The internet sings for you

If you tell it what to sing.

This is one of the most bizarre finds in a long time (month?). Just type in anything, and the internet will sing it for you. I swear.

Nerd Alert

LOTR + flow chart? Yes, please:

Above the Law sucks, but...

For once, they might be onto something. A column today points out that the need to rise in the rankings is literally costing law students. What I now realize is that it's the commenters on ATL that really suck, though.

Yet another reason I'm Methodist...

The NYTimes printed a fairly inflammatory story about a priest who had an affair with a separated woman who came to his retreat for counsel regarding her failing marriage. They had a child, and now she is suing the Franciscans for assistance to pay for the child's cancer treatments. They, like any business, are avoiding payments. However, I have to ask, "What would Jesus do?"

A) Not have an affair with a technically married woman.
B) Not try to cover it up, especially when there are children involved.
C) Let priests get married.
D) Let women be priests (though that one really doesn't have to with the story - it's just true.).

For the record, the mother/woman he slept with is now a Methodist.

I'm not a racist, but I'm going to make judgments on race.

Somewhere's friend posted this link about a justice of the peace who denied an interracial couple a license on FB, and I love it. Here is my favorite line:

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

For starters, how about some activist judging, huh? Nice that he did his own study on which marriages work and which don't. That's some serious ex parte communication, no?

What I really like though is that it reminds me of the guy on Survivor: "Look, she's from the ghetto, and she's trashy, so she's ghetto trash. . . She's not a lady. She's a bitch."

My relatives are going to love this!

Conservapedia (the conservative Wikipedia? really?) is apparently fed up with crappy Bible translations and has thus decided to translate it how they want to. Also, it says the NIV is written on a 7th grade level. No surprise there, I guess. Sigh.

Lawyers and Dentists and Birthers - oh my!

Today's Post has an article on a woman who is a big name in the birther movement. She's a lawyer, so she's represented some of the people who believe they should not have to be deployed because Obama's not a legitimate commander in chief. So far, her cases have been dismissed. Her core argument is that being a natural born citizen requires more than just being born in the U.S. It requires that one be born to two parents who are also U.S. citizens.

Also, she thinks Obama was born in Kenya, and his mother faked his Hawaii birth certificates. Naturally. Furthermore, she thinks that there are about 600 FEMA concentration camps where the government keeps dissident citizens.

And on the side, she's a dentist. (WTF?)

The final stage of grief...

...is acceptance. I think, maybe, conservatism is reaching that point. It was kicking and sputtering throughout the Bush years, who just gave it mouth to mouth and some deadly medicine to dull the pain. Then denial set it halfway through the '08 election, and now we've been dealing with anger and those related stages with the rise of Glenn Beck and his absurditiness. Populism seemed all left of the right's great yelp, and in what may be the greatest irony of the whole process so far, it appears that Beck may be reinvigorating intellectual conservatism. Believe me, I'm shocked, but if he's changing his angle, I'll be the first to welcome it.

I call Somewhere in Between!

Liberty Council is praying for liberals! Lucky them!

Let's all do drugs!

This article links higher prescription rates for psychiatric drugs (especially antidepressants and stimulants used for ADHD) with lower crime rates.

Butter is good on everything!

More evidence.

New Life Game Plan

I have decided that attempting to be a "productive and contributing member of society" is vastly overrated. Thus, my new life game plan is to amass great wealth and with it do the following (it actually sort of resembles the ultimate retirement, but...can I just fastforward to that?):

(1) Travel (I could do some volunteer work and what not, but that'd be a fringe benefit)

(2) Photography (during the aforementioned travels)

(3) Buy/own and read every book I have ever wanted to read and build a gigantic library. The kind with floor to ceiling books and the ladders on wheels (you saw Beauty and the Beast, you know what I'm talking about).

This all stemmed from my frustration with lack of time (well, really energy) to read for pleasure. After reading all day for school and attempting to stay current on local/state/national/global news, my brain just cannot function well enough to pick up a book for leisure at 10 or 11 p.m. And I have what is getting to be an absurd queue of purchased, unread books. :(

Except, of course, I would be miserable if I weren't working toward...something. And even through traveling, I would find problems I would want to work to fix. I wish you could work 10 months a year and take two off to do whatever you wanted, guilt-free. Hmm. Teaching?

UR 21st International Film Series

http://library.richmond.edu/mrc/international-film-series.html

Losing Love for Israel...

http://www.forward.com/articles/114180/

I thought this was an interesting read, particularly considering the author.

In regards to the gays...

WITH the latest hullaballoo regarding our beloved gays being able to get married, I offer these following points:

1. I love the gays. Despite the divas, my gay friends are the most loyal, kindest, friends I could hope for. Besides which, I will fully admit that although I am an exceedingly snappy dresser, I could never pull off a lavender leather vest. Fashionista, I am not.

2. I envy the gays. There are days that I truly wish that I could pull off a paisley shirt, but alas, I lack the requisite fabulousness to do so. And lest I forget my favorite lesbians (of which I had two roommates in college), I really want to be better at golf and softball. Forget better at softball – I want to be cognizant of the very basic mechanics of the game.

3. I am a dyed in the wool, card carrying commie, pinko, hippie, left-wing nut-job when it comes to the gays. Referring back to my first point – I love them. But the fact remains, if you hate them – that’s your business. There were loads of people who knew that the earth was not only flat, but the center of the Universe. I hate the peasants – especially Peasants 1-3 – but this does not mean that I do not wish them the ability to proceed as I have been given the right to do. If you hate the gays, that probably means I hate you too, but I am not going to stop you from getting married, adopting a child, etc. I was watching The Birdcage earlier, and there was a line that struck me. When Val was explaining to Armand, his father, that he was getting married and that Armand was an incredible role-model, Val stated that “I was one of my only fraternity brothers to not come from a broken home.” Love it.

4. I firmly believe that homosexuality is 99% of the time genetic. (That 1% is just for the kids trying to piss off Daddy.) Years ago, as the earth was flat, so too were the African Americans less capable. And to that end, just like there were “white’s only” signs in the 1950’s, I truly hope that there are no “straight’s only” signs (metaphorically so) in 2020.

5. The “dyed in the wool, card carrying commie, pinko, hippie, left-wing nut-job” applies only to the gays. Love them. Hate poor people. Don’t even get me started.

Why I'll Never Be Hired As A Minute (Wo)Man

This op-ed by E.J. Dionne makes a good point. Why was the most offensive part of Obama's health care speech the part related to illegal immigrants' possibly benefiting from whatever program is put in place? This view sums up my view of immigration issues in general. Yes, illegal immigration creates serious problems, but surely the best way to address those problems is by having some sort of (dare I say it?) empathy for people who often risk their lives to come here. I might even suggest that immigrants have a better understanding of the American Dream than most of us do, so why don't we want to alleviate problems in the most feasibly compassionate way?

Regulation = Lower Hospital Costs?

The WSJ reports on Maryland's health care cost plan.

Pay your taxes people!

We were assigned this video to watch as part of our tax policy class, and it is disturbing. It follows the economic history of the United States, with a focus on deficits, and it makes me want to forgo deductions and pay every cent of tax I owe.

It's 30 minutes long, but it's well worth it. Also, I bet you wish you were in tax policy now.

Nancy Pelosi gives the motherly guilt look.....

That glance is terrifying.

Where are the crazy police?

From the people who brought you mortgage-backed securities, I give you: life insurance-backed securities!

Some quotes after the President's Speech on Education

"The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students. And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"

Another member of Congress, said the speech showed "the arrogance of power," and that the White House should not be "using precious dollars for campaigns" when "we are struggling for every silly dime we can get" for education.

These quotes are clearly just ridiculous, right? Well, they accompanied not Obama's speech two days ago, but George H.W. Bush's address in 1991, which was REMARKABLY similar to Obama's speech.

A quote from his speech, which granted was less eloquent and delivered with less style: "If you don't work hard, who gets hurt? If you cheat, who pays the price? If you cut corners, if you hunt for the easy A, who comes up short? Easy answer to that one: You do. You're in control, but you are not alone. People want you to succeed. They want to help you succeed."

I was one of the first to criticize the Crazy Right for getting their hackles up. It's not so easy as saying by forgetting history, you condemn yourselves to make the same mistakes. The fact of the matter is that half of the country are smelly hippie liberals, and the other half are elitist preppy right-wingers or bible-toters. We'll never all agree, but as Rahm Emmanuel said in response to the outrageous outburst last night by Rep. Wilson, "We can disagree without being disagreeable."

I don't foresee a bi-partisan game of hacky-sack in the near future, but a modicum of civility and a common shouldn't be too much to ask for.

Oh, and for a link to Bush's speech, and for the PolitiFact article.

Space Porn!

I am naming my next band: "Galactic Wreckage in Stephan's Quintet" (see slide 5). I just can't get enough Hubble!

Bill Clinton Esquire Interview

http://www.esquire.com/print-this/bill-clinton-interview-1009-2

If this is socialism/fascism/Marxism

Sign me up.  Some good, wholesome indoctrination:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

Arson and the Death Penalty

A friend sent me this article from the New Yorker. It follows the case of Todd Willingham, who was put to death in Texas, and there is now some suggestion that he could have been an innocent man. Take what you wish from that portion of the article. The reason I post it here is that I find the facts interesting due to my intimate knowledge of what makes arson. Thank you Law Skills III. I think that based on this article, the Flinders v. Mismo materials may need to be updated.

I come from a state of sinners

http://www.wired.com/culture/education/magazine/17-09/st_sinmaps

According to this, anyway...

Did you know your undergraduate institution is out of your league?

The Princeton Review offers you Counselor-o-Matic, a quiz you can take that will tell you what colleges are a good match for you. It turns out that Davidson is a bit of a reach school for me, as are Wake Forest, William and Mary, UVA, and UNC, all of which I got into (with the exception of Wake, to which I did not apply). Of the reach schools, the best fit for me is Bucknell, followed by Barnard and Colby.

It appears that my best match overall would be Spellman, which I believe is a predominantly African-American, all-female school. I have to question the logic there. Following Spellman, my best matches are Washington & Jefferson, Denison, Occidental, Berea, Dickinson, and Furman.

If Ron Jeremy was a civil engineer...

We'd all have naked streets. London is trying it (pushed by those stuffy Tories, interesting, who are taking up such socialist causes of environmentalism lately), and I'm wondering if we'd have the same results in the land of NASCAR as they do in the land of porn and pot.

Swine Flu

Sitting this morning amongst fellow International Business Transactioners, I have come to the conclusion that it would be mega-bad-ass to get the swine flu. This idea did not come lightly, but seeing as this is the 94th minute talking about the gloriousness of letters of credit between a New York toy company, Santa Claus, and a bunch of smelly herring-laden Greek fishermen, I think that it is simply a better solution than hara-kiri, though the thought of ritual disembowelment has flitted amongst my thoughts as we speak of loading a laden container with a bill of lading to go to the aforementioned smelly abalone farmers. I wonder if, in a couple of years, we will come upon the herring flu? If so, the Greeks are screwed.

Why I <3 Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell wrote a little NYTimes op-ed after the DNC last year. I re-post it here for a few reasons:

1) One of you LOVES Teddy Kennedy.

2) I recently gave one of you a Sarah Vowell book and think you should read it. This article should give you a little taste.

3) Most of you now have federal loans.

4) One of you is my husband and has to agree with me regardless.

California splitting off? It used to be.

Wonderful discovery of the day. Way back when maps were cool like the one below, California was an island:

Tuition dollars hard at work...

Umpteen thousands of dollars in tuition, and we have to walk through mulch puddles and soggy tennis courts. I may sound like a bitchy 1L who just got her Jimmy Choo's all wet, but what an inglorious beginning to the 3L year.

The faces of the new batch of peasants was glorious this morning. I can't wait until they're exposed to the intellectual mind-$*@& that is Pennoyer v. Neff.

Confession...

I hope someday to blog about Julia Child.

Or, perhaps, blog about the blog about Julia Child - either way is fine with me.

Janet Napolitano

I really like the way she answers these questions. Did you know she was a girl scout and that she has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro?

Did I mention that I did an event for this woman one time and thought she was really cool? Did I also mention that we saw her at the National Gallery perusing the contemporary art this summer?

Sea monkeys?

Dude. I give you the aquatic ape hypothesis.

"Citizen Judges"

Japan gives jury trials a shot.

mmmm bacon

http://www.indypendent.org/2009/07/23/bacon-as-weapon/

Adam Smith is alive and well.

So all of this talk about health care reform got me thinking about another public "good," education. The debate of late, especially in South Carolina, where successive governors and ed superintendents, have promised to remedy the state's terrible system, has revolved around school choice. Most people would agree that everyone should have access to both health care and education, but probably hesitate in characterizing either as a "right," yet we've applied disparate approaches in public policy.

Education, even before NCLB and the establishment of the Department of Education, has basically always been a government monopoly. Yes, private schools exist, but standards are still regulated to insure that students are taught essentially the same stuff in either place. Homeschooling is even worse. And everyone pays for public schools.

Health care started in the opposite corner. You get sick, you go to a doctor, you pay for his services. Pretty simple. But then technology exploded and costs became so much more volatile, and insurance was needed to minimize the unpredictability of costs, since you can't exactly predict sickness. The injection of insurance brokers between the doctor and the patient wrecked the perfect Adam-Smithian model, and incentives got all tangled up. Then you had medicare and medicaid, and then we have today.

What I've been trying to find out is whether reform in both of these areas is an inevitable and happy meeting in the middle of these public goods, or are they inherently different things? Either way, maybe we can take something to a comparison.

The two movements: let's use public money to pay for health care costs of some or all Americans; let's use public money to send some kids to private schools. You can characterize it from two perspectives: a health care public option will break the health insurance trusts by making them compete, but the public shouldn't be taxed to give money to private schools; the public option will further distort even an imperfect market, but vouchers will force public schools to get serious about results.

The health care debate might describe the difference more acutely: is it better to insert a new actor into the market, or put up more ropes around the market to force the current actors to actually fight?

And so I think in the end, even when we're talking about such an important good as education or health care, it's about competition. I think even in 2009 recessionist America, we are all still "capitalists," if we use that term loosely. The difference goes to exactly what Smith meant by the invisible hand. Is it the state of nature, or is it the way thinks should be? The laissez-faire libertarian would take the state of nature argument, a more rosy view of human nature, and say that we need to just leave well alone: i.e., no public option and no vouchers. But they would also say board up the public schools. The other side would say that human nature isn't so great, but competition theory still makes sense, so it's OK if we interfere so long as the result is to create more competitive markets and free the invisible hand from our natural greed and ignorance. That means creating a public option, and establishing a voucher program.

I'm pretty unsure about which side of this debate I'm on right now, but we're still operating in a world where we believe that choices and the right to choose interact in a way that generally yields good results. And if you take the reasonable view that either there is no such thing as human nature, or that it's mixed, then the door is open to whether we can make the sort of competition that exists "in the wild" more competitive. That's where the core of our debate should lie, and I think Adam Smith would welcome such a debate. I just think he'd want us to treat things like health care and education with a little more consistency of thought.

Jessie Spano Does Drugs!

Just in case y'all forgot about this episode.

Fancy Schmancy

Check out the featured guest in this Economist debate. You're moving up in the world when you're in the Economist.

Economics: The Graphic!

Looking for procrastination fodder? Check out this interactive chart from the New York Times that shows how past recessions looked on a graph. Great fun for fans of economics and the spirograph!

Also, too...

How have we not talked about this mess?

From Nerd to Nursing

It's funny. Prior to law school, I felt that I was very successful in my job. I felt that I was competent and that I was striving for better efficiencies whenever they were available. I never once felt that my being a woman had any bearing on my ability to do that job.

Last summer I was pregnant, and though I went to the bathroom constantly and ate continuously, I never felt like I was treated any differently in my summer internship writing memos on taxpayer fraud. I was called a "nerd" by all who did not understand my passion for tax law. Life was grand. Well, the work was grand. The vomiting? Not so much.

This summer I am once again writing those tax fraud memos, and the work could not be better. It is my dream job. I could not be happier in the work I am doing, but I have a baby now. I need special accommodations now more than I did when I was pregnant. It is easy for a woman working at a desk to use the restroom and snack the entire time she is at work. It is less simple when a woman needs to pump milk and has to get home to relieve her mother-in-law, who is acting as de facto nanny.

I cannot stay late at work, which means I am missing out on all the networking opportunities, known familiarly in the legal world (and every other business) as "happy hour." I spend 40 minutes a day pumping milk, which means that I have only 20 minutes for lunch, which is fine, except when I really need to run an errand, like go to the Post Office. I could take a longer lunch, but then I would have to stay late, which I feel like I cannot do because my mother-in-law is waiting at home with the baby.

The worst part is that I am stationed in a cubicle for this position, which is to be expected, but when I want to pump, I must go into the office of another woman, who is working at another office for a while. Surrounded by pictures of her family and assorted viney plants she seems to collect, I attempt to relax so I can collect enough milk so that my son can get these precious antibodies that doctors keep going on about. On my first day, one of the bags of milk leaked into the refrigerator over someone's lunch. The woman with the destroyed lunch informed me so I could clean it up, calling it "a little gross," and thus creating my reputation as the nursing mother.

Thus, I am not the intern from Richmond. I am not the intern who came to law school because of tax. I am not the intern who knows the names of the tax analysts at various major papers. I am not the intern who worked in the same field last summer and thus has more experience in this world than the other interns. I am the intern who, on her first day, spilled breast milk onto someone's lunch.

It is these moments that make me feel like I have been sold a bill of goods. I have been told I can be anything I want to be. I have been told that I can have it all. I have been told that women and men are equal in the work place. I now know these ideas to be only half-truths. Women and men can often do the same job equally well, but if a person has other priorities in her life, outside of work, then there will be disparities.

Parenthood one of those priorities that can change your ability to do your job, and while mothers and fathers can share many of the responsibilities of raising a child, there are some that will always fall to the mothers (in particular breastfeeding and, you know, giving birth). For the first time, I understand why "feminist" women, with whom never much identified in the past, fight for equal pay. Mothers cannot possibly compete with fathers and non-parents in the workplace.

I know I chose to have a child, and of course, I am glad I did. I just wish I had been a little more prepared for the workplace. I wish I had been prepared for the fact that motherhood would so impact my identity in the workplace. Everyone told me that I would not be able to handle being away from my child, so I was prepared for that change. I was not prepared to become the nursing intern, and for once, I miss being the nerd intern.

Someone please find me a Jack Donaghy

I am turning into Liz Lemon. Since I now work from home, my desk has become a minefield of coffee mugs, water bottles, hand lotion, a random spoonful of peanut butter, and papers. Oh, the papers.

This morning, I couldn't find a folder containing important notes for my summer research, so I went outside to grab it from my car--wearing a sports bra, the oldest and rattiest gym shorts I own (they bear the MWC logo, even though my dear alma mater changed its name five years ago), and Crocs. No, not Crocs, faux Crocs. Focs. On my way back up the stairs, as I passed the bag of clothes I've been meaning to take to Goodwill for about three months, I realized I needed to pull myself together. I fired off a report to my Children and the Law prof and high-tailed it to the shower in hopes of emerging looking like some acceptable version of a talented, young lawyer.

After a lovely lavendar-infused shower during which I missed only a few strips of leg hair while shaving, I found a skirt and cute top, made an effort to iron the skirt, threw on some pumps, and, pleased with the result, gave myself the frat nod in the mirror. I decided to take myself out to lunch, realizing only after I had descended a flight of stairs and locked the door behind me that my right stiletto heel was completely worn down to the little pointy steel rod inside. Oh well--I'll just be off balance. Onward.

Arriving at Ellwood's, I noticed that I had a stain on the back of my skirt. It was some sort of dried General Tso's sauce. Cringe. I removed said stain with the old spit-on-a-tissue manuever, grabbed a salad, and headed back home. On the way back inside, I tripped up my own stairs. Crazed with frustration and self-deprecating laughter, I threw off my wretched heels and ran to the kitchen to find some candy to take the edge off. Finding no proper candy, I ripped open a bag of chocolate chips (meant for baking cookies) and downed a handful before collapsing in front of the computer and signing onto gchat.

The boy I am dating then sent me a message. Hurray, someone likes me! Well, yes, but he sent me a youtube video of French American Idol ("Nouvelle Star") with some cute teenager singing that song from Juno, and mentioned how much he loved her glasses.

Sigh. Today was the worst.

From public housing in the Bronx she came...

Now it is a phenomenal story to see someone like Sotomayor overcome all she has and a testament to how far this nation has come, but how is her background a qualification for the Court?

George Will (without a SINGLE baseball reference, seriously) discussed in the WaPo today (and I think I agree) why identity jurisprudence is an approach that is antithetical to our conception of the rule of law. If the application of the law changes depending on your perspective, then is it even impartial anymore? Is this jurisprudential approach antithetical to the Equal Protection Clause? I think it is. And this is what has bothered me about this nomination, not the fact that she's going to take a liberal approach to issues or even to constitutional interpretation.

Read, and discuss.

Judith Warner on Meghan McCain's pro-sex stance

Check out this NYT piece, The Young and the Snarky, by the ever-snarky, elitist Judith Warner, whose contrived pity for Meghan McCain and Bristol Palin makes my blood boil.

Warner claims she, like the rest of the blogosphere, ought to be mocking Meghan McCain, but that instead she feels sorry for the young heiress. Ms. Warner proceeds to mock Ms. McCain anyway: not with humor, but with the kind of vicious sarcasm utilized by upper-class white women the world over and explained in painful detail in Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. "You haven't paid your dues, daaaahling," Warner is saying, "and have no credibility with the established sorority" -- this from a women who regularly criticizes other mothers' parenting.

Warner argues that Ms. McCain cannot afford to go on Colbert and talk about her sex life, can't afford to tweet about licking Colbert's face, declare herself a pro-sex twentysomething, or assertively state she's a size 8. It's probably best that McCain leave out the face-licking stories, but Warner's attitude on the other stuff is sexist, ageist, and just plain old-school. Until the media stops reporting on women's dress sizes (Michelle Obama), shoe labels (Nancy Pelosi), and love lives (Elizabeth Edwards), Meghan McCain is demonstrating a fearless (dare I say feminist?) honesty in confronting head-on what journalists, pundits, and bloggers will speculate on anyway. Everyone knows her father is a frisky, flirty old bastard: well, now we know for certain that Meghan favors smart birth control over abstinence. Warner is a generation older and the product of a very different time for American women. Her criticism disguised as pity shows just how out of touch she is.

Michael Pollan makes me swoon

Check out Amy Goodman interviewing Michael Pollan here.

The food companies are so clever--I love how Pollan points out that they're now marketing "pure sugar" as a health claim. Hey, our products contain sugar--not HFCS--so stock up; sugar is great! Yet just last summer I saw a commercial (paid for by the corn lobby) talking about the greatness of HCFS as a "natural" sweetener (it's made from corn! Corn's a vegetable!).

Here's another good link--an article from WaPo on the cost of being poor. I think it's related to the Pollan interview in the sense that some of the most nutrition-less food (Pollan calls it "food-like substance") is marketed to the poor. I heard a radio commercial about Kool-Aid the other day; it touted Kool-Aid as a cheaper and tastier alternative to fruit juice. Gross. Fresh food is hard to come by in poor, urban areas, but it doesn't have to be: community gardens are inexpensive and relatively easy to create. A stickier problem is the pursuit of profit by food giants, corporations that will say virtually anything in order to sell a food product. And don't get me started on Monsanto, which has taken over huge amounts of farmland all over North America with its genetically-modified, pesticide-resistant products.

"Christian" as an adjective

DISCLAIMER: This is a rant.

I can't find a news site that's not running the new American Idol as the top story, so it's unavoiable not to read about it. But since when did "Christian" become a required adjective for a person? Does AP Style require it? We don't throw around "non-Christian" or "atheist" or anything else unless it's relevant to the story. We're afraid to note someone's race unless it's important (see, e.g. Barack Obama) but religion is still a big deal. How does this make sense?

Got that off my chest.

GOP Option #2

The Ron Paul Option, Crazyapocalypticism. Do the following:

1. Draw on scary eyebrows.
2. Describe the economic recession for 5 minutes in one sentence, long enough to make C.S. Lewis blush, using metaphors, similes, and simply adjectives, but no (and I mean NO) verbs. Present active participles are to be considered adjectives in this situation, not verbs.
3. Use "torture" and "generous" in the same sentence.
4. Use "revolution" and "change" in the same sentence.
5. Use proper parliamentary procedure.

GOP Option #1

As we face the remaking of the Right in America, I will be presenting several options the GOP can take. The obvious thing would be to take a look at David Cameron's Tories in the UK (where he became pro-environment, pro-social justice, all based on the traditional morality values that old Britain holds, but putting them into the public sphere as we envision it today) who are quite soon to be looking at winning 10 Downing Street, but there are some other great options presented by GOP figureheads.

1. The "Pro-Sex" Party. Let's listen to Meagan McCain on Colbert:

Let's Appreciate Jesse Ventura

I was just saying to my mom and Mama Z the other day that I understand why Jesse Ventura would have a certain appeal. He says what he thinks and you can't fit him into any sort of idealogical box.

That being said, what is most enjoyable about this clip is that you can't help but think that at any moment he might jump over the table and throttle Elizabeth Hasselbeck as if he is having some sort of Running Man flashback.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104226887

"For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It is no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule — the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. To serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth."

This stood out to me, especially. While I am certain there is some supreme being or force that is our raison d'être, to me, this "Golden Rule" is what matters more in the end. There is a certain shared moral compass among all religions and peoples, and this is what Obama speaks to in this paragraph.

Also, if you didn't read his Arizona State speech, you should: http://www.huffingtonpost.

com/2009/05/13/obama-asu-speech-full-tex_n_203287.html.

Warning for those venturing to the Gobi...

In my productive afternoon I have learned of the cryptid creature known the Mongolian Death Worm. I for sure want to meet this creature that spews sulfuric acid and kills at a distance by means of an electric discharge.

I like this picture particularly:

Federal Budget Update!

It appears Obama's now proposing $17B in budget cuts to the original $3.5T proposed. That's up from $100M (170x). This is good news, as it would reduce the $3.5T to $3.483T instead of down to just $3.4999. My beef now remains with Congress who is trying to cut some of the reductions in that $17B. Thanks, Harry. Nevertheless I still wish we weren't adding $1.17T to the deficit even if all these cuts go through.

For all the tax nerds in the room...

I give you the UK's tax problem. Why raising rates and creating new complicated deductions is a bad idea.

The RTD Doesn't Want Energy Independence!

The Richmond Times Dispatch published this "commentary" where they took a Obama's Earth Day speech and commented in bold after every paragraph or so. Really?

I haven't seen that tactic used so effectively since the Davidsonian. Really?

This is what journalism has come to... snarky comments made in the margins. Lewis Black did a bit like this with a George Bush speech one time. Except he is comedian who is funny!

The best part is when they question why Obama would want energy independence.

Why energy independence? The U.S. does not pursue "independence" in any other economic sector. It imports food and clothing. It coordinates banking policy with other major nations. It embraces technological innovations from overseas. Why should it strive for autarky in energy, and only energy.

Interesting that should say this when they drummed the energy independence drummed repeatedly over the last few years when demanding offshore drilling, uranium mining and new coal production.

The RTD sucks.

Souter: The Last Conservative?

Though I do not think he is the last, I could not agree with this assessment more. Judicial conservatism should generally be lauded, and so should Souter.

Boston Globe???

As if the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer weren't bad enough, now we have this.  It's true that I don't currently subscribe to a paper (I'm afraid I have little interest in the local news of Richmond, since I'm just passing through), but I did subscribe to the NYT and Raleigh News & Observer at various points in college.  Anyway, it's just depressing to think that one of the biggest papers in the U.S. might be gone soon.  I really hope this is more of a negotiating ploy.  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/30/obama-family-photos-sent_n_194074.html

I loved these pictures...I know I'm partial, but during the campaign, a lot of people griped about how the Obamas seemed too perfect, and they wanted to see them as real people.  This batch as a lot of really humanizing shots.  I think this was my favorite of the lot...it was just too freaking cute:

Copyright for both images belong to The Huffington Post (I think).  

This one's another personal favorite because of who it is (Teddy's one of my heroes): 

Also from HuffPo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bradley-whitford/waterboard-dick_b_194244.html  (I choose to pretend Josh Lyman wrote this). 

What really matters?

Everyone who does not go to Yale Law hates the USNews rankings. This year, sadly, University of Richmond dropped in the rankings back to its number in 2008 of 77. Bummer.

Tax Prof Blog has taken the individual measures and ranked schools based on each individual factors. Although we have a big problem when it comes to employment stats (possibly because we tell the truth about it), we ROCK when it comes to bar passage rates. The only school in Virginia above us is UVA. We beat William & Mary, George Mason, and W&L. Go Spiders!

CSOs

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/wake_forest_law_student_the_la.php

This kid is an idiot, maybe not so much for writing the original email, but saying his account got hacked and he didn't write it?  Please.  All I can say is that the repercussions of denying you wrote it are going to be much worse than the ones for if you just said, "Yeah, these were my views."

I don't know what the situation is at Wake Forest's CSO, but I think CSOs are being blamed universally right now for lack of employment.  I wonder how proactive this kid has been in going to CSO and asking for specific and individualized help.  Also, sorry to ruin this kid's scapegoating, but the economy is just BAD.  Oh, and it's entirely possible to interview and get jobs without using CSO (or using CSO minimally).  

Twitter, once again.

OK so I still classify myself as a Twitter skeptic. I opened an account a few months ago because I thought that way I might figure out what the big deal was, but then dropped it for several weeks. Now I've only started using it once in a while because I have this awesome dashboard widget and it's easier to update by FB status if that desire strikes me. Safari Beta is kinda slow.

But it's not something that I think is going to last. So why on earth does Obama need to keep using it? This article explains he needs to keep up his tech cred, but really, I'm kinda relieved. He would never use it personally, so it would be some office peon updating it, or the communications office would get a hold of it and it would be just one more vehicle through which he could spew PR. I don't think the tech world is served by creating one more medium to do nothing.

Clinton will not be on the SCOTUS!

I was appalled to see a post on a friend's Facebook page that she would be "pissed" if Obama appointed Bill Clinton to the Supreme Court to replace Souter. I think such a thing is VERY unlikely. There are many reasons for my thinking that it is unlikely. For example, I think Obama likely does not want a Clinton in a branch of the government he does not control.

However, the main reason I think it is INCREDIBLY unlikely that Obama will appoint Clinton is that Clinton was DISBARRED from the Supreme Court Bar. Come on people!

Eminent Domain

An interesting clip from an upcoming documentary on eminent domain, questioning the value of condemning private property to make room for fancier private property...

Flutter is the new Twitter

"If Twitter is microblogging, Flutter is nanoblogging."

"At first I was like, there's no "I" in nanoblogging, but, you know, there is!"

Like Russian Roulette

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/health/30states.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-levi/the-swine-flu-response_b_192911.html

Reason infinity for why health care funding shouldn't be one of the first on the chopping block.  It should be one of the last.  Even if you don't believe there's a moral or constitutional imperative (I do on both accounts, but I'm a pinko...), there's economic incentive (economies of scale, the fact prevention is cheaper than treatment, and preparedness is cheaper than haphazard emergency response), and there's certainly something to be said for a duty to effectively defend against invisible threats to our national well-being.    

Specter Switches Parties

Huge news! Let's discuss.

This is a perfect example of what the stages that the Democratic and Republican parties are in right now. Starting in the 1990's Democrats started requiring an adherence to certain party principles and created (at least the perception of) a party that was super liberal and unwilling to compromise and get things done. They got over it after 2004 and begain to realize that liberals can't win in certain parts of the country and you need to be a big tent because the country is a big tent.

Republicans need to learn this lesson but we haven't seen any inklings that they have started to yet. It is ironic that the Rush Limbaugh's of the world like to claim that the Michael Moores, Janeane Garafalos and Amy Goodmans of the world run the Democratic party when the truth is that the far right has way more control over the direction of their party than the far left has over its.

Maybe this is why Chris Matthews bowed out despite his constant Pennsylvania pandering!

Corporate Tweeting

Apparently not only are companies now managing official Twitter accounts to disseminate information to shareholders such as quarterly reports and other meeting info, but it's a practice the SEC has encouraged (having its own own twitter account) in addition to using corporate blogs.

The problem this fantastic WSJ article suggests is how do you create sufficient disclosures in 140 characters? Apparently that's not such a big deal if you have a disclaimer that the information does not itself suffice for a disclosure requirement. The trick then is to give a short clip of the news and include a proper disclaimer, all of which would have to be under 140 characters. Sounds like a job for a UR-contract drafting trained 2L.

Sending the Wrong Message...

There is an ice cream truck in my neighborhood, a Good Humor one, if I am not mistaken... As I was in my office, I overheard its portentous melodies...and then....then I realized that the tune it was playing was La Cucaracha... I do not think that this is the correct Good Humor theme song. If it were a pest service, like the one in the original Men in Black movie, then I would say - yes, you are using a moderately offensive racial targeting tune in a constructive manner. As it stands now, there is a WASPy child sitting out on his deck wondering why El Senor de Bueno Humor gave him frozen flan when all he wanted was a Flinstone's push-up, and asking the perrenial WASPy question - how the $&@! do you fry ice cream...

Brits hate iReporters, too!

Finally, snarky British people have started taking on the stupidest posts on news web sites and making fun of them. I think perhaps our web site should start to do the same thing, just with American news outlets. The title at the top changes all the time. Today, it is, "If you love Terrorists so much, why don't you go live there?" I think this statement pretty much sums up some of the best posts on news comment sections ever.

Bonus: Check out the tags they use for their posts: animal fannies, credulous nincompoops, delusions of grandeur, miscellaneous prats, normal people, self-appointed sages, etc. We have to step up our game!

Teabagging, iReporting, and Vaginas with Teeth: the Downfall of Internet Journalism

So I was perusing MSNBC this afternoon, and right below the notice that it's "America's #1 News Site," was an article entitled, "Vaginas with Teeth." Clearly I clicked and it was nothing more than a stupid book report categorized in the "Sexploration" section of the news. I have no earthly idea how the article made the top news feed on the site.

And this is on the news site that seems to be the most informative. At least there were such informative news stories as an interview with Michelle Obama saying that their new dog is "crazy" and one about airline regs for the obese.

But I will withhold most criticism for MSNBC because the top story was about the potential Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings. That same informative quality cannot be said of CNN, who apparently has fired its entire Atlanta newsroom (or maybe they're lying when they say they are based there) and replaced it with Citizen Journalists, or iReporters.

God. Today there were videos of the Myrtle Beach fires (replacing CNN paying for the AP feed, which I'm sure is mega-expensive). But also on the page today is a great explanation about how the Taliban are nothing more than hyenas searching for blood, posted by infoaddict in Western, New York. There's also a great story about how video games are sure to save the Massachussets economy. How? Humans will turn into flesh-eating monsters. Trust me. Thanks, jrm125. Now I have the news.

And this whole tea party movement is a bit unfortunate. Although it seems that someone writing a story at 4AM thought, "dude, we sooo should call it 'teabagging.' You know why? Yeah, dude, you know it's when you..." Well, you get the picture. We can't even take real news stories on their face as news. That's just sad. And what did FOX do? Rather than taking the high road like a "fair and balanced" network would, they berated liberals for making a dirty sex joke, giving such reasons as America-hatred. Classy.

What's the lesson? Read Drudge. His journalistic ethics are getting quite admirable these days.

In Defense of Canada: Part II - Curling & Self Deprecation

This is "Tournament of Hearts" by the Weakerthans, a band from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Not only are they a phenomenal band, but they're Canadian - and making fun of curling.

Also, there has been a little confusion about the status of Celine Dion as being Canadian. She was Canadian. We traded her in 2002 to Iceland for Bjork and some mineral water. Unfortunately, Iceland kept the swan dress. I would say look the trade on Wikipedia, but my editing privileges have been revoked after attempting to "confirm" that earlier this morning...

To law school or not to law school?

Stolen from a friend's Facebook page:

"Should I get my JD? What is your advice for someone thinking about going into law school?"

Do you want to waste three years of your life debating stupid and utterly irrelevant minutia? Then yes, get your JD. Do you want to get a degree that allows you work the rest of your life in a tedious, shitty, unrewarding job? Then yes, get your JD. Are you a boring, facile, socially retarded whore, desperate for the illusion of money and success, regardless of the cost to your life and the lives of those you love? Then yes, get your JD. Do you want to squander your existence sitting in a lifeless office, churning out ultimately meaningless paperwork? Then yes, get your JD. Listen to me people: There is a reason that lawyers have the LOWEST job satisfaction of any profession in America. THE JOB SUCKS. It is horrible. If you know any lawyers, ask yourself: Are they happy with their job or their life? 90% of the time, the answer will be no. If the answer to that question is yes, then ask yourself, "Do I like that person." The answer will be almost always be no. The only lawyers who like their jobs are the sketchy ones that are the reason lawyers jokes are so prevalent and popular. Do you want to be that person? If so, then yes, get your fucking JD."
-Tucker Max

Disbar Bybee!, cont'd.

Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks that we might not have a good case in U.S. courts against the CIA operatives in Gitmo; Bybee himself discussed the application of the Cheek case as it pertains to torture. Apparently though, he and I are wrong. It doesn't sound like Cheek would apply after all. The discussion below this post points out the difference between specific intent and willfulness. In this case, the operatives would have had the specific intent to commit the acts of torture, and the good faith defense in Cheek does not negate specific intent, only willfulness, which states that people need to know what they are doing is illegal. Therefore, the operatives would need to show that there was a requirement of willfulness that applies to laws banning torture.

For my Anglophiles!

A friend wrote this article for Mental Floss. Who wants to go with me to the Lawnmower Museum?

Disbar Bybee!

In the wake of the release of various torture memos, President Obama has stated he does not believe that the people who committed torture under the impression that they were legally allowed to do so should be prosecuted. I am not certain I agree with that thinking, but the question is: if we wanted to prosecute them, could we?

Certainly, anyone can prosecute them, but would we be able to put someone in jail for such behavior? In Cheek v. United States and Ratzlaf v. United States, the Supreme Court held that if you have an honest, good faith belief that you are not breaking the law, then you do not have the willful intent necessary to commit a crime. This ruling only applies to areas of the law that are complex, like tax law. However, one could say that CIA interrogation protocol is pretty complicated. If these people thought they were covered by the law, then they did not have the specific intent to commit the crime.

Generally, ignorance of the law is no excuse, but the Court did not want to punish a good faith misunderstanding of complex laws. Some courts point out that tax regulations, for example, are mala prohibitum (regulatory crimes like tax evasion) as opposed to mala in se (crimes that are evil by nature, like murder), so the ruling makes sense in all regulatory situations. In Staples v. United States, Justice Thomas stated that ignorance of the law can be an excuse, but it cannot be if you are dealing with, for example, a hazardous product that obviously would have regulations that you should have checked out. In the torture situation, it would be fairly evident to a CIA operative that interrogation techniques would be well-regulated, but if an operative had access to a letter from a DOJ attorney stating that waterboarding was okay, a non-lawyer could reasonably believe that such a memo was authority enough for what they are doing.

Some would argue that waterboarding is mala in se and that the operatives should have known that it was per se illegal. However, I think that the average CIA field operative probably participates in a lot of activities which would be considered mala in se illegal in my world, so their authority is not so clear cut.

The real problem lies with the lawyers, like Bybee, who drafted the memo. The torture memos show poor work by attorneys who quite obviously avoid any mention of cases which state that techniques like waterboarding are illegal. Bybee and his colleagues were telling the White House what it wanted to hear without regard to what the law actually said. I can certainly understand that one would want to provide the reasoning that helps the White House. However, no lawyer should be disregarding established law to the contrary of what he wants to prove. No one has said Bybee and his colleagues will definitely be prosecuted, but regardless, they should at least be disbarred.

How Smurfy are you?

On a lighter note, 7 facts about Smurfs:

• Smurfs are said to be three apples high. Mama Z thinks that this would make it hard for them to live in mush-rooms. However, this ignores the obvious fact that those were just homes made to look like mushrooms (or they were magically large mushrooms, definitely one of those two).
• Gargamel was often trying to catch 6 smurfs for a potion that would allow him to make gold. I am fascinated by what properties could exist within a 3 apple high, blue creature that could produce gold. And why 6? It probably has to do with smurfiness.
• One of the teachers at my high school looked exactly like Gargamel.
• I won 2 CDs from WALT 1600 AM, the Davidson student radio station, by answering a question about Smurfs. I believe it was, "What is the name of the cat on the Smurfs?" I, of course, answered, "Azrael." The guy on the radio had the nerve to tell me I was wrong and the right answer was Gargamel. I eventually convinced him I was right. All of this happened on the air. (The CDs were the MOD Squad Soundtrack and Crack the Sky's "Dog City" - my favorite song is track 3.)
• As everyone knows, Smurfette was not an original Smurf but was created by Gargamel as a way of infiltrating the Smurf village. What a great plan!
• We all remember Brainy Smurf, Handy Smurf and Lazy Smurf. But did you remember that their is a Reporter Smurf? Only one hundred people live in Smurf village. Is reporter an essential job in that situation?
• Did you know that Smurfs are Belgian? True story. Created by a cartoonist named Peyo (one name) in the 1950s.

Why does Joe the Plumber hate me?

I really should be writing a paper on criminal tax evaders, but I have to discuss this news: Joe the Plumber is holding an election to abolish the IRS.

Joe has started a new web site on which you can vote to keep the IRS or abolish it. It costs 99 cents to vote though, so bring your credit card. He promises the vote will not be ignored. He's going to take the results and lobby with them to Congress. He's hoping to get 200 million votes with 75% voting to abolish the IRS. (Note: There are only 300 million Americans, and only 133 million showed up to vote in the 2008 election. However, since Joe's system allows voting by text message, you can vote as many times as you like - as long as you pay the 99 cent fee. It's like American Idol!)

Joe's hope is to take the results of the vote to Congress to show them that the will of the people is to instill the "Fair Tax," a somewhat progressive consumption tax. The site has lots of facts and figures about the Fair Tax, though it provides no citations. One dubious claim is that the Fair Tax would increase consumption. Consumption taxes throughout history have shown that they actually decrease consumption, whereas income taxes encourage spending. The opposite is also true: generally, income taxes typically discourage saving, while consumption taxes encourage it. In the United States, the Federal government has an income tax, and most consumption taxes are left up to the states and localities. States like Texas get all their income from consumption taxes. This sort of balance of Federal income tax with state consumption taxes ensures that the government can attempt to stay neutral and not affect whether people spend or save based on taxes.

Since there are no citations, it is difficult to evaluate the accuracy of Joe's claim that the Fair Tax would make all our lives so much better. However, some of his facts on the list "15 Interesting Facts about the IRS" are totally inaccurate. For example, number 12 states that the average family pays over 38% of income to the IRS. This fact is nowhere near true. Even the highest tax bracket of 36% (which, under Obama, will increase to 39%, the rate this tax bracket paid under Reagan), pay an effective tax of 9.2% according to the Wall Street Journal after all the deductions and losses are taken. Joe also is in error when he states in number 15 that Tax Day is April 15th because although that fact is technically true, it is not an interesting fact about the IRS.

My favorite part of the site is where Joe breaks down their expenses and how they will spend the 99 cents they get from your vote. Fifty-five percent will go to telecom service providers; 20% will go toward advertising and promotions (You can get a free T-shirt if you vote now!); 10% to payment collection (a funny one considering he isn't too fond of how much the IRS spends on payment collection, which, by the way, amounts to 1% of what they collect); 7% goes to production costs and their salaries; and 8% is "Leftover after other costs." I love that one.

Oh, Joe. I know you are still needing to stay in the limelight so that you can run for Congress in 2 years, but really? You've essentially become the equivalent of those commercials that ask me to text "JOKE" to a number to get back the funny joke of the day. Maybe this is my fault. I expected more from Joe the Plumber.

Budget Fun!

So Obama has proposed his FY 2010 budget, and today he has asked his cabinet to cut a combined $100M from the proposed amount of $3.5T. That proposed amount is up from Bush's FY 2009 $3.1 disaster. So to deal with the tight economy, he's trying to cut it from $3.5T to $3.4999T.

The comparison that Greg Mankiw's blog gives is that this would be cutting out a $3 latte if you are a family living off an annual income of $100,000. Really tightening the belt, huh.

And what about the deficit? FY 2010 includes a deficit of about $1.2T (or $1.1999T) hopefully will add to the national debt currently sitting at about $11.1T. Fantastic.