Detroit Free Press:

Arab Americans across metro Detroit cheered as Rima Fakih of Dearborn was crowned Miss USA tonight in Las Vegas.

“This is unbelievable,” said Rami Haddad, 26 of Livonia, one of Fakih’s biggest supporters. “It’s a dream come true. I can’t express my feelings.”

Fakih, of Lebanese descent, is believed to be the first Arab American and Muslim to become Miss USA.

Daniel Pipes:

This surprising frequency of Muslims winning beauty pageants makes me suspect an odd form of affirmative action.

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We being here in Sandy Eggo, we only find ourselves thinking about illegal immigration when a political candidate takes the time to demagogue about it. The weather’s just too fucking nice here to break a sweat about undocumented Canadians taking the window seats in the coffeehouse.

Our casual disregard hasn’t stopped Meg Whitman, former CEO of an online garage-sale company whose name evokes a suspiciously Hispanic body of water, from running on the issue in her quest to be declared insane by spending $64 million on her race for California governator. Her television commercials and Web videos are now highlighting her dogged fight against foreigners who would dare mispopulate good American towns like San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, San Bernardino, and Daly City.

But just in case you’re not entirely sure where she’s coming from, Meg just scored an important endorsement:

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Title: “Spoken from the Heart”

Author: Laura Bush

Rank: 5

Blurb: “With deft humor and a sharp eye, Laura Bush lifts the curtain on what really happens inside the White House, from presidential finances to the 175-year-old tradition of separate bedrooms for presidents and their wives to the antics of some White House guests and even a few members of Congress.”

Review: “And those little trollops. Getting drunk all the time, probably having with sex with who knows and sticking out there dirty little tongues. They all make me sick to my stomach!!!”

Customers Also Bought: “Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage,” by Raquel Welch

Footnote: Laura who?

Spoken from the Heart [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon kickback link]

That chung-chung thing can really get on one’s nerves.

NBC Cancels ‘Law & Order’ [NYT]

“A tourist’s holiday skinny dip turned sour after he was reportedly bitten on the penis by a venomous spider. The 22-year-old Canadian fell asleep in the sand dunes after swimming nude at a beach in New Zealand’s far north. He woke to find his penis swollen and painful, with a bite mark on the shaft.” [Sydney Morning Herald, via CheapBoy]

Now that Arizona has legislated a pig, its governor is worried about the lipstick:

Acknowledging that Arizona has developed a serious image problem because of its tough new immigration law, Gov. Jan Brewer and tourism-industry leaders said Thursday that they will launch a new effort to stanch the flow of lost trade and convention business in the state.

The legislation and firestorm of negative publicity that followed brought calls for boycotts, moved groups to back out of local conventions and led several cities to cut business ties with Arizona companies.

The loss of business is critical in a recession-battered state vitally dependent on visitor spending.

“It’s up to us to get the truth out there. This is impacting Arizona’s face to the nation,” said Brewer, who blamed the controversy on misconceptions about the law.

This is impacting Arizona’s face to the nation. Sounds like Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction should be focusing on the governor’s grammar instead of ethnic-studies programs.

Governor out to rebrand Arizona over immigration law criticism [Arizona Republic]

RedState’s Erick Erickson, who just six weeks ago declared he needed to “grow up” because he called David Souter a “goat-fucking child molester” last year, declares that a thirty-year-old college paper says all you need to know about the latest Supreme Court nominee:

BREAKING: We Have Elena Kagan’s College Thesis

This proves Elena Kagan is an open and avowed socialist. The woman declares that socialists must stick together instead of fracture in order to advance a socialist agenda, which Kagan advocates…

Keep in mind that Kagan wrote her thesis at the height of the cold war praising a group that collaborated with our enemies.

We’re not sure we’d peg 1981 as the height of the Cold War — the Cuban Missile Crisis was about twenty years earlier, after all. Then again, we’re not sure we were yet over our Karen Carpenter fetish.