Something I told Brendan about from The Light of Reason. A good atheist’s perspective on a man inspired to write a “Christian Harry Potter.” The evil pagan witchcraft of Potter, like snot-flavored candy, stands against good Christian values, like mutilating your children.

Tom Tomorrow: “Okay, sure, they were right and I was wrong - - but they weren’t as SENSIBLE as me!”

A lovely little story about bloggers at the DNC.

Ex-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy says that we should not be adopting the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations willy-nilly:

(more…)

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is recovering from a successful surgery that removed a cancerous tumor from his pancreas.

I think I speak for Mac nerds everywhere when I wish him well and express my hopes for a speedy recovery.

The terrorists won’t win:

Financial institutions identified as targets of a terrorist plot in three cities opened for business Monday under stepped-up security and defiant words from people who said they won’t be cowed by the extraordinary intelligence pointing to a potential attack.

Damn straight!

Tropical Storm Alex strengthened substantially overnight, going from a poorly organized, minimal tropical storm to a well-defined, 60-mph storm that could become a hurricane later today or tomorrow.

The latest forecast track indicates Alex will skirt the North Carolina coast tomorrow, then head out to sea well south of New England.

I just logged onto the Irishlink student information system, intending only to check my Notre Dame account balance. But then I saw a link for “Fall Schedule” and figured, what the heck, I might as well click it. My understanding was that my schedule wouldn’t be available for another week or so, but what harm could it do to check? So I clicked the link, and lo and behold, my schedule is there! It looks a little something like this:

Monday
9:00am - 9:50am: Civil Procedure I
11:00am - 11:50am: Legal Writing I
1:00pm - 1:50pm: Torts
4:00pm - 4:50pm: Legal Research I

Tuesday
10:00am - 11:15am: Contracts I
1:00pm - 1:50pm: Torts
2:00pm - 3:15pm: Criminal Law

Wednesday
9:00am - 9:50am: Civil Procedure I
11:00am - 11:50am: Legal Writing I

Thursday
10:00am - 11:15am: Contracts I
1:00pm - 1:50pm: Torts
2:00pm - 3:15pm: Criminal Law

Friday
9:00am - 9:50am: Civil Procedure I
1:00pm - 1:50pm: Torts

First reaction: No 8am classes; Hallelujah! Second reaction: Mondays will be manic, then it’s all downhill for the rest of the week. Third reaction: My longest solid block of class time (and the only instance of consecutive classes) is from 1pm to 3:15pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays (Torts and CrimLaw). Fourth reaction: Wednesday’s not bad at all; I’m out of class before noon! Fifth reaction: Friday is also not bad. Woohoo!

As I understand it, this schedule is subject to change for load-balancing reasons, so I shouldn’t consider it final until I get my schedule at orientation. But assuming it stays this way, I now have a time, not just a date, to count down to… 9:00 AM EST, Monday, Aug. 23… if I can find a reliable, time-zone-specific countdown clock applet, expect to see something in the left-hand sidebar very soon… :)

UPDATE: A bit more research reveals who my professors will be, if the above schedule stays intact…

Torts: Alan Gunn
Contracts: M. Kaveny
CrimLaw: F. Dutile
CivPro: Jay Tidmarsh
Legal Research: Dwight King and/or Warren Rees*
Legal Writing: C. Venter or Stephanie Vetne*

*schedule is unclear

Now I just have to find the student-written “Irish Law Guide” and see what they say about each of those profs…

UPDATE UPDATE: Here we go…

Alan Gunn
Teaches: Torts, Federal Income Taxation, Taxation of Business Enterprises. J.D. from Cornell. Fan of Socratic method, has a very good but very dry sense of humor.

Cathleen Kaveny
Teaches: Contracts I & II, Ethics and Law at the End of Life, Mercy and Justice. J.D. from Yale. Her pep talks are terrific, and she has a tremendous bag of word pictures for contract concepts.
[Yeah, I know “Cathleen” doesn’t start with an “M,” but she’s the only Kaveny listed in the guide, and she does teach Contracts… -ed.]
[UPDATE: The Kaveny first-name mystery is explained here.]

Jay Tidmarsh
Teaches: Torts, Civil Procedure I & II, Federal Court Jurisdiction, Modern Tort Liability, Remedies, Complex Civil Litigation, Law Review. J.D. from Harvard. Well liked and funny, Professor Tidmarsh is perhaps most well remembered by first year students for his use of “props” and card tricks to demonstrate the facts of cases read by his class.

Fernand “Tex” Dutile
Teaches: Criminal Law, Law of Education. J.D. from Notre Dame. No one knows how a professor from Maine with a Boston accent got to be called “Tex” but his criminal law class is very popular with first year students, despite his other nickname – The Smiling Assassin. Along with his University position as faculty NCAA rep comes an enormous football national championship ring from 1988.

Dwight B. King
Teaches: Legal Research. J.D. from University of Michigan. Poetry and cartoons are both part of the teaching of legal research when Professor King is in the room. A very popular teacher of legal research.

Warren Rees
Teaches: Legal Research, Advanced Legal Research. J.D. from Southern Illinois University. Professor Rees is a quiet fountain of knowledge for first years eager to learn how to do effective legal research. Has recently earned his wings as a pilot.

(Nothing listed for Venter or Vetne.)

In an earlier report Brendan brought you This Land. Then we learned that Ludlow Music was going to sue. But in a surprising turn of events, JibJab went to court first. While Ludlow’s case is likely without merit, what say you on the issue of preemptive law suits? If memory serves it would seem JibJab is likely to get told to take a hike based on ripeness.

It’s just as I expected: I was in Arizona when the Kerry-Edwards bus tour went through Connecticut, and I’ll be in Connecticut when they visit Arizona.

This reminds me of the semester when the USC women’s basketball team played UConn in Storrs, CT on my last weekend at school, and then played Tennessee in Los Angeles on my first weekend at home.

Whine, whine, whine. :)

The New York Times is reporting that the intelligence leading to today’s terror alert came from a “rich lode of information” gleaned from captured Pakistani communications operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old computer engineer. (Or, as Drudge put it, “THREAT INFO CAME FROM CAPTURED AL QAIDA COMPUTER GEEK.”) Excerpt:

A senior United States official…said “documentary evidence” found after the capture had demonstrated in extraordinary detail that Qaeda members had for years conducted sophisticated and extensive reconnaissance of the financial institutions cited in the warnings on Sunday. …

The documentary evidence, whose contents were reported urgently to Washington on Friday afternoon, immediately elevated the significance of other intelligence information gathered in recent weeks that had already been regarded as highly troubling, senior American intelligence officials said. Much of that information had come from Qaeda detainees in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as well as Pakistan, and some had also pointed to a possible attack on financial institutions, senior American intelligence officials said.

The American officials said the new evidence had been obtained only after the capture of the Qaeda figure. Among other things, they said, it demonstrated that Qaeda plotters had begun casing the buildings in New York, Newark and Washington even before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Among the questions the plotters sought to answer, senior American intelligence officials said, were how best to gain access to the targeted buildings; how many people might be at the sites at different hours and on different days of the week; whether a hijacked oil tanker truck could serve as an effective weapon; and how large an explosive device might be required to bring the buildings down.

I think this explains why Ridge said the new threat alert is not directly related to the border-crossing Pakistani arrested on July 19 with $7,000 cash and a ticket to New York. The question the reporter asked was, “Was she a catalyst in the threat reporting you’re talking about?” Ridge replied, “There’s no connection between that individual who was apprehended at the border to the information and the targeting that I’ve discussed with you this afternoon.” It’s not that they don’t believe that she’s part of the plot; it’s just that she’s not where they’re getting this info from.

“I don’t think you can be pro-doctor, pro-patient, and pro-trial lawyer at the same time. I think you have to make a choice.” –George W. Bush, in an Ohio stump speech that I’m watching on C-SPAN

Right… because all trial lawyers are evil and they have no meaningful role in society whatsoever. They should all be put out of work.

Way to eschew meaningful discussion of complicated issues in favor of demonizing an entire class of people for the sake of a big applause line, Mr. President. I think I speak on behalf of the entire incoming Notre Dame Law School Class of 2007 when I say, “Thanks.”

Drudge reports:

A domestic centerpiece of the Bush/GOP agenda for a second Bush term is getting rid of the Internal Revenue Service, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The Speaker of the House will push for replacing the nation’s current tax system with a national sales tax or a value added tax, Hill sources tell DRUDGE.

I wonder if we had heard a warning call about 9/11 would we have reacted differently then?

On September 17 2001 Dan Rather was the first guest on David Letterman after the attacks. I just watched the interview again and was struck by several statements from Dan Rather.

There are many people today who want you to believe that it was President Bush who sold the American people on the idea that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11 and to tell you the truth I do not remember Bush saying that… but I do know that people have or had that perception.

Below is a quote from the Dan Rather Interview with David Letterman… Maybe it was the Media who created this idea…
Here is a link to the video of the interview it is well worth watching.

Quote from the Video

Dan: We now know that Saddam Hussein, we mentioned, you know, if he isn’t connected to this, he’s connected to any other things. He’s part of this “hate America” thing.
You have to understand that Saddam Hussein is somebody I have sat this close, eye to eye. When his feet hit the floor every morning, he dreams of leading a victorious Arab army into Jerusalem, and he sees himself as the new Saladin.
And his hate is deep for us. I don’t even like to use the word “hate,” but, you know, this is what we’re dealing with, and we have to wake up.

Here is a link to the text of the entire interview.

First of all, let me state for the record that I believe the government when it says there is a serious threat of a new terrorist attack, and I believe that those who claim otherwise are idiots. To honestly argue that something this serious might be fabricated for purely political purposes shows a disturbing level of blind Bush-hatred.

But that doesn’t stop me from acknowledging that the following comment from Tom Ridge this afternoon was highly inappropriate:

I certainly realize that this is sobering news, not just about the intent of our enemies, but of their specific plans and a glimpse into their methods. But we must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president’s leadership in the war against terror, the reports that have led to this alert are the result of offensive intelligence and military operations overseas, as well as strong partnerships with our allies around the world, such as Pakistan.

Memo to Tom Ridge: a Homeland Security press conference announcing the most serious terror alert since 9/11 is not the appropriate venue for a bit of campaigning. If he had said “the result of the government’s efforts in the war on terror,” that would have been fine (or at least less bad). But the president’s leadership? Could he be a little more shameless? Is he trying to shatter his own credibility?

Ridge’s inappropriate plug for Bush doesn’t reduce the true significance of the terror alert — not in the mind of a rational person thinking objectively, anyway. But it will inevitably give fuel to the conspiracy theorists, which is unfortunate. Of course, maybe that’s the administration’s secret plan: get the whole left wing frothing at the mouth about partisan terror-alert fraud, so that when a terrorist attack really does happen, they’ll look like total idiots, and will drag their candidate down with them.

I would like to see John Kerry make a brief statement about the alert, saying something along the lines of, “Protecting our nation from terrorism is not a partisan issue. All Americans recognize the seriousness of these threats, and we all hope that our government and our fine law-enforcement personnel will be successful in thwarting any planned attacks by our enemies.”

UPDATE: Uh-oh, did I just call my fiancée an “idiot”? Oops! Looks like I’ll be sleeping on the couch when I get back to Arizona… :)

But I hadn’t seen her post when I wrote that, so it doesn’t count!! Anyway, I don’t think Becky really believes a conspiracy is afoot; I think she’s just thinking out loud, and being somewhat contrarian (as she is wont to do), and also perhaps being a bit, um, facetious. Of course, I suppose it’s possible that Bush really is planning on sending a chimp as a stand-in for him at the convention… :)