Just when you think the open-borders crowd and Berzekeley professors can’t get any more insane, along comes another one to leave you flabbergasted.

Meet UC Berkeley architect professor Ron Rael.

He would like to completely declare surrender of our sovereignty and border security, and turn the border wall (what little exists) into a social justice mall.

No, really (hat tip: the_zarf):

If you can’t beat it, redesign it. An assistant professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, Ron Rael, is not exactly a fan of the 700-mile series of separation barriers that have been erected between the United States and Mexico. He says the wall is expensive, detrimental to the environment, ineffective, and even deadly, since hundreds die of dehydration each year as they try to cross the culture…he has re-envisioned the wall as something like a town center, complete with infrastructure, social services, and recreational facilities. Among the stations he envisions along the wall are a volleyball court, a confessional, a lending library, a water catchment system, a wastewater treatment plant, a solar farm, and even a “burrito wall” featuring “a food cart inserted into the wall, allowing people from each side of the border to share a meal, chat and conduct business, all within full view of security.” The designs are partly practical, partly satirical: call it ironic architecture.

Yet he’s drawing inspiration directly from life. “These are ongoing things that are already happening to a certain extent,” he tells Co.Design. “There are exchanges of food and money through the wall already.”

There’s a video:

Hey, why not add a Project Gunrunner boutique while you’re at it, prof?!

Stimulus and green job funding for this insanity in 3, 2, 1…

Note: to enhance your reading experience, this post comes equipped with an on-demand laugh track

**********

Former Michigan Governor Granholm initially planned on getting a job teaching job creation in the state she ran for eight years, but I think the guy who would have hired her lost his job a couple of years ago.

From Politico:

Now that she’s left office, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm plans to write a book, teach at Berkeley and stay in the public eye as a speaker and commentator.

The 51-year-old two-term Democrat told POLITICO in an interview that her new work will revolve around the interrelated themes she emphasized as governor: creating jobs, reviving American manufacturing and expanding the clean energy economy [cue the laugh track - DP].

I figured eventually even Granholm would be “blown away” from Michigan along with everybody else, and she was.

From the UC Berkeley press release:

She also is scheduled to speak in the campus’s Chevron Auditorium on March 2 at 6 p.m. on “Cracking the Code: Creating Jobs in America (in the wake of globalization).” [cue the laugh track - DP]

For those attending Granholm’s “Creating Jobs in America” speech at Berkeley, the event will be held in the auditorium before Sheriff Dupnik’s “Judicious Law Enforcement” class and immediately following Charlie Sheen’s monogamy seminar.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Last week, I flagged the latest stunt by city government officials in the People’s Republic of Berkeley — a resolution honoring Wiki-leaking saboteur Bradley Manning.

Tonight’s the night the city council will vote. The meeting is underway and is livestreaming on the Berzerkely website here. According to the council’s notes, the meeting may stretch into the 11pm Pacific hour, with the Manning “hero” resolution not scheduled until item 26 on the official agenda.

Here’s a sample of what else is preoccupying the PRB:

Action Calendar – New Business

***

Update 1am Eastern Looks like Berkeley got a case of cut-and-run. The council has tabled the vote indefinitely for further “investigation.”

Sigh. The moonbats in Berkeley are seeking another 15 minutes of anti-American infamy again.

Look:

An Army private jailed for allegedly leaking sensitive military data is a hero and should be freed, according to a resolution under consideration by the Berkeley City Council.

The council is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to declare its support for Pfc. Bradley Manning, who’s suspected of providing WikiLeaks with classified military documents and a video depicting an Army helicopter attack in Baghdad in which 11 civilians were killed.

Manning, 22, currently in the brig in Quantico, Va., faces 52 years in prison if convicted. Manning has not commented on his guilt or innocence.

“If he did what he’s accused of doing, he’s a patriot and should get a medal,” said Bob Meola, the Berkeley peace and justice commissioner who authored the resolution. “I think the war criminals should be the ones prosecuted, not the whistle-blowers.”

This is the same commission that declared war on Marine recruiters (go here, here, and here for blood-boiling refreshers).

The SF Chronicle reports that, believe it or not, there was some actual dissent among the lefty-bots. The resolution passed 7-3 and heads to the Berkeley City Council.

Commissioner Thyme Siegel was one of the three “no” votes.

“We’re just sitting here in Berkeley – we don’t know that Afghani informants aren’t being murdered because of these leaks,” she said. “Bradley Manning sounds like a very sincere person, but I’m sorry, we really do have enemies, and it’s not clear at all what the effects of these WikiLeaks are.”

Anthropocon tweets: “I’m more offended that they think their city council is relevant to national issues than by their crazy resolutions.”

In December, the University of California at Berkeley mobsters picked up torches and Molotov cocktails and tried to set the chancellor’s house on fire to protest fee hikes and budget cuts.

The administration continues to capitulate to the thugs. So, the thugs keep throwing their tantrums. Their latest campaign? A hunger strike to put pressure on UC Berkeley over Arizona’s immigration law — and to demand that officials publicly declare the campus a sanctuary for illegal alien students and employees. For starters:

With the blessings of ceremonial dancers, a group of UC Berkeley students ended a 10-day hunger strike Wednesday while negotiators met with the chancellor over the status of illegal immigrants and student demonstrators.

Soon afterward, students and Chancellor Robert Birgenau announced some modest agreements on undocumented university employees and student discipline.

About 20 hunger strikers, mostly students, had camped out in front of the school’s administration building since May 3. Their initial protest target was Arizona’s new immigration law, which requires police to stop and question anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally.

Birgenau quickly complied with the protesters’ first demand – to denounce the law. But he balked at their proposals to declare the campus a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, rehire laid-off janitors and drop disciplinary charges against students who occupied or vandalized buildings last fall to protest rising fees.

Ah, yes. The time-honored student List of Demands. And the time-honored administrative Crouch of Submission.

Though the article says the chancellor “balked” at the illegal alien sanctuary demand, it goes on to report:

While the school could not legally promise not to cooperate with federal immigration officials, Holmes said, the chancellor emphasized that looking into the immigration status of students and workers is “not a priority for our Police Department.”

Hiring, recruiting, and harboring illegal aliens are all federal felony offenses under United States Code. TITLE 8 , CHAPTER 12, SUBCHAPTER II, Part VIII. But the chancellor has now signaled that his campus will look the other way at federal immigration law to assuage a bunch of hungry open-borders zealots dressed up as stalks of corn.

No, really:

One protester blessed his cohorts’ corn cobs, for their connection to Mother Earth. Four dancers dressed as cornstalks, including one of the strikers, twirled and gestured ceremonially to a percussion beat.

Fifteen strikers then munched on the corn, to the cheers of about 150 supporters. A 16th student, Alejandro Lara-Briseño, who was too weak to stand but told the crowd he would continue fasting until he visits a sister in Arizona next Thursday and gets her approval.

Shortly afterward, negotiators, including another striker, emerged from a two-hour meeting with Birgenau and his aides and said the chancellor had addressed most of their demands.

“We emerged with a much broader understanding of their concerns and a strong commitment to work together,” said Claire Holmes, a university spokeswoman.

Specifically, she said Birgenau agreed that a task force previously established to review concerns of students in the United States illegally would broaden its scope to include campus employees.

I wish I could say “Only in Berkeley.” Unfortunately, the open-borders sellout is a nationwide phenomenon.

***

Reader Buy Danish points out: “There is an huge factual error in the S.F. Gate story you linked to which I’m sure you want to correct! They say: ‘Their initial protest target was Arizona’s new immigration law, which requires police to stop and question anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally.’” Indeed. Don’t hold your breath for the SF Chron to correct…

Berkeley’s “progressive” educrats give us another perfect illustration of Diversity Uber Alles run amok. Because the government schools have failed to close the “racial achievement gap,” they’ve proposed cutting science labs and teaching staff from the high school curriculum because those resources benefit too many white students.

Via the East Bay Express (hat tip: Adam Baldwin):

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High’s School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley’s dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.

Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. “The majority of the science department believes that this major policy decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the community has been made without any notification, without a hearing,” said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School’s science department, at last week’s school board meeting.

Sincular-Mertens, who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. “As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education,” she told the board.

Such are the wages of political correctness and social justice.

Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker notes:

Aside from the repulsive racism of this move, the broader issue to be considered is whether society is better-served by cutting down the achievers and investing in the stragglers — or whether everyone benefits from the achievements of those who apply themselves enough to excel. I have no hesitation in saying that I am in the latter camp. How does it benefit anyone to have an America made up of mediocre minds?

As a matter of simple justice, it makes no sense to favor those who do not adapt to the norms and expectations of schooling and persist in behaviors that lead to failure. Berkeley High’s worse-than-average performance among black and Latino students almost certainly has something to do with the ideology informing its approach to racial problems. Teaching people that they are victims does nothing to encourage excellence. But rather than reconsider its failing efforts, Berkeley High is doubling the dosage of a medicine that isn’t working, and which carries bad side effects.

If the Berkeley public schools go ahead with this plan, they deserve condemnation and ridicule on a national scale.

While the Obama administration holds a “Race to the Top” education charade, the racial parity enforcers of the Left push academic achievers of all coloros to the bottom for diversity’s sake.

Eight people were in custody Saturday after a crowd of angry protesters broke windows and threw burning torches at UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s campus residence in protest of fee hikes and budget cuts, authorities said.

As many as 75 people – some of them carrying torches – surrounded the mansion, known as University House, on the north side of campus off Hearst Avenue at about 11:15 p.m. Friday, police said.

The crowd, including a man taken into custody in a university protest a day earlier, chanted, “No justice, no peace,” and began smashing planters, windows and lights. Several hurled their torches at the building, said campus spokesman Dan Mogulof.

Birgeneau was sleeping at the time and was awakened by his wife, Mary Catherine, Mogulof said. They were frightened, but unharmed, he said.

“These are criminals, not activists,” Birgeneau said in a statement issued Saturday morning. “The attack at our home was extraordinarily frightening and violent. My wife and I genuinely feared for our lives.”

Via SFGAte.com.

The Daily Cal has pictures and more details of the barbarians at the gate:

Between 40 and 75 people marched to Birgeneau’s home near the northwest corner of campus at about 11 p.m. Friday night. Some wielded torches that were allegedly thrown at police, while others broke the outside lighting to the house, overturned planters, damaged “impact resistant” windows on the house and scattered garbage brought from a nearby student housing cooperative, police said.

…Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement Saturday that the attack was an act of terrorism. “California will not tolerate any type of terrorism against any leaders including educators. The attack on Chancellor Birgeneau’s home is a criminal act and those who participated will be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law. Debate is the foundation of democracy and I encourage protestors to find peaceful and productive ways to express their opinions,” he said in the statement.

It’s just another example of the unhinged, left-wing vigilantism that the dinosaur media elitists who smear conservative Tea Party activists as a frightful “angry mob” gripped with “insane rage” will ignore.

“Social justice” in action.

Refresher course:

Left-wing SEIU mob beats black conservative …

Left-wing mob punches conservative Campaign for Liberty witness with camera…

Left-wing ANSWER mob attacks anti-illegal immigration protesters…

Left-wing mob shuts down speech at Columbia University…

Left-wing mob shuts down speech at UNC-Chapel Hill…

Left-wing mob blocks military shipments in Olympia, WA…

Left-wing mob illegally trespasses and breaks into a home in Baltimore in the name of “social justice”…

Left-wing mob chases Christian evangelists out of San Francisco’s Castro district:

Left-wing mob stomps on elderly Prop. 8 supporter’s cross:

***

Related: At Copenhagen, hundreds of global warming warriors were arrested after throwing rocks and breaking windows to save the planet.

Don’t the public officials in the People’s Republic of Berkeley have anything better to do?

No, no they don’t:

The city of Berkeley mailed coat hangers to 20 members of Congress on Wednesday in protest of the anti-abortion amendment in the House version of the federal health care bill.

The City Council approved the action 7-1 on Tuesday night. Councilman Gordon Wozniak dissented; Mayor Tom Bates was absent.

Metal coat hangers were mailed with a protest letter to members of the House of Representatives who voted in favor of the amendment but have a history of supporting abortion rights.

Jan Schakowsky approves.

President Obama, please direct your protests against inflammatory fear-mongering to the wire hanger-wielders. Now.

***

Question: What should we send the Berkeley City Council?

Tuition hikes and custodian layoffs were the latest excuse for a UC Berkeley campus tantrum.

The San Francisco Chronicle called the student takeover of Wheeler Hall an “occupation.”

In the old days, dyed-in-the-wool libs would practice civil disobedience and accept their punishment.

In the Age of No Consequences, Berkeley students demand that they be allowed to break rules, disrupt campus life, and create chaos without any repercussions:

Police arrested about 40 protesters inside UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall tonight, ending an 11-hour occupation of the building on the third day of raucous protests and strikes over labor disputes and the UC Regents vote Thursday to increase student fees by 32 percent.

…The demonstrators demanded that 38 custodians who had recently been laid off or fired be reinstated. They also wanted assurances that they would face no legal repercussions after they agreed to leave the building.

Protest organizers said the arrested demonstrators would be led out of the building at about 7:15 p.m. and charged with misdemeanor trespassing.

Outside Wheeler Hall, a two-story building in the middle of campus, protesters seemed to be positioning themselves to block any exit.

As night fell on the campus and rain-soaked protesters, the crowd chanted, “We’re tired, we’re cold, UC Berkeley won’t be sold.”

Geez, even the Berkeley tree occupiers didn’t whine this much.

***

Check out the protest photo gallery:

What is up with the red war paint?

Bandanas and keffiyehs are de rigueur, of course.

Berkeley became the first city in the United States, and possibly the world, to agree to international human rights treaties on Tuesday night, after the City Council approved a measure usually reserved for countries. After a brief but spirited debate, the City Council voted unanimously to allow unpaid interns to report to the United Nations on how, or whether, Berkeley complies with treaties on civil liberties, racial discrimination and torture.

The council also agreed to take the first step in raising parking revenue by voting unanimously to add 420 meters and increase the parking meter rate 25 cents an hour, to $1.50.

But the decision to comply with the U.N. treaties generated the most energetic response from council members and the public.

“This is extremely important,” said Councilman Max Anderson, who represents south Berkeley. “This is the way Berkeley should be talking. This should be an inspiration to other communities.” Councilman Kriss Worthington called the initiative a creative and important way Berkeley can support the values put forth in the U.N. treaties. “In our small and humble way, we can submit our own record,” he said. “I think this is a wonderful thing for us to do.”

(Source: San Francisco Chronicle)

Anti-war activists protested Monday at the University of California, Berkeley to call for the firing of a law professor who co-wrote legal memos that critics say were used to justify the torture of suspected terrorists.

Campus police arrested at least four people who refused to leave the university’s law school building.

The demonstrators said John Yoo should be dismissed, disbarred and prosecuted for war crimes for his work as a Bush administration attorney from 2001 to 2003, when he helped craft legal theories for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.

Shouting “war criminal,” the protesters confronted Yoo as he entered a lecture hall on the first day of class at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, where the tenured professor is teaching a civil law course this semester…Christopher Edley Jr., Berkeley’s law school dean, has rejected calls to dismiss Yoo, saying the university doesn’t have the resources to investigate his Justice Department work, which involved classified intelligence.

Berkeley law students are divided over Yoo, whose classes are among the law school’s most popular.

As Zombie has reported, the Berkeley extremists have waged a harassment campaign against Yoo for months — staging regular protests at his home.

Waiting for the Etiquette Czars to condemn the Yoo-hunters’ mob tactics…

But the left won’t call it a “climate of hate.” They’re just exercising their free speech.

***

Commenter Ragspierre: “Replace the name of Yoo with any abortion provider, and ask what the consequence would be…”

It’s never over. Bush is out of office. Obama is moving to withdraw troops from Iraq. Last October, Code Pink gave up on its daily harangues against the Marines who staff a recruiting office in Berkeley after a counterinsurgency of pro-troops groups stood their ground.

But it’s never over.

Yesterday, thugs smashed the windows of the Marine recruiting office and defaced the Marine logo. The masked vandals caused an estimated $5,000 in damage. (You may recall that in 2007, Code Pink defaced the Marine recruiting office by pasting the misspelled word “Assasination” on the window.)

Bastards:

Police are looking for the vandals who damaged a Marine recruiting center in Berkeley that’s been the target of ongoing war protests.

The attack shortly before 9 p.m. Wednesday was caught of tape by a surveillance camera. About a half-dozen people wearing dark clothing with their faces covered are seen breaking windows and defacing the Marine Corps logo.

The property owner says they caused as much as $5,000 in damage.

Police have not made any arrests in the case, but say they’ve arrested a “person of interest” on an unrelated warrant.

The recruiting center has angered anti-war activists and some local residents, who say military recruiting is unwelcome in this liberal-leaning city. But the Marines have said they have no intention of moving out before their lease is up at the end of the year.

More from KCBS:

Police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss says it happened Wednesday just before 9 p.m.

Kusmiss says police received several calls from witnesses in the area that a group of 3 to 4 males were smashing the windows of the recruiting center.

“In the history of our experience at the recruiting center this is the most expensive damage ever committed there,” said Kusmiss.

She says although the office has been the target of several anti-war protests over the years, this is the first that’s totaled over $5,000 damage.

The suspects are facing felony vandalism charges.

Kusmiss says they don’t know for certain whether the vandalism was in response to today’s 6th anniversary of the Iraq War.

No, it’s no coincidence. IndyMedia extremists gloat about the vandalism:

At 9PM on March 18th, the eve of the 6th anniversary of the war in Iraq, a group of persons wearing masks smashed the windows and splattered red paint at the U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting Center in Berkeley, California.

The center has been the target of protests for the last 18 months, and stands as a symbol of U.S. militarism and imperialist wars. The act of property distruction stands alone as the embodyment of frustration of a people whos government does not listen to or care about them.

Police have not made any arrests but are reviewing the tape, said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss. A sledgehammer and a crowbar were found in a nearby garbage can nearby, and are being reviewing as evidence. After breaking windows and improving the Marine Corps logo at the center, the group wearing masks and dark clothing scattered in three different directions, police said.

As of the time of this posting, no one involved has been arrested. The act was easy. You and a few friends could have pulled it off any day.

NO MORE IMPERIALIST WARS!!!

NO MORE GOVERNMENT!!!

SMASH THE STATE!!!

And it is no coincidence that anti-war groups are gearing up for new protests tomorrow and a March on the Pentagon.

If you are in Washington, there will be a counter-protest by Freepers, Gathering of Eagles, and Eagles Up activists. Join the counterinsurgency here.

Please show your support of the troops who support you.

Having cut and run from their unsuccessful drive to evict the Marines from Berkeley, Code Pink is setting its sights on a new evil:

The Berkeley Library!

Seems the library wants to do business with 3M, but the Pinkos protest that it will violate the city’s nuclear-free law.

Bay Area blogger/photojournalist ProtestShooter forwarded me a miffed missive from the Pinkos about the spat:

Code Pink’s very upset about it and forwarded it around. The key bit is that the Berkeley Public Library wants a waiver to get around the Berkeley Nuclear Free Zone laws (because they can’t do business with 3M otherwise).

It’s amusing in its own way…

Hi Berkeley People!

Who would ever have believed that this law that has been on the City of Berkeley books for 22 years in our town is now in jeopardy! Not only that but it[']s because of our beloved Berkeley Public Library! This is a situation that would make Kafka, himself, shudder!

The present dilemma starts with the Radio Frequency Identification D’s (RFID)-these are the chips now in all library books to track them AND you when you carry said book. They were purchased from the company, “Checkpoint” who then turned the (expired) contract over to 3M.

Since 3M is a manufacturer of munitions and depleted uranium with connections to Honeywell and Boeing, it is against the law for Berkeley to do business with them because of the Nuclear Free Status Law.

That’s why the library is requesting Berkeley to institute a 2 year waiver to rescind our Nuclear Free Status.

This waiver, which is now before the Berk. Peace & Justice Commission of the Berkeley City Council, could allow nuclear material to be transported through our town. In Berkeley we also have an important reputation as a peace city-this obviously would be in tatters.

The library doesn’t want to go to a bar-code system; it’s easier for them to keep the status quo even though the cost is $70,000/year to maintain this invasive of privacy system that also requires the waiver of the above mentioned law.

The Nuclear Free Law is more relevant now than ever!

PLEASE call/write your council person to take action on this matter. The Peace & Justice Comm has tabled the issue until its next meting in Jan. as no decision could be made at the Dec 1 meeting.

I believe the next meeting will be on Jan 5th. 2009.

Yes, indeed, Berzerkely is always “amusing in its own way.”

But they’re the ones cutting and running.

I mentioned the Code Pink retreat from the Berkeley Marine recruiting center last month. Now, they’re holding a moving sale to evacuate their Solano Ave. office:

“EVERYTHING MUST GO.”

Including their sorry, pink-clad backsides.

We must close our CodePINK office, 1248 Solano Ave., Albany. Come to our EVERYTHING MUST GO Moving Sale from noon until 7:00pm Tuesday Oct 28th thru Thursday Oct 30th!

All the office furniture, display cabinets, tschotkes, and all the wonderful outdoor furniture and fixings as well – not to mention CodePINK memorabilia and merchandise – will be on sale!

Come get your treasure and help us close this part of our chapter.

Na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye…

(hat tip – zombie)