Welcome to LawBB.net!
Welcome!
By Vanceone
LawBB.net is a community of lawyers, with a bulletin board, current legal news, and other information and resources. While this is still being built, the forums are operational. Come join us!!
Other things in store include a blogroll and a slightly updated look.
We’d like to welcome those who are just looking at the site for the first time, and we’d love to get some feedback. You can contact us on our contact page .
Some Updates
By Vanceone
Just to post to let anyone, if anyone reads this, know that we are alive. And working hard on launching still!
Obama Promises to Prop Up Castro Regime
By Vanceone
Obama, in a speech today to Cuban Americans, promised to basically fold to Castro, whether Raul or Fidel.
The Obamassiah
By Vanceone
He is Come! Or so many claim. Senator Barack Obama has been labeled the Messiah, or a Secular Messiah, since in many ways he is either positioning himself as a Savior of the American people, and his devotees are acting in a curious religiously fashion. Especially since his Tennessee campaign motto is “Faith, Hope, Change.“
Strange no one calls him on his blatant appeal to the Christianists among us.
Thus, the clever folks at Exurban league have created this: 
And I can’t help reproducing the Book of The Obamassiah, of unknown authorship (I’ve seen it by several people on different sites, though first at HotAir):
The Book of The Obamassiah
The Obamassiah shall reveal himself to us by his teachings, which will be the spoken word in the form of the finest silk and silver.
Do not fear if the words of the Obamassiah are not at first clear, you need only to hear them and believe. Be not afraid if the feeling of a cool breeze runs up one’s leg. Do not fear if the words of his glory remove you from your senses and fainting occurs.
Our savior shall become known to us by the wreath of arugala upon his head and his ears for they shall take the form of the handles of a jug of the finest wine.
I. Thou shalt not speak the middle name of the Obamassiah. To do so exposes thine as a racist and it shall not be tolerated.
II. Thou shalt not mention past associations of the Obamassiah. To do so exposes thine as a racist. For despite any recent or current friendship his holiness may have with them, he was only a child when they ran afoul of the law. Or he missed that sermon.
III. Thou shalt not mention praise of the Obamassiah by murderers and tyrants. To do so exposes thine as a racist, it is a sign that thine has truly lost one’s bearings.
IV. Thou shalt not mention the schooling of the Obamassiah at any point in his existence. To do so exposes thine as a racist.
V. Thou shalt not question the Obamassiah more than eight times. To do so exposes thine as a racist. For the time of his holiness is of a value beyond your own.
VI. Thou shalt not question the past of the Obamassiah family arrival or his birth. To do so exposes thine as a racist. For events in time matter not if they occur differently than his holiness speaks of them. It matters only that you believe.
VII. Thou shalt not question the words of the Obamassiah’s spouse. For if her words mirror those of the past associations of his holiness then thine is a racist twice over for the mention of them. (see II)
VIII. The purveyors of words to the people shall cast only praise on the Obamassiah. To turn from this exposes thine as a racist and a soldier of the unbeliever and thine should be cast out and lose any source of livelihood.
IX. Thou shalt not question the patriotism of the Obamassiah. To do so exposes thine as a racist. For by not displaying any outward love for his land only proves his love for his land.
Those unenlightened to the truth, and the light, and the way of the Obamassiah shall cling to armaments and religions other than that of the Obamassiah and will mistrust his glory for they understand it not.
This is the word of the Obamassiah.
Herendiththelesson
Brigitte Bardot on trial for anti-muslim comments
By Vanceone
Take a number!
By Vanceone
You rarely see a mobile phone company ad with a sense of humor. But Virgin Mobile Canada has let their ad department run wild—with fantastic results. This ad won’t last long, most likely…. but it is fantastic!
The text reads:
“At Virgin Mobile, you’re more than just a number. When you call us we’ll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you’re #9 or #900, you’ll get hooked up with someone who’ll finally treat you just how you want to be treated….“
Simply wonderful!
Edit: Actually, now that I think about this… Hmm. I think they’ll be allowed to do this. It reminds me of the fake Volkswagen ad mocking Kennedy that National Lampoon ran; but that was pulled because they hadn’t gotten VW’s permission to use their trademark. Kennedy couldn’t protest it. So this ad will stay up, is my guess
10 Comments so far — Permalink
DailyKos Melts down over Clinton/Obama split
By Vanceone
This is rich. Very rich. As some of you may know, the progressive blogosphere has sort of split recently, into pro Clinton and pro Obama camps. The DailyKos has become a very pro-Obama site, especially after Edwards departed the race.
This has involved each faction treating the other as if they were republicans: calling them Nazi’s, personal insults, digging up personal information—in general, proudly displaying all the positive elements the progressive political group has in spades.
So after the Reverend Jeremiah Wright stuff became huge news, there was a massive, drama filled “writers strike.“
Here is the “Writers should strike until Clinton supporters are treated like people, not evil scumsucking beings!“ diary. It got so big they closed it so it wouldn’t break the browsers.
Here’s some of the replys: Drama Filled Popular Diary 1 Drama filled diary 2
And this is being noticed elsewhere: On ABC’s political Blog.
The “strike”, or more appropriately Boycott, is spreading beyond DailyKos too, at No Quarter Blog, among others.
Just run this search on DailyKos and you’ll see how many diaries there have been on this “strike”. It’s schadenfreudilicious! And I’m popping popcorn and watching!
Lefty Prof says waterboarding should be prosecuted while islamists go free
By Vanceone
Over on Jurist, a popular legal magazine, there’s a guest editorial today that makes the argument that if we don’t put Ashcroft and Bush in jail, we are worse than the terrorists. Why? Because of waterboarding, of course! By “torturing” those poor terrorists, we are worse than they are, and are now a world pariah—unless, that is, we show that we, the American people, don’t condone torture by throwing those responsible (and Bush and Ashcroft are named) in jail. So, we gotta show how pro-criminal we are by throwing Bush in jail. Makes great sense!
Of course, the article starts from the a priori attitude that waterboarding is torture. It’s not, of course. If it was, the leftists couldn’t stand it. And they waterboard each other all the time. Plus, we do it to our own troops.
This is just an excuse to call for Bush to be put in jail, of course. Typical liberal stuff.
Sex with minors: never a good idea.
By Vanceone
Over on Prafsblawg, Professor Dan Markel starts a discussion on the story of a 38 year old man ( a high ranking Massachuesetts official) caught performing a sex act on a 15 year old boy. Professor Markel lists a series of scenarios and asks whether the law should allow legalization of the sex acts described.
The questions can basically be broken down into how related the boy is to the offender, and where the boy lives as opposed to the offender. All scenarios assume that the boy wanted this sex act, so there’s no question of rape (except statutory, of course). The scenarios range from unrelated to the brother of the offender. Also to the age of the boy, if he was 24 and not 15 at the time of the acts.
Then the questions cover gender differences.
Here’s my answers: any of the acts with the boy who is aged 15 and the offender 38 should not be legal. Same if the girl is 15. That’s statutory rape, and we shouldn’t amend the law to lower the age of consent. Adulthood is age 18 and 21 for some things, and seeing how sexual activity has a much greater potential to mess up children’s lives than, say, voting earlier: any attempt to lower the age of consent should be rejected.
Any of the incest ones should also be not allowed, regardless of age. The reasons for this are long-standing: too close of kindred for children, etc. Oddly, the homosexual act doesn’t have as much impact here as the heterosexual acts: brother sister, etc, due to the possibility of children from the heterosexual acts. But homosexual acts between family members still shouldn’t be supported or tolerated, just on equal protection—homosexuals shouldn’t have rights that heterosexual people do.
With respect of the older people involved, age 24 and 38 respectively, there’s less of a reason (as long as they are unrelated). I don’t know that I would make it illegal, but would strongly discourage it and make it government policy to discourage such activity, just on public health reasons alone. STD’s and addictions that should be avoided. People can keep it zipped up, you know!
Or they should be able to control themselves, at least.
The presumption of coercion is what Professor Markel is getting at with the residence issues. I don’t address them because I disagree with Professor Markel’s conclusions that it should be legal with a sex ed license. Again, why does a license qualify a minor to have sex? Unlike a drivers license, also controversial, there is no societal benefit to minors having sex at all outside of marriage. Sex with minors is fraught with bad consequences, and the only “upside” is to allow them to “if it feels good, do it.“
ETA: Professor Markel (sorry for the misspelling!) replied to my post above by asking me to address the borderline case of a 17 year old and meaningful consent.
To that I will ask: what is meaningful consent? Can a 17 year old consent? Under the law, they cannot consent to be bound to a contract (contracts with minors can be voided). Minors are not judged capable of consenting in that sphere, so why are they capable of consenting in this sphere?
If the argument is that there is nothing magically changes on the day of the 18th birthday, I would agree. But this is a bright line test: we have to draw the line somewhere, right? There’s no real difference on a child’s tenth birthday either, yet I hardly think that Professor Markel would argue that a ten year old is capable of meaningful consent.
Our society has judged the age of 18 to be the age of consent. I would note that many states DO recognize a difference between a 17 and 22 year old having sex versus a 17 and 38 year old for purposes of the statutory rape laws. I would ask Professor Markel why, if you must be 18 to legally contract, and be 18 to vote, and everything else that comes with turning 18, why should sexual consent be any different? What basis does he advance to exempt sexual conduct from the same rules that state you must be 18 to give informed consent to contract?
On a broader note, I would suggest that the main difference between Professor Markel and I appears to be that he would favor expanding minors sexual activity rights as a public policy, and I view that minor sexual activity is something that should be discouraged as a matter of public policy.
Why should minors receive greater rights to conduct sexual activity without consequence? Considering the host of societal problems that arise from unrestrained sexual activity, it should be discouraged as a general rule (and not just for minors, I might add). I suppose this is a philosophical difference, really: I believe that it should be public policy to encourage self-restraint in many areas, and self-discipline. Sexual conduct is a primary avenue to demonstrate this self-control, along with drug and alcohol use.
Again, I ask: what public purpose does allowing minors unrestrained sexual conduct serve? How does that possibly better society, or the lives of the individuals involved? To answer the charge of forcing some sort of quaint morality on people, I would suggest that the majority of laws have a moral base, or interest in curbing some form of behavior.
This is a good discussion, however!
The Good moral character requirement for the bar is good
By Vanceone
The TaxProfBlog has pointed to a law review article written by Keith A. Swisher, entitled “The Troubling Rise of the Legal Profession’s Good Moral Character,“ 82 St. Johns L. Rev. ___ (2008).
This article traces the history of the bar exam’s “good moral character” requirement. In brief, it started with the desire to prevent certain races from practicing law; later was expanded to prevent communists and those deemed morally unsound, such as felons and cohabitors. Now, the article argues, the good moral requirement is used to prevent just about anyone with a criminal background from getting into the bar.
The article takes issue with that practice, which appears to be growing.
Already, some commentators are agreeing and saying that the moral character requirement should be dropped. In particular, this author argues that basically, the moral character punishes those who had no choice but to get arrested because they lived in a bad area.
While there may be some merit to reforming the good moral character requirement, I disagree that moral character should just be ignored completely.
Law is a profession. Lawyers are supposed to be professional; part of the three traditional professions: law, medicine, and the priesthood. Each of those professions requires honesty and integrity as part of their standards. Lawyers in particular suffer a huge image issue—primarily because lawyers are viewed as not being honorable; as being self-interested and the “do anything it takes to win, regardless of morals” attitude. This is not a good thing.
I personally think trying to get people of good moral character into the bar is a good idea. People of honesty and integrity serve the profession and their clients well. Especially people who uphold the law—isn’t that what lawyers are about? Using the rule of law?
In particular, people who have been convicted of a crime should bear greater scrutiny. They should be examined to show why they would uphold the law now, if they were convicted of breaking it before. Remember, lawyers are officers of the court. Of course, there’s plenty of people who have committed crimes in the past and would make great lawyers—honest, ethical, etc. But at least it merits a further examination.
What’s wrong with trying to increase the general honesty and ethical standard of the members of the bar? Reasonably, of course?
Obama Girl didn’t vote?
By Vanceone
We’ve all seen her: scantily clad, gyrating for Obama, urging us to vote for him, our one true savior. She has a crush on him, she says!
But, sadly, like many crushes, it didn’t have much depth. How do we know? She didn’t get around to voting for him! Why not, I hear you cry? Well, because she was registered in New Jersey, and she apparently was too sick from a plane flight to make it across the river from New York to vote; though she wasn’t too sick to go to various parties.
Well, she got a lot of exposure, literally. So she has a lot to be grateful for, but she’s not grateful enough to vote for him. Maybe that’s a sign of hope for the Right?
The Obama Girl phenomenon is a bit silly, but personally, I didn’t mind seeing her. Hot, scantily clad babe in politics, who inspired knockoffs? What’s not to like?
But it’s a phenomenon that can only last so long. T&A is nice…. but not fulfilling for long. Eventually you need substance. That’s why conservatives like Michelle Malkin or Mary Katherine Ham are so much hotter—not only are they good looking, but their smarts and wit makes them special—more than just a body with a nice set of breasts. If all it takes to get votes is some hot girl, then why not just go hire some Victoria’s secret models? Or pornstars for that matter?
In a way, this is a clear example of the difference between the left and the right. The hottest girl on the left is Obama girl, and their well known women are people like Hillary and Pelosi. We on the right have Malkin, Mary Katherine Ham, and others. I’d rather go to war with them next to me any day.
How DOES the left and the right view women? Of course, we on the right are cavemen, who long only to have the whole barefoot and pregnant women, who live only to serve us. We beat our wives, they have to be baby factories, etc etc etc, while the left woman can choose for herself! She’s in control of her own body, and can do what she darn well wants!
Or so they think. What the left and feminist view as empowerment isn’t really empowerment. The leftist view of women is the Model T version: you can choose what you like as long as it’s black; or as long as it’s left. They cannot conceive of a woman wanting to have a family and not a career of her own will. To them, children are a nuisance, and families are a drag. It’s the eternal direction towards: if it feels good, do it. That means pornography is much more accepted by the left, because it feels good, and is victimless. Obama girl is an example—use your body to sell something based on how it makes you feel.
The women on the right, though, have just as good of looks—and compelling arguments that say, “No, I CAN have a family and not be ashamed. It’s not a bad thing to be a woman—not a man with boobs!“ Isn’t that ultimately what the feminist view of women is, in the end? Men with boobs.
And to think that is not what women should aspire to is not bad.
Still, Obama girl IS hot. Gotta give her that.
Berkeley sez Marines aren’t welcome
By Vanceone
The liberal enclave of Berkeley, California, is trying to regulate the Military out of town. The city counsel is trying to treat the local marine recruitment station as the same as an adult business, and has given all sorts of waivers to Code Pink, the far left outfit, to facilitate them protesting the military.
Guess if some disaster happens there, the military should respect the wishes and not help out.
Is the US committing Genocide by attacking the Taliban?
By Vanceone
Over on Jurist today, there’s an article by Professor Ali Khan of Washburn University School of Law that claims NATO is committing Genocide in Afghanistan every time it attacks the Taliban.
That’s right, by attacking Islamic fundamentalists, NATO is doing what the Nazi’s did.
Here’s some background on the author, Ali Khan. He was born in India, and has for several years been a scholar of Islamic law. He’s been a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference, a group dedicated to wiping out Israel. He published an article in the 2005 Washburn Journal of law entitled “The Essentialist Terrorist, “ a remarkable article explaining how it’s evil to be fighting terrorism. He is an admirer of Edward Said.
That’s enough to give you an idea where this guy is coming from: He’s not just a clueless liberal, he’s actively on the side of terrorism.
So what is his argument? Basically, that NATO is guilty of all three elements of genocide under the Convention to prevent genocide of 1951:
1) the act
2) the intent
3) of a protected group.
Professor Khan is correct that the US and NATO wish to destroy and kill members of the Taliban. Except, it’s not that NATO forces wish to kill Taliban civilians—just militants.
This goes to the heart of the problem with Professor Khan: The Taliban is not a protected group under the law. It’s a political group, and not solely a religious group. True, they advocate a particular religious point of view, but there are many who also practice that religious point of view without being terrorists or Taliban. For example, many Pakistanis, Saudi’s and Iranians hold the same exact religious views as the Taliban. They are not being killed by NATO (indeed, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are allies, at least in name). Therefore, the Taliban is a political group, first and foremost. As such it is perfectly legal to kill them on sight without being guilty of genocide, at least in a state of war. And there is not much dispute, if any, that the war against the Taliban was justified and legal.
Khan’s argument would also condemn the US fighting Nazi Germany: again, the act and intent were there. There were lots of people who thought about aryan superiority, the vileness of Jews, etc. They were also, for the most part, pagans. That would have made them a particular group for Kahn, so we committed genocide fighting the Nazi’s.
So his result is untenable.
To argue otherwise is nothing more than arguing against the “Great Satan,“ something Professor Kahn seems predisposed to do.
Note, I left a comment for Professor Khan on his article; it has not appeared, nor has any other comment appeared. Presumably Professor Khan doesn’t want to deal with any disagreement.
Why offshore to India?
By Vanceone
There’s an article on Legal Outsourcing in India in today’s law.com. It discusses the increasing move to outsource a lot of the drudgery of today’s legal world to India.
I ask, why go to India? Why not stay here? More after the jump.
Newspaper editor jailed for publishing Muhammed Cartoons
By Vanceone
A Belarus court (which is located in the former Soviet Union) has sentenced a former newspaper editor to three years in prison for printing the infamous “Muhammed cartoons.“ These cartoons were first published in Denmark in 2005, sparking worldwide riots from the “religion of peace”, and several people lost their lives.
Alexander Sdvizhkov was the deputy editor of Zhoda( a small Belarus newspaper), and reprinted the cartoons in February 2006. Now, he’s doing time for that crime: the alleged insult to Muslims everywhere. The president of Belarus shut down his paper immediately following the publication, and Mr. Sdvizkov was arrested for “inciting religious hatred.“
It’s a sad commentary, really. For some supposed insults, the man is in jail. For three years. Yet, you can be sure that if he’s published insulting cartoons about, say, Jews, he likely would have been celebrated. And I guess the exit question is, is Belarus under Sharia law now?
Women in the firm: do you have to choose between a career and a family?
By Vanceone
Over on Law.com, there’s an article today about women in the firm. It’s long been an age old question: can you have a family and a career? For many women, the answer has appeared to be no. Some women in the past have made it work, but only through working long, long hours as fast as they could early in their career, and putting off their family until later, or consuming their life such as working after their baby’s are put in bed. That’s still the case at many large firms.
But according to the Law.com article, there’s a third option: instead of going to the big firm, some small firms started by women have managed to balance those concerns. These women can take the entire afternoon off to tend to their families, and yet they still have a successful career.
I guess it comes down to this: what is a successful career? Is it making partner at a big NYC law firm, and arguing in front of the Supreme Court 15 times a year? I suppose that’s one definition of success, but realistically, in order to do that, you cannot have a family. Heck, most men who have that as a goal don’t have much of a family life either.
Is it worth it—sacrificing your family to “get ahead?? My suggestion is no, it’s not worth it. Coming home to a family that doesn’t even know who you are is no compensation for killing yourself at the office.