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The Libertarian Blog of Stephan Kinsella
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March 31, 2005
Natural Law and Louisiana Fisheries:
Daddy's going camping with his baby and poodle this weekend, at Cotile Recreation Area, outside Alexandria, Louisiana. This comment caught my eye: Cotile Lake is a man-made impoundment located in the uplands approximately 15 miles west northwest of Alexandria, Louisiana. The lake is approximately 1,775 acres in size and was completed in October 1965 [Daddy's birth-month, incidentally]. The Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries Commission stocked this impoundment with the proper species and number of game fish in 1965-66 shortly after its completion date. I just love this sentence: The Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries Commission stocked this impoundment with the proper species and number of game fish ... No weasel-words for the Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries Commission! I like it! 
March 26, 2005
Confessions of a Law School A**hole:
Going paperless, scanning and chunking, I came across this oldie but goodie from a patent lawyer buddy of mine, Steve Mendelsohn.
March 25, 2005
Daily Apology--Feed Fixed:
The atom feed for The Daily Apology has been fixed.... you might want to try to re-subscribe w/ your 'gator.
Re: "Doctor" Lawyer?:
Previously I whined (2) about lawyers using the title "Dr." simply because they have a JD degree. As I noted, More annoying than "attorney-at-law" is the practice of some attorneys of using the title "Doctor." Although there is apparently some dispute over this, I view it as misleading, cheesy, unseemly, and self-embarrassing for a lawyer to refer to himself as "Doctor" such-and-such. In addition, the law degree is usually a Juris Doctor (J.D.), yet many lawyers insist on calling it a a "Juris Doctorate", I suppose out of ignorance or to make it sound more impressive. (Note: a few law schools apparently do use "Juris Doctorate" on their diplomas—improperly, in my view.) Some dude alerted me to this May 2004 opinion of the Professional Ethics Committee of the Supreme Court of Texas, which considers the question, May a lawyer use, in connection with his or her name, the titles "Doctor," "Dr.," "Doctor of Jurisprudence," or "J.D." in social and professional communications? The Committee says that previously, in 1968, the Committed "issued an opinion concluding that a lawyer in most circumstances could not ethically use titles such as "Doctor," "Dr.," or "J.D." "... orally or in writing, professional or otherwise ...." because such use was self-laudation prohibited by Texas Canon 24 ...." In other words, you couldn't say "Dr. Kinsella" because it was too crass.
But now that the bar approves legal specialization and lawyer advertising, "the stated basis for Opinion 344 no longer exists." So, calling yourself "Dr." might still be crass and it might still "tend[] to lower the tone of the profession," but this is simply no longer prohibited.
The Committee goes on to ask whether the use of Dr. as a title for a lawyer is contrary to rules "that prohibit any form of communication that is false or misleading." The Committee concludes that the use of the title "Dr.," "Doctor," "J.D." or "Doctor of Jurisprudence" is not, in itself, prohibited as constituting a false or misleading communication. The Committee recognizes that other professions, such as educators, economists and social scientists, traditionally use title "Dr." in their professional names to denote a level of advanced education and not to imply formal medical training. There is no reason in these circumstances to prohibit lawyers with a Juris Doctor or Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from indicating the advanced level of their education. They do say that in some contexts--e.g., where a lawyer is advertising "for legal services in connection with medical malpractice", then the use of the title "Dr." might be misleading if it implies that the lawyer is a medical doctor. But in general, since the lawyer does have a Juris Doctor, and since most people would not think "Dr. Smith" implies an M.D. (since many non-M.D.'s, such as Ph.D.'s, are referred to as "Doctor"), it is not misleading for a lawyer to use the title Doctor.
Now, I do not disagree with this. I still believe it is cheesy, unseemly, self-embarrassing, pompous, and pathetic--it is just that these things are not prohibited by lawyers' ethical rules, nor should they be. I suppose I agree that it is not misleading; when I said previously I think it's misleading, I meant that I believe it implies the lawyer has a post-JD degree--a "real" legal doctorate. The Committee apparently did not consider this possible issue, but whether "Dr." is misleading in implying medical specialty.
March 17, 2005
communications problem:
I recall we had this problem in one of my electrical engineering courses, studying packet communications between computers. Unfortunately, I've forgotten the answer and it's driven me nuts for years. If anyone knows, email daddy.
You have 2 armies, on opposite hilltops. They are allied against an enemy army in the valley between them. Sometimes the 2 armies send runners to send messages to each other. The runners sometimes get killed--say, 1% of the time. So you can't be 100% sure a message makes it to the recipient.
Now say they 2 armies can defeat the enemy if they attack togehter, but if attacking alone, eihter one will lose. Army 1 wants to attack at sunrise. So they send a runner to 2. But the dilemma is, Army 1 needs to get a message back knowing Army 2 got the message and will attack too. Army 1 can't assume 2 gets the message since the runner might be killed.
Now Army 2, even if it gets the first message, and wants to attack, wants to be sure 1 got the reply, so 2 does not attack alone.
The question was: is it possible to arrange a communication scheme, given a less than 100% chance of message success, so that they can both attack?
It seems to me NO, but I wonder. It seems to me that to attack you have to have 100% certainty your message made it, and so does the other guy. This must be impossible. You can have an arbitrarily high confidence if you do enough handshaking, I suppose, but you can never be sure. Anyone know if Daddy is right?
March 8, 2005
More Spoonerisms:
Or is that malapropisms?-- the same colleague who says "goggle" instead of google, and who refers to Iraqis as "Iraqians"... and who said some document was "not very grammical", also has recently said the following:
- Pronouncing feng-shui “foozway”;
- Repeatedly saying “he” and “him” without specifying who he is referring to;
- "neighborship": As in, two neighbors who have a good relationship, they want to be polite to each other, so as not to damage their neighborship;
- “another scratch on his back is that he does not get paid until his company gets paid” ... I don't even know what that one means;
- "suburbianites" and "urbianites" -- people who live in the suburbs, or city
- "he kept the numbers until he got them the way he wanted them"--ummmm... massaging?
March 7, 2005
Healy on States' Rights and Libertarian Centralists:
In Gene Healy's blog post about Liberal Federalism, he notes, "I'd like to think that the Republican assault on federalism would lead to a resurgence of decentralist liberalism" (emphasis added). As I commented there-- it would also be nice to see a resurgence of decentralist libertarianism too.
Healy, a Cato Senior Editor, is a great opponent of "libertarian centralism": see Healy's great articles: States’ Rights Revisited, from The Freeman, and the following 4 articles from LRC (all linked at his LRC archive) : Contra Centralism (libertarian states rights scholar Gene Healy takes on Clinton Bolick, Roger Pilon, and John McClaughry, advocates of liberty through federal power); Roger Pilon and the 14th Amendment (Gene Healy, the libertarian legal scholar who's brought sanity to discussions of an evil amendment, continues his work); Libertarian Reflections (Gene Healy on Waco, Paul Johnson, neocons, war, and left-libertarian nonsense); and The Squalid 14th Amendment (ratified by trickery during the federal military dictatorship over the South, this treacherous appendage to the Constitution is an attack on liberty and its American political foundation, states rights); see also my pieces: Supreme Confusion, Or, A Libertarian Defense of Affirmative Action, and Barnett and the 14th Amendment.
Coda: See also these updated posts: Libertarian Centralists (discussing Pilon's notion that a federal law against church arson is authorized by the 14th amendment); and Fourteenth Amendment Resources.
March 6, 2005
There's No Such Thing as a Free Patent:
Daddy's latest: There's No Such Thing as a Free Patent, Mises.org, Mar. 7, 2004.
Stupid Tech Questions:
1. How do you make a program start on startup (Windows XP Home edition)? I swear I used to know how... but now can't find it.
2. In a home based wireless network, where you can see the other PC's drives in My Network Places--how do you "map" one of them to be a local drive? I used to know how, but again..?
Help, geeks! nskinsella -at- gmail dot com
March 4, 2005
Lawyer apology:
I also apologize for being a lawyer. And, er..., for being a self-hating lawyer. And... for stealing the "self-hating" term from the dimwit-Seriosos.
Apology to BK Marcus:
This apology is not completely tongue in cheek! Yesterday I pranked BurgerKing Marcus. I thought it was funny but it apparently traumatized him more than it would have me. He's a good and nice guy so I should have just used a "BK IS A WANKER" thing instead of a 25 year old in-your-face beaver shot. Sorry BK!
Lesbo Apology:
Today, I would like to apologize for having watched every episode of The L Word. I also apologize for my fellow libertarian, Tom Palmer's, hypersensitivity and extreme, irrational, unfair anti-Southern bias.
March 3, 2005
The Daily Apology:
Since starting this site and blog sometime in 2001, I've always called it by the boring name, "StephanKinsella.com Web Log." It's time for a change. The new name is.... "THE DAILY APOLOGY: The Libertarian Blog of Stephan Kinsella"
Please help me think of things to apologize for, since we must ever appease our fellow dimwit-Serioso libertarians and other totalitarian-minded dimwits.
***
I've decided for now to do a separate blog: The Daily Apology. Feel free to post!
Daily White Hetero Southern Male Apology:
I apologize today for being white. I apologize to Tom Palmer and his dimwit-Serioso ilk for having a sense of humor, and for not having a stick up my ass. I apologize for the Holocaust and slavery. I apologize for not apologizing earlier, and for any deficiencies of this apology. I apologize for being a neoConfederate even though I am not one. And I better apologize for not being a neoConfederate too, just to cover all bases. I apologize for not being a bigot, and for defending people who are not bigots from false charges of bigotry.
Spelling Problem:
Maybe it's just me, but I think "pimiento" is spelled wrong.
March 2, 2005
Kinsella Troll!:
Burger King helped me catch some dimwit-Serioso troll who tried to set daddy up.
Daddy's Latest Patent:
6,859,481: Optically-pumped multiple-quantum well active region with improved distribution of optical pumping power.
March 1, 2005
Punk Tussling: The Movie:
My movie parodying the moronic punks on this Not Reason thread. Made w/ the D.Film moviemaker engine. Respek to Pete Canning.
Cal Thomas:
Is it just me, or is Cal Thomas's popularity and success a mystery? He has that stiff, weird, vaguely inbred, almost Down's Syndrome look a lot of suspenders-wearing small-town fundamentalist types do, no?
Coda: Pete Canning scared me by sending me these two pix. Oh no!  
Adventures in Nannying:
Our baby is now in school from 8:30 to 3:00 every day, so the nanny does housework and errands etc. for us during those hours. Yesterday I asked her to go to 2 grocery stores and the drug store, and also asked her to drive by a local cafeteria--it's like a Luby's or Piccadilly. I asked her to get 2 meals for the wife and me, and wrote it down on a list. I made the mistake of showing her the cafeteria's full menu and circled about a dozen items we like there, that she could resort to in case they were out of one of the items I had written down, or that I request in the future. She called me that afternoon and told me she ran out of money, had to dip into her own wallet. I was perplexed since I gave her ample funds for all the errands. Then it dawned on me. My fridge is now full of white styrofoam meal containers from the cafeteria. She ordered everything I had circled. I could not stop laughing. She was so embarrassed. She said the lady at the cafeteria wondered why so much food, and she told her she assumed I was having company that night. Thank God some of the things I had circled were daily specials throughout the week so they didn't have them. I told her not to bring her lunch today as we have plenty of food in the fridge.
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