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Tuesday, August 10, 2004 |
HOW TO PISS OFF A FEDERAL JUDGE.
You have a pretty good idea that you're not going to get the relief requested when the judge starts his order with "When the undersigned accepted the appointment from the President of the United States of the position now held, he was ready to face the daily practice of law in federal courts with presumably competent lawyers. No one warned the undersigned that in many instances his responsibility would be the same as a person who supervised kindergarten."
Judge Sam Sparks of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in Austin, continues:
Frankly, the undersigned would guess that the lawyers in this case did not attend kindergarten as they never learned how to get along well with others. Notwithstanding the history of filings and antagonistic motions full of personal insults and requiring multiple discovery hearings, earning the disgust of this Court, the lawyers continue ad infinitum.
Of course Judge Sparks was just getting warmed up. Later in the order, he writes:
The Court simply wants to scream, "Get a life" or "Do you have any other cases?" or "When is the last time you registered for anger management classes?"
Just because the lawyers are litigators doesn't make overly litigious behavior acceptable. Petty sniping and inability to agree on matters that won't affect the outcome of the case are traits that will surely get a lawyer on the judge's bad side. And that just might affect the outcome of the case. It's not just bad manners, it's bad lawyering.
Read the whole thing here (.pdf file).
[Begging To Differ]
9:12:10 PM 
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The Surveillance-Industrial Complex, from the American Civil Liberties
Union.
The Privatization of Surveillance
The U.S. security establishment is rapidly increasing its ability to
monitor average Americans by hiring or compelling private- sector
corporations to provide billions of customer records. The explosive growth
in surveillance by government and business is creating a "Surveillance
Industrial Complex" that threatens all of our privacy.
About the Report:
This report makes the case that, across a broad variety of areas, the same
dynamic of the "privatization of surveillance" is underway. Different
dimensions of this trend are examined in depth in four separate sections of
the report:
-
“Recruiting Individuals.” Documents how individuals are being recruited to
serve as “eyes and ears” for the authorities even after Congress rejected
the infamous TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program
that would have recruited workers like cable repairmen to spy on their
customers.
-
“Recruiting Companies.” Examines how companies are pressured to
voluntarily provide consumer information to the government; the many ways
security agencies can force companies to turn over sensitive information
under federal laws such as the Patriot Act; how the government is forcing
companies to participate in watchlist programs and in systems for the
automatic scrutiny of individuals’ financial transactions.
-
“Mass Data Use, Public and Private.” Focuses on the government’s use of
private data on a mass scale, either through data mining programs like the
MATRIX state information- sharing program, or the purchase of information
from private-sector data aggregators.
-
“Pro-Surveillance Lobbying.” Looks at the flip side of the issue: how some
companies are pushing the government to adopt surveillance technologies and
programs based on private-sector data.
You can also
Ask Businesses to take the "No Spy" Pledge.
12:42:36 PM
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Electoral Vote Predictor 2004, in addition to mapping polling results
onto electoral votes (Kerry with a lead, as of this writing), asks
Ever wondered how much a poll costs? According to this
article (registration required) a 600-person state poll costs $15,000,
which gives a 4% MoE. If you double the sample size (and the cost) you get
a 3% MoE. Does this explain why there are no 2000-person state
polls?
12:42:22 PM
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Court of public opinion: Political polls proliferate in an election
year, and junkies just can't get enough -- but not all surveys are created
equal. Salon rates the pollsters.
By Stephen W. Stromberg.
9:41:52 AM
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Candy Bar-Sized Bluetooth PC.
 Now I don't know what exactly you'd want to use this Waysmall 200ax-bt 200MHz computer with integrated Bluetooth for, but that's not because it's useless. Just the opposite, in fact. For $184 you get a low-power computer running the Linux 2.6.0 kernel with webserver and remote login and power management circuity on-board. Throw a solar cell onto this little bad boy and you could do all sorts of fun things, like embedding a permanent webserver into a building, controlling a swarm of wireless robots, or developing the first Bluetooth-enabled loaf of bread. At just 8.3 by 3.6 centimeters, the 200ax-bt still manages to pack in USB, serial, sound, and LCD controller - now with AC adapter!
(I can think of at least three excellent projects for this thing and at least two of them are legal. -kc.)
[unmediated]
7:00:30 AM
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Vacation payback: 10 billion e-mails,
By Rafe Needleman, ZDNET Anchor Desk.
A bad stench awaited me at the office, though: my rotten e-mail
in-box. I didn't do e-mail on vacation. My wife, the smart one in the
family, wouldn't allow it. So when I got back, my in-box was an explosion
of messages-- and that's not including spam, which was mostly filtered out.
One look made me imagine a cartoon character opening a closet filled to
overflowing with pots, pans, and sharp knives--or Captain Kirk and the
Tribbles.
. . .
So I started to wonder, is there a way to gracefully handle that
postvacation e-mailbox? I checked around CNET and found a few strategies
that people use, explained below (in order of severity). Maybe some of
these strategies will work for you. If not, please let me know your methods
for dealing with the fallout from an e-mail-free vacation.
4:39:25 AM
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