not another quote

I took a break from studying to watch Office Space, and heard this line that I can’t believe I didn’t remember.

Peter: [discussing a hypnotherapist] "I think that the guy might actually be able to help. I mean, he did help Anne lose weight."

Samir: "Peter, she's anorexic."

Peter: "Yeah, I know. The guy's really good."


I know it’s another short quote-post, but I’m busy.

a quote from Stephen Hawking

"I am quite often asked: How do you feel about having ALS? The answer is, not a lot."

the week of non-studying

Monday: Studied at the library until 2:00am. Very productive.

Tuesday: Visited the wife’s relatives. Managed to sequester myself in a quiet room and work all day on the tax outline. Somewhat productive.

Wednesday: Migraine. No studying.

Thursday: Thanksgiving with the parents, migraine and a little vomiting just for good measure. Virtually no studying (though I did manage to get through 12 whole evidence flashcards).

Friday: More migraine, plus the UT / A&M game. Will actually make it to school today. (hopefully) Somewhat productive.


At this rate, I’ll be lucky if I even finish my outlines, let alone take care of all of my reading.

slow clap for Fleming & Associates

At the risk of turning this into a random shout-out page, I want to say a few things about the 2005 class of summer clerks at Fleming & Associates.

In the mock trial and moot court classes, all four South Texas clerks received brief awards (granted, Andrew’s team did better than the Gaytor/Panda duo). Three received speaker awards: Pearce was 1st in moot court, Gardale was 2nd in mock trial and I don’t remember what place Amanda received in moot court. None of them seemed too outwardly excited about their awards, though I’m pretty sure Gardale was so excited that he went home a cried like a girl (after all, his nickname is Cries at Night).

I’m not sure what Fleming is going to do now that we are all gone. They’ll be lucky to pick up six Corey Cougars next summer.

I would like to point out that your humble 12(e) correspondent not only failed to secure a speaker award, but was likely one of the bottom speakers in the entire Leerooooooooooooy Jeffers Moot Court Tournament. In a nutshell, to determine which teams advance to the next round, the judges add the team’s brief’s score to the combined points awarded to the speakers. Our team had the best speaker and the second best brief, and yet we did not make the playoffs. Who, I ask you, is the weak link? I couldn’t advocate my way out of a paper bag. The upside is that Dean (I refuse to call him “Coach”) Treece has no present intention of making me speak, and is content to leave me as a brief writer.

I guess I don’t hate all people

Before I get too deeply involved in cramming for finals (by cramming, I mean finally reading the assignments for the days I skipped), I’d like to give a sincere 12(e) thank you and slow-clap to § b’s Michael LaMendola and Sara Sundrla. These fine individuals gave me their copious notes for all my classes to make up for my equally copious number of absences. There are no finer people at the venerable Stickle than these two. Huzzah!

Just like last year, feel free to ask me any questions about our classes. Unlike last year, I won’t actually know the answer, but you’ll at least get to make fun of how upset I get when I can’t figure it out.

South Texas Web Portal

We have a winner in the “Name the Portal” contest: S.T.A.N.L.E.Y. -or- “South Texas Access Network Linking Everything to You.” I don’t think they could have picked a more inane, childish entry. Were they so desparate for an acronym that this is what they picked? If they really wanted a South Park character, why not the “Campus Access, Registration and Technology Mainframe And Network.”

On a scale of 120-180, I give it a 139.

terrorism

Two brief observations from the recent hotel bombings in Jordan.

The bombers attacked three hotels that are popular with westerners; this is most likely to allow them the opportunity to kill Americans without actually going to America. The result? Of 56 fatalities, 53 are from Muslim countries: 33 Jordanians, 6 Iraqis, 2 Bahrainis, an Indonesian and a Saudi. Additionally, they killed two Chinese and a staggering one American. Though we at The Great Satan occasionally hit our own troops (or the Canadians, journalists, etc.) we at least kill more Iraqis than allies.

Second, I really enjoyed what the Jordanian crowd chanted at a rally the next day: “Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!” I cannot think of a better use for that phrase, but I can’t image a crowd chanting something like that in unison. I guess Jordanian protesters are more skilled than their American counterparts. At UT, they rarely strayed beyond “What do we want? No war! When do we want it? Now!” and “Dick Chen-ey has got to go, hey hey, ho ho” and finally “no _(justice)_(recount)_(jobs for slacker anthropology majors)_, no peace!”

election day

Though the wife is voting against Prop 2 (I can’t vote, but I’m forcing my non-voting sister to go in my stead) tomorrow, I’m still expecting it will pass. Though I haven’t seen any polls, I think it will probably go through 65–35%.

Between prop 2 and the state education “reform,” I decided to be a solid Democrat for Texas state elections. Unfortunately, I just remembered the whole I’d-rather-leave-the-state-than-let-the-majority-out-vote-me incident of a few years ago. I guess I’ll be voting Libertarian.

stupid French

Three quick observations about this article covering the French riots. The article notes that ten cops were injured by gunfire, but gives no indication of rioter injuries; the police didn’t even seem to return fire. Good job protecting the public.

Next, “France's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organization, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, issued a fatwa, or religious decree. It forbade all those ‘who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others.’” This is nice. They didn’t say “don’t riot,” just “make sure who owns the property before you light it on fire.” It would be like an American evangelical stating “don’t discriminate against those you think are gay; make sure they’re gay before you harass them.”

Finally, I thought this item was humorous: the French Interior Minister said the rioters were “scum.” To prove him wrong, a 17 year old drove a car into a housing project and then burned both the car and the project down. He then demanded that the minister step down. Yes, only a fool would refer to one who would burn down a poor person’s house as ‘scum.’

The French don’t seem to have any plan on stopping the rioting. I suppose the French know that the rioters don’t have any WMDs, and, as we all know, if someone has no WMDs, there cannot ever be any good reason for using force, no matter what. Never.
All that is left is for Jacques Chirac to publicly announce “I, for one, welcome our rioting, disaffected Muslim youth overlords.”