TUCSON, AZ — Amid the cheer of the season of the holiday we don’t speak of, the annual capitalistic boom of the month of December is allegedly having a negative impact upon the intellectual property rights of America’s universities. The first legal implication is now official, as the University of Arizona today filed suit against Santa Claus for copyright infringement and violation of the Establishment Clause after Mr. Claus allegedly gave an Arizona Wildcats sweatshirt, made in his own factory, as a gift to multiple children without asking permission of the university, paying the appropriate licensing fees, or removing any actual or perceived religious context.

University of Arizona President Robert N. Shelton commented that the religious context of such a gift presented a “clear and present danger to the mission of the university.” “It should be obviously clear why we don’t have regular classes during the Winter Solstice,” Dr. Shelton stated. “The religious context of being in school at such a time is too much for us to handle. We won’t tolerate it.”

The comment puzzled professors in the Astronomy department, who noted that Winter Session classes actually did take place during Winter Solstice, which actually occurred three days before the holiday we don’t speak of.

Arizona State University President Michael Crow tells the Growler that he does not expect to follow suit with Dr. Shelton, noting that inserting mention of the Devil into such a holiday “cancels things out.”

I once met Len Munsil.  It was Sanctity of Life Sunday at First Southern Baptist Church, and Len Munsil was the president of the Center of Arizona Policy.  He joked about his attendance of ASU rather than UofA and on the reputation of lawyers he had to inherit.

His issue list looks strong on eminent domain abuse and illegal immigration.  In fact, he looks to be doing his best to distinguish himself as being stronger on the latter issue than Don Goldwater.

Internet-wise, Munsil had been the candidate using it best so far, at least for me.  The primary feature of his website is not a platform or fancy graphics; it’s a blog.  But recently, I noticed that my Firefox live bookmark for his site wasn’t working.  I didn’t take much note of it at first, but I took a look at his main site today, performed some investigation, and concluded that his RSS feed was completely gone, probably intentionally.  With that alone, Munsil isn’t going to get his propaganda to me very well, so my chances of voting for him in November just went down significantly.  Neither Goldwater nor Napolitano ever had RSS feeds to my knowledge, so we’re basically in a situation where Napolitano has the best-designed website (VERY professional-looking), Munsil has a blog with a mediocre design (lose the horizontal solidity please) and no feed, and Goldwater’s site looks like a 13-year-old designed it.  I started making money in amateurish freelance web design at age 14 or 15, but by golly not for a gubernatorial candidate.

The second issue I’ve found came up in the top post from the day I checked his site: John McCain has endorsed him.  McCain’s campaign finance reform act just killed free speech this past Monday (ht: Karen of Scottsdale), so I was hoping that a candidate from either side would be willing to give him the middle finger, but I’m apparently too hopeful of a guy.  Munsil’s website contains no mention of the term "campaign finance", so we can’t really be sure that he’s even against the bill.  His only critical mention of "clean elections" (besides the accusation flap from earlier) is that it’s "rife with problems." 

Searches on Goldwater’s site yield similar results with a few exceptions.  First, Goldwater didn’t have a Clean Elections flap, and mentions of "clean elections" include a column that explains why even conservatives are currently justified in running as Clean Elections candidates.  Secondly, as reported on the Goldwater home page, it looks like there might be a fake push-pollster out there trying to discredit Goldwater and/or Munsil.  What isn’t mentioned is whether either candidate is in favor of the Clean Elections law in the first place.  It would certainly be nice to get a statement against it from the candidates.

Goldwater looks to be more pro-gun at this point.  Without eminent domain or campaign finance / clean elections to argue, the Second Amendment is the primary issue.  Both of these guys had better shape up their campaigns.