berzerl

We might as well have included a Yoo pun. Berkeley has apparently decided to go where no self-respecting American city has gone before: the United Nations. Yes, our city council decided it was high time we started complying with international human rights treaties and scrounged up some interns to draft a report on the quick. Oh, don’t act so surprised—hey, if you squint real hard, you can almost see secession! And wouldn’t that be rad …

Embarrassingly, there’s a chance Berkeley may not be in compliance with some treaties regarding civil liberties, racial discrimination, and torture—you know, what with our homelessness, school achievement (K-12, we take it …) and recurring man-of-the-hour, John Yoo. We eagerly anticipate the results.

Image Source: epioles under Creative Commons.
Berkeley first city to report to UN (CHRON)


3874756199_fb16eb129cThinking of becoming a professor or just want to complain about how much the chancellor’s making while tuition fees are going up? Check out ucpay.globl.org, which allows you to look up the salary of any UC employee.

The data was obtained via public records requests by the San Francisco Chronicle. Sounds pretty legit to us. We had some fun with the salary generator. Here’s some that might interest you:

Robert Birgeneau: $445,716.00

John Yoo: $248,766.01

Judith Butler: $166,385.22

Hubert Dreyfus: $45,000.00

Alex Filippenko: $216,733.30

Richard Muller: $199,333.30

That’s right. Professor Dreyfus, inspiration for the Professor on Family Guy Futurama (thanks Ricardo and Matt), makes less than a third of what the other professors make and our chancellor makes more than the President. Don’t ask us.

ucpay.globl.org [Website]
Image Source: S Migol under Creative Commons.


Yoo can always tell a new school year is nigh when the hordes of protesters start accumulating in the general area of campus. Like the swallows of Capistrano, who return to their nests each year with freakish regularity, read more »


Yoo all know all about John Yoo, so this clip of a couple of wily Aussie comedians playing a wittle twick on him during a lecture at Chapman University probably doesn’t need much explanation. Have a look for yoo-rself (yeah, we know that was a stretch) and revel in the awkward. Enjoy!

Chasers War on Everything – Torture John Yoo [YouTube]


John Yoo, lucky duck of a man, can now add the lovely ladies of Code Pink to his ever-expanding fan base. Like so many shameless groupies, the avid activists clamored outside his Berkeley residence early Sunday evening, vying desperately for the law professor’s attention. Haven’t they any dignity?

Okay, so that’s not exactly how it went down, which (transparent sarcasm notwithstanding) read more »

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We’re about as sick of reporting Yoo news as yoo must be of hearing about Yoo, so we’ll keep this short and sweet.

Our favorite torture-touting law professor might lose his license if read more »


In solidarity with the former vice president, John Yoo defended the so-called “torture memos” he helped pen a few years ago. We guess it’s another attempt to justify never compromising one’s ideas, even in the face of Armageddon (spoiler alert: not a good idea).

In fact, both the former veep and Yoo are starting to sound awfully similar. From Cheney: read more »

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The last we heard, peace had been (um, basically) achieved in the Yoo-niverse. Obama’s tippy-top aide, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel had told everyone that the president wanted to let bygones be bygones. And by “bygones,” we obviously mean “torture memos written under the Bush regime” and by “be bygones,” we obviously mean “go unprosecuted.”

But Tuesday, we found out that this was not the case (zing!), though–to be fair–this wasn’t exactly not not the case, either. Before you get your undies in a bundle telling us that makes literally no sense, let us explain. read more »

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So, adding to the ranks of officials who are inexplicably siding with John Yoo, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said on Sunday that Obama doesn’t think the UC Berkeley law professor—or any other policymaker from the previous administration—should be prosecuted for enabling torture. read more »


Yesterday, the Department of Justice released four memos from the Office of Legal Counsel to the CIA, including some authored by John Yoo. Luckily the OLC has withdrawn the opinions expressed in the memos.

Among the Yoophemisms themselves: read more »

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