Purveyor of Iniquities

Links for September 4th

Andrew Grossman — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:16:12 +0000

Dan Gardner-Journalist column data page
The Pariah President: Teodoro Obiang is a brutal dictator responsible for thousands of deaths. So why is he treated like an elder statesman on the world stage?
(equatorialguinea torture )
gregslistdc | the place to go when you need to know
(dc )
The Washington Diplomat
(dc )
International Club of DC Calendar of Events
We organize a variety of events each month to help you discover your city and your world. For information about an event, please select it from the calendar below. We encourage you to be involved with our activities and programs and look forward to seeing you at an upcoming event. If you have any questions, please contact us.
(dc )
Learned Handmade Plates
(law awesome )
The Volokh Conspiracy - Criminal Liability or Civil Liability?
Civil Liability Is for Compensating the Injured, Criminal Liability Is for Punishing the Morally Culpable.
(overcrim )
The Clbuttic Mistake: When obscenity filters go wrong - Telegraph
The phenomena, known as “The Clbuttic Mistake” after a mangling of the word “classic” that is believed to be the first identified instance of the problem, can be found on tens of thousands of websites.
(language obscenity )
SSRN-Do Disability Laws Impair Firm Performance? by Robert Bird, John Knopf
Much has been written about the impact of disability laws on employers and employees. Yet there is little empirical support available on whether disability laws impact employers in a negative or positive way. We fill this gap in the literature by studying the impact of state disability laws adopted by legislatures and courts between 1976 and 1988. By examining the data of approximately 18,000 commercial banks and after controlling for local state economic conditions, we examine whether disability laws impact firm employment, salaries, profitability, and capital investments. We find a small decline in employee salaries and a large decline in fixed asset investment associated with the passage of state disability laws. Our results are significant and surprising, and have policy implications for both state and federal disability protections.
(ada disability )
TaxProf Blog: Fellowships for Aspiring Law Professors (Updated)
For practitioners and others contemplating joining the law professor ranks, many law schools offer wonderful opportunities to transition into the legal academy with one- or two-year fellowships which allow you to enter the AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference (the "meat market") with published scholarship (and in many cases teaching experience) under your belt:
(academia )
To Evade Penalty, Key AIPAC Witness Seeks to Quash Subpoena » Secrecy News
J. William Leonard, the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office, indicated he was prepared to testify that the classified information at issue did not meet the standards for national security classification. If so, the defendants could not have violated the law by receiving and transmitting the information without authorization. Not only would they not be guilty, there would have been no crime.
But prosecutors objected to Mr. Leonard’s testimony, arguing that he should not be permitted to appear since he briefly consulted with prosecutors about the case while he was still a government employee in 2006. In a March 31 motion (pdf), they even suggested that he could be liable to a year in jail if he testified for the defense.
(overcrim )
Featured Mac Download: GimmeSomeTune Supercharges Your iTunes Library
Free iTunes add-on GimmeSomeTune automatically fetches missing album artwork, lyrics, and automatically embeds them in your music library. GimmeSomeTune runs in the background, and in addition to the metadata tools, it also supports scrobbling your music to Last.fm, universal hotkeys, iChat status updates, and even Apple Remote control.
(itunes )

Links for September 3rd

Andrew Grossman — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:30:51 +0000

Joe Biden says Barack Obama might pursue criminal charges against Bush administration if elected | World news | guardian.co.uk
"If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued," Biden said during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to ABC.
"[N]ot out of vengeance, not out of retribution," he added, "out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president — no one is above the law."
(obama biden )

Links for September 1st

Andrew Grossman — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:20:40 +0000

Washington Gun Ownership to Go Through One Man - NYTimes.com
Mr. Sykes does not sell guns, but on Tuesday he is expected to become the only federally licensed dealer in Washington to serve as the transfer agent for the carefully controlled transactions that will put guns in the hands of district residents.
There are no gun stores here, and a resident who buys a gun elsewhere must have the weapon shipped to a licensed dealer in the district. Mr. Sykes’s permit will allow him to receive the weapon and, for a transaction fee of $125, he will ensure that the requisite paperwork is prepared for approval by federal and district officials before handing over the weapon to its new owner.
(secondamendment guns washingtondc )
DNSCurve: Usable security for DNS
Slides from DJB's lecture of last week on weaknesses in DNS and his proposed solution.
(internet dns security system:filetype:pdf system:media:document )
DNSCurve: Usable security for DNS
DNSCurve uses high-speed high-security elliptic-curve cryptography to drastically improve every dimension of DNS security.
(djb dns internet security )

Links for August 31st

Andrew Grossman — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:05:45 +0000

Personal Trainer Services, Northern Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC
(fitness )

Links for August 29th

Andrew Grossman — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:02:11 +0000

Locke v. Karass - ScotusWiki
Whether a public sector union may include in non-members’ agency fees costs for litigation outside the bargaining unit.
(supremecourt labor firstamendment )

Links for August 28th

Andrew Grossman — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:17:35 +0000

Judicial Clerkship Information
(clerkships )
Journalists’ Privilege: Overview of the Law and Legislation in the 109th and 110th Congresses: Open CRS Network - CRS Reports for the People
Congress has considered creating a journalists’ privilege for federal proceedings, and bills to adopt a journalists’ privilege have been introduced in the 109th and 110th Congresses, in both the House and the Senate. These bills generally would provide for a more narrow privilege than the privileges provided by state laws.
(privileges journalism firstamendment speech )
Privacy: An Abbreviated Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping: Open CRS
Statutory exceptions to these general prohibitions permit judicially supervised
wiretapping or electronic eavesdropping conducted for law enforcement or foreign
intelligence gathering purposes. Similar regimes — proscriptions with exceptions for
government access under limited circumstances — exist for telephone records, e-mail
and other forms of electronic communications.
(wiretapping surveillance fisa intelligence )

Links for August 27th

Andrew Grossman — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:04:25 +0000

Federalism, State Sovereignty, and the Constitution: Basis and Limits of Congressional Power: Open CRS
The lines of authority between states and the federal government are, to a significant extent, defined by the United States Constitution and relevant case law. In recent years, however, the Supreme Court has decided a number of cases that would seem to reevaluate this historical relationship. This report discusses state and federal legislative power generally, focusing on a number of these "federalism" cases.
(federalism )
Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege: History, Law, Practice and Recent Developments: Open CRS
Presidential claims of a right to preserve the confidentiality of information and documents in the face of legislative demands have figured prominently, though intermittently, in executive-congressional relations since at least 1792.
(executivepower privileges )
Russia Is Brazen, Europe Weak - BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY
We must re-examine all of this. We must analyze in greater depth the mechanisms of a blindness that may, if we are not careful, perpetuate the Western "decline in courage" denounced in his time by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, but which we thought belonged to the past. Reason, if not honor, demands that we go to the rescue of Europe in Tbilisi.
(russia georgia )

Links for August 24th

Andrew Grossman — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:07:31 +0000

Intel cuts electric cords with wireless power system - Yahoo! News
"It turns out the human body is not affected by magnetic fields; it is affected by elective fields. So what we are doing is transmitting energy using the magnetic field not the electric field."
(technology energy power )
Report from Tbilisi by Michael J. Totten, City Journal 20 August 2008
It was George F. Kennan, America’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, who said, “Russia can have at its borders only enemies or vassals.”
(russia georgia )
Some Britons Too Unruly for Resorts in Europe - NYTimes.com
They are the ones, the locals say, who are carousing, brawling and getting violently sick. They are the ones crowding into health clinics seeking morning-after pills and help for sexually transmitted diseases. They are the ones who seem to have one vacation plan: drinking themselves into oblivion.
“They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit,” Malia’s mayor, Konstantinos Lagoudakis, said in an interview. “It is only the British people — not the Germans or the French.”
(england british )
Beyond Waffles: Our Guide to the Best Brunches - Dining Guides (washingtonian.com)
With brunch season about to kick in, we set off in search of weekend feasts worthy of our time and money. We turned up some good, traditional-style brunches that sidestepped the usual clichés.
(brunch restaurants )
NEW Standard Horizon HX750S FLOATING Handheld Portable VHF Radio IN STOCK
(sailing )
Search Results - Boatfix - Marine Superstore
(sailing )
West Marine: 1” Transom Drain W/Plug Product Display
(sailing )
West Marine: Drain W Plug, 1” BLK Nylon Product Display
(sailing )

Links for August 23rd

Andrew Grossman — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:12:34 +0000

Back and Forth: The Harmonettes - “Shame, Shame, Shame”
Original: If you don’t want to go/Remember one monkey don’t stop no show/My body needs action/Ain’t gonna blow.”
Harmonettes: If you don’t want to go/Remember one monkey don’t wear no shirt/My body needs action/Ain’t got no clothes.”
(songs shame )

Links for August 21st

Andrew Grossman — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:01:47 +0000

Timely ledes from this summer’s New Yorkers. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine
But one New Yorker tic endures: The lede weighed down by a date.
(magazine newyorker )