I'm Blawg Review the Eighth I Am

The eighth issue of Blawg Review is now available, courtesy of the Crime & Federalism blog. My recent post about creative lawyering is included in this issue to balance out the excellent posts otherwise compiled therein.

Even if the blawg you love has been featured seven times before, review the submission guidelines and recommend an outstanding post you've read in the past week or one of your own recent posts, so long as you're not a Willy or a Sam (no Sam). The deadlines for submissions are each Saturday evening for the following Monday's issue.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (15)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Monday, May 23; link good at time of posting):

A man was injured when he jumped from a car traveling 55-60 mph in an effort to retrieve a cigarette blown out of a passenger-side window.

Jeff Foran, 38, suffered trauma to his nose, eyes and chin after leaping from the car Saturday night and landing on the eastbound lane Arkanas [sic] 234 near the Oklahoma border, state police Trooper Jamie Gravier said.

The driver of the car, Jerry Glenn Nelson, 44, of Haworth, Okla., said Foran had asked him earlier in the evening to be a designated driver after a night of drinking.

[Previous TGIS]

What Forest? All I See is a Bunch of Trees

From the Annals of Creative Lawyering (yes, that's "annals" with two n's) comes a pair of gems this morning. First up, it seems that all misappropriations of government resources are not created equal:

A Wisconsin jailer is off the hook for looking at Internet porn on the job -- he was just surfing online poker, instead.

An arbitrator has ruled Rock County didn't have proper cause to fire Dana Fichtner. Fichtner says the porn came from unwanted pop-up ads linked to the poker site.

The arbitrator agreed the county didn't have sufficient evidence that Fichtner intentionally accessed the X-rated Web pages. He could be back on the job next week, and is eligible for back pay and benefits, too.

Excellent. I'm reminded of an exchange between Dan Fielding and Bull Shannon on Night Court (which is, as confirmed yesterday by Bryan Curtis, the mythology of our generation) -- Dan confronts Bull and demands to know whether he slept with Dan's sister; Bull is indignant at the suggestion and explains that they "just had sex."

Next, attorneys for everyone's favorite drunk America West pilots (no, the other ones) explain that the qualifications for flying a jet aircraft include seeing, hearing, walking, and talking, and that by "include", they mean "are limited to":

Two former America West pilots charged with operating a plane full of passengers while drunk may have consumed alcohol and smelled of alcohol but they could still walk and see, their lawyers told a jury on Monday.

Pilots Christopher Hughes and Thomas Cloyd were hauled off an Airbus 319 in Miami on July 1, 2002, and charged with operating a plane under the influence of alcohol.

They were in the cockpit as the aircraft was being towed to the runway for takeoff from Miami International Airport on a flight to Phoenix, Arizona. But after a security screener reported the pilots were red-eyed, flushed and reeking of alcohol, air traffic controllers ordered the plane back to the gate.

Police said Cloyd's blood-alcohol reading was 0.091 and Hughes' was 0.084. Florida law assumes a vehicle operator, including the operator of a plane, to be drunk if his blood alcohol level is 0.08 or higher, and state authorities charged them with operating an aircraft while intoxicated.

The pair had played pool at a bar until 5 a.m. before the 10:30 a.m. flight and consumed 350 ounces of beer between them, the equivalent of nearly 22 pint glasses (10 litres), after earlier sharing a bottle of wine with two flight attendants, Assistant State Attorney Hillah Katz told jurors in opening statements at their trial.

. . . .

Defense attorneys said the pilots should not be convicted because they were not "operating" the plane at the time in question. The aircraft was being towed from the gate and the tug truck driver had control of the aircraft, they said.

"They couldn't endanger anyone as long as they were connected to that tug," said Cloyd's attorney, Dan Foodman.

The fact that the pair had consumed alcohol the night before and that they smelled of alcohol did not mean they were impaired, the defense attorneys said.

"Mr. Hughes was able to see, hear, walk, talk, etcetera," attorney James Rubin said of his client.

Has anyone tested this attorney's sobriety? For those of us who haven't yet saved enough box tops to get a pilot's license and a position with America West, perhaps we can still use this information in a pinch -- "While I may be legally drunk, Officer, I was able to talk my buddy into letting me drive, walk to my car, see your flashing lights, and hear your siren. Moreover, I'm not operating this car; I could not possibly endanger anyone so long as it's still wrapped around this tree."

Life at the Tail End of the Posse Food Chain

Two news items this morning:

1. Two members of Bobby Brown's entourage were hospitalized for treatment of knife wounds suffered during a fight at an Atlanta bar; and
2. Bobby Brown has an entourage.

Having no meaningful hobbies or close friends, I've often had occasion to wonder whether there is some hierarchy in the entourage business, and if so, whether hangers-on have professional development opportunities and inter-posse mobility.

For an up-and-coming celebrity, assembling one's first entourage must rank amongst the most daunting of tasks; how do you balance the various concerns to achieve and maintain posse nirvana? You need enough people in your entourage to convey a sense of gravitas, but not so many that you can't fit them all into your Escalade. You need a few peeps from the old neighborhood to assist you in "keeping it real", but too many would make your posse excessively provincial. Your entourage is a reflection of you, so you need a common theme -- will I have a bling posse or a protection posse? On occasion, the sheer amount of stress associated with assembling an optimal circle of sycophants has caused celebrities to freeze at key points in the process; when a first-time Oscar nominee takes his mother to the awards ceremony, it's not a charming expression of love and gratitude for said mother's past guidance and sacrifice, it's a cry for help.

The overlooked factor in all of this is the individual entourage member's personal value proposition; remember, the celebrity-sycophant relationship is, in essence, an at-will employment relationship which may be terminated by a posse member as readily as by his celebrity. What does an entourager do when his celebrity falls off the b-list? When one's celebrity can no longer support the posse in the manner to which it's become accustomed, how does one transition to a new position? On a more basic level, what are the warning signs which alert a posse member that his celebrity is tapped-out?

Let's consider several facts relevant to the Bobby Brown case study:

• Brown's last hit single as a solo artist was in 1992;
• His last solo album failed to chart within the top 50 albums, and that was eight years ago;
  
• This morning's incident occurred after Brown performed "during a weekly open microphone event";
• According to wordcount.org, "prerogative" is currently only the 13,826th most-frequently-used English word, 32 places behind "tuberculosis"; and
  
• The EPI (Entourage Price Index) has trended upward over the last three fiscal quarters.

Taken individually, these considerations might seem benign, but viewed as a whole the message is unmistakable -- Bobby Brown's entourage is not an optimal professional situation.

Sadly, although sycophancy is a growth field, there does not presently exist sufficient raw data on the social and economic forces within the industry to enable rational decision-making amongst its participants. Expensive, publicly-funded research will be necessary to establish reliable data models, but this truly would be an investment in our competitive future. The United States is the greatest celebrity-producing society in the history of mankind; to allow that competitive advantage to be undercut by either poorly-developed domestic posses or by an influx of better-organized but foreign-sourced entourages would be a tragedy beyond easy comprehension.

Blawg Review Se7en

The seventh issue of Blawg Review is now available, courtesy of Jeremy Richey's Blawg. Jeremy finds wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice in this week's round-up; there might also be envy, sloth, wrath, greed, gluttony, lust, and pride -- six previous issues have amply demonstrated that there's something in Blawg Review for everyone!

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (14)

As I'll be on on vacation with the family tomorrow and Friday, this week's joy in the misfortune of others arrives early, courtesy of the Associated Press (from Monday, May 16; link good at time of posting):

A man who decided to use fire instead of sledgehammers on a demolition project blamed his own bad judgment for starting a blaze that destroyed three unoccupied buildings in town.

"I would've been all right if the wind hadn't changed," said Stinson Bailey, 63, after he was charged with reckless burning and disorderly conduct in connection with Saturday's fire.

Bailey had city permission to demolish a building, but things when [sic] awry.

"It was bad judgment on my part, I'm not arguing that," Bailey said. "But people don't realize that I spent two days tearing that (main) building down and getting demolition permits from the city and other things."

. . . .

After the fire had turned into a major blaze, officers arrested Bailey, who was released after posting $1,000 bail.

[Previous TGIS]

What's in a Name?

Gary McGath of The Blog of M'Gath has commented upon my earlier post concerning the recently-enacted national identification law. He succinctly points out two valid criticisms of the law which I did not address in my post, but which he has discussed at his own site. Not so succinctly, I've responded to those concerns in comments.

Does "Egocentric Bons Vivants" Count as One Adjective?

Chrenkoff passes along a survey which confirms that, despite ethnic, political, and geographic divisions, the international community can unite around at least one universal truth -- we all hate the French:

Why the French are the worst company on the planet, a wry take on France by two of its citizens, dredges up all the usual evidence against them. They are crazy drivers, strangers to customer service, obsessed by sex and food and devoid of a sense of humour.

But it doesn't stop there, boasting a breakdown, nation by nation, of what in the French irritates them.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britons described them as "chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless". However, the French may be more shocked by the views of other nations.

For the Germans, the French are "pretentious, offhand and frivolous". The Dutch describe them as "agitated, talkative and shallow." The Spanish see them as "cold, distant, vain and impolite" and the Portuguese as "preaching". In Italy they comes across as "snobs, arrogant, flesh-loving, righteous and self-obsessed" and the Greeks find them "not very with it, egocentric bons vivants".

Interestingly, the Swedes consider them "disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty".

But the knockout punch to French pride came in the way the poll was conducted. People were not asked what they hated in the French, just what they thought of them.

"Interviewees were simply asked an open question - what five adjectives sum up the French," said Olivier Clodong, one of the study's two authors and a professor of social and political communication at the Ecole Superieur de Commerce, in Paris. "The answers were overwhelmingly negative."

Blawg Review VI: The First Thing We do, Let's Kill All the Blawgers

The sixth issue of Blawg Review is now available, courtesy of the South Carolina Trial Law Blog. Be the envy of your friends (and remember, as mom always said, if they're not envious of you, they're not really your friends) -- review the submission guidelines and recommend an outstanding post you've read in the past week or one of your own recent posts. The deadline for submissions are each Saturday evening for the following Monday's issue.

Update: I've been reminded that my ode to contracts is included in this week's issue. As such, let's just forget about this post's title, a send-up of the well-known line from Shakespeare's Henry VI.

My Name Is Colin Samuels and I Don't Care Who Knows It

The relationships between our groups and ourselves tend to be symbiotic ones -- we need our groups and they need us. We form some beliefs and find groups which share and reinforce those beliefs; over time, our groups' norms become our own, and those norms tend to be especially powerful on issues where we have limited knowledge or personal experience.

Political affiliations are probably the best examples of this phenomenon. People identify with a particular party or movement based on a few major issues, and on peripheral or minor issues (to them), they generally adopt the party's position without much independent thought. The internet hasn't changed this phenomenon -- if anything, it's strengthened it and extended it to increasingly-minor areas of our lives, enabling us to find seemingly-unlimited numbers of like-minded souls without regard to geographical constraints. Now, we can bring the same degree of organization and group-reinforced passion to our love for "Desperate Housewives" as was previously reserved for core political or social beliefs.

Every so often, though, things happen which cause us to feel some disconnect in our relationships; this may be an active disagreement, a vague sense that one doesn't belong, or just a lack of interest in an issue of some importance to the group as a whole. This last one is always the most disorienting to me for some reason. If something's important to everyone else in the groups with which I normally feel right-at-home, why aren't I engaged enough to form some opinion about it?

With the recently-enacted "Real ID" law, I'm in the midst of one of these "unengaged" disconnects. (Wired has had a good overview of the bill's passage over the last couple of days -- see here and here.) The impassioned national ID debate -- e.g., at The Blog of M'Gath and The QandO Blog -- has been swirling around me for weeks, but I still just don't get it. I look around and it seems like we're already so identified that this debate is all but nonsense. Argue about those proverbial barn doors all you like -- anonymity is a horse that has not just left the barn, it's already been turned into glue and dog food.

I have a driver's license (and have had several others over the last several years), a social security number, and a passport. I have credit histories which I know about and other electronic records which I don't. I have a grocery store discount card which tells the store's faceless corporate overseers what I ate this week and frequent flier accounts which show another set of overseers where I've traveled. I've been recorded on several security cameras already today and I'll show photo ID if I need to write a check later. If I decide to knock over a liquor store on my way home, I'll be caught pretty quickly because my fingerprints are on file with the Oregon State Bar and because I just posted that last sentence on a blog for everyone to find. I can be googled and ZabaSearched. I'm also a greedy bastard; now everyone knows it.

The national ID debate is just the latest in a series of similar arguments. When the Patriot Act was enacted, privacy advocates lamented that the government could check your library records; if you're worried about that, why weren't you concerned that those personally-identifiable records are kept by the library in the first place? I know, I know -- if you're afraid to get and use your library card, the terrorists win, and why you checked-out that copy of How to Fly a Jetliner Without Knowing How to Take-Off or Land is your own business. My point is simply that data about us is everywhere and is accumulating in ways we don't necessarily comprehend or appreciate; anonymity is a functional impossibility.

What's more, official identity, whether on a national ID card, a "Real ID" state driver's license, or a compelled answer, is not optional. In Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, decided last year, the Supreme Court considered so-called "stop-and-identify" statutes, which require a person stopped by the police (even without probable cause) to give his or her name. The Court determined that there is no right to remain anonymous under such circumstances under either the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures or the Fifth Amendment's protections against compelled self-incrimination. This is not a good ruling by any means -- it's shot-through with self-contradictions and illogic -- but it is a pragmatic decision and it is, for the foreseeable future, the law.

As a result of all this unofficial and official identity-information gathering, for a person to remain anonymous, he would have to be a complete recluse. He cannot drive (driver's license required), travel (photo ID required), hold a job (social security number required), join any organization which keeps membership rolls, visit any entity which accumulates personally-identifiable information, use anything but cash or bartering for transactions, or frequent any area under police jurisdiction (thanks, Hiibel). Frankly, even if such a person exists outside the realm of the hypothetical, is our society best-served by catering to that fellow's peculiar aversion to identity?

Our collective focus should not be on preserving an already-lost concept of anonymity; rather, we should seek to define and protect that universe of private activities in which we should be left alone -- not necessarily anonymous, but alone. Take the right of assembly, for instance: We should protect your ability to congregate with others, in person or on-line, to contemplate the creation of a socialist workers' paradise in Middle America, the promotion of Adam Sandler to be the next James Bond, or the various and sundry uses for duct tape in both moral and immoral legal pursuits. For us to spend our efforts fighting for your right to do those things anonymously in the technological and legal climate of our modern society would be both futile and counterproductive. Anonymity is a pipe dream; let's concentrate on fighting the good fight for protecting privacy, not identity.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (13)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Monday, May 10; link good at time of posting):

A man has been charged with drunken driving for riding a horse while allegedly intoxicated. Millard Greg Dwyer, 42, was arrested Sunday night after he rode his horse onto a downtown street in front of an off-duty state trooper, Somerset Police Lt. Allan Coomer said.

. . . .

Dwyer told officers that he had consumed about a twelve pack, Coomer said. Dwyer failed sobriety tests, Coomer said, and was charged with operating a vehicle other than a motor vehicle under the influence of intoxicants.

A breath test showed Dwyer's alcohol level at .244, more than three times the limit, Coomer said.

Dwyer was released from the Pulaski County Dentention Center Monday, jail officials said. He faces a fine of between $20-$100, plus court costs, Coomer said.

Coomer said the arrest was "very unusual," but Somerset police have arrested others for similar violations, such as riding a bicycle and a lawn mower under the influence.

[Previous TGIS]

When the Journal Makes You Laugh, It's Time for Medication

Reading the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) this morning, I came across this item:

Sabre Holdings Corp. agreed to acquire United Kingdom online travel company Lastminute.com PLC for £577 million ($1.08 billion or €859.4 million) in cash.

. . . .

Lastminute.com Chairman Brian Collie said Thursday that he couldn't rule out the possibility of another bid for the company and said he would consider any offers carefully. "We have a duty to maximize shareholder value," he told a conference call after the Sabre deal was announced. "There's nothing to prevent us recommending another offer," Mr. Collie said.

I wonder how awkward it would be for Sabre's management if they jumped too soon to make an offer for Lastminute.com? Alanis Morissette would certainly call it ironic if this all didn't work out.

Maybe I'm just giddy because, this being a travel day, it's impossible for the Mariners to lose today; still, the fact that I found that item funny more-or-less confirms that I should take a vacation.

If Loving Contracts Is Wrong, I Don't Want to be Right!

I love contracts.

Transactional work is a considerable part of what I do day-to-day, but I'm certain that if that weren't the case, I'd love contracts anyhow. Even amongst lawyers, I'm a contracts geek. I read adhesion contracts before I sign them, just to see how they turn out.

Thus, when someone tells me that contracts are boring, I tend to take the criticism personally. I always stick up for my contracts and take pride in my boilerplate. I'm like Norma Desmond with a J.D. -- "My contracts are interesting! It's the subject matter that got boring!" Still, while I do try to find the beauty in routine transactions, I have to admit that larger-than-life clients and provocative subject matter tend to make for more interesting contracts; I was reminded of this fact by two stories yesterday:

Contracts, like rules, records, and Hummel figurines, are made to be broken.

A dispute between no-longer-starving artists and "The Man" with a hint of "best efforts" contract law thrown in was reported by the New York Times yesterday:

Linkin Park, which Edgar Bronfman Jr., the chairman of Warner Music, has described as "the biggest rock band in the world," says it is researching how it might legally sever its contract with Warner, which calls for the band to deliver four more albums. The band has released two full-length albums and three additional recordings through Warner, selling an estimated 17.9 million copies in the United States alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But the musicians say cutbacks at Warner have hurt the company's ability to market future Linkin Park recordings.

. . . .

[T]he feud brewed rapidly after the band's legal team sent Warner a letter a month ago in which Linkin Park appeared to express interest in receiving a cut of the proceeds of the anticipated stock offering, according to sources involved in both sides of the talks. While top executives batted around the concept of paying the band in stock - a radical departure from the industry's usual compensation - Warner ultimately decided it would be too awkward and rejected the idea, said someone on Warner's side of the table.

In response, the band's representatives said the musicians did not want a piece of the stock offering after all, but had become increasingly anxious that the company's cost reductions would prevent Warner from matching the marketing muscle it had put behind the band's previous albums. They said that the band deserved an upgraded contract, and asked for $60 million in advances and half of the profits on their new recordings.

Warner Music executives responded by offering a $15 million advance against 50 percent of the profits, and asked the band to extend its deal to five more albums instead of four.

That offer was poorly received. People involved in the talks said that the band's representatives sent another letter, this time accompanied by a draft of the biting press release they said the band would release within days. A Warner executive who request anonymity to avoid personally inflaming the dispute, described the letter as a "blackmail" tactic.

For contracts aficionados, this back-and-forth illustrates that disputes are very likely to occur in three types of agreements:

1. long-term agreements;
2. agreements for personal services which are difficult to measure objectively; and
3. agreements between two or more parties.

As an attorney who deals primarily with personality-free software transactions, I have a great deal of admiration for those entertainment and sports attorneys for whom a signed contract just designates the start of the next round of negotiations. When an apparently-binding contract for "four more albums" is really just a letter of intent signifying the parties' mutual expectation that, at some unknown point in the future, they may choose to collaborate to produce and market one or more records, but only if a) they both feel like doing so; b) neither party feels unappreciated by the other; c) neither is preparing for an initial public offering of stock; and d) cold fusion is demonstrated to be a reliable source of nearly-limitless power, what is a hard-working attorney to do except continue billing by the hour until his client's headache begins to subside?

He who has the gold makes the rules and becomes governor of California.

In Slate, author Edward Jay Epstein explained how, for every dollar in box office revenue generated by Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, Arnold Schwarzenegger earned $1.01:

For starters, Schwarzenegger got a $29.25 million "pay or play" fee, meaning he would be paid whether or not the movie was made. (At the time, that figure was a record for guaranteed compensation.) The first $3 million would be delivered on signing and the balance during the course of principal photography. For every week the shooting ran over its 19-week schedule, Schwarzenegger would receive an additional $1.6 million in "overage." Then there was the "perk package"— a lump sum of $1.5 million for private jets, a fully equipped gym trailer, three-bedroom deluxe suites on locations, round-the-clock limousines, and personal bodyguards.

. . . .

[Producers Mario] Kassar and [Andrew] Vajna had no real choice but to accept Schwarzenegger's terms (and they themselves would earn $10 million if the deal went through). Schwarzenegger's demands did not stop with the guarantee of $29.25 million. He also insisted on —and got —20 percent of the gross receipts made by the venture from every market in the world— including movie theaters, videos, DVDs, television licensing, in-flight entertainment, game licensing, and so forth— once the movie had reached its cash break-even point.

. . . .

But Schwarzenegger's contract, thanks to the ingenious lawyering of Jake Bloom, allowed for no such evasion. In the case of DVD and video royalties, the contract specifies: "For purposes of calculating Cash Break even only, Adjusted Gross Receipts shall include a 100% home video royalty (i.e. home video revenues less costs)." So unlike weaker players, Schwarzenegger could count all the money taken in from DVDs and video, $20 million, less their actual cost, toward reaching the threshold where he gets his cut.

. . . .

Schwarzenegger also could decide who worked with him. The contract "pre-approval" clause gave him choice of not only the director (Jonathan Mostow) and the principal cast, but also his hairdresser (Peter Toothbal), his makeup man (Jeff Dawn), his driver (Howard Valesco), his stand-in (Dieter Rauter), his stunt double (Billy Lucas), the unit publicist (Sheryl Merin), his personal physician (Dr. Graham Waring), and his cook (Steve Hunter).

Finally, Schwarzenegger had the contract structured to give him every possible tax advantage. All the money was to be paid not to Schwarzenegger but to Oak Productions Inc., a corporate front he controlled. Oak Productions, in return, "lends" Schwarzenegger's services to the production. Since Schwarzenegger didn't get any money personally from the movie itself, he had more flexibility managing his exposure to taxes.

. . . .

The negotiation of this contract did not come cheaply— the legal and accounting budget for the movie was $2 million— and, by the time all of Schwarzenegger's demands were met, the budget of the film had risen to $187.3 million, making it the most expensive independently produced movie in history.

Archimedes is reputed to have said, "Give me a fulcrum and a place to stand, and I will move the world." This is likely apocryphal, since it is well-established that Archimedes did not speak English. Nevertheless, the point is a good one, and one which the governator has learned well -- leverage is the key to everything. It's undeniably tough to sit on the side of the negotiating table with the desperate folks who have to make the deal happen at all costs; "all costs" have a way of making their way onto the compensation exhibit rather quickly. Recognizing your opponent's vulnerability is the first step to dominating the contest, and Schwarzenegger has proven himself time and again to be a competitor par excellence.

I voted for him to be California's governor for several reasons -- in part because I respected his personal qualities; partly because I agreed with his positions on the major issues. Mostly, though, I voted for him because even if I didn't, I was legally obligated to pay him a substantial "pay or govern" fee plus twenty percent of my salary.

I love contracts.

Not an Army of One; Instead, a Nice Pair

The current debate over Social Security reform has called into question whether the American social support foundation laid by President Franklin Roosevelt in his New Deal is still fulfilling its promise in a world much changed from his era. Thus far, the focus has been upon Social Security and Medicaid, but developments in Britain indicate that we should perhaps also take another look at the G.I. Bill.

The G.I. Bill was intended to provide support for military veterans, including low-cost home loans and educational funding. In this latter area, perhaps the breadth of educational opportunities available to our uniformed service personnel is not all that it could be; Agence France Presse and Yahoo! News report on the British model for post-service retraining:

Britain's defence ministry defended a decision to pay for an ex-servicewoman to train to be an erotic "pole dancer", arguing it had a duty to help former troops return to civilian life.

Stephanie Hulme, a former senior aircraftwoman in the Royal Air Force (RAF), received 2,290 pounds (3,350 euros, 4,300 dollars) to train as a pole dancer, newspaper reports said.

After learning to pole dance -- a routine generally seen in strip clubs in which scantily clad women drape themselves suggestively around a pole in time to music -- the 23-year-old was now working in a London club.

Using the stage-name "Kitty", Hulme makes up to 500 pounds a night, she told the papers.

. . . .

Hulme -- who admitted to being "very surprised" when her training grant was approved -- told newspapers on Monday that life in the RAF had helped prepare her for the new career.

"After taking a shower, it wouldn't be uncommon to emerge with a towel around you and walk down a corridor past a group of men and be subjected to a bit of banter," she said.

"So the notion of getting naked and being a bit direct with men didn't bother me."

Brilliant! It's high time for those who claim to "Support Our Troops" to step up and put their money where their mouths are; what better way can there be than to support this noble effort? My only request is that we carve out an exception for Lynndie England.

Google is not a Faith-Based Initiative

The blogosphere has been alive for the last 48 hours or so with the news that on Saturday evening, the world as we know it came to an end.

It seems that if you attempted to google "armageddon" or "apocalypse" during the fifteen minutes between 6:45 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, you would have found yourself looking at something called "SoGoSearch". Whether this redirection was the result of hacking, a flaw in Google's recently-launched (and still in beta) Web Accelerator service, user-level spyware infestations, or another cause was a hot topic of discussion bordering on panic very nearly minute-by-minute since it occurred. As wild speculation gradually gave way to technical analysis and finally to yesterday's official confirmation from Google, a DNS (Domain Name System)-related issue was identified as the cause. Whether Google is responsible for its own injury or is the victim of an error beyond its control is a matter of ongoing discussion in some circles; as Gizmodo relates, "The consensus seems to be that someone else exploited a DNS mistake on Google’s part. So not a hack, per se, but a 'taking advantage of.'"

Ultimately, this hysteria is most noteworthy because it highlights how Google's utility and reliability have become articles of shared faith amongst the internet-enabled. It will be interesting to see how incidents like this one will affect Google's standing in the eyes of its most fanatical users. Threadwatch.org accurately described this weekend's constant flow of desperate posting as "a blow by blow account from around the world . . . as bewilderment is expressed as people cannot believe what they see".

What's to become of these legions of fans who have come to view Google as not just better than its competitors but somehow different from them, perfect and unbound by the fundamental laws which govern all other players in this space? Just as any crisis of faith tends to either strengthen one's beliefs or destroy them, challenges like these will test the Google mythos and the reputation of web-delivered applications and services more generally. When I first heard about all this, the first thing that came to mind was a Monty Python sketch; this is, of course, understandable since Monty Python is, unlike Google, the one true faith. The sketch is a review of "modern building techniques"; "El Mystico" and his lovely assistant, Janet, are assembling 25-floor apartment buildings on behalf of a local council using nothing but hypnosis. Naturally, the council's architect is asked whether these hypnosis-induced buildings are safe:

Architect: Of course they're safe. There's absolutely no doubt about that. They are as strong, solid and as safe as any other building method in this country provided of course people believe in them.

Cut to a council flat. On the wall there is a picture of Mystico.

Tenant: Yes, we received a note from the Council saying that if we ceased to believe in this building it would fall down.

Blawg Review V: A New Beginning

The fifth issue of Blawg Review is now available, courtesy of the Conglomerate blog. Don't miss out on the next exciting issue -- review the submission guidelines and recommend an outstanding post you've read in the past week or one of your own recent posts. The deadline for submissions are each Saturday evening for the following Monday's issue.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (12)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Wednesday, May 4; link good at time of posting):

It wasn't Laurie Ralston's resume that got the attention of police. It was her record. Ralston applied Thursday for a job as a dispatcher with the Amherst police department. When they did a background check, police quickly found out she has 17 traffic convictions, including seven speeding tickets and two citations for driving without a license.

Ralston was called in Friday for what she was told would be an interview. Instead, she was arrested and charged with failing to appear in court and driving without a license. Ralston said she had no idea police were after her.

"It was just a little excessive to have that type of background and try to get a shot at this type of job," Lt. Joseph Kucirek said.

[Previous TGIS]

Life in Africa Sucks -- Women and Children Hardest Hit

This information is such a departure from everything I've heard before about the tremendous opportunities and general quality of life in Africa that I'm having trouble comprehending it all. A study by an international aid organization has discovered that life in famine-prone, war-torn, poverty-stricken, backward and unindustrialized Africa is no picnic for women or children:

Africa is the worst continent to be a mother or child, and Mali is one of the worst countries, where one in eight children will die before seeing a first birthday, according to a study published Tuesday.

The State of the World's Mothers 2005, a report by Save The Children USA, studied 110 countries and details health and educational opportunities for mothers and their children.

"Conditions for children and mothers in the bottom-ranked countries are devastating," said Charles MacCormack, president of Save the Children. "Many children are fortunate just to survive the first five years of life and have a chance to go to school."

In Burkina Faso, fewer than one in 10 women can read and write. In Ethiopia just 25 percent of the population has access to clean water.

Scandinavian countries sweep the top rankings for the best places to be a mother, while countries in sub-Saharan Africa dominate the bottom tier, the report said. Out of the 10 worst countries to be a mother or child, seven are in Africa.

In Sweden, which tops the list, nearly all women are literate. In Ethiopia, only 34 percent of women are literate. A mother in Ethiopia is 37 times more likely to see her child die in the first year of life than a mother in Sweden.

. . . .

"The Mothers' Index clearly shows that the quality of children's lives is inextricably linked to the health and education of their mothers," MacCormack added. "In countries where mothers fare well, children fare well; in countries where mothers do poorly, children do poorly."

If the men in Africa were living well, perhaps the poor health of and lack of educational opportunities for African women and children would be newsworthy.

I think it was Aristotle who wrote that, "No matter how thin you slice it, baloney is still baloney." Thus, unless your African survey's sample population consists entirely of oil-rich, politically-connected warlords, it's going to paint a picture of a place that is a cautionary tale straight from Hobbes' Leviathan -- "No arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Life in Africa sucks whether you're an impoverished and uneducated father, a mother without access to modern medicines, a malnourished child, or an aspiring mime with a compelling message to convey about being trapped in an invisible box. It's tragic, but it's not news to anyone at this point.

Shere Khan Seeks Intervenor Status

Last week, just prior to the much-anticipated release of "Tiger", the next-generation version of the Apple operating system, online technology retailer TigerDirect sued Apple alleging that Apple's Tiger-related media campaign has diluted and damaged TigerDirect's trademarks:

The online retailer also accused Apple of deceptive and unfair trade practices in the lawsuit, filed today in federal court in Miami, Florida, Bloomberg said.

"Apple Computer has created and launched a nationwide media blitz led by Steven Jobs, overwhelming the computer world with a sea of Tiger references," Tiger Direct's attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

. . . .

The retailer said Apple's use of the name "is causing confusion, mistake and deception among the general purchasing public."

At the root of the issue appears to internet search results. Tiger Direct contends that Apple's use of the name has adversely affected its ranking amongst the Internet's largest search engines, Google and Yahoo, bumping the company from its usual spot in the first three results.

The text of the complaint does not yet appear to be available online, but a preliminary injunction hearing was reportedly set for today. I've not read of any result from that hearing (if it did in fact take place), but I'm going to go out on a limb right now and predict that TigerDirect will have a tough time prevailing.

"Tiger" has long been a popular trademark name. A quick search of the Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) turns up nearly 700 live applications and registered marks for varied "Tiger" items from roach spray (registered by Louisiana Chemical USA, Inc.) to "armed military helicopters used only for combat, training and related military operations" (registered by Eurocopter France Corporation) to anything not nailed-down onto which Tiger Woods can put his name. A "Tiger" trademark for ale was registered by C. Schmidt and Sons, Inc. (and now owned by Asia Pacific Breweries, Ltd.) and first used in commerce in 1876. The Detroit Tigers have been around since the American League began in 1901, although no one's heard of them since 1984.

Even when you consider only the field of computer software, at least three software-related "Tiger" trademarks have been registered -- Sungard eProcess Intelligence, Inc. registered the mark for "computer software for use in the banking industry, for preparing and tracking letters of credit, trade transactions and payments" in 1996; Intelligent Applications Limited (UK) registered it for "computer software for use in the [sic] controlling, monitoring and performing fault diagnostics in relation to gas, electrical, oil and nuclear power systems and plants, gas turbines, steam turbines, power generators, and aviation engines" in 2000; and Catalpa Research, Inc. registered "Tiger" for "computer software used to generate numerical grids for turbomachinery designs" in 2001. I'll venture that any of those trademark owners probably would have a stronger case against Apple than does TigerDirect.

Although the nefarious Steven Jobs is probably not quaking in his Bruno Maglis, Apple's salvation may well be at hand nonetheless, at least according to Slashdot and Toronto's The Globe and Mail:

"This lawsuit is a load of codswallop," said Mr. [Robert F.] Young. "Nobody and no company should have the exclusive use of the word 'tiger.'"

Mr. Young has offered to license the Hamilton Tiger-Cats' historical use of the word Tiger to Apple free of charge. The Hamilton Tigers Football Club, established in 1869, continued to be known as the Tigers (with its colours of yellow and black) until 1950, when the Tigers merged with the Hamilton Wildcats to become the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

"136 years ago we were called The Tigers," Mr. Young said. "If anyone owns the exclusive rights to the word "tiger" with that much history and tradition, it's gotta be us."

This would all be entertaining enough even without noting that Mr. Young made his fortune not in the highly-lucrative world of Canadian football, but as a founder of Linux powerhouse Red Hat. When you've managed to align the forces of Linux and the forces of Macintosh against you and your name is not Bill Gates, that's really quite an accomplishment.

Expect Apple to file its Motion for Declaration of Codswallop before the end of the week.

Blawg Review IV: The Quest for Links

The fourth issue of Blawg Review is now available, courtesy of the Law & Entrepreneurship News. Jeremy Blachman's outstanding post about leaving law school with doubts about whether he's learned any law is there, as is my humble post of "wisdom" in reply.

Do you have what it takes to be included in this much-revered pantheon of blawgers? (It's hard not to, I suppose, since I've been featured.) Review the submission guidelines and recommend an outstanding post you've read in the past week or one of your own recent posts, if you can somehow manage to overcome the shyness and modesty so ingrained in the typical lawyer's character. The deadlines for submissions are each Saturday evening for the following Monday's issue.