The former owner of a now defunct Chinese buffet in Knoxville has been sentenced to one year in federal prison for knowingly employing a staff of illegal Mexican immigrants at his establishment.

I’m torn about what to think about this, upon first glance.

Part of me thinks that it’s certainly a reasonable response to a violation of existing law.  Then, I look at the defense strategy, which was likely the only real thing that the attorney could have argued in such a case.

"Everyone else does it, and the government doesn’t do anything about it.  What’s the big damn deal?"

Certainly, I feel as though our immigration laws aren’t being enforced to the degree necessary and our borders aren’t adequately protected from the influx of illegal immigrants.  While I don’t feel a need to stem the tide of immigration to our country, I do believe that it is important to require/demand that our policies on immigration be followed.

However, a law not enforced is essentially a nullity.  It’s similar in theory to real estate law, and the adverse possession of someone else’s land.  If you build a fence over someone else’s land, and they do nothing to remedy the situation within X number of years, then it’s no longer their land, it’s yours.

With our immigration laws, it would seem that a similar logic should apply.  When does the government have an affirmative obligation to start enforcing the laws on its books consistently in every such case?  When do (or should) they lose the right to do so if they fail to enforce those same laws?

How do you arbitrarily pick this particular guy to prosecute when there are hundreds or thousands of others out there doing the same thing?

I’m really torn about how to feel about this case, and would like to see what you all think.

What’s better than a lap dance at a strip club? A lap dance at a strip club that you pay for with a counterfeit $100.

What’s really sad is that you can’t even get a REAL lap dance in Nashville, due to the city’s fairly onerous Sexually Oriented Businesses ordinances. They require a no-touching, 3 foot separation from dancers and patrons at all times. Kinda hard to get an actual “lap” dance that way, I’d suspect.

How would I know about this, you might ask. Well, I just got back from a Continuing Legal Education seminar in Nashville, and well…I picked up a copy of the local alt-weekly while I was there, and they had a pretty scathing article about the whole thing.

p.s. Is the alternate title to this post too crude?

Nope, not a software unlocker, but a hardcore, hardware unlocking that requires soldering.

Kinda glad that I actually have my mobile service wtih AT&T anyway, so this isn’t really a big deal for me.

UPDATE by David K.

Two software solutions are being announced today as well, and atleast one claims it works even if you do a restore of your iPhone’s software.

Teehee.

Jimmy Clausen, driving someone around with a load of booze?

Nothing like getting the season off to a strong start.

UPDATE: Since I was so kindly called a mongoloid in the comments for my haste in simply pointing to a news story, I’ve happily made the correction naming the correct Clausen wunderkind of the day. I guess I’m still just stuck on the last one we had here. Oops. Sorry for being an actual human being that made a mistake.

Ok. I love poker. I have a poker blog that I never update, usually because I’m too busy playing to write on it. I even really like online poker play, even though it’s full of idiots making idiot plays that brutally suck away your cash. I never play anything other than uber-small stakes online, and never keep more than a couple hundred bucks there.

Tonight, I finally hit the mother-lode, the awesomest of awesome pokerness while playing a .05/.10 No Limit Hold ‘Em game.

Here’s the link to the hand history on my KnoxPoker.com message board. Here’s the screen capture of the hand:

Even if it’s not for much cash, a Royal Flush sure is sweet.

Ahh…all is right with the world. It’s football time again. High-school football in small-town America on a Friday night.

Tonight was a Jamboree, really an extended scrimmage where 8 teams come to play one quarter of football. All’s right with the home team, the Loudon High School Redskins, who managed the most scoring of any team in play, putting in two touchdowns and two 2-point conversions for a 16-0 win over the Tellico Plains Bears.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled hurricane blogging.

Oh, I shot my husband in the back with a shotgun as he slept. I took off in the family minivan to the Gulf Coast. I went to trial for killing him, and got convicted a few months ago.

I got out of jail today.

The Tennessee Volunteer mens’ basketball team has been on a tour of central Europe, playing exhibition games and doing some touristy-type things.

However, on the tour, Coach Pearl took his team to the site of the Terezin Concentration Camp. Coach Pearl, as a Jew and a coach and teacher of young people had some very nice thoughts to pass along while there. He wrote a special for the Knoxville News-Sentinel that I think is worthwhile for you all to check out.

I love this guy. He’s genuine, real, and exactly what you see. He has a commitment to his family, his team, and his community that is unlike any other person in a similar position I’ve ever seen. Taking the time away from the X’s and O’s to teach his players about something important for life outside of basketball shows me all I need to know about his priorities

I guess Brendan isn’t the only Domer to find his way to East Tennessee to start his way up the professional ladder. Jeff Samardzjia had his second strong outing in a row for the Tennessee Smokies on Sunday, posting a win in 6 1/3 innings, giving up four hits.

That is all.

Since Brendan appears to be having too much fun hanging out with the fam, I’ll go ahead and post a link to this news bit about former ND wide receiver Jeff Samardzjia.

As most ND sports fans know, he chose to head to the professional baseball route instead of the NFL, and so far, so good.

The Cubs farmhand has recently been added to the Double A, Southern League affiliate of the Cubs, the Tennessee Smokies. In other words, it’s the local hometown team in these parts. I meant to post this earlier this week after it happened, but just got around to it now. Sorry for the delay.

Samardzjia threw six strong innings, only giving up one run on six hits to the Montgomery Biscuits. I suspect that he’s likely to make his way to Iowa next year, and will probably get rushed along to the bigs as soon as possible, so that his career can come to a crashing halt due to injury like Kerry Wood and Mark Prior’s have. It’s just the nature of the Cubs organization.

As I’ve noted, I’m a recent convert to the ways of the Mac, and I am becoming increasingly convinced that I waited far too long to join the club.

As I’m using the MBP as the lifeblood of my new law practice, knowing that I need to make sure I have a fall back of some sort in the event that the MBP needs to go into the shop, I’ve obviously been shopping around.

I know I could get a Mac Mini for a not-obscene price that would probably fit the bill, but I’m really trying to keep the cost to an absolute minimum, since the machine is likely to see only very minimal service.

It looks like the iMac I picked up yesterday may be a non-starter, simply due to the overall level of hassle it seems like it will be to get it usable, I’m trying to find another suitable used machine that’s on the relatively cheap.

My plan is to use an external hard drive with a duplicate copy of my MBP hard drive, made with SuperDuper, thanks to Bloy’s recommendation, and to use this alternate machine to continue my work during any absence of the MBP.

I’ve found a PowerMac G4, 500 MHz, 1GB of Ram, with OSX 10.4 for $100. It seems like it could be a viable option, within the price range I’d like, and that it could probably handle all I’d need it to for short periods of time. So, my questions are, 1.) Is it a good deal? and 2.) Is it a solid enough option for what I want it to do?

As always this Mac-neophyte thanks you veterans for your help.

How does Larry the Cable Guy get stuck next to the other two?

Bought at local pawn shop auction today for $11. Any tips for setting it up as a backup machine?