TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (182)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Time's Real Clear Politics blog (from Tuesday, August 26; link good at time of posting):

Former Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson . . . was speaking at an anti-war rally when he, um, flubbed a line:

"We should be led by Osama bin Laden," he said, then quickly corrected himself. "I mean Obama and Biden."

[Previous TGIS]

The "Redeem Team" is so last week; the "No-Theme Team" is the new hotness.

D. Todd Smith hosts this week's Blawg Review #174 at his Texas Appellate Law Blog. Smith's review is a throwback of sorts to the early days of Blawg Review when hosts simply collected the best legal blogging of the previous week without packaging it (or, as in the cases of my own Blawg Reviews, overpackaging it) in a themed presentation. Highlights include thinking randomly about randomness, worrying about internet law, and forcing the transgendered to sit out the war on terror.

Jamie Spencer will host Blawg Review #175 at his Austin DWI Lawyer blog next Monday.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (181) . . . The Sequel!

This week's bonus joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Boston Globe Olympics Blog (from Wednesday, August 20; link good at time of posting):

After the USA men's basketball team blew out Spain recently, the majority of the Spaniards wanted nothing to do with the American media. Considering how Spain got drilled after expecting to be competitive against the U.S. and the racist ad its players were recently involved in depicting themselves as stereotypically Chinese by making their eyes slanted, it was probably best that they kept their mouths shut.

But Spain guard Juan Carlos Navarro, formerly of the Memphis Grizzlies, did come out to talk to the Spanish media for about five minutes in the mixed zone interview area. After he was done with his home country folks, I asked him a question. He responded by saying, “My English not very good.”

I told him, “Well, it was really good when you were playing for the Grizzlies. I interviewed you once by your locker.”

Navarro was stunned when I called him out and I could see that he understood every word. If they beat the Americans, I’m sure his English would have been better than mine.

[Previous TGIS]

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (181)

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

A Kentucky sheriff drove 4,100 miles to California to pick up a fugitive, then realized when he got back he had the wrong guy.

Butler County Sheriff Joe Gaddie and a deputy took the trip to find a man named Joe Orus, who was wanted on charges of fleeing and evading police and drunken driving.

A man named Joe Orus was awaiting release from a jail in Tehachapi, Calif., when a check showed an outstanding warrant in Kentucky. Officials notified Gaddie, who came and got him.

It turned out to be a case of stolen identity.

. . . .

Butler County officials paid for Orus to fly back to California. Meanwhile, the real suspect they were searching for is still on the lam.

[Previous TGIS]

Note to self: stop calling, texting, e-mailing, and IMing anyone in Britain.

Might as well quit accessing any British websites as well. From The Register:

The government is pressing ahead with plans to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a massive central silo for all UK communications data, The Register has learned.

Home Office civil servants are working on plans for the database under the banner of the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). The team has recently been expanded and a director-level official appointed to run the project, which is not yet official policy in public.

Sources said secret briefings revealed the cost of the database would run to nine figures and has already been factored into government spending plans. The IMP budget was part of the intelligence agencies' undisclosed funding bid to the Comprehensive Spending Review last year. In an answer to a parliamentary question on 8 July, the Home Office refused to provide any budgetary details, citing national security concerns.

. . . .

The project has been pushed hard at Whitehall by the intelligence agencies MI6 and GCHQ. One ISP source described their demands as "science fiction". It's envisaged that the one-stop-shop database will retain details of all calls, texts, emails, instant messenger conversations and websites accessed in the UK for up to two years.

(Emphasis added.)

It's 2008 now; if you have anything to say to your British friends, you'd best say it before 1984.

Let's all drink to NIMBYism.

Reason's Hit & Run blog praises the "Amethyst Initiative", a petition by dozens of college presidents to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. The initiative signatories suggest that "twenty-one is not working":

A culture of dangerous, clandestine “binge-drinking”—often conducted off-campus—has developed.

Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.

Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.

By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.

That's all well and good; I certainly support returning the drinking age to 18, where it was in many states before the federal government began meddling with highway funding at the behest of groups like MADD. Those college presidents behind the initiative correctly note that "A culture of dangerous, clandestine 'binge-drinking'—often conducted off-campus—has developed" but they do it passively, without acknowledging the significant roles many colleges have had in aggravating that situation.

Over the past several years, numerous colleges have cracked-down on on-campus drinking by all students, not just underage ones. Underage drinking has certainly been dealt with more harshly, of course, but all students at many universities have found their ability to drink socially in what is essentially their own homes and neighborhoods. The result is not less drinking, but instead more drunk driving between off-campus sites and on-campus residences. Whether the motivation is promoting law-and-order on-campus, shedding a "party school" image, or simple paternalism, the net effect is to magnify what was a problematic situation that was more-or-less contained on-campus to one which has more severe consequences and is shifted to the streets and areas beyond campuses' borders, where it is more difficult to police effectively. You can't address the neighborhood's waste management needs by tossing your trash into your neighbor's yard.

My own undergrad institution -- Washington State University -- was a noted party school before and during my time there. In the years since I've left, the college's overseers have cracked-down on drinking -- even legal drinking -- on-campus in residences and in the Greek system and have pushed walking-distance watering holes off-campus. I strongly suspect that any gains made in terms of on-campus temperence have been lost to the "culture of dangerous, clandestine 'binge-drinking' . . . conducted off-campus" to which the university's NIMBYism made a significant contribution. Short-sighted or self-interested bureaucrats though they may be, at least Washington State's leaders aren't hypocrites -- they didn't sign onto Amethyst's lament of "dangerous, clandestine" off-campus binge-drinking.

Perhaps I'm overly cynical about the motives of some of the Amethyst Initiative's signatories, but I can't shake my suspicion that their main concern is that the appearance of problem underage drinking on their campuses is diminished. Lowering the drinking age to 18 -- coincidentally the same age at which most students begin college -- does little to affect the prevalence of drinking by students (alcohol is rarely in short supply at any university), but it does eliminate underage drinking by suddenly making everyone of age. If it happens to curb binge-drinking and other problematic consumption, that's merely a desirable side-effect.

For my part, I'll seek to teach my daughter about the dangers of excessive drinking, rather than avoid those difficult discussions and rely on college functionaries to parent her in my stead. I hope that she'll take those lessons to heart, but I expect that she'll fall short from time-to-time. I hope that she'll be as fortunate as I have been, to have avoided serious injury to myself and others during my own problem drinking years. If she learns from her mistakes, as I hope that I have, she'll be a better person for it all, even if her improved judgement about alcohol consumption disqualifies her from a leadership position in academia.

Unfortunately, there's more than one albatross for these mariners to contend with.

Let's see here. It's mid-August, the Mariners are 30½ games back in the American League West, and the authoritative U.S.S. Mariner has called the franchise "The Worst Run Organization in Baseball". I'm starting to think that perhaps that late-season run at the pennant is just not going to materialize this season after all. I know, I know; I'm such a fair-weather fan.

Thankfully, he skipped the painful post-swim interview with Andrea Kremer.

R. David Donaghue (as opposed to your David Donaghue) hosts this week's Blawg Review #173 at his Chicago IP Litigation blog.

Like much of the world's, Donaghue's attention last week was focused on Michael Phelps and his unprecedented eight gold medals in a single Olympics. Unlike our friends at NBC and in the mainstream media, however, Donaghue managed to spare enough personal bandwidth to also collect the best legal blogging of the week. His #173 manages to adeptly combine these two great topics; highlights include medical device preemption cases for the uninitiated, open source licensing's new teeth, and going the distance for a few guests at Gitmo.

D. Todd Smith will host Blawg Review #174 next week at his Texas Appellate Law Blog.

On an unrelated note, taking my cue from Messrs. Donaghue and Smith, I'll be known henceforth as C. Matthew Samuels.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (180) . . . The Sequel!

This week's bonus joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Gizmodo blog (from Tuesday, August 12; link good at time of posting):

An inflatable catastrophe second only to the Hindenburg disaster has occurred in Bern Switzerland at the Paul Klee Center art museum. A house-sized inflatable turd designed by American artist Paul McCarthy broke free from its moorings in high winds after the security system designed to deflate the installation failed.

Townspeople fled in terror as the work entitled "Complex Shit" cut a swath of destruction that included downed power lines and a broken window at a children's home.

[Previous TGIS]

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (180)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the With Leather blog (from Monday, August 11; link good at time of posting):

Michael Phelps kept his hopes for eight gold medals alive, as the underdog Americans scored a seemingly impossible come-from-behind win in the 4x100 free relay. Frenchman Alain Bernard (more like "Elaine"! Am I right?) had promised to "smash" the Americans, and the world record-holder in the 100 looked to be in position to do that as he anchored the French team with a commanding lead in the final lap. But Jason Lezak somehow found a superhuman gear to overtake the fastest swimmer in the world, out-touching Bernard at the final instant to win gold for USA, .08 of a second ahead of the French. The winning time broke the world record by nearly four seconds. Yeah, suck it France! And California wines are a better value, too!

[Previous TGIS]

West London Man... Home and Dry.

Charon QC has gathered together all of his brilliant "West London Man" posts/podcasts (thus far) on a single page at his Insitelaw Magazine site. Now that George and his family have found a comfortable home on the web, don't miss this opportunity to avail yourself of one of the best characters in British social satire (this side of Jeeves at least).

Random Thought (12)

If I ever win an Olympic gold medal, I'll have it bronzed so that I can keep it forever.

[Previous Thought]

How to host Blawg Review without getting torched.

The Beijing Olympics are not yet even a week completed, but Jonathan Hyman is all over it, hosting an Olympics-themed Blawg Review #172 at his Ohio Employer's Law Blog. Highlights include an amazing opening ceremony, an historic finish in men's relay swimming, and... oh, actually, that's the real Olympics. Let's see here... the highlights of this week's Olympics Blawg Review include coping with desk rage, putting the kosher into labor law, and succeeding in law school -- ten steps at a time.

David Donoghue hosts next week's Blawg Review on Monday at his Chicago IP Litigation Blog. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this bit of Blawg Review trivia: Much like the early Olympic Games, the first several editions of Blawg Review were done in the nude. With the sole exception of the Anonymous Editor of Blawg Review, however, that aspect of the carnival of legal blogging is safely relegated to the past.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (179)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Reuters (from Monday, August 4; link good at time of posting):

Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has apologized after accidentally recommending a potentially deadly plant in organic salads.

The chef and TV presenter said in a magazine article that the weed henbane, also known as stinking nightshade, made an excellent addition to summertime meals.

. . . .

Henbane, a close relative of deadly nightshade, was used by Dr Crippen to kill his wife in 1910, and is thought to have been the main ingredient in the poison Romeo took in Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet."

The chef had intended to refer to fat hen, a weed rich in vitamin C, that is edible, media reports said.

. . . .

Worrall Thompson was reported in the media as saying the confusion had been "a bit embarrassing."

[Previous TGIS]

The Virgin Queen

Victoria Pynchon hosts Blawg Review #171 this week at The IP ADR Blog. She's made much of this effort being her first time hosting the carnival of legal blogging and to emphasize her point, she's styled this review as all about virginity:

If intellectual property had a theme song it would have to be "Like a Virgin."

Why?

Because IP is all about "the very first time," the "aha" moment, the creative spark that gives rise to previously undreamed imaginings.The restrictions of "how we've always done things" fall away and the numbing repetition of days become vibrant. The rest, of course, is work. Trial and error. Success. Failure. Rearranging the disaligned. Completion.

Then the suits arrive. That's us, the lawyers.

Owing to several days of travel and meetings this week, this suit arrived a bit later to the party. I found BR#171 to be one of those tremendously rich reviews which rewards careful reading. In fact, I spent this morning discussing the Virgin edition of Blawg Review with a few associates over breakfast.


We're all agreed. This Blawg Review is a strong contender for Blawg Review of the Year. All hail the Virgin Queen! Highlights (in addition to a survey of famous virgins throughout history) include seeing the light at the end of the "Don's Ask, Don't Tell" tunnel, considering the cult of Gerry Spence, and managing the "blame others first" crowd.

It's often been said that virgins shouldn't hope to get it all right their first time. Pynchon may be the exception which proves the rule, but she at least gives other new Blawg Review hosts a bit of hope. Jonathan Hyman of the Ohio Employer's Law Blog can take heart ahead of his Blawg Review #172 next Monday.

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (178)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Reuters (from Tuesday, July 29; link good at time of posting):

Scores of Chinese air passengers smashed computers and desks and clashed with police Tuesday after a night stranded at an airport without accommodation, state media said.

More than 170 passengers were due to leave Kunming, capital of southwestern Yunnan province, on three flights operated by China Southern Airlines late Monday, but the flights were cancelled due to bad weather, Xinhua news agency said.

"All the passengers had to spend the night on the planes or in the departure hall," Xinhua said. "No one came to tend to their food and board."

The passengers clashed with airport police Tuesday morning, smashing computers and desks, Xinhua said, blaming the melee on China Southern staff's "inappropriate working attitude."

At around 2 a.m., many of the passengers -- including toddlers and people over 60 -- took taxis to a hotel where China Southern said they could stay, only to be turned away once they arrived, Xinhua said.

[Previous TGIS]