As I was looking around the web searching for blogs done by law professors at my school, I came across quite a few, but it was something else that really caught my eye. Apparently, last year my school (along with two other independent law schools) was denied federal funds because it would not allow military recruiters on campus. This was due to our school’s opposition to the military’s treatment of gay servicemen and women. You know, “don’t ask, don’t tell.” So despite my great aversion to the cost of my tuition I am happy my school is taking a stand against this bigotry. Here is the blurb I found.

I am not sure what has happened since then, but I intend to find out.

It is another good day for democracy, even if it only lasts for a brief period of time. Today, buried beneath the apparently more important news of the JonBenet murder (seriously, it is great that they may have caught the guy, but this decision along with the entire Middle East “crisis” has a much greater impact on the world), was the fact that the NSA wiretapping program has been found unconstitutional by at least one judge. It will surely get appealed, and the decision will probably not take effect, but it is promising never the less.

In a 44 page ruling Judge Anna Diggs Taylor finds the Government afoul of the 1st and 4th amendments, the separation of powers doctrine, and FISA. I have been skimming through the opinion, and if you want a history lesson on the basics on Constitutional Law, it might make a good read for you. All the big names are there and even if you do not understand the law that much, the opinion will give you a basis to actually make a good argument about whether or not the program is or is not constitutional; regardless of whether you think in practicality, it should be. Here are a few quotes taken from the opinion that I found interesting…

Defendants have publicly admitted to the following: (1) the TSP exists; (2) it operates without warrants; (3) it targets communications where one party to the communication is outside the United States, and the government has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member ofal Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda. As the Government has on many occasions confirmed the veracity of these allegations, the state secrets privilege does not apply to this information.

In addition, attorneys Nancy Hollander, William Swor,Joshua Dratel, Mohammed Abdrabboh, and Nabih Ayad indicate that they must also communicate with individuals abroad whom the United States government believes to be terrorist suspects or tobe associated with terrorist organizations,(FN)13 and must discuss confidential information over the phone and email with their international clients.(FN)14 All of the Plaintiffs contend that the TSP has caused clients, witnesses and sources to discontinue their communications with plaintiffs out of fear that their communications will be intercepted.(FN)15

The [Authorized Use of Military Force] resolution, if indeed it is construed as replacing FISA, gives no support to Defendants here. Even if that Resolution superceded all other statutory law, Defendants have violated the Constitutional rights of their citizens including the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and the Separation of Powers doctrine.

Last but not least, here in two lines is the counter-argument to the completely irrelevant argument of if you have nothing to hide, why do you care. It’s from the Fark comment discussion on this matter. Generally, not a place for good arguments, but great for one-liners.

My 2-year old’s safety comes before your inconvenience.
Well, then you can explain to her when she grows up why she lives in a fascist police state.

For some additional legal discussion here is a link to the SCOTUSblog

LOL As I was reading an article on the Dell recall for their batteries I came across this great quote. Way to go AP.

“It could cut either way, depending on how they handle it,” Kay said. “The circumstance of failure is an opportunity to touch customers. If they touch them well and kindly, then customers will touch them well, too.”

I’d have to say I agree with them as long as the person touching me isn’t the stereotypical 400 lb male.

Oh and by the way, here is a picture that prompted Dell to do the recall. It happened a long time ago, but eventually the blogosphere got loud enough that Dell had to do something to address it. I was hoping I would get a free battery out of this, but apparently mine has no chance of exploding.

Here are some of the pics from the wedding. Click here for the full album. If you want to print any of them be sure to click download photo on the right side of the image rather than right click and “save as.” Otherwise, you won’t get the biggest size. If that still isn’t enough for you (which it should be for a 4×6 and 5×7) and you want to print something like an 8×10, email me and I’ll send you the biggest copy.

This was on digg today, pretty cool video.



On a more depressing note, only 40% of people in America believe in evolution. The only Western Country to believe in it less is Turkey. This is including countries such as Croatia and Estonia. The article talks about what may be the cause, but only in a brief manner. I firmly believe it is because our education does not allow the teaching of it to the point it should. When you have teachers in private schools that are not forced to teach it, and can even make a mockery of it, this is the result. I enjoy how people laugh at the idea that we evolved from monkeys. They smirk and say, oh isn’t that cute. As if the idea that the whole world was created in six days make so much more sense. Hmm, mabye if you do not believe in evolution you still look like a monkey (*cough* Bush).

Now “mainstream” America will know about digg if they didn’t before because the co-founder Kevin Rose is on the cover of Business Week. It is a pretty well written article and shows how this new Internet boom is not like the days of old circa 1999. This is despite the fact that it seems like everywhere you look there are companies popping up everywhere with a ton of cash being thrown around. Only time will tell, but as of right now most of these companies are not doing any IPO’s, but rather just being bought by the mega companies News Corp and Yahoo!

We’ll see, but I have a feeling there is going to be a bust, but not in the economic sense. More in the, oh wait, the masses are not really the best judge of what is news, and more importantly what is fact. It seems like one out of twenty stories I see on Digg is now marked inaccurate. Now, I have no clue if it actually is in fact inaccurate or rather it could be someone just marking it that way because they don’t like the conclusion (i.e Global Warming is real). It has almost come to the point where I only skim Digg because so much garbage is dugg up by 12 year olds. I find it much more rewarding to actually go to New York Times or ArsTechnica and see intelligent stories and commentary. Not to say Kevin Rose doesn’t deserve a ton of credit for Digg. It is awesome and will continue to be, but I am definitely not sold on social websites yet because MySpace, the IT social website, makes me want to puke. Maybe I’m getting to old.

Here is the article and a quote:

Rose’s social stock has climbed,too. He has more than 11,000 friends on MySpace. He was a runner-up in blog ValleyWag’s “Hottest Guy in the Valley” contest (think Tom Cruise’s doughier little brother), and he co-hosts a hot weekly video podcast called Diggnation. It’s like a techie version of the Saturday Night Live skit “Wayne’s World.” He and Alex Albrecht, a former TechTV co-host, sit on a couch, drink beer, say “dude” a lot, and talk about the biggest stories that week. At a party for the 50th show, Rose was mobbed by fans and even photographed signing a pretty brunette’s cleavage. The snapshot was posted on Flickr the next day, prompting one viewer to comment: “When did they become rock stars?”

The link to said picture and some pretty funny commentary regarding the Netscape clone.

Check out this music video. The song is Here it Goes Again by OK Go off of Oh no

If you liked that one here is two more by them as well. The first is called a Million Ways and the second is Get Over It.

To not rip off completely the ArsTechnica article OMG IM SPEAK NOT BAD 4 GRAMMAR LOL a recent study out of the University of Toronto confirms what an earlier study found that despite looking incomprehensible to adults, txt messages and IM messages actually do not have a detrimental effect on regular grammar and in fact has its own form and rules (ignore the obvious run on I just wrote). I think Kim will be pleased.

Also, shocker, the MN law that proposed to levy a fine on teens that bought a game rated M or AO has been struck down as unconstitutional. I am sick of these states wasting money and time on laws that have been struck down all over the country. This same type of law has been struck down in at least 4 other states if I remember correctly, but they still give in to whiny parents who grasp at faulty studies at best and ones that are obviously biased at worst. Consider this site which shows how violence committed by children has actually gone down over the past twenty years. From the actual opinion written by Judge Rosenbaum

U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum agreed. His ruling also said the state failed to show that the graphic video games are harmful to children.

“There is a paucity of evidence linking the availability of video games with any harm to Minnesota’s children at all,” he wrote.

He also said: “It is impossible to determine from the data presented whether violent video games cause violence, or whether violent individuals are attracted to violent video games.”

On a more amusing note Stephen Colbert has been blocked from wikipedia for this little stunt.