Dave Barry has a 24 blog.

How friggin' awesome is that?

Link here.

Rockin' the Elite Eight

Friday night, a friend of mine named Chris and I ended up at a bar in The Grand Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. It's not someplace we've really gone to before, but Chris wanted the number of some bartender over there. So we sat at the bar and watched some NCAA tournament games, one of which was being played just a few blocks away in the Metrodome. Eventually we end up talking to a couple from Gainesville, FL, decked out in Gator gear. They were a couple of real estate developers. Apparently they go to all of the Gators' home games and make as many tournament games as possible. They asked us if we were going to the Elite Eight game on Sunday. We weren't since we didn't have tickets. She briefly noted that a couple wearing Georgetown sweatshirts weren't going to use theirs since they were heading back home after Georgetown's loss to Florida that night. She walked over to them, took out a wad of cash, and started haggling with them. When she returned, she handed each of us a ticket. We ended up hanging out with these two for the rest of the night. They let us pay $20 apiece for the tickets, much less than their value. Neither of us had any idea how much they actually paid for the tickets. Guess she just got a kick out of helping out a couple of law students. "Just make sure you root for Florida."

That we did (though I had Villanova going to the Final Four in my bracket). These seats were just about as good as you could get: fourth row, right between center court and the Florida bench. Before yesterday, the only NCAA college basketball games I'd ever seen in person were University of Montana games. Watching on TV just doesn't do it justice. These guys were, first of all, enormous. Somehow watching on a two and a half foot TV screen doesn't accurately portray just how gargantuan these guys are. Incredible experience. The only way this could have been better is if they'd had UConn and George Mason in the Minneapolis Region...









































I might have to spend more time at the Grand...

A rare post about the law...

This is a new pet peeve of mine: people who claim that an Easter egg or a Santa Claus figurine sitting in a government lobby is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The City of St. Paul has confronted this issue before, but apparently failed to learn its lesson. Back in December 2001, the city announced that all red poinsettias would have to be removed from a holiday display in the main lobby. White ones were okay apparently because they weren't sufficiently Christian, but red ones were considered offensive to non-Christian sensibilities. Eventually someone down there realized how utterly *&%$ing rediculous that rule was and quietly reallowed the red poinsettias back in.

Fastforward to today. A cloth bunny and a display that says "Happy Easter" were removed from the lobby of the St. Paul City Council offices because of a single complaint--actually, not even a complaint, but a comment--that the display might be offensive to non-Christians. The fact that they took the thing down irritates me enough. Add in the subtle detail that no one actually called up the city council and complained that they were offended, but rather that some hippy human rights director speculated that there might be some egg shell ass clown out there who could potentially have his worldview jolted by the sight of a pastel Easter egg sitting in the lobby of a government building. But this isn't "about being politically correct or anything else." No, of course not. I don't know why anyone would get that impression.

This is what happens when legal decisions are made by HR directors. They are under the constant impression that they need to satisfy the most irrational sensitivities of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there--even the hypothetical ones. It isn't necessary, nor is it possible...because by pandering to these Bohemian ACLU soy suckers, they're really just pissing everybody else off. Me included.

Now I'm no Lawrence Tribe here, but I do pretend know a thing or two about the Establishment Clause. And I'm pretty sure that if their concern is truly their "responsibility about advancing the cause of religion," then there was absolutely no need to yank the Easter bunny doll out of the building in cuffs. Back in 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court visited a similar issue in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984). It determined that a city's inclusion of a nativity scene in its display did not violate the Establishment Clause. The display must be viewed in the proper context of the holiday season. From this perspective, the display is clearly not a "purposeful or surreptitious effort to express some kind of subtle governmental advocacy of a particular religious message . . . The creche in the display depicts the historical origins of this traditional event long recognized as a National Holiday." Id. at 680. The Court thus found that a secular purpose existed for the display. Similarly, the Court found that no religion is impermissibly advanced by the display, certainly no more so than the spending of public money for textbooks at or transportation for church-sponsored schools, federal grants for college buildings of church-sponsored institutions, tax exemptions for church properties, etc. Id. at 681. Finally, no evidence of entanglement with religion existed since there was no contact with religious authorities concerning the display or any other action that would cause entanglement. Id. at 684.

Now on the other hand, the Court considered a more blatant Christmas display in County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U.S. 573 (1989). There the Court did find a violation. The display at issue not only contained a picture of a nativity scene, but also an angel above the scene with the words "Glory to God in the Highest!" written on it. Subtle difference, no? No secular purpose, clear advancement--this sucker is a violation.

The situation in St. Paul is almost identical to Lynch. If anything, there are even fewer grounds for a violation.

Alright, for non-law students who just quit reading once they saw a case cite, it's been well-settled for a long time that this type of thing is perfectly fine. As long as you don't have a ten-foot crucifix standing in the middle of the lobby, you've got no violation. Yet for some reason, I doubt this will be the last time the PC fascists with little else of importance to concern themselves with will take aim at innocent decorations that do no harm to anyone.

Larry Krystkowiak, St. Patrick's Day 1986

THE GREATEST EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANKIND:

THE GRIZ DEVOUR THE WOLF PACK 87-79!!!

MAYHEM IS IN ORDER.

ESPN article here.

CBS

montanagrizzlies.com

Missoulian: Upset, Baby!; Mind if we cut in?; Zags' Slipper Fits UM Just Fine; Seek Repeat Performance Against Boston College

Great Falls Tribune

Reno Gazzette-Journal: Heartbreak in Salt Lake; A Grizzly Scene in Utah; Bad Defense Haunts Pack Psyche; Nevada Latest Victim of 5 vs. 12 Hex

Update: I hadn't noticed this before, but my dad directed me to this Missoulian excerpt from before the game:

“We actually really haven't gone over Montana yet,” said Fazekas, the Pack's 6-foot-11 junior center who may make himself eligible for the NBA draft following the season. “We haven't watched film yet. Coach has given us a little perspective on what they try to do. We're really going to go over it tonight.”

Excuse the absence.

I got back from Montana on Sunday night. The family's all doing well. Lea and I ran roughshod over the City of Great Falls and managed to plan an entire wedding in the course of two days: met with the church, the country club, the florist, Kaufmann's for the tuxes, Insty Prints for the invitations, and then followed it up with my cousin Brad's wedding, which just happened to also be at St. Ann's Cathedral (read: dress rehearsal). Game on. Unfortunately, the kilts will not be making an appearance on September 23.

Just this afternoon, I dropped off my application for admission to the Minnesota Bar. It cost four hunny just to process the thing. So basically I'm paying the state bar association $400 to determine whether I'm lying to them about my character and fitness. You'd think I was signing up for the Secret Service.

Thoughts on everything else that's happened this week:

• I love the WBC. This thing is an unmitigated success. It's even better than Olympic baseball because it happens during spring training when Major League Baseball is less reluctant to allow its players to participate (rightly so since they put it together). And even if the U.S. is eliminated in the next couple days (which t-mac notes is a distinct possibility), I'll still be happy with it. The European hussies that collectively eliminated baseball as an Olympic sport did so partly because the U.S. and a handful of other countries dominate it. Any baseball player already knows this isn't true. Matter of fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a summer sport that is more global than baseball outside of soccer and track-and-field events. If the U.S. can be beaten by Canada and Korea and Cuba can be taken out by the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, then there is obviously fertile ground for baseball globally. It's officially out for London in 2012, but I expect hellfire if baseball and softball aren't re-added for 2016.
• Griz v. Reno. Montana pulls a #12 seed in the Minneapolis region of the Big Dance. In honor of that, all posts will be in maroon as long as the Griz are still in it. Nevada-Reno is first on the list. This is the second trip to the NCAA tourney in two years with Krystko as coach. Krystko is the man. My picks: Final four will be Duke, 'Zaga, UConn, and Florida. UConn over Zaga in the final. Edge to UConn because Morrison won't shave his mustache.
• Podcasts are wicked kewl. They've been around for quite awhile, but I've just recently started to get on the band wagon. I can download BBC News, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, MLB Radio, and even more obscure stuff like...say, three podcasts all about 24, for example, and then listen to all of it while walking on the skyway or home from work or whatever. Heck, I might even download some lessons in Arabic. Bottom line: my iPod has made me a better person. Mad props to Lea.
• I asked Marie to nab me a bottle of Greek ouzo when she went to Greece. She came back empty handed. Requested a Maltese falcon (read: some trinket that looks like one) when she went to Malta over the summer. No dice. So when she went to clerk for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, I made a simple request that she shouldn't have had too much trouble fulfilling, especially since she's working on the defense side of the aisle: Slobodan Milosevic's autograph. Heck, she was only sitting fifteen feet away from the guy. He knows English. It's not like it's that hard. Instead, not only does she not get me the autograph, he conveniently has a "heart attack" in his jail cell. Gee, thanks Marie. Not getting the autograph is one thing, but do you have to poison the guy just to spite me? ;o)
• Okay, joking aside on the Slobo thing, conspiracy theories will abound amongst his supporters in Serbia and others about this whole deal, even though it appears he was trying to make himself sick in order to delay his trial and get neat little jaunts to Moscow. How come no one seems to question this part of it? If I'm sitting in a Dutch prison cell, do I get to fly to Moscow for medical treatment? Or is that a benefit exclusive to brutal dictators who slaughter hundreds of thousands of people because of their religion? Anyway, not all feel the same way I do. Anonymous Lawyer praises Slobo for both his management style and for dying prior to his eventual conviction (because afterall, no defense lawyer likes to lose a high profile case...It's much better if the defendant passes away before that can happen).

That's it for now. Go Griz.

The Canadians had barely thawed out...

...before schooling America's best baseball players at America's national past time on American soil. They went up 8-0 before Team USA brought it back to 8-6.

Someone please stop the bleeding.

The European Space Agency has announced that it will smash its SMART-1 spacecraft into the moon this coming September, just to see "what happens." Not to be out done, NASA now plans to shove a handful of lit Black Cats into the Hubble telescope and throw it out the car window at Mars. I eagerly await the results of these fantastic scientific endeavors.

Maybe it's just because he looks like he's scowling all of the time, but I kinda wonder if Ryan Phillippe has some inferiority issues with his wife's stellar career and his settling into B-role mediocrity. When they starting dating on the set of Cruel Intentions, he was at the top of his game and she was in her pre-Legally Blonde obscurity. Today, she's America's sweetheart, pulling in Oscars while he's now become the poor man's Heath Ledger. I dunno. Just a thought.

Viva Crash.

What's at stake...

This speech might be the best articulation I've seen yet of the consequences of capitulation in Iraq or the War on Terror. Winston Churchill III appears to have inherited his grandfather's gift. Every Westerner should read it.