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Likelihood of Success
Mar 16, 2010 Blogophilia, Heart and spirit Comments Off on Likelihood of Success
Success is hard to define. We think we know it when we see it. But we seldom do. In fact, more often than not we actually misidentify things such as material abundance, popularity or power as “success.” They can in fact be correlative with success, but they are not success or even necessarily proof of success.
Thankfully as we get older this becomes more and more intuitive to us. We learn to focus our inquiry when thinking about success. The old maxim that “no man is a hero to his valet” reminds us that we are all ultimately only human. The march of mortality as well prevents any illusion to the contrary from lodging with sustained firmness in any but the most unsuccessfully matured mind. So we come to realize there are a lot of ways to define to success, to measure it, and to weigh it in terms of the overall picture of what or who it is we’re considering.
We also, it is to be hoped, stop fearing failure, and learn what it is there for, and how there is no success without it.
Now, this blog’s title is an allusion to one of the criteria used by courts to decide whether or not to issue a preliminary injunction in a civil litigation matter. Typically the elements weighed by a judge are (a) a balancing of harms as between what will happen if an injunction does issue, compared to if it does not; (b) whether the harm sought to be prevented is “irreparable harm”–meaning the relief sought is the only way to compensate the party seeking it or whether plain old money will do the trick without too much guesswork or speculation regarding the harm done; (c) a consideration of whether the issuance of the injunction will be in the public interest and (d) whether the party seeking the injunction can show its likelihood of success on the merits of the underlying legal claim.
This last element requires a judge to do a quick once-over of “the case” presented to him and evaluate whether the party seeking the injunction has put forth a plausible and appropriately authenticated prima facie factual set of claims which, in the framework of the applicable legal doctrines set out by the plaintiff, looks like a winner. Typically along with the issuance of a preliminary injunction, a court will require the plaintiff to post a bond, so that if something material turns out to have been misrepresented or misunderstood and harm results to the enjoined party, the court knows that party has recourse to the bond for compensation.
Blogging, however, does not require such profound undertakings. Read More..
Recent Entries
Social networking for lawyers thingy
Mar 9, 2010 Social networking Comments Off on Social networking for lawyers thingy
Is that a problem?
Mar 4, 2010 Lex scripta, Nuvo-Techno, Scientificus, Sisyphus Comments Off on Is that a problem?
I don’t know much about the “likelihood of success on the merits” part, but I am impressed by the way another traditional element of the injunction question comes out–a little something we call “weighing of harms”:
In various countries, plaintiffs have sought court orders to halt the operation of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, with the most extraordinary of allegations: that the experiment may create a black hole that will devour the Earth.
Up until now, the various lawsuits filed against the LHC have faltered. But if the right kind of claim is filed in the proper court, a judge may soon have to face the question of whether an injunction might be needed to save the world.
That Eric Johnson knows how to get your attention. Read the whole thing, while you still can!
Spamism
Mar 2, 2010 Blogophilia, Jocularity Comments Off on Spamism
Is that the name of the language of comment spam, spoken in some weird world? Check this out, plucked out of the comments waiting for approval on my other blog:
I scanned sites on like topic, but never saw your blog. I summed it to dearies and i’ll regular reader.
I love the “dearies” part. I would love it if somewhat would tell me what radio station or remote ham radio broadcast these people are listening to in their attempts to simulate our language.
“Summed it to dearies”! That is rich.
Bottoms up
Feb 28, 2010 Faith and Works, Futurama, Heart and spirit, Orient, Past is prologue Comments Off on Bottoms up
Today is the Jewish holiday of Purim. (Unlike the biblically-based Jewish holidays, this is one, like Chanuka, on which I’m allowed to blog!)
As well explained in the Book of Esther, it’s the holiday of turnabout, surprises, false identities, intrigue, perhaps some emotional legerdemain, and not a little spiritual confusion. The outcome isn’t always funny, or even fun, except perhaps in the sense of the divine comedy.
It all comes around in the end, though!
Guide to haters
Feb 26, 2010 Faith and Works, Sisyphus, Stragety Comments Off on Guide to haters
About a month ago I published a lengthy discourse, doomed to obscurity, in which in my somewhat pedantic way I tried to tutor my Dean’s World buddy, the often open-minded Aziz Poonawala, on what he should and should not be sensitive to–in his role as Islam’s ambassador to the rest of us, I suppose–in terms of what we Juice Jews consider a “blood libel.” It came up in the context of Charles Johnson, Aziz himself and a tale he later regretted passing on that the Israelis were preparing biological weapons:
My point is this: Antisemitism is an important element of gentile anti-Zionism. They are not the same, but those who claim that they are unrelated are, well, antisemites, actually. And when Israel is accused of committing war crimes, or preparing to; and these war crimes are redolent of medieval accusations of well-poisoning as well as the classic blood libel, you can see a certain similarity: The Jews are claimed to be agents of not only mayhem but bearers of malefaction, poision, offal into the otherwise pure nature of things. This, then, is not such a nutty analogy.
You’ve got to understand these things. In fact, the real dedicated anti-Semites do come in all sorts of sizes and varieties, much like a can of mixed nuts left out in the August sun for a couple of weeks. And now, thanks to Meryl Yourish, they bloggy kind have been thoroughly categorized in a new taxonomy of online little Hitlers:
Eight years ago this spring, at the height of the suicide bombings of Yasser Arafat’s terror war known as the second intifada, I started blogging about Jewish and Israeli issues. This, of course, brought out the anti-Israel crazies. I came up with a corollary to Godwin’s Law to describe these trolls: “In any internet discussion area concerning Israel, politics, or religion, the probability of anti-Semitic comments approaches one.” (In fact, I’ve seen comments threads that have absolutely nothing to do with Israel, politics, or religion still devolve into anti-Semitism and Israel-bashing, but that’s a post for another time.)
And so, based on the thousands of comments and emails I’ve read over the years, both here and on other blogs and media sites, I present The Blogger’s Guide to Anti-Semitic Comments Trolls. Below are the some of the types of anti-Israel commenters I’ve identified over the years, but the list is by no means complete.
Bloggers: Consider yourself guided!