Trespassing for Fun and Profit

As you are no doubt aware, because the media has been obsessed with nothing else the past few days, a self aggrandizing couple trespassed at a state dinner at the White House. Now the dinner had something to do with India, which has something to do with Pakistan, which has something to do with Afghanistan; and India and Pakistan may someday engage in a nuclear exchange that will ruin the Earth as we know it, but you didn't hear about any of that did you? It was all about the the blond in the red sari.

Now the blond has a name--but since the purpose of her crashing the gate at the White House was to obtain publicity, I will call her Mrs. Self Aggrandizing, so as not to give her even more publicity with my vast readership. (O.K.--half vast). The point was to get on a so-called reality show on the Braggadocio Network that was following her around. I suppose terrorists have now taken note that if you show up at the White House with a camera crew for some Network (with the possible exception of Al Jezerah) you can get past security checks. Can revealing that helpful bit of information be prosecuted as aiding and abetting terrorism, so that these people who have caused TV viewers to suffer capitol punishment for three days be waterboarded in Gitmo? When you show up at the White House followed by a camera crew from a network (Bravo) whose name also means villian or hired assassin, perhaps someone ought to insist on seeing your invitation. (Mine was apparently lost in the mail.)

The purpose of "screening" is to keep pests out, but this time it failed. Why is it that people who would be best off if the public did not know they were engaged in sixteen lawsuits, were involved in a contentious bankruptcy, and owed money all over town are anxious to become infamous, so all of America can become familiar with their shortcomings (Family Motto "Semper in Hock"?)--- even if we don't want to? How far has "I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right" gone? Where is debtor's prison when we need it? That "hired assassin" network came to the White House to shoot these people, although the Secret Service was the entity that should have shot them.

The trespassers' idea was apparently a scheme to get on "Real Housewives of D.C."--a show aimed at voyeuristic agoraphobics who want to consider themselves morally superior to the the vulgar, rich people with no morals, common sense, or self awareness who parade on those shows. Mrs. Trespasser would certainly fit in with that crowd! (And "Housewife"?? When do you think was the last time one of them scrubbed a toilet?)

Well, become a minor cable TV celebrity was part of the plot. That and the idea that perhaps she could earn enough money from selling her story to actually pay off some of the bills she ran up preparing to trespass. She was scheduled to go on "Larry King Almost Alive" (I think that's the program's name), but when she tried to charge Larry King for her appearance, His Majesty (Larry the First?) declined to tap the exchequer.

Should these people be permitted to profit from their misdeeds? In New York we have the Son of Sam law that would prohibit them from selling any story about their crime spree, and I hope the Feds have a similar law that would apply. Wikipedia reports: "In high-profile cases and cases that are closely tied to national security, namely convictions for terrorism and espionage, a Son of Sam clause is often worked into any plea bargain. This had been the case in the convictions of John Walker Lindh and Harold James Nicholson. As a result of their plea bargains, any and all profits made from book deals or movie rights would be handed over to the U.S. Treasury. Neither the convicts nor their families would be able to profit. However, as of 2009, neither Lindh nor Nicholson have had their crime cases publicized in such a manner."

So when do we see the trespass charges that will discourage some other Unreal Housewife from attempting a similar feat at the Nobel Ceremony?

Fox News Graphic is GOP Pie in the Sky

Did you have too much pie for Thanksgiving? Couldn't decide between the pumpkin, the apple pie and the pecan pie--so you have a slice of each? Did you have 193% of the pie you should have consumed?

So did Fox News. They actually showed the pie graph above--which was constructed by someone who thinks almost two complete pies are better than one, or 3.14. Someone has apparently not grasped the basics of what a pie graph is supposed to be--or add up to, but if you think that the GOP has not grasped the basics of one person one vote you may be correct as well.

If they can only get 193% of Republicans to turn out at the next election, the GOP will have a fighting chance--assuming they don't start fighting with one another. When I saw the pie graph above, I knew immediately there was something wrong with it. But I have fixed it with the graph below:



The Fox Mathematically challenged graphic artist Michelle Anne Gelough (Hey--she was a cool Art major, not an Advanced Math geek) promised she'd get it right next time by "making a 110% effort." Thanks to her, I have had more fun with a pie than anyone since Soupy Sales.

Statutes and Their Discontents: Texas and Guns

The Texas State Constitution Bill of "Rights" (and Wrongs?) reads as follows:

Sec. 32. MARRIAGE. (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.

(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

(Added Nov. 8, 2005.)

Some tyro statutory whizzes have interpreted the language to mean that marriage between a man and a woman is illegal in Texas. This has lead to the further reductio ad absurdum conclusion that marriages not identical to a man an a woman would be legal in Texas--i.e., between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, a man and any other species of animal or even a man and his avatar.

Their logic is that the subd (b) denies the state the right to create a status identical to marriage--which would obviously include marriage itself! Why ?

First, there is a rule of statutory construction that any interpretation must avoid an absurd or unintended result. Surely the ban on all marriages including those that have existed for decades in Texas is an absurd result.

Second, the would be Cardozos ignore the fact that this is a Constitution and not a statute. Therefore, it recognizes basic concepts and truths that exist at the time it is made effective. The language of subd. (b) prevents subdivisions of the state and the state Legislature (without first amending the constitution by removing subd.( b) from legalizing some other form of marriage or civil unions. Surely it could have been written better, for example, removing "shall" from subd. (a) achieves the same result and is clearer. That is, rather than employ the future tense "shall" the drafter should have simply used "consists" to indicate the recognition of a presently existing state that no subsequently existing state should replicate. Including Texas. So there.

Which brings us to the Health Care Bill. When you write a law that is more than two thousand pages long there is something in the prolix proposal to anger everyone. The liberals are angered about the effect on women's rights, the conservatives are angry that it might add to the deficit, and now comes the NRA, with their King Charles's Head of gun control. {ASIDE: A "King Charles's Head" is any obsession that involves a person seeing the object of his obsession in all things --even those completely unrelated. One definition: "Charles' head (plural King Charles' heads)

1. An obsession, especially one that keeps intruding irrelevantly into other matters.

"King Charles I was beheaded in 1649, but the allusion is literary, rather than historical: Mr. Dick, in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, lives with David's aunt, Betsy Trotwood. Mr. Dick had been trying to write a petition to the Lord Chancellor on the subject of some imagined dispute, but the subject of King Charles's head keeps intruding into the text."}

The NRA sees "gun control" in the shape of clouds that linger over the Capitol dome. Now they have objected to that portion of the Health Care bill that allows a health care insurer to increase premiums to people who live "unhealthy lifestyles." So what's unhealthy about a bracing walk in the woods with a firearm to kill will game not raised upon antibiotics and unhealthy feed to accelerate its growth? Perhaps nothing to you or me, but to the NRA it means that the anti-gun Obama administration is afixin' to declare a gun in the home unhealthy for the inhabitants.

It's more likely that the phrase in question is aimed at Crisco and a deep fryer isn't it? It's the obese addicted to fast food that should be worried, although I believe the language is actually concerns the more traditional insurance company's responses to a two pack of cigarettes a day habit. Aren't these objectors the same people who believe that they have lived a responsible and healthy life and should not be put in the same risk pool and pay for the needs of people with medical conditions that have brought upon themselves by not being responsible citizens?

UPDATED: Talking Turkey

President Obama pardoned a turkey in the Rose Garden today, following a schmaltzy tradition that goes back to the Truman administration. President Bush pardoned a lot of turkeys while in office--not always on Thanksgiving.

Abdul, the turkey Pres. Obama pardoned was selected after a sixteen week marathon reality TV program "America's Got Turkeys" when viewers selected him for the prize of a trip to Disneyworld. He will be the Grand Marshal of a parade, resting next to the yam that Vice President Biden pardoned according to this story in the Onion.

Abdul has been in Gitmo for four years, being held on suspicion of being suspicious as he had a linguistic connection to Turkey--a Muslim country, and is named Abdul. Abdul has always maintained he is not a Muslim--and in fact is a Kurd. He maintains he is not a turkey either, but rather a vegetarian Bean Kurd Curd turkey.

Obama chose him from three candidates for pardon. One of the other turkeys will be sent to the Southern District of New York for trial and disposition, subject to the possibility of a writ of Habeas Meleagris gallopavo.

The third turkey will, like one of the president's recent aides, be resigned to his fate; as he has (like the turkey will be) "served at the pleasure of the president." The third turkey's fat will be rendered to schmaltz, which will then be rendered to some unknown destination in the Caucasus (i.e., Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, or Iowa.)

Meanwhile, Fox News commentators expressed their outrage that the President would give the little children at Disneyland "the bird."

Happy Turkey Day to all !

Will the Hadron Be A Smash Hit?

Yesterday's announcement that the Hadron collider was run at half power, leading to the smashing of some protons successfully caused us to consult with out Senior Theoretical Physics Editor, Professor Albert Zweistein, the man who always tried to one up Albert Einstein in beer drinking contests with large steins.

He is the Distinguished Professor of Remedial Alternative Physics at the Home School of Individual Studies at Entropee, Mass. (He is "distinguished" in order to distinguish him from the undistinguished professors). In past years he conducted experiments in atom smashing--first with a primitive electronic hammer, and more recently with a used cyclotron from the CERN gift shop that he purchased on eBay. He is the discoverer of the sub-atomic particle the antitron, which he discovered accidentally in a sub sandwich at a sub shop.
He has written a few papers that were delivered (by Fed Ex) to prestigious journals (and is anxiously awaiting their reply) on just how the protons to be smashed in the colliders should be selected.

He has noted that used protons often come from the blogosphere, where they were used in the posting of many different articles. He experimented with using a proton that had previously been employed in delivering the on line fantasy game World of Warcraft to a consumer. Then he smashed it up with a proton that had been used to report the news. He was interested in seeing what would be created when a fiction proton collided with a non-fiction proton. What was produced was reality TV, the Fox News Network, and credit default swaps-- new amalgams that were neither fiction nor non-fiction.

It is his conclusion therefore, that the Hadron people have to be very careful where they get their particles when the go for broke in shortly more than a year from now. That is the reported time when they plan to run the collider at full power.

He noted that if you took a proton from a post on this blog that described the worries that the Hadron collider will create a black hole that would swallow the Earth, and smashed it with protons from the article about the Mayan calendar and the doomsday date of Dec. 21, 2012; you could precipitate a black hole that will eat the Earth on that date. What do you think the Mayans knew about the Hadron collider, and when did they know it?

Then he noted with a twinkle in his eye, we won't know unless we try, will we?

"Be a Clown, Be a Clown" At Your Own Risk

"Be a clown, be a clown, all the world loves a clown !" Well, maybe not all the world. A lot of little kids are scared to death of them--and not just Krusty the Clown. The NYC cops don't love a clown--they arrested the one you see here as a suspected terrorist. And judges prefer that you not come to court in your clown suit with your big red nose, shoes big enough to contain a small nuclear device, and that squirting flower on your lapel. Why would you do that? If you show up for court in a clown suit, isn't the jury going to think there's something funny going on? There's a thin line between wearing a frivolous suit and bringing one--the latter will get you fined.



The picture of the plaintive plaintiff accompanying this post looks more like he destroyed some little old lady's patchwork quilt she intended to take to Antiques Roadshow to create his court attire than it does a traditional clown suit. And, although federal courts believe in freedom of expression, the expression on the plaintiff's face is quite unclownlike. The judge told him to change his clothes--i.e., ruling that his duds were duds.

Alexander Alhovsky sued Officer Thomas Ryan and others on a civil rights violation theory under 42 U.S.C. 1983 claiming that he sustained physical and emotional injuries for being arrested without probable cause for leaving a device for inflating balloons (A "majiloon"--short for "magic for loons") in a Starbucks in 2006. Alhovsky, who is a professional clown, left the device in the Starbucks (hereinafter "*$$"). Store employees called the New York Police Department when they found the device. Maybe this was part of *$$'s plan to fight inflation--by arresting those who inflate things. You can't blame them, all that coffee makes you jittery.

The police also said the pump -- with its metal cylinders, tubes, wiring and battery -- looked enough like an explosive that the NYPD Bomb Squad responded, X-rayed it on the sidewalk and disconnected the power before deeming it safe. It was a Majiloon, which you can see in action in this YouTube video.

The bomb squad determined it was harmless, but set up surveillance because terrorists sometimes leave dummy devices as a test run to see how the police will react. When Alhovsky returned to the store he was arrested. He was allegedly dragged by his hair and slammed into a restaurant window, at which point "one of his overall straps slipped off, sending his pants and stretched-out underwear to his knees in front of a group of neighborhood children," the New York Post reports. He was released hours later, but Alhovsky says he still suffers from "depression and paranoia." A search of his apartment produced no evidence of wrongdoing and he was released. No charges were ever filed against him.

Do you think his unusual inflation device with pump and wires, combined with his words that he would use it to do some blowing up at a *$$ was enough probable cause to arrest him?

The jury turned him down it says here, and then demanded he sing the aria Vesti la giubba from the opera Pagliacci. Now he's crying on the outside and the inside. Is there a tragic opera in this story somewhere, or just another episode of Law and Order -False Alarm Squad ?

Monday Morning Nickel Back

The Monday morning nickel back is like a Monday morning quarterback--but only a fifth of the value. It's for bloggists on the defense....

Last week Hillary Clinton went off to Afghanistan unexpectedly in a crowded neighborhood of Kabul. So far, no group has taken responsibility...

A coach who was once asked if he had any superstitions said "Yes, I believe it's unlucky to be behind when there's no more time left on the clock." Yesterday the hapless Browns were ahead when all time ran out on the clock, but still managed to lose to the hapless Detroit Lions. American football, like the European variety, now has penalty time...

Detroit plays the Thanksgiving Day game each year. Insert your own turkey joke here. Detroit has been "hapless" for a long time. So long, that the last time they had any hap was the series in which the Lions defeated the Christians at the Colosseum...

Today on Mike Huckabee's pre-Thanksgiving Day show on Fox he will reveal his Thanksgiving Day stuffing recipe for stuffing your festive holiday squirrel...

Vampires are in fashion (The new black-- as night?). First Anne Rice, then Jane Austin and the Zombies and Vampire Darcy's Desire, and this weekend it was New Moon, the boffo box office hit of the Twilight vampire series. I have requested my publisher, West, to rename the forthcoming edition of my book in the New York Practice Series New York Vehicle and Traffic Law and the Vampires.

Safety Bureaucrats Demand Eat Food Cold: Cooking is Dangerous !

If fire to cook and heat had been discovered in ancient Britain, we'd all be eating our food cold and living in freezing abodes, because fire will burn you if you're not careful. Apparently, the British are incapable of being careful without government intervention, according to three incidents that have come to our attention.

In Not- so- Great Britain, health and safety concerns have resulted in some bizarre safety precautions. By "precautions" we mean insane, overprotective. officious, intrusive interloping in citizens lives. Not that we're being judgmental.

1. A group of pensioners have been banned from holding a coffee morning at a public library for health and safety reasons - in case they spill hot drinks on children. The seven members of the Over 50s coffee morning have been meeting every Tuesday for the past four years without incident at the Eye Library in Eye, near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. But still, hot coffee is an accident waiting to happen. Waiting, and waiting and waiting.

What's a pensioner in England without his "cuppa"? (Hint: Thirsty?) Coffee club member Derek Taylor says "We have always finished our drinks before the children even arrive, and that it is the case that the librarian doesn't want to wash up extra cups." And careful with that pencil in the Eye Library--you could poke your library out.

2. Meanwhile, regular users of the Dagenham Swimming Pool in Essex have been told they may only swim across the width of the pool as it makes it easier for lifeguards to ensure their safety it says here . Why? Is it because they have hired lifeguards who can only swim the width of the pool to rescue someone? Swimmers say the rules are a clear indication that Britain is gripped by 'health and safety insanity'. One swimmer said : 'This is just the nanny state gone mad and it's affecting my life and other people's lives. It's another obstacle for people trying to get fit and healthy.'

But how come they haven't banned jet skis in the pool, we ask. It might be safer just to drain the pool so that no one drowns, but then someone might fall into that big open hole, and when the lifeguard jumps in to rescue him, he'll get hurt, too.

If you live in Britain, you just want to get away from those over protective bureaucrats. Why not become a hermit?

3. Because (you thought that was a rhetorical question, didn't you?) Brit Hilaire Purbrick has been evicted from his hermit's cave by the Brighton and Hove City Council. His commune has a (sinister?) plot of land with a two meter deep cave which Mr Purbrick dug and used as a meditation space, and has lived in for sixteen years. It has now been declared (you guessed it!) “unsafe” by East Sussex Fire and Rescue. Mr Purbrick said: “The cave has been checked out by the fire brigade and has been declared unsafe because it doesn't have a fire exit. It's a cave Fire Marshall Bill ! There's nothing in it that's flammable.

Looking at these cases of bureaucrats gone ga-ga, our Legal Correspondent Bugs Bunny has got to ask: "What's up, doc?" To which we answer, "Silly Rabbit, Brits are like Kids!" Apparently the average grown up resident of the United Kingdom cannot be trusted to know when it's safe to drink coffee , swim a lap, or meditate in a confined space. Local councils have put the "dumb" back in the United Kingdom.

So the Supremecourtjester asks, why don't we just swaddle all adult Brits in bubble wrap for the rest of their natural lives, which will seem interminable since they will not be able to do every day activities like drink coffee, exercise, or enter a confined space without their portable fire escape and rope ladder. Rule, Brittania, but not with stupid rules.

Why do they call it the welfare state if it is neither well nor fair?

Not the End of the World, But You Can See It From Here.

NASA announced that the movie ‘2012′ is fiction and the Mayan calendar is wrong. And there is no mystery planet headed towards Earth that’s gonna destroy it. Does that make you feel better? Me either.

According to some sources, the Mayan calendar predicted the end of a cycle, and thus the world, in 2012. The Mayans are thus accorded astrological knowledge far beyond that of 21st century scientists. Can you believe the predictions of a people who were not advanced enough to invent the wheel?

To be fair, there are those who believe that the Mayans did invent the wheel, but never put it into use because at the time of their demise they were still working on getting an approval of the environmental impact statement. What they forgot to invent was venture capitalism to back the wheel and promote the wheel "brand."




Author Patrick Geryl is one of the doomsayers. His web site says "he came to the staggering conclusion" (perhaps that's because he was staggering at the time)

"that the Earth will soon be subjected to an immense disaster. The cause: upheavals in the sun's magnetic fields will generate gigantic solar flares that will affect the polarity of the entire Earth. The result: our magnetic field will reverse all at once, with catastrophic consequences for humanity.

Massive earthquakes will demolish all buildings on the planet, and instigate colossal tsunamis and intense volcanic activity. In fact, the Earth's crust will shift, sweeping continents thousands of miles away from their present positions.

There is ample evidence in the literature of ancient civilizations that such disasters have occured in the past and also clues that they knew when another such calamity would occur. The Dresden Codex of the Maya for instance, contains the secrets of the sunspot cycle, about which our modern astronomers know almost nothing!"

What do modern astronomers know anyway? They rely on silly things like telescopes, radio telescopes, scientific instruments, super computers, the scientific method, and other totemic 21st century gadgets. Certainly they know less than the Mayans, who believed in human sacrifice to appease the gods. "The common method for human sacrifice seems to have been for the "ah nacom" (a functionary) to extract the heart quickly, while 4 people associated with Chac, the rain/lightning god, held the struggling victim's limbs" it says here. "Besides humans, the following objects were offered as sacrifices: manatees, jaguars, opposums, parrots, quail, owls, turtles, pumas, crocodiles, squirrels, insects, feathers, dogs, deer, iguanas, turkeys, rubber, cacao, maize, squash seeds, flowers, bark, pine boughs and needles, honey, wax, jade, obsidian, virgin water from caves, shells, and iron pyrite mirrors." Maybe if we sacrificed a couple of manatees to the Mayan gods the sunspots would go away !

I wrote to the New York Department of State that wants me to renew my notary license for four years in 2011 and pay in advance. I asked to pay only through Dec. 21,2012 since I didn't see much need for notarizing documents after pretty much everything goes to hell and a Mayan decorated hand basket. They wrote back that I was required to pay the entire amount, but if the world came to an end they would refund the unused balance.

You can buy a home advertised to withstand the 2012 apocalypse. These people say they can build that home. Specifically they claim "We provide Client/Project specific designs addressing conventional weapons, forced entry, chemical, biological, radiological and explosive (CBRE) weapons, 2012 mitigations, Climate Change and any type of Apocalypse or World Ending Scenario."

If you buy it beware of this mortgage clause the banks have now begun to use:

End of the World Mortgage Acceleration Clause:
In the event of the end of the world on or about December 21, 2012, time being of the essence hereof, the holder of this note may, without notice or demand, declare the entire principal sum then unpaid immediately due. In the event of the Last Judgment (hereinafter "judgment") the lender shall be deemed aligned with the forces of good, unless the forces of darkness prevail, in which case the lender shall be deemed aligned with the forces of darkness. Interest on the judgment shall be due computed from the date of the judgment.

Waterskiing on the Sea of Tranquility

Click on image to enlarge it

Do you remember doing a big cannonball dive when you were a kid to see how big a splash you could get? Well, NASA does. Recently they bombed the moon just to see if they could get a splash of some kind to confirm that there is water on the moon. Then they poured (pun alert) over the data.

Leaving aside the fact that they could easily have found gallons of water in my basement when ever it rains, and that's a lot closer than the moon, everyone seemed to be thrilled by the prospect of H2 0 actually existing in a place called the Sea of Tranquility. Duh! Do you think your grandkids might go deep sea fishing there some year, or go trawling to catch that elusive game fish the gefilte?

So this bombing run was an interstellar dowsing twig of sorts, attempting to locate water beneath the surface. NASA would have preferred to find oil, but you can't have everything, and you can't have oil without dead dinosaurs (unless this guy is right, and it has an inorganic source), so oil on the moon was unlikely. The only other likely use for the moon minerals visible to the average layman in photos of the lunar surface may be as an inexhaustible supply of kitty litter.

But where there's water there's law and lawyers, say our Senior Water Editors Hy Di Rayshoon and Sue Nahmee. They are the the authors of the text Water Rights and Wrongs in the Liquid Assets series. Will we soon be seeing disputes concerning lunar riparian rights ? Websites selling choice beach front property in lunar developments like Western Mare Frigoris Beach ? If you want to see an atlas of the moon to pick a nice location try this site of the Lunar Republic Society. There are spectacular Earth Rises in the morning, unhampered by bad weather, because you need weather to have bad weather.

If the moon controls the tides in Earth's ocean, does the Earth control the tide in the moon's seas?

Will we be seeing the rise of Admiralty law on the moon? Whose Admiralty law ? There is an International Loony Lunar Treaty found here.


But neither the U.S. nor the Russians have signed on, because they want to commercially exploit the moon themselves (or just that the terminology in the treaty stinks?) They may choose to Market Lunar Springs Bottled Water ("It's out of this world!"); or hold "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contests with lunar water. It's hard to believe they're just interested in having something to mix with the astronaut's Tang to make it drinkable instead of snortable.

The treaty reads in part as follows:

Article 4

1. The exploration and use of the moon shall be the province of all mankind and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development. Due regard shall be paid to the interests of present and future generations as well as to the need to promote higher standards of living and conditions of economic and social progress and development in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

Who wouldn't have found those sentiments objectionable? If you're going to spend billions of dollars to go to the moon to exploit its water, why should you have to share it with "all mankind?" That's socialism!

Would Rumpole Defend Khalid Sheik Mohammed ?

How would you defend terror suspect Khalid Sheik Mohammed asks this blog at, of all places, Fox News. My answer would be from behind bullet proof glass. Then this faux Civil Libertine sets out what he would do as follows:

If I were KSM’s lawyer, I’d argue the following:

1. That his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by letters and conversations that the government intercepted without a search warrant.

2. That his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination were violated if the government attempts to use statements made before he was read his Miranda rights or after he was waterboarded (since the Obama administration calls it torture).

3. That his Sixth Amendment rights were violated by not providing a speedy trial, that the Speedy Trial Act (a federal statute) has also been violated, and that he has been denied adequate legal counsel.

4. I would also say he cannot get a fair trial in New York and move for change of venue.

5. I would challenge the admissibility of any evidence that was unsecured even for an hour, challenge the authenticity of any offered evidence, insist on his Sixth Amendment right to confront every witness against him, including the capturing officers, interrogators, guards, transport personnel, and whoever else I can think of.

6. I would raise objections of circumstantial evidence, hearsay, the witnesses’ integrity, and every other conceivable objection to the evidence and every procedural step.

OK, so how would you respond if you were the government?

1. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is not an American citizen, and to the extent he communicated with other non-American citizens outside of America, he has no Fourth Amendment rights. His communications have no right not to be intercepted, and and the Constitution provides only the results of those searches that are unreasonable because the speaker has an expectation of privacy are excluded from court. A government has a right to protect the very Constitution that creates the rights it citizens live to enjoy, because a dead citizen has no Constitutional rights at all.

2. It has been said that the government is aware of the problem of confessions obtained by force and plans not to introduce any. How do you know that no one gave him Miranda rights? These guys wanted to plead guilty, and they may have been only to happy to talk--brag even--about what they've done. To the extent that they were mentioned in the confessions of others, Kahlid Sheik Mohammed has no right to assert the Constitutional rights (if any) of others, so that would not be a reason to exclude evidence that others rolled over on KSM.

3. We do not know at this time if there were valid national security reasons not to try the defendant until now. There may have been some information that would come out during the trial that would be harmful to ongoing national security operations. As far as inadequate legal counsel, since the author of this article is pretending to be the defendant's lawyer he may have a point there.

4. New York is a cosmopolitan place with citizens from all ethnic and religious backgrounds, and all colors that New Yorkers see in the street every day. It is a liberal, blue state with a reputation for jurors that will give a listen to the defense. Would you move to change the venue to somewhere in the middle of the country where they've never seen a Muslim or Arab before? Would you waive a jury and do a bench trial ?

5-6. It is an attorney's job to question the evidence, so why assume that someone would not make proper evidentiary objections? Since the entire world will be watching, I'll bet you'll get more favorable evidence rulings for the defense than you would under circumstances where the objection would elicit an "I'll take it for what it's worth" in a bored tone of voice.

This could be a very interesting and instructive trial if the defendant's do not choose to make it into a political soapbox to espouse an ideology. Other than the alleged waterboarded confessions that it is unlikely the government will offer or a judge would admit, what is the evidence against these guys? Do you know? Before we captured them, how did we know they were behind this plot? It may be fascinating to find out.

Well, it turns out the author of the article is Ken Klukowski, who is described as a fellow and senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union--whatever that is. (Actually, it's a conservative group not to be confused with the ACLU. In fact, it is the ACLU's evil twin). He sounds like an academic who doesn't have a "Klu" how to try a criminal case. Has he ever done a petty larceny in Mt. Vernon City Court? He'd learn about real defenses there. KSM's real attorney could try the ever popular SODDI defense--i.e., some other dude did it. Then there's the cutthroat defense--the other guy I'm on trial pulled this one off, not me.

Or he could try the alibi defense. It comes from the Arabic "al-libi" which roughly translates as "a little fib." Several of his wives, or preferably his sainted mother, can take the stand and swear that they were all at home with KSM watching a panel discussion on global warming on Al Jazeera--the Fox News of the Muslim world.

If the Mt. Vernon street defenses do him no good, then there's always the Arab Street Defense. The word in the Arab street is always that Israel really perpetrated the 9/11 incident so they could blame it on the Muslims. Israel is behind everything that's wrong with the world, according to the Arab Street, which may be why that panel show they were watching blamed Israel for global warming, too. This defense maybe undermined by the fact that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda rushed to take credit for 9/11, but no defense is perfect.

Evil Twin defense, anyone? As the character of Kate Austen from Lost remarked in a deleted scene (contained in the Lost Season 2 Region 1 release) : "It's not a soap opera until somebody's evil twin shows up."

Palin Comparison to What ?

Sarah Palin continues her TV tour today. She is auditioning to become the Mad Hatter at the Tea Party. She told one interviewer that for Thanksgiving this year she plans to shoot her own turkey, if only she can keep Levi in her sights long enough.

Roundball Report

Today Georgetown basketball kicks off the season. In the past they were know for playing a ridiculously easy early schedule against teams like St. Leo University (Georgetown 90 St. Leo 39).

At 4 PM this afternoon, according to the TV schedule in the newspaper, they are playing Temple. I think it's the Beth Shalom Bar Mitzvah Class All Stars.