TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (24)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Tuesday, July 26; link good at time of posting):

Callers complaining about loud music coming from a buggy led deputies to charge a 19-year-old Amish man with stealing house numbers and flower pots. David Byler was charged with theft and underage consumption of alcohol, both misdemeanors.

Callers to the Geauga County sheriff's office told dispatchers early Sunday about a buggy playing loud music and stealing items from outside houses in a rural area of northeast Ohio.

"When our officer caught up with him in the middle of the road, there were flower pots and house numbers in the buggy," sheriff's spokesman John Hiscox said.

[Previous TGIS]

Incisive Legal Analysis? Sage Personal Advice? It's Both!

The Appellate Law & Practice blog reports this morning on a case from the Fifth Circuit in which a drug raid on a woman's home, where she lived with her boyfriend, yielded (in addition to the drugs sought) a gun. The woman initially testified to the grand jury that the gun belonged to her boyfriend; she subsequently recanted in an affidavit and claimed ownership herself. Flip-flopping once again, however, she qualified to run as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States she signed another affidavit repudiating the first and claimed once again that the gun belonged to her boyfriend.

Valiantly attempting to unravel the web spun by this serial affiant/perjurer, the Assistant United States Attorney assigned to the affair found (albeit based again upon a sworn statement offered by the selfsame serial affiant/perjurer) that a conspiracy between girlfriend and boyfriend to prevent his conviction on a firearms charge had caused the initial change in the girlfriend's testimony. A motion to compel production of the boyfriend's former attorney's notes to conform that attorney's involvement in the scheme bought the case a ticket to the Court of Appeals.

AL&P notes that this scenario is not all that unusual and concludes with a few words of advice for young ladies (or for those of us raising them):

Although this story is a particularly tangled addition to the genre, the girlfriend lying to cover her drugdealing boyfriend's ass, in my experience, is not uncommon. I saw it in one case I worked on recently, and that girlfriend ended up getting slapped with an obstruction of justice enhancement to her own sentence. The phenomenon of girlfriend's getting tagged because of her boyfriend's drug dealing is so common that it's been dubbed The Girlfriend Problem.

The moral of these stories is, don't lie to the police to save your boyfriend and don't let him keep his stash in your house. I mean, really! I know a good man is hard to find, but he's just not worth it, girlfriend!

I have filed this valuable advice away for use in the (very, very distant) future when my daughter begins to date (if ever -- it might never happen -- happy place, happy place . . . ). I'm adding "Keep her from becoming a dupe for a guns-and-drugs boyfriend" to the top of the parenting to-do list, right ahead of Chris Rock's admonition to fathers of daughters that, "You got to keep her off the pole!" Honey, don't date a drug dealer, don't perjure yourself before a grand jury, and don't become a stripper. Let's go for ice cream now and never need to mention these things again, OK?

Elementary, My Dear Vermeer

Today's Wall Street Journal reports an interesting intiative in police work -- the use of classical artworks to improve one's skills of observation and detection (front page .pdf available gratis; full article online available, but not-so-gratis):

Capt. Ernest Pappas frowned in concentration as he stood before Vermeer's "Mistress and Maid" in the Frick's plush West Gallery and was asked to describe the painting.

"This woman is right-handed, of well-to-do means, and the pen appears to be in the dropped position," Mr. Pappas said, assessing the mistress. Unsure about the other figure in the picture, the maid, the 42-year-old asked his colleagues whether they thought she was delivering bad news. "Is she assuming a defensive position? Do you think that's a smirk?"

Though he hadn't so carefully analyzed a painting before, Mr. Pappas immediately saw how it related to his detective work in Queens: "Crimes -- and art -- can be solved by looking at the little details."

. . . .

Standing in front of El Greco's "The Purification of the Temple," David Grossi, an NYPD captain, recognized Jesus as the painting's central figure, characterized the scene as chaotic and explained the work's use of light and color.

"The gang unit would probably be called in," he continued. "It appears there's grand larceny here, felony assault there, and Jesus would probably be charged with inciting a riot." Counting 17 people in the scene, he added: "Good thing there are plenty of witnesses."

. . . .

Giovanni Bellini's "St. Francis in the Desert," one of the Frick's most prized works, is usually considered a masterpiece of landscape or spirituality, or both. This summer, a group of captains offered a more modern assessment of the 15th-century work. "As a police officer, I have to say we have an EDP here," said Capt. Donald McHugh, using the police code word for emotionally disturbed person. Pointing to a skull and a jug of wine near St. Francis's feet, Mr. McHugh argued the piece could be depicting a crime scene. "Even people of God can be suspicious," he told the group. "He'd probably be a voluntary arrest, though, no handcuffs."

What would Jesus do? He might incite a riot, but that depends on your point-of-view. Regardless, he'd probably be a voluntary arrest -- no handcuffs. Judas, your snitch money is ready whenever you come for it. Just ask for Sergeant Pilate.

If the fine arts can improve New York's finest, can something similar be done for attorneys? I recently received an education flyer from the Oregon State Bar describing an upcoming seminar designed around the recent novel After Dark, by bestselling author and Oregon attorney Phillip Margolin. Perhaps the continuing education seminar of the near future will look more like Oprah's Book Club and the first year of law school will feature Homer in addition to The Hairy Hand. We all know the Dashwoods of Sense and Sensibility could have used some more sensible estate planning. Let's discuss.

The Vista Cruiser Keeps On Rolling

Engadget picks up where I left off last Friday and this morning:

[T]he title of crankiest man in Washington State was officially awarded to John Wall, head of Redmond-based tech services company Vista, Inc. Wall’s company owns a trademark on the name “Vista,” and he’s now considering his options, which could include taking his neighbor to court — though he’d like to at least chew the fat over the back fence first. “We’re going to consider our options and talk to them,” he told the Seattle Times. Wall isn’t alone. Among the companies that could be affected by the new name are La Jolla, California, based Vista Software, and Warren, Ohio’s Vista Window Co., which makes, you guessed it, Windows.

Sixteen Candles for Blawg Review

The sixteenth issue of Blawg Review is now available, courtesy of the Objective Justice blog. While the bulk of the issue is devoted to analysis of some nomination which was made last week (Details please, anyone? This one seems to have flown beneath my radar.), Evan Brown and I take note of the decision by Microsoft to dub their next-generation Windows OS "Vista".

Evan takes the lead in pointing-out some possible trademark weirdness on Vista's horizon, but neither of us hazards a guess as to why Microsoft has chosen to build a new market around "Vista" when their development code name, "Longhorn", already has tremendous brand recognition within their anticipated market. My own theory is that secret zoological research conducted by Microsoft wherein Longhorns and Tigers were pitted against one another in steel-cage death matches revealed that Bos taurus was severely overmatched by Panthera tigris. The stakes are high in the upcoming round of OS wars and the steaks are thick and juicy in the Microsoft cafeteria; both facts tend to support my theory, which I will henceforth, for trademark purposes, refer to as Vista™. Any objections?

According to Judge Posner, Blawg Review is "a world where inexperienced editors make articles about the wrong topics worse." Have you seen or written an article about the wrong legal topic in the past week which you think Blawg Review's inexperienced editors could make worse? If so, peruse the submission guidelines and make your recommendations; the deadline for submissions is each Saturday evening for the following Monday's issue.

Vistarded?

Evan Brown makes an interesting observation:

Has Microsoft forgotten to file a trademark application for the name of its new operating system?

Microsoft has announced that the name of its new operating system coming out next year will be called "Vista." As of the date of this posting, a search of the records of the United States Patent and Trademark Office reveals no applications on file for the mark VISTA owned by Microsoft. If this an oversight or merely a consequence of the several day backlog for getting information about new applications online?

A quick check of the Patent and Trademark Office's TESS trademark search system using the query string "(vista)[FM] and (software)[GS]" (wherein "vista" is the Full Mark and "software" is within the Goods and Services field) turns up 43 hits, of which 16 are live registered marks. The elevator company Thyssen has a couple for its control software (registration numbers 2974298 and 2903863). The Veterans Administration uses that name for its medical records management software, which they are (or soon will be) giving away to doctors nationwide.

I'm curious what Vista Software, a Microsoft database partner, makes of all this.

[Update]

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (23)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Tuesday, July 19; link good at time of posting):

A former Boston Herald columnist was fired from a part-time job teaching journalism at Boston University after posting a note on an Internet site that a female student was "incredibly hot."

Michael Gee, a 17-year veteran of the Herald, was hired by Boston University to teach an introductory journalism course. He had been among dozens of staffers who left the newspaper this spring amid job cuts.

On July 5, Gee wrote on the sportsjournalists.com Web site about his first day teaching and mentioned the student, according to a Web log run by sports media critic David Scott on http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com.

"Of my six students, one (the smartest, wouldn't you know it?) is incredibly hot. ... It was all I could do to remember the other five students."

Gee was fired July 13, according to Bob Zelnick, chairman of BU's journalism department. Zelnick said the posting violated the trust essential to the student-teacher relationship.

Students "have to be confident their work will judged impartially" and not on the basis of their looks, he said.

. . . .

Gee declined to comment when reached at home on Tuesday by The Associated Press. In a posting after he was fired, Gee called his remarks "pathetic, juvenile, and boorish," according to Scott's log. He said he was "deeply ashamed" of them and would make no further public comment.

[Previous TGIS]

Guten Tag, Mein Hair

Reuters' "Oddly Enough" section, which tends to be more balanced and accurate than their mainstream news coverage, reports that:

Bald men in Germany have no entitlement to state support for toupees, a court ruled on Wednesday.

Throwing out a legal challenge by a bald 46-year-old man, the court said the state was not discriminating against men even though health insurance covers the cost of wigs for women.

"In contrast to women, the involuntary loss of hair among men is common and accepted as nothing out of the ordinary," the court ruled, rejecting the suit from the man who said he suffered because of his baldness.

He filed the suit when the state health insurance system refused his claim for a 440 euro toupee.

"The state health insurance only has to pay for hair replacement when a bald head disfigures a person so severely that they would be ostracised from public life," the court added. "That is not the case with men."

Notwithstanding the court's recent ruling however, any German unable to grow his own small moustache can be provided one at no charge.

In unrelated but weirdly coincidental news, Michael Jackson is planning to move to Berlin. He will henceforth be known as the Kaiser of Pop.

The Madness of King George

Thanks to a message from the omnipresent "secretive editor of Blawg Review", I've been informed that Blogger George, Personal-Life George, and Lawyer George, mentioned here Monday last, have reconciled. I'm sure I speak for all of us in the blawging community when I wish the Georges all the best in their future shystering, blogging, and butt-sitting endeavors.

In other news, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee have reconciled and plan to wed for the third time.

Ah yes, 'tis the season for peace, love, and understanding. If she'd only take my calls, I'd tell my wife I love her.

The Krap Keeps Koming

Although details concerning the CardSystems Solutions data dumbassery, about which I posted last month, have been leaking out steadily (much like your personal data, it seems), two items this morning prompt me to offer this update.

The New York Times reports that Visa USA has terminated its relationship with CardSystems:

Visa USA said yesterday that it would stop allowing the payment processor CardSystems Solutions to handle its transactions, months after the processor left the records of millions of cardholders at risk for fraud.

"CardSystems has not corrected, and cannot at this point correct, the failure to provide proper data security for those accounts," said Tim Murphy, Visa's senior vice president for operations in a memorandum sent to several banks. "Visa USA has decided that CardSystems should not continue to participate as an agent in the Visa system."

. . . .

It is unclear if MasterCard and American Express will take similar action, but with Visa accounting for more than half of all card transactions, the move raises questions about the future of CardSystems.

"I've never heard of them booting off a processor," said Avivah Litan, a security analyst at Gartner Inc., a technology research group. "The worst thing that I've heard is a processor that had to cough up $1 million."

. . . .

Visa has given at least 11 banks, which hired CardSystems to handle the merchant transactions, until the end of October to change processors, the memo said. Until then, CardSystems will be allowed to process Visa transactions as long as it has corrected any problems and allows a Visa-affiliated monitor on site to oversee its operations in Tucson. CardSystems is also banned from handling Visa transactions from its international affiliates or any new merchants, processors or member banks in the United States.

. . . .

In the letter Visa sent to the banks, Mr. Murphy suggested that the data breach occurred as early as August 2004.

It is this last point which Jeremy Wagstaff, an outstanding technology columnist for Wall Street Journal Online and blogger at Loose Wire, investigates this morning:

The press release from ACI [Worldwide, a financial software vendor] quotes Australian Treasurer Peter Costello as having "recently told Parliament that National Australia Bank was actually the first bank in the world to uncover the fraud":

"It was the NAB that uncovered this fraud out of all the domestic and international banks of the world and reported it to MasterCard and Visa in September 2004," said Costello."

Wow. That's eight months before anyone else, since CardSystems didn't announce the fraud until May 22 2005.

. . . .

An updated report from Reuters the same day adds comments from MasterCard and Visa that shed further light on this:

"MasterCard spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin said, "We said from the beginning that it was reports of fraud from issuers that enabled us to do the analysis that led to CardSystems and led to the scope of this incident. One report of fraud would not necessarily have gotten us to that point."

"Visa spokeswoman Rosetta Jones said that when her company detects fraud, "banks are notified and accounts are closed. In this case, the National Australia Bank may have detected fraud late last year, but there was no clear indication that this fraud was part of a larger data compromise at that time.""

. . . .

So, as far as we can deduce from this, NAB, via its fancy software, spotted some kind of fraud taking place. That information was passed on to Visa and MasterCard sometime between September 2004 and January 2005. The FBI passed this information onto CardSystems at some point, although why everyone decided to sit on the information is unclear.

I'm glad that my earlier pessimism that the card issuers would not hold CardSystems' feet to the proverbial fire (unfortunately, not literal fire) appears to be without merit. Although MasterCard and American Express have not yet followed Visa's lead, I am now more optimistic that they soon will. An effective death penalty for CardSystems will remain in their peers' awareness far longer than this whole sorry affair is likely to remain in ours as consumers. As to the emerging issue whether the issuers themselves bear significant blame for their nonfeasance despite months of early warning from Down Under, well let's just wait and see.

"Some people are just into lavish dwarf entertainment."

When I say that I can't remember the specifics of my bachelor party, this should not be inferred as a criticism of my friends who participated -- far from it. It was just one of those events which was fun at the time but which fades from memory over the years, like the bar exam. I won't even try to remember it in coming years, however, as it and all other bachelor parties have now been officially eclipsed by the Mother of All Bachelor Parties ($ubscription required, unfortunately):

Even by Wall Street's over-the-top standards, the March 2003 bachelor party for Thomas Bruderman, a onetime star trader for Fidelity Investments, was an event to remember.

The festivities began with a trip by private jet from Boston to a small airport outside New York City. There, the revelers picked up some Wall Street traders and at least two women who investigators suspect may have been paid for their attendance, say people familiar with the matter. The partygoers -- including the groom-to-be, who was getting ready to marry the daughter of former Tyco International Ltd. boss L. Dennis Kozlowski -- then continued to trendy South Beach in Miami. The fun included a stay at the ritzy Delano Hotel for some, a yacht cruise and entertainment by at least one dwarf hired for the occasion.

"Some people are just into lavish dwarf entertainment," says the 4-foot-2 Danny Black, a part-owner in Shortdwarf.com, an outfit that rents dwarfs for parties starting at $149 an hour. Mr. Black says he spent part of the weekend on the yacht and worked as a waiter on the Friday night at a high-end Miami eatery alongside what he called "regular size" people. "A good time was had by all," he said, declining to provide further details.

But what really made this a memorable party is that it is now a focus of an investigation into possibly improper gratuities from Wall Street trading firms eager to get Fidelity's business. The National Association of Securities Dealers and the Securities and Exchange Commission are examining which Wall Street firms kicked in money for the weekend party. So far, at least three firms have been embroiled in the investigation. Jefferies Group Inc. paid for the plane, SG Cowen & Co. paid for the yacht, and Lazard Capital Markets paid for some of the hotel rooms, according to people familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, the party now figures into a broader criminal investigation by federal prosecutors. The U.S. attorney in Boston has impaneled a grand jury to determine whether some of the money flowing from brokerage firms to Fidelity was used to pay for prostitutes and drugs at the party and other events, according to people familiar with the matter. Among other things, investigators are trying to determine if Lazard paid for prostitutes at the bachelor party, the people say.

I can honestly say that when I got out of bed this morning, "lavish", "dwarf", and "entertainment" are three words I did not expect to see in the same sentence before 9 a.m. The rest of the day is downhill from here.

Blawg Review 15: Just Four Faces Short of Dr. Lao

The fifteenth issue of Blawg Review is now available, courtesy of George's Employment Blog and the "three Georges" -- Lawyer George, Blogger George, and Personal-Life George. Nothing from Infamy or Praise is there this week, so this issue looks to be especially good.

Interested in participating? Review the submission guidelines and recommend a worthy post you've seen in the past week or, if so inclined, a recent post of your own. The deadline for submissions is each Saturday evening for the following Monday's issue.

[Update]

Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead, However

Ars Technica reports today that:

OS/2 is finally about to join the choir invisible. IBM has said that they will no longer sell OS/2 or OS/2-related products effective December 23, 2005. Standard support (e.g., outside of a service contract) ends on December 31, 2006.

Originally released in 1987 and last updated in 1996, OS/2 has long since been given up for dead by most users. Indeed, there are fewer than 80 shops left with more than 10 active OS/2 licenses. IBM is recommending that customers still using OS/2 begin migrating to Linux.

In other news, OS/2 was still alive. No OS/2 users could be reached for comment. Or located, for that matter.

IBM is recommending that customers still using OS/2 begin migrating to Linux? Those folks don't need recommendations; they need cult deprogramming. It'll take at least until December 23 just to explain to them what the hell "Linux" is and talk them through the news that the Backstreet Boys have broken up.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (22)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Reuters (from Thursday, July 14; link good at time of posting):

A shoplifter sweltering in more than 10 pieces of stolen clothing while summer temperatures soared toward 86 degrees Fahrenheit was apprehended by security guards in the Belgian city of Antwerp.

Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws reported Thursday that the woman, aged 24, had been arrested after guards at a sports clothing shop in the busy commercial heart of the city noticed her bulky garb.

When detained, she was found to be wearing a jogging suit, a sweater, four polo shirts, three T-shirts, four sleeveless tops, a pair of shorts and trainers, the newspaper said.

[Previous TGIS]

Kevin Cruikshank

I've been informed that my friend and brother-in-law checks this blog to see if his name appears. Now it has. I suppose this means that my hitcounter will be one less each day from here on out.

Hopefully, This Investigation Won't Require 39 Steps

In an otherwise routine article in the Wall Street Journal Online ($ubscription required) concerning the London bombings and various issues relating thereto, the following paragraph caught my eye (emphasis added):

Although there have been a number of racially and religiously motivated hate crimes since the bombings, there have been fewer than experts expected. Some caused serious injury, but others did not cause serious damage, according to police. Police Commander Alfred Hitchcock told the press conference in Leeds that the police had already made five arrests in the case of a gasoline bomb left at a mosque.

Need a clever film tie-in for your Police Commander Alfred Hitchcock-related blog post in the coming weeks as the British investigation runs its course? Any of the following titles will probably work for you:

• Murder! (1930)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934, 1956)
• Sabotage (1936)
• Suspicion (1941)
• Saboteur (1942)
• Notorious (1946)
• Dial M for Murder (1954)

Less likely to be useful, however, will be the following:

• Young and Innocent (1937)
• Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
• I Confess (1953)
• The Wrong Man (1956)

Giving New Meaning to the Term "Islamofascists"

We have a winner in the competition for most intriguing headline (from today's Wall Street Journal Online [$ubscription required, though]): How a Mosque for Ex-Nazis Became Center of Radical Islam

Huh? Nazi Muslims? Gott im Himmel!

Buried in government and private archives are hundreds of documents that trace the battle to control the Islamic Center of Munich. Never before made public, the material shows how radical Islam established one of its first and most important beachheads in the West when a group of ex-Nazi soldiers decided to build a mosque.

The soldiers' presence in Munich was part of a nearly forgotten subplot to World War II: the decision by tens of thousands of Muslims in the Soviet Red Army to switch sides and fight for Hitler. After the war, thousands sought refuge in West Germany, building one of the largest Muslim communities in 1950s Europe.

. . . .

Postwar Munich was a ruined city packed with Muslim emigres fleeing persecution. While the West tried to observe and control them as valuable pawns in the Cold War, they encountered formidable rivals seeking their own power bases in Europe's burgeoning Muslim world.

Over the next few decades, four men would try successively to control the Munich mosque: a brilliant professor of Turkic studies, an imam in Hitler's SS, a charismatic Muslim writer with a world-wide following and a hard-nosed Muslim financier now under investigation for backing terrorism. Most favored some sort of accommodation with the West. But the victor had a bolder vision: a global Islam opposed to the ideals of secular democracy.

. . . .

For decades, German authorities paid little attention to the activities in Munich, viewing them as unconnected to German society. They were slow to grasp the warning signs. In 1993, after a car-bomb attack on the World Trade Center in New York killed six and injured 1,000, investigators discovered that one of the organizers was Mahmoud Abouhalima, who had frequented the mosque. He was tried in the U.S. and in 1994 was sentenced to life in prison without parole. German domestic intelligence began to observe the mosque, intelligence officials say, but dropped their efforts after a short while when no links to terrorism appeared.

The Sept. 11 attacks changed that. Three of the four lead hijackers had studied in Germany, as did another key organizer. As German and U.S. law enforcement searched for clues, some, it is only now becoming apparent, led back to the Munich mosque.

It's gratifying to know that in an age of information overload, a story like this can still come seemingly out of nowhere and dazzle me.

P.S. to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg regarding "Indiana Jones 4" -- could there be better Indy antagonists than Radical Muslim Nazis?

Blawg Review XIV: The Sun Blawg

The fourteenth issue of Blawg Review is now available, courtesy of the Legal Commentary blog. Interested in participating? Review the submission guidelines and recommend a worthy post you've seen in the past week or, if so inclined, a recent post of your own. The deadline for submissions is each Saturday evening for the following Monday's issue.

Dean Wormer: The Most Influential Thinker of the 21st Century

In Animal House, Dean Wormer, played by the late John Vernon, cautioned that "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son." New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and the Waltham (Massachusetts) Police Department hope to get us two-thirds of the way toward realizing the promise of Dean Wormer's brave new world.

Hey there, tubby . . . Krugman's got your number:

In today's America, proposals to do something about rising obesity rates must contend with a public predisposed to believe that the market is always right and that the government always screws things up.

You can see these predispositions at work in an article printed last month in Amber Waves, a magazine published by the Department of Agriculture. The article is titled "Obesity Policy and the Law of Unintended Consequences," suggesting that government efforts to combat obesity are likely to be counterproductive. But the authors don't actually provide any examples of how that might happen.

And the authors suggest, without quite asserting it, that because people freely choose obesity in a free market, it must be a good thing.

"Americans' rapid weight gain may have nothing to do with market failure," the article says. "It may be a rational response to changing technology and prices. ... If consumers willingly trade off increased adiposity for working indoors and spending less time in the kitchen as well as for manageable weight-related health problems, then markets are not failing."

How can medical experts who see obesity as a critical problem deal with an ideological landscape tilted in the direction of doing nothing?

. . . .

[T]he most widely cited recent economic analysis of obesity, a 2003 paper by David Cutler, Edward Glaeser and Jesse Shapiro of Harvard University, declares that "at least some food consumption is almost certainly not rational." It goes on to present evidence that even adults have clear problems with self-control.

Above all, we need to put aside our anti-government prejudices and realize that the history of government interventions on behalf of public health, from the construction of sewer systems to the campaign against smoking, is one of consistent, life-enhancing success. Obesity is America's fastest-growing health problem; let's do something about it.

Of legal age to drink? At a friend's house? Not bothering anyone? In Waltham, Massachusetts, that's grounds for arrest. Call it EWI -- Existing While Intoxicated:

A man arrested when police showed up to break up a New Year's Eve party at a friend's house has filed a lawsuit, arguing he had a constitutional right to get drunk on private property as long as he didn't cause a public disturbance.

Eric Laverriere, 25, of Portland, Maine, was taken into protective custody by Waltham police and locked in a cell for nine hours until the effects of the alcohol wore off.

Legal experts said his lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Boston, is the first to challenge a state law allowing police to lock up drunk people against their will for their own protection.

Laverriere argues that the Massachusetts Protective Custody Law was written to combat public drunkenness and that the police had no right to use it to take him from a private residence. He also says he had planned to spend the night at his friend's and wasn't going to be driving anywhere.

"One thing people should be able to do is drink in their own house," Laverriere told The Boston Globe. "That's the beauty of the land of the free."

You have the right to be thin and sober; if you choose not to be thin and sober, the government will ensure that you are thin and sober anyhow. Dean Wormer would be proud.

Fleet Street Reacts to 7/7

The QandO Blog has a sampling of British editorial reaction to yesterday's events. From The Times of London:

There may be a few people inclined to make a link between the deaths in London and the intervention in Iraq. This is utterly flawed thinking. Al-Qaeda and its subsidiary branches began their sadistic campaign more than a decade ago and they did not require the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Baghdad as an extra incentive. London was not targeted because British troops are in Iraq or because of Tony Blair’s alliance with the Bush White House. Rather, London was attacked because these extremists want to ignite a “holy war” between themselves and democratic societies.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (21)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the BBC News (from Tuesday, July 5; link good at time of posting):

A Russian youth wearing a drag outfit which gave him improbably large breasts has been caught trying to sit an entrance exam for a female friend.

Moscow University security guards first thought the applicant had an oversized bust because "she" was trying to take crib sheets into the exam.

A search unmasked the false bosom, the university told the BBC News website.

. . . .

"The guard was suspicious that they were taking some materials into the exam. He opened the jacket and saw it was a young gentleman."

The youth was also apparently wearing heavy make-up.

[Previous TGIS]

A Grave Miscalculation

The center-left and center right blogs Democracy Arsenal and Chrenkoff (seventh update), respectively, both see something of a strategic miscalculation on the part of the al Qaeda-affiliated or al Qaeda-sympathizing group which has claimed responsibility for this morning's bombings in London. From Chrenkoff:

"Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan... We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all crusader governments that they will receive the same punishment if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan."

Pretty bad tactical mistake there - Iraq is unpopular, Afghanistan is not. Call for withdrawal from Iraq, and you're merely echoing public sentiment; call for withdrawal from Afghanistan, and you suddebly remind everyone about the war on terror, Al Qaeda, bin Laden, Taliban - all the nasty things that even the French and the Russians are united against.

From Democracy Arsenal:

Tony Blair is saying that the attack was timed to coincide with G-8:
"Just as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack or a series of terrorist attacks, it is also reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G-8."

Yet the group claiming responsibility, the "Secret Al Qaeda Jihad Organization in Europe," is saying instead that the attack was meant to retaliate for Great Britain's cooperation with the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If Al Qaeda was intending the second aim but has stumbled into the first, I hope and pray that they have made a drastic miscalculation. By hitting Great Britain at a time of most intimate involvement with the leaders of the world community -- not just at the G-8 summit but immediately after, for God's sake, the choice of London for the Olympics -- then Al Qaeda has f'ed this one up badly.

I suspect that the various al Qaeda groups face a catch-22 in planning and pursuing their misguided objectives. Grand and dramatic attacks like those upon the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Central London attract fanatics to their cause and give those already involved or already sympathetic something to cheer over, but these also tend to galvanize their opposition and strengthen the resolve of those attacked to continue and escalate the fight against terror. Alternately, a course of attrition -- exemplified by the ongoing hit-and-run insurgency in Iraq -- does more to sap the will of civilian populations and politicians to continue a usually-distant war, but depletes the human and material resources of the terror groups and their members' fighting spirit.

Either course of action leads to failure for the terrorists, as both offer only Pyhrric victories. With grand attacks on first-world civilian targets, the terrorists awaken and mobilize against themselves overwheming forces which can destroy them; with long wars of attrition, those forces may be temporarily checked, but the terrorists' ranks are gradually decimated and their ability to continue will be ultimately exhausted. Their only chance for victory in the latter scenario, that their industrialized Western opponents will choose to withdraw before the terrorists are destroyed, is made less likely by those same terrorists' "successes" like those this morning in London.

Tim Worstall's essay this morning at the Tech Central Station site is probably an accurate take on the likely effect of this morning's attacks upon the British populace. Quoting a line from Rule Britannia that "Britons never will be slaves", he writes:

And I think that's true. I don't think we ever will be slaves. I have no doubt that we can be killed, that we could even be conquered or beaten, but not that we would cower like slaves, give in to threats of further violence. Far from the "fear and panic from the north to the south" [predicted by the terrorists in their message] there is something very different going on . . . . [M]y fellow Britons? Give in, give up? No, I don't think so. We'll bury the dead, comfort the bereaved and carry on in the way we know best.

Neither the Nazis during The Blitz nor the Irish Republican Army later could break the resolve of Britain generally and London specifically; al Qaeda will not manage it now.

Forget the Incredible Popeman -- It's Supermandela!

The immortalization of world figures in comics continues. Back in April, we saw the birth of the Incredible Popeman (second item); now it's Nelson Mandela's turn:

South Africa's first black president Nelson Mandela is to become a comic strip hero in a new project aimed at encouraging young people to read, his charity foundation said.

"We are harnassing [sic] comics to get across the message and the values of Mr Mandela," John Samuel, chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said Thursday.

One million copies of each of the seven comic strips depicting Mandela's life will be distributed in newspapers and schools across South Africa as part of events celebrating the ex-president's 87th birthday on July 18.

. . . .

Samuel dismissed a suggestion that the world's most revered statesman should not be reduced to a comic figure.

"It would take a lot more than comics to demean his stature," said Samuel. "That's the least of our problems."

Only two more comic superheroes are needed to launch a Fantastic Four for the new milennium -- "Iron Lady" and Dalai La-man, anyone?

Lucky Number Thirteen

Lucky for us, the thirteenth issue of Blawg Review is now available, courtesy of none other than Thomas Jefferson's LiveJournal. As one of our nation's founding fathers and as the architect of the Declaration of Independence, President Jefferson graciously has consented to host special Independence Day edition of Blawg Review. Widely-noted for his extensive commentary throughout his lifetime on topics of greater and lesser importance, the much-admired statesman does not disappoint this week. One topic of lesser importance commented upon is this blog's post concerning anonymity and privacy from last month. The usual (but no less special) Blawg Review resumes next week; review the submission guidelines and recommend a worthy post you've seen in the past week or, if so inclined, a recent post of your own. The deadline for submissions is Saturday evening for next Monday's issue.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (20)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Wednesday, June 29; link good at time of posting):

Thinking he was sending an e-mail to an aide, Assemblyman Willis Stephens instead sent a note to nearly 300 constituents, making the following comment on their listserv: "Just watching the idiots pontificate."

In the message, meant for aide Beth Coursen, Stephens wrote that he subscribes to the Brewster-based online discussion group to monitor area happenings, but he doesn't post messages.

Usually.

The accidental note went out early Monday morning. Within an hour, Stephens sent another e-mail apologizing for the first one.

"To all who read and post on this group, I honestly enjoy reading most of what is exchanged on this site and do not direct my indiscreet characterizations to anyone in particular or to the group in general," he wrote. "In fact, now I most closely resemble the type of poster I described."

[Previous TGIS]