Groovenstein

When you make an exchange, you do it on certain terms. It is your assent to those terms that makes an exchange, well, an exchange. (Talking about a voluntary exchange would be redundant.) Would you give up your money under any circumstances? I would not. So when I talk to someone about giving them my money, we can discuss the terms. I then can consent to them taking ownership of my money in exchange for the agreed upon item for the agreed upon terms, or I can not consent. In deciphering the terms of a deal, however, certain representations will need to be made. Say I go in to buy a lawn mower. I ask the salesman, "Does this lawnmower work?" If he says no, then why would I buy it? If he says he doesn't know, then I ask what happens if it doesn't. If he says it's at my own risk, then my risk is one of the terms of the bargain. If he says yes, then it working becomes a part of the bargain. Basically, you have two alternatives. One is you can allow people to rely (when reasonable) on representations in forming their consent. The other is that nobody is allowed to rely on anything, because the duty to investigate even affirmative misrepresentations falls on the buyer. It is important to note also that consent does not equal, "Well, if I had known that, I wouldn't have bought it!" At that point the question becomes one of who assumed the risk of noninformation. In other words, at what point is it incumbent upon the seller to disclose defects? Should he have to disclose known defects? What about known "defects" that would only be defects for a miniscule percentage of buyers? What if he happens to know that the buyer with whom he is dealing happens to be part of that miniscule percentage? Who assumes the risk of unknown defects? For example, if an orange happens to contain some deadly spore that neither buyer nor seller could discover, who took that risk? What if the seller could have discovered the existence of the spore with minimal precautionary measures? Is it fair to say that someone selling an item of food makes an implied warranty that it is not poisonous? In other words, read Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. But seriously, I know this won't answer your questions entirely, but it should provide some useful talking points for the discussion.

Welcome to the forum. I'm going to close this thread and send you over to another one that's been started on this topic.

Sure there is. It'd be good luck of the highest order if they ask me 200 questions on the elements of common law burglary. [says to self: "Breaking, and entering, of a dwelling house . . . ]

Wednesday and Thursday, July 26 and 27, I go sit in a room with some 1,500 other people and fill in 200 circles (Wednesday) and write a bunch (Thursday). Finally. I was pretty stressed until very recently, but my roommate, with whom I spoke recently and who is taking a bar exam elsewhere, summed up my newly acquired feelings quite nicely: "I'm at peace with it." That's right on. I know about everything I'm going to know for this thing. Tomorrow, I'll pick a couple areas (I'm thinking third party contract problems, free speech, and free exercise/establishment clause issues) and try to learn a few more things to maybe pick up that extra point or two. But that's pretty much it. No sense being worried or pissed off. I know what I know, they'll ask what they ask, I'll get right what I get right, and I'll pass or I won't. The only thing in my hands right now is staying focused and doing the best I can. (And getting up at 5:30 a.m. for the next couple days. Vern, where's that puke emoticon?) "I'm at peace with it." I like that. Bring on Wednesday. Then bring on Thursday. Then bring on a companion of some sort (hopefully she's cute ) and a celebratory amaretto sour.

That was neat, man, thanks! In video 1, I didn't even see a gun on the perp, whereas I clearly saw one in video 2. Not only that, but in video 2 you can see him wave it at the officer. Clearly some level of force is justified in video 2. There is the fact that he's walking away when they drop him. But then, you can see moments ago he had just waved his gun at the officer, so I'd say drop him. The only questions I really have are how many shots it takes to drop a guy and where on his body do you have to shoot him. I didn't see anything that jumped out me as horrible, though. To borrow from County of Sacramento v. Lewis, that didn't shock my judicial conscience.

http://www.barbri-classaction.com/barbri/default.htm Bar/Bri prepares some 90% of students, including myself, nationwide for the bar exam. Their stuff is expensive, sure. As in, a couple thousand dollars. Yeah, but it's also great. My course had top faculty from top schools as lecturers. They give you a ton of written materials and handouts. They grade five of your full written essays over the course of your review. They also offer a simulated multistate bar exam (which comprises one day of the two of the actual exam) at the actual testing site for the bar, which they grade and provide full explanatory answers for all 200 questions, and give you a statistical breakdown by topic and subtopic of your score, and they compare it to nationwide performance (some tens of thousand of people). Their success rate noticeably exceeds that of people who don't use the program. Thanks to these idiot students who make these companies spend a buttload of money defending antitrust suits (which I've heard from folks in the practice that they're insanely expensive to defend).

What do you think? That's not sarcastic, it's an info-seeking question. Do you think there should be copyright laws? Why or why not? When you look at the why or why not, is permitting someone to photograph a painting and then copy the photograph consistent with that result?

Right on, man. The teacher can't swing the racket for you. Likewise, with music, I get lots of my production ideas from elsewhere. I listen to lots of Kelly Clarkson-type girl rock, modern rock like Nickelback, 80s rock, etc. I learn techniques and what not from there. For example, from a Staind ballad I pulled the idea of placing distorted guitars a little back in the mix for every chord change on our second verse to fatten it out and create a contrast between it and the first verse. I'm basically building an arsenal of techniques. The creativity is in how I deploy them. Put another way, everyone has to use vocabulary to speak. The creativity is in how you speak/write/etc.

Update: An industry friend of ours is pitching the songs from Lucid Interval to NBC for part of their fall lineup. If they decide to use our stuff, a few things will happen. Among them: me jumping up and down for a very long time; me kissing whoever happens to be next to me when I get the news; me telling you all about it so you can TiVo it and watch it over and over like I will. Also, a music supervisor in L.A. will soon be pitching our stuff to other TV and movies. If someone decides to use our stuff, see above. The sales keep coming in. Things are good, people. Listen to the rock. Love it. Buy it. If you already bought it, thanks again. You need only listen, love, and tell your friends to buy it.

Yeah, ewww. Oh well. When I achieve rock star status, I'll just have to pick somebody else. Maarten, why you gotta rain on my parade, man?

Apparently she escaped her frozen chamber and got married. Way to go, Jennifer.

We agree, Inspector. I would like to add a point for clarity. The reason I think it is proper to restrict smoking on government property has to do with it being annoying (and thus disruptive to government business), not unhealthy. I imagine a case being argued before some Justices and some people in the crowd lighting up. Doesn't make much sense to me. Same goes for any other noxious odors, loud noises, etc. Basically anything that could reasonably be described as offending the senses. I smoke, but I would not want somebody smoking while I was endeavoring to try a case before a jury.

I think it would. I doubt a total ban is in order, but I would not have a problem with reasonable restrictions aimed at eliminating smoking's disruption of official business. Plus, often with government property, people are not on there by choice. Example: jury duty. That eliminates any consent and thus it would be improper to subject people to smoke against their wills.

You would be right that given sufficient evidence, it is no different. The problem with that is that it is true of anything. Given sufficient evidence, for example, a speck of dust on the floor of a restaurant in Japan contaminates your food at your neighborhood Wendy's. The reason, therefore, that it is different from brawls and rifles is the lack of evidence. You can not escape the arbitrary by saying, "given sufficient evidence." Then "arbitrary" ceases to exist, and anything, no matter how absurd, requires consideration. Furthermore, note that the brawls, like the rifles, cause damage instantly. I am aware of no evidence whatsoever that smoke causes anything but irritation at most without repeated, frequent exposure. Then there's also the consent issue. Do you think people ought be permitted to consent to any risks? If so, which ones? If a bar allows smoking, and I decide that the risk to my health is minimal and does not justify spending my time somewhere else (perhaps they have the best prices, or exceptional service), do you permit me to make that decision?

I will not assume that for the sake of argument because it is borderline arbitrary. Your rifle illustration is not comparable. It is scientifically proven that a rifle causes damage instantly. It is far from proven that ingesting cigarette smoke once causes anything but minor irritation. The point is also based on assumption of that inconvenience. If you know there's smoking in a bar and you go in anyway, that's your fault. I happen to not like obnoxiously loud music. But I know that bars often play music at higher levels, which are sometimes so high as to be uncomfortable. If I don't like the sound level, I don't go. And repeated exposure to excessive sound can certainly cause hearing damage.

"If everyone has a different idea of what is logical and what is rational, then your idea is no better than mine. Thus it does me no good to listen to you, as I can't possibly improve my thinking by doing so, so you won't mind if I ignore you completely." That should get a colorful response.

One way is what happened in Lawrence v. Texas. To save you the trouble of reading it if you just want to know, the cops barged in on the two men while responding to a reported weapons disturbance.

1. What is a tax? 2. What is your justification for imposing any tax in any form? What specifically is inadequate about current procedural mechanisms for such things? There's the class action, res judicata, collateral estoppel . . . . Hell, I'd even listen to an argument that the state Attorney General could properly assert such claims.

LW, it would be helpful if you could point us to a specific jurisdiction whose law you find offensive.

Taxes would not be necessary. Money would. Look up the preliminary and temporary injunctions and see if they address your concerns.

Something to consider about attempts. The only possible (i.e. I don't necessarily think it's valid or invalid) rationale I see for punishing attempts is deterrence. If you are guilty only of attempted something, you by definition did not cause any harm. Whoa, Matt! Really? Check out a couple examples. With an attempted rape, you don't commit the rape, so there's no harm on that front. But didn't you scare the girl? Probably. And thus you're probably guilty of a completed assault. There's no harm from the attempted rape, but there is from the completed assault. Think about a property crime, though. You could probably be convicted of attempted burglary without committing any completed crime. I'd guess in most jurisdictions it would be enough for attempted burglary to buy the tools and drive up to the person's house, but never actually set foot on their property (i.e. never complete the crime of trespassing). So what's the rationale for liability for attempt there? Have you caused any harm? I sure don't see it. It has to be deterrence.

There is no such term in Nebraska. It's called sexual assault in the first degree. NRS 28-319. Note that it is only one type of this sexual assault. The first type is your standard rape (penetration w/o consent). Not necessarily. You are right to the extent you are suggesting that an act is not morally rape merely because it is legally rape. But that doesn't mean an act can't be both. If you rape a four-year-old, that would be rape of both varieties. Remember what it is that we're calling "statutory rape" really is. In essence, it is an irrebuttable presumption that a person under a certain age can not consent to an act with a person over a certain age, which is a bright line rule intended to make for swifter administration of proceedings. You have to start analyzing the propriety of a statutory rape law by addressing a more fundamental inquiry: Are any legal bright line rules (ages of majority, filing deadlines, statutes of limitations) proper? What are the circumstances under which they are? Not unless the lawyer's good enough. But yeah, it's some serious fact-specific action.

For those of you talking about restitution, I offer for your consideration the following excerpt from Neb. Rev. Stat. 29-2280: A couple of things to note here for your discussion. First, it requires actual injury, so it's going to vary by victim. Second, the loss suffered must be a direct result. What that means, I do not know.

That does ring a bell. Okay, so that one is out of the running.

I'm sorry, Adrian, are you referring to "Think" or to "What Would John Galt Do"? I was referring to the former. I am unaware of what commercial slogan that would arguably be ripping off and I would appreciate if you would bring one to my attention. As to your religious slogan rip-off people, that seems like a tough case to win. A successful trademark infringement claim requires a likelihood of confusion. Would the hypothetical reasonable consumer think that soda company X actually put out religious apparel? I doubt it. Maybe they could argue dilution [15 U.S.C. 1125(c )], but I don't remember the ins and outs of that enough to assess such an argument.