Irish Trojan in Tennessee

FEMA, providing comedy in troubled times

By Brendan Loy

FEMA: the federal agency so ridicluous, you can't really satirize it. Their latest stunt? A fake news conference:

The U.S. government's main disaster-response agency apologized on Friday for having its employees pose as reporters in a hastily called news conference on California's wildfires that no news organizations attended.

Heh!

FEMA "issued the apology after The Washington Post published details of the Tuesday briefing." Shocking! Somebody noticed! Who'd have thunk it? Jeez, these people can't even be incompetent competently.

"We can and must do better, and apologize for this error in judgment," FEMA deputy administrator Harvey Johnson, who conducted the briefing, said in a statement. "Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received."

"Error in judgment"? LOL! In what conceivable universe could anyone have thought that this was the correct judgment, so as to make such an "error" possible?

No actual reporter attended the news conference in person, agency spokesman Aaron Walker said.

A spokeswoman for Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who has authority over FEMA, called the incident "inexcusable and offensive to the secretary."

"We have made it clear that stunts such as this will not be tolerated or repeated," spokeswoman Laura Keehner said. She said the department was looking at the possibility of reprimanding those responsible.

Oh, that's good. Better yet, why don't you set up a committee to study the issue of whether a reprimand would be appropriate. And then create a panel to read that committee's report. And then ignore it and give the offending parties the Congressional Medal of Freedom instead.

God bless America.

Say hello to Leopard

By Brendan Loy

I totally forgot this was today. I came to CompUSA for something else entirely (and, despite the temptation, did NOT walk away with a copy of Leopard).

Red headed Neanderthals

By JLR

Scientists are now saying that there were some Neanderthals that were probably redheads.  Some have even claimed that those redheads have begot today's redheads.

We post, you decide.

Justice in Georgia, finally

By Brendan Loy

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, he is free at last:

The Georgia Supreme Court on Friday ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson, the Douglas County teenager who has been serving a controversial 10-year sentence for consensual oral sex.

The court's 4-3 decision upholds a Monroe County judge's ruling that the sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment under both the Georgia and U.S. constitutions.

The majority opinion said the sentence appeared to be "grossly disproportionate" to the teenager's crime and noted that it was out of step with current law.

Wilson was convicted in 2005 of aggravated child molestation for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a New Year's Eve party in a hotel room. He was 17 at the time.

At the time the law the crime carried a mandatory 10-year sentence with no parole. However, the law was changed in 2006 to make Wilson's crime a misdemeanor with a maximum 1-year sentence.

"Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson's crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children ..." wrote Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears in the majority opinion.

She said that "for the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinarily harsh punishment of 10 years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime."

Justice George Carley, in the dissent, said the 2006 change in the law was specifically written so it would not be retroactive. The sentence is not cruel and unusual because "the General Assembly made the express decision that he cannot benefit from the subsequent legislative determination to reduce the sentence for commission of that crime from felony to misdemeanor status."

Carley said the majority opinion showed "unprecedented disregard" for the legislative intent of the law change and creates the potential for similar releases of "any and all defendants who were ever convicted of aggravated child molestation and sentenced" under circumstances similar to Wilson's.

I think the dissent has a point. I also don't care. Sometimes an injustice is so grave that it must be reversed even at the risk of setting problematic precedents. Yes, I know: "hard cases make for bad law." But this wasn't a hard case. It was an easy case, on its own merits, in terms of fundamental principles of justice. Only when considering its potential implications for other cases does it become remotely "hard." I say, let the courts and the legislature work out those implications in future cases. In this case, there was only one possible just result, and it was achieved, at long last, today. Finally, someone in the Georgia justice system should be able to sleep at night, and it's the four Supreme Court justices who reversed this abhorrent abuse of prosecutoral discretion. Good for them.

(Hat tip: JT. Previous posts here, here, here and, somewhat related, here.)

CAVEAT: I haven't actually read the opinion yet. Here it is.

Brady Quinn, USC Trojan

By Brendan Loy

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA:

There you have it: the photo evidence of Brady Quinn's lost bet with Rodney Peete on last Saturday's USC-Notre Dame game.

But it gets even better. There's video evidence, too:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

(NOTE: The video clip has changed since I originally uploaded it Thursday night. Among other things, I've added a little musical coda at the end that my Trojan readers will enjoy...)

Thanks to the anonymous commenter who pointed me to the photo. And thanks to Brady-Quinn.org, a fan site, for linking to the video clips on the Browns site and YouTube that allowed me to mash up the above clip.

Of course, even as I glory in it, I can sympathize with Brady's plight. As can Mike Tran. Sometimes friendly bets are a b**ch. :) But kudos to Brady for upholding his end of the deal.

Now then... BEAT THE DUCKS!!!

Woohoo! It's Sanchez against Oregon

By Brendan Loy

Sorry, John David, but I'm happy about this: "Mark Sanchez will start at quarterback Saturday against Oregon, Coach Pete Carroll announced Thursday afternoon."

Meanwhile, Oregon has yet to announce which uniforms it will wear. There are so many choices: the hideous ones, the butt-ugly ones, the gouge-your-eyes-out-with-their-sheer-repulsiveness ones...

Incredible pictures of SoCal wildfires

By David K.

Network World has an article with pictures from NASA highlighting the California wildfires (in red) and the immense smoke plumes.