Feb 3, 2021
Imagine if the generals of the Tatmadaw were advising Trump. After arresting Myanmar legislators and closing the parliament, they stated that their reason for invoking the emergency provisions of the Myanmar constitution as justification for the intervention was the pandemic and election fraud.
Trump would have difficulty maintaining that the pandemic was an emergency after denying it for so long. Not even his own infection with the disease changed his mind. But he could have claimed that election fraud required the arrest of Democratic leaders and the imposition of martial law. Who in the military would have stood up against the CinC? A few, of course, but their colleagues would put them in cells alongside other protestors.
It turns out that the greatest defense against a coup in the United States was Trump’s own mediocrity.
Jan 21, 2021
No More Conspiracy Theories
I’m sick and tired of QAnon, Pizzagate and other conspiracy theories. When can we get back to hard news?
Jan 20, 2021
Government Depository Libraries
Every major university’s library, public and private, is a government depository library. This means they have to give you access if you say you’re going to consult the government collection. Usually I just ask what floor it’s on and then don’t bother to go there. Instead I head for periodicals, grab what I can carry and find a comfortable chair to read in.
Unfortunately, there is not always an accessible government depository library nearby and sometimes you have to make do with a county or even a municipal library. Finding a comfortable chair in a municipal library, whether in Miami or Santa Monica, has always been a challenge.
A few years ago, I found myself walking down Wilshire Boulevard and there it was: the Santa Monica library, conveniently located across the street from a Goodwill Industries outlet. With a few hours to kill, how could I not go in?
The homeless had taken over all the comfortable chairs in the Santa Monica library and most of them were simply sleeping. Libraries are popular with recent parolees and those on probation and this one is no exception. Probation officers do not object to their supervisees spending time in a library and those who have released from prison enjoy reading books that are not censored by the prison authorities. Censorship in the library is exercised only in the section where a terminal and an Internet connection are on offer. These are extremely popular; people have to line up to get access.
Finding a place to read in the library is a challenge. I found a few comfortable chairs in a separate, empty section of the library and couldn’t understand why the homeless hadn’t commandeered it. Turned out there was a “Teens Only” sign that I had overlooked. I wondered why the staff looked strangely at me when I sat down to read my periodicals. My guess is that they were told not to engage with non-patrons and I must have looked homeless myself.
At least no one called the police on me for being a predator, but then again, the teen patrons were nowhere to be seen. Back in the adult section, someone had vomited near the book checkout. “I didn’t study library science for this,” I heard one of the staff say as she maneuvered a mop. I dunno: LA, Bukowski–maybe this was some kind of a twisted tribute. Vomiting can be contagious but fortunately no one else joined in.
Dec 27, 2020
A vaccine is an immune system booster. It is not a cure or a treatment for disease.
You have to have an immune system to start out with.
My question is, in the case of centenarians, how much of their immune system is left?
Dec 26, 2020
I wrote this four years ago, pointing out that the Swartz prosecution was political in nature. MIT and the US Attorney’s Office in Boston are responsible for his death. After his suicide, the Boston USAO lied, claiming that they had offered him a six-month plea bargain. That was and is a lie:
The Federal Sentencing Guidelines provide a base sentence of 57-71 months in prison in this case, followed by 2 or 3 years of supervised release and no computer use during this time. I have not seen a report where the prosecution offered Swartz a six-month cap in exchange for a plea. I have seen a report that the prosecution insisted on what is called an open plea to the entire indictment. This is not a plea bargain at all.
My only conclusion from all of this is that this case was and is a political case and so was handled differently from run of the mill criminal matters. The government no doubt wanted to make an example of Swartz and his efforts in opening up PACER played into this. The Government is afraid of people like Swartz, Assange and Anonymous (and perhaps even Kim Dotcom–they are viewed essentially as one entity.
Society’s reaction to crime ebbs and flows. In medieval England, the sole penalty for felony was death. The idea was that the punishment was so horrible that no one would commit a felony. This obviously did not work. The United States is similarly using draconian legislation to modify the behavior of people interacting through computers. This effort will fail. The greatest blow to people pirating music was iTunes offering songs for less than a dollar and not any draconian legislation.
The Swartz case raises so many issues. Perhaps only a Constitutional Convention could address all of them (keep in mind that the federalization of crime took place under Hoover; at the founding of the Republic there were only three federal crimes).
Dec 17, 2020
An adjutorious arbitration; an archaic word but then again, in the law nothing is archaic. There has to be a good deal of good will and cooperation where the parties fail to provide for an arbitration clause, a dispute arises and they nevertheless agree to resolve their dispute amicably using ICC Arbitration. So “adjutorious” in the sense of “helping” them to resolve their dispute. Accessory or ancillary arbitration doesn’t work because such an arbitration is the principal one. It ’s not ancillary to anything except the contract–not the dispute–and if you could use “ancillary” you might as well use “additional”. “Sequacious” could also be used in the sense of “following” the contract, but this word is mostly used to describe a person. No reason it couldn’t be used here, it’s just a question of repeated use and acceptance, but you lose the euphony of alliteration. Perhaps someone could start looking at the Selden Society’s volumes, there might be a term from Law French. Which, of course, is not French at all.
Nov 28, 2020
You cannot applaud the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Iran while condemning the assassination of Khashoggi in Istanbul.
(And if it’s OK for Israel, it’s OK for Saudi Arabia)
A new law of war is needed:
medium.com/@al_mu7am…
Nov 20, 2020
Ronald Reagan left the White House when he was 77 years old after serving two terms.
Joe Biden today is one year older than Reagan was at the end of his term and getting ready to begin his.
Biden will be 82 at the end of his term.
Nov 19, 2020
“There’s no freedom of religion unless you are free to worship Sumerian wind demons”
Nov 14, 2020
Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner, was an attorney in Maryland.
And a slaveowner.
John Marshall, the 13th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was a slaveowner too. He owned 150 slaves. He is the intellectual author of the principle of judicial review, found in the seminal case of Marbury v. Madison.