Very Cool

Via Gizmodo:

XM is doing something really unique next week and I can't wait to listen. Beginning Wednesday, June 6, XM is going to air the original radio news bulletins from NBC Radio for the D-Day invasion, in real time almost exactly how the reports were heard 63 years ago. It will begin at 12:41 am Eastern time on Channel 4, The 40s, to correspond when the actual first reports were going live.

In addition to the actual reports and updates from the war, there will be era music and commentary about the day from members of NBC's news staff.

We Remember

Norman Gregory Fernandez hosts the Memorial Day edition of Blawg Review, Blawg Review #110, at his Biker Law Blog. This is a poignant and uniformly excellent issue which reminds us of the brave Americans who died in service of our nation and others and also those values for which they fought. Normally, I would note several highlights of the new Blawg Review issue, but this week's offering is a highlight from start to finish; read it all.

So, you might ask, if it's so wonderful, why did it take me an entire day to mention it? Well, it's because I spent yesterday with my favorite veteran, my father. Thanks to all our men and women in uniform, past, present, and future.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (116)

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

As he marched up and down a busy road wearing a placard proclaiming "I AM A LIAR," Craig Breuwet endured a painfully public punishment for lying to police. "I've learned my lesson," said Breuwet, who added that he had never been more embarrassed or humiliated.

The 33-year-old Warner Robins man submitted to the court-sanctioned penalty on Wednesday in lieu of facing trial for filing a false police report.

Breuwet told police last August that he had been kidnapped by two men in a Warner Robins parking lot, driven to nearby Macon and beaten up. Two days after the incident, Breuwet admitted that he had fabricated the abduction part of his story, police said.

[Previous TGIS]

Two, two, two posts in one!

Today's weather makes me glad to live in California. It's sunny and warm but not too hot. There's a gentle breeze rustling through the trees. I just want to be outside.

I know, I know . . . it won't last. As such, I'll get ahead of the blogging game and bank a post for sometime in August:

Today's weather makes me hate living in California. It's like being staked-out on the surface of the sun. The breeze would have made a nice rustling noise blowing through the trees, if only the trees hadn't spontaneously combusted a few weeks ago. I just want to be outside . . . in Seattle.

His Name is Hasan Elahi and He Doesn't Care Who Knows It

One of the most consistently trafficked posts on this site is something I wrote a couple of years ago entitled "My Name is Colin Samuels and I Don't Care Who Knows It". In it, I argued that the digital age had made anonymity impossible and that we should focus on privacy; at the time, I wrote: "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 . . . . Anonymity is a pipe dream; let's concentrate on fighting the good fight for protecting privacy, not identity."

What I had in mind was that passive dissemination of personal information was inevitable but privacy still needed protection. I had not contemplated that active, constant disclosures of personal information could be used to protect oneself; an article in the current issue of Wired describes one person who has not only contemplated but embraced that concept:

[Artist and college professor Hasan] Elahi has documented nearly every waking hour of his life during that time. He posts copies of every debit card transaction, so you can see what he bought, where, and when. A GPS device in his pocket reports his real-time physical location on a map .

Elahi's site is the perfect alibi. Or an audacious art project. Or both. The Bangladeshi-born American says the US government mistakenly listed him on its terrorist watch list — and once you're on, it's hard to get off. To convince the Feds of his innocence, Elahi has made his life an open book. Whenever they want, officials can go to his site and see where he is and what he's doing. Indeed, his server logs show hits from the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense, and the Executive Office of the President, among others.

The globe-hopping prof says his over exposed life began in 2002, when he stepped off a flight from the Netherlands and was detained at the Detroit airport. He says FBI agents later told him they'd been tipped off that he was hoarding explosives in a Florida storage unit; subsequent lie detector tests convinced them he wasn't their man. But with his frequent travel — Elahi logs more than 70,000 air miles a year exhibiting his art work and attending conferences — he figured it was only a matter of time before he got hauled in again. He might even be shipped off to Gitmo before anyone realized their mistake. The FBI agents had given him their phone number, so he decided to call before each trip; that way, they could alert the field offices. He hasn't been detained since.

So it dawned on him: If being candid about his flights could clear his name, why not be open about everything? "I've discovered that the best way to protect your privacy is to give it away," he says . . . .

Brilliant.

Blogging Thoughtfully

Wall Street Journal columnist JeremyWagstaff offers "five conclusions I’ve reached about how to Blog Thoughtfully". All are worthwhile to keep in mind, but the first is especially relevant:

It’s no longer about feeding the beast. I’ve tried to post once a day, but I think the abundance of blogs nowadays makes a nonsense of that. People nowadays have so much to read they don’t want space filled up for the sake of it. (That’s what a newspaper is for.) Don’t be afraid to not post. No one unsubscribes from a feed because it’s silent for a few days; they unsubscribe because it’s too noisy.

I think that most of us who blog for any length of time start to notice ourselves passing through periods of blogging malaise when the urge to post is lacking and we're left with a vague sense of obligation to post. Those feelings generally pass after a time and the old spirit returns, but why is it that we feel that we should be posting even when we have nothing we want to say?

Taking Wagstaff's guidance to heart then, I'm not going to post today.

Sometimes these law school hypotheticals just write themselves.

From ABC News, via Above the Law:

Twin brothers Raymon and Richard Miller are the father and uncle to a 3-year-old little girl. The problem is, they don't know which is which. Or who is who.

The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman's testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.

When the woman in question, Holly Marie Adams, got pregnant, she named Raymon the father, but he contested and demanded a paternity test, bringing his own brother Richard to court.

But a paternity test in this case could not help. The test showed that both brothers have over a 99.9 percent probability of being the daddy— and neither one wants to pay the child support.

. . . .

The final appellate court decision, filed this year, ruled that Raymon will remain the legal father. In Missouri, a paternity test must come back with 98 percent or higher probability that DNA matches in order for a man to be named the legal father.

"They say you have to prove with 98 percent certainty that you're the father. But since with my brother it's a 99 percent chance and with me it's a 99 percent chance -- that seems like more of a 50/50. What if there was a rape or murder case with twins? Then they could just go around pointing the finger at the other," Ramon [sic] said.

If I'd been given this situation as a hypothetical in law school, I'd probably have thought it a bit fantastic. I suppose I've been wrong all these years; truth really is stranger than law school.

Greatest Blawg Review

Well, Blawg Review #109, hosted by Enrico Schaefer at his Greatest American Lawyer blog, is definitely a great edition of the carnival of legal blogging, though whether it's the greatest of the year is up to the Anonymous Editor when he makes his end-of-year award determinations. No, what I refer to in my headline is the theme of #109 -- greatness. Schaefer highlights greatness in many forms -- there are great clashes, great challenges, and great decisions, and even great laughs get a nod. It's no secret that I'm a sucker for a great theme and when the great theme is "greatness", I suppose that's just doubly great.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (115)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) (from Thursday, May 17; link good at time of posting):

A Hong Kong decency watchdog had been flooded with obscenity complaints about the Bible.

The Television and Entertainments Licensing Authority (TELA), which oversees the publishing industry, said it had received 208 complaints that text within the holy book was indecent.

"I can confirm that the complaints were received," said a TELA spokeswoman. "The thrust of the complaints was that the Bible was obscene, that different parts of the Bible were offensive to readers."

TELA refused to divulge details of the complaints, but local media reported that they referred to acts of violence, rape and cannibalism reputedly contained in the Old and New Testaments.

[Previous TGIS]

What part of "I'll be back" didn't we understand?

From The Register:

Following the announcement of the new Flying-HK-style "Reaper" death machines for the British forces, the prophetic nature of the Terminator movies has been further confirmed.

Not only will the UK MoD deploy airborne cyber-gunships remarkably similar to those in the films, the flying robot assassins will be controlled by an IT project named "Skynet".

This latest case of life imitating art (well, kind of art) was revealed this morning, with the news that the first of the Skynet 5 satellites has gone operational and is now successfully carrying data to and from British forces fighting in Southwest Asia.

Well, according to The Terminator, the Skynet system which all but destroyed humanity was supposed to go online on August 4, 1997, so we've had an extra nine years, nine months, and seven days to play with. Enjoy your weekend, human.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (114)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of SportsColumn, via Deadspin (from Tuesday, May 8; links good at time of posting):

We love betting the trifecta. For a buck or two, you can win hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a race. Hell, sometimes we'll even go crazy and go with the trifecta box. However, we also know enough about statistics to know that you can't bet every single permutation in a race and expect to come out on top.

But that's exactly what a man in Rochester, NY did. On the day of the Kentucky Derby, a man walked into an OTB and asked how much it would cost to buy every possible trifecta combination.

. . . .

The man was told the answer and came back to place the wagers. It cost him a total of $13,680 for his $2 trifectas and he wound up winning... wait for it... wait for it... $440. If you're gonna make a bet like this, you better know what you're getting yourself into. And since the payout odds are terrible on favorites, you should just eliminate those trifecta combinations. But alas, the man had more cash than math skills so now he's $13,240 poorer for his trouble.

This story would only be better if he does the exact same thing in the Preakness.

[Previous TGIS]

The bad news is that you're going to live.

Perhaps the old aphorism "you can't take it with you" should be clarified by the caveat "...but keep a little gas in the tank in case your prognosis improves":

A British man who went on a wild spending spree after doctors said he only had a short time to live wants compensation because the diagnosis was wrong and he is now healthy -- but broke.

John Brandrick, 62, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two years ago and told that he would probably die within a year.

He quit his job, sold or gave away nearly all his possessions, stopped paying his mortgage and spent his savings dining out and going on holiday.

Brandrick was left with little more than the black suit, white shirt and red tie that he had planned to be buried in when it emerged a year later that his suspected "tumor" was no more than a non-life threatening inflammation of the pancreas.

. . . .

"I'm really pleased that I've got a second chance in life... but if you haven't got no money after all this, which is my fault -- I spent it all -- they should pay something back."

Since we still haven't caught the paper, Kingsfield returns.

Stepping in for a globetrotting (well, nation-trotting, at least) Professor Bainbridge is another illustrious law professor -- Professor Kingsfield -- to handle hosting duties for Blawg Review #107.

It's taken me all day to get though this issue of the carnival of legal blogging. While I'd like to say that that's because this week's edition is particularly rich in links, it's mostly because its Socratic method format had me curled up under my chair, whimpering from the flood of law school flashbacks. At any rate, highlights this week include accounting for children's gender-identity issues in custody arrangements, avoiding bar fights by driving drunk, and engaging in legally-risky behaviors -- like forwarding an e-mail.

Finally, we'll enjoy a little Legal Sanity next week when Arnie Herz hosts Blawg Review #108. Of course by noting that, I didn't mean to imply in any way that Professor Kingsfield was anything less than well-adjusted this week.

Please don't call on me. Please don't call on me. Please don't call on me . . . .

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (113)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Reuters (from Monday, April 30; link good at time of posting):

Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom's more sober brother instead, police said Monday.

"The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride's family and local villagers chased him away," Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after Sunday's marriage in a village in Bihar state's Arwal district.

The younger brother readily agreed to take the groom's place beside the teenage bride at her family's invitation, witnesses said.

"The groom apologized for his behavior, but has been crying that word will spread and he will never get a bride again," Singh said by phone.

[Previous TGIS]

Rebranding May Day

May Day has traditionally been associated with grand celebrations by communist regimes. As the number of those regimes has dwindled, the day has been adopted by any number of far-left organizations for their own purposes. Notwithstanding, the diminished importance of May Day is undeniable; even Fidel didn't bother to show up this year. All in all, the time seems ripe to, in essence, rebrand May Day. For his part, the president has proclaimed today to be "Loyalty Day":

On Loyalty Day, we celebrate the blessings of freedom and remember our responsibility to continue our legacy of liberty.

Our Nation has never been united simply by blood, birth, or soil, but instead has always been united by the ideals that move us beyond our background and teach us what it means to be Americans. We believe deeply in freedom and self-government, values embodied in our cherished documents and defended by our troops over the course of generations.

No, thanks; I love the Fourth of July as much as the next fellow, but I don't need two of them per year. Moreover, what's with that name? Is it the administration's intention to remind us of the loyalty oaths required of so many during the heyday of the Red Scare? I much prefer Ilya Somin's suggestion:

I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes' millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century's other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so. I suggest that May Day be turned into Victims of Communism Day.

Now there's a Hallmark holiday if ever there was one!