Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Monday, July 01, 2002
MY, THERE HAVE BEEN a lot of stupid things happening lately, no? The most prominent is the Ninth Circuit's pledge-of-allegiance decision. It's a legally stupid decision, and even if one agrees with it (or is sympathetic to it) in principle, it's a politically stupid decision. I can't really be bothered to mount up outrage against it; there are a lot of stupid things in the world -- why spend a lot of time on the obviously stupid ones? This is one that will be fixed by the Ninth or by the Supreme Court, and there has been the salutary effect of drawing attention to the dysfunction of the Ninth Circuit.
The worst part of the Pledge decision is that it overshadowed the Supreme Court's abolition of the death penalty for the retarded. At which point, you might as well throw in the towel; unless there is a Republican Senate and Justice Stevens is replaced with a judicial conservative, the death penalty will be gone by 2010. The recent decision is inexcusable, except as a stepping stone in that direction. I do predict a cottage industry of lawyers training defendants how to flunk IQ tests. I won't bother with the irony of the left claiming that IQ is meaningless, but relying upon it here. A New York district court judge affirmed his earlier stupid decision calling the federal death penalty unconstitutional. His grounds? He felt that studies showed that death penalty defendants couldn't get a fair trial. To which the natural response is, that's your job, bozo, and if you can't ensure a fair trial for a defendant, you have no business sitting on the bench.
I'd say more, but, as I mentioned, there's only so much outrage I can mount in any given week. And, unfortunately for readers of The Sound And Fury, most of my recent outrage has been reserved for a judicial opinion even stupider than the three I just mentioned. I can't go into detail, but it was one of those decisions that you could use to destroy an android on the old Star Trek show just by reading it to them.
Side note: "The Sound And The Fury" is the best novel of the 20th century; it was written by William Faulkner. "The Sound And Fury" has a similar, but different, title, and is this here web log thing. We're both playing off the same Shakespeare line, but are entirely different works, even if Benjamin Compson is sometimes more coherent than I am.
Happy Canada Day.
The worst part of the Pledge decision is that it overshadowed the Supreme Court's abolition of the death penalty for the retarded. At which point, you might as well throw in the towel; unless there is a Republican Senate and Justice Stevens is replaced with a judicial conservative, the death penalty will be gone by 2010. The recent decision is inexcusable, except as a stepping stone in that direction. I do predict a cottage industry of lawyers training defendants how to flunk IQ tests. I won't bother with the irony of the left claiming that IQ is meaningless, but relying upon it here. A New York district court judge affirmed his earlier stupid decision calling the federal death penalty unconstitutional. His grounds? He felt that studies showed that death penalty defendants couldn't get a fair trial. To which the natural response is, that's your job, bozo, and if you can't ensure a fair trial for a defendant, you have no business sitting on the bench.
I'd say more, but, as I mentioned, there's only so much outrage I can mount in any given week. And, unfortunately for readers of The Sound And Fury, most of my recent outrage has been reserved for a judicial opinion even stupider than the three I just mentioned. I can't go into detail, but it was one of those decisions that you could use to destroy an android on the old Star Trek show just by reading it to them.
Side note: "The Sound And The Fury" is the best novel of the 20th century; it was written by William Faulkner. "The Sound And Fury" has a similar, but different, title, and is this here web log thing. We're both playing off the same Shakespeare line, but are entirely different works, even if Benjamin Compson is sometimes more coherent than I am.
Happy Canada Day.
Sunday, June 30, 2002
Sasha Volokh talks about crossing a picket line of unionized projectionists who have complain about being locked out of their jobs. Sasha's at Harvard Law, and should know better than to refer to the picketers as being "on strike." Now, perhaps the union is making unreasonable demands, and the management is taking the only step labor law permits them; Sasha's experience of lack of projection problems is certainly anecdotal evidence of this, evidence consistent with the increasingly computerized projections systems now in play. (One reason we're seeing so many "opening weekend" records recently is because the new computerized systems allows a single print to be shown on multiple screens simultaneously.) But this isn't a case where union members are refusing to work; it's case where union members want to work, and aren't being allowed by management.
This will be relevant in the baseball world shortly: players get paid fairly evenly throughout the year, while owners get the bulk of their revenues from television during the playoffs. Thus, owners have the most leverage over players in March and players have the most leverage over owners in August/September. Management is refusing to state that they will not lock out the players in March if a labor agreement is not reached. The players may be faced with no choice other than to strike in August.
This will be relevant in the baseball world shortly: players get paid fairly evenly throughout the year, while owners get the bulk of their revenues from television during the playoffs. Thus, owners have the most leverage over players in March and players have the most leverage over owners in August/September. Management is refusing to state that they will not lock out the players in March if a labor agreement is not reached. The players may be faced with no choice other than to strike in August.
I JUST BOUGHT THE AD off the new Combustible Boy blog, but he hardly needs my help, what with three Instapundit links in under a week.
Saturday, June 29, 2002
Thursday, June 27, 2002
Tuesday, June 25, 2002
Hey: I warned you I was going to be busy towards the end of this month. Alas, the co-bloggers appear to have disappeared. But some quick links from loyal readers, since I haven't even read Instapundit in close to a week, or watched any television since Friday's World Cup loss.
In the everything/nothing category, I'm running out of landmarks to pretend that I'm not a grownup: I was bar mitzvahed, quoted in the New York Times, got a job on my own, bought a stereo, gave a graduation speech, was flown to a job interview, thanked in book acknowledgements, got published, bought furniture, participated in a 401(k) plan, was named as a defendant in a lawsuit, got married, bought a refrigerator, went gambling, got divorced, turned 30, received a boom-year bonus larger than my parents' combined annual salary, purchased stock, argued in front of an appellate panel in a reported decision, and now after over a dozen years of dorm-living and renting, I own real estate. And then quoted in the New York Times a second time. Does this make me a grown-up now?
At least I still don't own an umbrella. Or, as I learned much to my embarrassment Saturday after scraping my elbow, any band-aids.
In nine days, I'll be as old as Darryl Kile was when he died Saturday. Joe Sheehan, who has the same memories of Thurman Munson that I do, already expressed thoughts on the subject that aren't materially different than mine. And did I mention he's the best daily baseball columnist in the nation?
New Smarter Harper's Index
Religious right's use of "intelligent design" as wedge to teach creationism
Expose' of the Discovery Institute
Judge Posner on Colorado River abstention
Giant ITC case decided
In the everything/nothing category, I'm running out of landmarks to pretend that I'm not a grownup: I was bar mitzvahed, quoted in the New York Times, got a job on my own, bought a stereo, gave a graduation speech, was flown to a job interview, thanked in book acknowledgements, got published, bought furniture, participated in a 401(k) plan, was named as a defendant in a lawsuit, got married, bought a refrigerator, went gambling, got divorced, turned 30, received a boom-year bonus larger than my parents' combined annual salary, purchased stock, argued in front of an appellate panel in a reported decision, and now after over a dozen years of dorm-living and renting, I own real estate. And then quoted in the New York Times a second time. Does this make me a grown-up now?
At least I still don't own an umbrella. Or, as I learned much to my embarrassment Saturday after scraping my elbow, any band-aids.
In nine days, I'll be as old as Darryl Kile was when he died Saturday. Joe Sheehan, who has the same memories of Thurman Munson that I do, already expressed thoughts on the subject that aren't materially different than mine. And did I mention he's the best daily baseball columnist in the nation?
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