White House Briefed On Potential For Mars Life

"The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the "potential for life" on Mars, scientists tell Aviation Week & Space Technology...."

This did not come as a surprise to Brian De Palma

Cloverfield and the Red Badge of Courage

I loved the movie Cloverfield. In fact I had my Slusho T-Shirt on when I went. If you don't know what slusho is, than you are not as lame as our programmer Jimmy. You probably get dates.

That said, many people are hailing the first person narrative, as being on the ground, in the heart of battle, lacking details and a precise understanding of the events by the narrator and viewer. It is heralded as innovative, fresh, new, and story telling for the modern ages / U-tube generation.

Couldn't help but think that is what they said about Stephen Crane's protagonist in The Red Badge of Courage. There we follow Henry Fleming, a lowly private as he traverses the battlefield, without ever knowing the true bigger picture. His travels and what the reader knows from the narrators perspective are equally opaque.

Of course that book was written in 1895. What is old is new again. That's why I have bell bottoms.

Pruneyard Revisited - Free Speech trumps common decency. - Law Students Shrug

The California Supremes said:

We granted the request of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to decide whether, under California law, a shopping mall may enforce a rule prohibiting persons from urging customers to boycott a store in the mall. For the reasons that follow, we hold that the right to free speech granted by article I, section 2 of the California Constitution includes the right to urge customers in a shopping mall to boycott one of the stores in the mall.

FASHION VALLEY MALL, LLC, v. NATION LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
D.C. Cir.Ct.App. No. 04-1411

Now the blogs are a buzz that this was surprising. See for example: LAW BLOG WSJ

But if you read Pruneyard in property class, you know this isn't a shocking extension of California Free Speech Jurisprudence. - primer on Pruneyard

Of course it is shocking is that by choosing to locate in a mall, you can't exclude naysayers from the front door of your store. It is just not new or surprising.

Missing CIA tapes...

I still can't believe my government has resorted to waterboarding. Is this the "freedom" we fight for? Is this what we stand for? I say not.

According to the NY Times:

It has been widely reported that Mr. Zubaydah was subjected to several tough physical tactics, including waterboarding, which involves near-suffocation. But C.I.A. officers judged that the release of photos or videos would nonetheless provoke a strong reaction.

“People know what happened, but to see it in living color would have far greater power,” the official said.

Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, has been pushing legislation in Congress to have all detainee interrogations videotaped so officials can refer to the tapes multiple times to glean better information.

Mr. Holt said he had been told many times that the C.I.A. does not record the interrogation of detainees. “When I would ask them whether they had reviewed the tapes to better understand the intelligence, they said ‘What tapes?’,” he said.

FULL STORY

NIMBY

My friend who wants to sell or lease his land for a windmill (a really big windmill), said "Some people say not in my backyard, well I say, then build it in my front yard."

If you have a large wind energy farm in mind, let me know, and I'll give you his name.

Petition or Motion - Any difference?

I was recently at a bench / bar conference where the judges involved talked about the difference between a petition and a motion. They quite clearly said they were different, and required different procedures and notice to file. Asked for examples, things broke down from there. 100 lawyers and a few Judges couldn't pin it down.

So I looked around on the web, and I find myself concurring with the North Carolina Court of Appeals, who in their FAQ, say :

Motion. A written application requesting the Court to make a specific ruling or order. The requirements for a motion are set out in Rule 224.

Petition. A written application requesting the Court to make a specific ruling or order. There is no practical difference between a petition and a motion.

----BUT----

Of course according to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in In re: Rory Allen Gregory 1999 FED App. 0227P (6th Cir.) - No. 99-5602, there is a distinction to be found:

"The difference between a § 2255 motion and a petition under § 2241 is important for jurisdictional purposes. The former must be filed in the district court which sentenced the movant, whereas a petition for habeas corpus under § 2241 may be filed in the district court having jurisdiction over the petitioner’s custodian. See In re Hanserd, 123 F.3d 922, 925 (6th Cir. 1997); United States v. Jalili, 925 F.2d 889, 893-94 (6th Cir. 1991); Cohen v. United States, 593 F.2d 766, 770-71 (6th Cir. 1979); Wright v. United States Board of Parole, 557 F.2d 74, 77 (6th Cir. 1977)."

There the inmate had styled it one way, and it was treated another. ut did the style of the pleading matter? Or just the applicable section? That fact is lost to posterity.

If you have any ideas on the difference between a motion and a petition, let me know!

A few reasons to hold onto your britches

And all this from google news on just October 15, 2007 10:00 PM Eastern.... Notice the first item, can you hear the cash being sucked out of the economy?

First Baby Boomer Files For Social Security FOX News - WASHINGTON - Kathleen Casey-Kirschling filed for early retirement Monday, becoming the first baby boomer to start collecting Social Security.

China’s Leader Closes Door to Reform New York Times - By JOSEPH KAHN BEIJING, Oct. 15 - Chinese President Hu Jintao promised to address social fissures, a degraded environment and rampant corruption during his second term as China’s top leader, but he all but ruled out more than cosmetic political reform

Russia's Putin emerges from Iran plot 'like a hero' Reuters - By Conor Sweeney MOSCOW, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Commentators were both amused and intrigued at the heroic light thrown on Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday when he defied what he said were security service warnings of a plot to kill him in Iran.

Bernanke Says Housing to Remain `Drag' on US Growth (Update3) Bloomberg - By Craig Torres and Scott Lanman Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the housing slump will be a ``significant drag'' on US growth into next year, though evidence of a broader impact on spending is limited.

DMV Chief in New York Defends Plan to Give Illegal Immigrants Licenses New York Times - By DANNY HAKIM ALBANY, Oct. 15— In a hearing punctuated by angry exchanges about terrorism, Senate Republicans grilled the commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles on Monday, pressing him to defend Gov.