Privateers

Grim's sense is that privateers could work better than the more bureaucratic armed forces. He has far more experience with the bureaucratic armed forces than I, but I worry about a few details.

To whom do the privateers owe primary allegiance? Their organization or the country for whom they are fighting? With just a smidgeon of corruption and media connivance (you tell me if that exists in this country) it wouldn't be hard for a cartel to get approval and funding to attack their rivals.

Even with an organization with less disreputable initial aims than a cartel, mission creep can turn it into a public menace.

Going further, what would privateering look like in an era of drones? Drones can be carried and controlled in a truck as easily as in a boat--probably more so. Inconvenient prosecutors or judges might have to hide. Organizations do go rogue sometimes.

And as the cited Sal Mercogliano video notes, it isn't as though the US has a small navy anymore: 2nd largest in the world (Sal says 1st, but that's the Chinese). Recent events show that bureaucracies don't have to slow it down that much.

The law might have one useful side effect--it could force Congress to decide what sort of relationship we have with hostile non-state armed organizations. Is it a war, or something else--and when do we know we've won?

art lawsuit

Althouse noted that one of the "performers" in an old exhibit at MoMA was suing. I'd heard of the exhibit some time ago--it sounded "modern art" level stupid. A gallery door was partly blocked by a naked man and naked woman, and visitors had to "squeeze" between them to get in. There was another entrance to the gallery, but I assume there was social pressure to "experience the art."

The man is suing the museum on the grounds that they did not protect him from groping--sexual assault. 14 years after the fact seems a little late in the day to complain, of course, and thus there seems to be reason to doubt his sincerity. But there might be another way of looking at it.

Just as clothing communicates things to other people, adults being naked outside of specific circumstances (doctor's office, group showers, etc) communicate sexual interest. So the situation is intended to be a sexual one, albeit with some implausible deniability ("This is ART, you fool!"). And if the man and woman are so close to the visitors that one has (remember the social pressure) to make contact with them, this seems a bit like unwanted sexual contact: a sexual assault.

It seems a bit unusual for an "assault-er" to complain about reciprocation. Although active groping does ratchet it up rather more than a notch.

Judges gone mad

I'd heard about Judge Clark some years back. There's a book showing what happens when unlimited power joins with utter ignorance.

One could easily list other examples.

Confessional

An ELCA priest confessed his infidelity to a fellow priest, who promptly told his bishop, who called the fellow's wife. I do not know the details well enough to know if there were any loopholes in the definitions or procedures that would authorize those reactions, but on the face of it they seem deeply improper.

The original priest betrayed his promise to his wife (the story says they are reconciling). If the story is true the second priest, and the bishop, betrayed their duties to the whole church--who will ever trust them, or possibly any priest, to hear a confession again?

Copyright

A federal judge on Friday upheld a finding from the U.S. Copyright Office that a piece of art created by AI is not open to protection. My first reaction was "Good!"

On reflection, there are some complexities here. If you are trying to do your own book covers, you might find these web posts useful. Cover art and More midjourney

Are you back from the rabbit hole yet? Two things stood out:

• It generally takes some skill and practice to make the AI do something actually useful. That is human ingenuity at work. The AI itself doesn't actually do work in any deep sense: the programmers and the program's users do. Who gets the copyright for this effort? Nobody. (Assuming there is some significant effort. Maybe a generic landscape is all you need.)
• As illustrated in this link, "None of the images are perfect. They need work before being used." The initial image is not copyrightable, per the copyright office and now the judge, but when you maniplate it with GIMP in some non-trivial ways to make it suit your purpose, you possibly do have something copyrightable. But how much effort is required to make it yours, and how do you then distinguish yours from someone else's who used the same base image?

I think there are still some worms left in the can.

Vehicle inspection firm

The story asserts that traffic accidents caused by improper maintenance can be blamed on government corruption. A new facility, given official concession by law, was effectively replaced by another company which lacked the inspection facilities and just happened to be owned by a crony of the President.

A few thoughts come immediately to mind--the trucker whose ill-maintained truck killed Lucky would probably have found it cheaper to bribe than repair, and the accident would still have happened. The other is that although I much prefer to get several sides of a story before passing judgment (though I may report on it in the interim), corruption is so much a part of the scene in Liberia that one may assume it as the default. I don't think I have to bother hearing the protestations of Sudue et al that there were sound reasons to block LTM (a private firm with official concession) from operating.

By the same token, if a representative of FPA/NN were to claim that LTA had gotten its concession by chicanery, I would probably credit that accusation too.

It doesn't seem right to accept the story this way, without further investigation, but it's an efficient and quite accurate shortcut for stories about corruption.

Strained ruling

Judge Diane Schlipper "said the legal language in the ban doesn’t use the term “abortion” so the law only prohibits attacking a woman in an attempt to kill her unborn child."

The Wisconsin statutes involved are a bit mixed thanks to Roe. The original 1849 statute, preserved in 940.04, was clearly written to prosecute abortionists while leaving the erstwhile mothers unprosecuted:

940.04 Abortion
(1)  Any person, other than the mother, who intentionally 
destroys the life of an unborn child is guilty of a 
Class H felony.
(2) Any person, other than the mother, who does either 
of the following is guilty of a Class E felony:
 (a) Intentionally destroys the life of an unborn 
 quick child; or
 (b) Causes the death of the mother by an act done 
 with intent to destroy the life of an unborn child. 
 It is unnecessary to prove that the fetus was alive 
 when the act so causing the mother's death was committed.
(5) This section does not apply to a therapeutic abortion which:
 (a) Is performed by a physician; and
 (b) Is necessary, or is advised by 2 other physicians 
 as necessary, to save the life of the mother; and
 940.04(5)(c)(c) Unless an emergency prevents, is 
 performed in a licensed maternity hospital.
(6) In this section “unborn child" means a human being 
from the time of conception until it is born alive.

Statute 940.13 makes this exemption of the mother explicit.

940.15, post-Roe, attempts to protect viable babies by regulating abortionists.

The judge, as far as I can tell, ignores the sense of 940.04(1) (the title of the section is "Abortion"!) and claims that the only restriction is that of 940.04(2): feticide. The latest addition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court was quite upfront with her intention to make sure abortion was permissible in Wisconsin again--if this decision is appealed I know how she will vote already, law or no law.

Non-state tribunals

First Things has an article on the conflict between "Jewish" and "democratic". It says a new proposal expands "the reach of the country's religious tribunals".

The devil is in the details, but from the linked site:

It is proposed to stipulate that rabbinical courts will have arbitration authority in a civil matter on which an agreement can be reached, if the involved parties have expressed their consent to this. As part of exercising its authority, the rabbinical court is entitled to hear [the cases] and rule according to Jewish law

At first glance this seems rather straightforward, but three issues come to mind--a lawyer might think of more.

• Can all parties consent? If a city ordinance says I can't rent or buy without pre-consenting, I haven't really consented; I'm compelled.
• Does this give a blank check to the tribunals: rule as you please and we'll send policemen to enforce it? What exactly will be a "civil matter"?
• Who determines when a tribunal has become corrupt and is perverting their own law?

Will they continue on to the rest of millet system, and provide for Christian and Muslim tribunals as well?

If their jurisdiction is restricted, and there's no compulsion, it seems a relatively harmless approach; little different from submitting to binding arbitration. I gather that is already the case at some level, so--the devil is in the details. It probably needs a lawyer trained in Israeli law to tell.

soccer

It's no skin off my nose--I'm not a huge soccer, Qatar, or beer fan. But I'm curious if Budweiser's sponsorship contract for the World Cup contemplated the possibility that a Moslem country might ban beer.

If not, some lawyers are having a very unpleasant conversation right now.

Some things stay the same

“Whatever is not nailed down is mine. Whatever can be pried loose is not nailed down.”. What does the slogan bring to mind? The early 20'th century robber barons to whom it was initially applied? Apple trying to "trademark" the letter "i"?

Or pop singers trying to trademark "Queen of Christmas"? (I'd have thought the Virgin Mary would get dibs on that name.)

The infamous "slavery" lesson's upshot

"Dane County Circuit Court Commissioner Scott McAndrew ruled in favor of former Sun Prairie Area School District teacher Mary Headington in a small claims lawsuit against the school district."

It was small claims because she and two others had agreed to quit after a flap when some parents got angry about a lesson plan based on Hammurabi’s Code. The students were given the situation of a Mesopotamian slave owner with a slave who refused to recognize his master--what do you do? (under the Hammurabi Code he was executed) The school district got bent out of shape, possibly from the publicity, and encouraged the teachers to quit--with a separation agreement which the school district then violated. SPASD Employee Relations Manager(*) Isabel Simonetti alleged that the assignment was "racist and offensive to African American students", but admitted "that she never viewed the whole PowerPoint. She received access to the scenarios only from parents’ emails and social media." She had circled on the separation form "that what the employee did was unsatisfactory and had an arrow pointing to giving a “racist/offensive assignment.”".

The Commissioner bothered to read the whole lesson plan, and found for the teacher. A federal court found for the school district when some parents sued about the matter. Words like "offensive" and "insensitive" were used in the opinions, but nothing racist or culpable.

We could do without the "services" of Simonetti. In her official capacity she alleged an offense she never bothered to check for.

---

(*) The district's web page lists her title as "Assistant Superintendent for Teaching, Learning & Equity" Did I mention that I think they could save a lot of money and improve the social climate if they let go everyone with "equity" or "diversity" in their job description?

Statutes that were not good

because they had not complied with My ordinances, but had rejected My statutes and had profaned My Sabbaths, and their eyes were on the idols of their fathers. I also gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances by which they could not live

That's one of those tough sections. The best I come up with is that God gives us all logic, and if you follow the logic of your sins to their conclusions, it leads to stupidities: new rules that don't just double-down on evil but extend it in new directions.

Individuals who double-down on sins do tend to shift into greater sin, but the "statutes" aspect seems to apply more clearly to cultures than to individuals, since "rules" develop from groups. The picture I get is of a land where some are faithful and sensible, but the majority cling to syncretism and and from it learn the practices and logic of pagan sacrifices and rituals--in the Ezekiel case including human sacrifice.

We easily see the effects in our society of elevating particular principles to the status of a unique value--the result is Chesterton's virtues gone mad, and when gone mad, gone evil.

With that in mind, it isn't hard to look back at the last century or so and begin to see how Romans 1 isn't as arbitrary as it seems--we've had the misfortune to see it in action.

It still isn't quite enough of a key to unlock all of Ezekiel 16:49-50,52 for me. I still don't quite follow what restoration Sodom and her daughters are supposed to have (Moab and Ammon?), but if the original characteristic sin was arrogance and indifference to the poor, maybe that could have developed into the vileness displayed in Genesis. Perhaps that was their penalty--to embrace what they should have known was wrong.

Dimble: "Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse" The knowledge that his own assumptions led to Frost's position combined with what he saw in Frost's face and what he had experienced in this very cell, effected a complete conversion. All the philosophers and evangelists in the world might not have done the job so neatly.

Bumblebees

A bumblebee is a fish.

"In October 2018, the public interest groups petitioned the Commission to list four species of bumble bee as endangered species" They did. "In September 2019, petitioners challenged the Commission’s decision": the Fish and Game Commission of California had no authority to do so.

They didn't claim that the bee wasn't endangered--just that the Commission had no statutory authority to include it.

"Prior to 1969, section 45 defined fish as “wild fish, mollusks, or crustaceans, including any part, spawn or ova thereof.” In 1969, the Legislature amended section 45 via Senate Bill No. 858 (1969 Reg. Sess.) (Senate Bill 858) to add invertebrates and amphibia to the definition of fish." Of course this was accompanied by the note that "[t]he expanded definition of fish will permit closer control and monitoring of the harvest of species such as starfish, sea urchins, sponges and worms, and the . . . "

Later regulation changes added some specific species: 3 butterflies and a snail. Their DNR pled that

"The [1970 Legislation] defined species as birds, mammals, fishes, reptiles, and amphibians. Although, technically, these terms name only vertebrate classes of animals, it was the Department’s understanding of legislative intent that the [1970 Legislation] was to extend to invertebrates as well. It was not believed necessary to include the term invertebrate in the original legislation because ‘fish’ is defined in the Fish and Game Code to include ‘invertebrates’

Page 19 mentions a "rule against surplusage", "which provides courts should “avoid, if possible, interpretations that render a part of a statute surplusage." I'd not heard of it before, but that's a good principle. If a statute spells out details, don't expand one of them to encompass others--the statute presumably has a reason for the breakdown. And if there is no good reason (contempt for congress seems mandatory sometimes), why am I to believe the judge is any smarter?

The ruling promptly ignores this on page 27, where the separate addition of the bristle snail to the list is taken to prove that the definition of "fish" is already expansive.

Never mind whether some organization needs to keep track of endangered species in California. That's a different question. As constituted, the Fish and Game Commission didn't have the authority to monitor "non-watery" things besides game. The Third Appellate Court seems to go at the issue backwards--they want a result and are willing to expand definitions beyond the law to get it. It seems like an innocuous goal, but HumptyDumpty means are dangerous. And in this case, also ridiculous.

Spectral Evidence

Trigger warnings, traumatizing speach, microagressions--We've seen this movie before. Entirely subjective evidence is taken as gospel to destroy the new witches just as it was used to destroy the old ones.

Lawgiving

Pittacus of Mytilene: "A crime committed by a person when drunk should receive double the punishment that it would merit if the offender were sober."

He composed his laws in verse. That would make law school a bit more interesting--assuming the poetry was competent. Of course, poetry often tries to shove multiple meanings into a phrase, and that might give judges rather more interpretive discretion than we generally expect.

"Pittacus at Mitylene made stairs to the Temples, which served for no use, but as a dedicated gift ; hereby signifying the ascent and descent of Fortune : those whom Fortune favours ascending, the unfortunate descending."

I'd build a big, tall house with rooms by the dozen
Right in the middle of the town
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below
There would be one long staircase just going up
And one even longer coming down
And one more leading nowhere, just for show

Thanks to Dr. Boli for learning about Pittacus.

UPDATE: "The Cretans commanded all free-born children to learn the Laws with a kind of melody"

Arbery and Rittenhouse

The pundits all want to talk about race, and miss the point, as usual. The results of both trials were the same: you can't chase somebody down and try to kill him just because you think he might have done something(*). If the victim fights back and kills you, it's self defence, and if you kill him, it's murder.

(*) Note that I am giving Huber and Grosskreutz an extreme benefit of the doubt here.

Amnesty law

Would a "war crimes court" bring justice and closure to Liberia?

Maybe, though I doubt it. I think the price tag would be too high.

There's a reason the amnesty act was passed in 2003. It hasn't been all that long, and the warlords are still around. Would you care to bet that they forgot where their weapons caches are?

Warlords are honored legislators; their crimes stay unpunished. And will.

We have it good here--most places. We even have leisure to worry about posthumous punishments.

No perpetuity

I'd never heard of this before--from the UK:

The right at any time or times prior to the expiration of a period commencing on the 22nd day of December 1920 and terminating on the 20th anniversary of the death of the last survivor of the issue now living of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria to make connection with all or any of the part of the hereinbefore mentioned storm water drains and sewers ...

The questioner hadn't seen time limits defined by the lifetime of royalty before. The answer turned out to be

This is an attempt to escape the rule against perpetuities.

"No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest."

...Because royal families are large and wealthy, the likelihood of one of them living ...(a long time)... is large.

Fallbacks

An economic contraction can happen anytime, no matter what the Fed fancies its powers to be. And if it is deep enough and long enough, we have to consolidate: families take in fledged children, cousins, elderly aunts--and make do until opportunities open up.

Which suggests two questions...

Do we (on average) retain enough sense of extended family to be able to make that a real option?

Do we have the legal framework to define such mutual support? (Insurance, IRS tax status, etc). We've been busily trying to redefine marriage, but what about defining an ordinary extended family?

Hospitality for Taliban talks

The BBC reports that the Pentagon wanted to pay for Taliban representatives while they were at peace talks.

This turns out to be forbidden, thanks to a clause inserted by Rep Visclosky:

None of the funds made available by the bill may be used "to pay for the expenses of any member of the Taliban to participate in any meeting that does not include the participation of members of the Government of Afghanistan or that restricts the participation of women", the legislation said.

"Mr Visclosky included the provision because the request for funding would violate laws concerning material support for terrorist groups, said Mr Spicer."

"Steve Ellis, of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said it was like "life imitating The Onion"."

I agree, but not for the reason Ellis thinks. I can see worrying that we might give up on the GofA and cut them out of the negotiating loop--and Visclosky might be worried about that. After watching the GoA for some years now I don't share that concern for the GoA. But "restricts the participation of women?" This is the Taliban you're trying to talk to. We're not in a position to dictate surrender terms.

Straight out of the Onion...