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Quote of the Day - You should go to a pear tree for pears, not to an elm.
Cutting And Growing Trees At The Same Time - What Framed Your House?Up here in Humboldt County, logging and lumber drive the economy. The other side of the spectrum wants to ensure old growth trees are preserved, not cut down.My daughter has been playing soccer for the Humboldt Lumberjacks, four years as a sweeper, and two years as an assistant coach. The team has done well, and Julie has enjoyed the school and especially the area. Over the years, I've watched with some interest the ongoing battle between logging and conservation, wondering if there is any hope of resolution for the two extremes. Obviously, I'm not going to solve it in one blog post. Maybe if I had a half-hour TV show, but that's an entirely different story. Maybe, however, there is a place to start. This past week, a San Francisco jury did just that. They awarded $1.00 for injuries suffered during a 1997 protest over logging when deputies swabbed pepper spray in the eyes of protesters who chained themselves together. The protesters claimed vindication, and the deputies claimed that they caused no damage. Split the baby. It's not an acceptable resolution for every situation, but perhaps here. Loggers need to cut trees to earn a living, lumber mills and yards cut and sell it for profit, and you and I live in houses made of it, the whole reason for the cycle in the first place. Likewise, the redwoods are certainly beautiful, and deserve protection. Can we develop an acceptable plan to do both? Can we cut trees to fuel home growth and at the same time preserve old growth? Do we need to pull up the plank and stop home construction all together? Or can we make sustainable growth not amount to an impossible oxymoron? 
All The Romance Is Gone From DuelsHere in California, we're about to add serial numbers for handgun bullets. In Florida, you're not required to retreat if you fear for your life or serious bodily harm.Two ends of the same spectrum, ostensibly trying to solve the same issue: crime. I'm not sure which is better, and which is worse. I guess it depends which end of the gun you're on. So let's take a look at both barrels. Senator Joe Dunn introduced the bullet serialization bill. He claims "SB 357 will strip criminals of their anonymity and give law enforcement evidence it can use to quickly and effectively solve more gun crimes." Let's think about that. I have serial numbers on my stereo, cell phone, computer software, vehicles, heck, even my dollar bills (I checked the ones in my wallet. All but one had a serial number on it.) Like my blog posts, my Walther PPK has a serial number on it. Should bullets be any different? The Gun Owners of California have put out an alert, claiming it will increase the cost of ammunition. On the other hand, what is the cost of crime? What about the Wild West of Florida? If you're packing heat, then you can use it if you're accosted. Many police organizations, including the Florida Sheriffs Association, Police Chiefs Association and Florida Police Benevolent Association supported the Self-defense bill, now law. As quoted in the April 6, 2005 Tallahassee Democrat, Miami Beach Representative Dan Gelder (D) argued against the bill, claiming that "it legalizes dueling. It legalizes fighting to the point of death, without anybody having a duty to retreat." If they have serial numbers on those bullets, we'll be able to tell who killed who in that duel. At some point in time, you would think that we as a society could move beyond using guns, and stick to fighting words. Me, I like target practice, but I prefer the ones with circles instead of bodies. I don't carry a gun to keep me out of trouble, or, for that matter, at all. I'm also not simplistic enough to think that I'll never get into trouble where I might need a gun, but it's not worth it to me to carry a gun all the time just to protect against that one time I might need it. But if I travel to Florida, I'll have to give it some thought. Really makes you think about Disney World a little differently, doesn't it? Just don't butt in line in front of anyone.
Riffles® Roundly Rebuffs Ruffles'® Ridges.I wrote this post just to be able to write that headline. There were not enough stories out there today using the letter R. So, I thought I'd round up a few.Turns out that Pepsico lost a battle in the EU. The European Union's Court of First Instance denied Frito-Lay's application to the EU to trademark Ruffles across the entire EU (decision not yet published). Seems that there's a German potato chip known as Riffels that could result in consumer confusion. There'd be way too many R's.
See MIPTC From Outer SpaceSure there's Google maps, and it's certainly cool. Click on "satellite" on the upper right hand side of the page, and you've got live pictures. You can even see the home of MIPTC right here in Newport Beach. Links to the location can be had just by clicking on "link to this page."But it gets better. Check out Keyhole. You can fly in from outer space to the address you pick.
The Consequences of Youthful IndiscretionsIn this age of instant communication, isn’t it ironic that we are required to use even greater caution in what we say and to whom we say it? Given the ease with which I can forward an email or post to a blog, I can convey my thoughts across the room or around the globe. As a student I have to keep this reality in mind when I write. What if a future employer happens to be reading? Should this be a concern and influence what I choose to say? Perhaps, perhaps not, but the reality is it does, especially with interviews looming in the fall.This really didn’t seem to matter much when the primary form of written communication was the posted letter. After all, how many times have you ever received a letter, read it, written out a new envelope, stamped it, and mailed it on to another person? Just didn’t happen, did it? Forwarding is a different story as a recent Dutch law grad found out. Mis-addressing the email and the power of the “forward” button mean that people all over the world are now familiar with his “career” goals. As the article reported, at least everyone knows his name.
Can The Supreme Court Look To The World For Guidance?Perhaps this topic is better left to the academics in the crowd, but it seemed interesting, so as a practitioner, I'll put my views up for peer review. How's that for a disclaimer?It seems that citation to international law has been cropping up with more frequency (see page 21 of the opinion) lately. Justice O'Connor doesn't see it as a problem, but Justice Scalia disagrees. He argues that the decisional law of, say, South Africa, isn't going to tell us much about the U.S. Constitution. Well, maybe not. On the other hand, the Constitution wasn't created in a vacuum. It was developed, in large part, as a rejection of monarchical law in England. But the founding fathers (and yes, they were all men) didn't just reject English law, they adopted much of it in the interpretation of our laws. It's called context. Would it be unreasonable to turn to English law for assistance in interpreting our laws? I think not. There's not a lawyer who graduated from law school that doesn't know about Blackacre and Justice Blackstone (see section 77, et seq.). But if we recognize that many of our laws were derived from England (and, consequently, Roman and Greek law, arguably all the way back to the Code of Hammurabi) where do we stop? Is South Africa just one of the branches that we need to look at in order to understand our own laws? Depends on whether we continue our history of isolationism. Will the world get any smaller?
Judge Says It All: New York Lawyers Are Noxious ParticlesSometimes news stories are just too good to be true. Take this one, for example. Sure, click on it. Read it first.Doesn't that headline "Noxious Particles At Law Firm Are Property Damage, New York Judge Says" say it all? Lawyer jokes aside, how much better can it get than that? Noxious particles at a law firm. Are they talking about the lawyers at their desks? Many would argue that lawyers themselves are property damage. But to be covered by insurance, that just takes the cake. Imagine the possibilities. What part of the insurance policy covers the lawyers as noxious particles? Riot? Civil Commotion? Insurrection? War? Famine? Pestilence? I think the judge was a little too narrow minded when he decided lawyers were just property damage. Seriously, it's good to know that the events arising out of September 11, 2001, are covered by insurance, as they should be. But the headline of that story just pulled me in, and gave me the chance to poke some fun at some of the New York lawyers I know. Now, it's their turn. Let's see if any of them can take some jabs at the left coast lawyers.
Email After Death. What Are Your Plans?With the loss of Terry Schiavo, there's been less and less rhetoric about what happens after you die. While MIPTC is not going to engage in an existential examination of those issues, there are some more worldly issues to think about.For example: where do your emails go? I'm not sure whether there's an email heaven or an email hell, but my tech department tells me plain and simple, "They stay on the server." As unexciting as that response was, there's got to be more to it. Think about it. You're still being spammed after you die, and presumably others who don't know that you died may still be sending you emails, despite whatever that etiquette/protocol may be. So there is email after death. But the question from the link above about where your emails go deserves some inquiry, too. Should your ISP provide your family members with access to your emails? The answer has more than two sides, but ready ones that I can come up with are that your family members are going to go through your things anyway, so what's the difference between rummaging through your files and papers at home and rummaging through your email? Some say your email is more like a personal journal, where you communicate freely. What if you don't want your family members to see what (or who) you've been writing? After you die, it's too late to destroy those incriminating emails. I'm not aware of any self-destruct mechanisms built into email servers, so unlike Mission Impossible, that tape isn't going to go up in smoke. People who have really planned ahead may have included dealing with emails in their wills. [Side note here: is email "property" that you can transfer by will to someone else, or provide for the destruction of email, if that's your wish?] Admittedly, my will doesn't deal with email, but then again, my emails may put my family to sleep. Perhaps the easiest way to deal with it is through the email provider. Kind of a check-the-box thing. And when I die, I'd just like to go naturally, without anyone reading my emails. How about you?
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