So bad, so very bad, that apparently you ought to get deported for supporting them:

Community groups and Los Angeles Unified officials on Tuesday condemned an anonymous flyer handed to Latino parents that threatened them with deportation if they supported plans to convert their neighborhood school to a charter.

Calling it an escalation in a series of "scare tactics," district officials and community advocates said distribution of the flyer was timed to weaken one of LAUSD's boldest efforts to reform public education in Los Angeles.

. . .

To date, only parents from Gratts Elementary School in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles have reported receiving the flyer. Written in Spanish, in capital letters, the flyer says: "DO NOT SIGN ANY PETITIONS FOR A CHARTER SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU COULD BE DEPORTED."

Who opposes charter schools and similar reforms so vociferously that they would resort to such scummy tactics? Who indeed?

Union leaders, who have threatened legal action against the plan, say for now they are focusing on supporting district teachers and staff as they develop proposals to operate their schools.

"I'm not going to say we don't have some members who are resisting change… You have that in any organization," said Julie Washington, UTLA's vice-president for elementary schools.

"But we want change more than anyone… We are the ones who have to work with children under the current deplorable conditions."

Community advocates, however, said union representatives have grown increasingly hostile at community meetings held with parents at the targeted schools.

It's an unfair accusation, though, to suggest that the unions were behind this. The teacher unions DO support reform! So long as the reform doesn't involve, you know, accountability.

Via Cato @ Liberty.

So this morning I get a chat message on Facebook from someone I haven't talked to in a while. He's a very smart IP lawyer. I respond and ask him how he is, and he says terrible. He's been mugged on a trip to London, he says. Oh coitus, says I. Need help with anything? Why yes, says he, now that you mention it. All that I have left is my passport. Could you loan me a few bucks by Western Union? I'll pay you back when I get back to LA.

Even in my morning-fogged, kid-distracted, caffeine-jonesing, not-too-smart-to-begin-with mind, alarm bells ring. A quick Google seems in order. Oh look, it's a new scam. I email the link to the fellow who has taken over my friend's Facebook account. Then the conversation gets awkward.

My point: this friend is a very smart and tech-savvy lawyer. Yet somehow, someone compromised his Facebook password. Odds are they did that when he bit on a phishing overture.

Be careful out there.

"No one should allow the issue of settlements to distract from the goal of a lasting peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab world," that was White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel's advice on the current breakdown of Arab-Israeli peace talks. That's right, we shouldn't allow the reason the talks broke down (Israel's illegal expansion of settlements, in open refutation of their previous agreements) to keep the talks from breaking down.

There can be no argument that Nethanyahu's obstinance on the settlement issue, and Obama's caving (he went from being demanding that the settlement be ceased to meekly suggesting that construction be temporarily limited) have grievously damaged the peace process, and shredded the road map. It's galling for me to have to admit that Shrub (who didn't do a whole lot) did more for peace in the Mideast then Obama has.

But yeah, the Palestinians should really get over themselves and move past the illegal settlements. Just accept them as a starting point, and go from there. Talk about framing the debate. Sheesh. How about Israel get over that whole 1967 thing and stop settling land that isn't theirs?

I have no idea who Chris Harris, a left-wing blogger at Media Matters for America, actually is, but I worry that he writes in favor of reducing the federal punishment for statutory rape.  Could Chris Harris be a serial statutory rapist?  Could Harris simply want to commit statutory rape, and to go unpunished for his crimes?  I don't think so.  I don't have any evidence that Harris wants, desperately, to have sex with children.  But that's up to you, the reader, to decide.  And more importantly, it's a matter between Harris, his conscience, and perhaps his God.

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A very interesting down low reference to the Tiahrt Amendment can be found in this article about the Fort Hood shootings. Apparently, the FBI & CIA are trying to use Tiahrt as cover for why they did not see warning signs about the shooter.

"In August 2009, Hasan purchased two firearms that he used to carry out the attack, but the government officials said that U.S. law does not permit them to connect that purchase information with the other intelligence they had."

That US law prohibits the ATF from sharing information in it's database of gun purchasers with law enforcement agencies unless a criminal investigation is underway. That means that the FBI & CIA were unable to connect the dots to see that ths shooter was in contact with extremist Islamists (although, that contact seems brief and inconsequential) when he bought two weapons from Guns Galore before the shooting.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment would have avoided the shooting, but it certainly wouldn't have hurt to know that the guy buying these guns was on a watch list (although being on the terrorist watch list hasn't meant much so far.) There is a move afoot to amend Tiahrt to allow law enforcement full access to the gun records. Sadly, no changes are being suggested to any of the other restrictions Tiahrt imposes.

Oh, and just to get my usual dose of Obama bitterness in, during the campaign Obama talked repeatedly about repealing Tiahrt, but so far has not even mentioned the amendment, other than the minor (but important) change above.

Yesterday I spent half an hour debating whether it would be ethically permissible to have our sweet, innocent young clerk send a friend request on MySpace to the complaining witness in a sexual abuse case in order to get access to a greater array of the lesbian bondage, drinking, and partying pictures the witness posted, in order to better impeach her at trial.

I didn't get creeped out by the whole discussion until I realized I had not been creeped out by the whole discussion, if you follow me.

(For the record, my determination was that it was close to the line, and therefore we would not do it. The witness is represented by counsel, possibly in connection with her status as a witness. Is a MySpace friend request, with no substantive content, a contact regarding the subject of the representation, and thus prohibited under the Rule of Professional Responsibility forbidding contact with represented parties? Not sure. I could make a good argument that it is not. But I'd rather not have to make that argument, thanks.)

Our disputant TJIC has this profoundly moronic observation on the walking dead:

slow old-school Zombies … are a lot less terrifying than the new-school type. You can just walk away, as long as there aren’t too many of them.

As a bridge leading to this story, recommended by our friends the Gormogons, on the topic of Haitian or "voodoo" zombies, which are really nothing more than drugged human beings enslaved to the will of another.  The story is quite charming, as fantasy, and well worth your time if you're inclined to make light of such things.

To whistle while walking past humanity's grave.

True zombies, of course, are a different matter.  The best depiction of such things in action comes from the films of George Romero, specifically Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead (avoid the shoddy and inferior "remake"), and Day of the Dead, cautionary fables based in actual fact, concerning the remote but ever-present possibility of worldwide holocaust at the hands of the hungry dead.

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Finally some useful information on Twitter.

Russian artist Dmitri Vrubel is best known for this mural, "Brotherly Kiss," depicting the socialist virtue of brotherhood among men:

The caption reads, roughly, "My God, help me to survive this deadly love affair," in Russian and German.

The mural is based on an actual photograph of Soviet and East German Communist Party chairmen Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker, depicting the two engaged in an act of socialist liberty, equality, and fraternity.  It was painted on the remains of the Berlin Wall in 1990.

Vrubel's work was destroyed by German authorities earlier this year.  Evidently appreciation of history and satire are among the many things we've lost with the passing of the cold war.

Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish general who seized power at the behest of a Soviet Union worried about the Solidarity movement in 1981, described Erich Honecker as a disgusting, wet lothario, eager to impose his saliva-spattered kisses on communists of all stations, whether his victims wished Honecker's attentions or not.  While in these enlightened times Honecker would be tried for harassment or worse, in those days the attentions of a Honecker were just something a prime minister or chairman had to endure.

Honecker was forced to resign as chairman of the East German party shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.  Though indicted for his role in the murders of hundreds of Germans attempting to flee to the west, Honecker fled to Russia and was allowed to emigrate to Chile, where many members of the former National Socialist regime also moved after 1945.  He died on May 29, 1994, and today consists of ashes, as does the government he led.

When we first gave this award, we were so certain that nothing could approach Implosion Group on Dan Winter's Fractal Physics that we promised the award would never be given again.

We were mistaken.

The second Popehat Award for Web Design goes to George Hutchins, Republican candidate for Congress in the fourth district of North Carolina.  I am shocked and awed not only by Mr. Hutchins' aesthetic sensibilities, which approach the very best of Geocities in their baffling riot of color and confusion, but by his platform, which calls for repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for starters.

And a return to British monarchy over the United States.

Be sure to click around.  Explore Mr. Hutchins' vision for a better America, free of the "Sanford and Son" usurpers who illegally occupy the White House, in place of its rightful owner, Queen Elizabeth II.

Yesterday's post concerning a "legal blog" which was publishing content of others as its own, without attribution, has been removed.  The owner stopped by with this comment:

Immediately addressed the issue.  Webmaster says he was linking to all original sources and just adding his own random thoughts prior to the link.  A Drudge Report model.  Defended himself by saying, [another blogger] hasn't once given credit for ALL the Copyrighted Photographs on his site that he scrapes and then adds his cracks underneath".  Nonetheless, I don't like that it offended anyone.  Time to rethink having anyone do anything on your behalf.

I'm satisfied with this (after all, it wasn't my writing that was stolen – I'm just an officious intermeddler), and have removed the post naming the scraper from public view.  It appears that the offending "blog" now redirects to the lawyer's firm website.

Personal to EL:  I disagree, strongly, with the assertion that what was going on at your site was anything like what [another blogger] does.  Your site did not link to the source.  Your site did not provide attribution.  It simply lifted others' posts, whole cloth, and made it appear as though they were written at your site.

When [another blogger] quotes others, he does provide links.  He does attribute.  He does provide valuable commentary beneath.  That isn't plagiarism.

And you don't owe an apology to me.  If anyone's owed an apology, it's Eric Turkewitz of the New York Personal Injury Law Blog.

I've written perviously about my love of Nethack, and how excited I was to be able to play it on my phone. Well, now I have a few other random Nethack updates for you to waste your Friday afternoon.

First off, in the everything old is new again department, you can now play Nethack over the internet. This is great for me, since I don't have to install it on a work machine. It plays nicely right through a java app via the website alt.org.

Next up is something for those of us who can't bring ourselves to attack a g or a p. You want some graphics with your hack? Well, I give you Falcon's Eye. It converts my beloved Nethack into a nice isometric 3D graphics game. Definitely worth checking out. (note for you purists, Falcon's Eye uses SLASH, a Nethack variant with lots of extra stuff added)

I still have never won a game of Nethack, so if you find the amulet and return it, please don't rub it in. Maybe I should stop playing as tourists…

OK, I know that Apple and AT&T are very different companies, but still the irony of AT&T suing because a smug commerical skewers the lesser performance of an Apple product is delicious, isn't that right P.C.?

I've always hated the insufferable Mac v. P.C. commercials, and I have a similar distaste for the Verizon one. Talk about what your product does, not what the other doesn't.

We'd have covered the lawsuit filed by University of Miami law professor Donald Jones against the legal gossip site Above the Law yesterday, except that we were busy.  And everyone else got to it first.

Suffice it to say that the lawsuit was ridiculous.  It betrayed fundamental misunderstandings of law, and the nature of the internet on the part of its author. The best blogposts on the matter were written by Ben Sheffner, analyzing the demerits of the suit, and Eric Turkewitz, who played against type and provided wise, conciliatory counsel to the plaintiff, the sort of advice one might expect from, oh I dunno, a law professor.

(And by, "against type" I don't mean Turkewitz isn't wise.  I mean that his conciliatory advice doesn't play into the stereotype of a plaintiff's personal injury attorney, but I digress…)

The suit was dismissed, voluntarily and without prejudice, one day after news of it broke on the web.  We're pleased to note that Above the Law was represented by longtime Popehat friend Marc Randazza, who blogs on the First Amendment among other things at the Legal Satyricon.  Randazza got the case dismissed with one letter.

Randazza, an "adjunct" professor himself (meaning he actually practices law) has long maintained that the legal academy does a poor job of educating its students.  Non-adjunct, "academic" professors, tenured or not, are often so removed from the practice of law (at least as it relates to litigation) that they have little of practical benefit to offer the eager young minds who pay their exorbitant salaries.

I think this case proves Randazza's point.

Every time I have an appellate argument scheduled, I break out in a rash on my upper lip. The result: I look like a skanky rent-boy wearing cheap smeared lipstick. Is it stress? It shouldn't be — appellate arguments are fun, and less stressful than the other stuff on my plate. Is it that I've tended to draw appellate arguments at this time of year, when some sort of allergy to the gunk blowing around in the autumnal winds does this to me? Perhaps. But I prefer to think it is Fate. I am fated to look ridiculous every time I appear before an appellate court. Query: what did I do to earn such bad karma?