Lifers support slavery.

John went to Vegas to gamble. John signed a contract at one off-the-Strip casino whereby if he rolled a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, he would receive $10,000, but if he rolled a 1, he would be compelled to work for the casino doing odd jobs for nine months, receiving only food and shelter in return. In the law we have a word for such a contract: void.

The Thirteenth Amendment states: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

One can contract for employment; one cannot contract for employment without the ability to unilaterally terminate.

If John rolled a 1, then started working for the casino, then, after two months, decided to leave, the casino would be liable for unjust imprisonment if it were to prevent his doing so. Furthermore, the casino would not be able to seek damages from John for the seven months he failed to work. And the U.S., Nevada, and Las Vegas governments would all be specifically precluded by the Thirteenth Amendment from helping the casino realize its value lost, or preventing John from realizing his freedom.

If instead of a casino, John formed the above-described contract with Billy the Imbecile. Now we have two grounds to void the contract: both the Thirteenth Amendment and the incapacity of one of the contracting parties.

If John formed the above-described contract with Billy the Imbecile, and when John decided to leave after two months, Billy tried to stop him using physical force, John would be within his rights to retaliate with force, even deadly force, to secure his freedom.

If instead of Billy using physical force to stop John, he simply threatened force, John would still be within his rights to retaliate.

If instead of Billy threatening or using physical force to stop John, he simply stands in front of the only exit, John is legally permitted to shove Billy out of the way (assuming asking Billy to move is ineffective).

Now consider the following: John and Billy form the above-described contract. John loses by rolling a 1. John works for two months as Billy's valet. John decides he wants out. Billy, without threats or use of physical force, stands in front of the only door and refuses to budge. The floor in the foyer has been removed while it is being repaired, so there is a twenty foot drop on either side of the temporary bridge that leads from the door into the house. John can either 1) wait until Billy decides to move, or 2) shove Billy out of the way. Should John be permitted to shove Billy out of the way, knowing that doing so will result in Billy falling to his death? I contend the answer is obvious: yes. One person's right to be free from slavery trumps another's right to be alive. And I don't think John must wait until his life is in danger.

What's the point of all this? The pro-lifers have two hurdles to overcome in every case where they seek to block an abortion:

1. showing that a particular mass of pre-birth tissue is a rights-bearing individual, and
   
2. showing that a pregnant woman's right to be free from slavery under the circumstances is trumped by the aforementioned pre-birth tissue's right to be alive.
   

Yes, I know that the act of coitus differs from the act of signing a contract. If anything, though, I would think it cuts against the lifers. At most you have an implied contract between the fetus and pregnant woman based upon her consent to receive a third party's ejaculate.

Yes, I know a fetus differs from Billy the Imbecile in many respects. But again, I would suggest this cuts against the lifers. While there is the possibility of talking Billy away from the door, there is little chance of talking the fetus out of the womb prematurely.

Yes, I know feeding and sheltering a fetus differs from acting as Billy's valet. But again, I would suggest this cuts against the lifers. I would expect the danger to the pregnant woman's health, the restrictions on her ability to enjoy life, and the repulsive closeness of the slaveowner-fetus's demands may far exceed any duties demanded of a valet. And besides, do we really want to get into the actual demands made by the slaveowner? Does slavery become okay simply because the slaveowner only requires his slaves to work eight hour days, feeds them well, and never abuses them?

Perhaps one could argue John doesn't have the right to shove Billy away from the door, and that John's moral and legal duty is to die of dehydration, or at least wait until dehydration is imminent before shoving Billy. Or perhaps one could argue if John knew for sure that Billy would move in seven months, he ought to wait; and it becomes permissible to shove Billy only if John does not know for how long Billy intends to remain. But these seem to me to be too fine hairs to be good for splitting.

In conclusion: pro-lifers support slavery insofar as they wish to deny a pregnant woman the right to free herself from a fetus who demands her employment. As with every employment relationship in modernity, both parties must be legally capable of unilaterally terminating the relationship; pregnancy without the abortion choice removes that possibility.

Support the abortion option by placing a sticker on your car or forehead.

Monkey Throw Feces.

I always assumed that this thing would taper off after a short while. But the band is working on some new material right now. And I just checked Yodelling Llama's statistics, and apparently we've had 30 downloads of "The Meatball Song" in May so far, with 152 since it was posted. [I'd say more about the other songs, but 1 & 1 only keeps track of the 99 most popular files, and the bottom of the list for the year is "There You Go Again (Sucking On My Cock)" with 104 downloads, year-to-date.] That's not including MTF's Download.com numbers (95 last week, 3432 total) and MySpace numbers (38 total plays). Or sales of "The Self-Titled Extended Play" (1). These numbers are large enough to suggest that I'm not the only one listening to this garbage. Wow.

Filibuster.

In my Business Associations class (often called, by many schools, "Corporations"; as LLPs, LLCs, and other registered organizations found their genesis so recently that there has yet to be developed much interesting caselaw) we studied a case involving a corporation created by three families. Family #1 had a 40% stake; family #2 had a 40% stake; and family #3 had a 20% stake. The corporation employed a number of individuals from each family; family #1, especially, saw the corporation as a guaranteed place of employment. To that end, family #1 insisted that a clause appear in the articles of incorporation requiring at 2/3 majority by the board of directors in order to fire an employee who was a member of any of the three families. [Note: the articles also provided that the proportional representation of the stock of the families be reflected in the proportions of the directors; so family #1 and #2 each had 4 directors and family #3 had 2.] Which meant that if a member of family #2 was fucking up royally, he could be fired only if one of the four directors from family #2 so found.

Or did it? The problem was that as a default, articles of incorporation can be amended with a simple majority by the board. So instead of needing 7 votes (2/3+) to oust someone, one only needs the 6 votes (1/2+) to change the articles to require a mere simple majority, then 6 votes to oust.

What's the lesson here? Have someone who knows what she's doing write your articles of incorporation. Also, make sure that your founding document does not permit procedural end-runs.

The Senate would have been better had it learned this lesson. The current debate over the filibuster is this:

1) The Senate rules allow an individual to hold up a vote indefinitely, but he can be prevented from doing so with a 60% supermajority.
2) The Senate rules allow changing of the Senate rules with a 50% majority.

So what the Republicans can do is change the filibuster rule out of existence. If someone who had known what she was doing had written the Senate rules to be a coherent whole, one would need a 60% supermajority to change the filibuster rules. That no one seems to have noticed the discrepancy until now is evidence that the Senate rules were authored by a bunch of goddamn morons who should all be fired and sued for malpractice.

Pink Triangle.

There's a line in Weezer's "Pink Triangle" that goes "might have smoked a few in my time / never thought it was a crime." Most people I've talked to assume he is referring to marijuana.

But given the subject matter of the song, my theory is that Rivers is referring to cock. He's admitting to having had homosexual encounters in the past as a way of convincing a lesbian to "be a little straight."

Another new story.

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff Dons Shirt.

New story.

Sith Opens To Rave Reviews, Lackluster Box Office.

Green Day and Semisonic.

For some reason my copy of iTunes (set on shuffle) decided to play "Closing Time" and "When I Come Around," one right after the other. As a result, I came to the conclusion that these two songs are actually the same song. So I plan, as one of my summer projects, to strip the vocals from one and add it to the other, and vice versa. A "mash-up," if you will. Only, because I'm not terribly skilled when it comes to audio editing (see MTF's album, The Self-Titled Extended Play for examples), it will end up sounding god-awful. Look for it in a few weeks.

Joke.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. After all, if you don’t break fast, you’ll end up wrapped around a tree.

Evolution and theory.

Several weeks ago I learned that one of my fellow law students misunderstood what the term "theory" means in science by suggesting, during a discussion of the Establishment Clause in my First Amendment class, that "intelligent design" ought to be taught alongside evolution. Before that I had assumed that the only people who believed this hogwash were hucksters and the unschooled. And while perhaps a solid backing in biology, or even science generally, is not necessarily found in law students, they do tend to be at least modestly educated.

So, let me see if I can put this in terms lawyers can understand. A "theory," as the term is used in science, is not synonymous with "speculation" or "conjecture." Rather, a "theory" is well-supported by empirical evidence, fits with prior theories, and is the best (usually simplest) explanation that fits with the evidence. Talk of a theory being "unproven" is misleading. Theories, because they are only models to account for the observed evidence, cannot be proven. At least not in the "beyond all doubt" sense that scientists employ.

Lawyers also talk about "proof." But we mean "proven beyond reasonable doubt," "proven by clear and convincing evidence," or "proven by a preponderance of the evidence." All of which are substantially less rigorous standards than science demands.

Perhaps the clearest (if not most accurate) way to put this is to say that a scientific hypothesis must satisfy a preponderance standard. And a theory must satisfy a reasonable doubt standard.

Just remember that to be called a "theory" there can be no conclusive contrary evidence, there must be quite a bit of conclusive supporting evidence, and the model must be the best explanation out there.

And evolution is a theory in this sense.

New story.

Ben Folds Five Times.

Monkey Throw Feces on Myspace.

I fell into the Myspace trap last Fall. As did my brother. For those of you who don't know, my brother and I have this ongoing project called Monkey Throw Feces. I've had up many of our songs on Yodelling Llama and on Download.com for a while now. I decided, after seeing how many major recording artists (e.g. Weezer, Nine Inch Nails, and Sleater-Kinney) have posted something or other to Myspace, that Monkey Throw Feces needs a presence there as well. So be sure to check out Monkey Throw Feces on Myspace. Because more of the same is still more.