Predicting Failure

Robert Weisberg at ACSBlog:

Miers will not get confirmed by the Senate, because she won’t even come up for a vote. The nomination will soon be withdrawn. Of course, the major reason will be the conservative opposition, but the operational reason will be not the opposition itself but rather the inability of the White House to devise any plan for the hearings.

Buddy Story

One reason why the Katrina recovery might be going a little more smoothly in Mississippi than in Louisiana: Gov. Haley Barbour.

Katrina's aftermath offers a lesson in the benefits of having friends.

Specifically, the benefits of having Haley Barbour's friends -- most of whom have never met Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

Withinhours of the storm, old friend Sam Adcock, the head lobbyist forEuropean aerospace firm EADS, was sending five helicopters and ahospital airplane for Mississippi officials to use in recovery efforts.Another friend, lobbyist David O'Brien, was donating 100 satellitephones so the state's leaders could communicate while many of theircounterparts in Louisiana were stuck with inoperable cell phones.

Barbouralso received a call from A.D. "Pete" Correll, the CEO of timber giantGeorgia-Pacific and a former lobbying client. Correll offered hisfirm's services to help salvage storm-damaged timber. He also agreed toreopen two Georgia-Pacific facilities in Mississippi, which will employabout 500 workers.

One of the striking images from PresidentBush's first post-Katrina visit to the Gulf Coast was of the presidentgravitating to Barbour. Barbour was RNC chairman when Bush was firstelected governor of Texas, sat on Bush's presidential campaignexploratory committee and has strenuously avoided criticizing the Bushadministration's response to Katrina.
...
Asked about a proposal to turn over Mississippi's relief effort to afederal "czar," Barbour says, "We don't need that here," adding thatneither do neighboring Alabama or Florida. "These states are capable ofdoing the right thing."

Louisiana?

"That's not for me to say," he says.

I guess it helps to know people. I guess "capable" means "they have Republican governors". If I were a citizen of Louisiana I would be pretty pissed off after reading this story.

ELABORATED COMMENTS:  Okay, here's the point I was trying to make:

If I'm your average Louisiana citizen who doesn't give a shit either way about national politics, I'm upset that people in other states are getting more help than me solely because the person in charge of their state is of the right political persuasion. That is fucked. The goverment isn't supposed to play favorites. This is what people are talking about when they complain about cronyism. Maybe I'm sounding a little starry-eyed in my conception of how things should work, but it just seems wrong that the horrible reality is accepted as quietly as it is.

But but what really gets me mad is that Barbour is right. Aid will get to Mississippi more efficiently than it will to Louisiana by virtue of the fact that Mississippi is  governed by someone with the right "connections".

Kinda like having the mafia for a federal government.

Happy Birthday Alex!

I'd like to take advantage of whatever readership I may have to publicly wish Alex Z. a happy 24th. I sit next to Alex in contracts, so I can say with almost complete certainty that he showers at least several times a week. A damn fine basketball player in his own right, Alex recently made good on a law council campaign promise when he performed a backbreaker on Janiga in the middle of Williams.

Happy Birthday, Alex!

Torts Briefs

Via google. Torts casebriefs.

Harriet Miers Needs Your Help

Extra study guides lying around? Donate them to a future SCOTUS justice. She thanks you in advance.

KPMG Indictment: Not Justifiable

In today's WSJ, Stanford Law profs Robert Weisberg and David Mills make a convincing argument that the criminal indictment of 8 ex-KPMGers is baseless. Essentially they say that, while the tax shelters in question are indeed problematic and "economically questionable", the charges of tax evasion and tax perjury are simply not warranted by the circumstances. Rather, blame should be put on congress' failure to act. The indictment then is best viewed as a "study in how one branch of government responds to what it perceives as the failure of another."

Do read the whole thing (if you don't have a WSJ password, contact me and I'll email it to you.)

Sweet!

This is made my day:

Government forecasters today predicted a warmer than normal winter,

offering hope to much of the Midwest and West as concern grows about

the rising costs of heating during cold-weather.

This is such beautiful news that I almost cried when I read it. God clearly wants me to survive this, my first Minnesota winter, and I appreciate that.

Day of Atonement

A prayer for Yom Kippur. This is called the "Al Chet" confession (abridged):

For the sin which we have committed before You under duress or willingly.

And for the sin which we have committed before You by hard-heartedness.

For the sin which we have committed before You inadvertently.

And for the sin which we have committed before You with an utterance of the lips.

For the sin which we have committed before You with immorality.

And for the sin which we have committed before You openly or secretly.

For the sin which we have committed before You with knowledge and with deceit.

And for the sin which we have committed before You through speech.

For the sin which we have committed before You by deceiving a fellowman.

And for the sin which we have committed before You by improper thoughts.

For the sin which we have committed before You by a gathering of lewdness.

And for the sin which we have committed before You by verbal [insincere] confession.

For the sin which we have committed before You by disrespect for parents and teachers.

And for the sin which we have committed before You intentionally or unintentionally.

For the sin which we have committed before You by using coercion.

And for the sin which we have committed before You by  desecrating the Divine Name.

For the sin which we have committed before You by impurity of  speech.

And for the sin which we have committed before You by foolish  talk.

For the sin which we have committed before You with the evil  inclination.

And for the sin which we have committed before You knowingly or unknowingly.

For all these, God of pardon, pardon us, forgive us, atone for us.

Polio Outbreak Minnesota

Damned Amish should be vaccinating their kids:

The first outbreak of polio in the United States in 26 years

occurred earlier this fall in an Amish community in central Minnesota,

state and federal health officials reported yesterday.

Four

children have been infected with the virus, although none has become

paralyzed. The Amish typically decline to vaccinate their children. The

last large outbreak of polio occurred in numerous Amish communities in

several states in 1979.

The 1940s persist just a few hours from where I sleep at night.

"Originalism!"

BuffaloWings&Vodka has a Harriet Miers version of the aristocrats joke that is sure to offend. Enjoy at your own risk.

From The School That Started It All...

The Terps basketball season official kickoff is happening right now. I've got goosebumps from 1100 miles away.

Just so you know, Midnight Madness is a tradition started by Maryland. You're welcome. Final Four, here we come!

At The Intersection of Law and Reason

I was struck by this passage in an AP story posted on Yahoo! (emphasis mine):

[T]he United States' top health official came to a grim conclusion:Preventing the start of a global flu outbreak is just about impossible.
...
The drug that seems most effective against bird flu is Tamiflu,which was created to treat ordinary human flu but is now in shortsupply and can't be made fast enough because of pandemic fears.

Leavitt has been talking with drug and vaccine manufacturers to tryto increase the stockpile should a catastrophic outbreak reach NorthAmerica. The government currently has enough Tamiflu to treat about 4.3million Americans.

Manufacturing of a new vaccine has just started, and Leavitt saidthe United States may help finance some of the $100 million productionburden.

Earlier this month, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested patent rules might be suspended in an outbreak to allow othercompanies to make generic forms of Tamiflu, produced by Swiss-basedRoche Holding AG. In recent days, a company in India announced plans todo that.

However, Leavitt said the United States supports intellectual property laws that bar such action.

Are IP laws so sacrosanct that it would be better to let thousands (millions?) of people die than violate them? Or does this situation present a case where, at least temporarily, it makes sense to do what's necessary to preserve human life? I realize that the way I phrase the question suggests a certain answer, but this situation presents a serious moral dilemma. We aren't talking about college freshmen downloading free music and movies in their dorm room, we're talking about producing a life saving drug to help in treating what's been described as an inevitable global pandemic.

I'm interested to hear what people think about this, so leave some comments. That goes double for people with an interest in IP law. I'm looking at you, Unreasonable Man.

UPDATE: Very good information in comments.

Deer In Headlights

This was me in torts today. If you witnessed it let me assure you, I am not retarded (though clearly you have reason to believe otherwise). It was like Sigman started talking and I couldn't even hear what was being asked. Very troubling. Back to studying.

(Picture from Eric Conveys An Emotion)

Dilbert

Senior White House Official Flips?

That's the rumor. TalkLeft predicts that it's Rove.

Quietest Scandal Ever

Never heard of Refco? Here's a timeline of the lightning quick meltdown from the WSJ, for your edification (links removed):

A timeline of the crisis at commodities brokerRefco Inc., whose financial situation has deteriorated quickly sincethe disclosure that CEO Phillip R. Bennett hid a $430 million debt fromthe company's books.

Aug. 11, 2005: Refco makes its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange and sees its shares surge 25%, to $27.48, on the first trading day.

Oct. 10: Refco announces that Mr. Bennett has been put on an indefinite leave of absence afterthe company discovered that an investment fund Mr. Bennett controlledowed Refco $430 million. Refco says Mr. Bennett has since repaid themoney but that its earnings reports dating to 2002 will have to berevisited. The company's shares drop 45%.

Oct. 11: The SEC launches an inquiry into the situation at Refco.

Oct. 12: Mr. Bennett is arrested and charged by federal prosecutors with securities fraud. Bail is set at $50million, and Mr. Bennett faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Oct. 13: Refco decides to temporarily shut downone of its key units, Refco Capital Markets Ltd., because of lack ofliquidity. Refco's share price is halted on the NYSE at $7.90, and theprice of the  company's bonds plunges.

Oct. 17: Refco files for bankruptcy and agrees to sell its regulated futures brokerage business to a group of investors led by hedge fund J.C. Flowers & Co.

Baltimore Tunnels Closed Due to Terror Threat

The Baltimore Sun:

Federal and local authorities investigating a potential terror threat
shut down portions of Interstate 95 in Baltimore late this morning,
diverting thousands of cars at the Harbor and Fort McHenry tunnels and
clogging traffic as police checked tractor-trailers and vans.

"We did receive some threat information," said a federal lawenforcement official. "They're in the process of working it through. We geta lot of this stuff. Each time you get it, you have to work it throughuntil you can nail it down."

Scary news from hometown.

Wall Street Journal #3671.1

The question of the day from the Wall Street Journal is "Which issue has been most detrimental to GOP prospects? The choices are:

• CIA leak investigation
• DeLay indictments
• Frist's stock sales
• Government spending
• Iraq war
• Katrina response
• Miers's nomination

"...Google Earth will eventually provoke the complete collapse of Western civilisation..."

Results from The Register's "Spot the Black Helicopter" competition.

Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You

Creepy:

A research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laserprinters secretly hide in every document.

The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information ispart of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers,ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the nature of theprivate information encoded in each document was not previously known.
...
The dots are yellow, less than one millimeter in diameter, and aretypically repeated over each page of a document. In order to see thepattern, you need a blue light, a magnifying glass, or a microscope...

Break out your tinfoil hats...No, seriously. Break them out.