The Louisiana Legislature is busy with many things. Among them is House Bill 1981, which seeks to "prohibit any person from engaging in vaginal, oral, or anal sexual intercourse in a public place for the purpose of gaining the attention of the public." H.B. 1981. Doing this will get you at least 10 days in jail, without the benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence.
Now, if you are thinking that this sort of thing is not a problem, then you haven't been in certain parts of the French Quarter during Mardi Gras. So armed with this new law, the authorities will finally have the means to stop people from having "entertaining sex" in public.
You know that you are living in the advanced stages of a civilization when you see this sort of legislation occupying the attention of lawmakers. After all, they aren't proposing laws like this in Kazakhstan are they?
Erik Heels is writing about Software Patents, and he has a series of very well-written and well-thought out posts going over at his weblog. Erik is a patent attorney, in case you didn't know that already. I particularly like his statement about the importance of setting out principles. He lists these principles which I find very compelling and thought-provoking.
When trees die, they rot and form soil for new trees (and, as such, bankruptcy can be good).
Everybody has a motive, whether it's fame, fortune, philanthropy, or something else.
Some engineers (and other scientists) are often primarily interested in being correct.
Cool software is good.
Software is not magical.
He's inviting people to come over to his site and share their views. I'm sure there are people in the software business who have something to say to learned members of the legal profession. If you are one of those people, drop over to his site and leave some comments.
Doug Simpson is a lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut who formerly worked in the Law Department of a Fortune 500 Company. He is now an independent legal consultant and writer. His blog, Unintended Consequences, addresses what happens when "disruptive technologies" affect things like the insurance and financial services sector. Also slated for discussion are Gramm-Leach-Bliley, HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, E-Sign, DMCA, etc....
Looks like my wife and I are going to go the annual ABA meeting in San Francisco in August. Is anyone else in the Blawgosphere going?
Also, I'm thinking of going to this conference as well. I've gotten so much Nigerian E-mail that I figure I might as well meet some of the people whose correspondence I've been bulk-deleting.
"It's hard for Americans to grasp this. But imagine if U.S. interest rates were set by a Canadian central banker stationed in Rio. Imagine if Supreme Court judgments could be appealed to a trans-American court in Brasilia that represented the entire Western hemisphere."
Very Interesting article by Andrew Sullivan about the European Union and the emerging efforts to go even farther and create a Constiution.
The United States Court for the Western District of Louisiana is considering adopting an electronic filing system, which would allow attorneys to file and view pleadings 24 hours a day from any computer with Internet access. If you are in favor of electronic filing then you should email Pam Mitchell and let her know (or if you aren't in favor of it or have concerns you can let her know that too). You can also call her at 318-676-4273.
Who could be against this? (assuming of course that confidential information is protected, which it will be).
As I understand it, the contemplated system would involve attorneys filing things in PDF format. This is already the method that is used in all three bankruptcy courts in Louisiana, so there shouldn't be any problem adopting that scheme to the District Court.
