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Then why does Wikipedia say this:

Xerox did go to trial to protect the Star user interface. In 1989, after Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement of its Macintosh user interface in Windows, Xerox filed a similar lawsuit against Apple; however, it was thrown out because a three year statute of limitations had passed. (Apple eventually lost its lawsuit in 1994, losing all claims to the user interface).[15]

???

Please give your citation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star
http://www.me.utexas.edu/~me179/topics/copyright/case2.html
https://www.abanet.org/antitrust/at-journal/pdf/abstracts/v68-I3/v68-I3-abstract-06.pdf

From what I've ever read, Xerox licensed Apple a few limited pieces of the UI for the Lisa and never for the Macintosh.

Xerox was, however, under a consent decree limiting what types of inventions they could patent and profit from (kind of like AT&T with Unix). They lost their suit over the Mac because of a statute of limitations.

Please enlighten me to where the Macintosh UI license from Xerox is.

I'm not sure where you're getting the 80% figure from. From the numbers I've seen, about half of our senators are former lawyers, and around a third of the house of representatives are former lawyers. As a side note, a little under half of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence were lawyers. You can find that here

Also, there is no lawyer 'clan'. There are multiple different types of lawyers, all of which have varying (and frequently diametrically opposed) professional interests. For instance, most plaintiff personal injury lawyers would be vehemently opposed to policies put forward by the defense bar...

... and this ignores the fact that much of the ultimate blame for our current "political class" can be found in the individuals who vote for them and the individuals/corporations who fund their elections.

Did you read the actual argument, or just Fox New's blatant lying about it? The Solicitor General's arguments were, essentially:

1) The claim being made by the appellant is too broad
2) The court is bound by a century of precedent allowing the government to regulate corporations attempting to buy elections
3) The government cannot prevent individuals from campaign spending, as such would violate the First Amendment. "That is not the case with corporate spending, which does not reflect the
personal views of the officers (who cannot appropriately spend corporate money for purposes of personal selfexpression), the customers or shareholders (whose political preferences officers do not and generally cannot ascertain), or the corporation itself (which is an artificial
entity that has no “beliefs” to express). Thus, while restrictions on the use of treasury funds for electioneering may prevent corporate officers from utilizing one effective means to further the corporations’ economic interests, those restrictions do not hinder the expression of
any natural person’s ideas."

Nothing about "We can ban books" at all.

(Full coverage of Citizen's United on SCOTUSblog

It would be a serious ethical breach. It's also a highly subjective area, and lawyers and bar associations are notoriously difficult to persuade to sanction a lawyer, possibly from fear that they, one day, might be subject to sanctions for such a claim.

I agree that bar associations should do more to discipline misbehaving lawyers. However, malpractice suits are fairly effective.

Great soundbite. Then you realize that while there are 700,000 physicians in the US (not all practicing), there are 1.7 million active lawyers.

First, citation needed as to the number. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says "Lawyers held about 759,200 jobs in 2008." Source. The American Bar Association says there were 1.18 million active attorneys in the US in 2009. Source. The difference being that not all active attorneys have 'lawyer' as their primary employment (for example, I am an attorney, but my primary job is as an academic researcher, though I do represent clients).

You also have to consider the amounts involved. Most lawyers don't deal with multi-million dollar issues, but doctors almost all do.

But even granting that it's not a complete apples to apples comparison, the point remains that the annual per-attorney liability is in the thousands of dollars. If you don't think that's serious, then, well, I invite you to consider whether you'd want to practice law without malpractice insurance.

I thought that a patent was still permitted if (1) it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing. It's hard to believe that a drug or gene couldn't meet those qualifications if a piece of software can.

Well, first, the Supreme Court held that the machine-or-transformation test, which you recited, is only a tool or clue to the patentability of a method, not the sole test. Second, the diagnostic patents being discussed here generally take this form:

"A method for treating disease X, comprising performing test A, observing the result, and administering treatment foo, bar, or baz depending on the result."

The issue here is that in many of these patents test A and treatments foo, bar, and baz are all known in the art. The invention is the discovery of the association or correlation between test results and the optimal treatment (e.g., if you have a certain gene then you get this drug, but if you lack it you should get this other drug). The Federal Circuit has hinted that it is the observing or correlating step that must pass the machine-or-transformation test; (possibly) the testing and (more likely) the treatment steps are merely 'insignificant postsolution activity' that can't rescue the patent from unpatentability.

In my opinion, however, such patents should be granted so long as they are new, useful, nonobvious, and adequately specified in the patent. Subject matter is too crude a tool to filter out undesirable patents. As a society we want investment into new diagnostic methods and personalized medicine. For example, the availability of fast, inexpensive genetic testing has opened up new doors to making sure that people are given the best drug at the best dose, but determining which genes match which drugs and doses will require significant studies. We can encourage investment in those kinds of studies by offering patent protection to the resulting diagnostic and therapeutic methods.

Full Disclosure: I worked with the team that wrote the amicus brief for Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty (of Diamond v. Chakrabarty fame) in the Bilski case.

Well, contracts aside, it's still the case that large corporations offer continuing education or tuition reimbursement as a matter of policy, and while I'd hope that the value of investing in an employee should be self-evident to any employer, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that such notions fall victim to cost-cutting measures taken during tough economic times.

Jobs in the IT field aren't considered professions (at least in the traditional sense), but it may offer some perspective to consider how other professions handle things. Consider lawyers, as a ferinstance. From the American Bar Assocation website:

46 U.S. jurisdictions require lawyers to take mandatory or minimum continuing legal education (MCLE) courses in order to practice law within that particular jurisdiction.

So lawyers are required to "maintain their certifications". And by extension, law firms maintain their "certified status". How about the costs for the education? Well, unsurprisingly (or not), most of the better firms offer reimbursements, and then some.

All in all, I'd suggest it comes to how generous or otherwise enlightened an employer is at a given point in time. Should your employer reimburse you, or otherwise make accomodations? If the company's "certified status" depends on it, the answer is an obvious "Yes". If not, then I'm afraid your own needs or wishes will be considered discretionary.

The American Bar Association reported on this mere 17 months ago. I think it's less remarkable that some California firm got bilked as much as they got swindled while ignorant of a direct warning from their prime industry trade journal.

A more compelling version of the scam, to me, is overpayment of retainer fees as a new client. Fortunately, only idiot California firms are vulnerable as the ABA has warned about this variation as well. Interestingly, though, the tab appears to have been $500K in that one.

Before commenting (especially if you are defending Rambus) you might want to do a search on "rambus jedec spec". The google search is:
http://www.google.com/search?q=rambus+jedec+spec&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a/

One of the results is:
http://www.abanet.org/antitrust/committees/intell_property/june21.html/ (FTC Charges Rambus With Abuse of Standard Setting Process).

In a nutshell, Rambus participated in the standards setting process for SDRAM technology without informing any of the other members that they were actively pursuing patents in the technology used to implement the standard. Once the standard was finalized, they disclosed the patents and demanded royalties.

Methinks that Rambus was in the wrong. So does the FTC.

Despite the fact that spousal abusers are just as likely to be women and that the abused are just as likely to be men

Citation needed.

I fully suspect you are pulling this out of your ass, especially since there are tons of studies directly contradicting you. In fact, you are off by a massive margin; 85% of the victims of relationship violence are women.

Here are some starter links: http://www.abanet.org/domviol/statistics.html

What you appear to be having difficulty understanding is that the judge is not to base his or her decision on evidence not in the record or facts that could be properly judicially noticed (things that are both incontrovertible and common knowledge), including his or her own impression of the facts. See ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Rule 2.9, available at http://www.abanet.org/judicialethics/ABA_MCJC_approved.pdf. If a judge decides a case based on his own understanding of facts that may not properly be judicially noticed, that judge is acting wrongfully. On the other hand, if that judge decides the case based on the evidence presented, but does so in a way that's seen as "wrong" to the majority of people in the field, that just means that the judge is lacking sound judgment. Both of these problems, however, are better solved by picking better judgments, rather than completely restructuring the nature of the American judiciary.

Assuming that the judge at issue is not simply making up facts as he goes, but rather is making his decision based on the evidence before him, your new iteration of your original bad idea is no better. The judge would have decided that one expert's understanding of the facts was better than the other's, and written a decision accordingly; the opposing party would naturally disagree, and the result would be re-litigation of the case in any case with expert testimony.

Why don't you see how many congresspeople ARE lawyers?

A web site for the ABA young lawyers division claims 36% of all Congressmen were lawyers before being elected. http://www.abanet.org/yld/chooselaw/trivia.shtml According to the Congressional Research Service 170 members of the House and 58 Senators have law degrees http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-congressmen-and-senators-are-lawyers There are about 1.1 million active lawyers http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_lawyers_are_in_the_US, or about 0.3% of the population. If we assume that number is half the trained lawyers, that is still a huge disproportionality.

Since this is 60 to 120 times the national average there seems to be a good correlation to allow a generalized bashing of lawyers when one might more correctly aim their attacks on Congress.

DNRTFA but there's no misconduct in sending what amounts to a cease & desist to someone. Anyone can do this, lawyer or not. A C&D is not a court action, it's just a scary looking letter on expensive paper.

IANAL.

IANAL either, but even though it's not necessarily illegal to send a false C&D order, you don't have to break the law to get disbarred. It's enough to behave unethically, and deliberately misrepresenting the law to someone is generally unethical. The American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct say, in rule 3.1, that:

A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law. A lawyer for the defendant in a criminal proceeding, or the respondent in a proceeding that could result in incarceration, may nevertheless so defend the proceeding as to require that every element of the case be established.

If a lawyer is licensed to practice law in a state that's adopted the Model Rules, you can file a complaint with the bar association of that state if a lawyer violates them. States that don't use the Model Rules typically have their own code of ethics, which probably contains a similar provision. The bar will theoretically consider your complaint and, if it finds the lawyer did act unethically, may penalize him. Repeated or severe offenses can lead to disbarment.

Of course, this is all on paper. The ones who decide on whether to impose penalties are, of course, lawyers. And most unethical conduct probably isn't reported. But in theory, you could get disbarred for filing cease-and-desist letters that you knew were groundless.

Interesting that the pro-RIAA people are the ones so 'offended' by my 'inconsiderate' commentary on defendant's lawyers' work.

A lawyer has an ethical obligation of competence. I take issue with the slipshod use of remarks that equate to calling a member of the profession unethical, regardless of who they are aimed at. It seems like a decent professional courtesy to avoid publicly bashing members of the profession unless it is imperative to do so.

There are lawyers out there who are clearly unethical. Doesn't it seem like a good idea to focus attacks against them rather than on those whom we disagree with or whom we think are less skilled then ourselves?

Attorneys have a number of ethical duties, and many of these submissions either contain outright false statements or other distortions of the very same caliber complained against in those very same submissions. . . .

If you're that concerned that he's crossed the line from just spinning to acting unethically (say under Rule 8.4(c) or (d) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct), then draft a complaint to the New York Bar. If you don't think the case against him is strong enough for that, then it is probably best to argue that the stories are sensationalist rather than arguing that the submitter is unprofessional. Arguing the former is tactful, arguing the latter is personal.

NYCL and a lot of /. posters often seem to attack the lawyers representing recording companies and the executives of those recording companies rather than just their arguments and decisions. Do you really want to be part of the crowd that is quick to attack people and motives?

What's uncalled for is the blind devotion and defense of a local "celebrity" just because he lends his voice to a popular viewpoint.

Blind devotion isn't a good thing. People should think. But blind antithapy isn't a good thing either. If you argue that NYCL is erroneous in an instance, is it fair to assume that you support the RIAA? If someone argues that NYCL is not erroneous in an instance (or that accusations of unprofessionality are too hostile), is it fair to assume that said someone is blindly devoted to NYCL?

In the summary itself, it indicates that their motion was "denied". It wasn't. It was granted in part and denied in part, which is a common outcome. In fact, reviewing the order, you see that they in fact got just about everything they argued for. They didn't get the freebie they put in the proposed order. That's hardly surprising, and it's certainly not a denial of their request.

Sure, I read the motion, the proposed order, the summary, and the actual order. But consider this: if you treat the motion as an omnibus motion consisting of a motion to protect revenues and a motion to protect agreements, then the actual order could be treated as an omnibus order denying the motion to protect revenues and granting the motion to protect agreements. Is the summary misleading? Sure. Does it reach a level of "unprofessional" deception. Maybe, maybe not. Is arguing it going to be persuasive of anything significant? Probably not.

[Original post] The RIAA offered a proposed order that was greater in scope than what they had argued for. Had the judge and her clerks read only the moving papers and then just signed the order, the RIAA would have had that order amended upon discovery of the inconsistency.

[Reply post]They should have vetted it before submitting it to avoid any appearance of deceptive behavior.

[Reply-to-reply post] It very likely was vetted. Proposed orders are just that: proposed. You don't get more than you ask for, and it's not uncommon for litigators to ask for more than they could support in their argument.

Perhaps it should be uncommon. If the argument in the moving papers appears to characterize a proposed order's scope as being small, but the proposed order's scope is large, it looks like the the lawyers were trying to pull something on the court. A lawyer definitely should not deliberately submit a proposed order that, if the judge were to sign off on it without modification, the lawyer would need to have amended. Of course, accidental inconsistencies between arguments and proposed order are more likely when drafting is shared among a team of lawyers.

To put it in perspective: the RIAA submitted a motion in court that incorrectly summarized a proposed protective order while NYCL submitted a story to /. that incorrectly summarized a court order. Neither of these acts looks good, but neither act is really worth wrestling in the mud over.

Stuff like this just makes me shake my head...
Common law seems to be very much alike to the imperial measurement system. Almost no one use it any more, except some former british colonies [*]. It seems extremely counterintuitive, against a clean separation of powers (because precedents are essentially law), full of historical bullshit like the issue at hand and extremely impractical (because you have to dig up all those precedents).
Oh, and it requires almost exactly twice as many lawyers to function[**]. Which is probably why it will take even longer than the imperial system to be abolished...

[*]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LegalSystemsOfTheWorldMap.png
[**] Germany: 150,375 Lawyers, 82,217,800 citizens, 546.75 citizens/lawyer
          USA : 1,118,386 Lawyers, 305,548,183 citizens, 273.20 citizens/lawyer
Sources:
http://www.brak.de/seiten/pdf/Statistiken/2009/Mitglieder_klein.pdf
http://www.abanet.org/marketresearch/Lawyer_Demographics.pdf

Can't they just do what every other free software project does, and just ignore the bloody things?

There are two kinds of infringement under US patent law: Ordinary infringement and willful infringement. Guess which one carries triple damages? If you know something is covered by patent protection and you still infringe upon the patent willfully, you could be liable for triple damages. There are ways to keep the enhanced damages associated with willful infringement at bay (such as "advice of counsel," where you have expert legal advice to the effect that the patent is believed invalid), but that's something of a crap shoot.

So, how you act once a patent has been brought to your attention matters. In this case, it sounds like there are at least a couple .NET related patents that could apply to Mono. Infringing on those patents in the absence of legal counsel advising us that those patents are invalid would amount to willful infringement.

Don't take my necessarily-inaccurate-because-it's-a-sound-bite version's word for it. Here's an interesting article from the American Bar Association on the current state of this ever-evolving topic.

"When DNA evidence that may have been left by the perpetrator of a serious crime is collected and preserved, and a DNA profile of the person who left the evidence is established from it, but the personâ(TM)s identity is unknown, a grand jury or the prosecutor should be permitted to charge the person, as identified by the profile, with the crime by indictment or other instrument requiring a judicial probable cause determination." http://www.abanet.org/crimjust/standards/dnaevidence.html#7.1

You assume she's a member of "La Raza" (a supremacist group) just because she's latina?

In addition to her work on the bench, Judge Sotomayor is an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law and a lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York Women's Bar Association, the Puerto Rican Bar Association, the Hispanic National Bar Association, the Association of Judges of Hispanic Heritage, and the National Council of La Raza.

How about rule 3.6 of the ABA model rules of professional conduct?.

I have written an article for an American Bar Association publication covering online backup services and the ethical duties of lawyers to protect client information from being lost or disclosed.

Staying Safe with Online Backup and Remote Access Services

http://www.abanet.org/genpractice/magazine/2008/dec/stayingsafe.html

Have you heard about "separation of powers"? The President can't do anything against the other two powers, they are independent.

Whew. What a relief.. "separation of powers". Interesting idea. Too bad Bush never heard about it. Don't take my word for it, listen to the ABA itself: Blue-Ribbon Task Force Finds President Bush's Signing Statements Undermine Separation of Power

I don't know about the fifth amendment argument, but the "ex post facto" issue is avoided by having the courts declare that the measures aren't punitive in nature. It's patently ridiculous, but it's worked in the past.

You seriously lack perspective. Look again...with an open mind...

In response to items like:

"10/15/2008 Afghanistan Lashkar Gah 6 0 Six local police are taken out in a brutal Taliban ambush on their checkpoint."

I suggest:

US strike kills 9 al Qaeda and Taliban in North Wazirstan
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/10/us_strike_kills_9_al.php

US kills 6 in strike in Baitullah Mehsud's territory
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/10/us_kills_6_in_strike.php

US Kills al Qaeda in Iraq's deputy commander
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/10/us_kills_6_in_strike.php

When we do it, its framed as a 'strike against $evil_people' not as an invasion force killing people in their homes, like when they fight back.

In response to something like:

"10/14/2008 Afghanistan Uruzgan 9 6 Two children are among nine civilians murdered when Taliban bombers target a minibus."

how about:

Unmanned US drone kills school children...
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php?sid=403793

What do you think would be written if it had been their unmanned drone and our children?

And as for this:

"10/13/2008 Pakistan Murid Wal 1 0 A young man is forced by honor to kill his mother when she refuses to break off an 'illicit' relationship."

Gee that sounds awful.. but doesn't REALLY sound much different than this:

"An 18 year old boy, Sean Powell, was shot to death in his car outside the home of the married teacher he had been having an affair with. Local police have arrested the woman's husband, Eric Mclean, in the shooting."

Same motivation, Same result, same difference. Oh wait... you mean to say it was a state sanctioned murder? gotcha...luckily we have those too...

"Kevin Watts, 27, was pronounced dead on Thursday at 6:17 pm Texas time (2317 GMT), spokeswoman Michelle Lyons told AFP.

It was Texas' tenth execution since the start of the year, and the second execution to take place this week. Ten more inmates are scheduled to be killed in Texas by the end of November."

Granted we don't do it for adultry... but on the other hand, we don't exactly have the best track record for even properly ensuring our victims are guilty...

http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/fall97/deathpen.html

The problem is that at the time of search, the warrant was not false. It was a real warrant, it just had not been removed yet.

If you check out the actual petition to the court you will see the warrant was removed five months earlier. Mr. Herring lived on the border between three different counties so the police sent the warrant to all three counties. When the warrant was recalled there was a "breakdown...someplace within the Sheriff's department".

From the article:

At issue is the case of Bennie Herring, an Alabama man who drove to the police station in July 2004 to try to retrieve items from an impounded pickup truck. A Coffee County cop recognized him, asked the clerk to check the database for outstanding warrant.

None was found, so the investigator asked the clerk to call the neighboring Dale county clerk to see if it had a warrant for Herring.

The Dale county clerk found a warrant for Herring in their database, so the Coffee County cops set out after Herring after asking the other county to fax the warrant over.

When the clerk went to fetch the paper file she could not find the warrant. The warrant clerk called the officer to inform him of the issue but the officer was already on the scene and had made the arrest (despite Mr. Herring informing the officer that no warrant existed).

I think it's also interesting to note how Anderson (the cop) recognized Mr. Herring. From the footnote on page 4 of the petition (page 13 in the PDF):

Among other things, petitioner had repeatedly alleged to the district attorney that Anderson was involved in the unsolved murder of a local teenager. Shortly before the events leading to petitioner's arrest, Inspector Anderson and another officer had appeared at petitioner's house, pressing him to drop his complaints.

Without having a copy of the actual complain handy, I can't say exactly what the RIAA is accusing Beckerman of, but the quotes from the Wired article make it sound like a meritorious claims and contentions issue; in effect, they're saying Beckerman violated his ethical duty to only make meritorious arguments by dragging out the trial with motions, claims, etc. that he knew were not valid.

Wait what? Isn't that backwards?

I'm having a hard time coming up with a suitable analogy for this one its so utterly stupid. It's like MicroSoft complaining about vendor lock in, or the director of the TSA complaining about airport security being a hassle. Except even thats not the right.

I gotta give the RIAA credit though, what ever else you might say of them, they definitely got some big brass ones to try something like this.

I believe strongly in the idea of free speech, and don't much care for censorship or other speech restrictions. That said, on some level I think I can agree with the idea that lawyers are part of our legal justice system, and therefore to be held to a higher standard of conduct than we mere mortals.

Lawyers are held to a much higher standard of conduct than "mere mortals." Although it is ultimately decided by each state's bar association, you can find the ABA's model rules of professional conduct here. Virtually every accredited law school teaches those in Professional Responsibility.

These rules are, incidentally, a large part of the reason that slimeball lawyers tend to have a short shelf life. They create something of an ethical minefield for attorneys, and govern everything from what an attorney is allowed to say to the media during trial, to what his duties to non-clients are, to what sort of information he can disclose about a case.

Without having a copy of the actual complain handy, I can't say exactly what the RIAA is accusing Beckerman of, but the quotes from the Wired article make it sound like a meritorious claims and contentions issue; in effect, they're saying Beckerman violated his ethical duty to only make meritorious arguments by dragging out the trial with motions, claims, etc. that he knew were not valid.

For what it's worth, I've followed Beckerman's blog somewhat closely. And if my speculation about the actual claims being levied at Beckerman are true, I'd be inclined to say that this isn't just a case of the pot calling the kettle black in some general "the RIAA is bad!" kind of sense. It seems to me that, in that case, they'd be violating the exact same rule they're accusing Beckerman of violating by filing this complaint.

But, I'm just a law student playing armchair lawyer here. Take the above with a grain of salt.

I believe strongly in the idea of free speech, and don't much care for censorship or other speech restrictions. That said, on some level I think I can agree with the idea that lawyers are part of our legal justice system, and therefore to be held to a higher standard of conduct than we mere mortals.

Lawyers are held to a much higher standard of conduct than "mere mortals." Although it is ultimately decided by each state's bar association, you can find the ABA's model rules of professional conduct here. Virtually every accredited law school teaches those in Professional Responsibility.

These rules are, incidentally, a large part of the reason that slimeball lawyers tend to have a short shelf life. They create something of an ethical minefield for attorneys, and govern everything from what an attorney is allowed to say to the media during trial, to what his duties to non-clients are, to what sort of information he can disclose about a case.

Without having a copy of the actual complain handy, I can't say exactly what the RIAA is accusing Beckerman of, but the quotes from the Wired article make it sound like a meritorious claims and contentions issue; in effect, they're saying Beckerman violated his ethical duty to only make meritorious arguments by dragging out the trial with motions, claims, etc. that he knew were not valid.

For what it's worth, I've followed Beckerman's blog somewhat closely. And if my speculation about the actual claims being levied at Beckerman are true, I'd be inclined to say that this isn't just a case of the pot calling the kettle black in some general "the RIAA is bad!" kind of sense. It seems to me that, in that case, they'd be violating the exact same rule they're accusing Beckerman of violating by filing this complaint.

But, I'm just a law student playing armchair lawyer here. Take the above with a grain of salt.

Ok ... so you would then support breaking into Barack Obama's private Yahoo account as well?

Condoning something is different from supporting it. The difference may be subtle but it's there. I don't support break-ins of people's Yahoo accounts, but if they happen I'm not too worried about it. As in: It's still a breach of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and should prosecuted (see http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/winter99_pivec.html). However I don't think that we should disregard what is found, and I don't think that prosecution should have a very high priority. That's called "condoning". It's different from "supporting" in the sense that I'm not taking the position that we should go out and do it.

So yes, I would condone breaking into Obama's Yahoo account as well. For no other reason than that he is a presidential candidate. When weighing his interest in having privacy against the public interest in seeing him as he is, I think that the public interest weighs more heavily.

Since we are innundated by carefully prepared propaganda from both candidates as to their personality and their ideas, it's important that we also see something that's not stage-managed.

If e.g. Senator Obama were secretly sympathising with a plan to halve the armed forces and use the proceeds to finance a national health insurance, we ought to know about that. Even if that means hacking his Yahoo account.

If Governor Palin were a mean-spirited, clueless mouthpiece of whatever her handlers tell her, we ought to know about that too.

Besides which, I still don't see why hacking someone's Yahoo account is different from Standard Operating Procedure in politics (see e.g. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19295680/, http://celestiniosity.com/2007/02/13/digging-dirt-on-obama/, http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/08/mayor_don_williamson_pleges_to.html, http://www.theherald-nc.com/opinion/story/8762.html) such as scouring the records, talking to former associates, dumpster diving, hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on sex lives.

Hate to reply to myself, but I guess I need to correct a couple things I said.

First, I meant to say "parody" and not "satire." It seems that there is a legal distinction between the two, and parody is considered a more protected fair use than satire.

Also, it seems that logos can in fact be copyrighted. The current "5 interlocking rings" logo design was first widely used in 1920, so you'd think that the copyright would have expired by now.

The Wikipedia article isn't exactly enlightening, either:

The Olympic Movement is very protective of its symbols; among other things, it claims an exclusive copyright on any arrangement of five rings, irrespective of alignment, color or lack thereof, as well as to any use of the word Olympic. They have taken action against numerous groups seen to have violated this trademark[...]

This article is confusing because it uses "copyright" and "trademark" seemingly interchangeably. If you follow the link to the article about Legend of the Five Rings, a card game published by Wizards of the Coast, you find out that WotC ran afoul of the United States Olympic Committee because "a special Act of the U.S. Congress gave them the exclusive rights to any symbol consisting of five interlocking rings." So it seems that the IOC isn't the only rights holder here, and that special laws were enacted to grant perpetual rights to any variation of the logo that might be conceived.

Correct. In the United States, all persons who hold themselves out as lawyers, "practice law", etc., must be licensed to do so, usually in the state in which they are practicing. There are, of course, exceptions and nuances, but this is the basic rule. Every state except Wisconsin (see this article for example) requires a person to pass the bar exam (or to waive in from another state where that person is licensed, with varying requirements). Thus, calling oneself a lawyer has considerably more meaning than calling oneself an economist, for example. Anyone can be an economist. I'm an economist. But not really.

Personally I am blown away by the incompetence of the defense attorney. Clearly he must have understood Reiser (guilty or not) would not help his case by testifying. He should never have been put on the stand.

In all likelihood, Reiser's lawyer did not want to put Reiser on the stand. However, it is generally accepted "[i]n a criminal case, [a] lawyer shall abide by the client's decision, after consultation with the lawyer...whether the client will testify." It is assumed that the right of a client to testify in criminal cases is a constitutional right. See Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157, para. 16. Even if the client's testimony can only hurt the defense, the lawyer must allow the client to testify if the client so insists. To do otherwise would be unethical and impair the client's rights.

I'm questioning whether that case actually exists. I've googled for Texas death penalties for retarded minors and all I can find is the case I mentioned, another guy who shot somebody trying to buy coke, a 40 year guy that strangled a 3 year old to death with his underwear... give me a name, let me google the case from both sides, and we'll see.

But I would still love him and I wouldn't disown him and his boyfriends could hang out at my house and I would make them feel welcome.

think homosexuality is a symptom of hypersexuality gone rampant, and not the other way around. So many gays I know are just consumed by sex. It was that which honestly disgusts me more than anything else. But then again, I don't like hypersexual heteros either. It's just the hyper part which is deviant, I think.

Life should not be too excess, in anything, and excess is a sign of mental illness.

Which means you have gay friends and don't know it.
Not really.

There hasn't been any indications that information gained by illegal surveillance has been used in an attempt to prosecute someone.

"Prosecute?" What an old-fashioned notion! US citizens can be declared enemy combatants and held without trial if they provide "material support" to an undefined enemy in an undeclared, neverending war (such as by linking to a jihadist website). Who needs prosecutions?

There hasn't been any indications that information gained by illegal surveillance has been used in an attempt to prosecute someone.

"Prosecute?" What an old-fashioned notion! US citizens can be declared enemy combatants and held without trial if they provide "material support" to an undefined enemy in an undeclared, neverending war (such as by linking to a jihadist website). Who needs prosecutions?

Yep, it's a conflict of interest, and lawyers who helped draft the law are barred from representing someone in a case concerning it by the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

But at a larger level, how small do you think the legal community is? The vast majority of practicing lawyers never have anything to do with the drafting of laws; this conflict applies only to very small percentage of lawyers. Yes the plaintiff's bar lobbies for pro-plaintiff legislation, but industry groups lobby for pro-defendant legislation. The fact that lawyers are involved in drafting the laws is not a significant source of pork-barrel legislation.

Obviously, what you say is entirely possible. But even with a white knight defense, the acquirer better offer more than MS or it'll be a proxy fight and a gazillion lawsuits. From the point of view of the investor, it doesn't make a difference. Higher offer wins.

Having said that, there are plenty of anti-takeover defenses. From the "Nancy Reagan defense" (just say no), to staggered boards, to poison pills (Yahoo has one). As Peoplesoft teaches, there is nothing that can stop an acquirer determined to buy at whatever price.

Now, some math to predict what's gonna happen. There are roughly 1.5B shares. 25% of the shares changed hands on Friday. You can bet that most of them, say 20%,ended up on the hands of arbitrageurs. Legg Mason, a hedge fund has 8% and 11% are in the hands of another hedge fund. That makes 40% of the shares in the hands of people in search of the highest return, and screw everybody else. Most of the institutional holders are generally sympathetic to management, but they hold roughly 50% of the company (excluding the two hedge funds I mentioned before and what they sold in these few days). MS only needs another 10%. If MS are smart, they have already accumulated at least 5% (they have 10 days to report any ownership higher than 5% to SEC). Now on Jan 29 and 30 the stock volume spiked. Just the excess volume (over average) is 10% of the shares. Any guess who may have bought those shares? Watch for MS coming out next week with a 10% ownership.

So, let's say that Yang doesn't want to sell. He's got little or no stock. Filo has 5% of the Yahoo stock. The board may be loyal to Yang, but it must be very careful because the Revlon Duties have been triggered and they impose no loyalty. Once the company is in play, the CEO counts only as much as he can control the board.

So, here is what's gonna happen: if MS doesn't raise the price enough and Yahoo sells, MS (or another acquirer) and the hedge funds stay below 15% ownership to not trigger the poison pill. At the upcoming shareholders meeting (should be in May or June), a proxy fight erupts, and MS asks the poison pill to be repealed. The arbitrageurs vote yes, and somebody buys Yahoo. Most likely MS, but if somebody else has $50-60B, why not? The hedge funds don't care who wins as long as the company is sold.

"Does anyone have any ideas about how a lawyer would explain the difference between a legal argument and a business method?" Some of them would say there isn't a difference. Some lawyers have tried to patent tax advice.

Good luck with that "withholding rent" strategy. Ever tried it?

What you are claiming isn't true and landlords know it.

1. New York State
2. Boston
3. Oregon State Bar standard withholding form letter
4. Tenant's Legal Guide
5. Pennsylvania housing code

What you are claiming isn't true and landlords know it. You will find yourself in court with a nice judgement against you and probably evicted as well.

The eviction takes time. The judgement not as long.

Model Rules of Professional Conduct (adopted in some form by most jurisdictions, with similar and/or related rules in the remaining jurisdictions) 3.3(a)(2).

They can at whim say "no". They offered. An offer is not considered binding. If I offer you an apple for free, until you take that apple from me, I can say "but not you". I have made no agreement to offer you an apple.

Even after you've taken the apple, I could attempt to say "I've changed my mind" and the law would consider whether that was fair but would NOT consider it a breech of contract case.

You seem to want to believe that license=contract. So is contract=license?

When you buy a bar license, is it actually a bar contract?

When you abridge your license, your license IS TAKEN AWAY. Why is that? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT CONTRACTS.

How the fuck did you manage a karma bonus?

For the record, parent is correct, GP is not. Parody is generally protected, and satire is generally not. Someone should mod accordingly. (Still no -1; Wrong though.)

Here is a treatment which I just found on the web, and so do not vouch for. Other descriptions are easy to find.

-snarkbot

Actually, there is a fourth type. It's called 'trade secret.' And most companies are probably more paranoid about these than any other, as these give on the ground competetive advantage. (I think it's easier to steal trade secrets and use them without getting caught than any of the others.) And if you don't believe me, then check out what these guys say: http://www.abanet.org/intelprop/4types.html

Well, they call it "Professional Responsibility" in law school, but it boils down to an ethics course.

Not that the ethics it teaches are especially transformative :)

You can find the rules here: http://www.abanet.org/cpr/mrpc/mrpc_toc.html

timothy

WOW, I can hardly figure out where to start here.
HOSTS?
"When was the last time terrorists killed someone over the internet?!"
That feature is in beta - coming soon !!!
"It isn't about terrorism at all. It is about control and about policing the rest of the world."
If you repeat a word over and over enough (terrorism), it loses meaning, is trivialized.
It IS about control.
DNS is part of that control. (think bypass, sieve)
What if you HAD to pull the plugs?
Think about that, I'll wait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYGKV1MaIaY

(God, I love the internet :-)
"Should U.S. DHS be trusted?"
Better question is about the policies of the Bush (v2.1b) administration.
Question authority. Talk to power, carry a big stick, etc.
Ummmm, what was the topic?
DNS (Mockapetris-Postel), right.
Defeat? With your own invention? (ARPANET)
http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/~acc/docs/arpa.html
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot and having a name such as "Smith" or "Wesson".
Apathy, lack of awareness and naivety is the greatest enemy.
We're (U.S.) so good at picking up the pieces.
Education, prevention, awareness - not so good.
Some need to understand you can use the internet to harm people - physically.
It's called a malicious Logic Bomb.
It IS rocket science.
Ask your ex SysAdmin about them.
Bios, Firmware, Flash memory, chip crowding, reconfigure with malice, and watch it burn.
Been there, seen that. Do that on a National scale and you have a society meltdown right in front of your eyes, wait two days - stir.
People were writing these things for hardware in the 80's and 90's, X-platform.
Remember all that talk of "hardware eating viruses" that would crop up occasionally, and how that person would be flamed out of the thread?
Ridicule and denial ... the American way. Fingers in ears -la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
There are no unbelievers on the battlefield.
"The truly powerful signing key is for Windows Update"
Why would you want any of that when you own the hardware?
Think (rouge) Eastereggs:
Microcode:
Disguised Bugs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_track
http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/

Really, people have no idea what's going on now.
I've been banging this drum since 1997.
The NSA/CIA/DHS is starting to trickle out awareness of this very thing.
Joel Brenner - The National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 2007, speaking last Thursday at the American Bar Association.
(He speaks about the hardware problem near the end)

http://www.abanet.org/natsecurity/multimedia/2007/ breakfasts/joel_brenner_transcript.pdf
http://www.abanet.org/natsecurity/multimedia/2007/ breakfasts/joel_brenner.mp3
http://www.abanet.org/natsecurity/

Richard Clarke on Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Jan 22, 2007

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16771741/

CLARKE: ... China is building cyber warfare units. The Chinese general said publicly that if we get into hostilities with the United States, we will reach out through cyber space and turn off the American electric power grid. From what I can tell and what I learned when I was in government, that's possible.
Not just China.
I'll play Chicken Little, you ... think about it.
I'll wait.

WOW, I can hardly figure out where to start here.
HOSTS?
"When was the last time terrorists killed someone over the internet?!"
That feature is in beta - coming soon !!!
"It isn't about terrorism at all. It is about control and about policing the rest of the world."
If you repeat a word over and over enough (terrorism), it loses meaning, is trivialized.
It IS about control.
DNS is part of that control. (think bypass, sieve)
What if you HAD to pull the plugs?
Think about that, I'll wait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYGKV1MaIaY

(God, I love the internet :-)
"Should U.S. DHS be trusted?"
Better question is about the policies of the Bush (v2.1b) administration.
Question authority. Talk to power, carry a big stick, etc.
Ummmm, what was the topic?
DNS (Mockapetris-Postel), right.
Defeat? With your own invention? (ARPANET)
http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/~acc/docs/arpa.html
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot and having a name such as "Smith" or "Wesson".
Apathy, lack of awareness and naivety is the greatest enemy.
We're (U.S.) so good at picking up the pieces.
Education, prevention, awareness - not so good.
Some need to understand you can use the internet to harm people - physically.
It's called a malicious Logic Bomb.
It IS rocket science.
Ask your ex SysAdmin about them.
Bios, Firmware, Flash memory, chip crowding, reconfigure with malice, and watch it burn.
Been there, seen that. Do that on a National scale and you have a society meltdown right in front of your eyes, wait two days - stir.
People were writing these things for hardware in the 80's and 90's, X-platform.
Remember all that talk of "hardware eating viruses" that would crop up occasionally, and how that person would be flamed out of the thread?
Ridicule and denial ... the American way. Fingers in ears -la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
There are no unbelievers on the battlefield.
"The truly powerful signing key is for Windows Update"
Why would you want any of that when you own the hardware?
Think (rouge) Eastereggs:
Microcode:
Disguised Bugs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_track
http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/

Really, people have no idea what's going on now.
I've been banging this drum since 1997.
The NSA/CIA/DHS is starting to trickle out awareness of this very thing.
Joel Brenner - The National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 2007, speaking last Thursday at the American Bar Association.
(He speaks about the hardware problem near the end)

http://www.abanet.org/natsecurity/multimedia/2007/ breakfasts/joel_brenner_transcript.pdf
http://www.abanet.org/natsecurity/multimedia/2007/ breakfasts/joel_brenner.mp3
http://www.abanet.org/natsecurity/

Richard Clarke on Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Jan 22, 2007

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16771741/

CLARKE: ... China is building cyber warfare units. The Chinese general said publicly that if we get into hostilities with the United States, we will reach out through cyber space and turn off the American electric power grid. From what I can tell and what I learned when I was in government, that's possible.
Not just China.
I'll play Chicken Little, you ... think about it.
I'll wait.

WOW, I can hardly figure out where to start here.
HOSTS?
"When was the last time terrorists killed someone over the internet?!"
That feature is in beta - coming soon !!!
"It isn't about terrorism at all. It is about control and about policing the rest of the world."
If you repeat a word over and over enough (terrorism), it loses meaning, is trivialized.
It IS about control.
DNS is part of that control. (think bypass, sieve)
What if you HAD to pull the plugs?
Think about that, I'll wait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYGKV1MaIaY

(God, I love the internet :-)
"Should U.S. DHS be trusted?"
Better question is about the policies of the Bush (v2.1b) administration.
Question authority. Talk to power, carry a big stick, etc.
Ummmm, what was the topic?
DNS (Mockapetris-Postel), right.
Defeat? With your own invention? (ARPANET)
http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/~acc/docs/arpa.html
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot and having a name such as "Smith" or "Wesson".
Apathy, lack of awareness and naivety is the greatest enemy.
We're (U.S.) so good at picking up the pieces.
Education, prevention, awareness - not so good.
Some need to understand you can use the internet to harm people - physically.
It's called a malicious Logic Bomb.
It IS rocket science.
Ask your ex SysAdmin about them.
Bios, Firmware, Flash memory, chip crowding, reconfigure with malice, and watch it burn.
Been there, seen that. Do that on a National scale and you have a society meltdown right in front of your eyes, wait two days - stir.
People were writing these things for hardware in the 80's and 90's, X-platform.
Remember all that talk of "hardware eating viruses" that would crop up occasionally, and how that person would be flamed out of the thread?
Ridicule and denial ... the American way. Fingers in ears -la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
There are no unbelievers on the battlefield.
"The truly powerful signing key is for Windows Update"
Why would you want any of that when you own the hardware?
Think (rouge) Eastereggs:
Microcode:
Disguised Bugs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_track
http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/

Really, people have no idea what's going on now.
I've been banging this drum since 1997.
The NSA/CIA/DHS is starting to trickle out awareness of this very thing.
Joel Brenner - The National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States 2007, speaking last Thursday at the American Bar Association.
(He speaks about the hardware problem near the end)

http://www.abanet.org/natsecurity/multimedia/2007/ breakfasts/joel_brenner_transcript.pdf
http://www.abanet.org/natsecurity/multimedia/2007/ breakfasts/joel_brenner.mp3
http://www.abanet.org/natsecurity/

Richard Clarke on Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Jan 22, 2007

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16771741/

CLARKE: ... China is building cyber warfare units. The Chinese general said publicly that if we get into hostilities with the United States, we will reach out through cyber space and turn off the American electric power grid. From what I can tell and what I learned when I was in government, that's possible.
Not just China.
I'll play Chicken Little, you ... think about it.
I'll wait.

Attorney Pro Bono.

You do have a chance at free legal representation though.

>Additionally there are ethical guidelines with real force that prohibit attorneys from using lies in the course of their representation.

I think that the ethical guidelines that are more applicable here are the ones that have to do with generating publicity (directly or indirectly).

http://www.abanet.org/cpr/mrpc/rule_3_6.html

So, if IBM funds are trickling to a PJ and IBM's attorneys are involved in the case....

I can't fathom that IBM would be that foolish in this regard.

The definition of dictator is a : a person granted absolute emergency power; b : one holding complete autocratic control; c : one ruling absolutely and often oppressively.

While you could argue whether Bush, technically, meets the definition, there is plenty of evidence that he is trying to evade Congressional oversight, elimination of habeas corpus for detainees and immunity for torture, the use of signing statements to effectively nullify legislation, NSA spying on U.S. citizens and so forth that are clearly moves in that direction.

Further, he is definitely claiming power and using it based on a framework of emergency that goes by the label of the "war on terror". He, and especially people under him like Cheney, believe that that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries. That's pretty close to an understanding that believes itself to have absolute emergency power, i.e., a dictatorship - given certain conditions (which in this case are vague).