A 230 mpg flying saucer (at least that's what it looks like to me) for around 20k.

I have heard rumblings about this car for awhile now but Aptera has apparently rolled out the first working prototype of this three-wheeled diesel-electric car. Apparently the biggest part of the secret to that great mpg number is its very slippery drag coefficient of 0.11. The company is also claiming a 0-60 time of 10 seconds. Aptera estimates a price of around $20,000 with deliveries beginning in about a year.

Impressive if they can pull it off.

Hat tip to Gizmodo.

Integrating a Motorola Razr with a Mercedes the Russian way.

More pictures here.

Thanks to Tech Ticker.

Apparently God won't risk a default judgment in Nebraska.

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers, angry about frivolous lawsuits, in particular one recently filed against a Nebraska judge, has decided to make a point and simultaneously take legal action against the source of all his irritation, namely God.

Chambers is upset about a frivolous lawsuit against Lancaster County District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront. Cheuvront was in the news himself not long ago for granting a motion in limine to exclude the word "rape" from a rape trial. (He decided using that word would be unduly prejudicial.) The case ended in a mistrial, and the accuser in that case has sued Cheuvront, which is what Chambers is mad about.

Chambers called his lawsuit "appropriate," at least in comparison to the accuser's lawsuit. "People might call it frivolous," he said, "but if they read it they'll see there are very serious issues I have raised."

In the complaint, Chambers accuses God of making "terroristic threats" and of directly and proximately causing "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes," and other sundry disasters and impediments to mankind's peaceful enjoyment of God's other creations.

Chambers asks the court to waive the personal-service requirement on the grounds that Defendant and His agents are present throughout Douglas County, but Plaintiff cannot determine which agent to properly serve. He says he has tried to serve Defendant by publication to no avail. (Does any newspaper circulate in heaven? On second thought, the New York Times probably claims subscribers there.) The court was therefore asked to take judicial notice of the fact that Defendant is omnipresent and omniscient, and thus has actual notice of the suit.

Chambers seeks a permanent injunction against God.

What Senator Chambers, who is an agnostic, probably didn't expect was that God would file a responsive pleading. In fact, He seems to have filed two of them.

A special appearance was filed on behalf of God to contest jurisdiction, noting that God had not been properly served with the complaint. (In other words, omniscience does not equal personal service.) The pleading turns out to have been filed by a Corpus Christi (seems appropriate) lawyer named Eric Perkins. While the response is based on the alleged lack of jurisdiction, it also takes the opportunity to deny the allegation that God has caused extensive injury to mankind. According to Perkins, his Client "contends that any harm or injury suffered is a direct and proximate result of mankind ignoring obvious warnings." (Mr. Perkins clearly has never practiced in California if he thinks "ignoring obvious warnings" is a defense to liability.)

As it turns out, though, Perkins' response was not the only one filed on behalf of God last week. The clerk of the Douglas County Court said that another response, this one listing the Archangel Michael as a witness, "appeared" on the counter at the clerk's office Friday.

It appears that God is putting together a defense team.

Thanks to Above the Law for the tip.

An unfortunate juxstaposition of stories.

The layout editor for this edition was apparently asleep at the switch.

Cruel and (certainly) unusual punishment.

The interrogators at Guantanamo have nothing on a judge in Fort Lupton, Colorado (northeast of Denver) who has fashioned a creative sentence for those who violate the town's noise ordinance.

As these are mostly young people who cruise around the streets of Fort Lupton with "rap" music blaring out their car windows, Judge Paul Sacco has devised a punishment that he says fits the crime:

Manilow.

About four times a year, Judge Sacco has the ordinance violators gather in his courtroom, where they must remain for a full hour while a boombox blares the likes of Barry Manilow, Dolly Parton, Karen Carpenter and Barney (the purple dinosaur). During the full hour of punishment, they are not allowed to chew gum, eat, drink, read or sleep.

Most violators found the first few minutes funny. As time wore on, they weren't laughing anymore.

"When you have a person playing rap at extreme volume all over the city," said the judge, "and they have to sit down and listen for an hour to Barry Manilow, it's horrible punishment."

Adding to the cruel-and-unusual-ness of the punishment, offenders must pay attention during the full hour, and may not sleep, eat, drink, read, or chew gum. Many find the first few minutes comical, but the laughter stops as the torture continues.

Judge Sacco has been imposing the punishment for over ten years, and says there have been very few repeat offenders.

A clear violation of the Eighth Amendment.

From CBS4Denver.

"Never has so much been owed by so many to so few." - Winston Churchill

I blog about many things in this space and one of them is the occasional historical event. This is one of those posts.

Yesterday was the 67th anniversary of the British victory in the Battle of Britain which lasted from August 11 through September 15, 1940.

An essential prerequisite to executing Operation Sea Lion, Hitler's plan to invade England, was achieving complete air superiority to protect the invasion fleet and to bomb rail junctions and marshaling areas to hinder the movement of British troops toward the landing zones.

Reichsmarschall Goering guaranteed to Hitler that the Luftwaffe would "wipe the British from the skies" in a matter of weeks. Instead, over a 26 day period, a relatively small group of hurriedly trained pilots flying Hurricane and Spitfire fighters, flew sortie after sortie against wave after wave of German bombers and their covering fighters.

Although a few railway junctions, bridges and buildings of non-military value such as three hospitals and Buckingham Palace, were hit, Fighter Command shot down 1,294 German aircraft losing 788 planes in the process.

Realizing that they were losing planes faster than they could be built and that air superiority over Britain was out of the question, Operation Sea Lion was canceled and Hitler turned his attention to an invasion of Russia.

Just as the Battle of Midway proved to be the turning point for World War II in the Pacific, the Battle of Britain marked the end of German expansion in Western Europe (the Battle of Stalingrad accomplished the same goal with respect to Eastern Europe).

CYA appellate advocacy is not necessarily effective appellate advocacy.

The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reports here that lawyers at O'Melveny & Myers, the firm defending former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling on appeal from his criminal conviction, have filed an appellate brief with the Fifth Circuit that is 239 pages long.

I will concede that the Fifth Circuit requires a 14-point font for briefs but nevertheless, at 58,922 words, this brief is over four times the length allowed by the rule, which limit briefs to 14,000 words unless you get permission from the court. The normal limit would permit a brief of about 50 pages (again, depending on the font), but I just can't imagine a case where the issues would justify even 50 pages much less 239.

A brief that long is simply not very effective as a persuasive tool although a brief of such length will be more effective in serving to cover the firm's hindquarters and/or in justifying a truly obscene bill for appellate services.

This brief covers five "main" points and to do so, it contains: a 12-page introduction; over 44 pages of facts; a two-page summary of argument; a 175-page argument that doesn't begin until page 61; and finally, a two-sentence conclusion, for anyone who has not succumbed from natural causes by the time they get there.

The accompanying Motion For Permission to File a Brief Exceeding the Word Limit Set Forth in Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32(a)(7)(B), is itself eleven pages long. In that motion, O'Melveny says that the case of their client is sufficiently "extraordinary and compelling" that the extra words are justified. The brief "will raise a large number" [five as it turns out] of "serious legal issues" (I guess they think that most briefs don't raise these), each of which "could easily justify a full-length brief on [its] own." Finally, the authors note that this is not the longest brief (an apparently clueless use of an oxymoron if there ever was one) ever written, pointing out that in U.S. v. Brown, the government used 69,370 words in its brief, and in U.S. v. Martha Stewart it used 56,078 words (as if the lengths of those briefs somehow made them more persuasive). Therefore the only reasonable conclusion the court is expected to draw is that 58,922 words is really quite reasonable.

I think I will wait for the movie.

"Eek the Geek" studies to become a lawyer for freaks.

Eduardo Arrocha, who began classes this semester at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, has found a new calling. Arrocha, decided on a new career in law after spending the last 15 years eating nails and walking on glass in his role as "Eek the Geek" in a Coney Island sideshow.

When he is not digesting 10 penny nails and strolling through broken glass, he is a poet and artist who has toured with a hard-core punk band.

His solo act at Coney Island "displays his many tattoos, includes a lecture on diversity and stands three audience members on his chest as he lies sandwiched between two beds of nails." With that combination of skills and talent, he has "trial lawyer" tattooed written all over him.

Arrocha says that he hopes to use his law degree to speak for "alternative people" like himself. "I hope to have a little office in New York," he said, "and work with the alternative people, all the so-called riffraff, to give them legal representation that is not judgmental." He continued, "I know it sounds weird, but I want to be a freak lawyer."

I like this guy and I really do wish him well. Of course after eating nails and walking on broken glass for a living, the New York Bar Exam should be a piece of cake.

From the Associated Press via Newsvine.