Eddie Izzard, Comedy Fest 2007

Las Vegas, give yourself some credit. You sold out the 2,500-capacity Pearl for Eddie Izzard’s July 26 show — another show preceded it the night before, too — and you understood and laughed at all the history-obsessed comedian’s jokes. Well, most of them, at any rate, enough to relieve Izzard of any potential worries that he might be hearing crickets among some fanny-packed crowd despite his running acknowledgments of going over the audience’s head. “You must be the thinking people, or you’re at the wrong gig!” he said early on. (Check out our freewheeling preview Q & A) here.

If you saw Izzard’s relentlessly funny Nov. 17 show at The Comedy Festival at Caesars Palace, you know the framework for the Pearl shows, though this time around, he added new bits to — and sometimes completely changed — segments such as his breakdown of the Latin language, and his skepticism involving intelligent design and the Bible (never will you read the story of Noah and the ark the same way).

And like the November show, he eschewed the dresses (”I was never a transvestite,” he quipped. “It was a tax thing”) and indulged in tangent after tangent. He even dissected our climate and the translation of our city’s name. “Las Vegas, the meadows?! Are you kidding me?! Is that irony?” Even if it’s not, we still get it.

Alkaline Trio

Maybe it’s something in the water, but how is it that Las Vegas concert audiences have become so much more responsive this summer? We’ve been to several shows in the past month, from punk to pop, and at each show it seems the crowd has overcome its usual apathy, posturing and distractedness — and it’s not just during the performance of an act’s singles, either.

Alkaline Trio’s thrilling set July 25 at House of Blues was no exception. Its new album, Agony and Irony, hasn’t even been out a month, but the packed downstairs level of HOB audibly proved it by singing aloud to each of its songs included in that night’s setlist. It complemented the band’s assured performance, and made a good show even better.

The Chicago threesome also heartily dove into its back catalog, including two particular stand-outs: “Warbrain,” from the Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1 compilation, and “Radio,” from 2000’s Maybe I’ll Catch Fire. Nothing that night brought a smile to our faces quicker than a thousand or so kids screaming the lines, “Shaking like a dog shittin’ razorblades/ Waking up next to nothing after dreaming of you and me.” Ah, when emo was funny….

So it turns out that, in addition to authoring an infamous and since-withdrawn memo authorizing torture of alleged terror suspects, former Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee wrote another memo aimed at helping the CIA with a torture tactic-by-torture tactic guide.

Bybee’s controversial conclusion: Unless interrogators intended to cause specific, long-term harm, they could not be guilty of torture! Here’s from CNN:

The interrogator’s “good faith” and “honest belief” that the interrogation will not cause such suffering protects the interrogator, the memo adds.

“Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture,” Jay Bybee, then the assistant attorney general, wrote in the memo.

Well, isn’t that special? So long as you have a good faith belief that making a guy feel like he’s going to drown (a war crime for which Americans prosecuted Japanese, by the way) isn’t going to cause long-term suffering, you’re golden! Which means, all you have to do to get off the hook (even if you’re real intent was to seriously hurt a recalcitrant prisoner) is to simply say, “My goal was simply to get information; I conducted the interrogation in good faith with an honest belief my efforts would not cause long-term physical or mental damage, sir.”

What do we care, you ask? Well, Bybee is a local boy, having served on the faculty of the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV before his stint in D.C., and later appointment to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where we affectionately now call him, “The Torture Judge.”

Oh, wait. Did we say served on the faculty at Boyd? We meant serve, as in present tense, inasmuch as the most current Boyd catalog describes him as a “senior fellow in constitutional law.”

Is that like one of those programs where the car thief goes to work for the car companies to help them prevent future thefts? Or the computer hacker helps a company patch up holes in its security? Because unless Bybee has had a change of heart, his views on the constitution are something that should only be taught in a class called “what never to do if you’re ever hired by Main Justice.”

Boyd is a fine institution with an excellent reputation and is a credit to UNLV and the Las Vegas community. The school has produced some fine lawyers since it was founded in 1998, and community service is a key part of its training. But any continuing association with Bybee — even if it’s just a name on a wall — is an ongoing disgrace. We urge the school — again — to cut ties with the torture judge, as a way of fulfilling its mission to “become a model community, one in which the people of the law school deal with one another professionally, respectfully…”

Speaking of Regent Howard Rosenberg, we couldn’t help but notice a little detail in his public statements on the term limits issue.

Rosenberg — who described the court’s Friday ruling as “bullshit” — has complained that Secretary of State Ross Miller waited too long to tell him he couldn’t run for another term. (Miller filed those challenges near the end of the filing-for-office period in May.)

Rosenberg complained about the timing in a May 28 story in the Las Vegas Sun, after he was asked why he’d never requested an advisory opinion from Miller. “I’ve been a schoolteacher a long, long time,” Rosenberg said when asked why he’d never requested an advisory opinion from Miller. “If I suspect there will be a problem, I don’t wait to be asked.”

But it appears Rosenberg did suspect there was a problem, or at least he should have, and that he did wait — for about two years.

The university system’s legal division analyzed the issue of term limits and how they’d apply to regents back in 2005. In a memorandum from Bart Patterson, general counsel to what was then called the Community College of Southern Nevada and the Nevada State College, Rosenberg’s situation was addressed directly:

For regents first elected in 1996 and reelected in 2002 (Dondero, Rosenberg), it would appear that since they did not take the oath of office until after November 27, 2006, they will have served 12 years and may not be eligible to be elected again in 2008. As this is not a clear question, however, because they were elected prior to November 27, 1996, I recommend seeking an Attorney General opinion, particularly if the pending constitutional amendment does not pass. [That amendment, affecting the appointment of regents instead of their elections, did not pass.]

Why are those dates important, you may ask? The state Supreme Court didn’t certify the election of 1996 until Nov. 27 of that year, thus formally recognizing the passage of the term limit initiative and its effective date.  Although members of the Legislature are considered to have begun their terms the day after the election (Nov. 6, 1996 that year) Rosenberg wasn’t sworn in to begin his term until January, after the court said the initiative went into effect. Thus, Rosenberg’s 1996-2002 term counted toward his maximum 12 years of service in that office.

So, based on that legal opinion, Rosenberg knew or should have known that there was at least a controversy over his eligibility for another term in 2008. But instead of seeking an attorney general opinion, or hiring a lawyer to press the case in court, he simply filed for re-election and then objected when he was challenged by Miller.

In fact, those challenges continue today, in an Associated Press story that appeared in San Francisco.

“An election is an election,” Rosenberg said. “It isn’t an election when you’re sworn in or when you take office. All of us were elected at the same time. That’s when the polls close.”

But not only does state law make it clear a term of service begins at different times for the Legislature than for others, Rosenberg’s own university system counsel made it clear at least two years ago that one possible interpretation would be that Rosenberg could be denied a third six-year term. In the end, that outcome foreseen by Patterson is precisely what happened. For Rosenberg to argue now that he didn’t even consider that possibility is, well, bullshit.

To coin a phrase.

So of all the state and local officials barred from running for office under the state Supreme Court’s term limits decision Friday, can you guess which is the only one speaking publicly about a possible federal challenge? How about this for a hint: He’s the only official who legally should not have been allowed to run for his seat in the first place!

That’s right, folks, it’s Regent Howard Rosenberg, the UNR art professor who plays against type by saying he’s ready to kill in anger over the ruling. Watch out Supreme Court justices and Secretary of State Ross Miller!

According to a news flash from the Review-Journal (linked above), Rosenberg admits his lawyer, Byron “Bill” Bilyeu, advised him against filing a federal court action to overturn the term limits ruling. (We presume Bilyeu’s advice had more to do with the slim chance of success rather than the fact that an appeal makes Rosenberg look like a whiny bitch.) But Rosenberg says he’s “so angry I could kill” over the ruling.

An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court could be undertaken on 14th Amendment grounds, which would argue that Rosenberg has not enjoyed equal protection of the laws, inasmuch as he can’t run for another term while some state lawmakers elected at the same time  — such as Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio — can. And while that does seem on the surface to be unfair, the Nevada Supreme Court had an eminently rational basis for so deciding.

But as long as we’re talking constitutional law, let’s ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider another question shall we? How can Rosenberg be both a university professor and a member of the board that has authority over the university system? Does that in itself not violate the state constitution’s separate of powers clause? We think it does, although we are in a tiny minority.

So in a final bit of delicious irony, Rosenberg is excised from office on the basis of term limits, when he should have been barred from office in the first place on the basis of separation of powers. That’s one of those little pieces of political and legal serendipity that make covering Nevada so much delightful fun!

Here it is, amigos*.

*friends.

Porn star Maxi Mounds and her 36MMM breasts

As Americans we are obsessed with stuff. We already have tons of crap, yet we want more, we want it cheap and we want it now. I think Las Vegas is worse than the national norm because everyone seems to want everything for free.

People take a free seat in a movie theater even if it’s a documentary they couldn’t care less about, and they probably hope to score a free T-shirt that’s not even their size!

The nightlife competition has gotten so fierce the clubs now lure ladies with designer goods giveaways and free champagne. Sounds classy, huh? I wonder if gals ever fight over the last purse or wait in line for hours so they can make sure to get mitts on a complimentary bra?

In the latest affront to my intelligence, a nightclub is giving away breast augmentation (sorry, but I refuse to say where or when). At least it’s a raffle situation, so girls don’t have to appear on stage and plead their cases for new boobs.

I hope the “lucky” winner decides to challenge Miss Maxi. If you’re gonna do it, you may as well do it big!