In case you were wondering.

In April, Mr. Torvik wrote about the problems that professional football has with head injuries, among other things. Perhaps because of all the bowl games, I recently wondered what college football was doing about brain trauma.  Patrick Hruby at Sports on Earth has the answer.

Lance Armstrong's Lawyer Continues to Talk ...

The other day I posted about a quote Tim Herman—Lance Armstrong's lawyer—gave to the New York Times, and the fact that this quote subsequently disappeared from the Newspaper of Record without explanation.

Since then we've learned that Lance Armstrong is indeed coming clean, to Oprah. And Mr. Herman is out there talking to the media again, for reasons that defy explanation. Here he is getting interviewed, via Skype, by Bloomberg Law:

Strom Thurmond did what now?

Because he was in the Senate for 48 years, it is easy to think that Strom Thurmond was always a senator.  However, Senator Thurmond was 54 when he became a senator.  Prior to that he had been Governor of South Carolina, a World War II combat veteran, a judge, a county attorney, farmer, coach, teacher, and the superintendent of education for Edgefield County, South Carolina. It is the last job that prompts this post.

Paul Krugman versus Jon Stewart on the Platinum Coin

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently went after satirist Jon Stewart for what he called a "lazy" bit on the frivolity of the Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin idea:

[W]hat went wrong here is a lack of professionalism on the part of Stewart and his staff. Yes, it’s a comedy show — but the jokes are supposed to be (and usually are) knowing jokes, which are funny and powerful precisely because the Daily Show people have done their homework and understand the real issues better than the alleged leaders spouting nonsense. In this case, however, it’s obvious that nobody at TDS spent even a few minutes researching the topic. It was just yuk-yuk-yuk they’re talking about a trillion-dollar con hahaha.

 Having been attacked by one of his own, Stewart had no choice but to respond:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Now, part of Stewart's response is his standard, somewhat weaselly excuse of, "I'm just a joke man!" But another part of his response is more substantive—his point that there are always counterarguments on the topics that he chooses to lampoon, but it is simply not funny to acknowledge them. It's probably not an overstatement to say that exaggeration is the essence of comedy. What matters here is that Stewart has considered the counterarguments and (correctly) decided that, nonetheless, the platinum coin is a "stupid fucking idea." So it's open season.

This is something to keep in mind when watching "The Daily Show": it doesn't present a fair or nuanced view of the issues of the day. It picks out the worst arguments being made to support a particular position and it shreds them, to great comic—and rhetorical—effect. It takes a certain sort of humorlessness to notice this unfairness only when it's your own position being shredded.

This is Part 6 in The Gillette-Torvik Blog's 94-Part Series on the Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin idea.

Judge Posner Ruins Weekends

Not long ago, Mr. Gillette noted that some lawyers like to drop Friday afternoon bombs on their adversaries—apparently just to ruin their weekends. (Although an alternative explanation is that the lawyers are just trying to save their own weekends.)

Longer ago, I blogged about a patent infringement case that started out in the Western District of Wisconsin. The initial "newsworthiness" of the case was that a tiny Milwaukee bakery was included as a defendant among several other multi-national corporations. (**SEE below for update on that front.) But the plot eventually thickened when the case was reassigned for pre-trial and trial here in Chicago in front of Seventh Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner. (Judge Posner likes to keep busy, obviously.)

At that time I noted that Judge Posner's case management order contained a rather unorthodox provision: all motions were to be filed by the close of business on Friday, and responses were due by the end of the day on the next Monday. This is built-in weekend ruination. Someone asked in the comments whether that was standard practice in the Northern District of Illinois, but I never answered. Rest assured, it is not.

I decided to check up on the case. Right now it is mired in patent-litigation hell. Judge Posner issued his "Markman order" (construing various claims of the patent) back in August, then the parties exchanged expert reports. Now both sides have filed "Daubert motions" attacking the foundation and/or reliability of the other side's experts.

Just last Friday, Judge Posner issued an order regarding the Daubert motions. His two-page, single-spaced order notes that the Daubert motions raise two issues that require claim constructions not resolved by his previous Markman ruling. Judge Posner wants the parties to brief these two issues before he can rule on the Daubert motions. And, in this order issued last Friday, he says he wants those briefs by Monday—today.

Once again: happy weekend, lawyers!

***Update on East Side Ovens: Reader(s)™ may recall that I originally speculated that the only reason the tiny bakery (East Side Ovens) was included as a defendant was to secure a basis for venue in the Western District of Wisconsin, which has a reputation as a "rocket docket" in patent cases. This was bolstered when the plaintiff cited that reputation in opposition to the defendants' motions to transfer venue. And it was absolutely confirmed on September 12, 2012, when the plaintiff stipulated to dismissal of its claims against East Side Ovens. By that point, the venue issues were done, and the case had been transfered to Chicago for trial in front of Judge Posner. So there was no longer any need to keep the tiny bakery over the coals.

Our long national nightmare is over

According to Scotusblog's Twitter feed and the Washington Post, Justice Thomas's seven-year streak of not speaking at Supreme Court oral arguments is over.  We covered Justice Thomas's streak here.  Apparently Justice Thomas spoke up in order to put down the competence of graduates of Yale's law school.  Justice Thomas, of course, is one of them.

Dancing on the Platinum Coin's Grave

With the trillion-dollar coin's abortion blessedly assured, Tom Maguire at the Just One Minute blog says "I told ya so." His analysis focuses on the fact that the relevant statute permits only "bullion" and "proof" platinum coins. Both these terms have a specific and well-understood meaning that Congress reasonably relied on in drafting the statute. In sum, the coin envisioned by trillion-dollar coin advocates would be neither a bullion nor a proof coin, as those terms are commonly understood, so it is not authorized by the plain text of the statue.

His analysis is pretty convincing. One could poke some holes in it, but it's enough that it gets us to ambiguity. From there, we can use other interpretative tools to determine the actual intent of the statute, which, after all, it utterly obvious.

This is Part 5 in The Gillette-Torvik Blog's 94-Part Series on the Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin idea.

White House Rules Out Platinum Coin

According to Ezra Klein:

The Treasury Department will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to get around the debt ceiling. If they did, the Federal Reserve would not accept it.

That’s the bottom line of the statement that Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, gave me today. “Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” he said.

Absolutely the correct judgment.

The lesson? Always trust content from the Gillette-Torvik Blog.

Have no fear, however—my 94-part series on the platinum coin will continue.

Bad Advice

Eric Goldman details the facts of a case where an attorney told his client to "clean up" his Facebook page (which contained some unflattering photos) during a wrongful death suit, even after the other side requested its contents in discovery.

The scheme was easily detected by opposing counsel, and the lawyer was hit with a $542,000 sanction. (The client was also ordered to pay $180,000 to cover the other side's attorneys' fees for litigating the issue.)

Ultimately, the sanctioned lawyer and his client won an $11 million verdict, and the Court of Appeals recently reinstated the entire verdict. So the lawyer is still coming out way ahead on this case.

But it sort of frustrating to know that a lawyer who is stupid and unethical enough to order his client to tamper with or destroy evidence is taking home a multi-million dollar payday.

R.I.P. Evan S. Connell

According to the Washington Post, Evan S. Connell has died.  Mr. Connell's book Son of the Morningstar: Custer and the Little Bighorn is fantastic.  Actually it is Fan-flipping-tastic.  In any event, buy it check it out from your library now.