It was possible for groups like Negativland, or in this case, the Evolution Control Committee, to create strange works of art by combining the work of other artists.  In this case, the vocals of Chuck D and Flavor Flav of Public Enemy, set to the music of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass:

The combination, like peanut butter and chocolate, startles and yet is better than either alone.  When critics of the RIAA and other abusers of American and international copyright law say that great things can be accomplished through the doctrine of “fair use,” this is what they have in mind.

He is working to repair damage caused by a piece of metal, lodged in the intestines of a wounded Marine, near the slopes of Mount Tapotchau, on the tiny island of Saipan.

And sixty-five years later, here I am, writing from the comfort of a hotel in a world whose marvels, luxuries, and horrors neither of those men would have imagined.  But both of them, my wounded grandfather and the Navy medical corpsman who stabilized him to a point where he could be shipped home, made the world in which I write this possible.  Made me possible.

It’s a day early for patriotic appeals, but it’s a personally significant one so I’ll make it anyway.  I donated to Disabled American Veterans today, in memory of my grandfather for soldiers and marines whose wounds, unlike his, may never heal.

At the very least, tomorrow while you’re at the beach or the barbecue or enjoying the holiday, think of the people who made it possible, and are still making it possible here and now.

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Some Small Asteroid in the Vicinity of Saturn) remains imprisoned in Israel, after allegedly violating the country’s territorial waters by piloting the ship “Spirit of Humanity” to the shores of Gaza.

An international incident is not expected.

McKinney, a fierce critic of Israel, and Jews, achieved fame when, following a primary election defeat by a fellow black Democrat, her father blamed the loss on, as he put it, “J-E-W-S”.

McKinney also achieved fame when she proved that the September 11, 2001 attacks were “allowed” to happen to promote financial ties between President George H. W. Bush and Osama bin Laden.

McKinney likewise achieved fame when she introduced legislation to open the government’s secret files on the assassination of Tupac Shakur. Who probably wasn’t killed by Biggie Smalls at all, but by J-E-W-S.

McKinney otherwise achieved fame when she allegedly struck a Capitol Hill police officer who failed to recognize her at a metal detector.  There is no indication that J-E-W-S were involved in this incident.

While McKinney’s outspokenness and frank opinions have made her a lightning rod for controversy, including charges of anti-semitism, there can be no doubt that, this time, the J-E-W-S are at the root of Cynthia McKinney’s troubles.

They really do run everything.

I confess to a certain affection for BureauCrash, though I don’t read it often.

For the uninitiated, BureauCrash is a right libertarian multiauthor blog and discussion forum devoted to ending business regulation as we know it and elimination of income taxes, with a bit of Ayn Rand objectivism, Ludwig Von Mises goldbuggery, and probably casual marijuana use thrown in.  The audience at BureauCrash is in some ways as close to anarchism as to libertarianism.

Or they were.

In actuality, BureauCrash some time ago was acquired by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank which certainly advocates vigorously for free enterprise, but in other respects is about as unconventional as the Rotary Club.  Think Main Street Republicans.  Think Zell Miller Democrats, assuming any of those are left.  As foundations go, CEI is probably as close to the Brookings Institution as it is to the Cato Institute.

Last month CEI showed  its hand.  In a “hope you like our new direction” move, CEI has installed an administrator who announced his intent to moved the content in a decidedly less individualistic direction, along with adding links, since removed, to such libertarian stalwarts as Rush “warrantless wiretapping is good for America” Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin, who thinks concentration camps are essential to ordered liberty.

And in the BureauCrash chatroom, the new “Crasher in Chief” dropped CEI science on the longhaired hippie kids thus:

The fact that the government violates its own laws doesn’t change the fact that it is my government

You should accept that might makes right…and that is why we have a government

Since America has the most powerful military we are in control

The government is there to protect life liberty and property

Did I like McCain….no. Did I vote for him over Obama yes.

None of which went over too well with a member base that worries, in its heart of hearts, that Dr. Ron Paul is a secret stooge because he voluntarily complied with licensing requirements of the Texas Medical Board.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the “Crasher In Chief’s” stated desire to expand the site’s userbase by thousands upon thousands of good-thinking, like-minded Republicans like Joe the Plumber, participation seems to have declined precipitously, even as America soaks in the dregs of a million tax-protesting tea parties.  The hard libertarians, minarchists, and anarchists are moving to  blacker pastures.

All of which brings to mind a couple of questions: What did these kids see in a state-controlled Competitive Enterprise Institute-run social networking site in the first place, and why did the CEI want to add them to its holdings?

Via Kalim Kassam through Twitter.

The Associated Press reports that former Toole County Montana Judge Ronald McPhillips made an unexpected comeback this week to issue a surprise ruling in the case of Ayers v. Rubow, a mineral rights suit concerning natural gas royalties.

Judge McPhillips last ruled on the suit in March 1985, holding after a bench trial that he would take the case file to his home for study before issuing a decision.

Unfortunately, following his 1985 decision to take the file home Judge McPhillips developed what a witness described to the Great Falls Tribune as “a malignant tumor the size of a football on his hip,” prompting his first retirement.  Judge McPhillips ultimately recovered, and yesterday issued his long-awaited decision, holding that the plaintiff had not proven his case, and should recover nothing from the defendant.

Records are sketchy as to what had happened over the intervening 24 years in the case, but a source within the court speculated, “I think he [Judge McPhillips] found it [the case file] in an old briefcase he had at home.”  Upon locating the file, guidance was sought from the Montana Supreme Court, which suggested that if Judge McPhillips still remembered the case, he could make a ruling.  As it turned out, the Judge had taken what he described as “extensive notes,” and was able to issue a decision.

William Conklin, the attorney for Ayers, expressed his disappointment in the ruling and his confidence that Ayers would prevail on appeal, adding that he “remembered part of the case” and was sure that evidence had been presented, and possibly arguments.  The attorney for the victorious defendant Rubow had no comment, as it is uncertain whether he or she is alive.

Under the Montana Rules of Appellate Procedure, Ayers will have thirty days from entry of judgment in which to appeal Judge McPhillips’ order dismissing his case.

Source: Associated Press, Great Falls Tribune.

While China may have the world’s second fastest growing economy, we’re still not fans of Chinese building code enforcement.

For more on how a thirteen story apartment building turned into a one story disaster, click.

They may look weird, but they can dance:

The weirdo who doesn’t dance is playing a shamisen.

Today marks the tenth anniversary of Walter Olson’s launch of Overlawyered, which is one of the oldest existing weblogs, and probably the oldest weblog devoted exclusively to law and lawyers.  The site still operates much to the chagrin of some lawyers and much to the edification and amusement of others.  While portrayed by opponents as a “lawyer joke” site (untrue), or a “lawyer-bashing” site (arguably more true), Overlawyered also serves as a warning of the danger of litigation run amuck, and a “Don’t get too big for your britches” message to a profession that combines power and self-importance in equal measure.

Mr. Olson has been very generous to this small site, for which we thank him.  If you’ve never had a blog of your own, believe me the feat of keeping a non-commercial site of high quality running, mostly as a one man show, for ten years is an impressive one.

Here’s to ten more years for Overlawyered.  And may your name never be featured there.

Since the 1940s, it has been fashionable among right-thinking, scientifically inclined people of the left to point out a certain unseemly fascination among folks on the extreme right with fluoridation of the water supply.

As sensible people know, fluoride is certainly a dangerous chemical, but on the scale it’s used in municipal water it’s a positive health benefit, allowing Americans to enjoy nice smiles into ripe old age while our cousins in the Old World spit their rotted teeth into the denture glass.  The joke reached its height with Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, in which the anticommunist General Jack D. Ripper attempted to destroy the world in order to save it from fluoride.

As it turns out General Ripper didn’t commit suicide at all.  He’s alive and well, and working for the California Office of Environmental Health.

The CIC voted on May 29 to prioritize 38 more chemicals for possible listing as carcinogens.  Nine were designated as high priority, and these include fluoride (yep, the stuff the dentists use, Crest puts in its toothpaste and many water districts add to the water)…

After sixty years, the dream of rightwing fluoride nuts has been realized, and to think it’s going to be done by the public health ministry in Sacramento.  Henceforth products containing fluoride, including toothpaste, will have to be labeled a carcinogenic health hazard.  While there’s no evidence that Californians will suffer less cancer as a result, human nature being what it is, we can predict they’ll suffer a lot more cavities.

Open wide and smile, California.

We’ve written harshly about the British nanny state in the past.  Perhaps too harshly, in retrospect.

Based on recent news, what the British people need is a national nanny, someone who’ll prevent them from hurting themselves.

Talk of swine flu parties has emerged on Internet forums. The idea is that exposing a child to the H1N1 virus while it remains relatively mild will give the child immunity if the virus returns in a more virulent form later on.

So if little Ian comes down with the swine flu, little Graeme and little Neville are invited to Ian’s house, where they can share blankets and postnasal drip in the hope that, like a milkmaid suffering cowpox in the 19th century, they’ll be immune to the “smallpox” strain of swine flu that’s sure to come.  Some day.

Of course, given enough time it’s a certainty that the H1N1 virus will mutate not just into a “superflu,” but a technologically advanced galactic empire of flu, ruling the pitiful descendants of British humanity from the orbital flu satellites.

In the meantime, here and now on the planet earth, the swine flu has killed hundreds of people already.  And the British government, understandably, is warning parents that it’s a bad idea for parents to expose their children to influenza.

Will British parents heed this advice?  That’s an interesting question.  As others have pointed out, in America our lawyer-driven “nanny culture” is responsible for all sorts of ridiculous warning labels, to the point where a case can be made that consumers are less likely to take real warnings about threats that matter seriously.  We may suffer from “warning fatigue.”

In Britain on the other hand, the important job of protecting everyone from everything is not the work of lawyers, but the government and its employees, who seek to save the British people from pointed knives, Wi-fi in public, and in fact virtually everything except the government itself. And while we don’t endorse exposing children to the flu, we have strong concerns about a government that seems to think it’s the State’s business to keep children from scraping their knees.

Eventually, Britain’s “everything not compulsory is forbidden” ethos will catch up to it.  Can a people who live from cradle to grave in the warm arms of a government nanny look after themselves?  After years of Chicken Little, will the minority who consider it their personal responsibility to take care of themselves give up when the sky actually falls?

And probably moments before the attack of the Galactic Flu Empire.

While many large corporations try to shun overt displays of wealth these days, well, they don’t produce the profits that Blizzard Entertainment does, now do they?

Via joystiq, a photo of the newest decoration for Blizzard’s Irvine California office.  Astonishingly vulgar, and yet astonishingly cool.

In the course of a wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times, California State Assembly speaker Karen Bass laments that her fellow Californians enjoy the right to vote, to speak, and to petition their government for the redress of grievances:

How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature’s work?

The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: “You vote for revenue and your career is over.” I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it’s about free speech, but it’s extremely unfair.

What Bass, a Democrat, calls “terrorist threats” against her Republican colleagues is what most Americans call the exercise of First Amendment rights.  It’s one of those outdated traditions in American politics that any drooling troglodyte can communicate his displeasure to elected representatives.

In fact, I understand that under federal and California law, Bass herself might be subject to “terrorist threats” from her own constituents, people like my friend Ezra, who enjoys the freedom to call her office and say, “You vote to cut spending on the Greater Los Angeles Area Pacific Islander Parade subsidy and county calligraphy budgets, and your career is over.”

Now a charitable person, a very charitable person, might assume that Bass is referring only to talk radio hosts as “terrorists” here, and that she actually meant to make some incredibly inept argument for the return of the “fairness doctrine” in radio.  Unfortunately Republican talk radio hosts also enjoy the right to engage in terrorism as Bass defines it.  A less charitable person might say that Bass was referring to Republican voters, whom everyone knows are poorly educated and lack understanding of the importance of tax increases in an economic crisis, or something, and that …

No I’m stumped.  There’s no way to be charitable to Bass, the elected speaker of the California assembly, who just called voters who dare to complain to their representatives terrorists.  Her statement positively drips with contempt for the rubes she was elected to serve.  If only she could lock them up…

Well, maybe she can.  Buried deeper in the interview is this fascinating tidbit.

I do think that some fundamental reforms need to take place. I would be concerned about a constitutional convention, only because, as I understand it, if you open that door up, all kinds of things can be put on the agenda, like [abortion rights]. While we’re trying to solve this budget crisis, we are also figuring out how to launch reforms that would address some of it.

But why not hold a constitutional convention Ms. Bass?  Sure, it might open up the door to things you don’t like, but you’re the California Assembly speaker.  You’re one of the most powerful people in the state.  I’m sure you can finesse it, and get a brand-spanking new constitution which finally allows you to lock up those terrorists who dare to complain to the State.

And it would work too, if only it weren’t for that meddling United States constitution.

Via Patterico.

SueEasy, despite the name, is not a woman of loose morals.  No, Sue Easy is a legal affiliate marketing site to which a number of law firms that specialize in filing class actions subscribe.  A matchmaker, if you will, between people who may have suffered trivial damages not worthy of an individualized suit, and the lawyers who want to aggregate their claims into big contingent fee payouts.

Sue Easy promises potential plaintiffs that it will help them:

TAKE THE POWER BACK!

And further promises them:

INSTANT LEGAL BLISS!

Sue Easy desribes itself thus:

SueEasy is an online application where you can file your complaints in a variety of legal categories.

For attorneys, Sue Easy promises to help them connect to clients through the power of “social networking” sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve had a number of concerns about Sue Easy since I discovered it earlier this week.

First, its marketing is deceptive, at least to the potential plaintiffs if not attorneys.  Sue Easy is not an online application where you can “file” “complaints” in a variety of “legal” categories.  These terms have very specific meanings.  “Filing” of a “complaint” means the the act of submitting a lawsuit to the clerk of a court, which brings the lawsuit into existence.  Any attorney knows that, but many laypeople do not.  A layman registering with Sue Easy may be lulled into believing that by typing his grief into a chatbox, he has “filed a complaint,” meaning that he has sued the parties who caused his misfortune, when nothing could be further from the truth.  The only “online applications” that allow “filing of complaints,” in the real sense, are federal PACER and similar state electronic filing systems.

Does that sound far-fetched?  Surely no one could be so stupid as to believe that by registering with Sue Easy, he has filed a lawsuit?

Well, consider that actual class actions have been filed on behalf of people so stupid as to claim that they did not know that “Crunchberries” aren’t real fruit, and on behalf of people so stupid that they needed a written warning to know that setting headphone volume too high can impair hearing.  In other words, people who lack common sense.  In the case of Sue Easy, someone is making promises about legal matters, which all lawyers know are entirely outside the realm of common sense.  You need specialized training to think like a lawyer.

If I were the sort of person who files plaintiff class actions, I’d be looking at Sue Easy as a big, fat target.

Second, and this is for the lawyers, consider what Sue Easy means when it says it will help you to find clients through “social networking.”

On Wednesday, after I had learned of Sue Easy’s existence, I posted this update on the Popehat twitter account.

Received class action lawsuit settlment notice re Google books. Odd as I’m not a class member.

I actually didn’t receive a settlment [sic] notice concerning the Google books class action at all.  I wrote that because I was curious as to how long it would take for Sue Easy to send me a message about all of the benefits of joining its network.  I predicted it wouldn’t take long.

And sure enough, within 48 hours I received this unsolicited message from Sue Easy:

@Popehat Internet’s Largest Class Action Database - Search, Join or Start your own Class Action. Protect your rights http://SueEasy.com

In other words, Sue Easy’s sophisticated “social networking” strategy is the same old thing.  Sue Easy is a spammer.  I don’t know whether a “bot” searched Twitter for my planted message containing the words “class action” or a hired monkey at a keyboard did it, but I didn’t ask for Sue Easy’s opinion about my good fortune in settling the Google books class action, and I didn’t want it.

Moreover, even in 140 characters, Sue Easy’s spam is deceptive.  While I actually could “start my own class action” (subject to certification and oversight from a court), most of Sue Easy’s marks couldn’t “start” their own class actions if their lives depended on it, and would be engaged in the unauthorized practice of law if they tried.

They certainly couldn’t do it by registering on a website.

Sue Easy’s site claims that an awful lot of legal firms, some quite prominent, are members.  These firms, apparently, have licensed Sue Easy to use their names and distinctive logos for its advertising.  These firms, apparently, are proud to be associated with a spammer engaged in arguably deceptive marketing practices.

For instance, prominent Los Angeles plaintiffs’ firm Wasserman Comden and Casselman’s name and logo are listed on the Sue Easy site.  Did an attorney from Wasserman Comden review and approve of Sue Easy’s promise that I can “start” and “file” my own class action through a web page?  Did an attorney from Wasserman Comden review and approve of Sue Easy’s “social networking” strategy, which involves bothering me with unsolicited junk spam through Twitter?

They must have.  They’ve given Sue Easy their name and logo.  As better lawyers than I have observed, when a law firm outsources its marketing, it outsources its good name, and its ethics.

Iain Murray is a climate change skeptic (many of us aren’t so much), blogger for National Review, and is probably smarter than we are.  Now ordinarily we don’t associate with that sort of person, especially people who are smarter than we are, but we’ve struck up a sorta virtual acquaintance with Murray through Twitter, and he seems to be pretty decent for all that.  When he’s not being a knowitall, he enjoys old school paper roleplaying games.

Today, geekery aside, Murray is performing a valuable public service, in real time, illustrating just how awful your Congress is.  Amidst all of the media attention on celebrity deaths, the House of Representatives is debating, and about to vote on, a “cap and trade” bill for energy / carbon dioxide policy.  Murray is covering it second by second on Twitter.

Considering the state of the economy, and that a rider amendment containing 300 extra pages no one voting has actually read was introduced this morning, might it be desirable to have a public debate after the bodies are buried?  Nah.  You don’t need to know about that.  For that matter, neither does your congressman.  There’s pork to be eaten, and bill sponsor Henry Waxman is handing it out.  Nor do your media.  Michael and Farrah are dead!

• Rep Louie Goehmert says he hasn’t seen the extra 300 pages of the bill and wants to know how he can get it. This is a shocking indictment
• when both Greenpeace and Club for Growth oppose a climate bill, probably a good idea to stop and think about it
• Also, Waxman doesn’t think #Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth are leading environmental groups.
• Everyone who’s said they will vote for should now troop up to the microphone and demand more. Waxman will give it to them.
• Here comes Jackson Lee for her handout…
• They’re queuing up to get Waxman to give them more taxpayer money! Every US citizen needs to see this travesty.
• Fox News says won’t do anything on cap and trade, cos it’s all Michael Jackson.

And so on and so forth.  Anyway, it’s a remarkable one man performance on Twitter.  Whether you’ll pay an extra [how much?] a month next year for power and heat is being debated on the floor of Congress, and, if you’re in any industry that depends on large quantities of electricity, your job.  For a bill that contains 300 pages of legislation your legislator (unless he’s Henry Waxman) didn’t read.

Laws and sausages.

On the heels of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision holding that a 13 year old girl has the right to attend school without being strip-searched by drug warriors hunting for contraband advil, Matthew Wright, the attorney for Safford Unified School District, had a reaction that, at first blush, blends in with the newspaper boilerplate but when isolated and examined on its own, becomes intensely dishonest:

[S]tunting the discretion of school officials in such circumstances where they need the flexibility to act will inevitably have a chilling effect on their response to threats of drugs on campus.

That’s one way to phrase it.  But it isn’t the phrase I’d use.

Rather, I’d say that school officials who use their “discretion” to order prepubescent girls to strip almost naked will inevitably be subjected to compensatory or punitive damages.

Or perhaps that school officials who needlessly subject students to abuse of the sort that’s normally tolerated only in a jail or prison will inevitably be deterred from doing what your clients did to Savana Redding.

That was the very point of the Redding lawsuit, Mr. Wright.  Although from the lofty peak of the United States Supreme Court it wasn’t obvious until yesterday, here on the fringes of decent society where I live it’s always been pretty well established that grown men don’t order little girls to strip to their training bras and turn their underwear inside out.

Indeed, if your clients hadn’t been school administrators, society would have introduced them to an even harsher deterrent or “chilling effect” than money damages:  prison.

Although the language of law has introduced many toxins into everyday English, I can think of few as pervasive as the term “chilling effect,” which has evolved from its original and limited meaning (suppression of legitimate political speech by overbroad or arbitrarily enforced laws) to mean, today, “deterring me from doing something that everyone knows is wrong, but that I’d like to do anyway.”

Motor vehicle negligence laws exert a “chilling effect” on my discretion to drive after consuming six beers.

The threat of losing my law license, divorce, and alimony laws exert a “chilling effect” on my discretion to clean out my client trust account and fly to Argentina for a weeklong fling with my partner’s hot secretary.

And the criminal code exerts a “chilling effect” on my discretion to invest in cocaine futures.

In plain English, we call these “chilling effects” compensation for wrongs, deterrence, and punishment.  And yes Mr. Wright your clients hopefully will be deterred by the prospect of paying damages in a civil suit from molesting little girls like Savana Redding in the future.  Even if their hearts are in the right places.  Even if it’s to protect her from advil.

The “chilling effect” euphemism is hardly an American phenomenon.

In England, hardly a bastion of free speech, parliamentarians who’ve been caught raiding the public treasury for personal expenses complain that a new oversight commission will have a “chilling effect” on their discretion to renovate the family moat on the taxpayers’ bill.

In Canada, the head of the federal censorship commission complains that public criticism of her agency’s abuses exerts a “reverse chill” on her ability to prosecute even more people for thoughtcrimes.

And back home, insurance companies afraid at the prospect of a federal oversight board in reaction to their role in the economic crisis complain of a “chilling effect” on their discretion to invest policyholders’ money in the lucrative North Korean liability insurance market.

None of these cases has anything to do with speech, save that in each someone is mangling the English language, with weasel words.

Perverted drug warriors masquerading as teachers, censors masquerading as the censored, public servants caught with their hands in the till, and corporations squandering shareholders’ assets on the equivalent of Dutch tulips, all become victims, by repeating the magic words “chilling effect.”

There ought to be a law.