, earring to earring.

The mob's message was plain enough: the sparrow was singing too much -- and she was warbling all the wrong notes.

Simple books? Sure. But who needs complicated? The first Mike Hammer novel came out in 1947. By 2003 some 130 million "guns, gals and guts" Mike Hammers had been sold worldwide.

"Each one is exactly like the last one," one attentive fan said of the Mike Hammer books, of which he had a full set.

"I know what I'm getting, so I get it. That learning something new, expanding my horizons and deepening the character is all hoity-toity shit for the birds," the fan added.

Other writers of some note -- writers like Philip K. Dick -- greatly admired Spillane.

And consider the way Spillane stopped the Mike Hammer series at 13 titles. Now that's an off-hand touch of class, no matter what the author may otherwise claim. So did the timing of his demise.

Why, if Spillane himself were to write his own obituary, he'd probably tap out something like this on that old manual he preferred to use:

"I already held three aces, so I filled out my hand with a pair of eights."

You go where the money is

by Tom Nadeau

Hasn’t Eugene Robinson looked around?

The pathological cable news obsession with young, attractive white women who unfortunately vanish continues unabated. Yes, the nation is still transfixed by Damsels in Distress -- only now it's gotten worse: The media are suddenly obsessed with their own obsession.

Won't somebody please just make it stop?
How silly of me; of course no one is going to make it stop. Certainly not Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren, who's spent so much time in Aruba looking for blond, missing Natalee Holloway that she probably qualifies for a Dutch passport. Leaving no stone or sand dollar unturned, Van Susteren has ridden this sad little story to her best Nielsen ratings ever. (1)

Robinson has not been reading 800-page grocery stand paperbacks, going to the cinema, or watching TV movies. "Woman in peril," as other critics have termed such fare for many years, are a staple of American literature.

The heroines are generally white, youngish, slim, good-looking, stylishly dressed and living either in a cosmopolitan city or some quaint vacation address (Manhattan, LA, or Malibu, Maine coast, Florida keys, etc.).

They are always portrayed as smarter and more attuned to pyschic subtleties than their family and friends. They are independently wealthy, or at least have no visible means of support. They never have a regular job from which they can’t take extended sabbaticals to solve life-threatening mysteries.

The peril these women face, the trouble they get into is never their fault. Friends family and authority figures never see the threat posed by mysterious strangers, weird husbands, roaming psychopaths, shadowy aliens, evil ghosts. These onlookers never pick up on the problem until the end and those who did help generally get killed (except if this aiding party is a kindly angel or ghost from the past) leaving the heroine always triumphant, with a hug for the boyfriend that doubted them or the child they rescued.

Some 80 (or thereabouts) percent of mass market novels are written by white women and bought by white women. The TV movie audiences are similarly dominated, but with many more teenage and early 20s girls thrown in.

Why would television news – now owned by a handful of big dollar conglomerates looking for more money – be different?
--
(1) Cable can’t get beyond the pale, Eugene Robinson, New York Times via Media Channel, Aug. 12, 2005

America is a corrupt society: Ben Franklin

AlterNet: Uncensored Gore Vidal: "Franklin understood the American people better than the other three. Washington and Jefferson were nobles – slaveholders and plantation owners. Alexander Hamilton married into a rich and powerful family and joined the upper classes. Benjamin Franklin was pure middle class. In fact, he may have invented it for Americans. Franklin saw danger everywhere. They all did. Not one of them liked the Constitution. James Madison, known as the father of it, was full of complaints about the power of the presidency. But they were in a hurry to get the country going. Hence the great speech, which I quote at length in the book, that Franklin, old and dying, had someone read for him. He said, I am in favor of this Constitution, as flawed as it is, because we need good government and we need it fast. And this, properly enacted, will give us, for a space of years, such government.

But then, Franklin said, it will fail, as all such constitutions have in the past, because of the essential corruption of the people. He pointed his finger at all the American people. And when the people become so corrupt, he said, we will find it is not a republic that they want but rather despotism – the only form of government suitable for such a people"