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Supreme Court to Dildos!
2008-02-15 01:56:00
As usual, The Volokh Conspiracy is full of epic win.The Texas ban on dildoes -- yes, it expressly mentions "dildo" -- has just been struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The law, the court held, violates Lawrence v. Texas right of "adult consensual sexual intimacy in the home."On this, the Fifth Circuit disagrees with the Eleventh Circuit, which upheld a similar Alabama law last year. Sounds like there's a solid split, so there's a decent chance that the U.S. Supreme Court will step in to resolve this (though there's of course no guarantee).Circuit splits are one of the best chances for a case to be granted certiorari, so there's a good chance we might see this next term.Props to the comment section for also being full of win with the following comments:Too bad this isn't a civil forfeiture case. It could be "U.S. vs. 10 Dildos" or something.http://volokh.com/posts/1202919 393.shtml#326810So dildoes ARE weapons and can thereby fall within the protection...

Apology to Michael Snow
2008-02-14 05:04:00
I owe Michael Snow a huge apology. In a previous post I insinuated that he had some prior legal troubles. After further review, I found that I was grossly mistaken, and that I was confusing him with Michael Davis.My deepest apologies to Michael Snow for any trouble my post has caused him.
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Danny speaks out against Erik
2008-02-13 20:47:00
Danny Wool, past Foundation employee, has come out with a scathing criticism of Deputy Executive Director Erik Moeller. Let's be clear here: I don't like Erik. Erik comes off to me as power hungry, blind to the concept of conflicts of interest, and far too unilateral for the Foundation's best interest. He wants to be another god-king, and as much as I dislike Jimbo's god-king status, I'd rather have him than Erik as the sole ruler of Wikimedia.I'll let Danny's posts speak for themselves, but pay careful attention to the comments between Anthere2 (Florence Devouard, Chair of the Board), Dannyisme (Danny Wool, ex-Grants Coordinator and Foundation go-to guy) and BradP (Brad Patrick, past General Counsel of the Foundation and interim-COO/ED.)There has been a lot of controversy about me in the past, particularly about how I once banned Erik. I've taken flak for remaining silent on this, during my run for admin and again for my board run, but each time I have refused to discuss it...
More About: Danny

Wikimedia Foundation audit results
2008-02-13 20:35:00
The Wikimedia Foundation audit results are in (a bit late on this one, sorry).There's been a lot of criticism on the apparent excessive travel expenses, which (I have managed to screw up .pdf files on my computer, but off the top of my head I believe are $264,000.) Salaries are also increased significantly, but that doesn't seem controversial given the hirings of late, and especially due to the quality of the hirings. People are freaking out that there are over $400,000 worth of salaries, but don't note the fact that a 1st year associate at a firm that Mike Godwin would qualify to work at makes $160,000 in pay, and another $35,000 in bonuses. Frankly I'm wondering how the foundation is getting these people to work for so cheap.Feel free to check out the audit results and comment. I'm very concerned with the excessive travel costs, and also the somewhat troubling economic links to Wikia (a neatly matched $6,000 in bandwidth offset by $6,000 in office space).
More About: Results , Audit

Domas and Michael Snow appointed as new board members
2008-02-13 20:28:00
The board has announced the appointment of the two new planned members to the Board of Trustees. As I've predicted, Michael Snow was one of them. Against my predictions, Domas Mituzas was the other. Domas is a good choice, IMHO. He'll bring a developers/technical aspect to the board, which is completely absent now that Erik is gone (not that Erik was that great for that in the first place). I've always known Domas (Midom by screenname) to be responsible and sane, so I have high hopes for him, especially when placing limits on the other board members by stating clearly what is technically infeasible to do.The upside is this, as an appointed position, is only good through the Summer 2008 Board Elections. I'll make the prediction right now that both get approved for at least 1 more year, seeing as in the next 4 months there is no real time for them to screw up.Discuss, criticize, comment away.-u- please ignore the now removed section on Michael Snow. I had him confused with Michael...
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Ninth Circuit: Scientologists don't get special protection over Jews
2008-02-11 01:12:00
Courtesy of TaxProf BlogI previously blogged the Tax Court's decision in Sklar v. Commissioner, 125 T.C. No. 14 (12/21/05), holding that a couple's tuition and fee payments to their children's Jewish day schools are not charitable contributions because they received a substantial benefit from their payments and lacked charitable intent.The Ninth Circuit heard oral argument in the case on Monday (the audio is available here), and today's new York Sun has a detailed article on the case and an accompanying editorial:Judges Press IRS on Church Tax Break, by Josh Gerstein:A Jewish couple's bid to take a tax deduction they say the IRS reserves only for members of the Church of Scientology is getting a friendly reception from a federal appeals court, increasing the possibility of a ruling that could create a tax break for taxpayers of many religions who pay tuition to religious schools.During arguments on the case this week, three judges who ride the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals expre...
More About: Jews , Special , Scientologists

Saved by the Bell actor hired as SCOTUS law clerk
2008-02-05 14:11:00
This is one of those "No shit?" kind of things. Apparently one of the actors from Saved by the Bell : The New Class is retired Justice O'Connor's new October Law Clerk. But it's not Zach Morris, or AC Slater....no it's the new Screech. As awesome as it would have been to have the ridiculously strange Dustin Diamond at One First Street, we now have Isaac Lidsky, Harvard undergrad and law school, who clerked for the 3rd Circuit's Judge Ambro, and played Barton "Weasel" Wyzell on "The New Class". He's also blind, and has allegedly thrown out the first pitch at an MLB game.You can't make this stuff up.
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Microsoft to buy Yahoo at 62 percent premium
2008-02-01 14:59:00
But what does Yahoo have to say about it? In the wake of a tough week for Yahoo, Microsoft has tendered an unsolicited bid for Yahoo at $44.6 billion, a 62 percent premium over Yahoo's closing price last night. Microsoft claims they will be able to cut Yahoo's costs by $1 billion, through realizing economies of scale, shared expertise and R+D, and cutting redundant networks.There's no word from Yahoo publicly about it, but Microsoft HAS stated that they will be "working together" with Yahoo to develop the merger, which is corporate talk for "Yahoo has already accepted, and unless you can tender a counter offer bigger than 62% premium on shares, piss off."So what does this mean for Wikimedia? Well, since this puts pressure on Google to monetize their assets, reduce costs, and find profitable new products, it means quite a bit. Bear with me a moment and I'll explain how.Google is going to have to start with cutting costs, probably by dropping applications that aren't bringing in ...
More About: Premium , Yahoo!

New Blog: "All's Wool" by Danny Wool
2008-01-31 17:43:00
Danny Wool, former Grants Coordinator for the Wikimedia Foundation, and current founder and man-about-town at Veropedia, has a new blog up. While there's only a few posts, they're pretty good and insightful. Here's a clip from today's posting:And the results are in ...* 51 posts to the foundation-l mailing list about what song to play on the WMF office telephone.* 14 posts to the foundation-l mailing list on the WMF's values. If values were like candidates in the U.S. primaries, they would have long quit the race.It's interesting stuff. Check it out.
More About: Blog , Danny

Wikimedia Foundation hires Veronique Kessler as CFOO
2008-01-31 17:33:00
Combining the positions of COO and CFO into one, the WMF has recently hired Veronique Kessler, formerly of the San Francisco JCC. From the announcement on Foundation -lHi folks,I’m delighted to announce that Veronique Kessler will be the Wikimedia Foundation’s new Chief Financial and Operating Officer (CFOO). Veronique will start with us February 4.Veronique has 15 years of very strong managerial and financial experience working with a wide range of organizations. She joins us from the non-profit Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, where she was Director of Finance and, before that, Controller. Prior to JCCSF, she did financial consulting for clients such as Stanford University, brokerage firm Charles Schwab, and the venture capital and investment firm Berkeley International Capital Corporation. And before that, she was Controller for the Walden International Investment Group, financial reporting manager for the private investment company The Fremont Group, a senior account...

Why American University/WCL's wireless sucks
2008-01-28 21:57:00
This email came out today from the Student Bar Association. Emphasis on the good parts added.Dear Student Body:The following problems have been discovered with the WCLnetwork:1. All access points in room 101 were either turned off, ornonfunctional for the past two years.2. All access points on the 5th floor were located in elevator shafts,or other places where they did not provide coverage.3. Certain points on the 6th floor were assigned the wrong IP address,and so did not provide access.The Technology department is working to address these problems.If you continue to experience problems with the internet, please inform the Student Services Committee at StudentServices.SBA@gmail.comYou can also file an online trouble ticket, when you find yourself in an area with internet access: http://www.wcl.american.edu/techres/compl ab/trouble%5Fticket.cfmRegards,Student Services CommitteeYou are receiving this e-mail as a result of your enrollment in - "Student Bar Association (Full Year 2007-2...
More About: Wireless , University , American , Sucks

Why Vista sucks for attorneys
2008-01-23 01:09:00
Lets face it: Attorneys don't know what an operating system is, let alone how to install one. But what they do know is what looks good, and what runs fast. Vista looks good, mainly because it tries to be a Mac OS X. But it's been long reported that Vista does not run fast at all. Microsoft doesn't have the greatest history with Operating Systems: remember Windows ME? What about Windows for Workgroups? PCWorld has a blog post about why you should run XP instead of Vista. It's mildly aimed at gamers, but it applies to everyone.I keep trying to switch to Windows Vista, a little, I suppose, like a dog trying desperately to comply with someone's confusing and at times outright confounding hand signals. It's not just the fact that I can't seem to find a game that performs as well or better under Vista, or that the performance delta is oftentimes the difference between a playable 25-35 frames per second and stuttering damnation in the 10-15 range. It's not merely the weird compati...
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In the....house?
2008-01-21 21:17:00
So I've been told that an email that I wrote to Patrick Campbell of IAVA was read during testimony to the House Committee of Veterans Affairs, during testimony last week on H.R. 2910. The Department of Defense had initially objected to the bill, but after hearing my email and Patrick's testimony, the DOD withdrew their objections. This is a huge deal, because pretty much any student that gets deployed for over one year of active duty will end up getting withdrawn from school due to lack of attendance. This causes all sorts of problems with student loans, reenrollment, etc. In my case, it caused problems because by the time I found out I was dis-enrolled, I would have had to retake the SAT, and I also found out that I was at that point too late to reapply. I had to go through my chain of command, which went to the state adjutant general, which went to the governor, which went to the university president, and I was finally allowed to reenroll at the determination of a Vietnam Marine...
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Duke lacrosse prosecutor bankrupt, $180M in debt
2008-01-17 03:40:00
And the nation smiles in revenge. Mike Nifong, the district attorney from the Duke lacrosse rape case, recently filed for bankruptcy, listing around $180 million in liabilities. He listed his assets at around $9000 in personal property, a 2003 Honda Accord, a $230,000 house, and around $5,000 a month in pension. The above link has a copy of the document which has some interesting info on his financials.
More About: Debt , Duke Lacrosse , Prosecutor , Bankrupt

NY State Supreme Court considers Rectal Exam
2008-01-17 03:11:00
What a great title. In March, the NY Supreme Court will consider the case of a man who was sedated and forced to receive a rectal exam....for a head wound. The man had received an injury to the head that required eight stitches, but was coherent, in full control of his extremities, and had full range of motion in them. He was told he needed an emergency rectal exam to determine if he had a spinal cord injury, but refused repeatedly. When he was held down, he resisted and struck one of the doctors. He was then sedated, and forced to undergo the exam anyway. When he woke up, he was arrested and charged with assault.The criminal charges against him were dropped, but now he's suing the hospital for an informed consent violation. One of the exceptions to the requirement of informed consent is when a procedure is a medical emergency to save the patient's life or prevent substantial harm from occurring to him. It's not certain that this was the case here. The other big exception is when...
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Macworld: Jobs Keynote speech
2008-01-15 19:30:00
Well some of the predictions were right thus far, but wow, did Apple go nuts on the new iPhone.The new iPhone is going to have a bunch of new software upgrades. PCWorld is erroneously reporting that it's 1TB in memory now. They're confusing it with the second part of the keynote. iPhone will now support multiple people SMS, and some AV upgrades like lyrics searching, and chapter browsing in video. Free upgrade for iPhone subscribers. iPod Touch gets many of the benefits too (weather, maps, notes, mail, stocks) as a $20 upgrade.Airport now comes with "Time Capsule" a wireless version of Time Machine that allows you backup to a "server quality" hard drive, of either 500GB or 1TB, wirelessly. This will be good news for attorneys running OS X that want to ensure data integrity. Jobs said they are aggressively pricing in order to spur more people to backup. Price is looking like $499 for the 1TB model, and $299 for the 500GB version.iTunes + Apple TV. Apple TV price drop to $229, from ...
More About: Keynote , Speech , Macworld

Macworld coming up
2008-01-15 02:54:00
Since this is a technology blog as well, I'm going to pontificate over the next couple days a bit on the highlights from the Macworld Expo, which kicks off with the keynote speech at 9 a.m. PST tomorrow morning.So what are we at Wikilaw looking forward to?The new Mac notebook, tentatively dubbed "Macbook Air". We're expecting it to be around a 12-13 inch screen ultralightweight, probably no more than 2 pounds.Apple's movie rental service, aimed to compete with Netflix, and how it will integrate with Apple TV, iTunes, and iPod Touch/iPhones.iPhone software update, possibly including downloadable apps.Likely a 12 or 16GB iPhone, which will correspondingly piss off the people who got locked into an 8GB one.NEC's new 30 inch LCD monitor of death.Unnamed manufacturer (rumored to be either NEC or Alienware) making a curved HD monitor for a more realistic viewing experience.Perhaps a newer, more powerful Macbook Pro and Macbook?We'll keep you posted over the next couple of days, and g...

Overheard in law school
2008-01-14 16:20:00
From a sample deed in Property: "...signed this 14th day of January, in the final year of the reign of our liege lord, George W. Bush..."
More About: Law School , School

On leaks, transparency, and the Wikimedia structure
2008-01-11 19:10:00
The big issue of late is leaks and transparency within the Wikimedia Foundation. On foundation-l, there's been an ongoing debate that recently blew up with Erik Moeller's appointment to the Deputy Director office from his position as a board member, something that we now are finding out has been in the works for months, and goes contrary to the board's majority position that there should be a 6 month period between someone going staff--> board or board --> staff. These and other decisions of late have been highly criticized by a community that has been more active about calling out the foundation than ever before.The latest drama in the series has been leaks. From the leak of the information regarding Carolyn Doran, to more recently, leaks from Internal-l and WMFCC-l about financial reports prepared for Sun that have not been shown to the board, and leaks on the upcoming Kaltura deal, which was under intense debate even between the board members on WMFCC-l (and notably, Erik tr...
More About: Transparency , Structure , Leaks , Pare

Overheard in Con Law
2008-01-10 01:03:00
Overheard in Constitutional Law while discussing the associate justices of the Marshall court:“If you name your kids brockholst, I will come to your house and break down your door and make you change it.”This from a law professor who self admittedly watches Battlestar Galactica and says "Frak" in class. I love it.

Attorney costs Toshiba 1 million dollars with one minute late filing
2008-01-09 22:09:00
Thanks WSJ Law Blog. Mr. Mersel, attorney for [Toshiba ], asserts that he waited until 3:14 p.m. on the last day of the filing period to deliver the motion to Morrison & Foerster’s regular courier service. Mr. Mersel asserts that although he was aware that the filing deadline was 4:00 p.m., he had “never had a problem with getting papers filed by 4:00 p.m. when delivering them to the attorney service” forty-five minutes in advance. The courier, Mr. Moskus, swiftly responded to Mr. Mersel’s request, leaving on his motorcycle for the courthouse at approximately 3:30 p.m. Unfortunately, Mr. Moskus encountered “unusually heavy traffic” and had to “wait at the railroad crossing on Grand Avenue for a long train to pass.” Consequently, Mr. Moskus arrived at the Courthouse after the office had closed and Mr. Mersel was unable to file the motion until the following day, on October 11, 2007.According to WSJ it was just 1 minute after the office closed. Bet you that courier is g...
More About: Attorney , Million , Dollars , Late

Spring 2007 semester first day notes
2008-01-07 19:40:00
A few observations:1. Why am I called on in every class the first day, AGAIN. The exception being Con Law, in which I'm in the first panel of "on call".2. Overheard in ConLaw: "Don't worry about the other random shit in your case book" -- Professor.3. Crazy Colorado kid is in my IP Law and Policy class. He's already started sucking up to the professor.4. Every single professor so far has discussed "You shouldn't use laptops, take notes instead."5. Closing arguments competition information was released late, so now we only have 13 days to prepare.6. Everyone had a more interesting break than I did. My break was amazingly fun in its own way, but I didn't go out of the country, or to any special events.7. My property professor does a Howard Dean kind of yell when he gets excited. It's really fun, and I think I'm going to video tape him in class and podcast it here.8. My ConLaw professor is a Battlestar Galactica fan, and will frequently say "Frak" and "Gods". I approve.
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Obama and Huckabee win Iowa
2008-01-04 05:54:00
According to CNN, Obama and Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively.Also, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd have both abandoned their campaigns, but not yet endorsed a candidate.The Dem's side:Obama: 38%Edwards: 30 %Clinton: 29%(Richardson had 2%)(Biden had 1%)The GOP side:Huckabee: 34%Romney: 25%Thompson: 13%McCain: 13% (less state delegates estimated than Thompson)Paul: 10%Giuliani: 4%Hunter 1%The big surprise is that McCain did so poorly. I would have expected him to at least beat Fred Thompson for 3rd. Giuliani's numbers are not shocking as he concentrated on super tuesday states.I'm glad to see Obama do well in Iowa. I hope this carries him through N.H. too. What will be interesting is to see how Edwards does in N.H. If Edwards can beat Clinton again, he will basically solidify Obama's position in the lead, and remain a viable candidate. If Edwards does poorly in N.H. I expect he will join with Obama, possibly as a running mate, to ens...

New Arbitrators Elected
2007-12-27 07:14:00
Here's the final outcome. From WikiEN-L:Congratulations to the new arbitrators named, and to FloNight, whose termwas extended by one year:Newyorkbrad -- 3-year termFT2 -- 3-year termFayssalF -- 3-year termSam Blacketer -- 3-year termDeskana -- 3-year termThebainer -- 1-year termHere's Jimmy's original post on the topic:For the 2007 ArbCom elections, I am making the following appointments and shifts:Newyorkbrad - Tranche AlphaFT2 - Tranche AlphaFayssalF - Tranche AlphaSam Blacketer - Tranche AlphaDeskana - Tranche AlphaThis fills the 5 vacancies in Tranche Alpha.Then I am removing Flcelloguy from Tranche Gamma for inactivity, with the understanding that if he chooses to return to active service, he may claim a (perhaps temporary) expansion seat in Tranche Gamma. This is intended to be the same situation as Mindspillage and Filiocht have in Tranche Beta.Into Flcelloguy's seat, I am moving FloNight. This effectively extends her term by 1 year, moving her from Tranche Beta to Tranch...

Weird search terms
2007-12-25 22:24:00
Who the hell are some of our readers? These are some of the weird search terms that have resulted in hits to this site:Search for "Clown gay porn"Search for "kiddy porn boys"Search for "UM law asshole"Search for "My boy willie"Search for "Manswers dump of death" (which I've actually seen that episode and they got it all wrong.)Readers: you are fucked up.
More About: Weird , Terms

Troubleshooting
2007-12-25 22:16:00
Gmail is apparently down for me, since the 23rd. My account has a "502" error, and they're working on it to fix it. If you need me in the meantime please contact me at dan (at) danrosenthal (dot org).
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Merry Christmas from Wikilaw
2007-12-24 13:55:00
Merry Christmas folks! I hope everyone is home or on their way there to enjoy the holidays with family and friends. I'm currently at the airport gate (and will be for the next 3 hours or so) with the law kittens, waiting for my flight to visit my family for the holidays. Safe travels and best of luck to everyone caught in the shitty weather that we're all having.It's been an interesting 2007 for Wikilaw. Since our inception in June, we've received around 5,000 visitors, been through 3 redesigns on two different servers, and a partridge in a pear tree. The wiki-lawyer.net project is still ongoing, slowly. I like the current setup I have here and when I have time to do it, I will probably port this all over to the wiki-lawyer.net site but use this interface which I find much cleaner. You'll still be able to go to the same old address and get all the same material, and don't expect this change to be jumping right out in January...it will happen when I get to it. When it's done.I...
More About: Merry Christmas , Merry

AU finds artillery shells
2007-12-22 07:51:00
This one comes courtesy of The Eagle Blog. All you WCL students pay attention now.Last week FOXnews.com, the national FOX News, not some smalltime local FOX News, printed an AP story which said that the planned 14 week dig being done by the Army Corps of Engineers next to American was being cut eight weeks short. Why, you ask did the Army stop the dig? The Army had to reassess “whether safety procedures are adequate for munitions that are being uncovered” said one of AP’s sources. The story gets better…Or worse, depending on your opinion.All of the Army’s reassessments were prompted by the discovery of an old artillery shell three weeks prior to this article, putting us now a month back. The dig, which started at the end of October, was a big enough issue at the time to prompt a special e-mail to all of AU from President Kerwin, who ended this letter by saying:Admittedly, this is an unusual situation that requires considerable patience and understanding by the entire AU co...

Erik in the ED's office
2007-12-19 04:42:00
Erik Moeller has been appointed the Deputy Executive Director of the Foundation, after resigning from the board. I think this is a terrible decision, which Kelly Martin has covered well on her blog.I think I'll now ask the question nobody seems to want to ask directly: Is Erik the "Assistant to the ED" that is getting a significant portion of the $500,000 ED's budget? Erik was on the board that approved that budget. Now, he is the recipient of that budget. To me, that seems grossly unethical. I think I'll see what Foundation-l has to say about this.UPDATE: According to Michael Snow on foundation-l, a new hire named Cheryl is the assistant to the ED. Still, that leaves open the fact that Erik DID approve the budget. It is irrelevant that the budget was approved before Sue was hired as ED: at the time she was still a consultant for the WMF. We'll see how this develops further.
More About: Office , Erik

Wachtell Lipton bonuses
2007-12-19 00:46:00
A few days delayed, but on point given the recent announcement that Williams and Connolley is moving to a 180K pay scale.The spectacular David Lat of AboveTheLaw.Com has confirmed that Wachtell Lipton bonuses will once again be at 100% of salary, and since they pay above market at 165K, that means your end of year special bonus will be 165K as well. 330K for a junior associate? I'll take that.Note: That INCLUDES your mid-year bonus (which ranges from 15K to 50K). The end result is that your final years compensation (base pay plus mid year bonus plus end year special bonus), equals or is slightly greater than twice your base pay. Great job if you want to bill 2700 hours to keep it ;)