Joint Strike Weasel

The U.S. Patent Code ... in verse

2007-07-31T11:30:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I hadn't seen this before: http://jergames.blogspot.com/2006/08/us-patent-code-in-verse.html

What the hell...

2007-07-18T13:24:00.000-04:00

So I haven't posted in about 6 months.

Sorry about that. Between thesis problems, first year of law school, and work, life got away from me. I'll try to be a bit better about posting in the future. To that end, I shall resolve to try and post at least once a week.

I will be leaving for a study abroad in London on Saturday, and will be gone for two weeks. Depending on the internet situation I have there, this whole resolution to post may be delayed just a bit.

Not Blogging

2007-05-25T00:17:00.000-04:00

As you've probably noticed, I haven't written anything for a while. You should probably expect this trend to continue for the near future, for several reasons--

I'm spending my summer working at a firm. Until and unless I figure out how to completely separate anything written here from anything worked on there, I'm uncomfortable posting on things to do with law. And since you really don't need my rants on politics to get through your day (I assume), I can't add much value by blogging. Not that I did before, but I could at least deceive myself into thinking so.
Even if I was inclined to brighten your day by blogging on non-law topics, my time has been severely constrained, at the very least until the end of this month. There's some small chance that, after the end of this month, I'll actually have time to read the news and blogs and such and therefore comment semi-intelligently on them, but I wouldn't count on it.
I've found blogging has lost a bit of luster. I think this will pass, particularly once I'm back in school next semester, but I've just lost interest in it for the moment.
I'm just not that into you.

So anyway, I hope you all (translation for southerners: all y'all) have a great summer and I see you back here come fall!

What do we really want?

2007-05-17T23:04:00.000-04:00

"Is Rudy Giuliani presidential timber? I think not," Dobson wrote. "Can we
really trust a chief executive who waffles and feigns support for policies that
run contrary to his alleged beliefs?"
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/17/giuliani.dobson/index.html

I'm pretty sure the ability to understand an opposing viewpoint is precisely what we should ask for in a Chief Executive, no?

Live by the sword ...

2007-05-02T13:52:00.000-04:00

Well, I suppose it's a good thing that the press would criticize him. It's rather a bad thing when the criticism takes the form of applying the same ridiculous standard, rather than criticizing the standard itself. Welcome to the 21st century ... same as the last 20.

Moments I Hope Never To Have In A Deposition, Part 38

2007-04-24T21:26:00.000-04:00

I really wouldn't want to be the attorney on either side of this exchange:

"Were you armed with a hand gun when you were arrested?"

"Yes."

"Did you have a concealed weapons permit at the time?"

"Yes."

"Would you show it to us?"

Client looks in pocket. "It's not here - I must have it in my truck."

"Could you bring it up and show it to us after we break?"

"Yes."

"Why were you carrying a gun when you were arrested?"

"I always carry one with me when I'm not at home."

"Are you carrying one now?"

"Yes."

. . .

Heh

2007-04-23T15:23:00.001-04:00

Boy, did I misinterpret this headline.

Iraq--Getting Better All The Time

2007-04-23T14:17:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, Phil Carter wrote a sober-headed retrospective of our plans in Iraq, showing how disingenuous it is to refer to the surge as plan A while refusing to discuss a plan B (lv:MarkKleiman, discussing the shocking lack of discussion of the piece on conservative websites). And according to Carter--no liberal defeatist he--the surge will fail. It won't necessarily be because of failures on the grounds or even in the current leadership, but it will happen.

That takes us to this article in the National Journal (lv:ThePlank), paraphrasing a retired colonel and former JCS and NSC member as saying "It's almost impossible for the military to seriously plan for a contingency -- withdrawal -- that the commander-in-chief won't even discuss." It goes on to quote him: "The probability that it would leak to the press is too high, and no one in uniform wants to take that chance. [snip] Yet only with deliberate planning will we be able to take some of the sting out of what will surely be seen as a U.S. retreat."

It all comes neatly together in Paul Krugman's column today (excerpted and discussed by hilzoy at Obsidian Wings here, thanks TimesSelect). He describes the Administration's prospective veto of a war supplemental budget just because it contains an advisory deadline as "a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met."

Remember all this next time you read a Republican politician assert that Democrat[ic] and press defeatism is ruining our chances for success in Iraq. Incompetence ruined that a long time ago, if it ever existed. Now that same incompetence is ruining our chance to mitigate consequences of the defeat it brought us, while using our soldiers as political pawns in its twisted game.

New Book About Clarence Thomas

2007-04-23T12:06:00.000-04:00

It looks very interesting. Kenji Yoshino reviews it for the Washington Post here. At one point, he asks, in regard to Thomas's originalism, "[W]hat does it mean for Thomas to interpret the Constitution according to the intent of those who would have considered him to be chattel?" That strikes me as a ridiculous question. What does it mean for us to be following a Constitution written largely by racists and sexists? If we want to, we can just scrap the project and start over (though even if we did, I think we would still have a Constitution written largely by racists and sexists, only it would be better hidden and we would likely end up without a 3/5 clause), but originalism as an interpretive philosophy suffers from guilt-by-association with the framers as much as the Constitution itself does.

David Schraub adds some thoughts on Justice Thomas's views on racism as well. It's a very well-written post, making a coherent argument along the same lines as, but far more eloquently and completely than, some bits and pieces I've posted here in the past.

If We Like Them, They Can't Be Feminists

2007-04-22T20:46:00.000-04:00

The folks at the Corner have been making a run on Powerline for the coveted 'most asinine comments' award. The latest one comes from Michael Ledeen in a discussion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of the book Infidel, who recently gave a lecture at the University of Pittsburgh. A local Muslim leader said that, for defaming the faith, she should be sentenced to death. Ledeen says that the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and journalist Robin Acton do themselves "no credit" in describing Ali as a feminist author. Rather, they should have said "political philosopher."

Yet when I googled Ali, she was described as a feminist author on almost every site I saw. Her Wikipedia entry notes close association with a feminist magazine, from which she also received an award. Googling "ayaan hirsi ali feminism" returns 112,000 hits. She apparently works tirelessly to improve the lives of Muslim women. But clearly she can't be feminist, because Ledeen likes some of the things she's said. Ridiculous.

PS: But I do agree with Ledeen that the Muslim leader's comments would probably fall under some hate speech laws, if enacted, and that would be wrong. He should be free to make the comments--as long as they're not threats, which they don't appear to be in context--and we should be free to consider him an idiot for doing so.

PPS: While I'm on the subject of the Corner, Mario Loyola has a post discussing the French election and the likely victory of the conservative candidate. As I'm posting this, the last paragraph reads:

These results are important for America—and very good news. They demonstrate a rightward shift in French public opinion—and a shit towards a vociferously Atlanticist and pro-American candidate. (emphasis added)

It's probably immature to find that funny, but I did anyway. So there.

Patent Reform Act of 2007

2007-04-19T16:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, versions of the Patent Reform Act of 2007 were introduced in the House and Senate. Notably, the Act would adopt the first-to-file system used elsewhere in the world, as opposed to our current first-to-invent system, the reasoning for which eludes me.

Perhaps more significant is the rather cumbersome proposed standard for the calculation of a reasonable royalty, which would appear to require the subtraction of the benefits provided by the prior art from what would have previously been the reasonable royalty. The approach courts have typically used is to determine what a licensee would have reasonably expected to pay the patentee for a license to the patented technology. It appears, to my non-political-wonk self, that Congress is attempting to release a bull in the "patent troll" china shop in the hopes that reduced reasonable royalty damages will make the practice unprofitable. In doing so, they'll be hurting inventors that simply have not been able to practice their patents, and will allow infringers to trample their patent rights for what would be, under this Act, less than market rate. At that price, who can afford not to ignore patents that aren't being practiced, as long as it's not wilfull (under the even more relaxed new standards)?

While you mull that over, enjoy this cartoon a colleague of mine sent around this morning.

Why, Harry, Why?

2007-04-19T09:43:00.000-04:00

As I believe that Harry Reid bears a lot of responsibility for Samuel Alito's appointment to the bench ("In a significant way, moreover, the blame for Alito being on the Supreme Court lies with Harry Reid. He had the opportunity to suggest a qualified moderate for the Court, as Orrin Hatch suggested Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, and chose to name Harriet Miers, who was not only unqualified but a juridical and political enigma"), his latest affront--I would say gaffe, but gaffe implies embarrassing truth, whereas this is some mixture of dishonesty and stupidity--is particularly upsetting.

Apparently, Reid said after the Supreme Court partial birth abortion decision yesterday "A lot of us wish that Alito weren't there and O'Connor were there." Even though I'm uncomfortable with this characterization of Supreme Court decision-making as a bare political game, that's not my main issue with Reid's statement. No, my main issue is that Reid voted for the bill. That's right--he voted for the partial birth abortion ban and is now upset the Supreme Court found it was constitutional. A lot of us wish that Reid wasn't there and, oh, almost anyone else was.

A Dark Day for Legal Journalism

2007-04-18T18:51:00.000-04:00

I want to make a brief comment and observation about the Supreme Court's ruling today, in Gonzales v. Carnhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, upholding the 2003 federal ban on "partial-birth abortion." There's certainly no shortage of informed legal commentary available -- the Volokh Conspiracy, for starters, already has plenty -- so I won't attempt that here (anything from me would be supremely unsophisticated anyway).

What I find interesting, and dispiriting, about the matter is the extremely sloppy way the cases have been written up in the popular media. This is a longstanding pet peeve of mine -- though one that's also shared, in my experience, by the majority of thoughtful lawyers and law students -- but I've seen what must be new lows today. This Assosiated Press piece is typical, and the problem isn't so much a bias or slant (though one could find that, I suppose) as it is a stunning ignorance or disregard of both basic legal terminology and the logic of the law itself. The article notes, for example, that this "was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how -- not whether -- to perform an abortion [my italics]." The distinction between a court's upholding a law as constitutional, and putting in place the law on its own initiative, thus appears to have fallen away. The article then goes on quote some passages from Justice Ginsburg's harsh dissent, and manages to convey the impression that her disagreement was itself solely political, in the lowest sense of the word. Discussion of the law -- meaning any of the legal questions faced by the court, in any form -- is completely lacking.

When both the left and the right have taken to complaining about partisanship on the Supreme Court, and in constitutional law generally, I think it's incumbent upon journalists to avoid making controversial cases seem more crudely political than they in fact are. I don't think we've seen that today -- not even close.

Virginia Tech

2007-04-17T01:13:00.000-04:00

I'm left feeling uneasy by the short shrift I gave in the last post to today's events at Virginia Tech. But I really don't know what more to say about it. There's still the mystery concerning the life of the shooter--what led him to this? What happened to him? How did he get to this point? We also don't know the stories of the victims, which I'm sure will come out in heartwrenching detail over the course of this week. All that we have right now is shock and the human desire to move on from bad things. Some people have already started discussing this politically--we need to ban guns so people like this can't have them, or we need to allow guns so others can stop rampages like these. Some have related it to their own experiences. There's been a lot of talk of Columbine. Some discussion of the reaction in local schools, which are said to be more likely to suspend or expel students for smallest of things in this tragedy's wake. But about the event itself--all that I have is emotion, not thought. Sadness and shock. So I guess I just wanted to say that any apparent flippancy below about it isn't really that. It's just my desire to think about other things, since thoughts can't ameliorate anything in Blacksburg right now.

Blogdown

2007-04-17T00:23:00.000-04:00

The title to this post is meant to be a composite of the words 'blog' and 'showdown'; after typing it in, I realized that alert readers might take it to mean that, given our recent lack of productivity (on so many levels), this blog is going down--it is not, as far as I know--and therefore enter a blind panic, endangering themselves and those around them. I wanted to dispel that illusion quickly, so I could move on to the topic of this post.

There are important things happening in the world today. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of those at Virginia Tech (where co-blogger Sal attended school), but there's really nothing more I can say on the subject right now.

On the other hand, there is an utterly unimportant blogospherical spat between two blogs I really enjoy--Crime & Federalism ("C&F") and Prettier Than Napoleon ("PTN") (formerly Class Maledictorian). It started when C&F blogger Norm Pattis described what happened to Don Imus as a lynching in rather, uh, provocative language. He didn't change his tune, even when I criticized him in the comments. Then Amber of PTN posted a way to receive a Pattis-free version of C&F, saying she'd "had it." Norm responded by saying that he didn't "really mind being banished by someone who posts a picture of herself looking as though she's just recovered from a tough night at an opium den." (link added). Amber noted this in an update, saying "no sexism in the blogosphere indeed."

I have to say, even though I've been reading C&F for longer, generally like it more, and (most importantly) they have this blog on their blogroll, Norm comes out looking much worse in this back-and-forth. It's not that he's wrong on a substantive level (though he is, since I think she looks pretty cute in that picture, which is probably also a sexist comment, but whatever), but that he resorts to attacking looks rather than--like an adult--either ignoring or actually responding to criticism. Amber's specific critique that defense of a racist comment with racially charged language is rather compelling and Norm doesn't justify it. It's something that Norm's done on a number of occasions, and I'd rather he stop. But I continue to read his posts because I find his other commentary compelling and his criminal defense and plaintiff's work clearly demonstrates lack of racial animus.

Interestingly, after posting the link to Amber's post, Norm says that "Banishment is what listeners who found Imus offensive could have done." I thought that's what they did, really. If C&F was a for-profit company with advertisers, I'm pretty sure Norm would have been fired a long time ago, for the same reason. The kind of attention Imus drew was bad, so his employer fired him. If the government prosecuted him, or threatened his employers, I'd be up in arms. But there was no speech suppression--just a guy being an idiot, pissing people off one too many times, and finally getting called on it and fired, like he should have been long ago. He's not an academic, or even a journalist speaking uncomfortable truths (unless someone wants to defend the substance of his comment). He was a babbling idiot, babbling idiotic things. And he's gone. Mike at C&F had one of the better takes on this--"Imus pimped his voice for cash. He made a lot of money because he said things that attracted listeners - and thus advertisers. When he slipped up and said something stupid, he lost advertisers and thus was fired. What's the big deal?"

So anyway, the score now reads Amber 1, Norm 0. I'd suggest Norm make a move to catch up, but I doubt there's much he can do at this point. I'd say cut losses, take the L, and move on.

Why Doesn't He Just Apologize?

2007-04-12T01:58:00.000-04:00

Stephen Colbert, in hot water yet again, this time for slurs against my people. (Err, not those people, the other ones.) The man just can't keep his mouth shut, can he?

Gaming Approaches to Social Issues

2007-04-06T16:32:00.000-04:00

I ran into this pretty neat write-up of the Living Game Worlds symposium at Georgia Tech (site: LGW III). Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games are the hot topic nowadays even though they've been around for ages (think 'telnet'ing into a MUD/MUSH/MUCK/etc.), but even more interesting to me are the games developed to help understand and condition user responses, such as the VirtuallyBetter.com entry.

Virtuallybetter.com utilizes virtual reality to help drug addicted people fight
the cravings for marijuana, alcohol, crack and nicotine. In the case of
marijuana, a virtual pot party is created and a smell machine pumps the smells
of pot and pizza in to the air to further the realism. By studying the responses
to the virtual stimuli they have successfully learned how to turn off the
cravings in long time drug users.

I know what you're thinking, and no, I'm not sure if they've worked out a licensing deal to put this technology in Grand Theft Auto IV, but I'm looking forward to it.

Controversial Statement of the Day

2007-04-05T10:39:00.000-04:00

What ever happened to just stating your name, rank, and serial number and refusing to allow an enemy to use you as a political pawn?

Why Do German Contracts Have Fewer Words?

2007-04-01T22:04:00.000-04:00

I could go to the event described in this week's Law Council e-mail to find out, but I don't think that's necessary. After all, it's common knowledge that in German, if you want to describe something, you just mash all the words involved together. For example, if you want to describe an annoying person who has a zit on their nose and farts a lot, the German word would be facezitflatulenzinjerken. So I hardly find it surprising that German contracts have fewer words than American ones.

Offensive Remarks?

2007-03-29T10:49:00.000-04:00

Continental Basketball Association coach Micheal [sic] Ray Richardson has been suspended for supposedly anti-Semitic remarks (and other offensive remarks, which appear more legitimately offensive to me and so I won't address them here). The remarks were reported by ESPN as follows:

"I've got big-time lawyers," Richardson said, according to the Times Union. "I've got big-time Jew lawyers."
When told by the reporters that the comment could be offensive to people because it plays to the stereotype that Jews are crafty and shrewd, he responded with, "Are you kidding me? They are. They've got the best security system in the world. Have you ever been to an airport in Tel Aviv? They're real crafty. Listen, they are hated all over the world, so they've got to be crafty."
And he continued, "They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean?" he said. "Which I think is great. I don't think there's nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they're run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they're run by Jewish. It's not a knock, but they are some crafty people."

There is stereotyping here, some of which has historically come from anti-Semitism. But I have a hard time reading into what he's saying any hatred--rather, it sounds like admiration. My response is more "if only he were right" than anything else. I wish Jews did have some natural advantage and that was the reason we're hated around the world. It reminds me of a joke I've heard, which I may have previously posted:

A story is told of a Jewish man who was riding on the subway reading an Arab newspaper. A friend of his, who happened to be riding in the same subway car, noticed this strange phenomenon. Very upset, he approached the newspaper reader: "Moshe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading an Arab newspaper?"

Moshe replied: "I used to read the Jewish newspaper, but what did I find? Jews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through assimilation and intermarriage, Jews living in poverty. So I switched to the Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own all the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world. The news is so much better!"

Nothing to Add

2007-03-29T10:19:00.000-04:00

I have nothing to add on the subject of the UN Watch Executive Director's speech to the Human Rights Council and the Chair's response, which can be read or seen here. A telling excerpt:

So yes, this Council is doing something. And the Middle East dictators who orchestrate this campaign will tell you it is a very good thing. That they seek to protect human rights, Palestinian rights.

So too, the racist murderers and rapists of Darfur women tell us they care about the rights of Palestinian women; the occupiers of Tibet care about the occupied; and the butchers of Muslims in Chechnya care about Muslims.

But do these self-proclaimed defenders truly care about Palestinian rights?

Let us consider the past few months. More than 130 Palestinians were killed by Palestinian forces. This is three times the combined total that were the pretext for calling special sessions in July and November. Yet the champions of Palestinian rights—Ahmadinejad, Assad, Khaddafi, John Dugard—they say nothing. Little 3-year-old boy Salam Balousha and his two brothers were murdered in their car by Prime Minister Haniyeh’s troops. Why has this Council chosen silence?

Because Israel could not be blamed. Because, in truth, the dictators who run this Council couldn’t care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights.

I think it admirably sums up the problems of the Human Rights Council, that an organization that should be fighting for good instead prefers to attack Israel--whose past actions, no doubt, have earned criticism, but not nearly to the extent it gets. Elizabeth Cassidy has some further thoughts on the importance of the Chair's response at Opinio Juris:

In an unprecedented reaction, the Council's Chair, Luis Alfonso De Alba of Mexico, refused to thank UN Watch for its statement and said that it was "inadmissible." . . .

Over the past year in the Council, ambassadors have called each other, UN experts, and representatives of NGOs "ignorant" and other similar insults. Sudan and its allies have denied the existence of human rights violations in Darfur, and Iran has denied the Holocaust. Nigeria has defended the use of the death penalty by stoning against homosexuals. The invective against Israel has included accusations of "an Israeli Holocaust against the Palestinian people," a "thirst for the blood" of civilians, and of being "an apartheid regime" and even "an invader from the planet Mars." The United States has been accused of running a "concentration camp" at Guantanamo Bay and of "genocide" against Cuba. The United Kingdom has been called a "colonial slave-master." Sweden has been accused of "ethnic cleansing" against anyone who does not have the coloring of "former Viking conquerors." Yet all of these statements, and many others like them, have been thanked and deemed admissible by the Council Chair.

For Amusement

2007-03-27T15:12:00.000-04:00

From Mungowit's End, a very amusing (to me, anyway) commercial.

Mungowitz's discussion of the ad reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a couple of years ago. She noted that her church only allows men to be 'elders,' and I asked her if it bothered her. She said no, and this led to a discussion of women in leadership positions. She said she would never vote for a woman for president because she's a woman, and she knows women are irrational three days out of every month. I argued that was an improvement, because as a man, I know men are irrational thirty days out of every month. Alas, I think I failed to convince her. Anyway, enjoy the ad.

A Little Love For Minnesota Law

2007-03-23T19:16:00.000-04:00

When I was about to come to Minnesota, the buzz on the internets was that all the great professors were leaving, Minnesota's going downhill, they must be doing something wrong, etc. I didn't really pay it any mind, since all the professors were leaving to go to highly ranked schools, which tells me that Minnesota must have been hiring the right people in the first place, and I want to be taught by people higher-ranked schools will later want. Well, now Minnesota's done some hiring, and David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy would "love to know the secret of Minnesota's recruiting success." Nice to get a little love up here.

PS: Tubby Smith, baby! Now all we need is Tony Dungy to ditch those loser Colts and come coach Gopher football.

Redefining "Too Little, Too Late"

2007-03-23T09:25:00.000-04:00

Joe Lieberman has now realized that war costs money. It actually sounds like a well thought out, well-reasoned statement, with important appeals to history:

During the Second World War, our government raised taxes and we spent as much as 30 percent of our Gross Domestic Product to defeat fascism and Nazism. During the war in Korea, we raised taxes and spent fourteen percent of GDP on our military...Today, in the midst of a war against a brutal enemy in a dangerous world, we have cut taxes and are spending less than five percent of GDP to support our military... It is not an acceptable answer to push the sacrifice of this war against terrorism onto our children and grandchildren through deficit spending, as we have been doing. And it is not an acceptable answer to pay the costs of this war by squeezing important domestic programs, as we have been doing.

If only he was saying this five years ago instead of lecturing us on the importance of supporting the president while he lowered taxes and spent us into further bankruptcy, while failing to support the soldiers he sent into war. What's next? Maybe a plan for confronting the Soviet Union over Afghanistan in a responsible manner, or for ending Iraq's war with Iran without supplying Saddam Hussein with biological and chemical weapons. The sky's the limit.

How To Tell This List Was Written By Nerds

2007-03-19T17:35:00.000-04:00

On the very amusing list of things Evil Overlords should not do, many of the items use the word "never." For example:

I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."
No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.

But one item is unaccountably hedged:

No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber. (Emphasis added)

Hmm.