Addendum

Mr. Bardwell has decided to resign. Hooray.

AP: La. justice quits after interracial wed flap
MELINDA DESLATTE

The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. - A Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry a couple because the bride was white and groom was black resigned Tuesday, after weeks of refusing to step down despite calls for his ouster from officials including the governor.

Keith Bardwell quit with a one-sentence statement to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne and no explanation of his decision: "I do hereby resign the office of Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, effective November 3, 2009."

Gov. Bobby Jindal called Bardwell's resignation "long overdue."

Bardwell, who is white, refused to marry Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay.

When questioned, Bardwell acknowledged he routinely avoids marrying interracial couples because he believes children born to them end up suffering. In interviews, he said he refers the couples to other justices of the peace, who then perform the ceremony, which happened in this case.

"There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," Bardwell said in an October interview with The Associated Press. "I think those children suffer, and I won't help put them through it."

Humphrey has said she and McKay received their marriage license from the parish clerk of court, where they also received a list of people qualified to perform the ceremony. When she called Bardwell's office on Oct. 6 to ask about the ceremony, Humphrey said Bardwell's wife told her that the justice wouldn't sign their marriage license because they were a "mixed couple."

Bardwell didn't immediately return a call for comment Tuesday about his resignation, which followed calls for his removal from civil rights groups and several public officials, including Jindal and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu.

"This was the right decision by Mr. Bardwell. What he did was clearly wrong and this resignation was long overdue," Jindal said in a statement released by his office.

Humphrey and McKay have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Bardwell. The couple did not immediately return a call for comment.

Bardwell was elected in 1975 as justice of the peace in Ponchatoula, La., a town 55 miles north of New Orleans. His term was set to run through 2014, and he had said that even before the flap, he hadn't intended to run for re-election.

Racist

Note to Keith Bardwell, aka Racist JP in Louisiana:

It's a little thing called Loving v. Virginia, and it means you don't get to decide whom to marry, if they're legally compliant, cretin. It means the choice of marrying interracial couples got taken out of your idiot hands 42 years ago. It means carrying out legal justice (ie your job). Do it or get out of the business. And by the way, you're not scoring any huge points for Louisiana, either.

Sources:
1.http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_212262447.shtml
2.http://www.4lawschool.com/conlaw/lov.shtml

Eunice

Eunice is gone, as of this morning. She was described by people in her family as the conscience of them all. I believe that Eunice Kennedy Shriver had an admirable view of people, which was that their spirit can't and shouldn't be limited. Doubtless part of her view came from having a sister who was mentally disabled, but I have read much on the topic of the Kennedys, and when she and her sister Kathleen were going to school in a convent in Europe, it was Eunice who wrote to the family about Kathleen's accomplishments.

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy didn't have as many choices as women today do, and raising nine children can't have been easy. But I believe if she were alive and had had the options women do today, she'd have been much like Eunice.

As a mother and a daughter, I think that's a wonderful tribute to both.

Swine flu: Of course it had to get ridiculous

This article from yesterday's NYT details the politics behind naming of a flu. I get it. But the part that made me just shake my head in wonder is:

An Israeli deputy health minister — an ultra-Orthodox Jew — said his country would do the same (call it "Mexican flu"), to keep Jews from having to say the word “swine.” However, his call seemed to have been largely ignored.

I know where in the Torah it says that my tribe shouldn't eat pork. (Leviticus and Deuteronomy, if you're bored spitless sometime.) Can someone point out the part in the Torah that describes the sin of...talking about pork?

Oooh, heresy.


Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/world/asia/29swine.html?_r=1

Hmmm

This story is from www.philly.com. It's about a German couple who abandoned their three children in Italy. Maybe you heard about it. The youngest child is 6 months old. The oldest child is 6 years old. They were having some financial difficulties and so took a trip to Italy (as a cost-savings measure, I suppose) and then while at a restaurant for dinner, went outside to smoke and...never came back. They were found by the authorities and now Italian prosecutors are investigating the couple for abandoning minors, and the German prosecutors are considering whether to open a probe against the mother. Below is a picture of the man of the couple. This is very sad, and highly irresponsible and so forth. But what I'd really like to know is: Will no one say anything about the lipstick this guy is wearing?


Source:
http://www.philly.com/philly/gallery/20090423_ap_policecouplewhoabandonedkidsfoundinitaly.html

K

What does K mean to you? In law, it's shorthand for "contract." In common parlance (one could never accuse the law of being anything remotely close to common parlance), it has come to mean "thousand."

Dipsticks of the world, I invite you to consider the following: We have m, which is shorthand for mille, the Latin word for "thousand." We also have M, which means mille mille or "million."

K is metric, and it signifies distance, such as a 5K, or a 5,000-meter race. When I see that 663K jobs have been lost, it worries me that someone so cretinous is writing about something so important. What other facts may be subject to only nominal scrutiny? It's a question of credibility, and K, when used for something other than distance, strains that credibility.

The Trog will now step off her soapbox and resume her day.

Source:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Jobless-rate-bolts-to-85-apf-14841814.html

Separated at Birth

This is former Afghan warlord Gul Agha Shirzai.


This is Mr. Spock.



I'm just sayin'...

Go Andrew

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo rocks. He's always stood for the right side of things, and now has managed to unearth (via subpoena) that 73 AIG people stand to get at least $1 million.

Is it fraud if a company demands a bailout and then pays bonuses to boneheads? Does an employee have to actually *earn* a bonus these days?

I would also like for Mr. Cuomo to check into Countrywide. I find it galling that the people who largely got us into this mess are now making money hand over fist from it. Yes, they're helping some distressed homeowners, but let's tally up the "we screwed you" v. the "we helped you" list and see where things land. My guess is List One is miles long. Since New York's comptroller has filed a suit against Countrywide, it might not be out of Cuomo's jurisdiction.




Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/aig_cuomo
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/business/04penny.html