The always informative SCOTUS blog has an interesting piece on "What Should Congress Do about Citizens United?" written by Laurence Tribe, whose name is familiar to law students because he is t

I have been working my way through the 186 pages of the U.S. Supreme Court opinions earlier this week in Citizens United v.

My longtime friend Paul Hurd recently asked me to name my 10 favorite jazz picks, so here goes my first installment (i.e., the first 3). My criterion for this list: music that has moved me.

With my friends on the West Jersey History Round Table, I've been working on editing the manuscript of Place Names of Camden County that William R.

Last night, I was the guest of old friend Alan Keiser of Commonwealth Lawyers Title's Philadelphia Commercial Services group at Game 4 of the 2009 World Series between the Yankees and the Phillies in Citizens Bank Park in Philly. In the row in front of me sat filmmaker Spike Lee and his entourage, bedecked in caps designed by Spike that feature a superb design of the championships of New York Yankees throughout the crown, embroidered sweatband, silkscreen lining and a special New Era sticker designed by Spike Lee.

Harry Markopolis's ideas on how to fix the SEC :

‘Too Many Attorneys’

“My bet is that Ms. Schapiro will find that she has too many attorneys and too few professionals with any sort of financial background,” he said.

I don't know about this report. It concludes that nobody high-up improperly influenced SEC action/inaction; instead, it throws lots of junior, "inexperienced" people under the bus, and when it identifies supervisors who did screw up, it doesn't name them. Why not? How else are we supposed to find out whether they're still screwing up somewhere else? Also, there is no explanation of why the investigators who wrote the report concluded that the supervisors didn't purposely tank the investigations. Bernie Madoff was a highly-connected, powerful person; it doesn't seem unreasonable to consider the possibility that he could have used his money and power to influence behavior at the SEC. This report doesn't seem even to consider the possibility. I find that surprising.

My daughter, son, and I were at the archeological museum in Philly yesterday, looking at their replica of the Rosetta Stone, and my daughter and son remarked how much the Rosetta Stone translation sounded like campaign literature. Later that evening, I stumbled across a  large stone buried in my back yard bearing this strange inscription in several languages. I'm calling it "The Torricelli Stone"  (marked to show changes from the Rosetta Stone): 

In the reign of the new kingGovernor who was Lord of the diadems, great in glory, the stabilizer of EgyptNova Caesarea, and also pious in matters relating to the gods, superior to his Republican adversaries, rectifier of the life of men, Lord of the thirty-year periods like HephaestusFDR the Great, King like the SunNorcross, the Great King of the Upper and Lower LandsCaesareae, offspring of the Parent-loving gods, whom Hephaestusthe Vincent of Sarubbi, the Elder Puppet, has approved, to whom the SunNorcross has given victory, living image of Zeus, Son of the Sun, PtolemyGoldman Sachs, Creator of All Things, Corzine the ever-living, beloved by PtahLesnick of Union County;

In the ninth year, when Aëtus, son of AëtusRobert “The Torch” Torricelli, he who once dated Bianca Jagger, former wife of The Mick, was priest of AlexanderPaterson¹ and of the Savior gods and the Brother gods and the Benefactor gods and the Parent-loving gods and the god Manifest and Gracious; Pyrrha, the daughter of Philinius, being athlophorus for Bernice Euergetis; Areia, the daughter of Diogenes, being canephorus for Arsinoë Philadelphus; Irene, the daughter of Ptolemy, being priestess of Arsinoë PhilopatorCarla, the daughter of Katz, being chief of Communications Workers of America and former girlfriend of Corzine the ever-living; Golan, the son of Cipel, being homeland security adviser and blackmailer of McGreevey the (Corrupt) Gay American; Richard, the son of Codey, being He Who Must Clean Up After the Circus: on the fourth of the month Xanicus,“Water,” or according to the EgyptiansNova Caesareaians the eighteenth of Mecheir.“Wutter.”

THE DECREE: The high priests and prophets, and those who enter the inner shrine in order to robe the gods, and those who wear the hawk's left wing, and the sacred scribes, and all the other priests who have assembled at Memphisthe Hill of Cherries before the kingKing, from the various temples throughout the country and the various rest areas throughout the NJT, for the feast of his receiving the kingdom, even that of PtolemyCorzine the ever-living, beloved by PtahLesnick of Union County, the god Manifest and Gracious, which he received from his Fatherpredecessor, McGreevey the (Corrupt) Gay American, being assembled in the temple in Memphisthe Hill of Cherries this day, declared: Since King PtolemyCorzine, the ever-living, beloved by PtahLesnick of Union County, the god Manifest and Gracious, the son of King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoë, the Parent-loving godssuccessor of Richard the son of Codey, He Who Must Clean Up After the Circus, has done many benefactions to the temples and NJT rest areas and to those who dwell in them, and also to all those subject to his rule, being from the beginning a god born of a god and a goddess—like HorusHank the Former Chairman of Goldman Sachs, the son of IsisGoldman and OsirusSachs, who came to the help of his Father OsirusPartner Corzine and the Georges of Bush, both elder and younger; being benevolently disposed toward the gods, has concentrated to the temples and NJT rest areas revenues both of silver and of grain (derived from the sweat of the brows of the Nova Caesareans), and has generously undergone many expenses (derived also from the sweat of the brows of the Nova Caesareans) in order to lead EgyptNova Caesarea to (pre-election) prosperity and to establish the temples and NJT rest areas ... the gods have rewarded him with health, victory, power, and all other good things, his sovereignty to continue to him and his childrenDemocrats forever.”

The complete GreekNova Caesarean text, in English, is about 1600–1700 words in length, and is about 20 paragraphs long (average 80 words per paragraph). In essence, the RosettaTorricelli Stone is a tax amnesty given to the temple priestsleading Democrats of the day, restoring the tax privileges they had traditionally enjoyed from more ancient times. Some scholars speculate that several copies of the RosettaTorricelli Stone must exist, as yet undiscovered, since this proclamation must have been made at many temples.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¹ That’s just the way things go

 

 

 

I have been following, with an unusual level of interest, the story of the arrest of, and subsequent dismissal of charges against, Prof. Henry Louis Gates for "Disorderly Conduct" on the grounds of his own Harvard-University-owned housing unit. I think it presents an important issue about a principle of law and order expressed in Amendment IV to the United States Constitution.