Random Esquire

Let’s have a little Criminal Procedure question today, courtesy of Aspen Publishers and the Law in a Flash series: Card #28

Police suspect King Kong of stealing the radio antenna from the top of a skyscraper. They conduct an illegal search of Kong’s house, where they find a newspaper clipping about the theft of a shipment of bananas from the Havana Banana Company. They go away and investigate that crime and find evidence sufficient to arrest Kong, even though they’d had no reason to suspect him before the illegal search. At his trial, Kong claims the evidence used against him is “tainted fruit” of the illegal search and should be excluded. Is he correct?

Answer posted tomorrow!

A short list of some interesting items I’ve looked at today from the various sources:

Want to know where your presidential candidate stands on some issues? Look at a simple and organized chart here.

Not sure how del.icio.us works? This is a fantastic short video done by a company called Common Craft that makes it very easy to understand.

Common Craft has also done a video on RSS feeds.

Keith Richards really did snort his dad’s ashes. As if you doubted.

So! I guess every year, a bunch of computer hackers get together in Las Vegas and talk about their particular skill set. It’s called DefCon. Apparently, one of the producers of Dateline NBC decided to go to the convention as an attendee (as opposed to as a member of the Press, which would have included signing an agreement on what they can and can not report/film) with an undercover camera with the hope of catching any of said hackers on film discussing illegal hacking jobs they’d done.

Let’s pause to consider a couple of things:

1) First, if I ran a casino in Vegas, I’m not sure I’d invite a bunch of people particularly skilled at hacking for an annual convention under my roof. I mean, I’ve seen Ocean’s Eleven. That’s a little like sh*tting where you eat.

2) How exciting can this get? Camera footage of some blurry white guy, acne scars blissfully smoothed over, bemoaning the fact that Blockbuster no longer charges late fees thereby denying them the pleasure of hacking the database and removing the fees himself?

You know what this reminds me of? The guy who sent a spam e-mail with a picture of a woman having sex with a horse and Dateline NBC tracked down the spammer. The spammer? Worthless. Find that woman. I have questions for her.

Anyway, the hackers figure out that she (the Dateline producer) has infiltrated the ranks and the head nerd announces it to the room. She grabs her purse and bolts with the white sockers following her, filming it as they heckle her all the way to her car. Video can be found here.

I can’t believe they decided to infiltrate a hackers convention with a blonde woman. Unless she was wearing white socks, I’m not sure how she was even admitted.

If you went to DefCom, I’m positive you’re attractive and muscular. And socially well adapted. And not vengeful in the least. You big dork.

This story has been circulating quite a bit; it’s about a couple with 17 natural-born children.

I am not proud to admit that upon hearing they were from Arkansas, my first reaction was to think, “Oh, well, there you go” mingled with a little bit of “Duh.” I can’t help wondering what having that many children does to a woman’s body. I don’t think anyone should have more children than they can have drinks and still drive legally. I’m not even sure I have 17 pairs of socks. The mother has been pregnant 126 months.  It only takes 22 months to make an entire elephant.  She could have made 5 elephants by now instead of 17 kids. I think she got short-changed.