News & Media
It's Ammo! It's Seasoning! It's Both!
If you are a vegetarian, you may want to cringe now. I think this is the best idea since Shimmer Floor Wax/Dessert Topping. Brett W. Holm of Chaska, Minnesota got sick of finding metal pellets in the birds he shot and ate. So what did he do? He invented SPICE SHOT — ammunition comprised of spices formed into pellets. (source, TTABlog). Yep, all in one BANG, you can shoot, kill, and season a bird! Season Shot is made of tightly packed seasoning bound by a fully biodegradable food product. The seasoning is actually injected into the bird on impact seasoning
Antarctica is Not a Foreign Country (for Tax Purposes)
I’m not a tax guy, but stories like this make me want to get an LLM in tax and a collection of bowties. IRS regulations allow U.S. citizens who live and work in a foreign country to exclude up to $80,000 in foreign-earned income, which could result in a significant tax savings. David Arnett, a Wisconsin Resident, excluded $ 48,894 in income received from his 2001 income taxes due to his claim that he lived and worked in a foreign country. The foreign country? Antarctica. Arnett worked for Raytheon at McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica. In Smith v. United States,
"A Horse Walks Into a Bar" Makes His Appearance
The AutoAdmit saga continues: It seems that the defendant formerly known only as “A Horse Walks Into a Bar” has ridden onto the set, represented by counsel. As I reported on August 6, the plaintiffs filed their Second Amended Complaint (third try overall). In that complaint, they identified only one defendant by name, and in doing that, they managed to mis cross-identify the guy and cause a hail of feces to rain down upon an innocent man in the process. The AutoAdmit-sphere has long known that “A Horse Walks Into a Bar,” is actually an individual by the name of
Flori-duh ACT scores drop again
The Gainesville Sun reports: Florida posted a slightly lower score than last year to continue a steady decline on the ACT college entrance test while remaining remain mired in 48th place nationally, according to 2008 results released early Wednesday. In your FACE Michigan and Mississippi!
Gloucester Principal Resigns
In the latest chapter in the pregnancy pact fiasco, the Principal at Gloucester High School has resigned. The Gloucester Daily Times reports: Principal Joseph Sullivan, whose interview with Time magazine helped spark a global media frenzy over a possible pregnancy “pact” among some of the 18 pregnant students in his high school, announced yesterday he was resigning and retiring after 10 years in Gloucester. (source) Sullivan’s resignation letter reveals the foibles that got him into this situation. Sullivan complains about how he has been treated since the whole story broke (how does he think the town feels?), and blames everyone
Public Officials File SLAPP Suit, Win Ass-Hat Award
Phil Barlow and Doug Morten serve on the St. Helens, Oregon, City Council. From what I have read, they’ve served honorably. Citizen Sally Gump doesn’t agree, so she is organizing a recall campaign. (source) Barlow and Morten reacted by filing a defamation suit against Gump. (source) Whatever their record was before that incident, they have lost all credibility by filing what is certain to be a short-lived case. Their local paper hits it right on the head in Yes, actually, you can say such mean things Unless Gump is making false and defamatory statements about them as people rather than
I'm Boycotting the Olympics
I’m boycotting the Olympics. Before I could write my full explanation, Charles Haynes from the First Amendment Center wrote his… which is better than I would have done.
Virginia Obscenity Case Goes to Trial – Government Witness is Well Known Crackpot
Another day, another peckerwood community pisses on the First Amendment by trying to put consenting adults in jail for selling videos of consenting adults to other consenting adults. During this trial, the state intends to call Dr. Mary Anne Layden as an expert witness. She previously testified before the House Commerce Subcommittee on Technology, Trade and Consumer Protection on the proposed legislation that would become COPA. That law has been struck down repeatedly. Adult entertainment lawyer, Jeffrey Douglas was at that hearing and reports that Layden’s testimony was a bit less than credible. “She testified that a woman became a
Pink Pony Defies Daytona – Police Chief Gets All Gangsta
“Hey, you want to declare war? My gang’s bigger than his gang,” -Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood reacting to the news that Daytona’s Pink Pony Club has gone full nude, defying the local ordinance banning such entertainment in his otherwise high-brow community. I don’t mind a cop being firm, but when he sounds like and idiot who holds his gun sideways, it diminishes my confidence in him. He might as well have said “all y’all bitches betta put y’alls britches on or I is gonna put mah boot up y’alls ass.” At least then, we could have presumed that
Trojans over Cocks
It has nothing to do with what you might be thinking. This is a trademark story. See TTABlog.
Boston (T) Party — Judge Puts Gag Order on MIT Students in MBTA Hack Presentation
A federal judge granted the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority’s (MBTA) motion for an injunction preventing three MIT students from giving a presentation about how they had hacked the fare card system used by the MBTA’s subway turnstiles. (source) The MBTA’s complaint is here. The students were scheduled to give a presentation today at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas on the multiple methods they used to hack into the CharlieCard, an RFID device that the MBTA uses to keep track of fares on the “T”. The presentation, available here, here, here, and here, seems to demonstrate some very simple
You Will Show Loyal-TAH!
Delaware Online reports: The Delaware Republican Party’s standard-bearer in the 2006 race for U.S. Senate has been expelled from his position in the state GOP. Apparently he gave $250 to the Obama campaign and was photographed at an Obama rally. Oops. In all fairness, the Democrats are no better. I’ve been a registered Republican for 8 years. However, in 2004, I volunteered to work for the Kerry campaign’s poll watching crew because I believed that Republican efforts to suppress black votes were shameful. Someone found my name on a list and gave me a pretty big ration of shit over
Heller in Wisconsin
By Jonathon Blevins, Legal Satyricon Second Amendment Correspondent Recently, the Eastern District of Wisconsin denied a felon’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea. Kenneth Robinson plead guilty to possession of a firearm as a felon. See Case. The motion stated that in light of District of Columbia v. Heller 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008), the federal regulation of firearm possession by felons, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 922(g)(1), is unconstitutional as applied. The statute states, “it shall be unlawful for any person who has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year .
Dell's "Cloud Computing" Fiasco
Despite the generic nature of the term, “Cloud Computing,” Dell filed an intent-to-use application for a trademark registration for it. Nobody seemed to notice until a flurry of internet chatter roundly criticized Dell and the USPTO (example). Despite the fact that the USPTO initially issued a notice of allowance, the egg seems to have hit the right face and the notice of allowance has been withdrawn. Nobody seems to have heeded the call to stop a Finnish company from registering PWNAGE.
Another Amended Complaint in the Auto Admit Case
The Auto Admit plaintiffs have finally named a defendant. Other than that, not much of note in this latest installment in the AutoAdmit saga. The plaintiffs claim complete diversity of citizenship with respect to the new named defendant (formerly identified only as “:D”). However, they don’t make any such statement with respect to all the other defendants. Given the flimsy copyright claim in this complaint, I presume that the plaintiffs are trying to manufacture diversity jurisdiction. However, given the statements in the complaint, it seems like there couldn’t possibly be complete diversity with respect to all plaintiffs and defendants. At
Paris Hilton Opens Can of Whup Ass
Ok, I will never make fun of Paris Hilton again… not that I do anyhow. But I’m doing backflips watching McCain’s smug-assed campaign’s self esteem getting buggered. Watch this.
Republicans move to "clarify" the UIGEA
For months, Barney Frank (D-MA) has been trying to unravel the UIGEA — the law that Bill Frist tacked on to a Port Security bill, which may not have made online gambling illegal, but it sure scared all of the online gambling webmasters offshore. Now, Pete Sessions (R-TX) has proposed a bill to “clarify” the UGIEA. Source – Pokerlistings.com. The bill seeks to limit the definition of illegal online gambling to sports betting, which is illegal in 49 out of 50 U.S. states. Language in the bill also points out that the ambiguity in the definition of illegal online gambling
Why We Need Fair Use
Because there just ‘aint enough soul-music-hitler-humor these days… [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCJTR3XeiAc] HT: Andrew Sullivan
No, I did not Author any Questions on the MBE
I read on a blog somewhere, that there was an MBE question that went something like this: A woman wanted to get pregnant. A man, who had previously had a vasectomy, offered to have sex with her. He did not tell her that he was sterile. They had sex, and then the woman found out that the man was sterile. She wanted to bring rape charges against the man. (source – an anonymous reader) One of the answers was “fraud in the inducement did not constitute rape.” This fact pattern might sound awfully familiar to anyone who read Pickup Line
Steve, How do you Really Feel about Law Professors?
Steve H., over at Hog on Ice… tell us how you really feel about law professors: Ivy League attorneys don’t teach law for a relatively paltry hundred grand a year because they want to. A lot of them have no choice. Law schools are asylums for the idiot-savants of the profession. The people who graduate summa cum laude and then have to bail after six months at the public defender’s office, because they can’t hack it. Sure, there are exceptions. But they are unusual… Some successful attorneys teach part-time because they enjoy it, or because they feel they have to