The Weather Report

Check it out: Obama weather

Less Humorous than “to my cat Mat,”

but interesting nonetheless–substantial bequest “to birds and opera,” sort of. Large amounts like this sound so exciting and glamorous until you get to the end of the article and it mentions the 40% estate tax rate in Britain, ouch.

Sad News

Just received an email from USD that professor Fred Zacharias passed away last night. He was widely recognized for his scholarship in the area of Professional Responsibility & Legal Ethics. His presence will truly be missed. Our condolences to his family.

Info from his USD faculty listing:

Professor Zacharias clerked on the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia and practiced public interest law in Washington, D.C. He taught at Cornell University and George Washington University before coming to USD in 1990. He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, professional responsibility and criminal procedure. Among his many articles are “The Uniqueness of Federal Prosecutors,” Georgetown Law Journal; “Waiving Conflicts of Interest,” Yale Law Journal; “Structuring the Ethics of Prosecutorial Trial Practice,” Vanderbilt Law Review; “Flowcharting the First Amendment,” Cornell Law Review; “Federalizing Legal Ethics,” Texas Law Review; and “The Politics of Torts,” Yale Law Journal. He is a member of the American Law Institute.

Represent

Historic vote in the House today, in case you hadn’t heard. Credit being given to Ms. Pelosi, who just so happens to be from the Bay.  I wouldn’t mind seeing her put her 2016 bid in…

Statisticians Reject Global Cooling

I’ve been meaning to post this story for a little while.  The public seems to be so fickle on the global warming issue and environmental topics in general, so it’s nice to see somewhat lengthy articles like this one that tend to dismiss the nonsense coming from a select few.

Global warming skeptics base their claims on an unusually hot year in 1998. Since then, they say, temperatures have dropped — thus, a cooling trend. But it’s not that simple.

Since 1998, temperatures have dipped, soared, fallen again and are now rising once more. Records kept by the British meteorological office and satellite data used by climate skeptics still show 1998 as the hottest year. However, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA show 2005 has topped 1998. Published peer-reviewed scientific research generally cites temperatures measured by ground sensors, which are from NOAA, NASA and the British, more than the satellite data.

The recent Internet chatter about cooling led NOAA’s climate data center to re-examine its temperature data. It found no cooling trend.

“The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record,” said NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt. “Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming.”

“To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous,” said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford.

Yet, as long as there’s nonsense floating around out there, a certain section of the public will always believe it.

I knew it!

craigslist SCAM ALERT

SCAM ALERT – affiliate scammers are posting bogus ads promising (nonexistent!) employment, paid research trials, or other compensation, but then notifying repliers that they’ll need to jump through a hoop first, directing them to:

• background checking services
• credit checking or reporting sites
• sites where you are instructed to enter your resume or other personal information
• sites where you are asked to sign up for a “free” trial offer
• sites offering training or education
• sites offering a “system” for making money
• survey or focus group sites
• sites designed to deliver malware or misuse your identifying information

all in hopes of earning affiliate marketing commissions or otherwise profiting at the expense of persons seeking employment.

Lots of variations on this scam, but each generally involves dangling (nonexistent!) compensation, and then directing you to a website where you are asked to sign up for something, use your credit card, or input personal information such as your email address.

Continue to legal / paralegal job postings

FUN FACT: If you are able to determine a scammer’s “affiliate ID” and report it to their affiliate marketing program, this will often result in termination of the scammer, and confiscation of the scammer’s ill-gotten gains by the affiliate program.

$1.26 BILLION default judgment against PepsiCo

and it’s not just a Civ Pro hypothetical, even though it sounds like a good one. I have two thoughts about this: 1) really? bottling water was such a big idea that someone sued for Pepsi stealing it? Perhaps due to the environment I grew up in, I can’t picture the idea of bottling water as being presenting an actual legal claim for misappropriation. 2) A judge would actually think that Pepsi’s failure to appear was an acquiescence a) period; and b) for $1.26 billion in damages. It seems to me like the local rules would prevent default judgment in a case with shaky service of process, as the article discusses. “Drink more water.”

Change in Federal Marijuana Policy

I usually avoid blogging about this topic, but I think the Administration’s new policy completely makes sense. Let’s not waste federal resources to pursue people who are in clear and unambiguous compliance with state law. This sort of cooperative federalism seems to additionally support the SCOTUS’s announced views of letting the states experiment with new policies (e.g. gay marriage, etc.) without the feds getting involved until there’s a consensus clear enough for them to take action–within the limits of the Constitution of course. But the commerce clause argument seems like a no brainer.

J&K + 8, baby daddy’s other K problem

Source of his “epiphany” seems crystal clear. While the tabloids claimed John was putting the kibbosh on filming for personal reasons, they failed to mention his legal woes, perhaps then unknown, John was having with TLC. Namely, selling himself to the entertainment media in the name of giving his side of the story, aka making a fool of himself in an already ridiculous media circus.

While I ordinarily wouldn’t waste the time posting about such fluff, I thought it worth mentioning if only for the fact that John seems incapable of saying no to t.v. appearances, even if it means landing himself in a contract suit he seems surely to lose.

New Idea For Repaying My Law School Loans

Well, maybe it isn’t a new idea.  I have considered using my skills in the lovemaking department before, but this story reminded me that there are other options for paying off student loans besides slaving away in an office all day.  Just so I don’t evade paying taxes, I should be home free, right?  I guess I’d have to move to Nevada too, or something.

A Stanford Law School graduate was sentenced Monday on a federal tax conviction related to running a high-priced call girl service, punishment that includes restrictions on her ability to keep advertising as an escort while she’s on probation.

During a hearing in San Jose federal court, U.S. District Judge James Ware concluded he needed to impose those restrictions on Cristina Warthen after federal prosecutors disclosed she’s continued to advertise herself on the Internet as a high-priced escort, even as she awaited sentencing on federal tax evasion charges related to her days as an upscale prostitute named “Brazil.”

Warthen gained notoriety when she was busted as a jet-setting call girl who sold her services to pay off her Stanford Law School debts. She got her law degree from Stanford in May 2001, but quickly began to run a steamy Web site with offers to jet off for liaisons with clients in cities around the country, including New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

By the way, where were these girls in my law school class?  I’m not really that into the huge lips and plastic boobs, but it definitely would have made Contracts more enjoyable!

The Right’s Continuing Artistic Incompetence

If you’re a fan of people on the right attempting to accomplish things above their intelligence level and falling short, you’ll remember this story from a year ago about the girl who claimed she was assaulted by a black Obama supporter who carved a “B” into her face.  Turns out, she was looking into a mirror when she carved the letter into her own face, and didn’t realize it would be flipped around when viewed by an outside observer.  Oops!

Well, almost a year later, we have this shining example of artistic stupidity:

Close, but not quite.

Last night, some dumbass(es) carved this into the 18th hole of the Lakeville Country Club in Lakeville, MA.  Of course, police and the Secret Service are investigating.  I saw this story linked to on the Drudge Report, with the headline, “Swastika and Obama carved into green at golf course…”  Many other news outlets are likewise reporting that the symbol is a swastika.  Unfortunately for the lamebrain trespasser(s), Drudge, and other sources, the attempt missed the mark a bit.  From the above-linked story:

Police believe the vandals meant to carve a swastika next to President Barack Obama’s name on the 18th hole; however, the symbol was backwards and means hope and peace in some Eastern countries.

Actually, the carved symbol can actually be referenced as a swastika, but it isn’t the one associated with the Nazis, which is a right-facing swastika.  The current carving can be more properly referred to as a sauwastika.  In any case, the point is, before defacing any property with some half-hearted attempt at a political hate message, you might want to doublecheck that what you’re carving is, in fact, the Nazi symbol and not a symbol for hope and peace.

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

This seems quite early to me, and also partisan, but maybe it’s just a sigh of relief that we actually have a president who doesn’t jump the gun when it comes to brute force.We shall see what a stir this causes…

Graduate School Return Investment

I wish they had this for law schools, especially when I was deciding where to spend the next $120,000 of my life. It’s ironic, because the U.S. News Rankings for lawschools tells you information about employment and debt after graduation, but that doesn’t really tell you which is the best value, or how quickly you will recoup your investment.

Seasonal Employment

Wonderful. Words cannot describe the laughter I enjoyed while reading this article. In this dismal economy, times are getting desperate. I’ve seen several posts like this, which concern me. Not sure if it’s legit, has the looks of a scam, especially considering there are like 20 similar posts in different areas throughout the state. There are, however, perhaps more depressingly, a plethora of listings in Bankruptcy work. This must be my favorite. Not sure what is more disturbing, that people may actually waste their money with the promises of passing the Bar through this “correspondence” program, or that someone thinks being fluid in English makes any sense.

Oh the Irony (from fb)

Brightcoast completed the quiz “Which US President are you?” with the result Ronald Reagan.

You are a great communicator! You possess talents that cause others to press you to lead. You are not only wise, knowledgeable, and articulate – you al…so have captured the very essence of being a modern hero. You are optimist and encourage others to remain on the path to success. Selfless to a fault, comical and pleasureable, others enjoy your presence. If there ever was a tour guide for the “city on a hill” you would be the candidate..