SBM Blog

Just Because: Real Law And Disorder For Game Of Throne Fans

From Volokh Conspiracy comes two nonfiction book recommendations that should appeal to the legal history and crime novel fans among SBM readers. And as it turns out the author, a UCLA English professor, is a Michigan product. Eric Jager, who will be guest-blogging at Volokh this week, is Calvin College and University of Michigan-trained. The books are Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris and The Last Duel about the last judicial trial by combat authorized by the French central government.

Just Because: In The Face Of Unbearable Uncertainties

Notwithstanding the Labor Day weekend, the President's decision to take the case for a military response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria to Congress has drawn a couple of quick responses from some usual blog suspects, Volokh Conspiracy's Ilya Somin and Dale Carpenter.  A Friday post at Balkinization by Stephen Griffin preceding the President's decision commented on the constitutionality of a Syrian intervention, and John Yoo at NRO Online the same day urged the President to act, saying that the benefits of intervention outweigh the costs. Constitutional questions aside, the enormous perils of action and inaction alike explain why no one is predicting with confidence how Congress will react.

In the face of such momentous uncertainty, this excerpt from the late poet Seamus Heaney's Nobel address seems achingly apt:

One of the most harrowing moments in the whole history of the harrowing of the heart in Northern Ireland came when a minibus full of workers being driven home one January evening in 1976 was held up by armed and masked men and the occupants of the van ordered at gunpoint to line up at the side of the road. Then one of the masked executioners said to them, “Any Catholics among you, step out here.” As it happened, this particular group, with one exception, were all Protestants, so the presumption must have been that the masked men were Protestant paramilitaries about to carry out a tit-for-tat sectarian killing of the Catholic as the odd man out, the one who would have been presumed to be in sympathy with the IRA and all its actions. It was a terrible moment for him, caught between dread and witness, but he did make a motion to step forward. Then, the story goes, in that split second of decision, and in the relative cover of the winter evening darkness, he felt the hand of the Protestant worker next to him take his hand and squeeze it in a signal that said no, don't move, we'll not betray you, nobody need know what faith or party you belong to. All in vain, however, for the man stepped out of the line; but instead of finding a gun at his temple, he was pushed away as the gunmen opened fire on those remaining in the line, for these were not Protestant terrorists, but members, presumably, of the Provisional IRA.

Heaney goes on to suggest that history may be "about as instructive as an abattoir." But there's this to cling to. In one's last moments on earth, one could certainly do worse than a courageous squeeze of a mate's hand.

Stock Photo: off the coast of Haifa, Israel.

Just Because: Brave (And Miraculous) New World. Go Blue

C.S. Mott Children's Hospital Doctors Save Ohio Boy By Printing An Airway Tube.

Just Because: Happy Birthday To Thee, Cousin Will

The Mayor of Chicago has proclaimed today, the Bard's 449th birthday (and 397th deathday), Talk like Shakespeare Day.  In that spirit:

 

Just to cover our bases, Happy 463 11/365th Birthday to thee, Edward De Vere, and Happy 452 1/4th Birthday to thee, Francis Bacon.

Just Because: "Flabbergasting" Reason For 200 Point Rise In SAT Scores

From The Dish:

Toddlers tend to be larks, which is why they drive their parents crazy by getting up at sunrise. Teen-agers are owls, which is why high schools are filled with students who look (and act) like zombies. Roenneberg advocates scheduling high-school classes to begin later in the day, and he cites studies showing that schools that delay the start of first period see performance, motivation, and attendance all increase. (A school district in Minnesota that switched to a later schedule found that the average S.A.T. scores for the top ten per cent of the class rose by more than two hundred points, a result that the head of the College Board called “truly flabbergasting.”) But, Roenneberg notes, teachers and school administrators generally resist the change, preferring to believe that the problem is insoluble.

Who Should Pay For This Unbearable, Interminable Winter Weather? Prosecutor Says Punxsutawney Phil

An Ohio prosecutor says he has filed this indictment against Punxsutawney Phil, seeking the death penalty:

On or about February 02,2013, at Gobbler’s Knob, Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the people to believe that Spring would come early. Contrary to the Groundhog day report, a snowstorm and record low temperatures have been and are predicted to continue in the near future, which constitutes the offense of MISREPRESENTATION OF EARLY SPRING, a Unclassified Felony, and against the peace and dignity of the State Of Ohio.

SPECIFICATION: The people further find and specify that due to the aggravating circumstances and misrepresentation to the people that the death penalty be implemented to the defendant, Punxsutawney Phil

As mitigation, I would offer that Phil was the inspiration for an awesome movie, and is definitely a job-creator in his community.

HT: Washington Post

Just Because: So Proud

"The human race generates more data every 2 days than we did from the dawn of civilization until 2003." - Eric Schmidt, Google

SBM Blog, doing our part.

Just Because

Just Because

Just Because: An Undecided Voter Watches The VP Debate

Just because, regardless of your politics, it's a good idea to remember to lighten up from time to time:
"An Undecided Voter Watches the Vice-Presidential Debate."