A Remarkably Clear Brand Message

I got the most awesome/hilarious/tragic piece of junk mail today. MasterCard makes a direct appeal to my reptilian core:

"CARRY PLATINUM" the envelpe commands, "COMMAND RESPECT"

I read some of the fine print, and apparently the credit limit on these PLATIUNUM cards can be as low as $300.

Paul Mooney Was Right

It seems that now white people have stolen PG too.

Midnight Run

God bless Jack in the Box and their 24-hour drive through. It is so nice to be back in a city that lets you buy food after eight pm.

Also, kids? Never get an extension on anything. It will ruin your life.

Towards a Harder Bigotry

Amber at Prettier Than Napoleon has a cryptic, provocative post about sexism arguing (I think) that we should hold men to a much higher standard when it comes to understanding the role of gender in society than we do:

If a woman* had written this, people would say, "looks like someone just took her first Women's Studies class." A guy writes it and it's thunderous and prophetic.

So it's a somewhat disturbing irony that the guy speaking actually minored Gender Studies. Is it even possible to communicate this kind of understanding outside of a university clasroom? Are the standards higher for actual students of women's studies, and if so, how perverse of an incentive does that create?

First Past the Post

The new Pirates movie is fun. The reviews say the plot doesn't make any sense except to serious scholars of the second film, but I didn't even see the second one and I think I got a handle on what went down: there is a lot of backstabbing. They are pirates.

Anyway it turns out the pirates can only go to war if one is declared by the Pirate King. Trouble is, Pirate Kings have to be elected by the nine Pirate Lords, and all of them, being pirates, always vote for themselves. So the votes always deadlock with a nine-way tie, and the pirates can't declare war, even if they are unanimously in favor of it. With an English armada lying in wait outside headed by a magical ship captained by a half-octopus, I'm thinking to myself "what a poorly-designed voting system!" A simple instant runoff system would resolve almost all these contests by the second round. Three cheers for effective governance!

Presently, a vote is called, and the cunning Jack Sparrow gets to play kingmaker by voting last and simply anointing his favorite candidate. She wins 2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-0, gaining unilateral authority to declare war with a whopping 22% mandate. "See!" I scoff inwardly. "The policy space is shaped by the choice of institutions!"

Free Advertising

There is a life-size Silver Surfer surfing out of a poster right in the middle of the movie theater lobby. He is very shiny. It's one of those times I wish I carried a camera, becuase I though, "man I would like a picture of that." It's no giant inflatable Spider-Man, but it was very shiny. And when a movie theater puts a giant shiny thing right in the middle of where everyone want to walk what do they do? They put a "DON'T TOUCH" sign on it. In law school, we call that entrapment. Or an atractive niusance. Or something.

When we were leaving the theater, some promoter was giving out Transformers stickers and poster and then asking people if he could photograph them with their new swag. When someone wants to take your picture holding a sticker of a robot, you really only have one choice. I put on my "this is the most serious shit in the world" face. It looked something like this:



Only, you know, with a sticker. I threw it away. It's not like I'm going to see either of those movies.

Hope in KSR

The Supreme Court is here to assure you: your fellow citizens are not robots.

A person of ordinary skill is also a
person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.

KSR v. Teleflex

Against Perpetuity

Mark Helprin has an Op-Ed in the New York Times arguing that copyrights should last forever. There's not really a coherent argument so much as hints at several possible ones, but I think I've found the point where he goes off the tracks. Early on:

[The time limit on copyrights] is, then, for the public good. But it might also be for the public good were Congress to allow the enslavement of foreign captives and their descendants (this was tried); the seizure of Bill Gates’s bankbook; or the ruthless suppression of Alec Baldwin. You can always make a case for the public interest if you are willing to exclude from common equity those whose rights you seek to abridge. But we don’t operate that way, mostly.

Let's set aside the argument that the "rights" of deceased creators are not a terribly compelling source of value in the first place. The problem with the exercises of power Helprin thinks are counterexamples is that the imagined government is acting arbitrarily. Copyright law, on the other hand, applies evenly to all holders. Creators whose copyrights expire seventy (70!) years after they die aren't having their rights infringed, because they don't have any copyrights seventy years after death. Unless, that is, the "rights" in question are a kind of natural right to eternal copyright protection, which Helprin seems to want to assume without actually making the case for. As a sometime student of the metaphysics of morals, let me just say good luck with that.

But look, ordinary property rights governing land and chattel have evolved at common law in order to maximize the public good. You always have to make tradeoffs between plausible-sounding "rights" like the right to have peace and quiet on your land and the right to enjoy your land by having loud parties on it. Either Helprin thinks this process is illegitimate, and adopting one rule or the other inevitably "exclude[s] from common equity the rights you seek to abrdige," or he rally just doesn't get what this "law" business is all about.

Three's Company

Nobody Scores is pretty awesome. Found it via Dresden Codak, which I found via Boing Boing, which I found via I have an internet addiction.

The Office Season Finale

Dude. I totally wanted Creed's blog to be real.

With A Vengeance

It's summertime, and all living things are a-bustle. Especially living things with wings and an exoskeleton. Coming back from lunch today, we drove through a giant swarm of bees fiercely guarding a six-lane intersection. As if a tanker truck full of pollen suckers had overturned in the middle, and they had claimed the turf to found their own nation as Free Insects.

Meanwhile, mosquitos keep breaking into the house. In an always fatal error, some of them even enter my room. None of them has even bitten me yet, and only the very lucky avoid even a single swipe of my swatter. I am the goddamn mosquito apocalypse.

Backfire

Because of this brilliant idea, the question most likely to be asked by new co-workers, often with a slightly worried expression, is, "so, what's with the dinosaurs?"

iPod Shuffle

I own a lot of bad music.

Hi Ho Hi Ho

Idleness being merely a step on the path to wickedness, I start work immediately after finals. This very morning! Hope everyone in the same boat remembered to bring one document from schedule A, or one from B and one from C.

Trusts and Estates Employment Opportunity

I ran an early draft by my lawyer, and he had issues with just about everything in there. I specify at the end that I wanted to be reincarnated as an octopus (I have my reasons). He says that this won't work, and that nobody puts that sort of thing in their will. What I want to know is, how does he know it won't work if nobody ever tries it?

I'm looking for a new lawyer.

From Joe Mathlete, of Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke fame.

I'm Back, Baby!

Layover

Free wireless in the JetBlue terminal at JFK! Hey look at me!

One More Down

What kind of class grades you only on a final exam with a 3-page limit?

The awesome kind. Duh.

My Roommate Solves Problems

"Ugh! Why am I so tired at ten thirty? I slept for like 11 hours last night."
"Maybe because it's ninety degrees in here?" *opens windows*
"Wow! That does help!"

Product Endorsement

Beer is of course the ideal finals week beverage, but if like me you need to keep your wits about you to write some papers, a sixer of cold IBC Root Beer makes the time go a whole lot faster too.

In His Place

Eugene Volokh fights the power (of parking enforcement) and wins. Rock on.

Suing Michael Scott

LGM points to a great blog by an employment law litigator assessing liability in The Office.

And, just in case you were wondering, calling the company’s best customer a “Biatch” during a press conference and threatening to sabotage the product line if held responsible for mishaps occurring under your supervision would be a good reason to terminate a manager. A very good reason.

Remix Edition

CNN says it's making the video of its presidential debate availalbe "without restrictions." This is really cool, and should lead to a beautiful flowering of homebrew YouTube political ads. And this time, they'll be legal!

Maybe I'll even be inspired to put my own newfound chops to work.

Hoy

Adding insult to a lengthy litany of grevious injuries, Massachusetts apparently sees fit to let Cinco de Mayo pass without comment or celebration. This sucks. They can keep their stupid race on their stupid Patriots' Day.

Wedgie!

Frank Lautenberg is a flipping genius. Dude authors a bill to allow the Attorney General to unilaterally block gun sales to people on the terrorist watch list. His political opponents, who fervently oppose both limits on firearm ownership and oversight of executive power, implode.

When I grow up, I wanna be able to do judo like that.

Two Down

Professor Kamar gives a seriously hard multiple-choice exam for his Corporations class. And I mean, I'm good at multiple-choice. Like, really good.

But damn.