by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, August 28, 2001 1:43 P.M. EDT

Federally Accredited Occultist Bunk
The Astrological Institute in Scottsdale, Ariz., wins accreditation from the federally recognized Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, paving the way for Education Department approval of federal grants and loans for its students, the Associated Press reports:

Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist who heads the Hayden Planetarium in New York, noted astrology was discredited 600 years ago with the birth of modern science. "To teach it as though you are contributing to the fundamental knowledge of an informed electorate is astonishing in this, the 21st century," he said.

Maybe the institute can give honorary degrees to Fox News Channel's Judith Regan and Paula Zahn.

Lest you think America is the only country in the world to give credence to such nonsense, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports (25th item) that "Interior Ministry officials have concluded that Russian law enforcement does not have sufficient resources to defeat crime by normal means. . . . As a result, the ministry has asked specialists in parapsychology and extrasensory techniques to help out."

The RFE/RL report, picked up from the Russian journal Vek, notes that Col. Alexei Skrypnikov acknowledges that "the results from this effort have been uneven: Occasionally, paranormal specialists are 100 percent correct, but sometimes they are totally wrong."

Diversity Defense Denied
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down the University of Georgia's racial preferences in admissions. "UGA's policy is not only rigid and incomplete, the benefit it awards each and every nonwhite applicant is wholly, and concededly, arbitrary," the court said. "If a university cannot even articulate a basis for the amount of the numerical bonus it awards nonwhite candidates, then it has no right to award such a bonus."

Two reports prepared in part for similar cases involving the University of Michigan-- from the National Association of Scholars and the Center for Equal Opportunity (both links in PDF format)--demolish the "diversity defense."

Was Chandra With Child?
Andrew Sullivan, who has defended Rep. Gary Condit more vigorously and less unpersuasively than the satyric statesman's own lawyers and flacks, notes that Vanity Fair's Judy Bachrach seems to have shot down the hypothesis that Chandra Levy was pregnant when she disappeared. According to Sullivan, Bachrach told Fox's Paula Zahn last week that Chandra's mother, Susan Levy, and Chandra were both menstruating when they saw each other at Passover (which began April 8). Chandra vanished May 1.

In case you're wondering (we know we were), Susan Levy is 54, according to the Washington Post. Menopause.org puts the average age of menopause at 51.

Chad to Dad: Don't Run Again
One Condit-scandal figure we can be pretty sure isn't pregnant is the congressman's son, Chad. We don't know if Chad is dimpled, but he has been left hanging by his father's swinging; last month he reportedly shelved plans to run for the California Assembly. Now he tells CNN's Larry King he doesn't think his father should run for re-election.

Chad is an aide to California's Gov. Gray Davis, a longtime ally of Rep. Condit. Yesterday Davis offered his first criticism of the man from Modesto: "I am disheartened that Congressman Condit did not speak out more quickly or more fully." This didn't make Chad glad: "I just disagree with the governor's comments and they kind of miss the mark," he tells King.

Untimely Executions
Joshua Micah Marshall notices the following from Rep. Gary Condit's interview in Newsweek:

I never had a cross word with her. The kind of conversation we had would be--[when Timothy] McVeigh was executed and Juan Garza was executed. She seemed to have a lot of interest in those two things and a lot of more interest in them than I did. So she would talk about that.

McVeigh and Garza were executed on June 11 and 19, respectively. Was Condit talking to Chandra a month and a half after her disappearance?

Quit Dumping on Fresno
Lately we've been feeling sorry for the folks in Fresno, overshadowed by all the action up the road in Modesto. Well, Fresno, fret no more. Interior Secretary Gale Norton has given you some much-needed attention. The Fresno Bee reports Norton "made it official Monday, designating the Fresno Sanitary Landfill one of 15 new National Historic Landmarks--'places judged to have exceptional value to the nation.' "

Disability Lawsuits Run Amok
Carlisle Wilson may not be able to walk, but he sure can sue. "In little more than a year, one man in a wheelchair and his two attorneys have filed almost 200 federal lawsuits against businesses" in South Florida, alleging violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act, Fort Lauderdale's Sun-Sentinel reports. "They've sued strip clubs, office buildings, restaurants and car dealers, generally using identical wording to accuse business owners of failing to make parking, restrooms and entrances accessible to the disabled. The attorneys have collected thousands of dollars in legal fees."

Peter Kourkoumeils, owner of the Peter Pan Diner in Oakland Park, says he spent $500 on minor changes to his diner--but had to pay the lame litigant's lawyers, William Tucker and Lawrence McGuinness, $3,500. This appears to be a pattern: "Although terms of many settlements were confidential, business owners said they each paid $1,000 to $9,500 to Wilson's attorneys."

None of that money seems to have been spent on making the lawyers' offices more handicapped accessible: The newspaper notes that "Tucker works out of a Fort Lauderdale building that has no disabled parking, a ramp steeper than the law allows, no landing and a door with a round doorknob. McGuinness' office in Coral Gables has a curb with no ramp to the front door."

An editorial in today's Sun-Sentinel puts it plainly: "The Americans with Disabilities Act has been hijacked by trial lawyers who are using it to drum up legal fees."

Bystanders to Genocide
The Atlantic Monthly publishes a heart-rending investigative account of how the Clinton administration and other officials in Washington and Europe actively opposed intervention while Rwanda's Hutus were committing genocide against its Tutsis in 1994. Bill Clinton went to Rwanda four years later and delivered an "apology," suggesting, in the words of Atlantic author Samantha Power, "that the United States had done a good deal but not quite enough":

In reality the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements. It refused to use its technology to jam radio broadcasts that were a crucial instrument in the coordination and perpetuation of the genocide. And even as, on average, 8,000 Rwandans were being butchered each day, U.S. officials shunned the term "genocide," for fear of being obliged to act. The United States in fact did virtually nothing "to try to limit what occurred." Indeed, staying out of Rwanda was an explicit U.S. policy objective.

By the time it was all over, some 800,000 Rawndans had been murdered. Which shows how out of touch with reality Amnesty International, once a serious human-rights organization, is. Here's Amnesty's Gerald LeMelle, quoted by the Associated Press, lamenting Colin Powell's decision not to attend the United Nations "racism" conference in Durban, South Africa: "There has been no serious thought as to the role the United States could play. Who is going to start leading us away from racial strife in Rwanda, Burundi, Kosovo, Cincinnati?"

Cincinnati?

'Safety Certificate'
The Los Angeles Times reports on the semantic games gun controllers in the California Legislature are playing:

Don't call it a "license." Call it a "permit." Better yet, a "safety certificate."

With that semantical tweak, you just might get Gov. Gray Davis' signature on what's left of a bill to license handgun buyers. . . . "I guess 'license' is a little more inflammatory than 'safety certificate,' " notes Sen. Jack Scott (D-Altadena), author of the bill. "I'm not interested in what we call it. I'm interested in what it does."

'That's So Gay'
A Zogby poll of high-school seniors finds most have liberal attitudes toward homosexuality: "Two-thirds of students said gay marriages should be legal, compared to one-third of adults interviewed in similar polls," reports the New York Post. But sociologist Dennis Gilbert, who designed the poll, claims it also found evidence of antigay hostility.

Some of the examples he cites, though, are just silly. Example: "More than one-third said they'd be uncomfortable using the same locker room as a gay student." That's a sign of ordinary modesty, not hostility; how many high-schoolers would be comfortable using the same locker room as a heterosexual student of the opposite sex?

Another complaint: "Most students have used the phrase 'that's so gay' to describe something they didn't like." The researchers are clearly reading far too much into this. It reminds us of when we were 11, and we were fighting with our brother. We called him "gay," a word we understood to mean "silly." This prompted an earnest lecture from our mother on the importance of treating people who are different from us with respect. Mom was right, as usual, but there was just one problem: We had no idea what she was talking about until years later, when we became aware of the existence of homosexuality.

Zero-Tolerance Watch
An interesting report in the left-wing fortnightly In These Times:

The Pinkerton Detective Agency has cut a bloody swath through American history. Pinkerton agents were union-busters and kidnappers, and even shot and killed striking workers. Now there's a new addition to the Pinkertons' résumé: high school guidance counselor.

In 1999, the Pinkerton Service Group, in conjunction with the Center for the Prevention of School Violence, initiated the "Working Against Violence Everywhere America" program in North Carolina, and is now looking to expand it across the country. WAVE America combines a public awareness campaign, "student-led" initiatives (designed by the Pinkertons) and an anonymous tip line for students to tattle on each other, all to combat school violence.

ITT reports this was the brainchild of the Task Force on Youth Violence and School Safety, set up by former governor Jim Hunt, a Democrat. "Anyone can call in and report on a student they suspect may be violent, or even simply capable of becoming violent," ITT reports (emphasis ours).

Bill's Bikinis
Bill Clinton, out for a walk in Rio de Janiero, "entered the Blue Man beachwear boutique to check out Brazil's most famous fashion product: the bikini. The former president liked what he saw and put down $113 for two bikinis and three sarongs, according to TV Globo," reports the New York Post. "It wasn't known who'd be getting the sexy togs."

We're All Keynesians in the Long Run
"World Health Organization officials expressed disappointment Monday at the group's finding that, despite the enormous efforts of doctors, rescue workers and other medical professionals worldwide, the global death rate remains constant at 100 percent," the Onion "reports." " Death, a metabolic affliction causing total shutdown of all life functions, has long been considered humanity's number one health concern. Responsible for 100 percent of all recorded fatalities worldwide, the condition has no cure." The Onion "quotes" Ralph Nader weighing in:

"Why should we continue to spend billions of dollars a year on a health care industry whose sole purpose is to prevent death, only to find, once again, that death awaits us all?" Nader said in an impassioned address to several suburban Californians. "That's called a zero percent return on our investment, and that's not fair. Its time the paying customer stood up to the HMOs and to the so-called 'medical health professionals' and said: 'Enough is enough. I'm paying through the nose here, and I don't want to die.' "

'Spotted Richard'
"Spotted dick," the Times of London explains, is a "Victorian suet pudding." A spokesman for the British supermarket chain Tesco says the company noted that "for some reason sales of spotted dick were dropping off." Tesco "surveyed hundreds of female shoppers to discover the reason," the Times reports. "They still loved the taste of spotted dick, they said, but found the name too saucy." Solution: Tesco is renaming the delicacy "spotted Richard." The spokesman adds, reassuringly: "We don't seem to have a problem with tarts."

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Guess who's after your tax rebate? (link requires registration)
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• Tunku Varadarajan: The case against summer vacation.