† Obama’s Family Values: Part III (second item): The Washington Post weighs in about the brouhaha over John McCain not knowing how many residential and investment properties he and his wife own, and McCain’s counterpunch about Barack Obama’s having gotten a sweetheart deal on his home from a now-convicted felon (who was also one of his fundraisers): 

[D]o the McCains' real estate holdings and his failure to keep count of his wife's Coronado condos make Mr. McCain oblivious to the concerns of ordinary Americans - any more than their family estates made Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy incapable of feeling the pain of the common man? Do Mr. Obama's four fireplaces, music room, wine cellar and four-car garage count against him?

But a blogger who goes by the handle Yid With Lid had the best take on the “housing crisis” The Stiletto has come across (spelling, punctuation and capitalization left intact):

Senator Obama says the John McCain is out of touch because he doesn't know how many houses he owns. Obama's brother lives in a freaking HUT. You want to talk out of touch? When was the last time Senator Obama sent his Brother a twenty? That would almost TRIPLE his income. Better Yet, maybe he could give Brother George the money he saved from funky Tony Rezko land deal. Or the illegal 30,000 he got from the brothers in GAZA.

Lets Talk Out of touch, ONE of the house that McCain owns is for his Wife's Aged Aunt to live in Rent Free. Pretty nice right. NOW COMPARE THAT TO SENATOR OBAMA WHOSE BROTHER LIVES IN A HUT WITHOUT PLUMBING. McCain is helping to support his wifes Aunt, Obama hasn't so much as sent his brother a pizza. 

† The Keystone Kops Are Enforcing U.S. Immigration Laws: In part because they fear being accused of racial profiling, only 55 of more than 18,000 police and law enforcement agencies nationwide have signed Section 287(g) agreements to coordinate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), reports The Washington Post:

Most of the agencies that have agreed to work with ICE are in the Southeast, including North Carolina, Georgia and Arkansas, where mostly non-Hispanic communities have been dramatically changed by influxes of immigrants, many of them illegal Mexicans and Central Americans, seeking work at farms, mills and slaughterhouses.

Many of the local cooperating agencies are overseen by county sheriffs, who are elected and run regional jails, rather than city police departments with appointed chiefs.

The Police Foundation, a private national group that sponsored the conference, held four focus groups with law enforcement and other officials in Kansas, Texas and Florida. Anita Khashu, a foundation consultant, said three of the four groups decided that immigration enforcement should remain “solely a federal responsibility.”

James Pendergraph, director of the office of state and local coordination for ICE, told conference participants that his agency is eager to form more local partnerships. He said that ICE does not seek to intimidate immigrants and that only those involved in criminal activity are likely to face arrest.

Meanwhile, after just three weeks, ICE pulled the plug on a pilot program to allow fugitive illegal aliens – meaning, those who remain in the U.S. after an immigration judge issues a final order of removal, deportation or exclusion - to surrender themselves for deportation without fear of arrest. Eight people volunteered - an Estonian, two Indians, two Guatemalans, a Lebanese, a Mexican and a Salvadoran - reports The New York Times:

Jim Hayes, who supervises deportation for the agency, said advocacy groups had undermined the program by counseling immigrants not to take part as a protest against immigration laws.

“What the advocates state is that what we don’t like is enforcement of the law itself,” Mr. Hayes said in a telephone news conference. “Congress has mandated enforcement of the law, and that is what we are going to continue to do.”

Under the program, Scheduled Departure, illegal immigrants who had been ordered to leave the country but did not have criminal records could avoid arrest and detention by going during certain hours to agency offices in Charlotte, NC; Chicago; Phoenix; San Diego; and Santa Ana, CA.

The immigration agency would then set a departure date within 90 days and help make arrangements for the immigrants to return home - in some cases paying for transportation - and requiring them to check in with a case officer until they left.

Of the 457,000 fugitive aliens eligible for self-deportation, 30,000 lived in or near the cities in which the program was tested. Hayes tells The Times that the experiment demonstrated the honor system was “ineffective,” whereas aggressively tracking down and taking fugitives into custody is far more productive. ICE expects to arrest more than 30,000 fugitive illegal aliens throughout the U.S. during the 12-month period that began in October 2007.   

† Another Cockamamie Lib Idea Fails The Real World Test (second item): NE legislators passed a “safe-haven” law that allows parents to legally abandon unwanted minor children at hospitals – “minor” being defined by the state as anyone under the age of 19 years old, reports The Associated Press. In CA, which also has a “safe haven” law, child abandonment at designated safe zones is state-sanctioned only within 72 hours of birth.

The NE law “raises the possibility that frustrated parents could drop off misbehaving teens or even severely disabled older children with impunity,” explains AP:

“Whether the kid is disabled or unruly or just being a hormonal teenager, the state is saying: 'Hey, we have a really easy option for you,'" said Adam Pertman, executive director of a New York adoption institute and a frequent critic of safe-haven laws. …

Pertman, who directs the New York-based Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, said his research going back several years shows safe-haven laws are not accomplishing what they intended. Women who are distressed enough to want to abandon their children are not the ones reading billboards or getting the message about these laws, he said.

Pertman finds Nebraska's law particularly alarming because it is not focused on infants and parents.

Casting such a wide net “circumvents every rational practice in child welfare that I'm aware of,” he said.

The state legislature is going to leave it up to the courts to decide how to fix the ridiculous law.

† Garbage In, Garbage Out: Part II: D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee announced a plan to use taxpayer dollars to bribe middle school students to do get to school on time, do their homework and behave politely – you know, the stuff their parents are supposed to be teaching them at home, reports The Washington Post: 

Beginning in October, 3,000 students at 14 middle schools will be eligible to earn up to 50 points per month and be paid $2 per point for attending class regularly and on time, turning in homework, displaying manners and earning high marks. A maximum of $2.7 million has been set aside for the program, and the money students earn will be deposited every two weeks into bank accounts the system plans to open for them. …

A cash-incentive program that pays high school students as much as $500 for earning a 3 or more on an Advanced Placement test has been launched in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky and Virginia.

A study of the program released yesterday by a Cornell University economist said the incentive resulted in higher scores and an increase in the number of students attending college.

Alfie Kohn, an independent researcher whose book, "Punished by Rewards," details the downside of such programs, said incentives "undermine the very thing you're trying to promote by getting them hooked on the rewards."

In NYC a similar program that gave students at six Roman Catholic and 25 public schools up to $1,000 for scoring well on Advanced Placement exams had mixed results: While more students took the AP tests this year than last fewer passed them, reports The New York Times:

“I’m just dumbfounded that they can regard this as an achievement or as a great improvement or as something worth spending the money on,” said Sol Stern, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, who had expressed cautious support for the Advanced Placement program when it was announced last fall. “I’m surprised that that kind of money, that kind of incentives, doesn’t produce better results. It sort of undercuts the argument that the problem is the question of motivation.” …

While cash-incentive programs are expanding rapidly in schools nationwide — most of them financed by philanthropists — measurable evidence of their effectiveness is scarce.

AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne tells Phoenix talk radio station KTAR (92.3 FM)  that “The students who are doing it to get an extra $1000 probably are deciding at the last minute to take the test and hope to get it. Really, what you need is a year-round motivation to study hard and learn as much as you can. The best way to do that is intrinsic motivation instead of offering to pay students money.”  

† Carrying The Torch For The “Genocide Olympics”:  A New York Times editorial notes that “a year ago, the I.O.C. predicted that these Games would be ‘a force for good’ and a spur to human-rights progress. Instead, as Human Rights Watch has reported, they became a catalyst for intensified human-rights abuse”:  

Beijing got what it wanted out of this globally televised spectacular. It reaped a huge prestige bonanza that it will surely use to promote its international influence and, we fear, further tighten its grip at home.

It pocketed these gains without offering any concessions in return. When it increased repression - rather than loosening up - a supine International Olympic Committee barely offered a protest. Most world leaders, including President Bush, were nearly as complicit.

Press freedom activists Reporters Without Borders characterized the Beijing Olympics as a “disaster for free speech in China,” reports Reuters:

Reporters Without Borders spokesman Benoit Hervieu told Reuters there were 'absolutely no grounds for optimism' that the Beijing Olympics would help improve human rights in China.

The group said 47 pro-Tibet activists had been arrested and at least 50 human rights activists placed under house arrest, harassed or forced to leave Beijing during the games.

At least 15 Chinese citizens were arrested for seeking permission to demonstrate, the group added. …

Reporters without Borders Secretary General Robert Menard said in a statement … “This repression will be remembered as one of the defining characteristics of the Beijing games.”

In an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal, China expert Willy Lam warns that “the regime's pre-Olympics security buildup looks set to enable the government to crack down as hard as ever on dissent after the Games are over.”