Judge Sanctions "Obama Birth Certificate" Lawyer

A Republican-appointed judge has sanctioned Orly Taitz, "birther movement" lawyer, 20,000 dollars. See opinion here. Apparently, Ms. Taitz clearly lacked standing to bring the motion and publicly criticized the court. At the same time, her motions may have produced a favorable result for her client--the military withdrew her client's deployment order, deeming him a distraction. Basically, because of Orly Taitz's frivolous motions, the officer does not have to go to Iraq or Afghanistan.

I've been sanctioned before, and so I generally disfavor sanctions. In this case, however, the judge warned the lawyer not to do something, and she went ahead and did it anyway. In addition, she compared herself with Thurgood Marshall and failed to comply with several procedural requirements. In the case where I was sanctioned, the federal judge--Samuel Conti--sanctioned me without a hearing and without any prior judicial warning. When I called to request a hearing, the court immediately moved the case file back to state court (opposing counsel had filed a motion to remand).

Even a lawyer like me, who generally favors pushing the envelope, has to agree that Orly Taitz got what she deserved.

Bonus: Ms. Taitz had a previous run-in with this judge. See here for details.

Kudos to Hulu.com

I just wanted to thank www.hulu.com. As I pointed out at the Netflix shareholder meeting, I watch all of my Simpsons episodes on Hulu because it has excellent online captioning.

Recently, after I was watched yet another Simpsons episode, I noticed Hulu allows users to search for shows that have captions. Awesome. Simply awesome. Thank you, Hulu. By the way, I am now watching my first episode of Heroes. I found it using the captioning search feature.

Here is my favorite part of the latest Simpsons episode, a parody of the UFC:

Lenny: "3 hours of half-naked guys fighting like animals."

Carl: "Just like the ancient Romans."

Lenny: "Yeah, except their empire was falling apart."

Carl: "Stupid Romans."

I love the Simpsons. Looks like they are back on track.

The Decline of the GOP

I long for the day when the GOP returns to its glory days of Eisenhower and Goldwater. As it stands, the Republican Party is in disarray. See here:

Both of Ronald Reagan's natural children, Ron and Patti, endorsed Obama. President Dwight Eisenhower's granddaughter, Susan, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Denver just moments before Barack Obama appeared to accept his party's nomination.

I've already explained why the GOP needs to split up into two separate parties--one for the religious right (Bible, families first, pro-life, etc.), and another for the classical economists (low taxes, pro-business, pro-freedom). See here.

Government Workers Double-Dipping

The LA Times' Patrick McGreevy exposes public sector double-dipping here.

David Turner retired as a state fire chief in 2004, went back to work for the state firefighting agency two days later and is still employed there. He collected $65,229 in salary in the last fiscal year in addition to a state pension of $105,000.

Paul W. Anderson is a psychiatrist at Napa State Hospital who retired two years ago from the state Department of Mental Health. His pension is $117,840. He also received $104,200 in state wages in the last fiscal year.

"Public service" work now allows some people to earn almost a quarter of a million dollars a year. Astounding, isn't it?

Clip from The Castle (Aussie Film)

1.57 Billion Muslims

Here is an interesting report on the number of Muslims worldwide.

Does this mean I can no longer impress/shock Americans by asking them to name the most populated Muslim country? Sigh. 

The Pew Forum has published lots and lots of good stuff. If you're interested in religious discussion, check them out.

[Editor's note: links have been updated.] 

Awesome Music Video