Feb 19, 2023
Alex Baldwin has some ‘splainin to do.
Rules on Set
- No clowning around! Anyone pointing firearms at anyone (other than rehearsing) will be wrapped.
- Do not point at anyone directly within 10 feet. Putting a gun with blanks to your head will blow a piece of your skull into your brain if the trigger is pulled.
- When the Director, Stunt Coordinator, or weapons specialist, etc. yells “cut”: (1) take your finger out of the trigger guard, and (2) point gun at the ground.
- Do not put your hands in front of the barrel. Do not put your hand on slides, charging handles, bolts, etc. as they move with great force on some models when fired. They can break your fingers, hands, etc.
- Hot shells eject from semi-auto and full auto firearms. Be careful and mindful of who is to the right of you.
- If an actor crosses in front of you, within 10 feet, stop firing!
- Never point a gun at an actor’s face.
- Live weapons and ammo are not permitted on the set. If you own a gun or carry a gun, GET IT OFF THE SET NOW! This includes ammo. Empty your pockets and lock ammo and guns away, preferably in your car. This includes real police officers that are being used as actors or extras – there is no security. You may use your firearm as a prop if it is EMPTIED OFF SET and inspected by the Weapons Master specialist, this INCLUDES ALL magazines in pouches. You are either an actor or a police officer, pick one.
- Anyone that smells of liquor, beer, or marijuana WILL NOT receive a firearm, accept getting the written permission from the responsible person.
- Do not try to take guns apart, fold stocks, flip switches, push buttons, etc.! If you have a fake firearm, attempting this will break off parts.
- DO NOT DROP GUNS! The production is liable for any damage! If you cannot hold onto the gun, it will be taken from you. Plastic prop guns are fragile – treat them as such. Do not attempt to cock handles, push buttons etc. Light pulling of the trigger is OK. Rubber guns may be dropped if needed.
- Do not put objects in the barrels of guns as they can kill when blanks are fired.
From bangkokvideoproductions.com
Feb 15, 2023
Mail in the Middle East is routinely not delivered. Is this a cultural issue (mail in Riyadh was once dumped in the town square on the chance the crowd might know the addressee) an institutional issue (declining revenues from decreasing first class mailings) or something else?
Discuss.
Picture is of the main post office in Ho Chi Minh City, often erroneously attributed to Gustav Eiffel. In fact, the building was designed by French architect Alfred Foulhoux.
Feb 15, 2023
Identify your Enemy
This is probably the most important. Even if you join the large in-house legal department of a mega-corporation like Exxon, there will be an enemy. While the enemy might be individual, it might also be a group. You are in competition with anyone who enters at the same time you do. Contracting departments often are at war with the legal department and if they are successful in getting you fired, it’s one for their team.
Failure to identify your enemy means your tenure will be short. Legal ethics will only help as a sword, not as a shield. Someone may invite you to get involved in a matter or try to assign a case to you that is a battlefield where many have fallen. If others have failed, it’s for a reason. “I can’t get involved in that matter because of conflicts.” Sun-Tzu is your friend.
Learn the Back Story
Many matters that cross your desk will appear to be routine. Review of a contract; a non-disclosure agreement, updating corporate forms in view of new legislation or a court decision. Beware of those matters that while appearing routine contain only partial facts and only part of the story.
In a dispute between members of a joint venture, as the calendar year rolled around approving the company’s financials and renewing registrations is considered routine.
Your counterparty asks if these routine matters can be resolved, notwithstanding the parties’ disputes. You agree because of statutory requirements only to find that a not-so-bright light on your team has refused to cooperate on routine matters in a misguided effort to obtain an advantage over the substantive dispute.
“Oh no,” the genius said, “we can’t agree to paying the annual registration fee.”
“If you don’t the company will be delisted,” you respond.
“Then that will be their fault,” he claims, “because blah blah blah.”
Consider every matter a minefield, no matter how minor. Even when you know the backstory.
Go Out of your way to do favors
An in-house legal department may be a new animal for many within the organization. Before your arrival if they only dealt with outside counsel who weren’t part of the organization and subject to the company’s chain of command. They dealt with lawyers like they might deal with any other supplier or customer. Initially, they will not know how to deal with you. Attorney-client confidentiality is one area of confusion, because your client is the organization. No non-lawyer will understand this.
Win allies by going the extra mile and helping your colleagues outside the legal department meet their deadlines, even if it means goodbye to that 9 to 5 that you dreamt of before going in-house.
Keep an ‘Attaboy’ File
Every time anyone in the organization praises you, make a note if the praise is oral and a copy if written. These encomia should go into an “attaboy file.” You will need this information when it comes time for salary review or when someone in the organization, unhappy with your legal advice and tired of filing reclama after reclama, tries to get you thrown out the door. See “Identify your Enemy” above.
Time Records, Time Records, Time Records
The bane of lawyers is the requirement to keep detailed time records so that bills can be prepared for clients. One of the advantages of in-house practice, supposedly, is that there is no need to keep such records. Don’t believe it. You still need to keep them for a host of reasons, but here are four:
—identifying people present at a meeting if this becomes an issue (it will)
—justifying your salary (and value to the organization)
—aide-memoire for those off the cuff oral legal opinions
—keeping a follow-up to your to-do list
—proving corporate legal expenditures in court for fee reimbursement
Plaintiff lawyers, or any lawyer taking a fee on a contingency fee basis often believe that there is no need to keep time records. This belief evaporates the moment they are ordered to prepare a bill of costs in a matter where the client is entitled to attorneys fees.
Reconstructing time spent is a task for novelists because it is properly called narrative fiction.
Contemporaneous records are admissible in court. Reconstructions might be admissible, but then again, there is a high risk that they will be cut by the presiding judge if disputed. And they will be disputed.
Educate your Superiors
Unless your superiors are old court hands, they will not understand that there are certain activities that are a necessary part of lawyering. One example is talking to opposing counsel.
Your superiors may foolishly believe that this is some kind of betrayal and that no quarter should ever be given. The opponent should be met on the battlefield only. This attitude is stupid.
Even the most contentious cases require cooperation from opposing counsel and without communication there is no cooperation.
A factory of a certain size may have an in-house medical facility; a clinic or even a physician on call. No corporate officer would question an in-house physician as to why he prescribed Tylenol instead of aspirin to an employee who reported a headache but the same officer will feel privileged to question why you served standard form interrogatories or Requests to Admit to an opposing lawyer.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; explain generally that conduct in litigated civil disputes is governed by the Rules of Civil Procedure. Offer to send a copy to the offending corporate officer. He will say yes, not read what you send him and in the future hopefully will keep his nose out of court business.
The Chairman’s Best Law Firm
Even though you are working in-house for a company and not a law firm, in reality you are still working for a law firm. That firm reports to the chairman or CEO of the company. You want him to think of your department as “his” law firm; you want the law department to be his first and most trustworthy stop for legal advice.
This means you must operate the law department as if it were a law firm. This will be difficult, because unlike other corporate divisions the law department will be seen as a cost, and not a profit center.
Don’t let anyone think of the law department in that way. Keep close track of the savings you bring to the firm, whether compared to the costs of outside counsel or simply as to areas where your law department has saved the company money.
Don’t Take Sides
Different divisions within the company will fight for resources, profits and the attention of the chairman. Promotions will be granted on merit, but they will too often be awarded to the less-worthy who has made it seem like a different division was less successful.
Invariably, the different sectors will come to you and ask you to take a side, suggesting, without actually denouncing, that programs or processes engaged in by a different division are not in the best interest of the company. They will ask you to back them up.
Don’t be tempted. You never get the whole story in this fashion and there is always more to the story. Try to remain neutral for as long as possible, unless an until the chairman raises the matter with you. If he doesn’t, it’s best not to get involved.
Of course, if someone comes to you with a story of fraud or other wrongdoing, you must report this to the chairman. Never forget who is your client.
The Gift of Time
While in the rush to complete a transaction there will still be many days where your work long hours, for the most part the ten or twelve—or more—hour days common to associates at Big Law firms will be a thing of the past.
This is nothing less than a gift of time.
Don’t waste it.
Dealing with Outside Counsel
You are in a position to help bring in the best lawyers for the company. But be careful: doing so means stepping on toes.
Long-term relationships with ensconced firms are disturbed at your peril. Lawyers at these firms can and will go over your head to claim that bringing in a new firm is a sign of immaturity (even if you’re over 50), ignorance (even if you know the case backwards and forwards) or incautious (even if the proposed selection was made after a rigorous tender process).
You can’t ignore these whispers because you will not always be there to hear them. Bring others in the firm—not just the law department—in on the decision. They will be your internal advocates, for they know the details better than you do. Tell the firm you’d like to make the award to where the opposition lies: they may have some useful comments.
In the end, don’t make it your decision. It’s the chairman’s decision, and if he decides to overrule your team and go with his golfing buddy, so be it.
Don’t complain or sulk, even if you feel a great error is being made.
Stay in your Lane
Unless you have an MBA or ran a business prior to becoming a lawyer (managing a law firm doesn’t count) don’t try to offer strategic suggestions for the future of the business.
You are not a businessman.
Look what happened to Citibank’s Charles Price. If you want to move into management, get an MBA.
Feb 15, 2023
Feb 13, 2023
Feb 13, 2023
They did it again. In the Liberty City 7 case, an FBI freelance troublemaker tried to convince a group of poor black men in Miami to blow up the Willis Tower in Chicago. The building was never at risk. The FBI and the troublemaker provided money, logistics and fake bombs.
In another useless sting, Ikaika Kange, a U.S. Army soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was charged with assisting Da’esh, the Islamic State. Why provide PTSD counseling to troubled servicemen when you can accuse them of crime?
In a more outrageous case, seventeen year old Adel Daoud wrote a term paper about Osama bin Laden. His online research set off the NSA’s secret surveillance alarms. The FBI unleashed an informant on Daoud on a “no arrest, no pay” basis. Realizing that there would be no paycheck without a crime, the informant convinced Daoud to join ISIS (this was all pretend) and to bomb a saloon near Wrigley Field (more pretend). The informant provided Daoud with fake bombs as a courtesy since Daoud was unable to carry out the contrived plot himself.
During the informant’s performance, assisted by the stooge Daoud, the FBI swooped in, declared victory and arrested the teenager. Court appointed psychiatrists found Daoud to be susceptible to suggestion, borderline retarded and unfit to stand trial. A federal district judge found Daoud incompetent to stand trial, in part because of his belief in “lizard people.” It is not clear whether Daoud believes that ISIS and the lizard people are one and the same, or whether he was free to ignore the commands of the lizard people’s emissary. No matter: with Daoud’s arrest the informant got his payday. The informant in the Liberty City case had an $80,000 payday; the amount of cash wasted on Daoud has not yet been made public.
Unleashing informants to evangelize for ISIS is dangerous. Daoud was easy prey. An evangelizing informant may be successful in winning someone over to ISIS only to find that the new convert doesn’t want to perform in a scripted play. You see, he’s found this thing called the Internet, and he’s contacted the real bad guys who tell him, “no, we don’t know this evangelist, stay away from him. Conduct martyrdom operations yourself.” And then while time is wasted chasing the retarded, those who pose a real threat are ignored, freed to engage. A teenager who writes a term paper on Osama bin Laden should not be targeted by the government. Daoud was unstable and needed counseling. What happened to him is unforgivable.
Are the people of Chicago more safe because of these shenanigans? Here’s a thought: why not divert some of this law enforcement attention away from manufactured crime and towards real counter-terrorist activities, instead of make believe ones?
References: nbcnews com/news/us-news/chicago-bomb-plot-suspect-ruled-incompetent-belief-lizard-people-n638066 theintercept com/2017/04/20/more-than-400-people-convicted-of-terrorism-in-the-u-s-have-been-released-since-911/
The NSA claims they only track foreigners. U.S. citizens are unmolested, protected by a Constitution that bans searches into their papers and records without a warrant. The Daoud case proves that the term “foreigner” includes Chicago-area high school teenagers and the Constitutional ban illusory.
Feb 12, 2023
Pennsylvania’s senator Fetterman just spent nine days in the hospital.
“Sheriff” Herschel Walker is out chasing criminals.
Anna Luna (née Meyerhof) is an ethnic impostor.
And then there’s George Santos.
Feb 12, 2023
- Anna Paulina Luna
- George Santos
- Rachel Dolezal
- Sherry Stanley Jimenez
- William Montgomery McGovern
- Nelson Scott Simpson
- Vijay Chokal Ingam
- Chico Colon Meridan
- George Herriman
- Gregory Markopoulos
- John Roland Redd
- Archibald Belaney
- Sacheen Littlefeather
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren
- Jessica Krug
- Jeannine Cummins
Feb 12, 2023
- Anna Paulina Luna
- George Santos
- Rachel Dolezal
- Sherry Stanley Jimenez
- William Montgomery McGovern
- Nelson Scott Simpson
- Vijay Chokal Ingam
- Chico Colon Meridan
- George Herriman
- Gregory Markopoulos
- John Roland Redd
- Archibald Belaney
- Sacheen Littlefeather
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren
- Jessica Krug
- Jeannine Cummins
Feb 5, 2023
After four days of using polypropylene currency:
I don’t like it. It doesn’t fold. It only bends. It’s slippery like a register receipt. It slides out of your pocket onto the floor.
I don’t want to be a Luddite. I thought I would like the new money. It doesn’t tear, and if you forget and leave bills in a pocket while doing the wash, they will be cleaned but not destroyed. Nor will they disintegrate, contaminating everything else in that wash cycle.
Many countries are slowly strolling out plastic money. The plastic bills don’t mix well with their paper cousins, still the predominant form. Paper folds. So you end up with a wad, some bills folded, others not.
The Cashless Future
Wuddabout the cashless future? I stood for one half hour behind two Malaysian ladies trying to install an app, change passwords, link to their banking, restore points, and God knows what else. Finally it was my turn to order coffee.
After insisting that I was sure I did not want to install their app, I paid with a card. Fortunately:
- the Internet was working
- the card terminal was working
- my bank’s end was working
Otherwise, the plastic cash in my pocket would have been useless.
Feb 1, 2023
If you need blank horizontal space in Ulysses, try using a UTF-8 space character.
Ulysses does not strip blank space where that blank space is a UTF-8 character, like U+2004 (three em space). While this symbol cannot be generated in Ulysses–like s̵t̵r̵i̵k̵e̵t̵h̵r̵o̵u̵g̵h̵ for example–if generated in an external program and copied to Ulysses, it will both be displayed in Ulysses and upon export.
Feb 1, 2023
Santos’ best bet now is to appoint a Portuguese-speaking treasurer living in a small town in Brazil. FEC inquiries would have to be translated; int’l mail would be lost or not delivered, and there is no requirement that a campaign treasurer speak English or live in the US.
Jan 29, 2023
If the Memphis killer cops had been white, the country would be in flames.
Jan 29, 2023
In order to expel evil from her home after the attempt on her husband’s life, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hosted an exorcism.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nancy-pelosi-priest-exorcism-husband/
Jan 25, 2023
Jan 25, 2023
A bitter, lonely old man with access to an assault weapon decided to share the pain of loneliness and rejection with the regulars at the dance studio where he had gone for companionship.
Jan 24, 2023
Drumroll please:
the mystery of the Santos $750,000 campaign contribution solved.
Jan 24, 2023
Drumroll please:
the mystery of the Santos $750,000 campaign contribution solved.
santos #campaignfinance #santos
Jan 23, 2023
Lawyers fail to monetize their networks. This often has value. Instead, lawyers pretend that it doesn’t exist or is inaccessible, even as the Internet has proven over and over that networks have value. The network itself is proof of that value, but if you pretend it doesn’t exist, then there is no value. Look at your network and capitalize on it.
Collateral Damage
“Vaccines saved lives and flattened the curve. Sure, there was collateral damage like Hamlin and Presley, but there was collateral damage in Baghdad too and no one said ‘boo.’”
Jan 21, 2023
Lawyers fail to monetize their networks. This often has value. Instead, lawyers pretend that it doesn’t exist or is inaccessible, even as the Internet has proven over and over that networks have value. The network is proof of that value, but if you pretend it doesn’t exist, then there is a failure of value. Look at your network and capitalize on it.
Jan 19, 2023
OK, he lied. He’s not Jewish, his grandparents had nothing to do with the Holocaust, he didn’t work at Goldman Sachs or even graduate from college.
So what? Let’s judge him on his performance rather than on whom he once claimed to be. Obviously, this man has skills: he ran a successful, federal congressional campaign and won as someone who had never held any kind of political office.
The fact is that no one is safe while the Congress is in session. Santos cannot possibly do worse than others who have held the office. If anything, his “embellishments” will keep him humble, a character quality otherwise sorely lacking amongst his new peers.
Riyals, Rubles or Renminbi
No one–except the US–is happy with the fact that the dollar is the world’s reserve currency. Remove its status and Europe will be happy to buy riyals, rubles or renminbi to purchase oil.
Jan 19, 2023
Really, what is more American than the grift?
George Santos “embellished” his resumé, not worrying about the fact that identity politics trumps even outright lies. Santos claims to be Jewish, biracial, and finding one box unchecked, gay. He is Latino enough and there are Holocaust survivors in his family tree.
A claimed 9/11 death in the family makes up for a lack of military service, and when the New York Times finally looked into his background and uncovered his failure to graduate from college the fact that Santos is a high-school dropout was lost in the noise.
Shilling for sympathy, Santos had his mother die twice. He started a charity for animals and pocketed the cash, knowing that dogs and cats don’t complain. He is a liar and shameless, as any good grifter must be. None of this prevented his election to the 117th Congress.
If anything, he is the perfect candidate.
Jan 18, 2023
OK, he lied. He’s not Jewish, his grandparents had nothing to do with the Holocaust, he didn’t work at Goldman Sachs or even graduate from college.
So what? Let’s judge him on his performance rather than on whom he once claimed to be. Obviously, this man has skills: he ran a successful, federal congressional campaign and won as someone who had never held any kind of political office.
The fact is that no one is safe while the Congress is in session. Santos cannot possibly do worse than others who have held the office. If anything, his “embellishments” will keep him humble, a character quality otherwise sorely lacking amongst his new peers.
Jan 15, 2023
No longer can rap lyrics be held against their author in a criminal trial, a new California law tells us.
Many would assert that rap glorifies the thug lifestyle, though arguments will ensue as to whether that lifestyle is merely a fashion statement akin to the “heroin chic” that glamour magazines pushed in the 90’s.
Still, violence by and against rap stars seems to be part of that world. Some of these killings, like the assassinations of Tupac and Biggie. The former CEO of Death Row Records, Suge Knight, is himself in prison, serving a lengthy term for murder.
Some would question whether rap lyrics’ discussion of violence is nothing more than an elaborate pose. After all, didn’t white rapper Vanilla Ice sing of prowling the streets of Miami with a 9mm handgun?
A prosecutor would be eager to use such lyrics in a criminal prosecution. After all, Google searches for “how to dispose of a body” can and are introduced as evidence of premeditation.
Hollywood knows not a little about make-believe and saw this as a dangerous trend. Hence, the new protective evidentiary rule.
But there’s nothing new about the use of literature in criminal cases. Kawashima Yoshiko was a member of the Chinese imperial family who, not entirely unsurprisingly, cast her lot with the Japanese occupiers of the puppet state of Manchuoko, as they had restored her family to a much-reduced, Japanese-controlled throne.
She spoke fluent Japanese, was raised in Japan for a time and commanded an army.
And she was trans, deciding that she would no longer be a woman. “Yoshiko” is her dead name, she adopted the name “Ryosuke” as her male name.
Accused of treason after the fall of Japan and the second fall of the Qing Imperial House, she was tried in a Chinese court, where a novel about her life was entered into evidence. Not a record or a report: a novel. A novel not written by Ryosuke and fictionalized. No matter: she was convicted and shot.
I doubt that the California legislators considered the facts of her case when considering the new legislation. The new evidentiary rule is largely symbolic since a judge may waive it and allow song lyrics to be considered by the jury.
And presumably, novels as well.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiko_Kawashima
Jan 15, 2023
If you need blank horizontal space in Ulysses, try using a UTF-8 space character.
Ulysses does not strip blank space where that blank space is a UTF-8 character, like U+2004 (three em space). While this symbol cannot be generated in Ulysses–like s̵t̵r̵i̵k̵e̵t̵h̵r̵o̵u̵g̵h̵ for example–if generated in an external program and copied to Ulysses, it will both be displayed in Ulysses and upon export.