Question: What do you call it when the richest segment gets to determine all the rules, and they do so in a way that prevents members of the less rich from accessing the advantages available to the rich? A sham? A travesty? Un-American? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the BCS.
After Monday's barn-burning overtime takedown of Oklahoma [watch the legendary fourth-and-18 hook-and-lateral one more time], Boise State provides a slew of new reasons why a more egalitarian post-season schedule makes sense: (1) Obvious Cinderella possibilities. No matter how under-rated they may be at a certain point in time, a team from a "power" conference could never truly be a Cinderella. Who wouldn't want to watch Boise State get a chance to go toe-to-toe with Ohio State? (2) Gun-slinging play-calling. Even if Steve Spurrier would have run the hook-and-lateral on 4th and 18, he would have never called the (modified) Statue of Liberty when going for 2 with the game on the line. Outside of Spurrier's occasional chicanery, you just don't see that kind of stuff, ever, except by inspired teams with nothing to lose; (3) The chance to see a mid-major administer a crushing beatdown to Notre Dame. Enough ...
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05 Jan 07 · filed under: law & order, reviews · 
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Outside CIA headquarters, there's an installation called "Kryptos," a large metal sheet containing a series of characters that has perplexed puzzlers since it was unveiled 10 years ago. Today, the NYT reports that the artist mistakenly omitted a character.
22 Apr 06 · filed under: inside art, law & order, visual · (1) ·
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Meth is known by many names -- speed, ice, crank, crystal, glass -- and, by many accounts, it continues to spread throughout the US. Whenever a conversation turns to the subject of meth, someone inevitably identifies some American city as Our Meth Capital. Others in the conversation usually disagree -- "Des Moines? I thought Fresno was the meth capital," "No, it's Gainesville, Florida," "I thought it was somewhere outside Phoenix," and so on.
Judging from the cities that are thrown around in these conversations, the meth capital should be (a) poor, (b) white, (c) somewhat small, but not unheard of, and (d) known for heavy industry, agriculture, or tourism. Of course, the Internet has something to say about the location of our meth capital. Most seem to agree that it's in California, probably somewhere in the Central Valley now that the tweakers have been run out of Riverside and San Diego counties.
Nominations for our nation's meth capital include:
The LA Weekly, California's Central Valley: "What Colombia is to cocaine, the Central Valley of California is to meth labs."
Sierra Magazine, California, Arizona, Missouri: "California, Arizona, and Missouri vie for the dubious honor of meth capital of America ... ...
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16 Dec 05 · filed under: law & order · (0) ·
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For the last three days, I served on a jury in a civil trial in San Francisco Superior Court. It was a personal injury case stemming from an auto accident on the Bay Bridge in 2002. The plaintiff sought cash for physical and mental suffering, inconvenience, loss of enjoyment of life, and about six other things. I had some idea of how totally jacked California personal injury law is. After seeing the way that this case played out, I am shocked and depressed by it.
The facts. There was no question that the defendant (a round-ish kid from outside Sacramento) rear-ended the plaintiff (an Asian lady from El Cerrito). The question was: Was there enough evidence of actual harm to award some kind of money? The plaintiff's car was unharmed by the collision. She drove home immediately afterward. An expert witness argued that the collision could not have been more than a slight bump. In my opinion, the plaintiff offered no evidence to support her argument. She claimed various types of harm: 18 months of back problems, inability to have intimate relations with her husband (ouch), general family dissolution. But her tearful testimony was the only evidence of her suffering. There ...
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03 Nov 05 · filed under: law & order, san francisco · (0) ·
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Law nerds around the country are providing interesting commentary of the Roberts confirmation. SCOTUSblog provides a blow-by-blow account of the posturing and intermittent questioning of the senators alongside interesting legal commentary, but it's a blog, so you have to scroll down to the bottom and read upwards if you want to read chronologically.
Balkinization, a blog that includes many quite interesting essays by Yale Law professor Jack Balkin, has an interesting discussion about why Democrats should not confirm Roberts. Balkin recently published an interesting piece in Slate about originalists and the concept of a living constitution: "Alive and Kicking: Why no one truly believes in a dead Constitution."
If you're willing to sift through the details -- and each memeber of the Senate Judiciary Committee tends go into excessive detail before getting to his/her question -- the NYT has raw transcripts: Day 1, Day 2.
13 Sep 05 · filed under: law & order, tip · (0) ·
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So as it turns out, Bob Woodward met Deep Throat in a White House waiting room. Of all the juke joints in all the world! Woodward was a lieutenant in the Navy and often delivered documents to the White House. Felt was there on FBI business, undoubtedly looking out for the best interests of the nation.
Woodward's account is amazing. All these years, I thought Deep Throat was some kind of all-knowing genius. Turns out he was a petulant administrator who was bitter about being passed over at promotion time. One must ask: Why the *hell* did his family think that this was a good idea?
Woodward offers a glimpse at the kind of thing we'll probably read once Felt publishes his own account. Too bad the cloak-and-dagger "prearrangements" sound so corny:
Take the alley. Don't use your own car. Take a taxi to several blocks from a hotel where there are cabs after midnight, get dropped off and then walk to get a second cab to Rosslyn. Don't get dropped off directly at the parking garage. Walk the last several blocks. If you are being followed, don't go down to the garage. I'll understand if you don't show. All this ...
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02 Jun 05 · filed under: law & order, the ancient past · (0) ·
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