Lowering the Bar

Good Reason to Kill #40: Denied Access to Family Cat

Not that it would matter, but the denial was not just out of spite—the cat was apparently in isolation for medical reasons:

[The defendant] had just returned home from a Thanksgiving trip, and asked his parents to see the pet he missed while he was away.

His parents went on to tell him that the cat, who has just had surgery, was not up for having visitors, [D.A. Steve] Wagstaffe said.

Well, I think we can all sympathize to some extent. Pets are important to us. We develop real emotional bonds with them. Imagine how disappointing it would be—

[The defendant] pleaded not guilty to felony assault charges Monday after prosecutors say he "viciously" [punched and] bit both of his parents and threatened to burn their home down when they denied him visitation with the family cat.

Yeah, not that disappointing. Never mind.

Is the Government Tampering With Witnesses in No-Fly Trial?

That's what Judge William Alsup wants to know, according to this post by Mike Masnick at Techdirt (based on coverage by the identity project).

The trial, going on right now in federal court in San Francisco, involves claims by a former Stanford Ph.D. student that she was not allowed to fly in 2005 (except to go home to Malaysia) for reasons that the government won't explain. As explained in this NYT article (via TYWKIWDBI), the main "terrorist watch list," from which the "no-fly list" is derived, is believed to include at least 700,000 people. We don't know for sure, because the government won't say. Nor do we know the criteria for getting on it, and as many people have found, it is extremely difficult to get off it. 

Shouldn't the funnel be a cylinder?

According to this NYT graphic (click for more detail), 99% of the names that are "nominated" end up on the master watch list. The smallest twisty line going off to the right is the 1% that doesn't get included, so the funnel graphic seriously misrepresents what's going on there; if someone says you should be on the master list, you will almost certainly be put on it. In other words, the "Terrorist Screening Center" isn't doing any "screening."

But, you say, perhaps the initial selection process is 99% accurate! To which I would respond, yes, and perhaps 99% of what comes out of my butt is sunshine.

Anyway, back to the case. The plaintiff, Rahinah Ibrahim, has managed to get her case to trial, a very rare event. Unfortunately for the government, the case is before Judge Alsup, who is not known for accepting bullshit. So when he learned Monday that one of the plaintiff's witnesses—one of her daughters, who is an American citizen—had not been able to travel to the U.S. to testify because (wait for it) she had been put on the no-fly list, he wanted an explanation. The government's lawyers "made inquiries" and said they had been told she "just missed her flight." Alsup was not buying that:

“We may have to have a separate evidentiary hearing about this,” Judge Alsup said, and ordered the defendants to provide further information [Tuesday].... “I want to know whether the government did something to obstruct a witness, a U.S. citizen.”

Yesterday, Ibrahim's lawyer said that the witness had not "just missed her flight," whereupon she handed Judge Alsup what she said was a copy of DHS's instructions to Malaysia Airlines telling it not to let the witness board the plane. (Awkward!) That still needs to be authenticated, but Alsup made clear he is not happy:

I am disturbed by this [he said]. We’ll hear from [the witness] when she gets here. If it turns out that the DHS has sabotaged a witness, that will go against the government’s case. I want a witness from Homeland Security who can testify to what has happened. You find a witness and get them here.

If the government has "sabotaged a witness," that should do more than "go against its case," shouldn't it? Last I heard, witness tampering was a federal crime. But maybe when the government does it, that means it is not illegal?

How to Buy My Book

Huge thanks to those who have expressed interest in buying my forthcoming book, The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance, which I blabbed about yesterday. It has now occurred to me that, as some of you have suggested, I am likely to sell more books if I actually tell people how they can buy them. All I can say is that there is more than one reason I didn't go to business school.

First, as I understand it the books will not actually be out of the book machine until next Tuesday, December 10. (Again, I'm a writer, not a … book-machine operator.) You can, however, order them right now through the ABA's website [but use the discount code, BAL13MFSH].  Some would call this "pre-ordering," but that doesn't make any more sense to me than "pre-boarding" an airplane. You've pretty much either done this or you haven't. You can't pre-do something.

Since I buried the link there, here it is again:

Order The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance

Here are some details for those whose pointers are still hovering.

• The book lists for $22.95 (hardback) but that is not the price you will pay under any circumstances as far as I can tell.

• You get a 20% insta-discount if you type in the discount code BAL13MFSH. Does it stand for something? Probably. The important thing is that it will cut the price to $18.36.

• If you are an ABA member, your ABA membership number will get you $5 off the list price. That cuts your price to $17.95.

• Hey! you now want to know, because nothing gets past you, if I am an ABA member do I get both discounts?! Wow, that doesn't seem to make sense, so of course the answer is yes. (I bought a copy so that I could (1) test the website (2) check the discount thing and (3) make sure I sold at least one (1) copy.) If you log in with your ABA membership number, and then type BAL13MFSH when you order, the price becomes $14.36.

• The page does say only one discount per purchase, but I am told the above scenarios are accurate. Still, you might want to order before they "fix" this.

• Best of all, these also appear to stack with the discounts for buying in bulk, which can be as high as 40% if you buy 100 or more books (which I know you were considering). So ABA members who order 100+ books get them for the stupid price of $8.62 each. So if you have 99 friends or need to insulate your fallout shelter, there you go.

• Basic shipping is $6.95, but only $16.95 if you are buying 100 (17 cents per book!). So the latter really does seem like the way to go, doesn't it?

• Books should start shipping on December 10, so there should be plenty of time to get them for Christmas if that is your motive.

If you don't care about Christmas (!), the book will be available through Amazon in mid-January. Why not right now? I do not know. Amazon will certainly discount it to some extent, and shipping would be less, but I don't know what the ultimate cost would be.

Note: if you go to Amazon right now and search for "The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance," Amazon will suggest, among other things:

• Introduction to Homeland Security: An Emergency Management Perspective;
• What Would Sasquatch Do? and
• The Booty Call Emergency Kit.

So clearly it has no idea what's going on at the moment.

Some have asked whether there will be paperback and e-book versions, and the answer is yes but not until January. For the person who asked whether he could pirate the e-book version, the answer is probably yes but I hate you. Plus, Google may beat you to it.

That's what I know at this point. Please let me know if you have other questions, and again, thanks for the interest!

The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance!

I am very happy to announce that my project of collecting odd laws, which I creatively referred to as "The Odd Law Project," has now become (or I guess is about to become) my first book:

Obviously I changed the name.

Here are answers to some questions you may have about this book (this is part of what's on the back cover, actually):

Is this book about Sasquatches?  No, it’s about strange-but-true laws.

I was really looking for a book about Sasquatches. That isn’t a question.

Are all the laws in this book actually real?  Yes.

Has a lawyer confirmed that?  Yes.

Was this book written by a lawyer?  Would that make you more or less likely to buy it?

What other books has this lawyer written? This is his first one, but he does write a legal-humor blog called Lowering the Bar (www.loweringthebar.net).

Some endorsements (of the blog) follow, most of which are taken from emails that some of you have been kind enough to send me over the years (I didn't use your names) and only one of which is totally fabricated.

Of the 250 or so laws that are mentioned in the book, two or three dozen are examples that some of you sent in, and in that case I did use your names, though only in the acknowledgments section. They are right there in print next to the image credits and dedications, and also the name of the guy who drew the butt that appears on page 262. Thanks very much for your help. Some of those examples I would probably never have located. Definitely not the Brazilian stutterers' discount—that was almost the title of the book—so thanks especially for that one.

The question I hope you are asking right now is, Kevin, how can I buy a copy of this book? Actually, the question I hope you are asking is, can I get a discount if I buy in bulk, and the answer to that is MY GOD, YES. But if you just want one or a few copies, that's great too. The book is being printed RIGHT NOW and should be available on December 10 (one week from today). [Go here to learn about the ordering options and to get a discount code.] Is it a coincidence that this book is coming out just in time for Christmas? NO IT IS NOT. What a great gift idea, he mused aloud.

I enjoyed writing this thing and I hope you enjoy reading it. I have very much appreciated your support and readership over the years, and this book is my gift to you. A gift that lists for $22.95 or just $17.95 if you are an ABA member, so I guess "gift" was more of a figure of speech there. But I do hope you enjoy it.

"The Notification Was Posted on the Recipient's Gravestone Because He Is Deceased"

Well, I guess you've done everything you could then. Uh, good work.

This incident was widely reported in the Turkish media in September. See, e.g., "Yargıtay kararını mezar taşına yapıştırdı," TRT News (Sept. 27, 2013). A Turkish woman (or at least one who speaks Turkish) sent it to me the other day. She explained that under Turkey's Notification Law, court notifications are made through the postal service (although it looks like the law has changed since this incident). That is, postal officers there are similar to process servers in the U.S. in that they go out and try to locate people to ensure they get notice of court action. If the intended recipient is not present at his or her last known address, the officer has to investigate. As in the U.S., under certain conditions, a notification will be considered effective if it is posted on the front door of the recipient's residence.

According to the report, in this case the officer seems to have had some difficulty locating the guy he was looking for. Turns out there was a good reason for that, but the officer still did his best. In his handwritten note to the court (at the top right of the image below), he explained: "Tebligat K.35 maddesine göre muhatap mefat ettiğinden kabir taşına yapıştırılmıştır. Tebliğ edilmiştir."

Which roughly translates to: "Under Article 35 of the Notification Law, the notification was pasted on the recipient's gravestone because he is deceased. Notification has been duly made."

I know this one sounds like an urban legend, but I don't think it is. Although as far as I can tell this is the first mention of it in English (thanks again, source), it was widely reported in Turkish, including in the report linked above by the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation. There is a picture of the notification, obviously, and at least according to Google's very rough translation abilities the text on the notice says what the report and my source claim it says. (Most importantly, kabir taşına means "gravestone.") It is a little troubling that the "return of service" note is dated 2007 but as far as I can tell the story wasn't reported until 2013. But that does happen sometimes. Basically, it's the picture that seals it for me.

According to this summary of the Notification Law, Article 35 states that if the recipient has moved and left no forwarding address, the notice is to be attached to the door of the place where the recipient was last known to reside. I guess that seems about right here.