I know this group is used to intelligent, issue-packed, legal hypotheticals, but humor me on this overcast (in the DC area) Tuesday morning.
If you had to fight an animal that is the same size as you (both in height and weight) to the death, what animal would you pick? Note you can choose any animal - it can be blown up or shrunk to your size.
I would pick a giraffe, since its skinny neck gives me a shot at winning.
September 10, 2019
September 9, 2019
Pistol-Packin' Mama, Lay That Pistol Down!
Sometimes, taking a break from college to visit a parent can be like a shot in the arm. All the more so, in fact, if the visit is a surprise, and you burst in unannounced on nervous kinfolk who are packing. So it was for this intellectually challenged young lady, who is unaccountably smiling in her hospital photo, and posted all about her clever exploits on social media.
One would hope she learns an important life lesson from this, given that, by dumb luck alone, the shot tore through her arm, several inches from any vital organs. Her mom should take a moment to puzzle on this as well, perhaps even to consider the value of pausing to identify one's target before going all trigger-happy in a moment of panic. Neither one of them seems particularly gifted, and I am inclined to wonder how many Darwin Awards have already been taken by other members of this family.
https://nypost.com/2019/09/08/mom-accidentally-shoots-daughter-after-she-surprises-her-at-home/
One would hope she learns an important life lesson from this, given that, by dumb luck alone, the shot tore through her arm, several inches from any vital organs. Her mom should take a moment to puzzle on this as well, perhaps even to consider the value of pausing to identify one's target before going all trigger-happy in a moment of panic. Neither one of them seems particularly gifted, and I am inclined to wonder how many Darwin Awards have already been taken by other members of this family.
https://nypost.com/2019/09/08/mom-accidentally-shoots-daughter-after-she-surprises-her-at-home/
This Too Shall Pass
This unfortunate former judge lost her courtroom gig after she was caught too far from the commode one day in court, and had to take a dump in her courtroom trash can. I noticed this story because the former judge in question bears an uncanny likeness to Rawles, and had some of the same problems. Indeed, based on the description of the treatment doled out to her by courthouse workers (who swarmed the scene of the trash can dump with caution tape, and in HazMat suits), I would guess she had a similar, winning personality as well. Soon after the trash can incident, she was sacked, and had since been pursuing a lawsuit for disability discrimination. After all, a toilet behind the bench should be a "reasonable accommodation," right? Sadly, her many ailments and morbid obesity caught up with her, and she died, at age 63, before her case could be concluded. So she won't ever know how it comes out in the end.
https://nypost.com/2019/09/09/judge-suspended-for-pooping-in-trash-can-dies-at-63/
https://nypost.com/2019/09/09/judge-suspended-for-pooping-in-trash-can-dies-at-63/
Monday Morning Discussion - Stand-Up Comedians
Now that Netflix and Instagram are offering up stand-up comedy videos, we never have to leave the couch in search of laughter. In that vein, who would you like to see offer a Netflix special, i.e., who is your favorite comedian? Which comedians are you not so crazy about?
Because I can never pick just one, my favorite is actually 3 people: Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres, and Dave Chappelle. Their jokes are almost uniformly intelligent and funny.
I'm not crazy about Samantha Bee (yawn), Louis CK (snoooooze), and Nick Guerra (too hit or miss).
The inspiration for this post comes from my recent viewing of Dave Chappelle's Sticks and Stones on Netflix. I think Fr0zt has been coaching Chappelle. Has anyone else seen it?
Because I can never pick just one, my favorite is actually 3 people: Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres, and Dave Chappelle. Their jokes are almost uniformly intelligent and funny.
I'm not crazy about Samantha Bee (yawn), Louis CK (snoooooze), and Nick Guerra (too hit or miss).
The inspiration for this post comes from my recent viewing of Dave Chappelle's Sticks and Stones on Netflix. I think Fr0zt has been coaching Chappelle. Has anyone else seen it?
September 6, 2019
September 5, 2019
Wreck of the ABA Journal Going Adrift, As Editor and Publisher Abandons Ship
A giant hat tip to our colleague, Yankee, for pointing out the Bob Ambrogi piece on Editor and Publisher Molly McDonough's resignation from ABA Journal. Combined with what has been a steady decline in quality and reader interaction, Ms. McDonough's resignation and comments are the functional equivalent of a ship's captain opening all the sea valves, then jumping over the rail while shouting urgent warnings about torpedoes and an iceberg.
As Ambrogi's piece recognizes (and as I have mentioned in prior posts), Molly McDonough was instrumental in getting ABAJournal.com under sail as a reputable website. When she served as Assistant Managing Editor and personally moderated site comments, things went very well indeed. It was a golden age for the website, because (with the exception of banning Ellen Barshevsky) most of Molly's decisions reflected sound and mature judgment, she would explain them, and she tried to be consistent so the vague site rules were at least applied even-handedly.
Unfortunately (as I have also mentioned before), when Molly moved up to Managing Editor, then ultimately, Editor and Publisher, ABA provided no resources to secure any competent replacement. Busy with her new duties, Ms. McDonough had little choice but to leave the steering and the sail to subordinates such as Sarah Mui and Lee Rawles.
Unlike their predecessor, Mui and Rawles tended to be arbitrary and abrasive, and didn't explain their decisions, which also tended to reflect a certain absence of professionalism, objectivity, maturity and judgment. Many readers simply could not stand their unprincipled, biased and obnoxious mismanagement of the comment boards and other interactive site features. This mismanagement extended to banning those commenters who criticized their unprincipled, biased and arbitrary conduct, and I doubt anyone will ever know how many members or how many thousands of dollars in dues and advertising revenue Mui and Rawles managed to cost ABA.
What we do know is that interactive features such as the Blawg 100 soon began to shrivel on the vine. By December of 2016, it was clear that reader participation had substantually evaporated, and the Blawg 100 was in serious trouble.
In April 2018, the same thing had happened to the Journal's Peeps Contest (founded initially by Molly McDonough when she was running the website directly). Mui and Rawles had knocked reader participation down to the point that the contest was failing, and the Journal killed it.
By July of 2018, the Blawg 100 was likewise in such serious trouble that the Journal expanded it to the "Web 100" to try to draw additional reader participation. However, this failed to overcome the ill effects of the incompetents left managing the website, and the "Web 100" quietly faded away after December 2018.
Meanwhile, on the ABA Journal's comment boards, the biased and unprincipled failure to fairly or consistently moderate comments had reduced the quality of discourse to that of an open sewer. Rawles was leaving up obscenities, personal attacks, and (as of January 2019) even death threats, as long as they were posted by leftist commenters. Many readers complained, and I personally sent ABA President Bob Carlson a polite communication noting that his stumping on "civility" was somewhat at odds with the standards being followed in his own shop. By late April of this year, the ABA Board of Editors recognized that the comment boards had reached a state such that they simply needed to be shut down.
Soon after, in May 2019, the "Cartoon Caption Contest" quietly and without fanfare ceased to be. In short, nearly every single interactive reader feature of the Journal had been destroyed (I note here the possible exception of "Question of the Week," although responses all have to be submitted offsite, via social media mechanisms such as Facebook or Twitter).
In the Treasurer's Report at the 2019 Annual Meeting, the ABA Treasurer disclosed that advertising revenues had failed to come in as forecast. This is most likely reflective of a substantial decline in readership and web traffic. Even though the Journal publicly claims to be read each month by "half the nation's lawyers," advertisers typically use web traffic analytics services to determine what is really true, and the decline in advertising revenues speaks volumes.
So, too, do Molly McDonough's statements as reported by Bob Ambrogi. Recognizing that there is undoubtedly a great deal Molly is not telling us, what she is telling us is quite enough to get a sense of how bad things have become. The Blawg index is going to be taken down, and ABA Journal.com is going to be forcibly migrated to a platform that is still substantially defective, and Molly McDonough doesn't believe it will be a workable platform for editorial publishing. In short (and although she avoids criticizing her useless subordinates out of kindness), she sees that what her talentless underlings have not already destroyed, ABA is about to finish off. In essence, Rawles and Mui have fired the ship to the waterline, and now ABA is sending in a final spread of torpedoes to clear the wreck from the sea lanes.
I suspect a final shoe to fall as Debra Cassens Weiss has to make her decision on whether to stay aboard this wreck while it goes awash. Ms. Weiss actually holds a J.D., and is (in my opinion) far more qualified as a journalist than those to whom charge of the website was given when Molly moved up the ladder. Also (as I have mentioned in prior posts) better than 80% of all visible work on the website is generated by Ms. Weiss personally, so she has basically been, for some time, running the pumps for the idiots asleep on the bridge. Notably, she has been with the Journal since 1986, and so, seems almost certain to be covered by and vested in the old defined benefit pension plan. Moreover, as a writer with actual demonstrated competence in covering legal news, it seems likely she could land any number of better jobs. I would not venture one nickel on her staying many more days at ABA Journal. When the captain goes over the rail, nobody very smart is going to continue waiting for the official call to "abandon ship."
Stick a fork in it. ABAJournal.com is done.
https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2019/09/amid-budget-cuts-and-tech-changes-aba-journal-head-resigns.html
As Ambrogi's piece recognizes (and as I have mentioned in prior posts), Molly McDonough was instrumental in getting ABAJournal.com under sail as a reputable website. When she served as Assistant Managing Editor and personally moderated site comments, things went very well indeed. It was a golden age for the website, because (with the exception of banning Ellen Barshevsky) most of Molly's decisions reflected sound and mature judgment, she would explain them, and she tried to be consistent so the vague site rules were at least applied even-handedly.
Unfortunately (as I have also mentioned before), when Molly moved up to Managing Editor, then ultimately, Editor and Publisher, ABA provided no resources to secure any competent replacement. Busy with her new duties, Ms. McDonough had little choice but to leave the steering and the sail to subordinates such as Sarah Mui and Lee Rawles.
Unlike their predecessor, Mui and Rawles tended to be arbitrary and abrasive, and didn't explain their decisions, which also tended to reflect a certain absence of professionalism, objectivity, maturity and judgment. Many readers simply could not stand their unprincipled, biased and obnoxious mismanagement of the comment boards and other interactive site features. This mismanagement extended to banning those commenters who criticized their unprincipled, biased and arbitrary conduct, and I doubt anyone will ever know how many members or how many thousands of dollars in dues and advertising revenue Mui and Rawles managed to cost ABA.
What we do know is that interactive features such as the Blawg 100 soon began to shrivel on the vine. By December of 2016, it was clear that reader participation had substantually evaporated, and the Blawg 100 was in serious trouble.
In April 2018, the same thing had happened to the Journal's Peeps Contest (founded initially by Molly McDonough when she was running the website directly). Mui and Rawles had knocked reader participation down to the point that the contest was failing, and the Journal killed it.
By July of 2018, the Blawg 100 was likewise in such serious trouble that the Journal expanded it to the "Web 100" to try to draw additional reader participation. However, this failed to overcome the ill effects of the incompetents left managing the website, and the "Web 100" quietly faded away after December 2018.
Meanwhile, on the ABA Journal's comment boards, the biased and unprincipled failure to fairly or consistently moderate comments had reduced the quality of discourse to that of an open sewer. Rawles was leaving up obscenities, personal attacks, and (as of January 2019) even death threats, as long as they were posted by leftist commenters. Many readers complained, and I personally sent ABA President Bob Carlson a polite communication noting that his stumping on "civility" was somewhat at odds with the standards being followed in his own shop. By late April of this year, the ABA Board of Editors recognized that the comment boards had reached a state such that they simply needed to be shut down.
Soon after, in May 2019, the "Cartoon Caption Contest" quietly and without fanfare ceased to be. In short, nearly every single interactive reader feature of the Journal had been destroyed (I note here the possible exception of "Question of the Week," although responses all have to be submitted offsite, via social media mechanisms such as Facebook or Twitter).
In the Treasurer's Report at the 2019 Annual Meeting, the ABA Treasurer disclosed that advertising revenues had failed to come in as forecast. This is most likely reflective of a substantial decline in readership and web traffic. Even though the Journal publicly claims to be read each month by "half the nation's lawyers," advertisers typically use web traffic analytics services to determine what is really true, and the decline in advertising revenues speaks volumes.
So, too, do Molly McDonough's statements as reported by Bob Ambrogi. Recognizing that there is undoubtedly a great deal Molly is not telling us, what she is telling us is quite enough to get a sense of how bad things have become. The Blawg index is going to be taken down, and ABA Journal.com is going to be forcibly migrated to a platform that is still substantially defective, and Molly McDonough doesn't believe it will be a workable platform for editorial publishing. In short (and although she avoids criticizing her useless subordinates out of kindness), she sees that what her talentless underlings have not already destroyed, ABA is about to finish off. In essence, Rawles and Mui have fired the ship to the waterline, and now ABA is sending in a final spread of torpedoes to clear the wreck from the sea lanes.
I suspect a final shoe to fall as Debra Cassens Weiss has to make her decision on whether to stay aboard this wreck while it goes awash. Ms. Weiss actually holds a J.D., and is (in my opinion) far more qualified as a journalist than those to whom charge of the website was given when Molly moved up the ladder. Also (as I have mentioned in prior posts) better than 80% of all visible work on the website is generated by Ms. Weiss personally, so she has basically been, for some time, running the pumps for the idiots asleep on the bridge. Notably, she has been with the Journal since 1986, and so, seems almost certain to be covered by and vested in the old defined benefit pension plan. Moreover, as a writer with actual demonstrated competence in covering legal news, it seems likely she could land any number of better jobs. I would not venture one nickel on her staying many more days at ABA Journal. When the captain goes over the rail, nobody very smart is going to continue waiting for the official call to "abandon ship."
Stick a fork in it. ABAJournal.com is done.
https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2019/09/amid-budget-cuts-and-tech-changes-aba-journal-head-resigns.html
ABA Journal Recognizes Lawyer's "Miss U.S.A." Achievement
In their continuing struggle to determine what is "newsworthy," the ABA Journal editors actually stuck this fluff piece into their soon-to-be-less-than-monthly magazine. Forget law school and passing the bar and getting a job as a litigator and running her own business. Obviously, the most important information about this North Carolina colleague is that she can still credibly strut her stuff in a swimsuit, even at the ripe old age of 28. Sexist much? Ageist much?
I can only imagine the absolute shit storm of PC condemnation that will follow from the ABA Journal's dogmatic readership, decrying how the bone-headed editors could be so incredibly tone deaf as to laud taking the "crown" in this veritable festival of female sexual objectification as some kind of accomplishment to be recognized in the ABA Journal. WTF???
This is arguably the Journal's most egregious PC faux pas since the (rapidly de-published) fashion piece that noted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "rumpled and haggard" appearance.
They're losing it. They're losing it. They can't even keep their own, rigid politically correct bullshit properly sorted anymore. Stand by for the inevitable stream of condemnation in "letters to the editor" from ABA virtue-signallers. They are practically mandatory.
September 4, 2019
On Death
On August 30 the long con brought down the Commenteriat Commune. It also apparently brought down Whittier Law Skool, which closed it’s doors this week.
It brought not one, but two, Eulogies from ATL’s very own. Shannon (https://abovethelaw.com/2019/08/farewell-whittier-law-school/) and Old Ladysaurus (https://abovethelaw.com/2019/09/should-lawyers-have-their-own-version-of-dont-ask-dont-tell-for-law-school-pedigree/).
I’m hard pressed to decide which would be worse to eulogize me if I am found in the Volga River, of an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound to the back of the head...
It brought not one, but two, Eulogies from ATL’s very own. Shannon (https://abovethelaw.com/2019/08/farewell-whittier-law-school/) and Old Ladysaurus (https://abovethelaw.com/2019/09/should-lawyers-have-their-own-version-of-dont-ask-dont-tell-for-law-school-pedigree/).
I’m hard pressed to decide which would be worse to eulogize me if I am found in the Volga River, of an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound to the back of the head...
September 3, 2019
Battle of the Crop Tops: Ariana Grande v. Forever 21
Ariana Grande is suing Forever 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California for using images of a lookalike model in a recent advertising campaign. Her suit against the teeny-bopper clothing chain includes, in part, a common law right of publicity misappropriation action. There are also claims that Forever 21 used Grande's social media posts in their advertising.
Very quick perusal of publicly available materials on California's common law right of publicity suggests that the key element in this case may well be "identity," that is, whether Forever 21's use of the lookalike model appropriates Grande's identity. Grande's "identity" could be evoked by more than just her name or likeness under California law. In fact, it seems possible that a commercial featuring a robot with a high pony-tail, long hair, lots of pink accessories, camo crop pants, and a penchant for licking donuts could fit the bill. See, e.g., White v. Samsung, 971 F.2d 1395 (9th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 113 S.Ct. 2443 (1993).
Ariana Grande allegedly specializes in singing, but I am unfamiliar with her work.
Forever 21 specializes in cheap clothing options for young women that are almost cute, but add a twist of ugly that ruins the entire garment.
Should Forever 21 settle? Can they afford it given their rumored financial woes? Does anyone think the so-called lookalike model actually looks like Grande? (I myself don't see it.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/arts/music/ariana-grande-forever-21.html
Very quick perusal of publicly available materials on California's common law right of publicity suggests that the key element in this case may well be "identity," that is, whether Forever 21's use of the lookalike model appropriates Grande's identity. Grande's "identity" could be evoked by more than just her name or likeness under California law. In fact, it seems possible that a commercial featuring a robot with a high pony-tail, long hair, lots of pink accessories, camo crop pants, and a penchant for licking donuts could fit the bill. See, e.g., White v. Samsung, 971 F.2d 1395 (9th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 113 S.Ct. 2443 (1993).
Ariana Grande allegedly specializes in singing, but I am unfamiliar with her work.
Forever 21 specializes in cheap clothing options for young women that are almost cute, but add a twist of ugly that ruins the entire garment.
Should Forever 21 settle? Can they afford it given their rumored financial woes? Does anyone think the so-called lookalike model actually looks like Grande? (I myself don't see it.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/arts/music/ariana-grande-forever-21.html
September 1, 2019
"Counter-Protesters" Swarm Straight Pride Parade
Putting aside the issue of what there is to be "proud" of in one's sexual preferences, it is surprising that anyone could take offense at a "Straight Pride Parade." If we assume that sexual preference is an appropriate basis for "pride" (and the LGBTQ crowd have asserted this for years), what grounds can there possibly be to object to straight people putting on their own "Pride Parade"? Must one be a member of a marginalized, disfavored minority group to have or assert "pride"? Has the mindless drone of political correctness now ground on to the point that it is supposed to be unacceptable to not subscribe to some kind of LGBTQ preference? This attitude on the part of the LGBTQ extremists is insane and unreasonable to the point that it carries with it the seed of destruction of their own "movement." I can't see the common citizenry (the vast majority of whom are not LGBTQ) putting up with much more of this imbecilic folderol.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/straight-pride-parade-in-boston-draws-counterprotesters/ar-AAGCmhU
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/straight-pride-parade-in-boston-draws-counterprotesters/ar-AAGCmhU
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)