Trump Gets a Bull Durham Lesson

The lesson in the movie Bull Durham is Never Call the Umpire a C%$#sucker.

When Trump disparaged (I would argue threatened) Federal Judge James Robart after he issued an injunction against his attempted Muslim ban, it was clear that no one in the Judiciary would be happy with this.

The 9^th Circuit of Appeals ruled against rescinding the injunction, and what is significant is that they did so in a per curiam opinion.  (Note that the crack reporters at the Times somehow missed this.)

A per curiam opinion is unanimous, but it is also unsigned, and except in extremely rare cases (Corrupt Supreme Court Justices covering their asses in Bush v. Gore), it means something very specific.

To quote Scotusblog, "Traditionally, the per curiam opinion was used to signal that a case was uncontroversial, obvious, and did not require a substantial opinion."

In other words, it's a way to say, "Your Kung Fu is weak, and you are stinking up the place."

I think that the appellate court would have ruled in much the same way, and probably unanimously, had Trump not called out Judge Robart, but I think that it did so as a per curiam ruling was a message to the Trump as to what constitutes appropriate behavior with regard to the judiciary.

The only question is whether Trump will learn from this.  (I'm guessing that he won't)

The standard disclaimer applies here, I am an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit.<sup>*

*</sup>I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!

Get a F%$#ing Grip

I was reading Talking Points Memo, and came across a very overwrought article titled, "Christie And Cruz Hammer Cancer-Stricken Jimmy Carter On The Trail."

Seriously. This is a bit much.

Cancer or no cancer, it is OK to criticize a former President's policies.

There is nothing wrong, for example, with my saying that I was stunned to discover that Jeb Bush was the stupid Bush brother, and it is fine to say this regardless of the health status Jeb, or George W., or George H.W. or any of the Bush Crime Family^™.

They disagree with the foreign policies of the Carter administration, I do too, but on the opposite side of the issue: They felt that Carter was too unwilling to use military force, while I consider Jimmy Carter to be a war criminal for the evil that he inflicted on Afghanistan.

The validity of these viewpoints has nothing to do with his health.

If they were making jokes about his cancer, I could see a cause for outrage, but this is a different kettle of fish.

Best Resignation Letter Ever

Matt Taibbi writes a goodbye letter to Rolling Stone that should make his former bosses proud:

Today is my last day at Rolling Stone. As of this week, I’m leaving to work for First Look Media, the new organization that’s already home to reporters like Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras.

I’ll have plenty of time to talk about the new job elsewhere. But in this space, I just want to talk about Rolling Stone, and express my thanks. Today is a very bittersweet day for me. As excited as I am about the new opportunity, I’m sad to be leaving this company.

More than 15 years ago, Rolling Stone sent a reporter, Brian Preston, to do a story on the eXile, the biweekly English-language newspaper I was editing in Moscow at the time with Mark Ames. We abused the polite Canadian Preston terribly – I think we thought we were being hospitable – and he promptly went home and wrote a story about us that was painful, funny and somewhat embarrassingly accurate. Looking back at that story now, in fact, I’m surprised that Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana gave me a call years later, after I’d returned to the States.

I remember when Will called, because it was such an important moment in my life. I was on the American side of Niagara Falls, walking with friends, when my cell phone rang. Night had just fallen and when Will invited me to write a few things in advance of the 2004 presidential election, I nearly walked into the river just above the Falls.

At the time, I was having a hard time re-acclimating to life in America and was a mess personally. I was broke and having anxiety attacks. I specifically remember buying three cans of corned beef hash with the last dollars of available credit on my last credit card somewhere during that period. Anyway I botched several early assignments for the magazine, but Will was patient and eventually brought me on to write on a regular basis.

It was my first real job and it changed my life. Had Rolling Stone not given me a chance that year, God knows where I’d be – one of the ideas I was considering most seriously at the time was going to Ukraine to enroll in medical school, of all things.

………

No journalist has ever been luckier than me. Thank you, Rolling Stone.

Read the whole thing.

It's funny and gracious, and everyone at Rolling Stone should be proud of what he said.

Google Realizes That it Has Created a Monster

They are now giving glassholes instructions on how not to to be complete jerks:

Google, in perhaps a tacit realization that it has spawned a small army of particularly insufferable cyborgs, has issued an etiquette manual for the first generation of Google Glass users (or “Glass Explorers” as they’re called).

With a list of unsolicited “Do’s” and “Dont’s” posted on Google’s Glass website, the tech giant highlights a number of central concerns around the subjectivities its wearable computing system is creating. High among them, the fear that “Glassholes” start living their lives as nonstop surveillance robots.

One “Do” and a corresponding “Don’t” advise “explorers” to not use Glass to record others in their vicinity without permission:

………

Dont: Be creepy or rude (aka, a “Glasshole”). Respect others and if they have questions about Glass don’t get snappy. Be polite and explain what Glass does and remember, a quick demo can go a long way. In places where cell phone cameras aren’t allowed, the same rules will apply to Glass. If you’re asked to turn your phone off, turn Glass off as well. Breaking the rules or being rude will not get businesses excited about Glass and will ruin it for other Explorers.

It appears that Google is beginning to realize that its early adopters have all the social skills of a toaster, (perhaps less than said kitchen appliance if one considers the toaster from Red Dwarf), and this does not make them good ambassadors for the technology.