I wish I could have time to enjoy reading To Kill A Mockingbird instead of having to read it all within two days.

Blah, Family Law reading assignments...

So when Stan Lee gets a show with western animators, we get Striperella.

When Stan Lee gets a show with eastern animators, we get this.



It's just not fair.

In case you haven't heard, apparently someone traced the manga BLEACH by Kubo Tite, took some story hooks from Hellsing, added a dash of color and sold it as a comic book. Oh, and that "someone" is Gene Simmon's son. It's rather hilarious given how blatant some of the copying is. This isn't some of that wish-washy "oh some of these poses are the same" or "oh these two pieces have the similar mouth/eyes." Check it out:

( A small sampling )

Edit: Oh wait guys, it's okay, turns out he's never even HEARD of Bleach. *AWESOMEFACE*

Hey, I just turned 25! I've had quite a good run so far. Loads of friends, great family, and I'm doing well in Law School.


ALTERNATIVELY:

Oh God I'm 25 and I'm still in school and I have no romantic interests and I still collect comic books.

Ohhh, bad pun was bad.

So, things are kinda going to hell in a hand-basket in Australia. It seems like every week there's a new story about a law passed that has them shaving away rights to freedom of speech. For example, this most recent law...

http://www.news.com.au/technology/south-australian-state-government-gags-internet-debate/story-e6frfro0-1225825750956

The new law, which came into force on January 6, requires anyone making an online comment about next month's state election to publish their real name and postcode.

I mean... wow. I can't even SEE the rational argument for this bill. It seems like such an obvious ploy to restrict dissension by forcing people to put their name and addresses when they make any kind of political statement.

“All I ask is one thing. … Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism, For the record, it’s my least favorite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

Goodbye, Conan O'Brien. You were my reason for watching NBC late-night for most of my life.

This is just a reference as I've been getting some questions about my school schedule this year.

Monday: Evidence - 9:05 am-10:00 am

Tuesday: First Amendment Freedom of Speech 10:40 am-11:35 am
Professional Responsibility 12:45 pm-2:10 pm
Children, Family, and the State 4:00 pm-5:25 pm

Wednesday: Mergers and Acquisitions 7:30 am-8:55 am
Evidence - 9:05 am-10:00 am
Copyrights - 4:00 pm-6:00 pm

Thursday: First Amendment Freedom of Speech 10:40 am-11:35 am
Professional Responsibility 12:45 pm-2:10 pm
Children, Family, and the State 4:00 pm-5:25 pm

Friday: Mergers and Acquisitions 7:30 am-8:55 am
Evidence - 9:05 am-10:00 am

Woooo, fun times.

Let's send this year off right.




Hope everyone has a good New Year's Eve! Have a fun night!

You know, nothing serves a surefire slice of humble pie than stumbling across your old sketch books. There are a loooooot of comics with shoddily copied characters, blatantly stolen plots, and dialogue completely based on puns, in-jokes, and catch phrases. Oh well, I suppose I should just be thankful that there was no Deviant Art or other Internet avenues to completely embarrass myself with my extremely early work. I will just have to live with the fact that there are places in the bowels of the Internet where my merely mediocre work is enshrined forever (or at least until the servers go out).

Seriously, I drew chapter 26 of Bass is Not a Fish twice?

Whoops, I neglected to wish you all a very merry holiday before I absconded off to Arkansas, completely missing the two storms that put all of Nebraska under a foot of snow. Still, I hope you all had a fun and safe holiday, and will ring in the new year with good friends and/or family. And I hope you're all doubly careful driving in this bit of bad weather we're having, as we saw 17 or so cars and semis lying in ditches, some on their sides. Yikes, man.

And what did *I* do when I came back from my holiday vacation without internet? Why, I turned to Nostalgia Critic's Star Wars Holiday Special Review! And while it was merely a review of the special and not the entire thing, the actual footage shown still managed to rape everything I loved about Star Wars to the point where I can only look to my Star Wars posters and novels in shame and disgust. To be clear, I was fully expecting the special to be bad, as I read Anthony Daniels' Wonder Column! about just how horrifyingly awful it was. I stress that I do not say this lightly, but as someone who has sat through three viewings of Manos: The Hands of Fate this special was the most bewildering and terrible thing I have ever seen. Perhaps it is because Star Wars is so closely tied to my inner child that increased the trauma, but it feels like this Special kicked me in the balls. It was only through sheer force of will that I managed to watch the whole thing through, and I feel poorer for it.

...So anyways, have some happy holidays, everyone!

I just saw my first "Snuggie" commercial. It had a group of 20-somethings wearing them playing pictionary. Also dancing. Also dogs wearing them.

I am horrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

Legal Research is the Great Satan. It's body: a document made of paper wrought from the trees of the damned, 150 pages in bulk. It's manner: questions asking "which of the following answers are the least correct?" It's length is three hours; curiously long in theory, but evaporates before you can plumb the depths of its endless questions, all without breaks for rest or recovery. And finally, when you think have slain the beast, it turns its most ferocious and devious trickery upon you: six essays were warned of at the beginning, but in reality their number is four times that! All "sub-essays" by name, but a full-length explanation is expected for each! O horrors, o horrors! I weep for all who must undertake this task, for it is truly the foulest and wretched of all exams ever to be spat out on this Earth.

Good: Hey, finished my Criminal Procedure Final! Only two more finals left!

Bad: Avatar has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. I have lost all faith in humanity.

...

IT'S DANCES WITH WOLVES MEETS FERN GULLY IN SPACE, DAMMIT.

If you think about it, the Justice League must have one of the most awkward roommate situations ever.

You might enjoy this.

So, while I wasn't looking, one of my favorite artists Inkmo went and got himself a new site. Thought I'd share for anyone who's interested.

http://www.jackmo.com/

Let's see if I can't whip up an 8 page Legal Memorandum on Trade Secrets in 3-ish hours!

LET'S GO!

Edit: Oh yeah, I totally can. With 30 minutes to spare. *air-guitar riff*

Went and saw the Moot Court finals today, and one of the judges was Justice Scalia of the United States Supreme Court.

Justice Scalia is a pretty funny guy. Who knew?

Because it's been some time since I've bored you all with what I learn in Law School.

First up is Missouri v. Seibert, a case that was heard in the Supreme Court in 2004.

Patrice Seibert's 12-year-old child died in the night due to cerebral palsy. She became worried she would be charged with neglect, as the child was covered in bedsores. She decided to burn the body in a mobile home to make the death look like an accident. She also decided to leave Donald Rector, a mentally handicapped teenager that lived with the family, in the mobile home as well, to avoid the appearance that it looked like the child was unattended. Seibert's son Darian and a friend set fire to the mobile home, and Donald died. The police were alerted to the suspicious actions when Darian had to be treated for burns.

There had been various decisions from the court that had allowed the state to use confessions that were obtained after Miranda warnings had been given, even if accidental confessions were obtained before the Mirana warnings were given (i.e., the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine did not apply to Miranda. Previous statements that were made in violation of Miranda did not bar the state from introducing subsequent confessions that were made after the Miranda warnings could be properly administered). Because of this, the police decided to consciously withhold telling Mrs. Seibert of her Miranda rights and interrogated her. After a questioning session that lasted almost an hour, she admitted incriminating statements that were evidence she knew about the plot to burn Donald alive. She was given a 20-minute coffee and cigarette break, and then informed of her Miranda rights, and asked if she’d repeat her statements. She did so.

The Supreme Court eventually tossed out this evidence due to the fact that the police conduct purposefully undermined the efficacy of Miranda warnings. They found the statement by Mrs. Seibert to be one long, continuous statement under custodial interrogation, despite the break. Therefore the Miranda warnings did not adequately convey her 5th Amendment right to remain silent, or that her previous statements were unusable by the police due to their purposeful questioning without giving a Miranda warning. What kills me is that she decided to cover up a neglect charge, which would have been a fine, by committing FIRST DEGREE MURDER.

Now Miranda v. Arizona was the case where the Supreme Court came up with the Miranda rule we all know and love ("You have the right to remain silent, you have a right to an attorney"), which is designed to inform suspects of their 5th Amendment rights when they are in a custodial interrogation (before this, many police stations had pamphlets on how to interrogate suspects in rather unscrupulous ways to produce a confession). When the case was first decided, it produced a backlash. Many people were concerned that the Miranda rule would unjustifiably throw out voluntary confessions on a technicality. President Nixon ran on a platform railing against Miranda, and two years after Miranda was decided Congress passed The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which effectively overruled Miranda by offering an alternative method to control custodial interrogations. He also appointed Justices Scalia and Rehnquist primarily for their anti-Miranda stance.

However, the court could never rule on this matter, because the Attorney General’s office refused to invoke the 1968 act (also known as § 3501) as a part of their Miranda cases. By exercising prosecutorial discretion, the Executive branch has the ability to nullify some provisions of the law through the failure to prosecute. The court can’t rule on a theory that’s not brought up in the case, and so § 3501 went unused and ignored.

In a 1994 case, Davis v. United States, Justice Scalia argued vehemently in his opinion for someone, ANYONE to bring up § 3501, as he felt the Supreme Court was finally positioned to overturn Miranda. Finally, six years later in 2000, Scalia got his wish with Dickerson v. United States. What was odd about this was that the Department of Justice still refused to make a § 3501 argument, and would not send any lawyers to argue the case, so a law professor was brought in to argue for the State. Scalia, who had been begging and pleading for someone to bring a case so he could finally overturn Miranda, was completely trounced as the Supreme Court decided in a rare 7-2 opinion to uphold Miranda and elevate it to a Constitutional Rule, and ruled that § 3501 was unconstitutional. What’s even MORE bizarre is that Chief Justice Rehnquist, who had been brought in by Nixon for the specific purpose of destroying Miranda, was the one who authored the opinion in support of Miranda.

Justice Scalia was so furious about the way the ruling turned out that he claimed he would not follow the opinion in the future, and that he would still apply the § 3501 test whenever a Miranda issue presented itself. Because rulings by the Supreme Court have the weight of law, this effectively was a Supreme Court Justice saying, “I’m not going to follow the law.” He has since backed down from the position, at least for outward appearances.

I had food poisoning today.

It is an experience I would not recommend.