Just a couple of photos from this week’s mini ski vacation with son Allan in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Allan Takes on NASTAR

Slopeside Grill, Steamboat

Can these three lead headlines be harmonized? Hardly. Obama, GOP Agree on Some Health Areas [NYTimes.com]. http://nyti.ms/cw9QfE Partisan Divides Continue to Cloud Summit [WSJ.com]. http://bit.ly/aceRwa Obama, Republicans Find Little Common Ground at Summit [SanLuisObispo.com]. http://bit.ly/beL4eX

Seems like the U.S. media is just as polarized politically as our citizenry.

Posted via email from glenn’s posterous

Well, it took a little bit of time, but the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has issued revised jury instructions, recommended for all federal cases, updated for today’s social media age.  It’s “old wine in new bottles” — i.e., traditional rules adapted to new social networking communications — which illustrates that some things really should not (and do not) change at all where social media are concerned.

Federal Court Officials Issue Guidance on Jury Use of Blackberries, iPhones, Twitter, LinkedIn Etc. [TechLaw].

You may not communicate with anyone about the case on your cell phone, through e-mail, Blackberry, iPhone, text messaging, or on Twitter, through any blog or website, through any internet chat room, or by way of any other social networking websites, including Facebook, My Space, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

It wasn’t the Minnesota Vikings’ 35-rear SuperBowl curse that let them down last night. A half dozen fumbles certainly did not help. In the final analysis, it was the man who got the Vikings to the NFC championship game, their legendary QB Brett Favre, who both single-handedly kept the team in contention and then threw it all away—literally. Brett Favre Lets Saints March On to SuperBowl [LAtimes.com].

Favre’s supernatural athleticism as an NFL quarterback, including his ability to drop long passes with tremendous accuracy into the arms of speedy wideouts far downfield, was on display Sunday.  So too was his toughness, as fans saw why Favre has set an NFL record for consecutive-game starts that will never be broken.  Yet in the end, it was Favre’s basic character that let him and his team down. Instead of “playing within himself,” as he had in a season with a career-high completion percentage and TD-INT ratio, Favre took the team on his shoulders and, with one play left before a potential game-wining FG attempt and less than 30 seconds remaining in regulation, tried to win the game himself.

October 2004

It was a pass that rookie Jets’ QB Mark Sanchex would never have tried, but one Favre has been burned on repeatedly for years, especially when he was younger.  A throw across he field after rolling out, against a zone, with the predictable result of interception.  Virtually a repeat of his last playoff appearance, featuring an overtime interception against the N.Y. Giants in the 2007 NFC championship game which sent Eli Manning to his first SuperBowl.   A pass that never should have been attempted.  One that Favre knew immediately was a bad idea. Also one that added to perhaps his most inglorious record of most career playoff interceptions.

In the NFC title game, possibly Favre’s last, we saw all of Favre: the good, the bad and the intercepted. Favre stood tall against what he called one of the worst poundings he’s ever received on a football field and despite an orgasm of Minnesota turnovers he had the Vikings poised to steal the game. Then, the bad Favre showed up. It was only a matter of time before the old Favre made an appearance. The old Favre … you remember him. The reckless Favre, the scary Favre, the alter-ego who for so long made Packers fans pull the hair strand by strand from their heads and the one Minnesota thought they’d never see again. Well, he came back all right, this time with a vengeance. Vikings fans: you wanted him, you got him. There he was and there he goes.

Favre Reverts to Gunslinger at Worst Possible Time. But that, after all, is Brett Favre. He’s a football player and a competitor. He’s a warrior, a larger-than-life star, but not a game manager, and hence not a champion. The 26 year old gunslinger who took the Pack back to the big game in 1996 is hardly different at all from the 40 year old gray beard who tanked in the final minute last evening. It’s his “fatal flaw,” as ESPN says.

They call the NFL the “No Fun League,” something Brett Favre (third retirement or not at this point) has never endorsed.  He was a gunslinger to the end.  Love him or hate him, and I’m the former, the man never changed!

The U.S. Supreme Court, for the first time, took note of social media today, observing that “soon … it may be that Internet sources, such as blogs and social networking Web sites, will provide citizens with significant information about political candidates and issues.”

This landmark event occurred in Citizens United v. FEC, a case overturning the McCain-Feingold 2002 campaign reform legislation which required corporations to fund “electioneering communications” through PACs. Supreme Court Removes Limits on Corporate, Labor Donations to Campaigns [Fox]. So get ready to see explicit corporate-funded movies, TV spots, Twitter campaigns and Facebook fan pages furthering their political views every November.

Whether that is good or bad for American democracy I will leave to readers’ own judgments.

Rapid changes in technology—and the creative dynamic inherent in the concept of free expression—counsel against upholding a law that restricts political speech in certain media or by certain speakers. See Part II–C, supra. Today, 30-second television ads may be the most effective way to convey a political message. See McConnell, supra, at 261 (opinion of SCALIA, J.). Soon, however, it may be that Internet sources, such as blogs and social networking Web sites, will provide citizens with significant informa- tion about political candidates and issues. Yet, §441b would seem to ban a blog post expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate if that blog were created with corporate funds. See 2 U. S. C. §441b(a); MCFL, supra, at 249. The First Amendment does not permit Congress to make these categorical distinctions based on the corporate identity of the speaker and the content of the political speech.

Secret Bill Writing On the Rise [Washington Post].

It is hard to understand how “conference reports” from Congress on pending legislation can have fallen from 200 per year to just 11 over the past three decades. But it indicates, sadly, that laws in America are increasingly being made in back rooms, not the public forums our system of politics has traditionally used. That may be mere window-dressing, but it is IMPORTANT symbolically, in my view.

In a letter to C-SPAN Chairman Brian Lamb, House Republican leader John Boehner wrote, “Unfortunately, the president, Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader (Harry) Reid now intend to shut out the American people at the most critical hour by skipping a bipartisan conference committee and hammering out a final health care bill in secret.”  The complaint sounded a lot like one nine years ago, when Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said Republicans “locked out the Democrats from the conference committee” meeting on the budget. “We were invited to the first meeting and told we would not be invited back, that the Republican majority was going to write this budget all on their own, which they have done. So much for bipartisanship.”

A J.D. degree is not worth what it once was as the legal industry wrestles with unprecedented business changes.

Posted via web from glenn’s posterous

http://shortyawards.com/glennm

Hey, it’s hardly an Oscar or People’s Choice award, but this rocks!!

Posted via email from glenn’s posterous

There has been much discussion recently about the movie industry’s efforts to maintain its product release “windows,” so that theatrical performances precede pay-per-view, followed by DVD sales, pay TV (HBO, etc.) and finally advertiser-supported television.  My view is that these folks are shooting themselves in the foot, because DVD sales actually declined in 2009 for the first time. The lesson is not that DVDs are being sold OR rented “too early,” rather that technological convergence is making more and more options available to consumers, so building a library of physical DVDs is relatively unimportant, and certainly no longer a priority.

But as usual — see their opposition to the VCR — Hollywood has this all backwards. Again.

Netflix, Warner Bros., Adjust Online Movie Renting [CNet News.com].

In a ground-breaking deal for the online movie renting, Netflix and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced Wednesday that they have reached a deal that calls for Netflix to get access to more of the studio’s catalog content.In exchange, Netflix agreed to do something it has never done before. Netflix won’t offer new releases from the studio on DVD and Blu-ray for a period of 28 days after they go on sale.

As the Nation’s Pulse Races, Obama Can’t Seem to Find His [NYTimes.com].

President Obama’s favorite word is “unprecedented,” as Carol Lee of Politico pointed out. Yet he often seems mired in the past as well, letting his hallmark legislation get loaded up with old-school bribes and pork; surrounding himself with Clintonites; continuing the Bushies’ penchant for secrecy and expansive executive privilege; doubling down in Afghanistan while acting as though he’s getting out; and failing to capitalize on snazzy new technology while agencies thumb through printouts and continue their old turf battles.

It’s not a good political sign at all that liberals seem to be departing the president in droves. The more things “change,” the more it appears politicians give us more of the same.