Anyone else have military gaps in their pop culture knowledge?
Being married to a gal 12 years my junior always has some weird side-effects. There are a ton of references she makes that I totally don’t get. For instance, for the past 4 days she has been making Billy Madison references virtually non-stop. For some inexplicable reason, I have never seen that movie. When I googled it I found out it came out in 1995. I was vaguely aware of it’s existence, but I swear I must have spent 1995 in a black out. (Not inconceivable, since that was when I worked at the NRA and was in the reserves, and both tended to be good places to drink.)
So anyway, I grew up in a 2 channel TV household, and both of them were CBS (Channel 3 out of Hartford, and Channel 6 out of Albany.) So before 1988 I didn’t see it unless it was on CBS. On Saturday mornings I could occasionally get Davey and Goliath if all the atmospheric conditions were just right. Then I went to a military college with no TV until my Senior year, and the only time it was ever on was when I would put it on 90210 and let the Citadel Knobs come in to watch it. Mind you, while they watched it I was AWOL at a local pub (The Ark Lounge, a wretched hive of scum and villainy if there was any), and I made them clean my room as recompense.
Then I joined the Army and have been in and out ever since. Now, I bring this up because I’ve been listening to my XM, and fairly reliably they play the song “Brimful of Asha” by Cornershop every day, and I have become addicted to it. But, I swear to God I never heard that song until about a month ago. A quick google shows that it came out when I was in Bosnia with Brown Neck Gaitor.
So anyway, here is my question. Do any of you guys have these gaping areas in your pop culture knowledge from environmental isolation like deployments and basic training? To this day I have never seen any Molly Ringwald movie except Breakfast Club and guest appearances on Psych.
OK, show of hands, how many of you have this idiotic facebook disclaimer up on your page:
Warning–any person and/or institution and/or Agent and/or Agency of any governmental structure including but not limited to the United States Federal Government also using or monitoring/using this website or any of its associated websites, you do NOT have my permission to utilize any of my profile information nor any of the content contained herein including, but not limited to my photos, and/ or the comments made about my photo’s or any other “picture” art posted on my profile. You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein. The foregoing prohibitions also apply to your employee(s), agent(s), student(s) or any personnel under your direction or control. The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law. Without reservation U.C.C. § 1-308.
Look, I don’t mean to be a dick (except to you Paulians, Oathkeepers and assorted other cranial rectal inversion enthusiasts) but the above stated disclaimer, (hereinafter “horseshit”) has as much legal bearing as reading the peanut and corn splatters in a port-a-john like a Rorschach test.
There is so much going on here, I am not sure where to even start. It’s like I once heard Rush Limbaugh wonder in his book, where he was trying to figure out who the first dude that licked a toad and got high. Like, how did that dude brag to his buddies that he found a way to get high by tonguing an amphibian? “Oh, I slipped and fell and my tongue went into this swamp creature?” Likewise, who was the keen legal mind that first thought up the concept that a social networking site, wherein you detail the mundane minutia of your day for the hundreds of folks that are your friends is somehow “private and legally privileged and confidential information”? I’d sooner lick the toad than claim birthright to that one.
Anyway, let’s start with the legal authority referenced, U.C.C. § 1-308. Must be legit, it has that squiggly line shit and some numbers…well, no, not really. You see, the U.C.C. is the “Uniform Commercial Code.” It’s not a law, it’s a bunch of drafts on what the law should look like from the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) and the American Law Institute (ALI). (Your standard wiki link.) The second obvious problem is that it deals with the commercial code, which has jack shit to do with keeping the Feds from snooping in your shit. The specific language of that section of not-law, states:
§ 1-308. Performance or Acceptance Under Reservation of Rights.
(a) A party that with explicit reservation of rights performs or promises performance or assents to performance in a manner demanded or offered by the other party does not thereby prejudice the rights reserved. Such words as “without prejudice,” “under protest,” or the like are sufficient.
(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to an accord and satisfaction.
So let’s review….the legal authority they cite is not a law, it deals with commercial transactions not criminal or 4th Amendment type stuff, and has to do with the performance in a contract. Which parts of all that horseshit apply to Facebook?
So yesterday a wackadoodle shot up a school in Ohio, as you all know. And the pictures they used were all from dickhead’s Facebook. Now, how many of you out there think that had he had this disclaimer up, then no one would be allowed to use it? Not CBS News, not the evil Feds, no one….For all of you, here’s your sign:
I don’t want to get all legal on you, but “private and legally privileged and confidential information” actually has a meaning in the law, and it doesn’t apply to shit you toss up on your Facebook. For instance, my discussion this morning about how my wife noted that Jabba the Hutt looks like a poop….yeah, not privileged. Now, there is the spousal communications privilege and the spousal/marital testimonial privilege, but when you disclose that stuff to someone else, it is no longer privileged. So, my wife’s thoughts on Hutt/Fecal similarities conveyed to me in the car might be confidential to us, but when I put them up on my Facebook for Blackfive to call me a Ghey, they lose their inherent privileged status.
By overusing [disclaimers], lawyers may be undermining the effectiveness of disclaimers in protecting the confidential or privileged nature of the information in the e-mail in the (hopefully) rare event that an e-mail is misdirected (or inadvertently produced in discovery). In a recent case, Scott v. Beth Israel Medical Center Inc., 847 N.Y.S.2d 436, 444 (2007), the court refused to find that a series of e-mails were privileged just because they contained a disclaimer that was found in every e-mail sent by the plaintiff. Lawyers are also training the world to ignore disclaimers and privilege warnings, which is precisely what we don’t want people to do.
The takeaway: if the disclaimer makes you feel warm and fuzzy, by all means keep it on your Facebook page. But, if you think that it will actually serve the purpose that it seems to be intended for, you have bigger problems that the Gov’t monitoring your Facebook page.
I’ve been pretty clear from the start that I felt this was an uphill battle for us in the Supreme Court. *I* think that the SVA is within the scope of appropriate congressional action, and does not run afoul of the First Amendment, but have always been worried that the Supremes wouldn’t see it that way. After hearing the arguments yesterday, I remain fearful of our prospects, but less so. Say the trek will be less Everest, and more like Mt. Washington.
It is dangerous to read too much into the questions posed by the Justices in oral arguments. It’s like reading tea leaves…you might get it right, but chances are it was accidental. That said, I am about to do just that anyway, in the hopes that perhaps some of you keen legal minds out there might read these passages differently, or may have noted other things I missed.
I will say this at the outset, although I thought it went very well, the guy I consider to be the sharpest JAG I ever knew sent me an email this morning that read:
Predictions based on the justices’ questions are not an easy matter, but I don’t think SVA is going to prevail. Kennedy seems to think that it is too broad.
It seemed from the general tenor of the arguments that the justices were looking for ways to agree with [Solicitor General] Verrilli that the exception to the First Amendment’s speech protections was narrow.
He seemed to have one sure supporter in Justice Antonin Scalia, whose comments were uniformly protective of the government’s interests.
“When Congress passed this legislation, I assume it did so because it thought that the value of the awards that these courageous members of the armed forces were receiving was being demeaned and diminished” by those who falsely claimed them, Scalia said.
And Verrilli had one clear skeptic in Sotomayor. “I thought the core of the First Amendment was to protect even against offensive speech,” she said. “You can’t really believe that a war veteran thinks less of the medal that he or she receives because someone’s claiming that they got one
Just picking up Scalia is a good thing from my point of view, since we need 5, and I had labelled him as a likely opponent. As is his custom, Thomas remained silent, but I suspect he is with us. In order to get to 5, we need Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and then two out of Kennedy, Breyer and Chief Justice Roberts. Like I said, beforehand I gameplayed us needing all 3, now we just need 2/3.
I went in CERTAIN that we would lose, and now after the hearing….guardedly optimistic,
The day started at 4am when the alarm went off and VT Woody dove for cover. He slept on the floor, there was no spooning. We SP’d at about 4:15 and made it to the court by 4:20. And we were 4th and 5th in line. Turns out we could have waited until 5:30 and made it in, but better safe than sorry.
We waited with 3 guys, none of whom were on our side. The 1st guy was there for the Thomas Jefferson First Amendment Center (or somesuch) and had been there sleeping on the pavement since 1:30. Good dude, seriously sharp. Wish he was on our side, but so it goes. Another dude’s fiance was an attorney of record for Alvarez, and a third chap was a clerk for the 10th circuit judge who dissented against our position. Anyway, VT Woody found it odd we could all discuss the case without getting too exorcised. That’s just the way it is in the law. You try not to get too passionate and emotional.
However, when we got inside, we met Doug Sterner, our longtime TAH friend, and he was escorting an MOH guy. I believe it was Brian Thacker, but not entirely certain.
I won’t go into too much detail now, but the poor dude defending Alvarez got absolutely bashed up there. Just painful. By the end he conceded that there would be no chilling effect if they upheld SVA, and when he tried to assert that there was no harm done, he got absolutely slapped silly by Justice Breyer, who should have been his most solid supporter. Will go through the transcript later to get some stuff from it, but If I had to guess, gun to my head, I would say we have Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy and lose Sotomayor and Kagen. The others seemed to be in the fight on both sides.
UPDATE: From the transcripts….
(Note, some of these might not make sense out of context, but I identified these as potentially interesting colloquies. At least read the bolded one….)
JUSTICE SCALIA: I believe that there is no First Amendment value in — in falsehood.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: What is — what is the First Amendment value in a lie, pure lie?
After a convoluted answer that cited “personal autonomy” which Roberts rejected, the lawyer went on to Mark Twain, which Roberts pointed out was only a story, a book. And then Alito weighed in…
JUSTICE ALITO: Do you really think that there is — that the First Amendment — that there is First Amendment value in a bald-faced lie about a purely factual statement that a person makes about himself, because that person would like to create a particular persona? Gee, I won the Medal of Honor. I was a Rhodes scholar, I won the Nobel Prize. There’s a personal - the First Amendment protects that?
MR. LIBBY: Yes, Your Honor, so long as it doesn’t cause imminent harm to another person or imminent harm to a government function.
I’ve already gone over this with a fairly fine-toothed comb, but maybe someone can find some things in it. For instance, at one point they claim they spent like $5 million in grassroots and direct lobbying (Page 2, part 4B), but then later on they list no expenditures for lobbying. As near as I can tell, 90%+ of what they did amounted to their TV commercials. I will have more on that later, but maybe some of you will see something else in there.
Heh, nice to see myself in one of their videos, arguing with Beeker, now our sort of buddy on some things.
Side Note: Anyone in the DC area that wants to go with VT Woody and me, we will be at the SC by 5 am to ensure we get the public seats. If all else fails, I have a press pass, but press seats at the SC are behind a makeshift wall, so you can’t see anything. I expect the VFW and TAL folks will be there, but would love to have some TAH readers if anyone feels up to getting up at the asscrack of dawn.
First, apologies for the lack of posts last week, I was at a seminar on leadership of non-profits for my non-TAL related stuff I do with veterans issues. (I am on the Board of Trustees for Soldiers’ Angels.) To start the week off right, I woke up extra early and drove to work to get a post up, only to realize when I got there that today is a Holiday. Either way, going to get this post up now, as tomorrow I am on travel to the Supreme Court to hear the arguments.
Last week the Supreme Court Insider at the National Law Journal, Tom Mauro laid out the arguments to be heard in this case:
In briefs before the Supreme Court in United States v. Alvarez, the named party Xavier Alvarez is variously described as a “phony,” a “scoundrel” and a “serial prevaricator.” And those descriptions are from the briefs on his side. The Alvarez case, set for argument on Feb. 22, has produced a remarkable aray of 18 briefs on both sides of the issue: whether the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to falsely claim having won a military honor, violates the First Amendment.
Alvarez, a small-town politician in Pomona, Calif., was prosecuted under the law after claiming in a public speech that he was a retired Marine who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1987. In fact, he had never served in the military or won the medal.
Alvarez’s challenge to the law follows in a recent line of classic First Amendment cases in which the Court has ruled that controversial expressions ranging from dog-crush videos to virulent protests at military funerals to violent videogames are nonetheless protected by the First Amendment. Whether the Court will give similar protection to lying about military medals is not certain. “The case presents fundamental questions about how the Constitution applies to intentionally false statements,” wrote Jenner & Block partner Paul Smith, who won the violent videogame case, in the latest Communications Lawyer newsletter.
The Court has said from time to time that false statements deserve little or no First Amendment protection, but those supporting Alvarez say the Court has not condoned criminalizing falsity when it causes no injury. In addition to criticizing Alvarez for his false statements, briefs by First Amendment advocates have also piled on in criticizing the Obama Administration’s vigorous defense of the law.
The government’s brief argues that content-based restrictions on false speech are permitted under the First Amendment so long as enough “breathing space” remains for fully protected speech. Military advocates say the law is needed to protect the value and integrity of the military awards program, which dates back to the days of George Washington – on whose birthday the case will be argued.
1) They could decide that easily verifiable lies dealing with an interest like military medals are not to be afforded constitutional protection.
2) They could decide that some lies are covered, but in this case the Gov’t has a compelling interest in preserving military medals, under the Constitutional authority to raise armies and to set their rules.
3) They could decide that the law should have an imputed fraud element. (i.e. You can lie about being an MOH recipient in a bar or something, but if you try to acquire something tangible or intangible than that would be violative.)
4) Lastly, they could go the way folks seem to think they will and say that the Stolen Valor Amendment has an overbreadth problem, and suggest that Congress rewrite the statute with the fraud element actually in place. Technically they wouldn’t actually suggest that, but it would be clear. If this last happens, luckily there is already a bill in the works.
Since y’all (mostly VT Woody) keep sending me the pics, I figured I would take one in my office this morning.
Yes, I will survive.
No, I take no solace in pitchers and catchers reporting soon. My love of the Sox is almost extinguished by the great “Beer and Fried Chicken Debacle of ought eleven”.
Yes, I still have my UMASS Basketball.
No, they will not make the Big Dance.
Yes, I still have nightmares of Welker’s non-catch.
No, I don’t think Gisele is the Yoko Ono of Boston.
Yes, I still loathe in perpetuity Mia Hamm, who is the actual Yoko Ono of Boston.
No, I do not consider this the worst bed-shitting in Boston history.
Yes, I still hate Satan Peyton Manning more than his brothers.
On Feb. 29, President Obama and the First Lady will host an East Room dinner for returning Iraq veterans, with representatives of all ranks, all branches, and every state and territory. Attire will be formal: black tie or dress uniform. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, will attend. More than 100 combat veterans of Iraq will be invited, along with a guest for each, many of whom are expected to also be veterans. The guest list will include wounded warriors, caregivers, and Gold Star families, who have lost a loved one as the result of military service. The list is being assembled by the senior enlisted representative for the five service chiefs, and the goal is a mix that is racially diverse, old and young, gay and straight.
The beautiful thing to me about the military was the equality of opportunity and the meritocracy. I really didn’t give two shits if the person next to me was fat, skinny, gay, straight, metrosexual, sartorially deficient, black, white, asian, male, female or other. I just wanted them to shoot straight. And now they are hosting a dinner party as a black tie affair (real working man’s shit right there) where the stated goal is to find “a mix that is racially diverse, old and young, gay and straight.”
Are you kidding me with this shit? Why the fug should a persons sexual orientation, gender or ethnicty be a determinant in a White House invite to celebrate the end of Iraq? Why not just do a damn lottery or something? Holy shit this makes me mad.
As my friend David Bellavia snarked:
Great news!!! President Obama, in lieu of having an Impersonal ticker tape parade, is inviting 200 Iraq war veterans to a black tie dinner at the white house. Surely no generals or high ranking pencil pushers will be there. Just grunts. Bloodied, valorous, selfless grunts.
So my fellow Ramrods, I will be with Ruiz and Sucholas by the chocolate fountain….. You didn’t get invited either? Maybe our invitations are lost with the other 1.1 million who served.
Open the rose garden and fire up the BBQ. Let’s all go and drink to the fallen. Maybe president Romney will hook us up.
