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I am Tom Freeland,
a lawyer in Oxford, Mississippi. The picture in the header is my law office.
I'm on Twitter as NMissC
Missing Posts: If you have a link to a post that's not here or are looking for posts from Summer of 2010, check this page. Search NMCError: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page. PagesCategoriesBlogRollFoodLaw: NationalLaw: RegionalMississippi & Local: BlogsMississippi & Local: PressPoliticszzz (on hiatus) |
Thursday morning open threadSo, I spent the last half hour doing combat with spurious comments instead of blogging. Not fun, and produces nothing for you guys. If you want to give me suggestions what to add to the commenting guidelines to discourage another outbreak, I’d apreciate the suggestions.  47 comments to Thursday morning open threadLeave a Reply Cancel reply |
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In 1992, I was living on Saint Croix in the Virgin Islands when one day I read this short obituary in the New York Times for Deacon Lunchbox, an Atlanta artist.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/22/obituaries/deacon-lunchbox-41-a-performance-artist.html
The obit was very short and he sounded like an interesting guy. 3 or 4 days later, my buddy Dave Whitney got back on island from Oregon. In the Atlanta airport, he had picked up for me a Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That newspaper had a large story about who Deacon Lunchbox was and he was an interesting guy.
Seven years later, a new band had formed, was playing Proud Larrys and they sent me a CD. The band was Blueground Undergrass, led by Georgia music stalwart Jeff Mosier, and the excellent disc had this song: “Mr. Lunchbox.” The beautiful piece was esoteric, but sounded to me like it could have been about the interesting guy I had read about in the Times and the Constitution.
The morning after the show, I was sitting with the band in Smitty’s having breakfast and asked about Deacon Lunchbox and the song. It was he. Before the grits came, Jeff and the band shared some great Deacon Lunchbox stories and we raised white ceramic coffee cups in toast and tribute to the artist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacon_Lunchbox
Bluegroud Undergrass plays Two Stick tonight.
http://www.bluegroundundergrass.com/index.html
http://www.myspace.com/bluegroundundergrass
Filter the garbage out … free speech is great and all, but its your blog and you get to control the speech. They can start their own LSU blog where those kind of comments are allowed.
This is a collection of images from the Iran election protests, and includes tweets posted that day. I, for one, am incredibly grateful that I have never had to publish my dead friends’ names on a social network just so someone would know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm31kpjBiFQ
And for those who turned the previous Iran protest post into a comments-frat-party, perhaps it will redirect your attention to grave, unsexy reality.
Lord have mercy —-appears I missed quite a bit while working.
And Miss DLM, we are all guests here of NMC, and like all, you should always feel welcome. You are a first class lady in my book and are always welcome to agree or argue like hell with me at any time. Ha.
“redirect your attention to grave, unsexy reality.”
It seems that I have awakened this morning to a somewhat grave, but very unsexy reality —- had to shoot a wild hog in my yard to keep it away from my dog. Anyone need any wild boar meat for a BBQ?
Ed Peters sighting at Sam’s Club in Jackson a few minutes ago. Appears he is a fan of the Michelob Ultra
AFOTL: what did you take down the boar with?
A bowie knife.
How much does that hog weigh?
rule: remove racist, sexist, and extremely vulgar comments referring to bodily functions. hog killed by a bowie knife is fine.
From The Help by Kathryn Stockett: ” ‘Mississippi and the world is two different places,’ the Deacon say, and we all nod cause ain’t it the truth.”
I’m intrigued but not up for dressing a pig particularly in this heat. What’s the story?
NMC, the kind of people who even look at commenting guidelines are not the kind of people who speculate on a life-risking protester for democracy as to whether they would contemplate anal sex with her.
You just need to state your absolute right to delete anything offensive, & then delete it.
(Opinio Juris, I note, has a system whereby commenters can vote on each other’s comments, & a sufficient # of negative votes causes the comment to vanish unless expressly clicked upon. Dunno how transplantable that is, but if you’re wanting to devolve your policing duties, it’s worth a look.)
Paulq Leave LSU out of it. Thats like saying all Ole Miss students are con artists who specialize in bribing and stealing their way to the top. The school has nothing to do with it. Ole Miss is a fine school ( I am a die hard LSU fan!) There are always a few bad apples….Just go to any Ole Miss Vs LSU event and you will see plenty of it. Both schools are fine SEC schools with good alum and students.
God that was painful to say :) I might have my season tickets taken away for these remarks :)
NMC, to answer your question —- While working in my home office this morning, I got a call from a neighbor stating that he saw a wild hog in my front yard. I grabbed my deer rifle and went out to check, and to make sure my dog was not up in the middle of any sort of “sitiation”. True enough, the hog was in my front yard, but too close to a county road to get off a safe shot. After getting pretty close to the hog, I ran him off into a large tract of woods across the county road. After working a little while longer, I went back out to check on my dog, and the wild hog was back in my yard, but now in my backyard down in a bottom —- safely away from the county road, but too close to my dog and home for comfort. I put up the dog, grabbed my rifle again, and this time took care of the problem (it was an adult, but not full grown, sow, that probably weighed about 125 lbs). The hog is not going to waste — it is now in the hands of some good country folk that live down the road who were very appreciative to receive the hog.
I am not sure how many MS lawyers had their work interupted this morning by a hog killin’, but I’m almost certain it is a short list. Ha. Back to work.
(Note: it is legal to shoot wild hogs in my area any time of year —they are not indiginous to the area and wildlife managers in the area want them controlled —-they are very destructive to crops, food sources for other wildlife, and multiply like rabbits.).
I’ve got a lawyer’s answer:
I’m going to have a new rule in the guidelines that goes like this: If a new comment comes up, and I decide (at my option) to send an email to verify the person’s email address, and either it bounces or I get not response in a few hours, I will treat the comment as spam.
So far, of the 10 new folks who arrived in the Iran thread last night, 4 would immediately go into spam for the bogus email addresses, and the other six would be about to do so for not having responded to verification emails sent about 8:30 this morning. Problem solved.
What do you folks think?
Don’t worry about it. There was a discussion about your blog on tigerdroppings and most will forget all about you tomorrow.
Hatfield:
I know what you mean, although I’ll point out that all of those new folks to this blog were coming in off an LSU sports fan site.
NMC, If your software has a referer page, never,never open a url that is dot ru from that page.
I like Anderson’s suggestion in the 2nd paragraph, “You just need to state your absolute right to delete anything offensive, & then delete it.”
No vote, no appeal. It’s your blog community and you have the right to set and enforce your application of “community standards”.
Most reasonable persons know you value the free speech principle enough to tolerate others viewpoints and make an educated guess as to whether it is truly offensive to others. Just set the standard and go with. People can deal with it or leave.
P.S. Not all “offensive speech” is a bad thing if it provokes conversation. To me it’s like the ole pornography statement, “I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it.” I think you know “it” when you see it and should just zap it at your sole discretion.
Well said Razor, it’s NMC’s blog and he can post or not post whatever he likes. F*ck fairness — it’s just a blog. Those offended can (and no doubt will) vote with their feet.
re LSU comment – yes, you do get bad ones everywhere. however, my worst experiences with SEC teams have been, by far, with ole miss fans. the worst of them take classlessness to a new level. i am still scarred from going to games as a kid with ole miss fans dropping n-bombs left and right while waiving the confederate flag and spewing bourbon induced “go to hells” to other kids walking by. those are indelible memories, and i am not in my 50s – i am 31 – this was mid 80s early 90s.
i have almost gotten my head smashed in in Baton Rouge before simply for existing and it scared the bejesus out of me; however, by and large, the tailgating folks in Baton Rouge are far more welcoming than those in the grove when it comes to offering a taste of their gumbo, jambalaya, etouffe, hot wings, and a cold beer.
Folks, the youth revolt against the Iranian government is in full tilt today —with reportedly hundreds of thousands of protestors in the streets. Ahmadinnajacket’s statement a couple of days ago that these protests were no more serious than the behavior of soccer fans whose favorite team lost, appear now to rival those of “Baghdad Bob” fame.
Time may be on our side in Iran.
Meanwhile, North Korea has two American reporters being held hostage, and are about the launch a missile test toward the Hawaiian islands, and we are doing essentially nothing. These announced sanctions against them are about as effective as telling a mass murderer that he can’t use the family car on Saturday night. Its time for us to draw a line in the sand, and use military force, if that line is crossed. If they launch that misslie toward Hawaii, we need to launch enough back to insure that the only thing remaining in N. Korea is rubble. Enough is enough.
NMC I have only posted here one time so this may not be an issue to anyone else. I posted from my office computer, but used my home email address, so if you sent a verification email, I wouldn’t get it until that night.
No problem, james. I’ve only started doing that today.
AFOTL, if we start such a fight with North Korea, we will not be able to hit them fast enough to stop them from essentially destroying much of the population centers of South Korea, including our military bases. They are permanently positioned to take out much of the population of South Korea before we could even fully move against them. So you will be bringing down the furies on both those people and a very large military force we keep there as a virtual hostage to prevent the Northerners from doing anything.
It’s really simple to say “bomb them to rubble.” Thinking about the consequences of doing it may give one pause. Why do you think Cheney, Bush and crew were so quick to change the subject to Iraq and then Iran back in the old “axis of evil” days.
I don’t know how we deal with a state run by crazy people who have nothing to lose. The problems in dealing with them got worse over the last 8 years, though, without any doubt. The first clue that we weren’t going to act with any intelligence in dealing with them (or with foreign policy generally) back in the early days of the Bush administration was when Colin Powell made a relatively intelligent statement about what was going to happen, and almost immediately got told to walk it back.
Being Colin Powell in the Bush Administration must have been Hell. And now, hearing Rush Limbaugh critique the depth of his patriotism and “Republicanism” must be a special treat for him.
NMC: sounds like a lot of extra effort for you, but what do i know. in fact, i’m way more curious about the fun had by all, myself and AFOTL excepted. can you give a hint about the subject matter? from the comments, all i see are (a) hog-killings; (b) LSU; and (c) the mess in Iran. And, i know it didn’t have anything to do with the hog-killing.
Oh, and N. Korea, W., cheney, and ‘crew,’ all of which/whom I’d just as soon not have to think about.
Sounds to me like afotl murdered Arnold Ziffle.
Book him, Dano ….
as far as i can tell, while AFOTL was slaughtering AZ, the election protests in Iran turned into a frat party.
Boy, am I glad I missed whatever resulted in the need for new rules. I think the only rule you need, NMC, is based on the old song: It’s my party and I’ll delete if I want to. Anything else takes to much time and thought away from your posts which, after all, are why I read the blog.
FLY13: The proper slogan for the Iranian protestors: TO-GA … TO-GA … TO-GA….
Now NK is also Bush’s fault.
I never knew he was such an all-powerful President. He is truly legendary.
JDBerry, you’re responding to exactly which comment?
And just for the record:
Is there any doubt in your mind that he was the most powerful president of the postwar period from about September of 2001 until sometime in 2005?
We can have a debate about how he pissed away that power, but he had it. If you think otherwise, we probably can’t have a meaningful conversation, because that involves having some fundamental grounds of agreement. For instance, it’s sorta hard for someone who thinks the universe is 10,000 years old to talk to someone who’s studied biology.
Well NMC, what exactly would you say NK would have to do to trigger an attack by the US? Kill or publicly torture the two hostages? Actually hit the Hawaiian islands with a missile? Launch a nuke at South Korea or Japan? Do we draw any line? OR do we let them just do anything they want?
I think they are testing just how far they can push Obama. And they will keep pushing further and further until the Obama administration lays down a firm ultimatum. If we get tough with them, tell them in no uncertain terms the serious consequences (involving military action on our part) of certain actions (the line drawn) and are fully prepared to back it up if they cross it, they will back down —China will likely make them. And if not, it was inevitable anyway. NK senses weakness on the part of the US — and they will continue to exploit it until we demonstrate otherwise.
And what did Bush do over the last eight years with NK when it routinely launched missles into the Pacific? Nothing.
Until of course last June when he relaxed sanctions against North Korea and took the country off the state sponsored terrorism list.
AFOTL, when Bush came in, NK’s nuclear program was shut down, padlocked, and being inspected by international inspectors. He flipped them off, they flipped him off, and they went back to it and tested some ineffectual nuclear weapons. Now they have nukes, and conventional weapons poised to convert South Korea to a kill zone.
What we’re supposed to do at this point isn’t as easy and clear to me as it is to you. I thought South Korea more of a threat than Iraq when we stupidly set about that invasion. They still are, and are probably as big a threat to world peace as there is right now. But I don’t have a sense of certainty about how to deal with it. I would certainly do what I could do to strangle them internationally, but even that’s problematic– first, it’s hard to hurt a government that apparently doesn’t have to care whether it starves its people to death, and second, the Chinese won’t get fully with the program, and we’ve put ourselves in a position where we really can’t show too much elbow in trying to push them around. But bombing NK to rubble isn’t about to happen.
NMC, you knew exactly what I was responding to.
Honestly, we can’t have meaningful conversation on this because you are laying the foundation for discussion on items of no bearing based purely in partisanship.
If you want to understand our handling of North Korea over the past decade, look at the previous one. When Carter and Clinton implemented the “Agreed Framework.”
JDB. I think the money quote is contained in this NYT book review, “In truth neither side intended to comply fully, and neither did.” http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/20/books/20ALLI.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreed_Framework
http://www.armscontrol.org/documents/af
P.S. I’d call your attention to the fact that the Republicans were the ones that controlled the Congress when the agreement was first rejected in principle. However, to clear up the partisan issue. It doesn’t matter who is in charge it appears the US has a tendency to try and double deal at times. And it NEVER works out for us in the long-term.
Sorry, but blaming George Bush is not an effective strategy for the US in response to NK aggression. (And I don’t have the same recollection that some of you do about the Bush administration and its handling of NK).
Bush is no longer the president. Obama is the president. Every president has to play with the cards that are dealt to them (Bush didn’t want 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, but he got them).
Hopefully, there is a plan —- other than whatever NK does, it is ok because it is all George Bush’s fault. We aren’t in a presidential campaign anymore. Leadership requires much more than just opposing whatever the governing party is doing and playing the blame game. It involves having a plan and the resolve to make difficult decisions. And we are about to reach the crossroads with NK. Difficult decisions are going to have to be made. These nutts aren’t just going away, and they are going to push until Obama pushes back. I am just wondering at what point that might be. What does NK have to do to justify a real ultimatum type response or a military response by the Obama administration?
NMC. Actually it wasn’t Bush’s fault, it started well before him. I think from a brief reading it was only like two weeks after the agreement got signed. Bush might have been the final straw, but it was dead in the water a long time before him. And I agree, nuking them into rubble isn’t the appropriate response.
AFOTL wrote that someone said:
>other than whatever NK does, it is ok because it is all George Bush’s fault
Not what I said. Not even a close cartoon version of what I said. While George Bush was president, NK developed nuclear weapons. That and other aspects of the place they occupy making it impossible to consider bombing them to rubble (what AFOTL advocated) without accepting the death of much of the population of South Korea and our troops there.
I said NK was a crazy regime and a serious threat. Your version of what I wrote isn’t honest, AFOTL. Or even close to it.
You can’t make threats you can’t carry out, AFOTL. We can’t bomb them– Bush couldn’t, Obama can’t. That hasn’t changed a wit. So now what.
They could incinerate Seoul before we could hit every target with artillery alone.
So, if they strike Hawaii with a missle, we do nothing? If they imprison the hostages forever, we do nothing? If they publicly behead the hostages, we do nothing? IF they nuke Hawaii, we do nothing? If they nuke South Korea or Japan, we do nothing? Do we wait until they come ashore in California?
If we board the ship suspected of carrying nuclear weapon components and NK strikes the US or our allies (SK,Japan,etc.), do we then attack? Do we back down and not board and inspect the ship, just letting them have the nuclear weapon components?
I understand the potential horror they could unleash upon South Korea —and likely Japan. They have had this capability for a long time — long before Bush took office. (With the right focus, we should now have a very effective missile defense system to protect the US and our allies (including South Korea) against these types of nuttcase countries —- but, ….. that is another story and debate).
I am just trying to get an answer to a serious question. What does NK have to do to justify a strong US response and, if necessary, attack? The answer to this question, I think, is important because that is exactly what they intend to find out —- how far they can go with this new administration. I think they are going to push us to the very brink of War. I hope we have a plan for something other than UN sponsored economic or other sanctions.
The blame game is useless to protect the US. It matters not whose fault it is that we are in this situation. We are in it, like it or not. Obama is the president and thus, commander in chief. We are looking for him for leadership. I don’t think an Obama response of: “I don’t know what to do, but its all George Bush’s fault” is going to instill confidence in the US public —-even the American Idol/gameshow/reality show worshipping idiots will pull away from the tv set long enough to be concerned about such a response.
As a connoisseur of reality tv shows, I am not an idiot and if Obama were to give such a response (which I highly doubt) I would probably watch it on TV.
OK, AFOTL, I’ll say explicitly what I think: I don’t know what should be done, and neither do you. There is a line in the sand we have to draw, somewhere between “the fool is lobbing missiles into the ocean” and “he hit American soil.” What we do when he crosses that line is also unclear to me, in part because I don’t know the military picture (neither do you)– I can’t possibly calibrate risks of which I’m only vaguely aware. So I don’t know, and I’m pleased to admit it.
Further, while I don’t think it’s “all George Bush’s fault”– NK was governed by crazy people decades ago– I think he made a bad situation worse, and did so by making moves that it was clear from the publicly available information were pretty dumb moves to make. But we do know this– facing essentially the same threat level at the last year or two of his presidency, Bush did not see fit to start shooting. I can’t argue with that (see first paragraph).