Scott Wilbur Court Date On May 25, 2010.

Anyone want to go see the court case with me?

I'll be around and the Court House is very close to campus. I pulled up his records through the L.A. penal system.

Allegedly, Mr. Wilbur threatened the life of President Klawe and a member of the Board of Trustees.

His bail is set at $150,000. His trial will be at 8:30 on May 25, 2010 at 400 Civic Center Plaza, Pomona Superior Court House. He has two prior misdemeanors.

Quotation of the Day on Illegal Immigration Activists

Here's the quotation for you, which, of course, is buried at the end of the article.

Doris Padilla, 60, a native of Bolivia, expressed her frustration and rage with demonstrators, saying they have no right to protest on a day that is filled with so much happiness for graduates. Padilla, 60, said she migrated to this country with a student visa, becoming a U.S. citizen later in life.

“They could protest any other day but today; today is their (graduates’) day. These people should go home, they are annoying,” said Padilla, a La Verne resident. “They ask for amnesty but don’t deserve anything. They are a disgrace to my race ... giving us Latinos a bad name.

There's been a lot of coverage about Pomona's decision to bring Janet Napolitano to campus and her subsequent talk to the Pomona graduates.

The more scurrilous charge that opposing an amnesty bill is, well, racism. Witness Alejandro Cano's supposedly news piece about Napolino's visit in the Fonatana Herald.

The opening paragraph reads as follows [Emphasis mine]:

Hundreds of Inland Empire residents who support rights for immigrants marched through the streets of Claremont last Sunday morning and rallied near Pomona College, where Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was the keynote speaker at the commencement ceremony.

That's pretty obvious bias. Who doesn't support rights for immigrants? A right is something accessible to all men, at all times. What people have a problem with is illegal immigration, not immigration, per se. Indeed some of the most forceful critics of illegal immigration are naturalized U.S. citizens who had to go through considerable stress -- not to mention savings -- in order to become part of our country.

But you wouldn't know that from Cano's article (at least not until the last line), which oozes with bias. All throughout the article Cano just assumes that the activists who want to increase the numbers of illegal immigrants here are telling the truth about all these raids that supposedly occur, but then he says, that the people protesting are criticizing Napolitano for "allegedly" not doing enough. Unless Cano saw both acts himself, both incidents are alleged. Shame on him.

Food Safety? More Like Food Paranoia

Helena Bottemiller CMC '09 writes for Food Safety News, but her writings would more properly be described as "food paranoia." Like a modern day Upton Sinclair, nearly all of her writings call for more government regulations in the food industry.

To go through all of them would be an undertaking so massive that I would get no other work done, but here is an analysis of one of her more recent pieces.

In a recent story that she co-wrote Bottemiller speculates about how lettuce could have been contaminated with e. coli bacteria by air borne transmission -- an extremely minute possibility, even though one of the people quoted in the story said such transmission is would be a "stretch biologically."

E. coli outbreaks are obviously something we'd like to prevent. But one such method, food irradiation, is never considered as a means of saving lives, even though no less an authority than the Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued the following statement:

Treating raw meat and poultry with irradiation at the slaughter plant could eliminate bacteria commonly found raw meat and raw poultry, such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Campylobacter. These organisms currently cause millions of infections and thousands of hospitalizations in the United States every year. Raw meat irradiation could also eliminate Toxoplasma organisms, which can be responsible for severe eye and congenital infections. Irradiating prepared ready-to-eat meats like hot dogs and deli meats, could eliminate the risk of Listeria from such foods. Irradiation could also eliminate bacteria like Shigella and Salmonella from fresh produce. The potential benefit is also great for those dry foods that might be stored for long times and transported over great distances, such as spices and grains. Animal feeds are often contaminated with bacteria like Salmonella. Irradiation of animal feeds could prevent the spread of Salmonella and other pathogens to livestock through feeds.

It seems, therefore, that it would be a better policy than more regulation would be allowing businesses to irradiate their food and prevent the very problem of e. coli in the first place.

Cory Booker Delivers Pitzer Address

(h/t: Amy Jasper of Pitzer Uncovered. Ms. Jasper was Pitzer's Senior Speaker.)