Here is a story that puts the fear into work-a-day attorneys – at least yours truly. A client had been released from jail (on an unrelated domestic battery charge) to go to a social security hearing. On the way back, he kidnapped his attorney and stole his SUV.

Though, come to think of it, I’ve never given a client a ride. It seems too personal somehow. Kind of like a prostitute who won’t kiss, I guess.

Here is a sporting combination I hadn’t anticipated: Chess Boxing.

A match between two opponents consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxing and chess sessions, starting with a four-minute chess round followed by two minutes of boxing and so on. Between rounds there is a one minute pause, during which competitors change their gear. The form of chess played is speed chess in which each competitor has a total of twelve minutes for the whole game. Competitors may win by knockout, checkmate, a judge’s decision or if their opponent’s twelve minutes of chess time elapses. If a contestant does not make a move in the chessround, he will be issued a warning by the referee. At the second warning the contestant will be disqualified.

Brian Wallheimer, writing for the Journal & Courier, has a pretty good article on illegal immigration. It struck me as even handed and a nice encapsulation of some of the points of contention.

In particular, I liked Purdue professor James McCann’s description of Americans’ ambivalence on the subject:

“Americans have always been ambivalent about immigration.”

Those attitudes, which at times can be found to varying degrees in the same person, generally fall into three categories.

“On one hand, there’s the idea that immigrants are a threat, and you can see that going way back. Call that the fear factor.

“And then there’s this sort of market view that we need more workers,” McCann said.

“There’s (also) the social gospel ethic of being neighborly to immigrants: Open up your country as you would your home, and allow people from abroad, especially the poor and repressed, to settle here peacefully. The words at the Statue of Liberty capture this sentiment.”

Reposting from last year, but I thought it was a good iteration of my traditional Declaration of Independence post.

Two hundred and thirty-one thirty-two years ago, some Virginia planters with dissonant views of liberty (“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” – Samuel Johnson) got together with some Boston smugglers and rabble rousers who had lost respect for their leader. And, thank goodness they did. They founded a nation based on a radical notion that all men are created equal. They were audacious enough to declare this truth “self-evident.” Think of what a departure this was. There was no automatic deference to anyone else based on their station in life. Governments, they declared, derived their just power from the consent of the governed. They felt so aggrieved by a hereditary leader who had abused his authority so egregiously they felt that he could no longer be tolerated. They felt that his tenure in power was “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Among the abuses were deprivation of trial by jury and an inclination to raise the military authority above the civil authority. Humble petitions for redress were met only with further injury. I’ll leave drawing parallels to more modern events as an exercise for the reader.

As always, I think it is valuable to read the whole text of the Declaration of Independence, so, here you go:

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Apropos of nothing at all, I figured I’d mention that Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is one of the greatest movies of all time.

Patches O’Houlihan: If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.

Justin: What?

[Patches throws a wrench and hits Justin in the face]

Justin Bateman has a great role as sports commentator Pepper Brooks on ESPN 8 “The Ocho”.

Cotton McKnight: And the Average Joe’s beat the Germans in a *shocking* upset.
Pepper Brooks: I feel *shocked*.

(H/t Tim) – Obscenity law revolves around the elusive notion of “community standards.” MSNBC has a story up on a lawyer who planned to defend an obscenity case by using Google statistics to determine what our community standards *really* are; as opposed to what people *say* they are. The story points out some obvious defects in this sort of metric; but it’s still an interesting notion. A sense of shame and false notions about our proclivities versus those of our neighbors probably skews the “community standard” to a level more prudish than is actually prevalent. For example, long ago, I used to be under the laughable impression that masturbation was something rare in human society. Turns out, not so much.

I’ve got nothin’. Taxes are bad. Government is too big. Beer is proof that there is a God and he loves us. If you look too long at the abyss, you’ll find the abyss looking back. E pluribus unum. Discuss.

Just thought I’d bellyache about our current approach to health care. For any policy makers advocating a market based solution to our health care problems, I suggest that job one is transparent pricing. Without that, any signals from the market place are going to be about useless.

The reason I bring that up is that today Amy went about getting a prescription filled on some heavy duty skin cream for Harper. Our normal pharmacy quoted us a price that was wildly inflated from the price that had been quoted two weeks ago at the same pharmacy. At a second pharmacy, the price was somewhere between the two. She asked a few different people for an explanation on the pricing. All they could do was mumble about “the computer” and “insurance.”

So, if I find myself suffering from a sucking chest wound, I’m going to have to do my comparison shopping in a hurry. I’m going to want apples-to-apples comparisons.

Or, you know, we could go about planning health care policy with a recognition that “the market” is a difficult fit for delivering health care services in some respects.

John Lucas, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, asks some questions about the Founding Fathers.

How from such a small pool of people were so many giants produced 250 years ago?

And with so many more to choose from now, why can’t we seem to find people of such stature today?

How did those people — John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and many, many less well-remembered delegates to the Congress and constitutional convention — come up with the framework of government that in the main serves us still today?

I think there were some unique qualities about the late 18th century that contributed to the availability of so many great minds. In particular, the Enlightenment philosophies that were prevalent at the time had to help – valuing observed truth over revealed dogma is a mindset that had to have helped. More important, in my opinion, is that society was less stratified when the country was that new: talent could rise to the top more easily. For example, Alexander Hamilton, one of the most important Founders, was a bastard child out of the West Indies who had proven himself in military campaigns and become a close aide to General Washington by the time he was in his early 20s (his exact year of birth is uncertain). While it’s not impossible that such a mongrel would rise so far so fast simply on his own abilities in today’s America, I contend it is a lot more difficult.

America at the time of the Founders was more like a start up company, where good ideas and hard work allow you to rise to the top rapidly. America today is more like a Fortune 500 company where you have to adhere to the established policies and procedures, rise through the ranks, and be good at corporate politics.

Just a theory.