Will Baude fails to name names, thus ensuring some other poor fellow will get a "not very good Manhattan."

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Prof. Berstein asks if we should boycott Mel Gibson because of his anti-Semitic outbursts whilst being arrested for drunk driving. The pro-boycott side is represented at the Huffington Post.

I'm torn. On the one hand, I'd probably rather boycott someone for driving while drunk (which can, after all, kill someone) than for their words, however hateful, spoken while inebriated. It's a sign of the moral compass of HuffPo that Ari Emanuel will give a pass for substance abuse, but take to heart some drunken rambling. Don't get me wrong, Gibson's accused of saying some vicious things, and that's bad (and possibly deserving of ostracism). But one would think that carelessness that can lead to vehicular homicide ranks further up in the heirarchy of sins. It seems these days it's worse to belt out a few ethnic slurs than to belt back a few G&Ts before speeding back home in a Lexus sedan.

On the other hand, looking at Gibson's entry on IMDB, I've not seen any of the top twelve films listed under his name either as an actor or a producer. (Well, I saw part of Signs on an airplane, but that barely counts.) I've not seen anything he's directed since Braveheart. So it seems like I've pre-emptively approved Mr. Emanuel's boycott.

Damn this man! Now I must either accede to his demands to shun Mr. Gibson or go see the silly savagery of Apocalypto. A miserable choice indeed.

Posted by Anthony at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The last entry was composed in a Borders in downtown DC. While I was writing, a rather scuzzy gentleman took a table a few feet away fro me and proceeded to openly peruse a copy of Penthouse International Pets, holding it up at chest height and at one point seemingly pulling out a centerfold. The elderly couple behind him seemed to be alternately aghast and compelled to look over his shoulder.

As for me, I'm just pondering: was that fellow just a particularly shameless pervert, or was he cunningly trying to sow chaos and subvert social expectations.

Posted by Anthony at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

. . . in the Geek Hierarchy?

Take a moment away from your bar review to ponder a wiki full of drink recipes based entirely on webcomics.

Come Thursday, I want one of these.

(Right now I want one of these, but they're not served at Barnes & Noble's co-branded Starbucks.)

Posted by Anthony at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tired of studying for the bar? Take a few minutes out and watch George Bush take on U2.

Ain't technology grand?

Posted by Anthony at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sadly, after I become a lawyer it's unlikely I'll have the time to do things like this. (In Japanese, but you don't really need to understand it.)

Posted by Anthony at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My (non-lawyer) brother on the eighteen year battle between Keith Carabell and the federal government over whether he can build condominiums in a wetland area:

And they said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp . . . .

Posted by Anthony at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Wormwood:

Do you have a friend studying for the Bar Exam? Do you think that friend is insufficiently motivated to knuckle down and learn the law? Or have you found that since starting law school, your long-time drinking buddy can only mutter incomprehensible phrases like "conflict of law" and "rule of perpetuity," and you want to find some experience you can use to rebond?

Well, I may just have the passtime for you: Disorderly Conduct. Imagine a game of Trivial Pursuit with all your favorite categories: torts, contracts and propery, oh my!

To be honest, my parents got me a copy of this for Christmas last year, and it's surprisingly fun, especially if you're playing with people who aren't lawyers or law students. First of all, non-legal people are handicapped, and only have to get four of six categories to win. But more importantly, they get a real kick out of beating supposed "experts" in the law.

I think in revenge I'm going to get my engineer father a Deflextion set next Christmas. I've not had a chance to play it, but reports suggest that it crosses chess (or maybe checkers) with mirrors and lasers.

Posted by Anthony at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

. . . the frequent (though not universal) "us and them" mentality within that part of the conservative movement. Take, for instance, Prof. Bainbridge today writing on political affiliation and hybrid vehicles:

Do "crunchy cons" drive Priuses? Probably. Personally, "I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object." Roland Barthes (1915–1980), French semiologist. “The New Citroën” (1957). In the language of that wonderful metaphor, the decision to buy a Prius is not unlike an agnostic choosing to visit one of the great Gothic cathedrals. You have chosen to be in but not of the experience.

I want to buy a hybrid so that I can take it apart. It's a new technology, and just as I like opening up a server and looking at the guts or going through Moveabletype's code and seeing what makes it tick, I want to get my hands dirty searching through the pieces. [1] I drove a hybrid over spring break, and it performed like a fairly funky small car that happened to be much more quiet in city driving.

Of course, a curiousity about the construction of an automobile means that folks like Bainbridge will feel free to question my political views. Conservatives like that are happy to fit people into little boxes. It's that mindset that makes me unwilling to join the Federalist Society: conservatism not as a philosophy, but a minority lifestyle choice. (One of my liberal friends once joked, "Sort of like emo kids in high school?")

I was reminded of this at the 2006 Student Symposium, when the banquet's keynote speaker, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, stood up and announced that the crowning achievement of the Society for the last few months, the sign of its influence, was the defeat of the Miers nomination. If there had been any debate in the Federalist Society on Miers, Fund didn't recognize it.

Ironically, diversity actually is one of the strengths of the conservative movement (and in theory, of the FedSoc), as well as one of the things that makes it the most interesting. The litany of authors and speakers with 'you can't be a real conservative if . . .' pieces is pretty depressing.

[1]: Speaking of trendy products that are fun to take apart, if you've got an old iPod you're not using, they're fairly fun to disassemble. (See link for images.) Of course, such things lead to iPod chargers in Altoids tins. . .

(A few small updates made a few minutes after publication, mostly to get the link to Volokh's piece)

Posted by Anthony at 06:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Netflix for Handbags. I'm so not the target market for this service.

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Through an English friend of mine, today I learned about the art of sabrage.

Put roughly: how to open a bottle of champagne if the only tools you have are a very large pig-sticker, no self-consciousness and little fear that fundamental forces of physics will fail you at a key moment. Actually, it sounds quite impressive.

Posted by Anthony at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Apparently I must have been a real trial as a kid. At least that's the theory of one of Prof. Leiter's new co-authors, whose latest post is summed up best by Mike Rappaport: "Conservatives are not only evil, they're ugly too."

I guess the Social Sciences are feeling ignored again, because another psych prof has published a piece in the Journal of Research in Personality detailing exactly how psychologically imbalanced we conservatives are. It seems that Prof. Block tracked a number of Berkeley kids from their developmental years to their 30s and has found that the "whiny, insecure tattletale[s]" (Ms. Wilson's words) grew up to show Republican tendencies. For a certain kind of liberal, this is just the kind of Cheerios they need to find a smile in the morning.

Curiously, Ms. Wilson's source material--an article in the Toronto Star--is quite a great deal more circumspect and interesting than her own rantings:

The results do raise some obvious questions. Are nursery school teachers in the conservative heartland cursed with classes filled with little proto-conservative whiners?

Or does an insecure little boy raised in Idaho or Alberta surrounded by conservatives turn instead to liberalism?

Or do the whiny kids grow up conservative along with the majority of their more confident peers, while only the kids with poor impulse control turn liberal?

More amusing is the fact that between my reading her post and writing this response, she's taken half of it down. After catching some flack, she determined that her tantrum was a bit too bilious even for the Leiter Reports. [1] "[I]n blog posts, I go by the coupla hours rule: if I write something that I pretty quickly think better of, then I just get rid of it . . . ." Or as one of my blog-mentors once put it:

When in doubt; deny everything. When you're seriously up shit creek; Ctrl+A Delete.

Update: Link to Republic of T added after initial publication.

[1]: Expressing some dismay at the reaction to her original work, Ms. Wilson writes, "Honestly, though: U.S.-ers are entirely too lacking in tolerance for the appropriately inappropriate jibe... read some Will Self if you want to see how totally restrained I am." Will Self? I shall have to remember this line of argument in case I ever have trouble with St. Peter: "Carnal sins? C'mon, Pete, compared to Ron Jeremy, I'm a model of chastity!"

Posted by Anthony at 05:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Making my way through some severe spring cleaning, I found a gift brought back from two of my closest English friends: four sets of kim giao chopsticks from Vietnam. As the packaging explains:

Kim giao (Podocarpus fleuryi) is a valuable tree associated the woeful with love story betwee Giao thuy a woodcutter's son and Kim Ngan a princess. Kim Giao wood can change its colour when it is put in poison. Thus, in the past, Kings used the chopsticks mode from Kim Giao wood to discover poisoned food at parties.

The key question is whether they think that after I become a lawyer I'll have such insidious adversaries that I'll need to check my lunch for poison, or whether they figure law school has corrupted me to the point that I'll start poisoning my dinner guests. (Lawyers don't have the best reputations, after all.) I'll be suspicious if they ask to use these chopsticks next time they visit...

Posted by Anthony at 07:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Wormwood,

I've slightly overshot Columbia's 40 hour pro bono requirement for graduation, or at least I suspect I will when I finally fill in the forms. On the other hand, quite a few 3Ls of my acquaintance have complained to me recently of their frantic efforts to fulfill their responsibilities under this dubious virtue tax.

At the same time, I've overheard a number of 1Ls murmuring that, despite a fresh influx of funds from Columbia, there are still not enough positions in the Human Rights Internship Program. Thus many fledgling do-gooders find themselves seeking summer jobs that may not be spiritually satisfying. It seems that while their elders are looking for work, they're looking for money.

It's a pity that Foundations of the Regulatory State is no longer a required class, because in my day almost every 1L covered the obvious solution to this problem. To ensure the maximum amount of happiness among Columbia students while making sure we contribute our fair share--whatever we collectively decide that is--we should institute a trading system similar to that used for pollution emissions. [1]

As you might expect, Wormwood, those who are inclined towards public interest (and not coincidentally, most often the political left) collect far more than the 40 hours they're required to contribute. On the other hand, those for whom the requirement is a mostly unnecessary hassle are swiftly heading towards more or less lucrative careers. The obvious solution is to allow 3Ls to bid for and purchase pro bono hours from overproducers. The funds could then be used to sponsor 1Ls summering in exotic and underserved locales such as South Africa, eastern Europe or the Bronx.

Collectively, there is no doubt this is a winning formula. It's not too much of an assumption to think that those who want to do pro bono work will do it more productively, so our "good causes" however defined will receive better resources. We would be able to guarantee a certain amount of public interest work: after all, there's a floor beneath which hours cannot fall, and we can raise that to much higher than 40 hours per student. At the same time, HRIP receives more funding without having to increase tuition across the student body, producing even more socially enlightened output.

Wormwood, this seems a most sensible course by any tangible measurement. Yet my tongue is firmly in my cheek and I would never expect such a system to take hold. At the end of the day, the pro bono requirement isn't really about making sure that good causes receive useful (or enthusiastic) resources. Nothing so grubbily consequentialist should enter the publicly-spirited mind! To talk to a true believer, it's all about opening our minds, enlightening our souls and making us think that an industry supporting starting salaries of nearly $150,000 at the elite level is being done in a spirit of "professionalism," that is to say in the service of the public rather than the practitioners.

I put it to you that at the end of three years of law school, it is very difficult to avoid the level of cynicism required to say that with a straight face. And if three years of law school doesn't isn't enough, a brief glance at your debt burden should do it.

Ah well. For me it's almost over. As I mentioned to one complaining 3L, don't think of it as enforced charity. Think of it as a virtue tax, in which you take from whatever you consider virtuous and pay to what the Center for Public Interest Law considers such.

[1]: Often called "cap and trade" systems, emissions trading works to reduce a negative externality through a pricing system. What I'm proposing wouldn't be a cap and trade system, as it has no caps. Rather, trading would be used to maximize a positive externality. On the other hand, "floor and trade" seems a particularly clumsy phrase, and so I haven't used it.

Posted by Anthony at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

From an email exchange today:

In which case, I generally believe (albeit inconsistently ;) that a smiley also doubles as a closed parenthesis, thus avoiding the awkward:

(albeit inconsistently ;) )

Sadly, the Bluebook has remained silent upon this important issue.

Posted by Anthony at 02:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

An... I don't know what you should call it, webcomic maybe... A Softer World. One of those things I come across while bouncing from site to site. It gives me the same sensation as some Japanese poetry, I guess, which is why I can't stop reading the archive.

Your mileage may vary, but I enjoyed it.

Posted by Anthony at 07:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

WARNING: This post contains a long and abstruse discussion of two of the geekiest subjects on the planet: taxation law and massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs). It's quite possible that this much pure geekdom in one place may cause aberrations in the laws of physics or adverse health consequences. The management expressly disclaims all liability for any and all such events. Further (as if this isn't obvious), this post does not constitute tax advice. If you begin to play the highly addictive game Kingdom of Loathing as a result of this post, don't blame me. So far as I know, no support group is available.

(If it's not obvious from the extended discussion, I find tax law fascinating.)

For the last month or so, Heidi Bond and I have been discussing a curious question of tax and online gaming, centering around her fascination with Kingdom of Loathing. It's old news that online games have spawned their own economies, that players sell virtual property online for real cash and even that some Chinese players organize in "gold factories", getting paid to do virtual drudgework so that the resulting booty can be sold to real-world aristocrats with less time on their hands.

I'll admit that I have only a passing acquaintance with Kingdom of Loathing, although the combination of Dungeons and Dragons with Douglas Adams never fails to make me smile. Unsurprisingly given that we're law students, Heidi and I both wondered at a question that has now been raised in the illustrious online pages of Legal Affairs. Given that people are getting rich, how much will the IRS tax you for a Sword of OrcMeat Sandwichmaking +1?

Oddly, this doesn't come up in your standard Federal Tax class. The Legal Affairs article mentions the possibility of getting a private letter ruling from the IRS, and I'm very tempted to try to write one. After all, literally millions could be riding on the answers. [1]

Simple Simon: Trades for Cash
Let's start with the uncontroversial. As Julian Dibbell relates in his article:

In the course of this project, I made a total of $11,000 selling on eBay the items I won playing a game called Ultima Online, $3,900 of which was in the final, most profitable month. I reported my profit to the IRS, and I paid the requisite taxes.

More Complex: In-Game Trades
Heidi makes the question more interesting: does earning items within the game constitute income that should be declared on one's tax return? As she describes the scenario:

If I [received a very valuable game item, a Talisman of Baio] and sold the Baio on eBay, I'd obviously have to pay taxes on the sale. And if I found a valuable diamond ring while walking through the woods, I'd have to pay taxes on my windfall. So is finding the Baio itself, in the game, a realization event? If I choose to keep the incredibly-useful Baio for myself, without selling it, do I have to pay taxes on the find? What about if I sell the Baio for meat [the KoL currency] in the Mall of Loathing? Is that a realization event?

The answer is not that we can't value the Baio; there's a pretty robust in-game player economy, and regular out-of-game meat sales on eBay. An in-game Baio is worth 98 million meat, and meat goes for about 700K per dollar, so Baios are probably worth about $140. This isn't a difficult valuation problem . . . .

My guess--and this is very much not legal advice, so if you're currently holding a Wand of Tax Enforcement +8 don't report me to the IRS--is that an in-game transaction cannot result in a realization event. Heidi's example implicitly relies upon treating currencies within a game ("meat" in Kingdom of Loathing) as the equivalent of currencies in the real world. I disagree. To oversimplify, nothing in a MMORPG is actually more than a piece of a mathematical equation that in some sense alters a storyline. For instance, if Player A buys a magical sword or even his own magical castle, he's really purchased a higher likelihood that the calculation involved in his beating up an orc will succeed, or a lower likelihood that someone else will steal his stuff. (That stuff is, in turn, just another set of alterations in specific equations. In a graphical MMORPG, he's also buying the right to look at the graphics that go with the item, I suppose, but let's leave that aside for a bit.) Online "currency" is sort of like a very flexible magical item: with enough of it, you can turn one set of equation-altering objects into another.

Buying and selling objects using virtual currency is simply making a strategic move in the game itself. This is no different from (say) rolling a six in Sorry! or purchasing a hotel in Monopoly. No one would consider a taxable event, even though it may make the player happy (or even win the game). By contrast, if I sell a game object for cash, I am performing a service within the game that is not contemplated by its rules in exchange for goods or services outside the game. [2]

That's where I'd draw the line, but I'm just a student. As for precedent, there's not a lot out there to analyze. In Legal Affairs, Professor Richard Schmalbeck of Duke University School of Law cites to the old casebook favorite Zarin v. Commissioner, 916 F.2d 110 (3d Cir. 1990). David Zarin, a professional gambler, got in over his head to the tune of some $3.43 million. He'd gambled on credit with the casino, but apparently he had better luck at the negotiating table after his checks bounced, because he settled for a mere $500,000. Any joy at this outcome was crushed when the IRS determined that far from losing, Zarin had gained $2.9 million in discharged indebtedness income. Much of the dispute involved whether the chips Zarin received for his loan constituted cash that he used to purchase chips (and thus were worth $3.4 million) or were a purchase money loan for a given amount of gambling, and were only worth the enforceable debt. Both the tax court and the 3rd Circuit returned divided opinions.

I mention the case at length because Prof. Schmalbeck is described in the article (though not quoted) as suggesting this case could lead to taxation of ingame MMORPG gains. The case itself, however, doesn't primarily deal with transactions in chips during the course of the craps games, but rather their initial purchase. Although it's the closest I can find, it's not really on point. Closer might be Collins v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 1992-478 (1992), which dealt with pari mutuel racetrack betting slips, but the connection is still tenuous. In each case, the taxable transaction was the exchange of chips or tickets for cash, not purely an in-game transfer of "wealth." They don't seem to counsel against the distinction above.

I quite like my theoretical dividing line, especially as the result is instinctively satisfying. If nothing else, taxing magic items would be an administrative nightmare to enforce. On the other hand, I suppose some auditors would have significantly more fun, particularly if they got to roam the game worlds looking for tax cheats on Service time.[2]

More Complex Still: Between Game Transactions
My house of cards threatens to fall over when I try to support a more complex fact pattern. Suppose that Heidi primarily plays Kingdom of Loathing and I mostly dabble in World of Warcraft, but we each have a presence in both games. She owns the Talisman of Baio and I've crafted a very nice Elvish Sword. Bored with our respective hobbies, we each decide to switch worlds. What are the tax consequences if:

a) Heidi agrees to give my KoL character the Talisman if I give her the Sword?
b) Deciding to drop out of our primary games, I give her the passwords to my WoW character and vice-versa?

According to my analysis above, these would both be taxable events. Although we're playing in both games, the trade is outside the rules of either, and the trade isn't really a game event. Rather than trading in-game strategic advantage like a meat-for-Baio exchange, we've entered into a slightly contracted version of two item-for-money exchanges. Of course, we still have the same administrative nightmare for the taxman: given that I made the sword but Heidi found the Baio, what is our basis for the sale? Given that no real record is available, how will this transaction get audited? But there's nothing in my theory to provide us with a Shield of Tax Relief.

The alternative would be to say that any trade between any two MMORPGs does not constitute a taxable event, but my gut tells me that this is rife for abuse. Indeed, I can quickly see the outlines of a scheme or two for tax evasion, money laundering or other accounting gimmickery, especially if the value of the "currencies" in each realm are subject to considerable fluctuation. (Could one make a living speculating in online currencies, only being taxed on the last "real world" transaction?) Nevertheless, an elegant solution eludes me at the moment, so I think I'll leave any better definition for my readers in the comments.

(Note: The comments may block the word "poker." If you get error messages after referencing it in your comments, please just find a way around this, such as referring to it as P---- or whatever creative means you wish.)

[1]: Sadly, I'm not enough of a player to have anything taxable, and until I'm a lawyer I'm probably only able to request an answer on my behalf. I'd really appreciate it if a bigger KoL player would help me engineer such a transaction, for instance by buying my spooky staff for some insane amount.

[2]: An interesting question would be whether or not buying or selling things in a game that itself contemplated exchange to real dollars would constitute an accession to wealth. Assume, for instance, that Everquest charges $15/month access, but will allow you to trade a certain amount of gold earned in game for free months of service. (That's actually a suicidal business model, of course.) Assuming I'm right, would it be possible to create trades that would constitute realization events once someone had sold enough items to get a free month?

[3]: I've always wondered if tax auditors compete for the most interesting or unique audits. After any number of relatively similar small businesses, would someone really relish trying to find the Everquest tax cheat, or for that matter investigating Nevada brothels or felony rings?

Posted by Anthony at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Apart from their entertainment function, blogs serve as gatekeepers for busy readers. For instance, one can keep on top of legal events and appellate litigation (and the most interesting commentary) by browsing through the appropriate websites. And if you want to know what's going on in the "boggier corners of the fever-swamp Left," you can do a lot worse than to click over to Prof. Leiter. Anyone remember the Great Draft of 2005, brough to you by the strange alliance of King George III and his faithful sidekick, Charlie Rangel? It's a whole new world!

There's nothing so mind-broadening as travel to such alternate realities. Don't get me wrong: I make it a point to cultivate my own particular pocket dimensions. For instance, I recently explained to my girlfriend that I live in a world in which Hilary Duff does not exist. For some reason (probably songs like "Come Clean") I find her brand of lyrical candyfloss particularly insubstantial. I'll admit that it takes an extreme act of will, but through extended effort I've managed to blank the slightest hint of her from my world. [1]

Nevertheless, Leiter's latest link to "sharp cultural analysis" in ZNet suggests that I'm living in a sub-optimal fantasyland. True, the fine art of denial leads to a life of quiet contentment, but ZNet has me convinced that the world of the paranoid is more fun. To show what I mean, let's examine "The People Are Unfit to Rule: The Ideological Meaning of Maury Povich and Jerry Springer" in the spirit it deserves. The lead paragraph itself is a classic of the genre:

One morning last Fall I witnessed a mass-cultural war crime in the comfort of my own living room: The Maury Povich Show.

The article first goes through a rather predictable rant on the evils of trash TV in a manner unlikely to generate much disagreement from Focus on the Family or Pat Robertson. It starts by arguing that Maury Povich, Jerry Springer or Jenny Jones, as well as TV Judges like the infamous Judge Judy, prey upon the uneducated, the powerless, and the just plain freakish in order to fill the gutter demands of popular entertainment. Particularly vile to the author's eyes (and, for that matter, to mine) is Maury's habit of performing a paternity test for his guests to prove whether a child is actually the blood of his father.

ZNet describes such horrors in the first dozen or so paragraphs without breaking much new ground. Then the full fevers of the class-obsessed left kick in, and the entertainment truly starts:

What’s going on here? Beyond their profitable (for broadcasters) appeal to the public’s most base and voyeuristic instincts, these and other “real—life” television shows play a neglected ideological role in the corporate-crafted “popular culture” of parasitic late capitalism. They are part of an elitist thought control project: the cultural engineering and enforcement of mass consent to social hierarchy.

Supposedly, such thought control has two diabolical ends.

The first such idea maintains that poor people –--- it is practically always working- and lower-class people who get held up for ridicule in the human cockfights staged by Maury, Jerry, and the rest –--- deserve their own poverty and related isolation and criminalization in America. A college student who has been mass culturally weaned on Jerry (Springer), Jenny (Jones), Sally (Jesse-Raphael), Judy (the judge), and Maury et al. is not a good candidate to follow his left-liberal sociology, history, or English professor’s discourse on the role that structural forces and elite agents of class, race, and/or gender oppression play in creating mass inequality and misery in the United States.

Of course, Maury and Jerry don’t do shows about the rampant social injustice that produces the people who show up on their stages. Judges Judy and Joe Brown and the authorities on Divorce Court don’t adjudicate on the political-economic abandonment of the inner city or the corporate globalization that destroys jobs, families, and communities.

Not satisfied with merely planting seeds of Social Darwinist thought in the minds of the proletariat, the Hidden Masters have another agenda item:

The second richly authoritarian idea “taught” by Maury and Jerry et al. holds that the ordinary populace is too stupid, vile, savage, selfish, atavistic, and ignorant to be trusted with the possession of any particular power in “democratic” America.

. . . .

The mass populace that appears on Maury and Jerry (both on stage and in the audience) is more than merely unfit to rule. It is a modern-day embodiment of the wretched, unruly, and childish “mob” – the dangerous and all-too “masterless” and “many-headed monster” – that aristocrats have always claimed to see when they describe the common people. It is proof of the classic authoritarian and self-interested ruling-class idea that the ordinary citizenry is unqualified for freedom and must always be checked, coerced, and manipulated from above. It is evidence for the venerable bourgeois thesis that “human nature” is essentially nasty, violent, disagreeable, and brutish. Especially at the bottom of the supposedly merit-based socioeconomic pyramid, this thesis maintains, civilization’s majority is composed of ignorant and boorish louts. That thankless rabble must be controlled for their own good and the good of society by benevolent, far-seeing masters, who are supposedly less tainted with humanity’s inherent inner savagery.

Now, in my world this lesson doesn't make much sense. Sure, we show the freakish private lives of the poorest of our society through Jerry Springer. We also show the freakish lives of the wealthiest of our society. The paternity revelations of Maury Povich are crass, but they don't differ much in kind from the latest romantic tribulations of Brad/Jennifer/Angelina or the "let's film ourselves having sex in green" antics of Paris Hilton. In the former case, the spectacle has interest because the observed other is generally poorer than the audience; in the latter, because the other moves in a world of relative luxury but universalist tribulation. Springer guests show up without much to lose; celebrities appear in tabloids because they mostly gain from getting even a scandal-soaked name in public.

ZNet suggests that if the middle class doesn't get much attention in this circus it's all part of the Master Plan. That delusion never occurred to me. As a grubby capitalist myself, I'd expect that Divorce Court or Judge Judy would jump at middle-class or wealthy victims willing to make fools of themselves, and fools are not a scarce commodity even among those who escape the collateral damage of the class war. Sadly for the producers, however, middle-class misfits have no reason to subject themselves to televised abuse. I would have thought that's why they're largely absent or fictionalized in shows like Dangerous Housewives.

As delusions go, "The People are Unfit to Rule" beats denial all to hell. I mean, just think: I've been avoiding watching daytime TV for years as something really not worth my notice, something lacking in intellectual substance, like professional wrestling or Senate hearings on Supreme Court nominees. [3] Little did I know that they were the craven tools of an elite classist conspiracy, and that thus there was tons to learn from Mr. Povich and company.

[1]: I have yet to achieve true pop-culture nirvana: the ability to mentally block from my consciousness the Pussycat Dolls, Shania Twain, or . . . well, Nirvana.

[2]: My regular readers will realize the attraction of this worldview for me. Any elistist though control project will need an Elitist Thought Control Project Manager. If someone knows where I can apply, please tell me. References provided upon request.

[3]: I'm sure some commentor will get bent out of shape by my glancing comment on the Alito hearings, but they remind me in passing of a quotation that a former classmate put in his Administrative Law outline:

"Notice-and-comment rulemaking is to public participation as Japanese Kabuki theater is to human passions—a highly stylized process for displaying in a formal way the essence of something which in real life takes place in other venues." E. Donald Elliott, Re-Inventing Rulemaking, 41 DUKE L.J. 1490, 1492 (1992).

Posted by Anthony at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

While there's many things I love about law school, I sort of wish it featured more light-hearted inanity like this.

Actually, that's a thought. What might happen at MIT Law School?

Posted by Anthony at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some complain about the high cost of law school. I want to be an attorney, but it's true that for the price of tuition and the opportunity cost of lost wages there are a lot of other lucrative opportunities. For instance, for less than the price of many top law schools, you can now buy an entire porn company on eBay.

(Link via the Register, always a cool source of useless news)

Posted by Anthony at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"Have you noticed that all of these posters of John Ashcroft have a very Big Brotherish feel to them?"

So said my girlfriend as she dropped by with cookies this evening. (Either she wants them out of her room so she won't eat them, or she's fattening me up for a winter stew. I'm not inclined to inquire too deeply.) I'd not noticed these posters, as I'd had a rather long day of trying to catch up with tax reading I should have finished in September. But as I was due for a break, I dropped the textbook and went out to the elevator to take a look. Sure enough, staring back at me from the elevator wall was a bilious green photostat of John Ashcroft. My first thought was actually, "Wow... he looks like he's been arrested, and that's a bad photocopy of a mug shot." It had that half-grin, half-grimace begging to say, "Do I get my phone call now?"

Nevertheless, it didn't take long for me to figure out where my girlfriend was getting the 1984 vibe. The poster wasn't just in the elevator. Apparently members of the Conservative Club, the Federalist Society, and Columbia Republicans had exuberantly plastered poor Ashcroft's mug throughout dormitory lobbies, all over the student unions, and even on a couple of bus stops . [1] The posters were almost universally hung at head-height, and at times it seemed like everywhere you turned, John Ashcroft was watching you. One could be forgiven for imagining a sign like this:

There's something very dispiriting about such associations. Given that a minority of Columbia students are inclined to look favorably upon the man who threw a drape over the bare bosom of Justice, a careful marketing of Ashcroft's appearance should be the order of the day. For instance, what is he speaking about? I'm assuming he's not going to show up and assert his patriotic zeal, and indeed I was unaware it had been called into question. (A quick Google search suggests I'm wrong about this, and indeed possibly a bit naive.) I presume that "American PATRIOT," given its non-standard capitalization, refers to his involvement with the PATRIOT Act. Nevertheless, perhaps this could be made clearer to those who aren't political junkies?

But those are questions of substance, and I am more disturbed by the lack of style. Certainly college conservatives can advertise their ideals without having to either evoke fusty dead white men or the kind of propaganda used by the villains in Orwellian dystopias. I know that the "kinder, gentler conservatism" of Bush the Elder and the "compassionate" variety of his son are out of fashion, but does that mean we must adopt pea-soup green and disconsolate expressions as our style of the day?

It seems a bad sign when one's advertisements are perilously close to what one's adversaries would use for parody.

[1]: This being Columbia, it goes without saying that between discovering these posters and going back to photograph them, two events separated by less than an hour, one of the posters had already been torn down.

(The last link to Students for an Orwellian Society added 11/10, as I'd forgotten to do it this morning.)

Posted by Anthony at 01:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

With the value of this blog, I might be able to pay my expenses for one year of law school:

The calculation behind this relies on values derived from the AOL/Weblogs.com deal. I'm not really holding my breath. (Link via Volokh.)

UPDATE: Hmm. It appears that there are people taking this calculator with what might appear to be seriousness. I was pretty certain it was meant to mock the AOL/Weblogs.com deal, but looking at the rest of the site on which the calculator appears, I'm no longer so sure.

Prof. Ribstein explains exactly why the number above is bunk, and what conclusions can be drawn from it. I would have thought it was obvious but for the sake of clarity, I suppose I should be explicit in stating that you'd have to be insane to pay me $40K for this. I don't think I could ethically take your money.

Posted by Anthony at 04:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Somewhere in this link there is a blog post struggling to get out.

Since I can't come up with it right now, I give you the link in this chrysalis of a post.

Posted by Anthony at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"I have a cunning plan." Is there any better phrase in the English language? [1] And those words popped into my mind immediately when the following email popped into my inbox today:

ACS is having a *PARTY.* [2] There will be an *OPEN BAR* (beer and wine) and appetizers.

The party is for individuals who JOIN (or have joined) the National Chapter of ACS. ACS will have signup sheets at the event. Student dues are $10.

Sure, the event doesn't last that long, the drinks will likely never have been within sight of the top shelf, and the venue will probably give a reasonable discount. Such is the way of the open bar. Nevertheless, given the price of alcohol at most venues in New York City, it shouldn't be difficult for a dedicated drinker to make his way through ten dollars of even discounted booze. Why, if we got all the legal conservatives in New York City together, and we all signed up to join the ACS, and we paid absolutely no attention to the health of our livers, in one short hour we could drink the institution into a beer-sodden bankruptcy!

Sadly, it's the kind of idea whose appeal doesn't last for long if one is sober. To point out the very smallest of its flaws: if any one of the would-be raiders were ever to be appointed to high office, folks like those presently fuming about the Miers confirmation would waste no time in claiming that our principles were compromised. After all, we would have shunned the Federalist Society and joined the ACS. . . .

[1]: I am referring, of course, to Baldrick, sidekick to Edmund Blackadder in the eponymous series of BBC comedies. Baldrick's cunning plans are never very cunning, and quite often do not even rise to the level of a plan. Wikipedia gives this example: "[E]scaping the guillotine by waiting until your head has been cut off, then 'springing into action' and running 'around and around the farmyard, and out the farmyard gate', in the style of a chicken." Such plans are amusing, utterly ridiculous, and doomed to certain failure. The suggestion above should be read in that light.

[2]: In the interests of full disclosure, I've removed the time, place, and location from the email, since the Columbia ACS Blog hasn't published them, but added the link to their blog. I've also made some slight formatting changes and omissions of other events. I don't know why I bother pointing this out, other than the fact that some of my readers may have obsessive interest in the nature of law school student society emails.

Posted by Anthony at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Via Volokh, we learn that a marching band in Virginia has pulled "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" from its lineup: if you can't play "Amazing Grace," why should you be able to talk about the devil? Prof. Volokh lays this to rest: "For those curious about whether playing The Devil Went Down to Georgia would be an Establishment Clause violation, the answer is no. . . ."

As well it shouldn't. After all, while God is such a divider that the two-word presence of his name is enough to send some atheists running to the courthouse, the Devil is a non-denominational uniter of people, creeds, and even musical tastes. Consider:

• If you're a country music fan: There's the original Charlie Daniels version.
  
• If you don't want those pesky lyrics in the way: There's the kinder, gentler, and instrumental The Devil Went Down To Berkeley. [Ed.- There's rumors he stayed.]
  
• If you're part of the hip-hop generation: Then the Devil faces the Butcher when the Devil Came Up to Michigan.
  
• If you're a punk: Well, just for you, The Devil Went Down to Scunthorpe.
  
• If you're looking for something a little more electronic: How about The Devil Went Down to Ibiza (by A3 of Supranos theme music fame).

No way you'll get Old Nick on an Establishment Charge rap: he's about as broad-minded as you can get.

Posted by Anthony at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Have P. J. O'Rourke write for it. Since many of my readers are his fans, I hope you check out the link, in which he takes a well-deserved chainsaw to the ridiculous musings of reviews a book by an author from the Village Voice.

Posted by Anthony at 09:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Howard Dean on MSNBC's "Hardball":

In one eyebrow-raising moment, Dean invoked a crude phrase usually reserved for the locker room when urging Bush to make public Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers's White House records. "I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called," he said.

Ahem.

Posted by Anthony at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Some former RPG-playing legal types should find this Order of the Stick piece funny. Others will just realize why there were no lawyers in The Lord of the Rings.

Posted by Anthony at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Someone has sent me a suggestion for something to end three years of hell...

I love my friends.

Posted by Anthony at 01:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Don Adams, TV's Agent Maxwell Smart, dies at 82.

Professor Bainbridge gives the shortest and most appropriate eulogy. I'd like to add that not many comedians make their mark on the law of professional responsibility.

Posted by Anthony at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It might keep in perspective the benefit of working in an "Anglo-Saxon" jurisdiction.

Given the obvious implication, I bet Prof. Bainbridge would love it too.

Posted by Anthony at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

"Oh my god, it's full of frappucinos!"

Posted by Anthony at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I only rarely read The Mudville Gazette, but occasionally it gives me a great grin:

Also for the record, before I myself experienced hours of sensitivity training required to be a career military man person, I would have had a two word desription for this. Now I simply refer to it as a "cluster".

Posted by Anthony at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The ever-more-famous blawger Jeremy Blachman (of Anonymous Lawyer fame) today has an op-ed in the New York Times. It's certainly cool that he's managed it, but like many NYT op-eds, I think he's getting worried over nothing much.

Will Baude has already explained why adopting Jeremy's position (a law protecting bloggers) is unlikely to be good for them in the first place. But in any event, my experience suggests that the risks worrying Jeremy are overstated.

His op-ed focuses on the case of Nadine Haobsh, who has been fired from two magazine for keeping a blog. (Ladies Home Journal and Seventeen, for those wanting to boycott, write angry letters, etc. I'm half-tempted: I mean, I don't feel that strongly, but who ever thought I'd get to boycott Seventeen? [1]) It seems that Ms. Haobsh wasn't perhaps the most discreet person in the world to be blogging. An example of her work:

My boss (and sometimes even I, only a mid-level editor) regularly gets Marc Jacobs wallets and coats, plane ticket vouchers, iPods, overnight stays at the Mandarin Oriental, year-long gym memberships, and—of course—all the free highlights and haircuts your poor dyed, straightened and styled hair can stand. It's almost embarassing.

Of course, the entry pay is crap. When my par