George Soros Rules

"You do a discredit to yourself and to the dignity of your office by engaging in these dishonest smear tactics. You should be ashamed.

For the Speaker of the House of Representatives, even in the midst of an election season, to descend to a level of political discourse where innuendo and slander replace reason, truth and argument is unacceptable.

This past Sunday, on national television, you suggested that I might be a criminal simply because I have exercised my First Amendment rights to dissent from the policies of the Bush administration...

I must respectfully insist that you either substantiate these claims -- which you cannot do because they are false -- or publicly apologize for attempting to defame my character and damage my reputation."

[via Boing Boing]

What is with all the typing?

Seriously, what are you so diligently recording in your notes? I swear, from the cacophony emanating from your keyboard, I think you must be recording every single word that comes out of the professor's mouth. Oh, come on now. That student just pulled that out of their butt, and the professor is even hemming and hawing, with a "well... I'm not sure that is what the court was getting at..." and there you are tippity-typing away. Is that exchange really going to help you on the exam? Or are you just recording every word so you can digest it later? That doesn't seem like a good way to take notes to me, because you seem to be lost in your keyboard and missing the discussion. I could be wrong about that, but when the professor called on you, he had to repeat his question. Not because you didn't hear it... in one ear and out the fingertips. But you certainly weren't listening. Oh well, you'll probably smoke me on exams anyway.

Home Grown Tomatoes

When we moved into our new condo, my wife decided that our balcony would serve as a substitute for having a real yard, and subsequently planted all kinds of vegetables in a plethora of pots. We've got tomatoes, green peppers, carrots, radishes, and a host of herbs. The fresh basil is pretty darn good, but nothing, and I mean nothing touches those tomatoes.

What on earth is it that makes fresh tomatoes ripened on the vine taste so damn good? Even "vine ripened organic" tomatoes from a produce store don't compare to these in taste... and ours are grown on a balcony in the middle of the city!!

A caprese salad with fresh basil and tomatoes from our "balcony garden" just can't be beat.

Gee! Mail!

I've been using GMail for a while now, and I do really like it. It's pretty much replaced YahooMail as my "public" e-mail address. (The one I use for mailing lists, registering for websites, etc.)

Anyway, I've pretty much invited all my direct friends and family who I thought would be interested, and I have three invitations left. So in the spirit of Ernie the Attorney, if you're reading this, don't have an e-mail account, and want one, drop me a note and tell me your favorite thing about my blog.

First three respondents who aren't spam bots get the invites... :)

Update: All the accounts are gone... thanks!

This song is your song!

Well, well, well... it seems that Ludlow Music just might have jumped the gun on their claim against JibJab for copyright infringement. It seems (as reported in this Wired News article) that Guthrie actually published the song in 1945 in a songbook, meaning the copyright expired in 1973. When Ludlow filed their copyright in 1956, the clock was already ticking on the copyright, so when Ludlow renewed it in 1984, they were 11 years too late. Good work by the EFF!!

I think now we should flood the net with amateur versions of the song, royalty free!

Facing the Truth: I am a Gunner

During orientation last week my criminal and legal writing classes actually met, so we did get a "preview" of what's to come in regular class sessions. Today, we met for regular class, Criminal Law, followed by Legal Writing. It was a complete and utter blast. I am super charged and ready for this semester. I wonder how long this will last?

I did have a personal revelation today, during criminal: I am a gunner. Yes, I'd read the dreaded warnings about gunners and the consternation they cause other law students. I certainly didn't mean to cause any students anxiety and I sure don't want to be "that asshole". I just can't help it.

When the professor poses a question, my hand just involuntarily creeps up. Not always, there are times when I don't really get what he's asking, or genuinely don't know the answer. But more often than not, I found my hand was raised, and I did get called on. And when I got called on it felt great.

Why did I enjoy it so much? A couple of reasons: first, and most importantly, I wanted confirmation that I was on the right track. Not necessarily validation that I was "right", but that I understood what was going on in the case as well as what was going on in class. Second, I like the Socratic Method. Yes, I'm a freak. But I think that dance is really great. Today the criminal professor "hammered" on one of my points, and it was fantastic. He actually made me re-examine my stance, analyze the issue a little more, and in the end, I drew a new conclusion that was more appropriate to the case. And I knew why it was, and how my initial impulse was flawed. I'd always feared that the Socratic Method was just a clever guise for torturing and humiliating students, but at least for today, I actually got the oft stated higher goal of learning through questioning.

So, I like speaking in class. And I like the Socratic Method. And I guess that makes me one of the "gunners". Now, I just help I can avoid being one of the assholes.

Who wants to ralph in a voting booth?

"Actually going into the voting booth and ralphing is no great pleasure, compared to the remorse you'll feel if Mr. Bush is elected and fresh horrors begin to unfold and the nadir is reached and the Bushies keep going down, down, down."

I really do love Garrison Keillor.

Once You Pass the Bar, You Never Pass a Bar.

Orientation Program: The Legal Assistance Program

Welcome to law school! I’m here to speak with you about the Legal Assistance Program, which provides help to members of the legal profession with substance abuse problems. Alcoholism (and substance abuse) is one of the largest problems facing our profession today. Between 25%-50% of all disciplinary actions taken against attorneys are the result of alcohol and substance abuse problems. Substance abuse is not a moral flaw or a question of character. It is a disease and we treat it as such. It is critical that if you know of a colleague who has an alcohol or substance abuse problem that you do not stand idle by and let it go unchecked. You can come to the Legal Assistance Program confidentially; we can work with you to plan an intervention to get your friend the help they need. Together we can work to help those members of our profession who are struggling with this disease of alcoholism. Thank you.

Now we’d like to make a few announcements: Do not forget the Dean’s cocktail party tomorrow evening featuring hors d'oeuvres and an open beer/wine bar. And the Student Bar Association would like to remind you of the upcoming "social" at [hip local club] two weeks from Friday. $5 cover for the open bar with student I.D.

Tips for Law Students and New Lawyers

Matt Homann, of the [non]billable hour is guest blogging at Notes from the (Legal) Underground and offers us Five Indispensable Tips for Law Students and New Lawyers.

It's chock full of great technology advice and I agree with much of what he says. Personally, I would also add:

1. Try a Tablet PC before you buy one. Although Matt is up on them, I had the opportunity to try one out, and I just didn't think it was all that spectacular. You pay a premium for the technology, and personally, I would wait until it gets better.

2. Outliners are your friend. Even if you don't use CaseMap/NoteMap, do find yourself an outliner that you like and are comfortable with. I see many of my classmates taking notes in Word, and I wonder how they can keep their notes organized in a way that is intuitive without slitting their wrists in the process.

I've actually been using a really awesome little tool called WikiPad for my note taking and briefing. It lets me organize my class notes, case briefs and outlining all in one place, and in a way that makes sense to me, and that's the most important thing: organization tools don't do any good if you don't like them and use them.

3. Learn the power of the PDF. Ernie the Attorney has another blog, called PDF for Lawyers, which unfortunately, doesn't get updated nearly often enough. Acrobat is an amazing tool for electronic document management (my wife, a practicing attorney, is a PDF whiz who uses them for all kinds of filings, forms, etc.). Use it!

Jesus: The Original Bleeding Heart Liberal

Just in case you were wondering, or rather, just in case you were a moron who actually contemplated who Jesus would vote for. Yes, Jesus. You know, the 2000+ year old son of god? Personally, I'd like to think he would be above the fray of American politics, but you know. Appartenly, there is a panel to debate such, um, crap.

[Via my wife, Kristyna!]

The Orientation: Day Two

Today was another day of orientation. Actually, we did have our first legal writing class today, but we didn’t have a first day assignment, so it was easy to ease into the class. I really enjoyed our professor, he seems like a knowledgeable guy and he’s not particularly intimidating. Since I’ve written, edited, been edited, and published before, I’m actually looking forward to legal writing. My “self-editing” can really be improved and I’m anxious to learn a style of writing that is specific to a profession. I can’t tell you how many times we were warned, “Don’t be shocked if you don’t do as well on the first assignments as you hoped. There will probably be some tears.” I say, bring it on, man, bring it on!

I remember when I first started writing technical books; I had such a negative reaction to being edited. I think all beginning writers have this idea that there prose is sacrosanct. When they face the red pen of the editor, they bristle at every cut or suggestion. Well, now I’ve written enough books to know that a good edit is what makes the difference between a decent writer and a great writer. An editor isn’t as married to the text. They can more easily cut extraneous information and often they can help reorganize the text to help it flow and be an easier read. If legal writing is going to help teach me the skill to be a better self editor, I’m all for it. Then my writing will be in even better shape when I pass it along to my editors and peers, and when I get their comments back then I’ll be able to take my writing even further!

3... 2... 1L!

Today I started orientation, so I guess I am officially a "One L". Since I work in an academic environment, I understand a little bit about the hurdles that have to be overcome in order to roll technology out in a campus environment. However, is there really an excuse to be paying tens upon tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and "technology fees" and not have wireless access.

Actually, there is wireless access, I'm picking up a number of networks in the area, but of course, they all require keys, keys that I don't have. Grrr.

Honestly, there isn't much of an excuse for not having wireless in the classroom at a major law school these days.

Update: I just flagged down one of our "trainers" and he informed me that the infrastructure is in place, it just hasn't been "rolled out" yet. I suppose that makes me feel a little better. Well, not really, but maybe a touch.

Update: I wonder how many copies of Windows XP Professional the bookstore sold today. There were a number of people who had XP Home, or Windows 2000, and they were sent down to the bookstore to purchase XP Pro. Thankfully, I not only had it, but I'm already running Service Pack 2. Of course, that means that for basically the first hour, I'm sitting here blogging, while they are walking everyone else through the SP2 installation. On an interesting hardware note, I see exactly 2 Compaq notebooks, 1 IBM, and the rest are entirely Dell.

Final Analysis: That was a complete waste of my time. I do completely understand the need for making sure everyone is on the same page and has the correct technology, but they should have allowed people to "test out" or something. Or they could have said "You need to come with Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2 and Office 2003 installed, if you need assistance installing these, make an appointment beforehand" It would have shaved 2-3 hours off the orientation, easily.

The Economist

I love a good style manual. I'm particularly fond of my Chicago Manual of Style, but I also have AP, MLA, and Strunk & White by my desk. Oh, and I just added a Bluebook and the ALWD. So check out The Economist's Style Guide. (Thanks, Ernie!)

It's chock full of good advice, although as an American, I take umbrage with several of their guidelines against Americanisms. For example:

"Gubernatorial is an ugly word that can almost always be avoided."

Gubernatorial is a fantastic word! It conjures up images of George Lindsey and Jim Nabors. And if you follow American governors, I think any word with "Goober" in it might be frighteningly accurate.

"Do not feel obliged to follow American fashion in overusing such words as constituency (try supporters)"

Actually, this is just wrong. The preferred definition (from the OED, not to mention Webster!) is "a body of constituents, the body of voters who elect a representative member of a legislative or other public body; in looser use, the whole body of residents in the district or place represented by such a member, or the place or district itself considered in reference to its representation."

Believe me, I am the constituent of many representatives who do not enjoy my "support".

"The military, used as a noun, is nearly always better put as the army."

Veterans of the United States Navy, Marines, and Air Force would probably take issue with that. I realize there is a difference between "army" and "Army" but replacing "military" with "army" in America invites confusion.

"They rest from their labours at weekends, not on them"

No, we definitely rest from our labors on weekends. I was married on October 26th, not at October 26th. On weekends, Americans might go have drinks at a bar, or go out to see a movie at at a theater. But mostly we sit on our butts watching TV shows.

The Broken Promises of George W. Bush

We all know there's plenty of them, but here's a rundown from the American Progress Action Fund.

Illinois Republicans Nominate Three Time Loser

Well, it's official. After Jack Ryan went down (no pun intended) the Illinois Republican Party was in a tailspin, desperately grabbing at loser candidates until one finally stuck.

I'm really not sure what the Republican Party here was thinking. They had a primary; Jack Ryan won. When he dropped out of the race, the candidate should have been Jim Oberweis, who came in second. The party tried to get Steve Rauschenberger (who was a close third to Oberweis) but when he declined, they got really desperate, and even tried to get Mike Ditka!

They did find a real gem of a candidate in Alan Keyes though. Not only has he lost a bid at the presidency, he's lost the bid for the senate seat in his actual home state of Maryland twice. However, my favorite thing about Alan Keyes would be his views on non-residents of a state running for senate election:

"I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there. So I certainly wouldn't imitate her."

Q.E.D.

The Politics of Terror

I guess I'm a cynic, because I had the feeling this was true all along, however, Julius has posted a chart that shows:

1. Whenever Bush's approval ratings fall in the polls, there is a new terror alert.

2. A new terror alert results in a slight uptick in his approval.

3. Terror alerts frequently follow a rash of unfavorable headlines.

4. As the election approached, the number and frequency of terror alerts is increasing dramatically.

Now, as noted on the page with the chart, certainly not all terror alerts are motivated by politics. However, you have to give pause when you consider that the latest round of alerts: immediately followed the Democratic National Convention; were based, apparently, on old data, possibly as old as three years; and, even resulted in Tom Ridge giving a follow-up press conference to specifically deny the alerts were politically motivated.

Again, I would like to believe better, but my gut tells me these are the administration's attempts to fear monger and try to dupe the American public into thinking they are somehow doing a good job of keeping America safe, while at the same time always making voters too afraid to change administrations.

"Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror ..." -FDR, 1933

I'm Not Picking on Ernie. I swear.

Okay, it might seem like all I do is react to articles that Ernie the Attorney posts, but I swear, I'm not picking on him!

Today, he offers this tidbit and calls the press attitude towards Kerry's speech "inane". Well, he's wrong. And as sometimes Democrat registered as a Republican who mostly votes Libertarian, I'll tell you why.

Kerry's speech was monumentally significant. Not because it was a great speech; Barak Obama stole the show on that count. Kerry is simply not a very dynamic public speaker. And not because it was brilliantly written. It did have some political double-speak and typical non-specific, non-committal policy points. What political speech these days doesn't? (Save Al Sharpton and Barak Obama.) However, it was significantly better than any speech he's given to date. And that is important. It's also important that the speech did contain enough meat to make me feel okay about voting for him. In fact, that was critical; that is why it was monumentally significant.

The Democratic Party faces a real challenge with Kerry. To be honest, I didn't support him in the primary and when it became clear that he was the nominee, I had the attitude far too many voters seem to have today: "Well, at least he's not Bush!" Frankly, that's a horrible way to feel about the person you are considering casting your vote for as the President of the United States. As voters, we want dynamic leaders, with vision, who stand for clear ideals and who we hope will be able to implement at least some of those ideals. And here we are, the nation's "liberals", ready to vote for "Not the Incumbent". That sucks.

With his speech, Kerry may not have hit a home run, but it was a solid base hit. Kerry never inspired me, but before that speech, I honestly didn't like him. And now, I do like him. Do I think he's a great speaker? No. Do I think he would make a good president? Yes. Do I think he's going to be Lincoln meets FDR and lead America to dominate the solar system? Well, no. But give me a break. Very, and I mean very, few politicians inspire like that today. I can't think of a candidate since I've been alive who inspires like that.

I'm pretty representative of the average American voter. I'm a middle class Mid-Westerner, raised Christian (don't practice much) fiscally conservative, socially liberal. Before, I was just voting against George Bush. Now, I'm voting for Kerry. If the power of one speech at one event can do that in today's cynical world, I think that's pretty monumental.

Wireless MP3s

Ernie the Attorney has been going on again about his AirPort Express, and the other day Scheherazade was talking about her wireless MP3 music solution, which made me start looking into what's available.

I do love iTunes and I run it on both my PC and Mac, so I did think about the AirPort Express. I was really disappointed that it doesn't have any kind of remote control, though. I know, my place isn't that big, and I have a laptop with wireless, but you know, I don't *always* want to have to fire up or walk to a computer to listen to music. Sometimes, I want to plop down on the couch, and turn on the stereo with a remote, and change the song on a whim, all with a remote. The AirPort Express's lack of remote is a *huge* oversight in my book.

Anyway, here's what I'm looking for: a way to stream MP3s from my PC where they are all stored directly to my stereo. It must be wireless, it must have some sort of remote control, and ideally, it would cost under $150, but I'm willing to go up to $200 to make life easy.

I started doing some research and I've found these offerings:

• Omnifi DMS1
• D-Link DSM-320
• Roku SoundBridge M1000
• SoundBlaster Wireless Music
• Apple Airport Express

I'll be looking into all of these in more detail, but in the meantime, if you know of one I've missed, please let me know.

Floater

Anyone remember "sensory deprivation" tanks? Well, I don't, thankfully. But I am fortunate enough to live in a city that has some floatation tanks at SpaceTime Tanks. I meant to write about this when I first tried it, but never got around to it. Last week was pretty stressful, so I went to float again today, so here you go...

Last year, my friend Ken and I (on the advice of BEB) decided to give floating a try. We were both expecting a really "trippy" experience, since I (mistakenly) thought the whole idea was to be in an environment completely devoid of sensation. In actuality, there is a whole lot o' sensin' goin' on.

The tanks themselves are just large enough for a person to float in the center, not touching the sides. You are suspended in a solution of water which has about 800-1000lbs of Epsom salts in it, so you are hyper-buoyant. It's actually an effort to make yourself not float. The water is also warmed to skin temperature, so it's hard to tell where the water ends and your skin begins.

When I first got into the tank, it was a little claustrophobic. It's actually about the same size as a capsule hotel room in Japan. Once you close the door, it is completely dark, which combined with the warm water and air does induce a slight claustrophobic feeling, but in all honesty, it subsides pretty quickly. You do float in the nude, just in case you might be wondering. The "water" in the tanks, in addition to being salty enough to sterilize any cuts you might have, is also purified with Ozone in-between customers.

Once you lay down though, the experience is totally awesome. You float, like you've never floated before. If you're floating in a pool, sometimes you have to regulate your breathing to stay hovering at the surface... not in a tank. You have to make an effort to push your arms and legs down into the water. And it's warm, and soothing. But it's not devoid of sensation. You still have a sense of touch, and you still have smell (although the salt doesn't smell bad or anything) and definitely taste (the salt does taste awful if you get a bit in your mouth). You can also hear. I use ear plugs when I float, to keep the water out of my ears, but with or without them, you can very faintly hear the buzz of the ventilation fans, and you can still hear your own breathing and heartbeat.

There isn't any "tripping" happening in the tank, it's just pure relaxation. After a few minutes (time does seem to be completely arbitrary in the tank) I start to crack parts of my body I never knew cracked... there's no pressure of gravity weighting down any parts of your body, so you feel, well weightless. It's incredibly relaxing, and I think that's the value of it. It's not really depriving you of your senses at all, thank god! Instead, it's depriving you of your cell phone, the television, the radio, the report you have to finish for work, or school, the kids, the spouse, the boss, traffic, and any number of other things that can add to the stress of day-to-day life.

Honestly, it's worth doing if for no other reason than you know that when you close the door to the tank, no one is going to interrupt your thoughts for another hour, except you. When you couple that with the relaxation of just floating and being warm, well, when you get out you just feel so relaxed and renewed. I would highly recommend the experience to anyone. If I had a basement, I would build my own so I could do it once a week. It's a great way to recharge, even if it seems like it might be a bit "new age". In reality, it's just a trip to a pampering day-spa with a massage condensed into an hour and for a lot less money.

Windows Tabula Rasa

I'm in the market for a new laptop. I had a Dell 4150 that I absolutely loved, but it was heavy. Well, not by conventional standards, but by my stringent laptop standards. I have a huge brick of a machine for work, it's a loaded Dell, which weighs nearly 8lbs. I was considering using that, but the idea of lugging it back and forth to school/home/work, well, that isn't appealing.

So I've been debating about a Sony PCG-TR* but I waffle back and forth. Then I had this idea about a tablet PC... I thought, maybe the convenience of changing the form factor, combined with the svelte design would be cool. As luck would have it, we have two table PCs at work for evaluation, so I checked one out this weekend.

At first, I was really impressed with the versatility of the table, but honestly, the mystique wore off pretty quickly. After you get over the "cool" factor of being able to flip the screen around to any orientation, the little roughness around the edges of the OS start to grate.

There were lots of minor annoyances, which might have been specific to the particular model, so I won't go into those. There was one major annoyance that would keep me from ever getting one: I type nearly 5x faster than I write.

The handwriting recognition for the Windows XP "Table" Edition, actually works pretty good. But honestly, unless you type painfully slow, it's just quicker to type. And yes, it was cool to lay in bed with my wife, surfing the web with nothing more than a pen, but that doesn't make it worth paying a premium for a feature that is nothing more than "cool". I guess the tablet isn't for me. I think that if you were in the position where you made a living off of presentations (the thing would rule for PowerPoint warriors) then it might be worth it. Otherwise, it's a cool idea that isn't quite there yet.

Thank God for Comment Filters

Last week I made the jump to MovableType 3.0, and so far I'm very happy with the decision. I host a couple of blogs for friends, and I think the 3.0 interface is really great. Not that operation of MT was complicated before, but it's even easier now.

However, the best feature, bar none, is comment registration. I had noticed an increase in comment spam before the upgrade, and I was wasting a lot of time deleting comment spam. I don't know if the increase in spam means an increase in visibility for the blog, but I sure hope so. No matter, with MT 3.0, registered users can post comments to the ol' blog without my intervention, but all other comments are caught before they go live. That let's me stop the "Penis Enlargement" comments on my posts before the go live. That alone is worth the price of the upgrade.