The Backbencher

Applying for Membership to the United Nations

This year there's been a lot of news about new and aspiring nations that want to apply for membership in the United Nations. That's prompted the question in many people's minds, what does one actually do in order to apply to the United Nations. Such a silly question! All you have to do is go to this website:

un.org/apply

Just right-click on "Application Form" and select "Save to disk." That's the easy part. Now you have to fill-in all the required information. Gather all your files in one place and clear off the dining room table. You're going to be there a while.

The application form can be very confounding, but, happily for you, I am here to help you navigate the morass. This will be the first a series of posts to help anyone out there who is embarking on the application process. 

Let's start with one of the most important parts of the application: NATIONAL SYMBOLS.

This is part of what you are required to fill out:

NATIONAL SYMBOLS:

13. National Anthem

We plan on using the following as a national anthem: ____________________________________

Please check one of the following:

__ We wrote the national anthem ourselves.
__ The national anthem is based on a song in the public domain.
__ We are attaching, along with this application, evidence of express written permission to use a copyrighted song as our national anthem.

Note: The United Nations respects international intellectual property law. Do not infringe copyright with your national anthem. Would you invade a neighboring country and steal its gold reserve? Of course you wouldn't. Stealing songs is the same thing. Don't do it.

Please separately contact Tina Delgado (tdelgado@un.org) to provide us with a 15-second tape-loop version of your national anthem to use as hold music for your UN telephone extension.

As you can see, intellectual property issues are key here.

A little history: Some countries, such as the United States, have turned public-domain drinking songs into successful anthems. For instance, and this is completely true, the tune for the Star-Spangled Banner comes from the official song of the Anacreontic Society, which was an 18th-century gentlemen's club in London dedicated to "wit, harmony, and the god of wine."

Respecting copyright law:
I'll drink to that.
(Image copyright 2011 The Island Def Jam Music Group.)

Given that historical background, it's not surprising that a recent crop of aspiring countries have tried to pen new lyrics to Rihanna hit single, "Cheers (Drink To That)," better known by its recurrent lyric, "Here's to the Freakin' Weekend."

Recently, within the space of a single week, the UN received applications from three different aspiring countries all claiming a national anthem titled, "Here's to Our Freakin' Nation." One of those countries even attached a whole sheet of lyrics, which including the following:

Got my borders all set and I'm feelin' hella cool tonight, yeah
But we don't have an army yet, so don't nobody start a fight, yeah

However, these countries should know that because of changes in copyright law over the past 200 years, newly created drinking songs are NOT in the public domain.

Note that a couple months ago – and this is actual fact – Sony/ATV Music Publishing threatened Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega with legal action over his use of "Stand By Me," which he modified with Spanish lyrics for his re-election campaign. Ortega won the election, but I'm sure he deeply regrets his act of copyright infringement and will never do it again.

Now, the involvement of Sony/ATV Music Publishing is important here, because, through my independent research, I was able to confirm that Sony/ATV also controls the rights to Toby Keith's "I Love this Bar" – an obvious anthem choice, especially for nations prone to tequila-fueled group-singing. So take note.

In the next post, I'll help guide you through the part of the application that will be scrutinized by the World Bank: coins, currency, and international finance. So start thinking about currency designs and find your calculator!

My Devalued Marriage

I recently kissed my wife good-bye at the airport and took off for California, where, just days before, a federal district court had declared a ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional.

Many of those who support the ban on gay marriage argue that marriage between a man and a woman will be devalued if same-sex couples are allowed to marry. "Huh?" you may be thinking. "How could that possibly be the case?" 

I know, it sounds absurd. But amazingly enough, though it defies logic, I actually noticed the effect as soon as my plane crossed into California airspace. It was weird, but I could actually feel my marriage devaluing.

It doesn't seem like all that long ago that I married my wife Kit in Santa Monica, Calif. We had a caterer, a florist, a bunch of guests, a cake – all that stuff. Kit got her hair done and wore a special dress for the occasion. I wore a tux. At the time it seemed extremely special. But being back in California after Judge Walker's ruling, it all felt so ho-hum, so devalued. Riding the BART train from the airport, I found myself wondering if it would have helped if we had hired a live band for the reception. It was hard to know.

That night I actually had trouble sleeping because my wedding ring felt uncomfortable and foreign on my hand.

Here's the really weird thing – while I was experiencing all this marriage devalument, I wasn't even thinking about the court case! It didn't hit me until I was flipping around through the cable news channels. That’s when I figured it out: It was the Equal Protection Clause! That was why my marriage felt so dull and generally unspecial.

But how could this happen? How could two dudes (or dudettes) getting married to each other possibly affect my marriage?

Well, I was fortunate enough to see a person interviewed on one of the cable shows who explained it. This guy put it in language that I, as a law professor, could understand. He pointed out that counterfeit currency devalues regular currency. (I had to admit that was true.) So, he reasoned, gay marriage, as a kind of counterfeit marriage, devalues everybody's regular marriages.

The force of this argument is really undeniable. Tried though I have, I can not find even the tiniest hole in this guy’s analysis. In fact, the more deeply you think about what he was saying, the more sense it makes. It's really one of the smartest things I've ever heard anyone say. It shows an uncommonly strong grasp of economics, sociology, and some very basic rules of logical thinking. Wow.

Anyway, it got me to figuring, we should not only amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage, we should also take affirmative steps to strengthen the institution of traditional marriage.

Mmmmm, gold.
(Images courtesy U.S. Mint.)

U.S. currency was strongest back in the 1960s when we were still on the gold standard. Ergo, we should put marriage on a gold standard. Think about it: If every married heterosexual could, at any time, freely convert his or her spouse into a specified quantity of gold bullion, then every person who is married would value their marriage more. Divorce rates would plummet. That's just logic.

A lot of the same conservative talk show hosts who are opposed to same-sex marriage are also enthusiastic supporters of returning America to the gold standard. That’s why it’s such a public service for radio talk show hosts to tell us about important gold investment opportunities. It is my hope that thought leaders like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity will realize the synergy here and support the adoption of a marital gold standard.

My own personal story has a happy ending. I got through the whole trip without trying to hook up with any of the women around me. Now, that wasn't because my marriage felt like it was worth anything at the time. It's undoubtedly because I was attending a conference of law professors. That's its own libido kill. 

Most importantly, now that I am safe and sound back home – outside of the jurisdiction of California – my marriage once again feels like it is valuable. (Granted, not as valuable as it would be if I could take Kit down to a federal reserve bank and turn her in for gold, but, you know, still pretty valuable.)

Spree-fueled Spree Spree Leaves Dad Tasteless

Menards home improvement store
(Photo by Huw Williams.)

My wife and kids are away. I've been staying busy and eating right. At Menards, I bought a movie-theater-sized box of Spree – it was only $1. I was excited about this, because previously, I'd only seen Spree come in comparatively small rolls.

Last night, watching television, I consumed the whole box - or at least everything that was in it save the few Spree I found on the floor this morning that must have missed my mouth.

Now I know: Spree should not be eaten in such a large quantity in such a small amount of time. 

This morning, I woke up with much of my tongue apparently destroyed. I grabbed a Diet Coke only to discover, to my disgust, that it tasted like a diet beverage – you know, one from back in the 1970s, before the advent of modern scientific food additives. I can only conclude that all of my tonguebuds in charge of tasting leading-edge artificial sweeteners have now been wiped out. 

I don't know how long it will be before I am able to properly perceive processed foods. It may be a while. Meanwhile, all I can feel over vast areas of my tongue is a slight tinkling pain sensation.

Clearly, while my family is away, I need to do a better job shopping for food at Menards.

Understanding Centers of Excellence

Yesterday, I wrote about a new center of excellence that has been built at my university. Careful readers may have noticed that I never explained what, exactly, a "center of excellence" is.

Why didn't I? Well, the thing is, centers of excellence have become such a prominent trend in American higher education, it is no longer considered necessary to offer a definition whenever the topic comes up.

But you still don't know, do you?

Visualizing Excellence: As this diagram clearly shows, a "center of excellence" is a kind of nuclear explosion, closely orbited by things such as "techno-functional consulting." (Image from some company called "Customer Centria," which, we can only presume, offers "solutions" for "today's global business" or something.)

If you find yourself engaged in a conversation with university faculty and administrators about centers of excellence, here is what you are likely to do: 

1. Try to avoid having others find out that you don't know what a center of excellence is.


2. Express your fervent support for centers of excellence. (After all, you figure, they are both central and excellent. What's not to love?)

Hmmm. So, since you are too embarrassed to ask, I will now take it upon myself to provide the public service of explaining what a center of excellence is.

First, of course, I'll need to look it up. 

Like any true scholar, I begin my investigation by carefully typing "center of excellence" into the Google search box in my web browser.¹ Happily, this returns a wealth of information. Here's some of what's out there:

• "Centers of excellence affect on-target, on-value performance when they manage all processes and functions from problem definition to resolution."


• Centers of excellence will help companies to "stay ahead of the business intelligence curve."


• A center of excellence "enables organizations to centralize requirements authoring expertise, define repeatable definition processes, and to ensure communication of requirements fits internal company standards."

Okay. Well, NOW I UNDERSTAND. 

To recap, here's what happened: I searched for a definition of "center of excellence," and I found that it has something to do with defining repeatable definition processes!  

If you ever have a question that cannot be answered by googling, then there is one additional tactic that you, as a scholar, can undertake. And that is, of course, to look it up on Wikipedia.

Now, here's the really freaky thing. Are you sitting down? There is no "center of excellence" article on Wikipedia! Can you believe that? Really! Look it up! This is perhaps the only question humankind has ever come up with that IS NOT ANSWERED BY WIKIPEDIA.

Here's one thing we can say. Wikipedia is certainly not a "center of excellence." In fact, as a sprawling reference work written by the same millions of people who read it, Wikipedia is best described as a "diffusion of mediocrity." 

Apparently, the diffusion of mediocrity can't explain what a center of excellence is. But I'd bet you that anyone at Intel's Social Media Center of Excellence could explain what Wikipedia is.

Conclusion: We must establish a center of excellence on centers of excellence.

---

Notes:
¹ You can tell that a lot of other people have this same question. The first suggested auto-complete search result for "center of e ..." is not "center of excellence" but "center of excellence definition."

[Cross-posted on PrawfsBlawg.]

Our New Center of Excellence

A big trend in higher education these days is the establishment of "centers of excellence."

Close to my home and office in Grand Forks, North Dakota, we are lucky enough to have a new center of excellence, The Center of Excellence in Life Sciences and Advanced Technologies. It's a project of the University of North Dakota Research Foundation, and it is housed in a facility called "REAC 1."

Here is a picture:

It's wonderful, no doubt. But here's the thing. Whenever I drive by it, I can't shake the feeling that something very dangerous is going on in there.

I mean, just look at it. It's named "REAC 1," and it's conducting simultaneous research into Life Sciences and Advanced Technologies. 

If you've ever watched late-night made-for-TV movies on cut-rate cable networks, then you have probably reached the same conclusion that I have: It's just a matter of time until alarm bells go off and this whole thing explodes.

And when it explodes, it won't explode quickly, with a fireball. No, instead, it will explode slowly, with the roof lifting off and the walls splitting apart as some kind of weird foam substance grows out of it - the kind of foam substance that, if perturbed, may chase you.

[Cross-posted on PrawfsBlawg.]

Consumer Alert: Nourishing Body Wash

While taking a shower, I noticed we have a new bottle of Dove "Nourishing Body Wash" on the chrome do-hickey that is hung on the shower head. As soon as I saw this I realized that I MUST BLOG ABOUT THIS RIGHT AWAY. 

What Dove has created here is truly a miracle: I mean, think about this - nourishing body wash - an innovation that allows people for the first time in history to absorb nourishment right from their soap. 

Now there's no excuse for coming to breakfast before a shower. Hungry? Grab some nourishment while you wash! 

Oh, the wonderful times in which we live. To be honest with you, having watched the Jetsons growing up, I kind of thought that by now we would ride around in floating bubble cars, live in space, and have robots to do our laundry. But if nourishing body wash is the innovation we get, then I'm alright with that. 

I've also learned that a corollary advance has already been handed to us by nature itself: cleansing foods. According to many reputable websites, food such as blueberries, beets, and seaweed not only taste great, they will actually clean you as you eat them.

Now, as exciting as this all is, I need to make one thing very clear: No one should be using BOTH nourishing body wash AND cleansing foods at the same time. That just doesn't make any sense. 

Look, if you are really malnourished, and food isn't doing the trick, then trying a nourishing body wash is a sensible option. By the same token, if you find that you are filthy, and soap is just not getting results, then by all means, try adding some cleansing foods to your diet.

But if you are using both cleansing foods and nourishing body wash, then, my friend, you need to think this through: Using soap for nourishment and food for cleansing is not a great strategy. I mean, this could explain why, lately, you've been cranky, light-headed, and foul-smelling. No one wants to be around you like that. Try concentrating on soap that's specifically made for washing and food that's actually intended to feed you. You'll not only be cleaner and better nourished, you will likely reduce your grocery bills as well. 

I hope you found this educational and informative. If you'd like more consumer tips on how to lead a healthy, active lifestyle while staying on a budget, ask someone else. I'm going back into the bathroom to look for a bar of normal soap so I can finish my shower.

Olympic Losers: Americans Who Purchased a Chevy

One of the many perks of living in Grand Forks, North Dakota is that you get over-the-air Canadian television. Their comedies are brilliant. The news programs are insightful. And they have great children's shows. In addition to teaching my kids to speak French and be extra polite, they also brainwash my kids to want toys that are, happily, not available in American stores.

But where Canadian TV really shines is with sports. They offer regular coverage of bobsled - my favorite sport since I was five - and everything else that golf and Nascar pushes off the air in the States. Best yet, when the Olympics come around, Canadian television opens a window into the hidden goings on of another culture. 

As an interloper to Canadian broadcasting, you, as a viewer, are addressed as if you were a red-blooded Canadian. So the ads attempt to appeal to your maple-leaf patriotism to patronize the official sponsors of Team Canada. Businesses that have forked over money to help Canada win Olympic gold include the Royal Bank of Canada, Air Canada, and Rona - a home-improvement warehouse store native to the provinces.

That's all great. And I'm sure those companies couldn't care less if Americans find out that they are sponsoring their country's Olympic team. But one sponsor of Team Canada shocked me: Chevrolet.

Oh, the dark secrets you can learn by watching Canadian television! Now, listen, I have nothing against Canada, but helping them hand the United States a humiliating loss in curling is not exactly what I was hoping to accomplish with my new car purchase. 

Look, if you want to sponsor the arts, children's charities, and the search for a cure for cancer - and even help them all at the same time - that's wonderful. No one comes out a loser. But if you are trying to help Canada win gold medals, that necessarily means you are trying to help the USA lose. And I can't get behind that.

When I grew up, there was a jingle that was ubiquitous on television: "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet." Back then, Chevy was all about America. Well, not anymore. If you buy a Chevrolet, you might as well knit Canada's hockey coach a sweater.

You don't believe me? Read about GM's proud involvement in the $110 million "Own the Podium" initiative, which was "designed to help Canada become the number one medal-winning nation at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games."

Now, I want to be very clear here: I am by no means suggesting or implying that you should refuse to do business with Chevrolet because of this - that is a step you should take only - and I mean only - if you love America.

Children: Genetically Programmed Robots Trying to Kill You

If you are currently trying to decide whether or not to have kids, there are some things I should tell you to help inform your decision. 

Children will try to kill you. If you are not up for the challenge, don't have them. But if you do, understand this: Babies are genetically programmed to try to end your life. The only reason any parent survives is that small children are as wildly ineffective at homicide as they are at just about everything. But they try.

Here's an example: Somewhere around 12 months of age, children go through a phase where they fixate on shoes. They have to touch your shoes, pick them up, and then move them all over the house. After that, all children go through a phase where they are infatuated with flashlights. They will find every flashlight you own, run down the batteries, and then hide them all.

What is happening - the shoes, the flashlights - is that your children are systematically trying to deprive you of each element of your earthquake survival kit.

Chances are that you will not be harmed by this, but it's not for lack of effort.

Some toy manufacturers have attempted to satiate toddlers' relentless appetite for flashlights by creating toy versions which automatically turn the light off after a few moments. Fools. Young children smell decoys like dogs smell fear.

The other day, when I was trying to sneak out of the house early to go to work without waking anyone up, I could not find my keys. I wanted to look for the keys in my bedroom without turning on the ceiling light and waking up my wife. So I needed a flashlight. Every single flashlight in the house was missing or out of batteries except one, the only one our toddler doesn't care about: A heavy green flashlight with googly eyes, the head of an alligator, and a body shaped like a hippopotamus. This was not helpful in keeping my wife asleep. When you activate the light, the jaws snap open, and the flashlight says, "CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP! MMMMM! YUM! YUM! YUM!"

In the meantime, I managed to nearly puncture my foot by walking on a die-cast metal spaceship. Then, while hopping around trying to my stiffle yelps of pain, I stumbled into a toy broom which taunted me with a perky, "It's fun to clean up!"

Of course, children are not limited to setting traps. They will also try to injure you in more direct ways, such as by beating you with a whiffle bat or lowering their head and running at your crotch.

In fact, evolutionary biology explains this behavior. The head-lowered ram at your pelvis is a straightforward adaptation that allows children to try to prevent the introduction of extra siblings into the household. What is true for baby birds straining for a regurgitated worm is true for humans: The fewer children there are in a family, the less competition there is over a limited supply of essential resources, including food, parental nurturing, and whiffle bats.

What is not so clearly explained by evolution is why children try so hard to kill themselves. In fact, when your children start trying to kill you, it tends to come as a relief, because it usually means they have moved on from trying to kill themselves. 

Some prime ways children try to kill themselves are by climbing up stairs so they can then fall down them and by attempting to dart out into traffic. Young children look forward to walking hand-in-hand with you just so they can seize the opportunity to try to wrench their hand free and run in front of a car. 

Of course, as soon as you get home and there is no present danger, the same child will fiercely hug your leg and go limp to prevent you from walking away from them - for instance, to keep you from doing something utterly selfish, such as using the toilet.

The top way children try to kill themselves is by putting things in their mouths. Small things, shiny things, dirty things. Many children will put anything in their mouths except a vegetable - unless you count moldy brown leaves found under the welcome mat to be a vegetable. 

One thing children love putting in their mouths - and in my experience this kicks in around nine to 10 months of age - is shoes. They especially like to put their tongue on the sole of a shoe that you just wore into the public restroom at a train station. 

When I explain to people that children put things in their mouths in an effort to kill themselves, I often get someone explaining to me how putting an object in the mouth is just a child's way of learning about the world. I'm sorry, that is absurd. True, children start putting shoes in their mouths right about the time they start trying to stand upright and walk. But learning about walking by putting shoes in your mouth just is not going to work. If people could learn about things by putting them in their mouths, I'd be a Ph.D.-level entomologist after all the gnat clouds I gulped down this summer while mowing the lawn. 

Speaking of which, I gotta go. I think that's the sound of my kid trying to start up the lawn mower.

This Decade was Certainly "This Decade" - No Doubt About That

Back in 1999, at the end of "the Nineties," I wondered what the new decade, the first decade of the Third Millennium, would be called. 

Would people refer to it as "the Aughts," "the Noughts," or "the Zeros"? Or would it be something utterly unique? To mark the fact that all years of this decade had two 0's in the middle, and paying homage to Y2K anxieties and millennial armaggedon fears, I thought it would have been fun to call this decade "the Oh Oh's."

But what did we end up calling this decade? What name eventually stuck?

None.

The only person I have heard refer aloud to this decade by any name was me. I tried "the Aughts." In case you noticed, it didn't catch on.

The entire English speaking world wussed out. And that includes you, dear reader. The media, however, has been the worst. Now, as television and radio embark on their ritualistic decennial orgy of best-of-worst-of lists and overhashed clips, the feckless cowards in the media persistently and pusillanimously refer to this decade by no name other than "this decade."

The one outfit I've seen call the decade by a name is iTunes, which has released a set of music collections representing the decade. iTunes calls this decade "00's." Of course, iTunes hasn't exactly gone out on a limb here, because they haven't disclosed how to pronounce it.

By the way, the number one song in the iTunes collection of 00's Pop is "Clocks" by Coldplay - a song that is pointedly symbolic for the occasion - not because of its tick-tock reference to time passing, but because it comes from a band that exudes the kind of wimpiness that is emblematic of our nameless, nearly over decade. 

In fact, if there is one quality that characterizes the 00's, it probably is wimpiness. This is the decade we failed to finish off Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora. We nervously twiddled out thumbs while North Korea developed a nuclear weapon. And we allowed ourselves to get so frightened by Wall Street bankers that we shoveled billions of dollars of bailout money at them as soon as they said "Boo!" 

Let's hope things get better as we head into the new decade, the decade that will proudly bear the name ... ummm ... "the New Decade."

Happy New Year!

P.S.: Hey, by the way, I don't mean to insult Coldplay too much. I do like the Coldplay song. Who doesn't? It's a great song. But let's be clear: It is one song - that is, one song they have recorded over and over again with different lyrics. The Ramones only had one song, true, but at least they didn't take themselves quite so seriously. Try this experiment at home: Think of a Coldplay or Ramones song and try to play it in your head, then allow your mind to wander slightly. You will find that the song you had in your head has transitioned effortlessly into one of the many "other songs" released by the band. See? Same song.

An Open Memo to Obama: Get a Flu Shot

To: POTUS
From: Taxpayers
Re: Your Decision Not to Get Vaccinated for H1N1

We understand that your daughters have just received H1N1 immunizations, but that you have decided not to get one yourself. As many children and pregnant women are still waiting for shots, you have chosen not to use the power of your office to ensure that you receive special treatment.

Brilliant.

What else are you going to do to avoid special treatment? Live in a two-bedroom apartment and protect yourself with a can of pepper spray? 

As the president of the United States of America, your time is at a premium. We, the taxpayers, realize that. If we were going to get jealous of you getting a flu shot, we probably would have gotten upset about the fact that you have your own personal 747. And then there’s the helicopter that lifts off from your lawn. 

Look, we elected you. We want you at your best. The last thing you need while you are trying to navigate Afghanistan and Iraq is a virus that will give you, according to the federal government, "fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills, fatigue, and possibly vomiting or diarrhea." 

And then there's health-care reform. That’s pretty complicated. You’ll need to be able to focus. Is it a good idea to reform health care while you’re rolling around in a comforter on the bathroom floor moaning in agony? You’ll end up sacrificing everything to get America full coverage for lotion-infused facial tissue. 

Now, we understand your concerns. Millions of voters can’t get access to the vaccine, and you’re a politician who’s going to be up for re-election before you know it. You want votes. Okay, that’s fine. Kiss babies for votes. Trade favors for votes. Grovel for votes. But don’t have vomiting or diarrhea for votes. That’s just gross.

Get vaccinated, stay healthy, and get a good night’s sleep.

That way you’ll be ready, tomorrow morning, when we ask you what you’re doing to get more vaccine made.

[originally posted on PrawfsBlawg]

How Many Scintillas Does it Take to Win?

One barrel of flour contains zero scintillas of evidence.

Time is measured in minutes. Sugar, in spoonfuls. Rain, in inches. 

Evidence, of course, is denominated in scintillas. 

Whenever a lawyer or judge wants to emphasize the lack of evidence in favor of some party or proposition, we hear that familiar refrain, "There is not one scintilla of evidence."

How did the scintilla become the recognized unit of measurement for evidence? We do not know precisely, but in this post, I present some of my own research findings.

An early prominent use of the scintilla can be found in the famous case of Byrne v. Boadle, 159 Eng. Rep. 299 (Exch. 1863). That case introduced the doctine of res ipsa loquitor to help out the unfortunate Mr. Byrne, who, struck by a barrel of flour that fell out of a building, had not a "scintilla of evidence" to prove that the barrel's fall was the result of any negligent conduct.

But the earliest use of "scintilla" that I could find was the dissent of a Judge Grimke of the Constitutional Court of Appeals of South Carolina in Frost v. Brown, a land-title case from 1798: