Things I was thinking while getting the dishes done

I wish James Fenimore Cooper was alive so I could sue him for writing painfully boring books with really exciting titles.

If any boy wants to be able to date my daughter, he's going to have to be able to explain the chemical process of water boiling.

Whenever I see Dan Brown, either in interviews or photos, he always strikes me as a conceited, self-absorbed know-it-all who's not as clever as he thinks. (I could be completely wrong here, and I confess that my perception of him stems in part from reading the DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons.)

I'm going to make Cucumber Kimchi next week - I hope it turns out well. (Note: the Korean word for Cucumber is Owi [oh we]).

If there's a snack better than popcorn, I don't want to know what it is.

If you don't want to hear the answer, don't ask the question

A Le Moyne college/Zogby poll has come out, and the responses are interesting, to say the least.

In the poll, which surveyed American troops serving in Iraq, 72% of respondents replied that they think the U.S. should leave Iraq within the next year, and nearly 1 in 4 say they should leave immediately.

29% said they should leave "immediately"
22% said they should leave in the next six months
21% said the troops should be out between 6 and 12 months
23% said they should stay "as long as they are needed"

89% of reserves and 82% of the National Guard said the US should leave within 1 year, while only 58% of Marines felt the same way. Marines are typically the most gung-ho, and I think it's interesting that over half of them support withdrawal within the next year.

When asked about why some Americans in the states favor a rapid withdrawal (which I don't):
37% of treeps overseas said those Americans were unpatriotic
20% said those Americans didn't believe continued occupation would work.
16% - they oppose the use of the military in a pre-emptive war
15% - they don't understand the need for the US troops in Iraq.

Only 58% of those polled said that the US mission in Iraq is very clear in their minds.

On the object of the mission:
85% said it was to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks
77% said they also believe the war was to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.
93% said that removing WMD is NOT a reason for being there
68% said the real reason was to remove Saddam Hussein
24% said that Establishing a democracy that can be the model for the Arab World was the main reason
11% said we were there for oil and 6% said to provide long-term bases for troops in the region.

74% of the troops wee on their second or greater tour in Iraq, 26% were there for the first time.

There is plenty more in the article; it's worth looking at.

I think the scariest things in there are the high number of respondents who believe this is retaliation for 9-11 and the low majority percentage of respondents who said that our reason for being there were clear.

Perhaps it's better to follow the teachings of the Charge of the Light Brigade when you're active duty and not reason why.

Hasta la Vista, Cheney?

According to this article from Insight Magazine, "Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to retire within a year."

The article cites senior officials who say that the VP "would be persuaded to step down as he becomes an increasing political liability to President Bush."

There are a lot of issues cited in the article, and I encourage you to read the article to get an idea of what is going around the scuttlebutt on the upper echelons.

I think it bears noting that the article is very definitive in its statement - he's expected to retire. This isn't a "sources say something might happen sometime in the future maybe," article. The fact that they cite "senior officials" also indicates that there might be more here than mere speculation.

Of course, much like Oscar predictions, only time will tell whether the insiders are right.

And the winner is...

Parade Magazine came out with its list of the ten worst dictators in the world last month. I'm a little behind the times on reporting this because I wasn't aware it (the list, not the magazine) even existed until today.

According to the magazine, "[The] present list draws in part on reports by global human-rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International."

While I can's say that I completely disagree with al-Bashir as their number 1 pick, I think if more people were aware of what a day in North Korea was like, they'd surely bump the Chonger (Kim Chong-Il) up that one extra slot. Notably, there is an absence of one Cuban leader from the list, as well as Qaddafi. Still, the rest of the list is a veritable who's who of the adage regarding absolute power.

488 A.2d 858 (Del. 1985)

Smith v. Van Gorkum. Instead of reading this case, which my professor assures us is one of the two most important Corporations cases (and thus, painfully hard reading without the fear of recitation looming over your head like Damocles' Sword), I decided to do a post.

Every now and then, I'll take part in a political conversation, or I'll read a post by someone (any random person, nobody in particular), and the person will say or write something that strikes me as fundamentally wrong. What they'll say is something to the effect of, "Well, I'm a Democrat/Republican, so I believe XX." I really hope that the person (For ease of typing, I'll say "he") doesn't mean that the way it came out, because it sounds like he is so desperate to belong that he's willing to give up independent thought simply to be able to say he belongs. That might have been somewhat tolerable in high school, where your world is a fishbowl, but the point of high school is to help you learn how to think, or, in these days of no child left behind, how to mark A, B, C, D, or E in the right order.

One of the reasons why I refuse to align with any party is that I don't think that any party has it completely right. There are failures on each side. As such, I won't joing a party line simply because it's mentally efficient. Another reason I don't join is because I enjoy being able to pick on both major parties equally, and the Libertarians on a much lower proportion.

Anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with letting you morals determine your politics; indeed that should guide your way. However, I can't accept anyone arguing that they let their politics determine his morals. Efficient or not, it sacrifices individual integrity.

We support higher learning... just not THAT

DePaul University in Chicago has recently announced that it is going to offer a minor in "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer" studies. Not surprisingly, many Catholics don't like this, and are calling for its abolishment. The program director disagrees, and notes that many of the classes in the program already were being taught at the school. He's also considering adding a class that would address the Church's stance on homosexuality.

De Paul is a Catholic school, however, it's not a mouthpiece for the Catholic Church. Teaching classes on gay studies is not an acceptance of homosexuality by the Church. I personally think, that as an institution for expanding knowledge, a subject such as this would be a good idea, which is essentially what the program's director, Professor Cestaro asserts.

I really can't think of any strong arguments against the curriculum. I can't imagine people would believe that teaching about gay studies would make people gay - that can't be a serious concern anymore. I mean, I majored in Korean studies in undergrad, and when I finished, I didn't decide I wanted to be Korean.

I think it's a good idea.

I'm afraid to see the search hits this might get

A store clerk called police in Pittsburgh on Thursday reporting that a man and woman had asked her to microwave what appeared to be a severed penis wrapped in a towel.

Apparently, the man and woman entered a convenience store and asked the clerk for some paper towels. They then wrapped the towels around an item and asked the clerk to nuke it for 20 seconds. When the clerk handed the item back she saw through the towel what appeared to be a phallus.

The woman who was with the man called police on Friday to offer up her side of the story. According to her, the item in question was actually a prosthetic, filled with the man's urine, that she was going to use for a drug test that was required for a job she was applying for. no word on why she decided to hold the urine in a fake penis, or where she was applying for employment.

Man, I'm glad to be done with retail.

The daughter says:

cat dog cow horse
princess
3

Bills of Attainder

According to my Black's Law Dictionary, abridged seventh edition, a bill of attainder is (2.) a special legslative act prescribing punishment, without a trial, for a specific person or group. Additioally, it notes that Art. 1, section 9, cl. 3 and art. 1, section 10, cl. 1 of the Constitution prohibit bills of attainder.

Why do I mention this? Because that what legislation in MD sort of sounds like to me. The story:

Maryland recently passed a "Fair Share Health Care Fund Act," which states that employers who employ more than 10,000 people in the state must spend at least 8% of their payroll on health care. If they spend less, then they must pay the difference to a state medical assistance fund.

Currently there are four employers in Maryland who fit that description, and one of them has filed suit challenging the law. The lawyers for Wal Mart (Wal Mart not wanting to pay for medical insurance?! The hell you say!) claim that this law is unfair as it only applies to them (not mentioning the other three employers), and that it is squarely violative of ERISA, a federal law that is supposed to create uniform health care standards.

Maryland insists that they are not forcing Wal Mart to increase their health care load. They point out that Wal Mart has a choice, and that they have an option against paying increased health insurance. The article states that many legal scholars think the law won't stand.

I'm on the fence here with how I would like this to turn out. On the one hand, I can see the importance of uniform standards, and I don't like the idea of targeting businesses just because they're big. On the other hand, it's Wal Mart. Wal Mart's health care plan has a reputation for being really poor. One man in an interview pointed out that in order to pay for health care, he would have to part with $200 of his $1200 a month paycheck. In order to make ends meet, many of the employees opt against company health insurance and choose instead to go to free clinics and ERs. This increases the burden on the hospitals and drains resources from the state that need to be replenished somehow, lest the health care system crash.

I suppose if I were pressed to take a position, I would say that I support Maryland's law, though it is a difficult choice for me. I will keep my eye on this.

Those invading circles best watch out

Today, after school, my friend and I went out to a shooting range. It was the first time in a few years that I'd picked up a gun, and his first time ever. I rather enjoyed getting out there again, shooting at little circles 10, 20, 30 feet away.

I'm glad my friend decided to try it out. It was nice to get to refresh my memory on the mechanics and safety of the whole thing by teaching and showing him.

I don't expect I'll be buying a gun again anytime soon; I prefer to keep them out of the house where I have curious children. Still, I think I might start going to the range slightly more often, at least, what I can handle in my budget. It's a good stress relief.

Friday Essay Question

Your Essay Question is as follows:

Is President Bush an example of the Peter Principle as applied to world politics?

Remember to support your answer. Grades will be arbitrary and capricious. I'm looking for the best answer, not the right answer.

The only bad question

Is one that goes unasked. At least, that's what I was told in junior high and high school.

Yet I avoided asking questions, because I was afraid of asking the dumb one. So if I didn't get something, I just let it simmer and either come to me on its own or wait until I forgot all about the item, whichever came first. Usually it was the latter. On the rare occasions that I did muster the courage to ask a question about a concept I didn't understand, I'd get a look from the teacher like I was the biggest idiot ever to walk erect and a dismissive explanation that used the same words in a slightly different order. So I continued to shut up and color.

This habit has continued with me through my adult life, and I'm still never comfortable asking questions, which is usually to my detriment, especially as a law student. I am a bit better, though, than I was in the old days.

Now, about the statement that there's no such thing as a bad question. I can assure you that is not the case. I taught for a few years and have heard many different questions. Most of them were quite good. Even the questions that weren't on point but the student was actually trying to learn something were all right. However, I encountered my fair share of dumb questions. Here's how I define a dumb question:
A question asked not for the acquisition of knowledge, but rather as a means of procrastinating or being difficult.

These questions are usually asked by people who contain a certain degree of smug and inflated sense of self-worth. The person often feels put off by the fact that his time is being wasted learning this stuff that he signed up to learn. I hated those questions, and have vowed never to become "that person."

So anyway, moral of the story - there is such a thing as a dumb question.

The hat is in the ring

The South Dakota Senate approved a bill that would make most abortions in the state illegal. It would call for a felony conviction and a 5 year prison sentence for doctors (or others) who perform abortions.

"(State Senator Julie) Bartling and other supporters ntoed that the recent appointment of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito make the Supreme Court more likely to consider overturning Roe v. Wade. President Bush ... might also have a chance to appoint a third justice in the next few years, they said."

The addition of two justices to support the voiced opposition to RvW of Justices Alito and Thomas. I'm no math major, but I see only four on the potential overturn side. And even then, there's no guarantee on how Justices Roberts or Alito will rule. This is an interesting gamble on the part of South Dakota. The state is betting that the litigation that will certainly ensue will wait until President Bush (maybe) can nominate a new justice to come up for review.

It will be an interesting show, no matter how it goes. I look forward to seeing how it plays out.

Random Trivia

The FDA has never approved aspirin, because nobody is sure how it works. It's never rejected it, either.

Free Speech in Public Schools

The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. That seems to be well established. However, people continually have problems determining what exactly is free speech? What is protected?

I think most people can agree that not all speech should be protected by the First Amendment. I'll ask a question regarding its application at public schools.

As best as I can figure it, there seems to be a limit to protecting free speech at schools to public statements about public affairs. For example, if you speak out against a proposed levy for the school board because of certain disagreements with it, that would likely be protected. However, explaining how the principal is a sumbitch for taking out a picture of her in the yearbook because she disliked it likely would not be protected, and would probably get you suspended.

I pose the following question: at what point, if any, should there be a limit on free speech by students and faculty at public schools? If you could draw the line, where would you draw it?

I look forward to your replies.

Wednesday is Haiku Day

"I'd love a cookie"
From Lord of the Beans is my
Children's new fave quote.

I'm looking forward to your contributions. The above line is in a Veggie Tales DVD they got for Christmas, which they adore.

Independence!

Back in 1999, after the UN demurred, NATO, under pressure from the United States attacked Serbia on behalf of the Kosovar Albanians. You see, Kosovo is in Serbia, and the Serbs consider it the birthplace of their nation. The Kosovars have lived there for quite a while, but control of the region lay with the Serbs. The Kosovar Albanians decided they wanted more of an identity. "We'll CALL ourselves part of Serbia," they said, "but we will have our own money, our own languages, our own language, and we won't pay national taxes." Surprisingly, Serbia didn't like that. Long story short, we invaded to protect the Albanians, and we (the U.S. and NATO) insisted that an independent Kosovo was not a consideration.

Now, Serbia-Montenegro and Kosovo are in negotiations to determine what the future status of Kosovo should be. Perhaps not surprisingly, things aren't going completely swimmingly. One of the primary issues? Kosovar Albanians want independence. How surprising. Serbia doesn't want to give up control of part of their country. The "Contact group" of nations overseeing the discussions, which include US, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Russia, insist that any agreement must be acceptable to the Albanians in Kosovo.

What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if it was the US who was trying to keep a minority from declaring independence from our country's birthplace, Massachussetts, or Virginia, for example? Say, a Native American tribe who was subjugated or forced from their lands under threat of force or inequitable bargaining position... Have we established a precedent where we would allow that to happen? Or is this an example of international hypocrisy?

The problem started by allowing Kosovo to have too much lattitude in its provincial affairs, creating a quasi-independent state in a region that has had millenia of turmoil.

I don't know what the solution is, but I think some preventative maintenance back in 1999 might have been a good start.

The ID problem

Only 5 weeks into the semester and I've actually started researching my paper for Education Law. As I mentioned before, I'm to write on Intelligent Design - the history of religious instruction in schools, the evolution (get it?) of ID, the current status of ID in the US and in Texas, and then attempt to draft an ID program that could pass Constitutional muster.

I started my research by looking up the recent decision Kitzmiller v. Dover Area Sch. Dist., 400 F. Supp. 2d 707. It's an 82 page ruling that goes into the history of ID. The ruling in the case was much deeper than the quick conclusion we all heard on the news a short time ago. The conclusion essentially said that it was "obvious" to everyone that ID was simply creationism in disguise. It didn't go into any explanation of the source of the court's conclusion.

The current incarnation of ID stems ultimately from Thomas Aquinas, who syllogized: Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex; therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer. Both experts for both the plaintiff and the defendant proffered essentially the same argument, except the defense used the term "purposeful arrangement of parts."

There's much more history, including the "Monkey trial," Edwards, Effington, and the Lemon test. It's a very good, but long, decision that does a good job explaining one of the fundamental problems with ID. It'll be interesting to see if ID can be introduced as a curriculum on its own. I'm looking forward to writing this paper.

It's like having a kidney ripped out

About 10 years ago, the Air Force retired the last of its F-111 Fighters. We had the pleasure of watching an interview with one of the crew chiefs of the F-111s at the time. He provided the header quote to describe how he felt about losing the plane he'd worked on for 11 years.

I thought the quote apt for how I felt without my laptop. Fortunately, I got my computer back yesterday, all new and fixed.

I must say, I think I may just keep taking notes by hand. I seem to pay slightly more attention when I'm handwriting vice typing. It's too easy to go into gist mode and simply write down what goes into my ears and not think about what I'm doing. Perhaps it will serve me better in the long run, who knows?

It's good to be back to normal.

Ringy Ringy

Today, as I was going to my car after class, I saw a homeless man. He was leaning up on the fence that surrounds the student parking lot, his bag hanging from one of the bars. That in and of itself is less interesting as the fact that this homeless man was talking on a cell phone.

Now I know that they make all sorts of inexpensive deals on cell phone plans these days, and just about everyone has one. Yet, I couldn't help but wonder, who this man had to talk to that was so important he needed to carry a cell phone?

We truly are a wired world, aren't we?