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Never say that Hack isn’t looking out for you.  Consider the following.

Puleeease, ditch the ubiquitous water bottle

You may think that wagging around that water bottle all day long, daintily taking the cap off and swigging away while multi-tasking is both chic and health-conscious.  Well, think again.  There is no scientific evidence - I repeat - there is no scientific evidence to back up the claim that drinking eight glasses of water a day is healthy. 

We all know the claims.  Drinking lots of water prevents headaches, removes all those poisons and toxins from the body, improves the function of internal organs and work to reduce the risk of disease.  None of these claims are supported by an iota of scientific evidence.  There isn’t even a study which supports the notion of the “eight glasses of water a day” claim.  Now some studies did look into the claim that lots of water clears the kidneys of sodium and that this might help in reducing hypertension (high blood pressure).  But no clinical findings exist which support this claim.  Water does help clear urea but urea is not a toxin.  There are some “indications” that drinking a lot of water might reduce appetite and control weight gain but again, the jury is still out on this one.  More research is required.

“Under normal circumstances,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, “drinking extra water is unncessary.  I want to relieve people of the burden of schlepping water bottles around all day long.”  Amen.

When you have that pesky nosebleed

Most people, including me, believe that the best way to handle that unexpected nosebleed is to lean the head back and apply pressure to the nose.  But, medical experts will tell you that this method is wrong man, dead wrong.  Tilting the head back can create complications that you really don’t want to have to deal with - allowing blood into the esophagus, causing choking, diverting blood into the stomach which can lead to irritation or vomiting.  So, what the best method?

Sit down, lean forward and keep your head above your heart which lessens the bleeding.  Leaning forward also helps to drain the blood from the nose and keeps it from entering the gullet.  Then, by using your thumb and index finger, squeeze the soft tissue just above the bridge of your nose for 5 to 10 minutes.  A cold compress or ice pack applied to the nose will help.  If this fails or if the nose continues to bleed for more than 20 minutes, particularly if the bleed was caused by a blow to the head, no fooling around - get yourself to the ER or your doc. 

This just in.  A TDC inmate who has spent the last 27 years in confinement has been cleared of a 1980 murder.  He is expected to be released today.  James Lee Woodard, 55, of Dallas will have the dubious distinction of being the longest-serving inmate to be exonerated through DNA testing of a wrongful conviction.  Woodard was jailed in 1981 and sentenced to life in prison following a rather speedy trial under the old Henry Wade regime.  He was convicted for the murder of a Dallas woman found sexually assaulted and strangled near the Trinity River in 1980.  At this time, Hack assumes that this was the work of the Innocence Project but has no clear information at this time.

She was a minor actress who began work in Hollywood back in the 30s, appearing in more than 50 films by the late 40s.  But her best work came about in 1958 when she co-wrote the screenplay to the cult classic “The Blob.”  Kate Phillips died in Keene, New Hampshire at the age of 94.

The year was 1956 when she was working with Theodore Simonson on a script for a low-budget movie originally titled “The Molten Meteor.”  The film was about two teenagers who discover an amorphous piece of space gunk in an open field and attempt to warn the townspeople about its voracious appetite for human flesh.  Of course, nobody listens until several end up as a entree, engulfed by the growing monster.  The film provided audiences with their first look at a handsome, talented Steve McQueen.  Ms. Phillips, while wresting with the script, was overheard by producers describe the huge jellylike creature that had plopped down in the field as “the blob.”  Well, the name stuck, the producers changed the title of the film to “The Blob” and, as they say, the rest is history.

“Both Steve McQueen and I were to receive $150 plus 10 percent of the gross,” Ms. Phillips said in an interview a few years ago.  “Neither one of us got the percentage — and the film and its remake have earned millions — but I got an important writing credit and Steve became a star.”

After Ms. Phillips left the movies, she taught college from 1980 until two years ago.  And she always found time to attend the annual Blob Fest, a celebration hosted by the town highlighted in the film - Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.  Every year, hundreds of B-movie fans race out of the Colonial Theater, re-enacting the movie’s most famous scene of the panic caused by the creature, shot there on location over fifty years ago. 

So, there.  Some of us leave behind a few good cases we defended, a writer hopefully produces at least one readable book, an actor inhabits one good role.  Ms. Phillips left behind a lasting screenplay to a movie that launched one of Hollywood’s greatest and without a doubt, its coolest anti-hero of all time.  I’d say bigger than Eastwood.

Hack doesn’t normally think writing about the goofy letters that end up in the local rag are worth commenting on but the one that made it in Sunday’s Amarillo Globe merits a couple of comments.  Its author, one who claims to be a high school teacher, lamented about the state of learning among some of his students about the recent goings-on down in Eldorado, Texas concerning the nutcase Mormons and the actions taken by CPS.  If you believe the teacher, his efforts to raise a discussion about the events were fruitless; worse, his students feigning ignorance and indifference.  Well, we don’t know what this guy teaches nor where but it would be nice to know if the events of the last couple of weeks had any relevance to the subject matter he is charged with teaching.  I mean, does he teach shop class or perhaps algebra and tried to change course with current events down south?  Whatever.  But then he went on to weightier matters.  (more…)

For the solo practitioner who doesn’t want to shell out the ridiculous fees demanded by LexisNexis or Westlaw, there appears to be a new resource out there in cyberspace that you might want to look into.  A new site, JDSupra.com is stocking a free, virtual law library by persuading lawyers out there to do something that many might think heresy: post their work online for free for use by one and all, no strings attached. 

This is how it works: lawyers who wish to contribute to JDSupra.com may upload various kind of materials, documents and the like from their hard drives.  The lawyer may also provide a profile about himself or herself, linking this to the document.  Visitors looking into a particular problem, say trying to determine how best to get Johnny’s $250,000 bond lowered, might access my pre-trial application for writ of habeas corpus and scan my profile while they’re at it.  The contributing lawyers get publicity and credit for their philanthropy.  Visitors get free information.  As since there is no such thing as bad publicity, it looks like a win-win situation. 

The site opened up in February and has, so far, attracted about 200 contributing lawyers.  The basic service of posting documents and linked profiles is free to those contributors.  But for an additional fee of $240, contributors can all links to their profiles which can steer the visitor to an e-mail address or website or, yes, you guessed it - the ubiquitous blog.  The site will of course carry advertisements as well.

So, it looks like JD Supra is one of many start-up endeavors which plan on providing services to a market which, up until recently, has been all but closed.  As mentioned before, the solo practitioner or lawyer in an office-sharing arrangement where expenses and overhead are tight, tight, tight might just be able to use this service and free legal research services provided by say, for example, the Texas State Bar, as a more realistic tool than that offered by Lexis and West.  Their cost is simply prohibitive, not to mention the fact that their contracts demand unreasonably long commitment periods.  Check it out.  I will.

Hack read a short memorandum opinion out of the Amarillo Court of Appeals this morning dealing with proportionality of punishment.  The case, Steen v. State, No. 07-07-0130-CR, involved a defendant charged with stealing meat from a local supermarket valued at about $31.  Because of his numerous prior theft convictions and felony enhancements, what would otherwise have been a class C misdemeanor mushroomed into a third degree felony.  So, he pleads guilty and elects to have the trial court set punishment, which it does at 7 years in stir.  It’s an unremarkable opinion, mainly because all of the arguments raising the proportionality issue have fallen flat over the past twenty years.  Case law has made clear that the sentence imposed should reflect the seriousness of the indicted offense in the context of the offender’s prior offenses.  In this case, Appellant admitted to a total of five felony offenses including convictions for burglary and robbery.  So, the opinion concludes that not only did Mr. Steen not receive a sentence which was not disproportionate to the indicted offense and his criminal history but that he should consider himself lucky that he didn’t go to the jury for punishment.  Maybe so. 

The opinion caused me look back on a case I handled over twenty-two years ago.  Kenneth Gray too had numerous theft convictions, not to mention his prior burglary conviction for which he was still on parole.  And then he stole a $30 bicycle.  Now under the old law, his offense - a misdemeanor theft - was kicked up to a third-degree because of all those other misdemeanor theft convictions.  The prior burglary conviction kicked that up to a second-degree felony.  So, facing possible punishment from 2 to 20 years in prison, and knowing that the trial court would most likely let the hammer down, he and I decided to take it to a jury,  Besides, I couldn’t countenance the State’s offer, particularly since we were really talking about a frigging $30 bike.  But the jury, as the case is so often in this racket, didn’t see things my way and gave him 9 years.  I appealed and it too, like Mr. Steen’s, was quickly affirmed by the Beaumont Court of Appeals.  I don’t know if I tried the proportionate argument but it wouldn’t have done any good.  So, his conviction stood with the nine-year sentence.  But not so fast.

Gray filed a pro se art. 11.07 writ and guess what he found.  Among all those numerous prior theft convictions which were alleged for jurisdictional purposes to kick the misdemeanor theft up to a felony, one of the those (which were read to the jury at the guilt-innocence phase of the trial) involved a prosecution out of the Jefferson County Court at Law where the information merely alleged that the defendant had appropriated “merchandise.”  There was no further description of exactly what the merchandise was.  Under the law then in effect, that particular information was subject to a valid motion to quash and since I had not challenged that particular theft conviction on that basis, it rendered the defendant’s nine-year sentence invalid.  Remember, without proof of at least two valid, prior misdemeanor convictions, a person cannot be prosecuted for felony theft.  So, with one of the two alleged prior theft convictions being infirm and which were susceptible to collateral attack (which I had let slip through the cracks), Mr. Gray’s pro se writ was granted.  I never found out what happened to him on retrial since by then, I had returned to Amarillo after my two-year hiatus down south.  But it taught me one thing and it sure wasn’t proportionality of punishment.  Check those prior convictions, whether alleged for jurisdictional or enhancement purposes.  It’s the only time I’ve ever been burned on that and I intend to keep it that way.  Funny how insignificant little cases have a way of jogging one’s memory of unpleasant experiences but there you are.

I have written before of James Earl Carter, former president and embarassment to the Democratic Party. (see “Jimmy Carter, a disgrace,” posted 6/20/07 under Items of Interest; “Get Carter! (Or what is wrong with Jimmy),” posted 5/22/07 under Items of Interest)  Well, he’s at it again.  This time, he met with the leadership thugs of Hamas in Damascus and breathlessly announced to the gullible media that he had engineered “significant concessions” from Hamas regarding the formation of a separate Palestinian state on the West Bank.  Those “significant concessions?”  That Hamas would “respect” the creation of the Palestinian state if it were ratified by all Palestinians in a referendum.  However, Israeli officials said that there were no concessions at all in that immediately after Jimmy met with the press to announce all of this, it (Hamas) maintained that Hamas will never recognize Israeli’s right to exist. (It’s a key component of its charter)  Further, Hamas continues to insist on a right of Palestinian “refugees” to return to their pre-1948 homes, effectively eviscerating Israel’s identity as a Jewish nation.  In other words, Hamas continues to reject the right of Israelis to breath, period.  And Jimmy Carter actually believes that he has accomplished something.  (more…)

Why indeed?  John Tierney, a prolific blogger who hires out to the NY Times, invited readers and fellow bloggers to respond on their attitudes toward spending money.  He received over 10,000 such responses, then turned them over to a team of behavioral economists (a dangerous thing in my mind) for analysis.  Their findings have been published in The Journal of Consumer Research.

Sixty percent of the respondents were classified as “unconflicted” shoppers which means, I guess, that they can go spend money on various items, free from nagging anxiety about having spent that money.  The remaining forty percent were tagged as “tightwads” or “spendthrifts.”  Being a “tightwad” predominated that category by a 3-2 ratio.  I don’t get this.  What real difference is there between a tightwad and spendthrift?  Reminds me of George Bernard Shaw when he talked about the cognitive differences apparent when one considers his own character traits and idiosyncrasies vis-a-vis others, e.g. - “I am frugal, you are cheap.”  “I am obstinate, you are pig-headed.”  “I am driven to success but that lady lawyer is just a real bitch.”  Uh-huh.

OK, back to the report.  Certain patterns were discernable from the non-scientific sampling of “responses.”  Men have a much harder time spending money than women.  Women are no more likely to be spendthrift than a tightwad (there’s that subtle difference again) but men, on the whole based on these responses, were three times more likely to be a tightwad.  Finally, those in their 20s are more likely to be spendthrifts than any of the older groups and those over the age of 70 are much more likely to be tightwads than any other younger group. 

So, men are more likely to be tightwads than women.  And gents, the older  you get, the more likely you are to be a tightwad.  But why?  As advanced as neuroscience has become, can’t we give Bill Gates a CAT scan and find out why?  I say this because for all the billions of dollars that Gates has to his name, a good haircut must cost exactly one dollar more.

Frank Thomas, the one real star who had the guts to meet with investigators associated with the Mitchell Report and publicly denounce the rampant steroid abuse in major league baseball, was released by the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday.  The day before, the 19-year veteran had expressed his anger at Toronto management for his having been benched because of an extended slump.  He was 4 for his last 35 at-bats, hitting just .167 with 3 home runs and 11 RBIs.  Last season, he hit .277 and led the club with 26 home runs and 96 runs batted in. 

Toronto owes Thomas about $7 million, the balance of his two-year, $18.12 million contract he signed back in 2006.  The agreement also included an incentive option of $10 million for 2009 had he made 376 at-bat appearances this year.  Thomas is convinced that his benching was done to prevent him from making the required number of plate appearances.  He told the Toronto press, “I’m angry.  I know I can help this team.  My career isn’t going to end like this.”  Well, maybe.  He’s an excellent case in point when it comes to the old saw: what have you done for us lately?

Thomas has a career total of 516 home runs, placing him 18th among all-time home run leaders.  He has 264 career home runs as a designated hitter, tops in the league’s history.  Right now, as it stands, he leaves the game with a lifetime batting average of .302.  He is only one of four players with at least a .300 lifetime batting average, 500 home runs, 1,000 runs and 1,500 walks.  He joins a truly elite company of fellow greats with these stats: Mel Ott, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. 

Frank, take the money, use it wisely, invest it, become a philanthropist, take an extended vacation, whatever.  Retire now, a winner in all categories and remember that you were the sole professional ball player who had the character and integrity to call the scourge of steroids and drugs in professional baseball exactly what it is: a disgrace. 

*Note: Thomas was eventually picked up by the Oakland Athletics when he cleared waivers on Thursday, April 23.  He is being paid the league minimum, around 365K by the A’s while he also draws on his $7 million salary with Toronto.  His first five at bat appearances for Oakland resulted in his going 0 for 3 with two walks.

They all were former high school classmates out of Springfield, Pennsylvania - Tim Donaghy, Thomas Martino and James Battista.  Donaghy went on to become a well-respected NBA referee.  Battista worked as a professional gambler.  Together, they formed a fairly efficient network in which Martino would pay Donaghy for betting tips on NBA games, including those which Donaghy officiated.  These tips included information on identification of officiating crews before that information became public, the officials’ relationships with the players and most importantly, information on the players’ physical conditions before each game.  Donaghy would relay this information to both Battista and Martino, sometimes using coded language, and in return Donaghy would receive payments for picking winners.  By all accounts from the lawyers involved, his information was top-quality.

But it all came unraveled as most crimes do.  Donaghy pleaded guilty in August to charges that he conspired to engage in wire fraud and transmitting betting information over interstate lines, receiving payments of $5,000 for correct picks.  Statutes provide for a maximum sentence of 25 years.  Who knows what the guideline recommendation will be.  Martino entered his plea to one count of conspiracy to engage in wire fraud last Wednesday and with that expects to received 12 to 18 months pursuant to guideline calculations.  The twist here is that his plea is contingent on whether Battista entered his plea today.  If Battista does not for whatever reason, then Martino will be forced to defend against the conspiracy count and two other perjury counts conditionally dismissed as a result of his Wednesday plea.  Battista faces substantially more time since he sports a prior conviction for illegal bookmaking back in 1998. 

It’s a sad end to a friendship trio dating back nearly 25 years.  But what is truly disturbing is that Donaghy has admitted to betting on the games, many of which he officiated, for four years, only to be exposed within the past year.  It surely must make the bettor wonder just how widespread this corruption might run within the NBA, considering the fact that basketball still remains one of the easiest games to fix.