[T]he Administration has been roundly [criticized] for suggesting that a reporter who knowingly solicits classified information might be committing a crime. At the risk of violating the old adage about not picking a fight with someone who buys printer’s ink by the barrel, I want to take this on.

The Supreme Court has decided that a convicted murderer cannot be executed unless he has a rational understanding of the fact that he is going to be put to death and of the reason for his execution. Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 954–60 (2007). In announcing that rule, however, the Court did not decide what rational understanding means in this context. It acknowledged that a concept like rational understanding is difficult to define and cautioned that normal or rational in this context does not mean what a layperson understands those terms to mean....

The habeas petitioner in our case, John Ferguson, contends that under the Panetti decision he is mentally incompetent to be executed. As the facts come to us, Ferguson has a mental illness but he does understand that he is going to die by execution, and he understands that it is going to happen because he committed eight murders. Ferguson also believes, as tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of other people do, that there is life after death. Countless people also believe, as he does, that they are among God’s chosen people. But Ferguson’s religious belief is more grandiose than that because he believes that he is the Prince of God....

One could argue, as Ferguson’s attorneys do, that his belief that he will be resurrected as the Prince of God negates a rational understanding that he will be killed and thereby establishes that he is not mentally competent to be executed. That cannot be correct. Panetti cannot mean that a belief in resurrection or other forms of life after death is inconsistent with the rational understanding of death that is required for mental competence to be executed. If it did mean that, most Americans would be mentally incompetent to be executed.

While Ferguson’s thoughts about what happens after death may seem extreme to many people, nearly every major world religion — from Christianity to Zoroastrianism — envisions some kind of continuation of life after death, often including resurrection. Ferguson’s belief in his ultimate corporeal resurrection may differ in degree, but it does not necessarily differ in kind, from the beliefs of millions of Americans. [Details, including a canvass of many religions throughout the world, omitted. -EV] ...

A conclusion that a particular belief about the afterlife and one’s role in it is extreme enough to be irrational, delusional, and indicative of incompetence to be executed is only a few steps away from the same conclusion about any person who believes in resurrection, in heaven or hell, or in any variation of life after death. Courts should be reluctant to treat as a symptom of mental illness anyone’s belief about what will happen to him after he dies. It is beyond the ken of courts to measure the rationality of religious beliefs –– what will happen to us after we pass through the dark curtain of death is the ultimate non-justiciable question.

Because the state courts’ determination that Ferguson possesses a rational understanding of his execution and the reason for it is not so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement, AEDPA precludes us from disturbing their judgment.

Hmm ... I hadn’t thought of that angle, to be honest; but this is hardly a case that raises any real ethical concerns, I wouldn’t think.  I would not think that it would be inappropriate for a Justice to consult a dictionary, or a book on English grammar, before submitting an opinon; nor is it inappropriate to take “judicial notice” of everyday events.  I would think a judge could write, in a case in which, say, Time-Warner Inc. was a party, something about the large office building T-W owns at Columbus Circle in New York, even if that fact were not in the official record of the case.  If the party’s name bore the SLIGHTEST significance for the case, I might agree that there’s a line to be drawn – but this was entirely gratuitous on Scalia’s part; HE raised the “issue,” and I think it’s incumbent upon him to check his facts so that he doesn’t end up looking like a bit of a dope.

Facts about language, the law, and the world (untethered to the specific facts giving rise to the litigation) — all these a judge might (and should) research beyond the record. But here — in this Supreme Court case — the fact is about a party to the litigation. It is the party’s name. I do not think a judge can look beyond the record because the parties already have an obligation to list their names on the docket (and in the pleadings) and if the parties are not forthcoming in regard to their own name, then the filing can be contested by their adversaries.Indeed, I have seen judges throw cases out sua sponte where a party tried to bring litigation under an assumed name or anonymously (absent putting forward facts supporting good cause). Scalia has a right to expect that by the time litigation reaches him, the record will already clearly reflect the names of the parties. If it does not, then something is really wrong with the system.

Imagine if a civil action goes to final judgment, and then after a monetary award is granted to the prevailing party, the non-prevailing party states that an affiliate or subsidiary with a similar name was the (judgment proof) defendant and the parent refuses to pay up. Then you need a whole collateral case to determine who was the non-prevailing party in the first action. That’s just not on; the system cannot work that way. Litigation must end. We have to know who the parties are before the court during the actual litigation and not discover that important fact afterwards in follow up litigation.

Your characterizing a party’s name as not connected to the facts giving rise to the case may be true. But who you sue or fail to sue is a strategic decision (and it may be a strategic failure). A party might not clarify its name or its status (corp, llp, llc, etc) for strategic reasons — and Scalia cannot on his own figure out who the party is before him based on ... what his clerks find on the internet. I practiced in Delaware for a few years and I cannot remember any case where a court of record clarified the status of a party by requesting official documents from Delaware records or archives or maintained by the Secretary of State’s office (which maintains info on whether a business entity is in good standing). All that must be put forward by the parties.

It was the lawyers and the lower courts which seriously failed here.
In my view, Scalia’s comments were far too kind.

In a CNN.com column Donna Brazile [writes] with a sinister twist:

A government of, by, and for the people requires that people talk to people, that we can agree to disagree but do so in civility. If we let the politicians and those who report dictate our discourse, then our course will be dictated.

Why am I alarmed? Because two “scandals”–the IRS tax-exempt inquiries and the Department of Justice’s tapping of reporters’ phones–have become lynch parties. And the congressional investigation of Benghazi may become a scandal in itself.

In one breath Brazile urges everyone to be civil and respectful. In the next she labels her opponents with one of the most racially incendiary metaphors in the American lexicon. And note that she is casting government officials who abused their power as lynching victims.

I tend to be skeptical that there is much scandal in the Justice Department investigations of reporters in leak cases, see Orin’s post about the AP matter and mine about the Fox News matter. (Conversely, Brazile seems skeptical that the IRS “scandal” deserves scare quotes, since she writes, “The IRS scandal has sparked bipartisan outrage that should require a bipartisan solution.”) But Taranto’s criticism of the faux call for “civility” strikes me as quite apt. Let me also point to this passage from Brazile’s column:

But in our partisan self-righteousness, we’re destroying our foundations of government more effectively than al Qaeda ever could. Whether it’s the media or the politicians, the churning of partisan passion into anger, indeed hate, has an ulterior purpose: If Obama’s administration is constantly engaged in fighting for its existence, the governing comes to a halt, and his agenda will go nowhere.

I’m sure Brazile sincerely believes that partisan self-righteousness and the churning of partisan passion into anger, indeed hate, ought to be removed from American politics. But I find it hard to take such calls from party officials seriously given the common mainstream Democratic reactions to the Bush Administration (prefigured, of course, by many mainstream Republican reactions — which I think were often over-the-top — during the Clinton Administration, Democratic reactions during the Reagan Administration, and likely more before then). I like civility, and when there are particular demonstrably uncivil statements, they should be condemned (as I’ve tried to do on occasion). But generic calls for civility against self-righteousness and “anger, indeed hate” of the government, in my experience, tend not to be very helpful to the public debate that they are supposed to be trying to elevate.

Intrusions on our networks have reached new heights.  They have moved from penetration of government and military systems to wholesale compromises of companies, trade associations, think tanks, and law firms.  Most of these attacks have been carried out for espionage purposes – stealing commercial, diplomatic, and military secrets on a massive scale. 

 This espionage campaign has paid dividends for our adversaries, and it’s likely to pay more, because any network that can be compromised for the purpose of espionage can be compromised for the purpose of sabotage.  The next time we face the prospect of a serious military conflict, we can expect our adversaries to threaten the destruction of computer networks – and the civilian infrastructure they support – inside the United States, probably before we have fired a shot.  From the American point of view, this is a new and profoundly destabilizing vulnerability. From our adversaries’ point of view, it is an exciting new weapon with enormous potential to neutralize many of our traditional military advantages.

 To make things worse, one of the countries that the Obama administration has criticized most often for cyberattacks, China, is also a major supplier of increasingly sophisticated electronic equipment to the United States.  Given the value of cyberespionage for waging both war and peace, it’s only reasonable to assume that every potential adversary asks itself whether it can make the job of its cyberwarriors easier by tinkering with electronic gear before it’s shipped to the United States. Or, as I put it in Skating on Stilts, a book about technology challenges to policymakers, if the “countries that [view] us as an intelligence target … could get their companies to compromise U.S. networks, they’d do it in a heartbeat.”

The remainder of the testimony discusses the limited legal authority that government has to deal with the risk of “intrusion-friendly” technology from abroad:

CFIUS is an inadequate tool for this job.  It gives the government only haphazard insight and leverage over the security of telecommunications and information technology.  That’s because CFIUS has jurisdiction only over corporate acquisitions.  Team Telecom, which I also oversaw from a DHS perspective, adds a bit to that authority, giving national security agencies an ability to impose conditions on foreign telecommunications carriers seeking Federal Communications Commission licenses to operate in the United States.  But Team Telecom has no explicit authority in law; its reach is no greater than the FCC’s.  As a result, even the most dangerous and unreliable suppliers of commercial telecom and IT equipment are free to sell their products in the United States without an inquiry into the security risks the products may pose.

I close with a look at new measures emerging from the government’s recent focus on this risk, from the executive order on cybersecurity to various provisions adopted under the defense authorization or the appropriations process.

Full testimony is here: Baker testimony to House Commerce on supply chain security.

PHOTO: Mschel

“This is not a typographical error. CTIA—The Wireless Association was the name of the petitioner. CTIA is presumably an (unpronounceable) acronym, but even the organization’s website does not say what itstands for. That secret, known only to wireless-service-provider insiders, we will not disclose here.”

This is a really embarrassing bit of nonsense — smarmy and snarky and extraordinarily stupid.

First:  0.45 seconds of work reveals that CTIA originally stood for the “Cellular Telephone Industry Association.”  It’s not a big mystery, “known only to wireless-service-provider insiders”: that’s what it says on the organization’s Wikipedia page.  So Scalia’s footnote communicates, to me, that he has never heard of “the Internet” and the very amazing things called “search engines” that let you “retrieve information” very, very quickly

And why that snarky remark about how it’s unpronounceable?  Let’s see ... can Justice Scalia pronounce “FBI”?  (here’s a hint: “eff-bee-eye”).  DHS?    KLM Airlines?

If this were a student paper, I’d circle this and write something like:  “Really bad footnote – why highlight your own cluelessness in the very first footnote.”  From the Supreme Court, it’s really a bit embarrassing.  Reminds me, again, of what Justice Jackson said many years ago:  We’re not final because we’re infallible, we’re infallible because we’re final.

[Thanks to Peter Shane for the pointer]

It is also significant that the final draft [of the Establishment Clause] contains the word “respecting.” Like “touching,” “respecting” means concerning, or with reference to. But it also means with respect — that is, “reverence,” “good will,” “regard” — to. [Footnote: "Respect," as defined in T. Sheridan, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (6th ed. 1796). See S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (7th ed. 1785); see also The Oxford English Dictionary 733-734 (1989); Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 1004 (1988).] Taking into account this richer meaning, the Establishment Clause, in banning laws that concern religion, especially prohibits those that pay homage to religion.

This seems to be a very weak argument — more a play on words than legal analysis.

First, the Clause doesn’t ban laws respecting religion. It bans laws respecting an establishment of religion.

Second, the fact that an English word has multiple meanings doesn’t mean all those meanings are applicable in each context. Indeed, any usage of a word in a legal document (rather than in a joke or in a poem) is usually understood as triggering just one meaning, at least when the meanings are relatively far removed from each other.

For instance, one can debate what “common law” means in the Seventh Amendment protection of a jury trial in suits “at common law,” since at various times (and even at the time of the Framing) “common law” has meant several things: (1) judge-made law (or, if you prefer, judge-found law, though that’s a legal fiction) as opposed to statutes, (2) a particular body of law that was once made by judges, even if now it is codified in statute, as opposed to law that was originally created by a legislature, (3) Anglo-American law as opposed to European civil law, which is derived from Roman law, and (4) law that is sufficiently linked to the sort of law historically enforced in common-law courts as opposed to the sort of law historically enforced in so-called courts of equity. But once courts conclude — and rightly so, I think — that “common law” in the Seventh Amendment is rightly understood using definition 4, they don’t then also bring in the other definitions.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” has long been understood to mean “no law with reference to establishment of religion” [UPDATE: i.e., either an establishment of a national religion or an interference with state establishments of religion] and this understanding of the word “respecting” was pretty clearly the understanding at the time of the Framing (as well as the Fourteenth Amendment). Compare, for instance, article IV, sec. 3, cl. 2 (emphasis added): “The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.” Or compare the uses of the word “respecting” in the Federalist. That doesn’t tell us just what qualifies as a law that is with reference to establishment of religion [UPDATE: nor does it tell us how the Fourteenth Amendment should affect all this]; but it does give us a general sense of the meaning of “respecting,” though not the meaning of “establishment of religion.”

What reason is there to then read “no law respecting an establishment of religion” as also having the “richer” meaning of “no law that expresses reverence for religion” (omitting the phrase “establishment of” before “religion”)? I see none, other than an interpreter’s preference for the particular result.

Although modern administrative agencies fit most comfortably within the Executive Branch, as a practical matter they exercise legislative power, by promulgating regulations with the force of law; executive power, by policing compliance with those regulations; and judicial power, by adjudicating enforcement actions and imposing sanctions on those found to have violated their rules.

Scalia’s majority opinion responds that

the dissent overstates when it claims that agencies exercise “legislative power” and “judicial power.” The former is vested exclusively in Congress, U. S. Const., Art. I, §1, the latter in the “one supreme Court” and “such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,” Art. III, §1. Agencies make rules (“Private cattle may be grazed on public lands X, Y, and Z subject to certain conditions”) and conduct adjudications (“This rancher’s grazing permit is revoked for violation of the conditions”) and have done so since the beginning of the Republic. These activities take “legislative” and “judicial” forms, but they are exercises of—indeed, under our constitutional structure they must be exercises of—the “executive Power.” Art. II, §1, cl. 1.

Note that Roberts is saying that “as a practical matter” they exercise legislative and judicial power, and Scalia is saying that as a constitutional matter they don’t. But perhaps Roberts has come to the conclusion that, as a constitutional matter, agencies exercise these powers as well. Justice Stevens, after all, said as much in his concurrence in Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc.

Or that at least is the narrow question raised by the case. But I think it’s also possible that the Court may use the case as a means of reconsidering the “endorsement test,” under which the Establishment Clause is read as barring government speech (or even government action) that a “reasonable observer” would see as “endorsing or disapproving” of religion (either a particular religion or religion generally). The test has long been controversial; it was relied on by the decision below, so it’s very much in play in this case; and I suspect that there are five votes to overrule it. (Justices Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas are on the record as rejecting it, and I suspect Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito take a similar view.) Should be a very interesting decision, which will be out in the first half of next year.

According to the majority opinion signed by Judges Merritt and joined by Judge Martin, the Equal Protection Clause requires judges to disregard bodies of law that have known racially discriminatory effects. That’s the case because applying law that has a known discriminatory impact would be an intentional act of discrimination by judges that the Equal Protection clause forbids. Here’s the key part of the opinion:

In view of the statistical facts and the widespread congressional consensus leading to the adoption of the Fair Sentencing Act’s remedial provisions [replacing the 100-1 ratio in 2010 with an 18-1 ratio], there can be no doubt that the old crack law was racially discriminatory in effect. As a matter of legal doctrine, there is no equal protection violation without discriminatory intent. See Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (1976). When the old 100-to-1 crack cocaine statute was adopted, it presumably did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because there was no intent or design to discriminate on a racial basis. Its adoption was simply a mistake. Since 1986, however, we have gained knowledge of the old statute’s devastating effect on blacks. Congress itself acknowledged this problem by enacting the Fair Sentencing Act.

The Fair Sentencing Act was a step forward, but it did not finish the job. The racial discrimination continues by virtue of a web of statutes, sentencing guidelines, and court cases that maintain the harsh provisions for those defendants sentenced before the Fair Sentencing Act. If we continue now with a construction of the statute that perpetuates the discrimination, there is no longer any defense that the discrimination is unintentional. The discriminatory nature of the old sentencing regime is so obvious that it cannot seriously be argued that race does not play a role in the failure to retroactively apply the Fair Sentencing Act. A “disparate impact” case now becomes an intentional subjugation or discriminatory purpose case. Like slavery and Jim Crow laws, the intentional maintenance of discriminatory sentences is a denial of equal protection.

As I understand the reasoning, Judges Merritt and Martin work around the requirement of invidious purpose to discriminate by saying that judicial application of laws with known discriminatory effect forces the judges to have invidious purpose to discriminate when they apply the law. In other words, discriminatory effect plus awareness of it amounts to intentional discrimination in the act of applying the law. And the need to avoid discrimination not only trumps the law but also trumps binding precedents saying that the law is constitutional. The argument doesn’t work on its face, as a judge who applies binding law that may have a discriminatory effect does so not because she wants to achieve a discriminatory result but because that result is what the controlling law requires. But in any event, Judge Gilman’s dissent nicely points out the binding precedent to the contrary. The majority doesn’t even bother with much of a response to Judge Gilman’s dissent: See Footnote 6, which for the most part doesn’t even track forms of legal argument.

I agree that the 100-1 disparity was terrible policy. But the majority’s constitutional analysis strikes me as not just wrong but obviously so.

Also, over at Slate, Emily Bazelon and former VC blogger Eric Posner debate whether the subpoenas of the AP records were justified. Eric gets the better of the argument, I think, but it’s a helpful exchange either way.

Nonetheless, the negatives outweigh the positives. Unsurprisingly, Into Darkness has most of the same flaws as the previous Abrams Star Trek movie, which I criticized here. Both films essential turn Star Trek into an action movie that just happens to utilize Trek characters and settings. I am far from an uncritical admirer of Star Trek as envisioned by Gene Roddenberry and his successors. Nor was I ever the kind of fanatical Trekkie who goes to conventions wearing Vulcan ears or signs up for classes at the Klingon Language Institute. But, despite its many flaws, I admired the Star Trek franchise’s willingness to take on big questions about the kind of future we should want for humanity. Abrams’ “reboot” essentially ignores all serious issues, and just ramps up the action. I don’t deny that a “reboot” may have been needed, given the poor quality of the last several old-line Star Trek movies; but not a reboot that jettisons almost everything that made Star Trek interesting and unique.

In addition, Into Darkness has huge plot holes big enough to fly a whole fleet of Romulan warbirds through. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I won’t go through them in detail. I will only note that, for the Federation to get into the predicament that is the main focus of the plot, Star Fleet’s leadership would have to be ridiculously stupid. To take just one of many examples, it seems that Star Fleet Headquarters and Earth generally have no fixed defenses of any kind against incoming warships and missiles, even though previous history clearly established that such defenses are both feasible given the level of their technology, and clearly necessary, given previous enemy attacks. Yet none of the characters even mention this and other comparably ridiculous mistakes, not even the supposedly hyper-logical Mr. Spock (who makes some whopping errors of his own in the movie, which are also ignored by the other characters).

Perhaps the real implicit message of the reboot movies is to endorse the views of social critics who worry that advancing technology has bred a “generation of nincompoops.” Maybe the producers expect the nincompoopery to get even worse in the future, infecting Vulcans and Klingons as well as humans. Indeed, if the Klingons, Romulans, and other rivals of the Federation were minimally competent, it’s hard to understand how the Star Fleet portrayed in the reboot movies could possibly have become a major power in the galaxy. Maybe the “darkness” into which the Federation has descended is a severe outbreak of extreme stupidity among Star Fleet’s best and brightest. Although I strongly disagree with this kind of technopessimism, a science fiction series that seriously explored the idea that high technology leads to a “dumbed down” society might be interesting. Unfortunately, Abrams’ movies seem to raise the issue only unintentionally.

UPDATE: Mike Rappaport responds to this post here:

I agree with Ilya that the new movie fails to address the serious questions, but I think that was largely true of all of the Star Trek movies – especially the good ones. It was the series – and especially some of the individual episodes – that really addressed these matters. And, of course, it is a lot easier to do that in a series....

[T]he new movie and the rebooted movie series were able to accomplish something that the old movies never achieved: the first two consecutive movies were both good. The old series of movies, peculiarly but consistently, generated one good movie only to be followed by a bad movie. That was frustrating. Star Trek: Into Darkness was able to avoid this affliction.

I agree that serious issues are easier to address in a TV series than in a movie. But I think Mike is too soft on the Abrams movies (neither of which were actually good, given the stupidity of their plots, and the weak characterization in the first one), and too hard on some of the earlier Star Trek movies. The first two earlier movies were both good and took on serious issues. The first movie addressed the nature of sentience, while the second took on the ethics of genetic engineering and revenge. And both had at least minimally intelligent plots, which is more than can be said for either Abrams production.

With Wurie today and the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Smallwood a few weeks ago, I would think that Supreme Court review of this legal question is highly likely sometime soon. (Notably, Deputy SG Michael Dreeben argued Wurie for DOJ.)

For my own views on the question, see my short essay Foreword: Accounting for Technological Change, 36 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 403 (2013).

Stanford UP has created a website for the book. You can, if you like, preorder the book there. We even have a special coupon code just for Volokh Conspiracy readers that will give you a 20% discount at the Stanford site; the code is S13LAW. OK, actually the code is available to anyone who wants to use it. But at least VC readers will now be the first to find out about it! You can also preorder the book at Amazon, while still being eligible for any price reductions that either Amazon or Stanford UP adopt between now and the publication date.

We all get frustrated. After an examiner rejected his client’s application for a telescoping tripod sprinkler, patent attorney Andrew Schroeder could no longer resist and filed the following remarks:

REMARKS: Are you drunk? No, seriously…are you drinking scotch and whiskey with a side of crack cocaine while you “examine” patent applications? (Heavy emphasis on the quotes.) Do you just mail merge rejection letters from your home? Is that what taxpayers are getting in exchange for your services? Have you even read the patent application? I’m curious. Because you either haven’t read the patent application or are… (I don’t want to say the “R” word) “Special.”

Numerous examples abound in terms of this particular Examiner not following the law. Clearly, the combination of references would render the final product to be inoperable for its intended use. However, for this Special Needs Examiner, logic just doesn’t cut it. It is manifestly clear that this Examiner has a huge financial incentive to reject patent applications so he gets a nice Christmas bonus at the end of the year. When in doubt, reject right?

Since when did the USPTO become a post World War II jobs program? What’s the point of hiring 2,000 additional examiners when 2,000 rubber stamps would suffice just fine? So, tell me something Corky…what would it take for a patent application to be approved? Do we have to write patent applications in crayon? Does a patent application have to come with some sort of pop-up book? Do you have to be a family member or some big law firm who incentivizes you with some other special deal? What does it take Corky?

Perhaps you might want to take your job seriously and actually give a sh.t! What’s the point in having to deal with you Special Olympics rejects when we should just go straight to Appeals? While you idiots sit around in bathtubs farting and picking your noses, you should know that there are people out here who actually give a sh.t about their careers, their work, and their dreams.

Your job is not a joke, but you are turning it into a regular three ring circus. If you can’t motivate yourself to take your job seriously, then you need to quit and let someone else take over what that actually wants to do the job right.

See U.S. Patent Application No. 13/068530 (PAIR). [Update: It appears that the PTO has now removed the letter from the file history.] ...

An effective way for a patent lawyer to communicate with the patent office? You decide.

But Andrew Schroeder wasn’t done — instead of posting an apology (which I expect Patently-O would have been glad to post), or even just ignoring the publicity, he doubled down on rude, with several posts such as this one, calling Prof. Crouch a “dickhead” and then using various further vulgarities. This unsurprisingly led to more coverage, for instance at Above The Law and TechDirt.

The reputational consequences of these communications to Mr. Schroeder can be seen by Googling Andrew Schroeder patent. There is one bit of good news from this, though: The winners are Mr. Schroeder’s prospective clients, who can now more easily get a sense of the sort of conduct that they can expect from him.

Despite this capitulation, I will not be completely assimilated into the Twitterverse. Given my rational ignorance about pop culture other than sports and science fiction, I won’t be tweeting any celebrity-related gossip. Not even if I somehow turn into the Twitter equivalent of Locutus. Instead, I will most likely be using the account to tweet about my activities elsewhere, such as recent or forthcoming books, articles, speaking appearances, and the like.