Baseball Embargo

Cuba wants to play in the 16-nation Classic baseball tournament this coming spring.

They've already been declined by the US Treasury department at least once, but they're reapplying now.

And they've offered to give the proceeds to the victims of Katrina:

"Although we have never competed for money, in order to offer options the Cuban Baseball Federation would be willing for the money associated with participation in the classic to go to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans," a statement read on Cuban government television said."

As they say in Bad News Bears, Let them play!

Dude, it's baseball. Castro doesn't actually play on the team. Hopefully, some of the players will even defect while they're here.

Castro is a brutal and repressive dictator. But not letting Cuba play makes us look like all-around jerks. We're so serious about our incoherent trading policies (i.e., China and Vietnam yes, Cuba no) that we're going to make sure not even baeball is unaffected by them.

And isn't there something just a little problematic with not sending very real money to Katrina victims? Should it be my tax dollars instead of money that would otherwise gop into Castro's pockets?

On Joseph Smith

I have nothing but respect for the Mormon religion and its followers--known as Latter Day Saints.

I don't laugh at Mormon polygamy jokes, and not just because they're actually not funny.

And I want to acknowledge the 200 year anniversary of Joseph Smith's birth today, the man who later went on to found the Mormon religion in 1830. See here for an interesting article on the subject.

Still folks, I have to say that no matter how wise your leaders, and well-meaning your religious beliefs, they didn't help you yesterday when CAL BEAT BYU IN THE LAS VEGAS BOWL 35-28!!

GO BEARS!

How Many Memos Did He Write?

Honestly, this isn't getting better for him. See here.

"Perhaps the brief argues, as its author, John Yoo -- now a professor of law at Berkeley but then a deputy assistant attorney general -- argued 14 days after Sept. 11, 2001, in a memorandum on "the president's constitutional authority to conduct military operations against terrorists and nations supporting them," that the president's constitutional power to take "military actions" is "plenary.""

But I emphasize that though his opinion may be controversial, it isn't facially wrong. Just very heavy--perhaps excessively heavy--on executive deference.

Will's damning critique of the NSA policy continues:

"...[T]he president's decision to authorize the NSA's surveillance without the complicity of a court or Congress was a mistake. Perhaps one caused by this administration's almost metabolic urge to keep Congress unnecessarily distant and hence disgruntled."

Zing.

Firms Lacking Names

A good post at some random blog you shouldn't read.

And a good comment left there by Eve, whose blog you should read in lieu of the aforementioned one.

One point firms need to remember:

It just isn't hard to get email addresses. Many of my friends who aren't yet listed on their firm's site obviously have the same formula email address as any other person at the firm.

So even if I just know that the recruiter's email is Asmith@lawfirm.com, I can easily figure out that my friend is IMainway@lawfirm.com.

Ten fake points to the individual who (without looking here) can name the person I'm emailing, who also happens to sell a product called "Bag of glass."

Meanwhile, With My Left Hand...

I'm Night Guy.

Seinfeld, Season 5, Episode 67:

The Glasses

[location: nightclub]

JERRY: I never get enough sleep. I stay up late at night, cause I'm Night Guy. Night Guy wants to stay up late.

What about getting up after five hours sleep? Oh that's Morning Guy's problem. That's not my problem, I'm Night Guy. I stay up as late as I want.

So you get up in the morning, you're exhausted, groggy, oooh I hate that Night Guy!

See, Night Guy always screws Morning Guy. There's nothing Morning Guy can do. The only thing Morning Guy can do is try and oversleep often enough so that Day Guy loses his job and Night Guy has no money to go out anymore."

I think morning guy is executing the the only option he can.

A Jewcy Chanukah

Every person who considers themselves even remotely connected to Judaism should read this article about Hipster Chanukah celebrations.

"Over the last three years more and more young Jews have been flaunting their heritage, donning T-shirts that proclaim their Semitic roots, listening to the Hasidic reggae singer Matisyahu and climbing onto the celebrity-driven kabbalah bandwagon."

And I definitely want to try to attend this thing next year. It sounds like a total blast.

Money Quote:

"In an age when Madonna demands to be called 'Esther,' Jon Stewart is a sex symbol and seemingly everyone speaks a little Yiddish, it's never been hipper to be a Jew."

For my sake, I hope that's true.

Hat tip to DH.

New Blog Links

I've added a few links, and removed one or two, from the "Friendly Canons" list on the right side of the blog.

I want to plug two of my recent additions, both of which are written by excellent authors (and in one case a group of excellent authors).

The first is Maisnon's blog, which needs no plug from this tiny operation.

Here is a particularly humorous recent interaction of hers that left a number of people in stitches.

The second is called Barely Legal. It's also the name of a pornographic magazine, as you can imagine. Still, I find the content of the blog version of Barely Legal to be much better written and analytical than the fetish maganzine.

Here is Barely Legal's countdown of strange and interesting occurrences during the law school wind down and exam start up period.

Very funny stuff.

I am Utterly Speechless

This is the pinnacle of "missed connections."

MAN DATES GAL ON INTERNET FOR SIX MONTHS -- AND IT TURNS OUT SHE'S HIS MOTHER!

The story progresses from one time period to another, all the while becoming stranger and funnier.

First, the weird:

"Mom called herself Sweet Juliette and I called myself The Prince of Pleasure, and unfortunately, neither one of us had any idea who the other was," said flabbergasted Daniel.

"The conversations even got a little racy a couple of times.

"But I really started to fall for her, because there seemed to be a sensitive side that you don't see in many girls.

"She sent me poems she had written and told me about her dreams and desires, and it was really very romantic.

"The truth is, I got to see a side of my mom I'd never seen before. I'm grateful for that."

DUDE! Ok, it gets better:

"When starry-eyed Daniel asked Sweet Juliette to send him a picture, Nicole e-mailed him a photo of a curvy, half-clad cutie she'd scanned from a men's magazine.

"The girl in the picture was so beautiful, I begged Juliette to meet me on the beach -- and Mom said yes," he recalled. "Mom says she was falling for me, too, and she just wanted to meet me, even though she knew I'd be disappointed when I saw her.

"As for me, I figured I was going to find the girl of my dreams.

"I guess that's about as wrong as I've ever been."

NOW THE KICKER! The woman is still married to the kid's father!

"And his father Paul -- Nicole's husband of 27 years -- wasn't too happy when the story hit the news and his beer-drinking buddies made him the butt of their jokes.

"Dad was ticked for a while and he forbid Mom to talk to anybody on the Internet ever again," said embarrassed Daniel."

What are the odds folks? And how is the dad not anything more than "ticked?" And the best part is the punishment--the mom can never talk to anyone on the internet ever again.

Yeah, um, the threat is not the internet. The threat is your OWN SON dude!

King Kong

One of my favorite law professors, Randy Barnett of Boston University, heartily endorses the new Peter Jackson film King Kong.

"I would rate it as one of the best movies I have ever seen—certainly the best "big picture" blockbuster film. It is everything the original famously wanted to be, and the remake tried completely unsuccessfully to be. A love story."

Professor Barnett always has me agreeing with his constitutional analysis, so I see little reason to think his review of this film wouldn't also be reliable. Even if it is a little school-girlish for my taste.

Cherub Faced War Criminal?

Another love/hate John Yoo profile in the LA Times. See here for my analysis on an earlier one.

Why is there a theme on this story that continues to be played up? Is it because his views are so extreme, yet hard to counter on their actual merits? Or because he's so cute and cuddly?

Two awesome passages in the story:

"To his shrillest student critics, UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo — a mild-mannered, cherubically baby-faced academic who gravitates toward the driest of legal treatises and the sharpest of suits — incarnates the banality of evil."

and...

"He's a very gentle soul. He's a teddy bear," Glennon said. "He's extremely courteous in dealing with intellectual adversaries. He's a creative and original scholar."

I think the story is so easy to tell, and tell over and over again, because Professor Yoo really is an awesome guy. He was a clerkship recommender of mine, my boss for more than a year, and the closest thing I had to a professor-friend.

But his views, admittedly, are well out of the mainstream. So I guess this is a story. Only to the extent, however, that this is probably true for many people with extreme views on particular subjects. Plenty of people on the radical left probably support out-of-mainstream positions and yet are friendly and personable in person.

So fine, it's a story. But every few months it's fresh again? Maybe not so much.

hat tip to DB and JL for pointing the article my way.

My body is falling apart

When I came to DC, I was healthy as an ox. Strong like a bull.

Since then, work, and a can of mixed fruit, have taken their toll on my health.

I went to the dentist for the first time in about 8 years in October, and found out that by not getting my wisdom teeth out when I was a young buck, I would pay the price my friend.

Wisdom teeth taken out now? Oh yes, said the dentist. But first we take this other tooth of yours out--the one that can't handle the pressure because the rest of your teeth are too close together.

So I've been missing a molar for about a month now, and will need to get a fake tooth installed before I get my wisdom teeth taken out.

But the worst incident happened on November 18th, when I simply tried to make myself a nice healthy breakfast of yogurt and (canned) fruit.

I sliced my middle finger on the poptop, right on the joint. So much hurt. And the blood. Boy did it spew. Ambulance, stretcher, stitches, the whole works. Quite embarrassing during my third month at the firm.

But it's been getting better, until today. When I found out I need to HAVE SURGERY to repair the severed nerve.

So I'm going under the knife on Friday. Wish me luck.

This is how it all began for Anakin Skywalker--a tooth implant, a bionic finger, and soon enough, more machine than man.

Feliz Navidad

In the past few hours, I've heard two different versions of this song; one with the standard beat and pace (at CVS), the other rocking out to a much more rockabilly tune (at Starbucks).

My question is, however, how anyone can EVER get this song out of their head once they've listened to it for the first time?

It's never leaving mine.

Such a simple statement:

Feliz Navidad
Prospero año y Felicidad

I want to wish you a Merry Christmas
From the bottom of my heart

And yet so catchy.

Oral Argument in Rumsfeld v. FAIR

It looks like Paul Clement easily dispatched of the counsel for FAIR, defeating the claim that military recruiters need not be let on campus so long as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" continues.

This was not a close case. And Dahlia Lithwick of Slate points out a few things that are extremely revealing as to the case's eventual outcome:

"Suddenly one can't help but notice that all the conservative justices have gotten quiet while the liberals are taking turns beating on counsel. That can't be a good sign."

"Clement's rebuttal is a beautiful thing. He quickly explains that no student can confuse a military recruiter's speech with the law school's. Also that any protest can be re-characterized as free speech or free association, opening the door to allowing law schools, if they so choose, to disregard bedrock federal anti-discrimination laws.

It's a clever approach—painting the Solomon Amendment as an anti-discrimination law, as opposed to an aggressive counter-punch at anti-discrimination diehards."

So what is the ultimate conclusion? Probably a near-unanimous decision for the government.

Indeed, Lithwick notes that:

"It seems the Supreme Court granted review principally to mock the 3rd Circuit in a very public fashion."

Ouch.

Voter Fraud is Not Cool

Republican or Democrat, I think we can agree that people need to have their votes counted. This story makes me a little worried, if it's true.

At least California has decertified. Other states should soon follow if they're having similar problems.

And if you lived in San Diego last year, and had problems with your voting machine, you can pretty much assume that your vote was not counted.

“The system that was offered to San Diego was purely experimental—the TSX and the electronic poll book, the check-in device,” the Diebold insider stated.

“Voters couldn’t access the system to vote with the electronic poll book if the batteries died.” The high rate of breakdowns involving access cards for the poll book caused major problems, the source added.

“The interesting part about this device is that it had never been used before. That was probably not certified.”

So, all in all, that's pretty bad.

Must Have More Caffeine...

For those of you who need 3 or 4 diet cokes to get through the day, this new Coca Cola product may be of interest to you.

Says the article:

"The new drink, a combination of Coca-Cola Classic and coffee extracts, will be first launched in France in January before being rolled out in the United States and other markets during 2006."

I have actually done a pretty good job of kicking my crack habit in the last 6 months. I usually have about 1 or 2 every few days, but definitely not 4-6 like it used to be in law school. My tooth enamel may never recover, however.

Top of the Google List

I am proud to announce that a google search of the phrase "expressio unius," which is the short form of a common canon of statutory and constitutional interpretation, now displays this blog as its top hit.

The bad news, however, is that the blog's value has decreased to less than 9 thousand dollars.

So all of you wanting to purchase a little bit of the most influential blog named expressio unius should consider buying low for the time being.

Kathleen Sullivan Fails the Bar

Wow. This is huge news.

Imagine you are starting work at the Los Angeles law firm Quinn Emanuel, and you've heard that a new lawyer is arriving at the firm named Kathleen Sullivan. She's the author of a constitutional law casebook, a famed Supreme Court litigator, a frequent speaker at left-leaning legal events, and about to become the head of the appellate division at your firm.

And then she fails the bar. And you pass. Talk about survivor's guilt.

Money quote:

"Mr. Urquhart [one of the firm's name partners--WT] says he does not know Ms. Sullivan's score, but knows she spent little time preparing because she was inundated with work for the firm and Stanford Law School, where she now runs the school's constitutional law center.

Ms. Sullivan plans to take the test again, according to Mr. Urquhart. "She'll prepare more next time," he says."

You think?

It's actually quite sad for Professor Sullivan. She is probably the most prominent victim of the California Bar, and one who's notoriety means that she will often be confronted with it in daily practice.

And if she does take over Quinn Emanuel's appellate practice still, she won't be able to sign anything unless she gets pro hace vice (temporary, based on another state's bar) admission to California.

Here's another angle on the story by GG.

Shakira's Bad Influence

Several posts here at Expressio Unius have mentioned song lyrics. See here for an analysis of the Laura Branigan song, Gloria, Gloria. And there's the one regarding a lame Gwen Stafani song. But now there are these lyrics from South American pop star Shakira.

I'm not sure which is worse--that Shakira is encouraging young girls to sacrifice everything for their men, or encouraging them to move to communist countries.

At least she suggests she'll only move to Cuba, China, Vietnam, etc., if the boy she's singing to also moves himself. Otherwise, it's kind of pointless to move there.

"For you, I'd give up all I own
And move to a communist country
If you came with me, of course
And I'd file my nails so they don't hurt you
And lose those pounds, and learn about football
If it made you stay, but you won't, but you won't"

Broken Hearts

Jessica and Nick are divorcing.

That's old news by now. But now it turns out she didn't sign a pre-nup, and she's going to make Nick a very rich man.

This article describes her reason for not signing a prenup as:

"[B]ack then, Mr. 98 Degrees was the rich and famous one."

Um, I don't think so.

Just because Jessica was LESS famous back then doesn't mean that Nick was himself actually famous. At best, he was less not-famous, in comparison to his future wife.

But 98 degrees, I'm sorry to say Nick, was always third on the totem pole of irritatingly popular boy bands. Right behind Backstreet and N'Sync.

Check out the whole article for a nice slam on the "band" Creed too.