nobody reads my damn blog.
I recently found myself channeling the voice of Cookie Puss while having a conversation with my little sister. Cookie Puss was a seminal part of my tortured childhood.
Leave it to The Smoking Gun to parse through a pile of boring correspondence and pick out the damning and funny bits. The Bush-Miers letters were released this week by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission...
I almost passed out when I read that religion was a factor when Bush picked Harriet Miers. CNN reports:
President Bush said Wednesday his advisers were telling conservatives about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' religious beliefs because they are interested in her background and 'part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion.'
[F]or the men who wrote the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment the 'establishment' of a religion connoted sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity.See Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 664, 668 (1970).
I started podcasting about two months ago. I was really looking forward to producing my own shows, and wanted to compile and aggregate various pieces of classical music in unconventional programs. The format was simple: I would describe the "theme" of the show, and then play music for about 45 minutes. I envisioned it to be my own radio show. The "blog" section of my podcast would include a playlist and links to purchase the albums in their entirety. I quickly figured out that podcasting and streaming music are not the same thing, and, having a rudimentary understanding from law school [FN 1] that any move I made would probably violate some copyright law.
A great article from The New Republic about fifteen members of the Bush administration who are grossly unqualified for their jobs. Some are completely new names to me. The article requires a free registration to the New Republic, but it's worth the ten seconds of annoyance to read the article.
The Bush era has taken government out of the hands of the hyper-qualified and given it back to the common man. This new breed may not have what the credentialists sneeringly call 'relevant experience.' Their alma maters may not always be 'accredited.' But they have something the intellectual snobs of yore never had: loyalty. If not loyalty to country, then at least loyalty to party and to the guy who got them the job. And their loyalty has been rewarded: Even if they fail, they know they can move up the chain until they find a job they can succeed in or until a major American city is destroyed, whichever comes first.
Apparenty, Bush said God told him to invade Iraq. According to Arab leaders:
President Bush told two high-ranking Palestinian officials that he had been told by God to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and then create a Palestinian state to bring peace to the Middle East, they recall during a documentary on Middle East peace that airs next week in Britain.
"President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God,' " said Nabil Shaath, who was the Palestinian foreign minister at the time of a top-level meeting with Bush in June 2003. Mahmoud Abbas, then Palestinian prime minister and now the Palestinian Authority president, was also present for the conversation with Bush.
"God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ...' And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it," Shaath quotes the president as saying in the three-part series.
As much as I hate to admit it, John Roberts is probably going to make a good Chief Justice. Even a whining liberal like me can tell he has the experience and intelligence which make him qualified to run the Court. But Harriet Miers?
43 folders recently reminded me about wordspy.com, a dictionary of neologisms selected based on their frequent appearance in newspapers, magazines, and other recorded sources (cf.a "stunt word", which is "a nonce word coined just to show off"). I hadn't checked it in a while, and there were some additions I hadn't seen before. Some of my favorites include:
This post from the Legal Reader gives me the bar exam chills. It really is every lawyer's nightmare to get a case like this.
Plaintiff's counsel showed up for the first day of an anticipated two-day bench trial to determine whether her client had either a prescriptive easement or an easement by necessity over defendant's property -- without which, plaintiff's parcel would be 'land-locked' and inaccessible.
In the mind of Judge William Highberger of L.A. County Superior Court, the key piece of evidence was a deed from 1922. Plaintiff had produced a copy of the deed to defense counsel, who had used it as an exhibit to depositions and had questioned witnesses (including defendant) about it.
Plaintiff's counsel assumed that its authenticity was not an issue, and that defense counsel had waived any such objection by using it in depositions. So she didn't get defense counsel to stipulate to its authenticity, she didn't get a certified copy, and she didn't have a witness present who could authenticate it.
Essentially on his own, the judge raised the authenticity issue and ruled the deed inadmissible. He then refused plaintiff's request for a continuance until the next day to allow her to obtain a certified copy. He then invited defendant to move for 'judgment' due to plaintiff's failure of proof, and granted the motion.
Plaintiff's post-trial motions were denied, and plaintiff was left with an unusable and potentially worthless piece of real estate, without ever having had a hearing on the merits. All because the judge chose to be an unreasonable stickler that particular morning.
