Friday, April 28, 2006
Busy, busy, busy
Did I say this before? If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Racism within the ABA
For those that don’t know, the ABA-The American Bar Association, accredits the law schools in the United States. To even take the bar exam in all states that I know of, one must be a graduate from an ABA accredited school. The import of that is, a school must not lose its accreditation or its out of business.
There has been much discussion within the legal community about a proposed ABA rule. The proposed rule is Standard 211. It relates to admissions and faculty hiring policies.
At issue is the dismal success rate of African-Americans in law school and the very high bar exam failure rates. One can argue forever about why that is. The rule does nothing to address the failure rate for black law school students or lower bar exam scores for admission. So, most of the those admitted under the standard will have an even lower completion rate and a lower bar pass rate. You can bet there won’t be reduced tution costs though. The end result of lowering the admissions standards based on race slaps the black community with lots of debt for the cost of schooling those not previously admitted, without a corresponding benefit in the number of black attorneys within the community. One can agree or disagree with this proposed outcome, but if anything the debate should be decided by the people of the state where the law school is located and involve the state bar association. The ABA thinks otherwise.
Part (a) of 211 says that a law school must provide “full opportunities for the study of law and entry into the profession by members of underrepresented groups, particularly racial and ethnic minorities,” and the school must do everything it can to acheive “having a student body that is diverse with respect to gender, race and ethnicity.”
Part (b) says, “Consistent with sound educational policy and the Standards, a law school shall demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to having a faculty and staff that are diverse with respect to gender, race and ethnicity.”
Now that seems good enough on its face, until you start reading the interpretations for the rule, which have the same effect as the rule does. When you look at Interpretation 211-1 things start looking a bit askew. It says: “the requirements of a constitutional provision or statute that purports to prohibit consideration of gender, race, ethnicity or national origin in admissions or employment decisions is not a justification for a school’s non-compliance with Standard 211.”
HUH? Since when did the ABA have the ability to override constitutional provisions, federal or state, and statutes, federal or state? The answer is never. The prospect of the proposed passage of this rule led several conservative lawyers and lawyer’s organizations to write to the Department of Education requesting that the Department of Education take away the ABA’s accreditation abilities should it attempt to enforce 211.
Some left-leaning folks wrote defending the proposed rule. They are advocating that the ABA rules override state law. They tuck this in neatly into the letter. Watch how they do it:
Nothing in Standard 211 requires law schools to achieve a fixed number of under-represented students. The interpretative language of the Standards also makes clear the Council’s practice to look at the actions of individual law schools in their totality rather than in a rigid, inflexible manner. In any event, as in the case with federal statutes and executive orders, such provisions supersede state laws and constitutions. Particularly, when the accrediting body is overseen by the U.S. Department of Education by virtue of the recognition process, the matters involved in the establishment and imposition of accreditation standards take on the color of federal action.
Wasn’t that a neat trick they used? Nothing requires quotas, blah blah blah, but oh yeah, if we decide that the rule does require quotas then the rule has the same effect as a federal statute and overrides state law prohibiting quotas, which California enacted.
This is simply outrageous. The ABA has always been run by plaintiff’s attorneys, because there is more of them chasing ambulances. Nevertheless, one would not expect such arrogance even from a plaintiff’s counsel’s organization. I can’t believe that the ABA is attempting to circumvent state law enacted by the citizen’s of that state.
It is games like this that give the liberal a bad name.
Expatica: Czechs and Germans reach deal over WW2 dead
I had no idea that this kind of open issue existed after all these years.
The Czech Republic defence ministry and a German agency that oversees graves of war dead Thursday reached an agreement on burying some 4,000 soldiers.
The remains of the deceased Germans from World War II ... were gathered from sites around the Czech Republic several years ago, but a final burial project ran out of money.
Now, said ministry spokesman Jan Pejsek, the remains will be transported to a storehouse at a Czech military training area in the Brdy nature region southwest of Prague. ... By the end of the lease period in late 2008, Pejsek said, the remains should be buried in a cemetery for German soldiers in Marianske Lazne (Marienbad).
There are some comments I will keep to myself.
Expatica: Turkish man in Berlin jailed for ‘honour killing’ of sister
Same old, sadly.
A Turkish-born man who shot dead his older sister in a so-called honour-killing was convicted of murder and jailed for nine years and three months by a German court on Thursday.
In an attack that started a national debate in Germany, Hatun Surucu was gunned down on a Berlin street last February. A vivacious single mother aged 23, she had cut her ties with her Turkish family and abandoned an arranged marriage.
Whoever said that Islamic countries are stuck in medieval times has probably nailed it.
News reports like the above are found in the German press with some frequency. It’s not something that happens every day, but neither is it an unheard of scenario.
For what it’s worth, if justice is to be served, the taxpayer should foot the bill to have the perpetrators serve their sentence in a German penitentiary instead of sending the perps back to Turkey.
Speaking of addiction ...
Kevin Smith has written one of the most heartbreaking stories in his blog, about struggling with friend and co-star Jason Mewes’ long-term addictions.
Start here: http://silentbobspeaks.com/?m=20060328
Consi, I’d especially like to hear what you think of it.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
A Grill Ain’t For BBQ Anymore
Check this out: http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/LAW/04/07/gold.teeth.ap/story.grillz.gi.jpg
Didn’t Jaws have something like this in a couple of the James Bond movies? I’ve never seen one of these things. I’m not alone.
Government lawyers tried to remove and confiscate the gold dental work known as “grills” or “grillz” from the mouths of two men facing drug charges.
“I’ve been doing this for over 30 years and I have never heard of anything like this,” said Richard J. Troberman, a forfeiture specialist and past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/07/gold.teeth.ap/index.html
Seems a bit excessive, but those things look like they cost more than a tennis bracelet.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The Jews Are Infiltrating Christianity
According to Hamas officials:
United States churches are secretly run by Jews who converted to Christianity with the intention of controlling religious Americans including President Bush, a top Hamas member claims.
“Even the churches where the Americans pray are led by Jews who were converted to Christianity, but they were converted to keep controlling the Americans,” Mohammad Abu Tir, the number two Hamas terrorist in the newly formed Palestinian Authority government said during an exclusive interview from his home yesterday with top radio host Rusty Humphries and WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein.
The hard evidence for this pronouncement is a study:
“I made a study and I know very well that all this radicalism in some parts of the Christianity, (including) the Anglicans who are being led by Bush, is because of the control of Zionists,” said Abu Tir.
The Arabs have won the race. They have beaten us hands down. They are the biggest dumbasses to exist on the planet.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
classic moments in grading assignments
Length of time between distribution of assignment and due date: 4 weeks
Reason for not reporting results from output file in table form (as requested): I didn’t have enough time.
Why couldn’t the guy just say “I’m too frigging lazy”? That I could understand.
Germany ‘won’t shoot down’ 9/11-style planes
Another one from Expatica.
BERLIN - Germany’s defence minister said in remarks to be published Saturday he would only order the shooting down of an aircraft in a 9/11-style suicide attack if all the people on board were “terrorists.”
Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung’s statement comes after Germany’s highest court this year overturned a law allowing hijacked airliners to be shot down to prevent them being used as in the 2001 attacks on the United States.
Judges said Germany’s Basic Law did not allow the military to aid police in this manner and that passengers in plane being shot down would have their constitutionally guaranteed right-to-life violated.
I haven’t read the court’s ruling and even if I did, I would almost certainly miss some key points because I’m not familiar with the legal language used (here or there). Surely, there are thorny issues, but the court’s ruling strikes me as wrongheaded in the extreme. If hijackers target a highrise building, a nuclear power plant, or a major dam, what about the constitutionally guaranteed right-to-life of all of those victims? At some point, it is becoming obvious where a hijacked aircraft is headed and it is less of a hypothetical question is a cold-nosed risk assessment.
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