JOHN B. LARSON, DEMOCRAT OF CONNECTICUT WANTS LATE-PRIMARY VOTERS SILENCED BEFORE DEM CONVENTION

"I don't think anybody I have talked to, whether they are a Hillary supporter, agnostic or an Obama supporter, wants to see this go to the convention, given the opportunity we have to capture the White House," said Representative John B. Larson, Democrat of Connecticut, Obama backer and member of the House leadership.

Well, you haven't talked to us. We believe that unless and until a Democratic candidate has enough pedged delegates to cinch the nomination every last primary vote should be counted.

That includes Guam, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and West Virginia, setting aside for the moment the OTHER voters that the DNC has disenfranchised (i.e. those living in Florida and Michigan).

--Blogonaut

OBAMA HAD EARLY SIGNS THAT SAMANTHA POWER SPEAKS HER MIND

There were early signs—to those paying attention—that Samantha Power, while bright, has the habit of speaking the unvarnished (very unvarnished) truth. So much so that a future in any presidential campaign, let alone White House cabinet, might have been a tad iffy.

This Washington Monthly article, published back in April, 2007—wherein Power describes her first "inauspicious" meeting with candidate Obama kind of sums it all up:

"'His body language was not good," says Power. "He had no desire to be there at all. It was, 'Who the fuck is this person, this lily-livered Harvard softy, and tell me why I am meeting with her again?'" Still, Obama warmed up--it was supposed to be a forty-five-minute chat, but they
ended up talking for three hours. "We sat down, and we started dinner. I was on my best behavior: I didn't, like, order my trademark Jack Daniels. And then we just started talking. It was vintage Obama: question after question after question, starting with, 'Who are you? I don't get it. Bosnia? Whaaa? That's weird.' It ended up being a very personal discussion, oddly enough, but everything led to policy. That's the way he comes to policy: What's your story, and why do you tick the way you do? ... He's what everybody says he is." Before long, Power says, she had "drunk the Kool-Aid" on Obama. "At the end of the
dinner, we're walking out, and I said, 'I'd love to help you in any way I can.' He said, 'That'd be great, maybe we could do some big think on a smart, tough, and humane foreign policy.' I heard myself saying, 'Why don't I take a year off?'"

Woa—"Who the fuck is this person…"? 'Who are you? I don't get it. Bosnia? Whaaa? That's weird."

Can anyone—including Barack Obama—be surprised that Ms. Power simply told the truth to the BBC news that the candidate never intended to follow his promised 16-month plan to withdraw troops from Iraq—which Powers described as a "best case scenario"?

OOPS: NY GOV SPITZER IS LINKED TO PROSTITUTION RING

[New York Times, via Above the Law]

The New York Times is reporting that Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring.

The Times says Spitzer, who was huddled with his top aides inside his Fifth Avenue apartment early this afternoon, had hours earlier abruptly canceled his scheduled public events for the day. He scheduled an announcement for 2:15 after inquiries from the Times.

Spitzer is married with three children.

Just last week, federal prosecutors arrested four people in connection with an expensive prostitution operation. Administration officials would not say that this was the ring with which the governor had become involved, the Times reports.

The Times, citing an unnamed person "with knowledge of the governor's role" reports that the person believes the governor is one of the men identified as clients in court papers.

SOME MISSISSIPPI BLACKS SUPPORTING CLINTON

[Jackson Mississippi Clarion Ledger]

Political experts don't expect her to win here.

But Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination resonates with Kermit Dilworth Jr., 58, a retired appliance salesman from Columbus who will skip the chance to vote for Sen. Barack Obama.

"There is no way that someone with little experience, regardless of color, can bring this country together," said Dilworth, who, like Obama, is African American.

Clinton is touting her years as a U.S. senator and former first lady while campaigning in Mississippi, where voters head to the polls Tuesday for primaries.

But political experts said they expect residents here to vote for Obama, mostly because he resonates with African Americans who comprise the majority of the Democratic electorate.

OBAMA IN SENATE: STAR POWER, MINOR ROLE

[New York Times]

"They were the two competing elements in Mr. Obama's time in the Senate: his megawatt celebrity and the realities of the job he was
elected to do.

"He went to the Senate intent on learning the ways of the institution, telling reporters he would be "looking for the washroom and trying to figure out how the phones work." But frustrated by his lack of influence and what he called the "glacial pace," he soon opted to exploit his star power. He was running for president even as he was still getting lost in the Capitol's corridors."

Read the entire New York Times story here.

Macworld | Mac Gems | ScreenFlow 1.0.2

ScreenFlow captures on-screen audio and video, and presents it in an onscreen editor that will remind you of Final Cut or iMovie HD.

Saved By: rickla | View Details | Give Thanks

Tags: screencasts, screen capture, tutorials

Hi-Def, Time Lapse San Francisco

Watch entire days speed by in San Francisco, including the fog, the boats and the tide. Based on images captured from a high-def camera in nearby Sausalito, courtesy of CloudView LLC.

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Tags: hidef, timelapse, sanfrancisco

Can a lawyer provide quality legal services without reading niche blogs?

Reading Houston attorney and veteran blogger Tom Kirkendall's post on the evolution of blogging I was struck by his acknowledgment of just how important law blogs have become to practicing lawyers.

As I mentioned in a presentation that I gave on blogs last year at the State Bar of Texas Bankruptcy Seminar, if a lawyer today is not at least periodically reading the specialized blawgs that are addressing the key issues, developments and ideas that are related to the matters on which he or she is providing service to clients, then that lawyer almost certainly is not providing the best quality of service to the clients that is currently available in the marketplace of legal services.

Raises the legitimate question whether lawyers not reading blogs focused in their areas of practice are doing what they can to stay up to speed. If I were still practicing, I would be subscribe to key blogs as well as getting RSS feeds by keyword and key phrases from Google Blog Search and Google News. And there's no question doing the same would make me a better lawyer.

Sure, blogs are secondary sources and not precedent like code, regulations, and case law. But they are so darn easy to follow via a RSS newsreader. Takes minimal time. Why not get other thought leader's summaries of and insight on legal precedent and legal news?

I'm in agreement with Tom that a lawyer not following specialized blogs addressing key issues, developments and ideas related to matters on which he or she is providing service to clients is not providing the best quality of legal service.

What do you think?

Return to India [The Scientific Indian]

Writer Shoba Narayan was born in India and came to the U.S. as a student. She settled down in the U.S., became a citizen, wrote for publications such as Time, Newsweek, Gourmet, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and authored a book, while her husband Ram had a successful career on Wall Street. After 20 years in the U.S., the family moved back to India in 2005. This is their story.

A honest account of every immigrant's dream. It is an illuminating read. I was mildly surprised when I read that she took her daughter to a Temple although she herself is an agnostic.

I wasn't surprised that motherhood changed me. After all, I, an avowed agnostic, had suddenly started taking my child to the Hindu temple in Flushing, Queens, so she could be exposed to her faith.

This had me thinking. For most Indians Indian culture is woven around places of worship. I wondered what I would do to teach Indian culture to my daughter Nidhi Nova. I would certainly take her to places of worship as a cultural and historical tour. I would tell her that people come here to assuage their fears, to express their wonder, to ask for divine intervention in their lives, to feel connected to their heritage. I would tell her that they come here for those reasons because they have not yet discovered science. They are yet to hear the exhilarating and humbling truth of our existence.

For someone who lives by rational thought and science, home is all the world, because science is the true common heritage of the modern world. Science may have just a few hundred years of history compared to Vedas, Bible or Koran. But it has brought together and has connected people all over the world like no other shared enterprise in all the history of humankind.

Some day, I may return to India. But, it will not be for the temples, it will not be because my children may miss out on a culture that soaks up on faith and ignorance. It will be for a society that looks forward to the future, it will be for the company of minds that can see the past for what it is and move on to better things. It will be for a culture that shines in the light of science. And, no, we will not wait for that to happen. We will make it happen.

Read the comments on this post...

Universities: key opponent to S.1145IPBiz

PatentHawk quotes a source:

One interesting aspect is the significant role that the universities have played because of their tech-transfer offices. The tech transfer guy at University of Nevada-Reno has had Reid staffers visit his office three times to see if they can't satisfy him. (No luck so far.) The president of the University of Kentucky has 5 patents himself and strongly believes the bill should be killed. Senator McConnell (minority leader) can't get his mind changed. Senator Hatch has had at least three meetings with two or three of the state's largest universities to discuss the bill, but can't win them over.

Although the IT vs. pharma divergence has been stressed in the debate on patent reform, another key loser if S.1145 is passed is academe, and universities have been making themselves heard. Further, unlike pharma (which is not uniformly distributed in the US; New Jersey being a "center"), universities are everywhere. The Coalition for Patent Fairness, which had been running an exemplary lobbying effort, really stubbed its toe on the academic front.

IPBiz wonders if the university tech transfer offices and university presidents will wake up one day and realize that law school academics such as Lemley are greatly responsible for the problem they currently have? An irony.

See also

Lex Luther challenges Howard Berman on patent reform, HR 1908


http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/05/exploring-big-guylittle-guy-dimension.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/02/patent-reform-leahyhatch-credibility-on.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/10/princeton-fog.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/12/barack-obama-should-listen-to-inventors.html

Things to do in Denver when you’re DUMBThe Legal Satyricon

Andrew Feinstein is a frustrated Denver Nuggets fan. Sick of what he perceived as mismanagement of the basketball team by Nuggets coach George Karl, Feinstein launched www.firegeorgekarl.com.

George Karl seemed to take it all in stride. When asked about the blog by the Rocky Mountain News, he said:

"The longer you're with a team, the more people like you and the more people dislike you," Karl said. "I don't think it's valuable to pay attention to that, to de-energize me and waste my energy right now." (source)

This sounds like a public figure with class, no?

A funny thing happened though…

Around the same time, Feinstein got this email from George Karl's attorney, Bret Adams.

Is your life really this boring and meaningless that you would spend the hours necessary to create such a website?

As Coach Karl's counsel I am putting you on notice that I will sue you into bankruptcy should you cross the boundaries of permissible speech. (source)

No, really. Click the thumbnail image on the right:

Deadspin had a funny reaction to this:

Oooh! Big scary lawyer man!

From all accounts, this appears to be an actual email from an actual attorney, which is kind of depressing, actually.

This is the best possible way to make a story go away. Good work, Bret Adams! If Karl is ultimately let go by the Nuggets, you've just assured that Fire George Karl will be mentioned in the obituary. Now that's lawyerin'! (source)

Now honestly, I thought this was a hoax. I might expect this kind of thing from a Liberty University or Regent Law grad, or perhaps from someone who was out of law school for less than a year. But this guy?

So I did some more investigation. It looks like the Wall Street Journal Law Blog confirmed that the email did, indeed, come from Karl's attorney. Source.

In reply to an inquiry sent by the WSJLB, Adams wrote:

Thanks for your email. While George Karl may be a public figure within the sports community, there are limits to what is fair comment under New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). Many cases quote from the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 59 that a statement is defamatory if it "tends to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in the estimation of the community or deter third persons from associating or dealing with him." Sure, people are free to criticize Mr. Karl's record, his coaching style, or both. But free speech has its limits. My role as Mr. Karl's counsel is to see to it that the line between free speech and defamation is not crossed. I stand by my statement that people should have better and more important things to do than to create mean-spirited blogs and that, while I respect (and exercise) free speech rights, there are boundaries and consequences. (Source)

How is this for a consequence? Mr. Adams, you just revealed yourself as an attorney who has been practicing law since 1984, yet still has not learned the "actual malice" standard and who hasn't heard of the Streisand Effect.

Nice job. Now, because of this abjectly foolishemail, a blog that was seen by a few thousand people is now world famous and you are now exposed as having absolutely no clue how to protect your client's reputation. Your client was doing just fine before you got involved.

One commenter on the WSJ Blog should be hired by Mr. Adams' firm to give him a little training:

Ethical issues aside, a good attorney would not have created the huge risk of negative publicity attendant to making a written(!) threat of this nature. This ridiculous email, which was obviously going to end up posted to the blog, is liable to become a minor media sensation during a particularly slow time during the sports year. (Sportscenter, anyone?) So instead of a minor nuisance of a website created by someone who is(it cannot be denied) an avid fan, the coach now has a potential PR disaster on his hands. Which is more likely to harm the coach's career?

An effective attorney would have handled the issue politely and quietly. Better yet, he would have advised his client that such websites are common and should just be ignored…this lawyer has seriously compromised his client's interests. (source)

Precisely.

When DJ and infringement suits both filed, transfer factors determine appropriate forumFilewrapper®

In a decision Friday, the Federal Circuit decided a case addressing the requirements for a declaratory judgment action post-MedImmune.  The court reversed and remanded a district court's decision that there was no declaratory judgment jurisdiction applying the pre-MedImmune reasonable apprehension of suit standard rejected by the Supreme Court.

The Federal Circuit applied the MedImmune requirement for a showing of "whether the facts alleged under all the circumstances show that there is a substantial controversy between parties having adverse legal interest of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment."  The Federal Circuit clarified further in stating that "all of the circumstances" most show a controversy.  Here, there was no difficulty in finding a substantial controversy between the parties, as one day after the declaratory judgment suit was filed, a corresponding infringement suit was filed in another district court.  

In perhaps the most interesting aspect of the decision, the court noted that when both a declaratory judgment case and an infringement case have been filed, there really is no question as to whether the requirements for jurisdiction are met.  Instead, the question is really one of whether the court where the declaratory judgment action is pending should exercise its discretion to hear the case, as the real issue is where the case will be litigated.  Because of this, the Federal Circuit held that the relevant factors for a court to consider are the "convenience factors" considered in the context of transfer under § 1404(a).  Here, these factors weighed in favor of the suit proceeding in the declaratory judgment forum, so it was an abuse of discretion by the district court to decline to hear the case.

More detail of Micron Tech. Inc. v. Mosaid Techs., Inc. after the jump.

[More]

Spot the differenceIMPACT®

One's an Apple iPhone, one is a prototype phone from a company called Meizu.

According to a report on Tom's Hardware Blog, at the CeBit trade show German police confiscated these Meizu phones and marketing materials, and are due to announce similar action against other new devices that bare an uncanny resemblance to Apple's product. Whilst Tom's blog calls the Meizu phone "blatant product piracy", whilst Engadget is more reserved, calling the iPhone Meizu's "muse".

We await news of what legal action Apple will be taking against Meizu and others.

Acknowledgement: image from Engadget