News & Media
Around the Intertubes – March 13, 2011
By J. DeVoy Some recent finds that warrant sharing: At the re-vamped In Mala Fide, in which godfather Ferdinand Bardamu has assembled a stable of bloggers for a contribution-based society and political forum, 4chan and Anonymous receive an interesting and in-depth treatment. As the workforce and academy become more feminine, and men participate less in education, the workforce and their communities, Anonymous’ destructive antics are just one manifestation of men dropping out of society. Rather than playing Call of Duty for entertainment, though, they’re DDoS-ing Visa. Speaking of Anonymous, Zero Hedge reports that they’ll (allegedly) be picking up where Julian Assange failed and releasing damning information on Bank of America. At the heart of this embarrassment will be Bank of
This Just In: Bob Schieffer gets it dead wrong
Dear Bob, I have always been a fan. Therefore, I was very disappointed to read your recent column about the Westboro Baptist Church and the Snyder v. Phelps decision. In it you wrote: I’ve spent most of my life defending the First Amendment. But when the Supreme Court ruled last week that it gave a church group the right to picket a dead soldier’s funeral with signs that said, “God Hates You” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” I was appalled. Fair enough… so were we all, Bob. (as long as you were appalled by the speech, not by the ruling) The group believes our soldiers are dying because God is punishing America for tolerating gay people. That anyone would
Live Free or Die! I love the 603
New Hampshire is the safest place to run a porn company. Its State Supreme Court ruled in New Hampshire v. Theriault that applying the prostitution laws to erotic film production was not only a misapplication of the prostitution laws, but it was a violation of the New Hampshire Constitution’s free speech provisions. (post) Meanwhile, a newly-elected state rep in New Hampshire openly advocated in favor of eugenics. (source) Barrington Republican Martin Harty told Sharon Omand, a Strafford resident who manages a community mental health program, that “the world is too populated” and there are “too many defective people,” according to an e-mail account of the conversation by Omand. I don’t entirely oppose the theory of a eugenics program, as noted
Why the Westboro case should be porn’s victory as well
By J. DeVoy Mark Kernes has an insightful piece at AVN about what the Westboro case (Snyder v. Phelps – read Randazza’s commentary here) means to porn – or should have meant, if the Roberts court wasn’t consciously out to limit the Court’s holding to the facts in Snyder. Going beyond the political dimension of public concern, why aren’t matters of obvious social interest – measured by ratings, advertising dollars, headlines and column inches – accorded the same level of protection? By any of those metrics, sex is certainly a matter of factual public interest, yet apparently not accorded the same legal significance. It’s an interesting read, and Marks’ writing is better than a number of Opinions I’ve read, even
TSUNAMI IN SAN DIEGO!!!!!!
Footage of the Great San Diego Tsunami of 2011. [wpvideo zjjh313t]
March 9, 2011 – the point of no return
By J. DeVoy Well, America, it’s been a fun ride, but I think we should be parting ways sooner rather than later. We had a lot of good times together and I like a lot about you – your size and resources, the rule of law and well-defined rights for others – but I just don’t think it’s going to work for much longer. America’s debt problem doesn’t require much discussion: there’s a ton of it, Congress and the president aren’t cutting back, and we have little to show for it; all of that borrowing went to consumption, rather than infrastructure. In short, the country levered up on booze, pizza and a shitty cruise to Jamaica, rather than acquiring more
9th Circuit: Consumer Sophistication is an important determinant for AdWord bidding cases
by Jason Fischer For some time now, it has been a legal gray area whether bidding on a competitor’s trademarks as Google AdWords constituted infringement. Google has taken a neutral stance on the matter, only removing ads that actually make use of the mark in ad copy and directing unhappy trademark owners to take their dispute to a court of law for resolution. Finally, some of these cases are bubbling up through the federal court system and providing some precedent and guidance. The latest such decision comes out of the 9th Circuit and involves two software developers who sell licenses to high-end task management applications for businesses. Software Company A decided that it would be a good marketing strategy to
At least something is sacred
With all this talk about budget cuts across the board, at least there is something in the budget that will be kept sacred. Food for the hungry? Nope. Medical care? Nah. Social security? Nopers. Military aid to Israel.
POKEMON WORLD IS THE WORLD OF THE DEMONIC!!!!!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmNb3xJFzkc] h/t: Danny Ledone
Any readers on active duty? Operation Mesoporntamia
I had a good friend who was serving in Iraq. The only thing he wanted in care packages was high quality pornography. He is back now, and I have piles and piles of porn, generously donated by my clients, to give away. This porn is earmarked for active duty service members who are deployed overseas in a place where you can’t get porn. If you fit the bill, drop me a line and a care package will be sent your way. The only restrictions are: You must be active military You must be deployed overseas somewhere in the Middle East, or headed there soon You must agree to give the porn to your fellow soldiers when you are done with
Well that figures
I was just chuckling at myself, for being such a moron that I bought into that HOPE crap. Just to see what was there, I navigated over to HOPE.com. I found a completely appropriate web page there, a pay per click page that was full of links to worthless crap about loan modifications, debt consolidation, foreclosures, and online schools.
Fourth Circuit: You don’t have to choose between girls and booze
By Randazza & DeVoy In this recently released opinion from the Fourth Circuit, Gentlemen’s Clubs have won an important victory in their ability to serve alcohol as well as T’n’A on premises. The decision in Miller (Defendant-Appellant) v. Legend Night Club (Plaintiff-Appellee), Case No. 09-1540, released today, holds that a Maryland Statute that restricts the activities allowed at an alcohol-serving establishment is unconstitutionally overbroad. Among the conduct prohibited by Maryland Code Article 2B, §§ 10-405(c) and (d) is allowing patrons to caress or fondle employees’ breasts and buttocks, permitting “any employee or person to wear or use any device or covering exposed to view, which simulates the breast, genitals, anus, pubic hair or any portion of it,” the “display of
Stuff you can't do
If you’re a cop, you can’t pretend to be an inmate’s lawyer so that you can gather confidential information from the inmate to use against him in his prosecution. (source) If you’re a lawyer and you omit portions of a quote from a court opinion, you can’t do it without using ellipses to show that you’ve omitted something. This is especially true when you take out words that hurt your case and leave in the ones that help it. (source) You can’t run on that “HOPE” and “CHANGE” platform and then do MORE OF THE SAME CRAP. Well, you can, but you don’t get my vote in 2012. (source) You can’t use the word “faggot,” even if you’re really in
Civil Procedure Fun!
For those of you who are not lawyers, you can play too. A plaintiff files a defamation lawsuit. The plaintiff lives in California. The defendant lives in California too — in fact, just a few miles from the plaintiff. Where do you file the suit? A) California B) California, because you are not an imbecile C) California, because you are not an imbecile, and you have ethics D) Virginia If you answered D, you are “Internet defamation lawyer” Domingo J. Rivera!!!! (Or a reasonable facsimile). Okay, so what am I talking about? Public Citizen reports: Usha Rajagopal, a San Francisco cosmetic surgeon, has tried to use cosmetic surgery of a legal sort to improve the appearance of her online reviews.
Nice article about Judge Roll
I did not know Judge Roll, (the judge who died in the attack on Gabrielle Giffords) but he was the judge who swore me in to the D. Ariz. The few minutes I spent in front of him were memorable, and actually hilarious. There is a nice article about him in this month’s Arizona Attorney.
Probable cause = black guy with a $50 bill
The Flori-duh Department of Transportation has apparently been “illegally detaining” motorists who pay with large bills. The video at this link shows that tollbooth operators recorded the personal information about the people who used $20, $50, or $100 bills along with what made them so suspicious in the first place. Y’know, like being a young black male. (source)
Intellectual Property in Farm Operations?
This just in from the “could Flori-duh get any dumber” department. SB 1246 by Sen. Jim Norman, R-Tampa, would make it a first-degree felony to photograph a farm without first obtaining written permission from the owner. A farm is defined as any land “cultivated for the purpose of agricultural production, the raising and breeding of domestic animals or the storage of a commodity.” (source) It seems that the motivation for the bill is because PETA engages in undercover filming operations to expose animal abuse on farms. Of course, instead of targeting that behavior, the bill just sweeps all farm photography into one pile. Judy Dalglish, executive director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said shooting property from
Smokers, cut your bitching. Nannies, you do the same.
If there is one group of people that I don’t want to hear whining, it is the cigarette smoker. Imagine any other habit being half as obnoxious, and yet tolerated. Otherwise clean people smell like they slept in a dumpster (sorry guys, you do). They expel carcinogenic chemicals that you couldn’t even bury in a toxic waste dump without a visit from the feds. Meanwhile, those of us who elect to avoid this pollution are accused of infringing upon smokers’ “freedom” when we demand that they engage in their dirty habit somewhere that it doesn’t affect us. I am not prudish about the consumption of poison. I think that people should be allowed to consume liquor anywhere they please —
Scumbags Welcome!
One of the clergy members that I have always admired was an old Italian priest I knew years ago. His congregation was limited to a maximum security prison — including death row. He explained to me that ministering to the condemned was the most rewarding assignment he had ever received. He then explained a story from christian mythology to me that he found at Mark 2:17, In that passage, Jesus is eating and drinking with some real sleazeballs, and the “good people” take issue with him for it. And Jesus, hearing it, said to them, Those who are well have no need of a medical man, but those who are ill: I have come not to get the upright but
Shall we call it 'Nikki's Law'?
By J. DeVoy Illinois Representative Tom Holbrook introduced a bill in the Illinois legislature that would severely curtail the ability of third parties to take photos of accident scenes. (Source.) While the law would allow accident victims to take photos of their wrecked cars, Holbrook believes that citizen journalists often get in the way of emergency response personnel. In the article, he weaves an incredible hypothetical about a citizen-journalist using a cell phone over a fireman’s shoulders while he’s using the jaws of life to save the innocent passengers. After all, if you take photos of something that likely will be reported on the news anyway, grandma dies! For the politically inclined, fear not: the “or the Terrorists win” meme
