FACEBOOK JUST DOES NOT GET IT

Providing a service to tech savvy college students is different from providing a service to everyone.

Now Facebook is allowing your friends to post your physical location to all their friends.

If YOU want to broadcast your physical location to the entire world, I do not care. But you have NO RIGHT to broadcast the physical location of OTHER PEOPLE. Facebook needs to require express permission each time a friend wants to broadcast the location of another friend. Or better yet, do not let ANYONE tell where ANYONE ELSE is physically located. IT COULD GET PEOPLE PHYSICALLY KILLED.

NO JUDGE is going to hold that I am responsible for using complex privacy settings in order to have my privacy. This is especially true if the company holds itself out to be a friendly place for friends and family to share their lives.

I wish I could be the personal injury attorney representing the first victim killed by a person who found their ex-spouse because a "friend" posted where she was. Unfortunately, no amount of money can truly compensate for a lost life.

TAXES AND TITHES

During most of human history, people paid both taxes and tithes.

Taxes went to the government to do things like build roads, public buildings, pay armies, etc.

Tithes went to the religious order to which a person belonged to do things like build temples, hospitals and help the poor.

Government and religion were usually closely tied, in that the major religion in any area almost always held that the person in power was a ruler because God or the gods had anointed him/her with power.

To tithe means to give a tenth of your earnings. To tithe to the church means that you gave 10% of your earnings to the church.

Generally, you also gave 10% of your income in taxes. Historically, your taxes were NOT lower because you were paying a tithe to the church.

If you did not pay your taxes, you could be imprisoned. If you did not pay your tithe, you could be excommunicated, which meant that no church member could do business with you.

Now, most people do not give anywhere near 10% of their earnings to church and/or charity. Your taxes must now cover many of the things the churches used to do. (Please remember that charity is tax deductible.)

But you complain about taxes as if you were still paying tithes.

Did you think that roads, armies, care of the disabled, feeding the hungry, appeared by magic and not through government?

ARE CURRENT SENATE RULES CONSTITUTIONAL?

I am concerned about the filibuster rule as it is now practiced in the US Senate.

At one time, it took 61 senators to stop a filibuster, which was defined as a protest debate by a member who just kept talking in order to stop a vote on a matter.

Now, however, the Senate requires a fake filibuster vote for legislation to go forward.

I believe that requiring 61 senators to agree that legislation should go forward is unconstitutional.

The US Constitution makes it very clear that the Senate should be "majority rules" unless the Senate is voting on a treaty, a conviction of impeachment, or expelling a member. Article 1, section 3 states, "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided."

US Constitution makes it clear that it only take a majority vote to pass legislation unless it is a treaty, etc.

It may have been OK to have a 61 vote requirement to stop debate, but not to send every bit of legislation forward. (Actually, a argument can be made that even the old filibuster rules is unconstitutional.) I believe that the Senate can not make a rule for itself that changes the intent of the US Constitution.

I am not a constitutional attorney. It does, however, seem clear that the Senate rules almost certainly violate the US Constitution.

Who can bring a lawsuit regarding this matter? Good question. I think a US Senator could bring a Writ of Mandamus to the US Supreme Court.

Again, I am not a constitutional attorney.

FEED YOUR PARANOIA

If you are determined to be paranoid, then you should watch the System Crash series on the Smithsonian channel.

PLEASE be paranoid about clicking on a weblink in your email. NEVER use a link from an email that you were not expecting. ALWAYS use your browser to check with the main website of the place that sent you email. Most email telling you about a bounced check or other financial problems are fake emails, meant to steal your financial information.

There is no need to be paranoid about illegal immigrants having babies. A person must be 21 years old before that person can request a family member be given a visa.

There is no need to be paranoid about President Obama being a Muslim, because he is a Christian. If you know anything about the Muslim religion, you would realize that no Muslim would lie about being a Muslim. No Muslim would tell people he was Christian.

If you want to be paranoid about art forgery, you should read Feint of Art and the sequels by Hailey Lind. These books teach about forgery, are funny, and good mysteries.

There is no need to worry about legalizing marijuana. The 'drunk driving' laws also cover driving while under the influence of marijuana. There is no need to worry about people being high on marijuana while working, as that is still going to be a firing offense.

The world has a lot of real problems. Could you please focus on solving real problems instead of making up fake problems?

There are plenty of real problems to be paranoid about.

END OF SUMMER READING

These books are not for very young children. Most of them explore the dark side or deal with issues we tend to avoid. Jinks is new to me, but the other authors have many other books they have written, ALL of which are good books.

Nightseer by Laurel Hamilton

Evil Genius and Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks

Dead Witch Walking and sequels by Kim Harrison

more uplifting are:

To Ride Pegasus and Ship Who Sang and all SHIP sequels by Anne McCaffrey

funny and insightful are:

Summer of the Dragon by Elizabeth Peters

Murder With Peacocks and sequels by Donna Andrews

DAMNED IF WE DON'T

I am not certain why few donors are helping Pakistan. YOU DO KNOW THAT ONE THIRD OF PAKISTAN IS UNDER WATER?

I think donors are not helping because they know that the people will NOT be grateful to be helped by the West.

You need to remember that the survivors will be VERY ANGRY that they GOT NO HELP and had to watch CHILDREN DIE. It is the kind of anger that lasts for 80 years, because a child survivor will remember, with anger, for that long.

You do not like taking charity. Pakistanis do not like taking charity. Both you and the Pakistanis will take charity to save your children.

CHILDREN DYING of DIARRHEA and TYPHOID and STARVATION are just around the corner for Pakistan. Please help if you can.

BEING STALKED? BE WARNED

YOUR PHONE IS PUTTING A LOCATION ON EVERY PHOTO IT TAKES AND SENDS!

ANY phone or camera with GPS puts a 'geotag' on EVERY photo.

The photo I took of my cat and sent to friends tells everyone my home address. Good thing none of my clients wants me dead.

This is because it is COOL to mix GPS information and photo information. NO ONE thought of how DANGEROUS it is to mix photo information and GPS information.

Even high school computer programmers can find the actual location of ANY geotagged photo. It is fairly easy to write a computer program to troll the internet and find people on vacation and the location of their home. This is because the location of where every photo was taken is encoded into every photo. (If the device taking the photo has GPS.)

IT IS BEYOND STUPID.

Programmers, most of whom do not understand people very well, are not even telling you that people on the internet can find out your home address from your posted photos. Luckily, I think that low resolution uploads, like to Facebook, do not keep the geotag information.

But if you are posting photos on your website, you may be giving the viewers the exact location of where you took EVERY photo.

To turn off geotag can be difficult. I suggest you put in the name of your device followed by 'remove geotag' in Google. It worked for me.

SOME OF YOU WILL BELIEVE ANYTHING

Now some bloggers are saying that President Obama should not have graduated from Harvard Law because he may not have gotten great grades at Columbia University.

I did not get great grades at the University of South Dakota. Does that mean that I should not have graduated from the University of Arizona College of Law?

NONE of you seem to understand what being on the Harvard Law Review means. Harvard Law Review is one of the premier legal magazines in the US. Law Review is only offered to the best law students. Law Review in any law school is the beginning of a road to being a judge. Harvard Law Review, in particular, is the start of the career of many federal judges. To be chosen to be EDITOR of the Law Review is to be one of the top legal scholars in your law school class.

I enjoy reading about, and watching shows about, American history. I have NEVER EVER HEARD of anyone questioning the education of any other American President.

Personally, I think it is, without a doubt, PREJUDICE that is causing you all to try to belittle the educational success of President Obama.

It is easy for me to recognize this sort of prejudice. You would be surprised how many people believe that short, round women should be neither seen nor heard.

DOES THE LAW REQUIRE THE DRUG CZAR TO LIE?

Several websites in favor of legalization of marijuana have stated that the US drug czar is REQUIRED by law to NOT tell the truth about marijuana.

Unfortunately, these websites do not have the correct legal citations to allow one to judge for oneself as to the actual law about this issue.

It is true that the law states, "Responsibilities, The Director ... shall take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that (A) is listed in schedule 1 of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act ... and (B) has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration..." Those who read my blog know that marijuana IS A FEDERAL SCHEDULE ONE DRUG, making it illegal to sell even as medicine.

The above quotation is properly cited as 21 U.S.C. section 1703(b)(12).

The US governmental decision that the drug czar is allowed to make statements that are unsupported by scientific evidence can be found at www.gao.gov/decisions/other/301022.pdf.

The legal question is, "Does the above law require the drug czar to LIE about marijuana as (s)he 'takes such actions as are necessary to oppose' legalization of marijuana?"

The law does seem to require that the drug czar ignore the 6 or 7 Presidential Commissions that have recommended the legalization of marijuana.

IS DRUG CZAR MANDATED TO LIE>

IS DRUG CZAR MANDATED TO LIE>

SUMMER FUN WITH KIDS

Children really do not need expensive trips.

A child under the age of four will enjoy a leisurely walk around the block, especially if you take the time to examine the interesting leaves, bugs, and animals you see along the way.

A child under the age of 12 will enjoy a trip to the park to feed the ducks or play on the gym equipment.

A teenager will enjoy a private lunch just with you.

Your time spent with your child is more important than money spent on your child.

I am disturbed my newspaper reports of parents paying attention to their toys (iPhones, Blackberries, etc.) rather that their children.

We all need to TALK with each other.

ARE ETHICAL STANDARDS DIFFERENT FOR BLACKS?

All criminal defense attorneys know that the courts will likely come down harder on a black defendant. There are two main reasons for this. One is that white judges can not see the fear concealed in the arrogance of a black defendant, and react to the arrogance. Second is that black judges do not want to seem to be giving blacks a break, so they often err on the side of harsher sentences.

Now the House of Representatives is going after two black members for ethics violations.

One of accused black members has said, "But everybody does it." The news laughed at that defense. But it is truly a defense, called selective prosecution, and is a violation of due process of law. (Law expects equal treatment for everyone.)

The second one is a black woman in trouble for setting up a meeting, which she did not attend, regarding a bank and the Treasury Department. The charge is that her husband had, six months prior to the meeting, served on the bank's Board of Directors.

I remember how angry I was 35 years ago, when a woman attorney told me that women attorneys had to be better than men attorneys in order to succeed. I said that I should be judged as equal to a man, that I should not have to be better than a man.

It is really too bad that the woman attorney was right, and I was wrong.

I think the woman attorney was also right if we substitute 'black' for 'woman', and 'white' for 'man', so that the statement reads, "a black attorney has to be better than a white attorney in order to succeed."

Why can't we make both statement incorrect?

I wait for the day that both those statements will be incorrect.