How gay is gay enough?

In a bizarre development, 3 athletes ruled insufficiently gay are suing to have the determination overturned, as well as reinstatement of their standing and money damages.

At one point during the proceedings, the lawsuit alleges, one of the plaintiffs was told: "This is the Gay World Series, not the Bisexual World Series."

Quote of the day

"As for the calls to treat the would-be bomber as an enemy combatant, torture him and toss him into Guantanamo, God knows he deserves it. But keep in mind that the crucial intelligence we received was from the boy's father. If that father had believed that the United States was a rogue superpower that would torture and abuse his child without any sense of decency, would he have turned him in? To keep this country safe, we need many more fathers, uncles, friends and colleagues to have enough trust in America that they, too, would turn in the terrorist next door."

-- Fareed Zakaria, via MR

A Christmas Carol on the Defense

Finally somebody thinks to defend poor Scrooge.

HT Volokh Conspiracy

Stupid criminal tricks....

The oddest part about this story of the burglar who logged into his Facebook account from his victim's computer and left himself logged on is that there is some controversy about whether the victim violated the burglar's privacy by checking his own computer.

This could have been from The Onion....

....but it is from the Volokh Conspiracy, a respected law blog.

The headline says it all.

Founder of Jedi Religion Claims to be Victim of Religious Discrimination

(for those lacking all nerd cred, Jedi is the religion featured in Star Wars, now the fourth most common religion in the UK, if you believe their census - and they just might be taking the mickey)

Would McCartney approve?

OK, the last copyright post was serious.

This one is just funny.

Here's a topic on which I DEFINITELY agree with Paul McCartney

There have been proposals in various countries (and I believe a successful one in Australia) to cut off people's internet access if there is even an (or at least several) accusation that they have been downloading illegally. No conviction, no trial, enough to just say so. Various artists, including McCartney, are speaking out against these efforts by the record companies.

This is sad....

It looks like a man might have been executed for a crime that never really was....

A record NOT to break....

OK, Guinness Book of World Record made a completely understandable faux pas... and then compounded it by doing what seemed like trying to sweep it under the rug with bullying.

To be honest, I wouldn't be very surprised if it was just an ordinary trademark defense without consideration of content, but it still looks embarrassing.

For those of you who don't click through, they had a "break this record" link - understandable in most categories, but not a good idea in most deaths caused by an act of terrorism.

HT Overlawyered

Wonder dog from hell....

Apparently, the dog in this Balko post got several people imprisoned for over a decade because juries are gullible. A scary thought.

Intellectual Property laws abused to absurdity...

Rent seeking often brings out the sleaze, but this one takes the cake.

The Author's Guild is protesting that the new Kindle 2's ability to provide audio output of books is infringing on their copyrights by "performing" the work, thus interfering with the true audio book market. If audio books really didn't sound any better than a text-to-speech program output they simply don't deserve to exist!

Quote of the day

"I suppose counsel have a penumbral constitutional right to regard each other as schmucks, but I know of no principle that justifies litigation pollution. … This case makes me lament the demise of dueling. I cannot order a duel, and thus achieve a salubrious reduction in the number of counsel to put up with."

- U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley

Kelo in retrospect....

The Kelo decision thoroughly established the principle that a municipality can force you to sell your home for only the flimsiest of excuses (i.e., that the person they want to transfer it to is likely to stimulate the local economy in some nebulous way).

The principle is somewhat at odds with the facts, though.... in reality, for all the money they spent on legal fees, the town achieved only a huge vacant lot and a lot of outrage.

I don't know where Susette Kelo currently lives.