Tag Archives: USA

Above all/Über alles

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The Air Force Academy has taken the motto Above All.

“‘Above All’ is about what we do and how we do it,” Colonel Caldwell said. “The job of the Air Force is to defend America and we do that by dominating air, space and cyberspace. The new campaign and slogan captures our roots, but also illustrates where we’re going as a service as the Air Force prepares to contend with future threats.”

I certainly wasn’t aware the U.S. Air Force dominated cyberspace, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

I must say I prefer Per ardua ad astra, but I don’t understand the excitement about a supposed borrowing from Deutschland über Alles. I just can’t see that. The actual use of the word cyberspace looks more foolish to me. See comments to tongodeon’s Live Journal entry, and also the comments at Boing Boing.

Painful back surgery / Tippfehler im Antrag

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We all know that back surgery can be painful, but this got rather worse when it reached the typist’s hands:

Plaintiff moves the court for a continuance of the trial for the reason that counsel for the plaintiff is recovering from dick surgery and because of continuing pain is unable to properly represent the plaintiff in a trial. Counsel is unable to sit for long periods of time.

Scroll down for doctor’s note referring to disk herniation.

(Via Legal Juice)

Birth certificate by laptop / Geburtsurkunde schon im Krankenhaus

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I came across Birthtype birth certificate software because a colleague was wondering what ‘screen consent’ and ‘program consent’ on a Florida birth certificate meant. This may apply:

If you have a PC/Tablet you take it with you to the Mother’s bedside by signing on to your Wi-Fi you pull up the birth certificate you want and collect signatures. The parents, witnesses, and or notary can sign the data screen or the PDF form on the (PC/Tablet) computer. The signatures then become attached to the data. Since your TABLET IS A COMPUTER you can send the data with the signatures from the Mother’s bedside. If you are not using a signature pad, or PC/Tablet for signing you still can print out the forms and have them signed as you do now.

It sounds like ambulance chasers are being followed by birth certificate chasers. But then, the American hospital birth certificate, with prints of the baby’s feet, has been around for some time.

(The solution to the colleague’s query turned out to be something completely different: consent to the baby being screened by the Healthy Start Postnatal Risk Screening Instrument)

Adrian Zack’s problem / Maschinenschreiben

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The Wall Street Journal law blog reported recently of a case where a student sued the University of Michigan Law School, alleging that its grading system discriminated against people with poor typing skills.

Adrian Yaroslaw Zachariasewycz probably spent ten minutes typing his own name. The complaint begins ‘The plaintiffs (hereinafter Adrian Zack and Maria Zack) …’

The plaintiffs, acting per se, claim that in certain exams it was widely known that a large amount had to be written in a short time, and allowance was not made for some students not being able to touch type.
Michigan Law School informed the WSJ blog that students can choose whether to write by hand or type.

(Via The Water Cooler at timesonline)

Extraordinary rendition

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The World Wide Words newsletter, whose RSS feed I read, has chosen the term extraordinary rendition to comment on.

In US law rendition refers to the transfer of individuals by what is called extra-judicial process (kidnapping, in plain speech) from a foreign country to the USA to answer criminal charges. The defendant is said to have been rendered up to justice.
A problem for the security forces is that once brought to the USA the person is subject to US law and the rules of due process, which of course excludes torture. Hence extraordinary rendition, a euphemism for taking them to a country where these rules do not apply.
From the Independent, 1 Jul. 2005: One week ago a judge in Milan signed warrants for the arrest of 13 of the agents, which has thrown covert CIA activities outside the US under the spotlight and drawn attention to the increasingly common practice of so-called ‘extraordinary rendition’, by which the US seizes terror suspects and removes them to countries known for their use of torture.

Außergewöhnliche Auslieferung, I suppose. Here’s a German article of June 2005 using that term:

Italien: Erstmals geht Justiz in Europa gegen US-Praktiken des Kidnappings Verdächtiger vor. Klarnamen von Geheimdienstagenten an Mailänder Konsulat aufgedeckt

The terms Kidnapping and Verschleppung seem to be more common. See heise.de.
For rendition, Romain has ‘Überstellung von Straftätern (ohne förmliche Auslieferung)’.

Wikipedia has something about it too.