Consider Yourself Warned

Best Fantasy Baseball Team Names

It's time to get your fantasy baseball team cranked up again. Other than the draft and talking trash to your league-mates, one of the best part of your fantasy league is coming up with a team name. Here's some help.

My favorite: Grand Theft Votto

Joey Votto: No helmet required

Important News from the World of Biscuits

Ok, enough politics...it's time for something serious and more tasteful. Biscuits.

David Tucker will open a new incarnation of the breakfast restaurant at the end of April. It is one of about a half-dozen outlets that are planned or already open. Best of all? Biscuits will be available all day. The restaurant will be open from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. and also will serve lunch – unlike the original.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/03/29/2212861/biscuit-house-prepares-to-open.html#storylink=cpy

Biscuits served all day? Game just changed.

Willful Congressional Ignorance

I wish I was making this up. Via Volokh, some of our elected officials in Congress were asked their opinion of the health care law and the constitutionality of the law. Their responses:

Rep. Conyers cited the “Good and Welfare Clause” as the source of Congress’s authority [there is no such clause].
Rep. Stark responded, “the federal government can do most anything in this country.” [Skip to 2:40 mark]
Rep. Clyburn  replied, “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do. How about [you] show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?”
Rep. Hare said “I don’t worry about the Constitution on this, to be honest [...] It doesn’t matter to me.” When asked, “Where in the Constitution does it give you the authority …?” He replied, “I don’t know.”
Sen. Akaka said he “not aware” of which Constitutional provision authorizes the healthcare bill.
Sen. Leahy added, “We have plenty of authority. Are you saying there’s no authority?”
Sen. Landrieu told a questioner, “I’ll leave that up to the constitutional lawyers on our staff.”

Holy crap, that's some scary stuff. Remember that everyone one of these people took an oath to "Preserve, protect, and defend, the Constitution of the United States". And then one guy says that it "doesn't matter" to him? That's galling. At least lie to me a little bro, You're a Congressman, so you should at least be able to do that, right? Just lie to me a little. Say you really really care about the Constitutionality of a law, and at least try to sound convincing.

This is just something to keep in mind when you hear arguments that the Supreme Court is being asked to defer to the constitutional wisdom of another co-equal branch. I'd love to know what our Supreme Court Justices think of the chuckle-heads in Congress.

In defense of our elected officials, YOU voted for these idiots.

Oral Arguments and What they Mean

I wanted to listen to the audio of the oral arguments before I commented. Having done that, I thought the news coverage of the case was extreme. Everyone from Toobin (who is a hack) to Wolf Blitzer (don’t you love his name?) to the folks all over MSNBC basically said some version of this:

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. should be grateful to the Supreme Court for refusing to allow cameras in the courtroom, because his defense of Obamacare on Tuesday may go down as one of the most spectacular flameouts in the history of the court.

                                                                                        (Full Article Here)

 I listened to the oral argument. Verrilli didn’t do that bad. Everyone these days is used to seeing lawyers in movies and on TV shows have these amazing closing arguments. Everyone expects you to be MatthewMcConaughey, in A Time to Kill.

I hate to kill your buzz, boys and girls, but the actual legal world isn’t like the movies. It’s kind of dry, it’s not dramatic, and it’s usually conducted in a run-down government building. Judges ask tough questions, and sometimes there isn’t a really good answer that it both profound and witty. Sometimes even the best lawyers lose their train of thought. Accordingly, everyone needs to kind of chill out about the "style-points" of the whole thing.

Also, any lawyer who does a fair amount of appellate work will tell you that oral argument doesn’t really win or lose the case. Sure, if you make the best oral argument in the history of the world (or the worst) it might influence a vote. However, the reality is that the Judges/Justices at the appellate/supreme level have already read your written briefs, thought about the question presented, had their law clerks research the issue, discussed it, and have probably formed their own opinion already.

Here’s my analogy for all you non-lawyers: An appellate case is like building a wooden fence. Your written work (the briefs), and the substantive law are the wood and the nails. You put the fence together with the wood and the nails. You try to make sure there aren’t any gaps in the fence, that each board is straight, and you nail it together tightly. Oral argument is deciding what color you’re going to paint the fence. If you accidentally spill all the paint, you still have a fence – it’s just not as pretty as you would like it to be.

Consequently, all this wailing and gnashing of teeth about how “bad” the solicitor general sounded during oral arguments is fluff and it's nonsense. However, the news media has to say something, so this is what they’ve decided to fixate on.

You don’t have to do any deep thinking about the merits of the law if your big takeaway is: That guy sounded like an idiot. But we all know that the news folks aren’t in the business of serious analysis. That would be too hard, bro.

They don’t want to talk about why the fence might have a bad foundation, the history of fence building, how the fence could be flawed, or what other kinds of fences built like this would mean for us. They just want to focus on: Wow, that’s an ugly looking fence.

Another possible angle is that all the defenders of the health-care law and the media (but I repeat myself) are looking for a potential scapegoat. If SCOTUS kills the law, the defenders can then point to Verrilli and say “Hey, the law is constitutional, we just had a moron argue it.”

In fact, if SCOTUS kills the law, I personally guarantee you that some news-person will put that theory out there. They’ll have no problem throwing him under the bus to preserve the idea that the law is valid.

The News: If you’re looking for substantive analysis – you’re looking in the wrong place.

Busy Day - Light Blogging - Music Post

Hey, ya'll. Got to work on work every now and again. You know, legal work... Until then, here's a nice little tune from a cool southern rock band to keep your toe tappin' on a Tuesday:



[H/T to the Chief Indian for turning me onto Green River Ordinance]

My First Whole-Hog BBQ: The Order of the Smoke Ring

Over the weekend, the Young Lawyers Division of the South Carolina Bar defeated the Student Bar Association of the USC Law School in a whole-hog BBQ cook off. The YLD team was led by renowned BBQ master (and feared litigator) Robert Goings.

Michael Wright, Charles Appleby, and yours truly rounded rounded out the remainder of the team. We were carefully chosen for our ability to follow Robert's instructions and our ability to drink beer, which is a very important part of competition BBQ.

I have done "small time" BBQ myself, for a few years, consisting of mostly ribs, butts, and chicken. However, this was my first time experiencing the world of whole-hog cooking. Having now participated in cooking a whole-hog, I can say that the difference between cooking a rack of ribs on the grill for several hours and cooking a 110 lb. hog is about the same difference between intramural flag football and SEC football. Another similarity between the two is that both SEC football and whole-hog cooking are taken very seriously, and both require lots of equipment.

The BBQ was scheduled to be served at approximately 6:00PM on Friday. Naturally, this meant that we started on Thursday. At approximately 7:30PM on Thursday, we set up BBQ headquarters (kind of a campsite/tailgate/kitchen) and began the preparations. Robert arrived with the pig in a giant cooler of ice, a pull-behind cooker, and had what amounted to a small kitchen in the back of his truck. Michael and I arrived with a few other odd and ends, including, but not limited to, a box of surgical gloves, assorted cutlery, tables and chairs. Appleby was deployed on "special assignment" to the UF/USC baseball game that night, so we were a man down.

In what proved to be an instant sign of good team chemistry, we had all (individually) brought enough beer for the group. After getting the headquarters established, the actual pig preparation began. If you've ever cooked ribs, you know that pulling the membrane off the ribs is both important and difficult. A 110 lb. hog has that same step on the hams and shoulders, but times four. While Michael were on membrane-removal detail, Robert separated the ribs and did other more complicated butchering.

That took us about an hour, but it went by quickly, as morale was high. The cleaned pig was looking good, but it was now time to get serious about the flavor.

The first step in adding flavor (and moisture) involved injecting the pig with a concoction of what I am told consisted primarily of cider vinegar and apple juice. According to Robert, the process was to "Inject it like crazy."

After approximately an hour or two of that, the pig looked like this:

Next, we liberally coated the entire surface of the pig with mustard. Robert explained that this wasn't really for taste; it was to provide a sticky surface for the rub to cling to. We applied the rub to the (now membrane free) to all surfaces. The surgical gloves were invaluable at this stage. As a piece of advice, you really cannot have too many disposable gloves. Also, if you can get the hospital-quality ones, do that.

Michael Wright laying the foundation for some winning Q.

We were cooking for a very large group, so we had some additional meat to cook. In addition to the pig, we prepared six butts, using the same process of injection and then getting a nice layer of dry rub on them. The butts were then put into a cooler to rest. After all that work we needed a little rest ourselves.

We knew that we wanted to be done with the cooking at about 5:00PM the next day, so we calculated 3:30AM as the time we should get the meat onto the cooker.

Here is what the final conglomeration of butts and pig looked like before any heat or smoke were applied.

Just about 150 lbs. of meat waiting for the magic of heat and smoke the night before.

Mike took the tough assignment of the night shift, and I got off fairly easy by pulling the daylight shift for the next day. With the prep work done, I departed, leaving the night-shift in place. I can't say exactly what happened that night, but I am told that it involved an ancient blessing of the pig conducted in Latin. In any event, when I returned, it was clear that we were on our way to some serious BBQ.

The cooker was running approximately 250 degrees, and after 13 hours it looked like this:

The butts had cooked faster than the whole-pig, so they were wrapped in foil to keep them from drying out. Finally, about 3:00PM, the entire team began the process of pulling/shredding all of the pork into serving containers for the crowd that was soon to appear. Our team leader was in charge of finding the best pieces of BBQ and setting them aside for the judges. After about two hours of painstaking, finger-burnin' work, we had turned all 150 lbs. of meat into the most delicious pulled pork I have ever tasted.

Goings, Appleby, and Wright: Doing the hard work of shredding the BBQ into bite-sized morsels of love.

The Finished Product: Only 16 hours of work, and this too can be yours.

After slightly under 24 hours (start to finish), the BBQ judges rendered an 8-0 decision that we had vanquished our competition. For all you lawgeeks out there, that would be a per curiam decision. I had more fun doing this than I had expected, and I was honored to be inducted into the Order of the Smoke Ring. Our competition worked valiantly, but they were no match for Team Bobby-Q. If you have ever wanted to try your hand a cooking a whole pig, I highly recommend it. Just be sure to budget enough time, and find some friends who don't mind getting their hands a little messy.

The YLD captures the inaugural "Golden Pig" Award

Legendary BBQ was made. Lives were changed.

Explaining "Hunger Games"

When I first heard there was a move called Hunger Games, I thought it was a documentary about the Charlie Weiss years at Notre Dame. Or maybe something about Mangino. In any event, I recently learned that I was a little off.

Apparently, Hunger Games is a fantasy/futuristic world where kids fight to the death in a Gladiator-type deal. Also, it's all the fault of Big Government or something. Or maybe it's not. I just hope we get a Russell Crowe cameo.

Hunger Games: You're Entertained.

Northern Pipeline Bad; Southern Pipeline Good

Ok, you may recall that our President said "No" to the Keystone XL Pipeline. Apparently, the President gets to have a say whenever a pipeline crosses international borders.  Later, he personally lobbied Senators to vote against the pipeline. He got on the phone and told Senators to vote it down. Ok, fine. He's against the pipeline. I get it.

Apparently, despite our President trying to kill it twice, the folks in Canada who want to move the oil decided to build the Southern portion (Houston to Oklahoma). I guess they're gambling that Obama is going to change his mind or that maybe a new President will approve the Northern part. In any event, the Southern part of the pipeline is being built, and Obama has nothing to do with it. Since it doesn't cross any international borders, that makes sense. With me so far?

So today, our President shows up in Oklahoma, where they are building the pipeline that he has personally tried to kill twice. I'm thinking he going to really give those guys a piece of his mind and tell them that it's just not going to happen, and they need to get on board with clean energy. I'm thinking he's going to say "In your face! I stopped your pipeline!" However, this is what he said:

"Today, I am directing my administration to cut through red tape, break through bureaucratic hurdles and make this project a priority," Obama said amid applause.

Wait, what? Isn't he the "bureaucratic hurdle"? This makes no sense at all. Can one of my readers explain this to me?

Trolling in the SEC (Trolling 101)

EDSBS has your introductory guide to trolling rival fan-bases in the SEC. My favorite:

Georgia: Dudes in golf shirts who'd rather be playing golf and complaining about their wives/girlfriends. Richt is their perfect coach because he doubles as pastor and chill father figure. (P.S. Georgians do not like to work too hard or consistently, much like Georgia football.) Base emotion: satisfied with whatever, but would not admit it ever. Their dog is dying RIGHT NOW. Mention it.

I think the LSU entry could have used the "corn-dog" reference, but other than that it's a good primer. Read the whole thing, and practice on your friends. It's spring practice season for you, too.

The Hungry Lady Reviews Senor O'Malley's

I've been wanting to Senor O'Malley's, as I am a fan of both Guinness and tacos. This review has increased my interest. If you're looking for a local Columbia foodie blog, check out The Hungry Lady.

Sig Sauer .380 Found at Columbia Metro Airport

Apparently, those little x-ray machines aren't totally for show.

"Passengers should look through bags thoroughly before coming to the airport to make sure there are no illegal or prohibited items," said Jon Allen, TSA spokesman

Gee, you think?

Most Audacious Plan in 500 Years?

Our genius Vice-President just said this:

"You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan. Never knowing for certain. We never had more than a 48 percent probability that [bin Laden] was there," said Biden, in Morris Township, New Jersey, according to a White House pool report.

Wow. That's weapons-grade stupid. Don't take this as diminishing the fine work that our special operations folks do, but "not knowing for certain" whether your target is there doesn't exactly make the operation "audacious". Our special forces do stuff like this all the time.

Also, going back 500 years? What the hell is that all about? I'm not a historian, but here are just a few military operations from the last 500 years that qualify as more "audacious". These are just off the top of my head:

1. Washington's Crossing of the Delaware: George Washington deciding to cross the Delaware in tiny boats in the dead of winter to ambush a superior force on Christmas and turn the tide of the war. By the way, Biden was only about 50 miles from this site when he decided to make his grand pronouncement.
2.  The Battle of Cowpens: General Daniel Morgan's instructions to the militia to only fire two volleys and leaving his flanks exposed to invite a head on assault from the British.
3. Bonhomme Richard vs. HMS Serapis: John Paul Jones took on a much larger, more heavily armed, more maneuverable, and more disciplined crew thousands of miles across the ocean and proved that the British could be beaten through sheer force of his own will.  For all you history buffs, this is the battle where Jones famously quipped, "I've not yet begun to fight." 
4. Normandy Invasion by the Allies: Hi, ever heard of me? Just slightly under 7,000 vessels were used in this attack on Hitler's Fortress Europa. This could be broken down into smaller operations and the list could go on forever.
5. The Doolittle Raiders: Using bombers off the deck of an aircraft carrier had never been done before, and they had to take off early, making it a virtual suicide mission. Audacious? You bet your ass.
6. Pearl Harbor: Hey, the Japanese Navy came all the way across the Pacific in stealth mode to pull off one of the biggest surprise attacks in the history of warfare. Bad results for the USA, but it definitely qualifies as audacious.
7. The Battle of the Bulge: Patton took his 3rd Army, pulled them off the front lines, made a 90-degree turn to the north in the dead of winter, and engaged the German Army, relieving the 101st Airborne, who's refusal to surrender Bastogne could probably make the list independently.
8. The Battle of Chancellorsville: Robert E. Lee went against all prevailing military theory of the time by dividing his forces in the face of a numerically superior opponent (The Confederate forces were outnumbered more than 2:1 at the outset). Lee divides his forces and sends Jackson on a 12 mile flanking maneuver to come up behind the Union troops. Probably an example of Lee's most perfect battle. Audacity to spare, my friend.

I just came up with this list in 15 minutes. I know that VP Biden wants to brag about his accomplishments, but man...what a dopey thing to say.

Bless his heart, Joe Biden is a moron.

Awesome Photo of Jupiter and Venus

Check this out. More explanation here.

Study Shows Statehouses Are At High Risk for Corruption

I'm shocked, shocked, that state legislatures are likely places for corruption to occur.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I'm checking out for the weekend starting in about 3 hours, so here's a post to get you through to Monday. Have a safe weekend, you crazy kids.

Jenny Isgett and Robert Bolchoz Signs Vandalized

Ok, people...it's time for a little pow-wow.

The Columbia City Council elections are coming up soon, so the little yard signs are popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain. That's just part of life. Politicians have put up signs since the beginning of time. I'm not 100% sure about this, but my guess is that the Roman Senators had little signs chiseled out of marble.

My law office is on Devine Street, so apparently, it's prime real estate for this little election. Most of the folks running for City Council asked to put signs in my office's front yard, and (against our natural inclination to not get involved) we said "Sure...we're not supporting anyone in particular, but if you want to put a little yard sign up, that's fine with us."

So, someone came by and put a few signs up. No big deal, right? I mean, who really cares about the City Council election other than the group of hard-core politicos? When I asked people about the signs, they didn't know anything about the election, or that there was even an election at all.

However, I know that some people take this all very seriously, and that's fine. In any event, there's no need to get destructive. As I was looking out my office's front window this morning over some coffee, I noticed this:

and this....

By way of background, this isn't the first time that signs in front of our office have been knocked down. When it happened the first time, I just chalked it up to an isolated incident. This was the second time.

If you look closely at the Isgett sign, you can tell that it is held in by wooden stakes. Those stakes were driven about two feet into the grass. There's no way it came out other than by someone affirmatively going up to and and really pushing hard to tear it up. You can tell it took the grass and soil up. The Bolchoz sign was pulled up, and was moved about fifteen feet.

I really don't care who ends up on  City Council that much. It's not really that big of a deal. I have strong feeling about the penny sales tax, on general principle, but it's not worth pulling up signs. Nothing is. It's just a sign.

Look people: I remember that this kind of stuff happened when someone would run for student class president in fifth grade. But seriously, we're all adults now - grow up.

You Might Be A True Southerner If...

Native son, Stephen Colbert discusses what you need to do if you're a politician who wants to pander to Southerners.

Cheesy grits? Meh. I like my grits with butter, salt, and pepper. Don't try to get too cute with them.

Jedi Training Academy In NYC

They sure do have some weird folks up in New York City. I like Star Wars as much as the next guy, but this is ridiculous.

On Wednesday night, walking down Prince Street, he grabbed a lightsaber from his loyal saber-smith, Jason Hoffman, and began leaping and spinning in the street and skillfully twirling the glowing rod, all the while dodging yellow cabs and attracting a crowd of passers-by. 

“It’s more than just dancing around with a glow stick,” he said. “Your mind has to be one with your body when you’re swinging these things.”

Oh really? Because that seems exactly like what you're doing, bro.

Nothing attracts the ladies like a lightsaber, he said, but caution is required. Several months ago, Mr. Michael was passing around his custom $700 saber in his local bar on Myrtle Avenue, and while he was ordering a drink, someone storm-trooped right out of the bar with it.

Nothing attracts them like a lightsaber, eh? I'm pretty sure that bringing your toy light-saber to a bar is the equivalent of telling a girl on your first date how awesome living in your mom's basement is, because she brings you Capri-Suns, and cuts the crust off your sandwiches.

Southern Food Bracket From Garden & Gun

If you want to vote, here's the link. Personally, I think that fried okra got the shaft by getting pulled pork in the first round.

My prediction for the Final Four:

1. Pulled Pork (overall winner)
2. Shrimp and Grits
3. Crawfish Boil
4. Fried Chicken

Who you got?