12(e)

update

2008-04-21T05:04:00.003-05:00

In case the fact that this hasn't been updated since early 2006 hasn't clued you in, the blog is dead. Go away.

Though, for the curious, here is the epilogue:

2006: moot court, got job, unfortunate disagreement with the roommate, emo; overall a pretty shitty year (quite a bit worse than being sprayed in the face with the insecticide).
2007: more emo, law review drama, didn't study for Bar, bought a car; overall only slightly less shitty.
2008 (thusfar): still emo, moved, insomnia, work; shaping up to be better than 2007, but still in the shitty range.

Lessons learned: life as a student is underrated, mathematical calculations on expected utility in a relationship can bite you in the ass, and the cake is a lie.

Top posts on this fair blog:

3) lyrics to the Scorpion's Send me an Angel;
2) people upset about me not liking the fact that the hacks at Simmons & Fletcher use God to help them shill their legal services for filthy lucre;
1) ASCII camel. Popular in France and the mideast. This is the second hit on google and the first on google image search for an ASCII camel. I guess if the law thing doesn't work out I can always fall back on that.

gl hf dd, now gtfo and eabod

HOLY CRAP! People are Getting Wounded in Iraq!

2006-01-29T13:04:00.000-06:00

As I’m sure all you know, the number one story in the US right now (it is the top story on the webpages of ABC, CBS, CNN and the #2 stories on FOXNews, MSNC and the New York Times) is that two men are in serious but stable condition following a roadside-bomb attack in Iraq. While such events kill American and Iraqi soldiers every daily with little media fanfare, today’s attack injured a reporter and his cameraman. This is hardly new, as the death/injury/kidnapping of a reporter generates several times as much press as when a soldier or other civilian is similarly harmed. You’d think the media was over there to liberate Iraq and the soldiers who get killed far more often are simply embedded troops in the news crews.

I’m glad that our media knows which group is more important: those doing the thankless and far more dangerous job of trying to win the war or those who voluntarily watch the war to bring themselves fame and give the world such pretty pictures. While I pray for the newsmen who were injured, I certainly have no more concern for them than the American and Iraqi soldiers and civilians who have been (or will be) killed or injured.

fourth-semester fun

2006-01-22T15:12:00.000-06:00

After taking a week off to celebrate the brief being finished (51 pages of Voting Rights Act fun!), I can finally get back to what’s important: school and video games. The best part of being the brief writer is that, though my Christmas break was a living hell, I get to collect a free credit hour this semester despite being finished on the first day of class.

The second week of school hasn’t started, and I’ve already made three trips to the happiest place in Houston — the registrar’s office — to make schedule changes. First I dropped Oil & Gas in favor of environmental law, then switched Secured Transactions for First Amendment (I couldn’t take another Mussleman course after my tax debacle) and finally dropped Texas Pretrial Procedure for Agency & Partnership. This gives me 5 cumulative hours of bar-related electives (which Pearce and the Gaytor seem to find insufficient).

With any luck, I’ll get my student loan disbursement soon and will be able to stop being forced to put everything I buy on a credit card.

Here I am, in the land of the morning star

2006-01-09T00:21:00.000-06:00

I think I’ve finally cracked. I’m working on the brief on my third consecutive all-nighter, and I just added “Send me an Angel” by the Scorpions to my Yahoo! playlist.

An 1856 case even I won't cite.

2006-01-07T01:32:00.000-06:00

I’m trying to find a good quote about limited government for the brief, so I do a quick terms and connectors search on Lexis looking for some specific words in a sentence. Only one case comes back, and the quote was exactly what I needed. Unfortunately, that case was none other than Dred Scott v. Sanford, 90 U.S. 393, 509 (1856). Though I rarely pass up the chance to cite—let alone quote—a nineteenth century case, I don’t think that I’ll cite it in a Voting Rights Case. It just doesn’t look good to argue about racial equality while citing the case that discusses the public opinion of “the civilized and enlightened portions of the world” regarding “that unfortunate race.” Id. at 407.

Another interesting thing about that case: it is 240 pages long. At least we didn’t have to this case in con law.

Gas and Mass in Pearland: A Report

2006-01-02T13:41:00.000-06:00

I dropped the wife off at work in Pearland, and I decided to get some gas before I left for home (the fact that the gas light had been on for about three miles helped this decision considerably). When I get to the pump, the LCD screen says something to the effect of “would you like some [fuel additive] friend?” Call me old fashioned, but I don’t often consider myself friends with things that (1) I’ve only known for 30 seconds and (2) are gas pumps. If it were my friend, shouldn’t it at least give me the gas at cost or with a discount? Gas pumps, like Taco Bell, serve only one purpose: giving gas to the American public.

Once my new friend is filling up the car, the pump’s LCD screen shows an ad for a cigarette brand called something like “Libson” or “Libberato.” The cigarette’s slogan: “get Libby with it.” I cringed.

After giving up on watching the screen, I started looking at my friend’s house. On one of the pillars next to pump had the following graffiti: “D & D 4 EVAR.” Given my record of abysmal spelling, I’ll let the “evar” go. Looking at the initials, I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was written by some guy named Dave about how much he loved Donna, or if it was some pasty nerd who really liked his level 15 Elf Mage.*

Later, the wife and I go for the first time to some Catholic Church in Pearland. While the services were more or less the same as usual (“We believe in the teachings of Cathol . . .**), the music was, to say the least, odd. Our last two churches had fairly traditional music. The first had a small choir and a piano. The Pasadena church had a choir, a rather large pipe organ and the occasional bell just for good measure. The new church, on the other hand, had a choir and piano as well as a cheesey synthesizer, electronic drum kit and a bunch of high school students with horns. It was like the church choir was a mix of Chicago and Tears for Fears.

* I’m pretty sure that making a Dungeons & Dragons joke is grounds for an annulment, so hopefully the wife won’t read down this far.

** I’ll give one shiny quarter to the first person who can correctly identify this quote

Interesting Night

2005-12-31T12:17:00.000-06:00

The wife and I are at Chili’s last night when I scurry off to the privy. I walk up to the urinal and, as I’m stopping, my right foot hits a wet spot and loses contact with the ground. Thankfully, I managed to plant the other foot and catch myself against the wall. I can’t imagine how bad it would have been to fall: you can normally assume that wet spots in restaurants are caused by spilled drinks, but a puddle directly underneath a urinal is, to say the least, not something I’d like to land in.

When the wife and I leave, we see the most interesting car I’ve seen in a while. It is a mid 1970’s model Cadillac with shiny metallic gold paint and spinner rims around ridiculously small tires. As much as I would love to roll with some wheels like those my car, I live about a mile from the place on I 45 where some guy was shot twice in the head for his rims.

Once we got home, I finally crawled out from under the rock and downloaded Firefox. About the only thing I like about Firefox more than Explorer is that Firefox lets me save my log in info for the grade checker website (Explorer would let me save the username and password, but I had to type in my SSN and PIN). This isn't particularly useful, however, as I normally open up the window as soon as I get out of bed and just continually refresh it. Regardless of the relative merits of the browers (before you castigate me p-man, I know it has security features blah blah blah), but I now get to join the pretentious ranks of Firefox users who mock IE people constantly.

shoot me

2005-12-26T03:24:00.000-06:00

Great, it’s 3:30am the (early) morning after Christmas, and I just took my last two caffeine pills and am working on a paper. I honestly think my life will get easier once class starts and I’m done with this infernal brief.

epilogue: “Caffeine” has a funny spelling.

addendum: I really like the word “infernal.” That could be sign that I have too many brain cells devoted to Diablo II.

pocket part: If one were suffering from nighttime demonic possession (very similar to adverse possession), could they say that they have a nocturnal infernal internal problem?

cumulative supplement: I really need more sleep if I’m trying to make jokes like these; I don’t even want to think about how unreadable this brief is turning out.

More fun in downtown Houston

2005-12-23T19:55:00.000-06:00

The wife and I are at the school working on the Law Review assignment from Hell when we decide to take a break and go have dinner. Planning on a bountiful feast at the lovely McDonald’s, we start walking to the car. When we were a half-block away from the corner of San Jacinto and Bell, we saw a group of yoots (about four guys in their late teens/early twenties) vandalizing the bus stop; they were knocking over the newspaper holders and throwing the papers around. I'm not sure how one would classify doing this as entertainment, but to each his own.

Not yet having a concealed weapon permit, we turned and walked back to the school. Being civic minded individuals, we called 911 to report the crime in progress. This part is fun. After twelve rings, a person picks up. She asked, in a very slurred and garbled voice, what city I’m in. I reply and, while I’m attempting to explain the situation, she abruptly transfers me. Once I start talking to the next person (who is equally difficult to understand), I explain the situation. She asks if I need fire, EMS or police. I was tempted to request a fire truck just to see the firefighters break out the axes, but I asked for the police. She then―again without warning―transfers me to some other person. This woman again asks if I need the police and then asks me what is going on. I explain the situation and she tells me that I need the Metro Police.

She then transfers me to the even more difficult to hear Metro Police, and I start to tell what happened. About three seconds into the narrative, she cuts me off. I had a full signal, the phone didn’t make the dropped call sound and have never dropped a call at that location (despite talking on my phone at that point twice a day for three semesters). I guess the Metro Police is too busy doing God-knows-what to try to stop a pillaging band of vagabonds who are blocking me from my car and thus my Extra Value Meal.

Stupid Canadians

2005-12-20T19:30:00.000-06:00

Two interesting articles about Canada:

Canadian snipers lauded as experts in Afghan action

It appears some Canuck has broken the longstanding record for the longest sniper kill. A Canadian sniper (with US observer) dinged an Afghan at 2,430 meters. Though I’ve said some disparaging things about the Canadian military from time to time, you’ve got to respect them for dropping a guy at 1.5 miles. This beat the 35 year record of 2,250 meters set by American Carlos Hathcock.

Authority to 'chastise' Jews claimed

The point of this story is that a man on trial for his anti-Semitic blog is claiming the defense that he, by virtue of some ancient documents in his possession, has the scriptural authority to “chastise” Jews. Sadly, the crazy racist’s defense against criminal charges doesn’t include a freedom of speech argument (which would presumptively lose in Canada). That’s right, Canada — our ostensibly freedom-loving neighbor to the north — can and will bring criminal charges against you for pure speech on the internet. Not only that, but the Canadian news source reporting on it doesn’t even find the ‘prosecution for speech’ aspect notable enough to deserve comment. It’s times like this where I thank God that we have the ACLU.

Pork Chop Sandwiches

2005-12-13T20:25:00.000-06:00

I spent a good hour at this website the day of the tax final (it really helped explain the interplay between §§195 and 212).

Back in the day, a staple of Saturday morning cartoon watching was the GI Joe show (go Joe!). At the end of each episode, they would give a stupid “knowing is half the battle” public service announcement. This wonderful website has taken these POS PSAs and replaced all of the dialog. They made the words match the mouth movements, so some of the statements make little to no sense.

Most of them are stupid, but these are some of the better ones:

when not to use a fire alarm

safety on and around frozen ponds *

fire safety while cooking *

not drinking your parents’ liqueur

skateboarding

dealing with stray dogs

bicycle safety

* Be ye’ warned, these have naughty language.

I think I had a minor heart attack

2005-12-05T19:25:00.000-06:00

I logged onto the student inquiry system to check my exam number, and I decided I’d check my schedule to see what next semester’s finals schedule will be. It showed me this semester’s schedule, and something didn’t look right. I’m only taking four finals (evidence, property II, admin and tax), and it had a lot more entries. One was law review, so that’s ok. Another was Appellate Advocacy, so I wouldn’t need to take a final for it either. Also on the list was the wonderful 2 hour class Jurisprudence. I thought I’d dropped the class the second day of the semester. I hadn’t been to the class all semester and the final exam was last week. At this point I’m beginning to panic.

Suddenly, the wife calls to talk about one of our many cats. I know she’ll freak out if she finds out that I may have failed a course, so I can’t tell her until after I know for sure. After several awkward minutes, I get off the phone and run to the registrar. After typing furiously on her computer, the woman told me that the course is still on my schedule, but it is listed (on her computer) as being dropped. That was a truly terrifying ten minutes; it was about as bad as the time in undergrad I skipped a final exam.

the judge is a psycho hose-beast

2005-12-04T13:18:00.000-06:00

The other day I made a totally amazing, excellent discovery by finding the case of Noble v. Bradford Marine, 789 F. Supp. 395 (S.D. Fla. 1992). It’s a standard procedure case about subject matter jurisdiction in a removal case. I will offer a brief synopsis of the facts with actual quotations from the court’s opinion. A boat owned by the defendant caught fire and began "hurling chunks" of flaming debris into the air; this ignited the plaintiff’s vessel. The case was filed in state court, removed to federal court and remanded back, as all the defendants failed to join the removal. When all hopes of removal seemed gone, "like a winged monkey flying out of the ashes," the defendants came together to file a supplemental notice of removal. Though this removal came after the 30 deadline to remove, it was tolled because of the previous attempt to remove. "Not!" The defendants argument concerning an alternate source of admiralty jurisdiction was just "a schwing and a miss." The attempt at removal was "not worthy" and the parties were forced to "party on in state court".

It must be fun to be that judge’s clerk.

On a related note, I had an 11th grade English assignment of writing a poem. I couldn’t think of a topic, so I decided to go with a theme: I would write the poem with the sole intent of working in as many Metallica song titles as possible. I have a copy of it somewhere at home, but it ended up with about 30 songs in a single page, and wasn’t too bad. While the whole thing was a well received discussion of the perils and pitfalls of choosing a major, it came off as distinctly suicidal. My friends told me it appeared I was considering killing myself by self-immolation. I would never do such a thing because everyone knows that only anti-war hippies light themselves on fire. Losers.

I realize that was a boring story, but I needed a break from studying.

UPDATE! One of our loyal readers (codename: Smoke-Smoke) has forwarded the follow reference that she herself penned. In the case of Longoria v. Kelly Services*, 2005 WL 1866145 (S.D. Tex. 2005), one Mary Moreno Longoria filed a sexual harassment suit. She argued, inter alia, that she was offended by the use of the term “mojo”; the plaintiff believed the term to be a synonym for the main reproductive organ. Foot note 16 of the opinion, however, defines the meaning of the term and offers the following note: “‘[m]ojo was widely popularized by the movie character . . . Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (New Line Productions 1999).

I would like to applaud this footnote for two reasons. First, and certainly most noticeable, is the use of the full word “Productions” instead of the abbreviation “Prods.” To a casual observer, this is failure to properly abbreviate as per Table 6 of the Bluebook. Your humble blogger is not, however a casual bluebooker. “Prods.” is reserved exclusively as the abbreviation for “products,” and thus would be an improper abbreviation for “productions.”

Also laudable is the title given Mr. Powers. He is not simply “Austin Powers,” but “Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery,” much as my sister is Rachel Lastname, M.D. or I am Sam Jur, B.A.

law school comes full circle

2005-12-01T00:37:00.000-06:00

I’m working on my property II outline when I get to recording statutes. I’m trying to come up with a concise explanation for the effect of notice under a race-notice statute. Without even thinking about it, I wrote “lack of notice is not enough, it only gets your nose in the tent.”

Professor Moore would be proud.

UPDATE: upon request from Darcy (Striker!), here is my lovely ASCII camel from the outline.

UPDATE II (to the wife): challenge accepted:

The ASCITTY

not another quote

2005-11-28T01:01:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-26T16:28:00.000-06:00

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

the week of non-studying

2005-11-25T15:27:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-19T19:40:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-15T22:40:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-11T17:46:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-10T16:04:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-07T22:30:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-07T09:05:00.000-06:00

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.”

hallofreakingween

2005-10-31T20:11:00.000-06:00

I'm walking into my apartment at about 8:00 pm; I'm in my suit and I'm tired from the stupid moot court round. As I'm walking in, some "trick-or-treater" (I'm sorry, a windbreaker is not a costume) sees my suit and asks "what are you supposed to be, a lawyer?" "I am a lawyer" I responded, walke d around him, went inside. I then had the pleasure of sitting inside and ignoring the little bastard banging on the door. I'm sorry, but I don't see how some quasi-pagan ritual gives you an entitlement to (and me a duty to provide) candy. I should have given him a Q-Tip (or whatever the Wal-Mart brand call it, (S-Tips?)) and told him not to stick it in his ear.

I hate kids.

UPDATE: 37 % of Americans are Idiots

2005-10-29T00:07:00.000-05:00

WARNING: elitist mocking of other people’s worldview’s to follow.

According to this FoxNews poll, almost two fifths of Americans are tragically stupid. Granted, the 2004 election showed that slightly below half of Americans aren’t particularly bright, but one could blame that on misguided enthusiasm. This poll asked Americans whether they believe in: God (91%), heaven (87%), hell (74%), etc. While I do believe in the those three, I would say “no” to such things as ghosts (34%) and reincarnation (27%). I can’t really mock those who disagree with me on those points because such questions aren’t really provable one way or the other.

I do take issue, however, with the whopping 47% who believe in astrology. Unlike the existence of the devil (67%) or miracles (84%), astrology is falsifiable. Moving beyond this, astrology seeks to make predictions of future events; unlike a metaphysical topic like angels (79%), one can observe whether astrology is accurate. On a general level, it seems rather absurd that, of 6 billion people, there are only 12 ways a person’s week can turn out. More specifically, I doubt that anyone (by anyone, I mean both people who read this blog) can honestly claim that their astrological predictions work so much as a third of time.
What is truly frightening is that I doubt there is much overlap between the 37% who believe in astrologists and the 23% who think God sent Katrina to punish New Orleans. Assuming at least 10% overlap (sadly, I know quite a few who would say ‘yes’ to both), a good half of Americans aren’t particularly bright.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s husband

2005-10-25T17:18:00.000-05:00

Today I happened upon the bio of Martin Ginsburg (husband of Supreme Court justice and wicked witch of the east Ruth Bader Ginsburg) on his firm’s website. The man seems pretty funny; a few excerpts:

Professor Ginsburg attended Cornell University, stood very low in his class and played on the golf team. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School which, in those years, did not field a golf team.

Professor Ginsburg entered private practice in New York City in 1958. He withdrew from full-time practice when appointed the Beekman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and moved to Georgetown University in 1980 when his wife obtained a good job in Washington.

In the interim, Professor Ginsburg served as Chairman of the Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association, . . . from 1984 to 1987 he was a member of the ABA Tax Section Council, where he performed no useful service at all.

In 1986, someone who probably prefers never to be identified endowed a Chair in Taxation in his name at Georgetown; no one appears willing to occupy the Ginsburg Chair, and it remains vacant. In 1993, the National Women's Political Caucus gave Professor Ginsburg its "Good Guy" award; history reveals no prior instance of a tax lawyer held to be a "Good Guy," or even a "Decent Sort."

Professor Ginsburg is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, a frequent speaker at tax seminars, mainly in warm climates, and the author of one exciting treatise (with J.S. Levin of Chicago) and a ghastly number of articles on corporate and partnership taxation, business acquisitions and other stimulating things. Professor Ginsburg's spouse was a lawyer before she found better work. Their older child was a lawyer before she became a schoolteacher. The younger child, when he feels grumpy, threatens to become a lawyer.

How can you hate a Justice with such a funny spouse? I'm not sure, but I still do.

Fun new law school rankings

2005-10-23T18:30:00.000-05:00

I happened upon a new set of law school rankings that I found interesting. Just so you don’t get your hopes up, it only showed the top 50, and our beloved South Texas didn’t make the cut (though I have it on good authority that we are 51st). It starts off normally enough with Harvard in 1st; granted Yale is normally first, but you can’t go wrong with HLS. Our buddies in Austin managed number 5, while Yale only made it to 6. Things get progressively worse when the University of Chicago (39) only beats U of H by one place.

Though I enjoy any ranking that says I was accepted to a better school than Stanford or Duke, this ranking is pure idiocy. I know what you’re thinking: either “such an apocalyptically bad ranking must be made by idiots” or “Sam is a beautiful, beautiful man.”* You’re right on both accounts. This list was put out by the only school that is arguably worse than TSU: the good people at Thomas Cooley Law School. Apropos, it should be noted that Cooley was objectively ranked at number 18. No wonder the ABA is attempting to revoke the school accreditation.

*Whily you were no doubt thinking “Sam deserves a Pulitzer for this marvelous Civ Pro themed blog, I must humbly concede that P-Man’s blog is a better choice. It has its own mugs; that’s just cool.

Do fictional characters have standing?

2005-10-15T15:13:00.000-05:00

Researching the brief, I came across the case of Metro. Stevedore Co. v. John Rambo, 521 U.S. 121 (1997). In the case, Rambo, back from shooting up Brian Dennehy and kicking some commie butt in ‘Nam, returns to civilian life as a longshoreman to battle the Federal Government all the way to the Supreme Court. Seriously, how cool would be to actually have the name John Rambo? Of course the government denied him worker’s comp, they assumed the application used a pseudonym.

On a related note, I’ve managed to work in citations to Marbury v. Madison and Erie R.R. v. Tompkins. I feel sorry for Dean Treece when he has to read it. Now all I need to do is cite the Magna Carta and Code of Justinian and I’ll have the most obscure

stupide survey result

2005-10-09T19:21:00.000-05:00

While trying to avoid working on my brief, I stumbled across this little gem of a statistic: “9 in 10 kids 8-16 yrs. have viewed porn online, mostly accidentally while doing homework.” Since only the kids only “mostly” gave the ridiculous homework excuse, at least some gave the honest answer.
On a related note, I actually have stumbled across a porn site while doing homework. While in the library computer at my high school, I attempted to see if there is a “freenchrevolution.com” since I was researching the French Revolution. It instantly redirected me to a porn site, causing me to warm-boot the computer when the librarian walked by before I could close the barrage of pop-ups.

My only Supreme Court post

2005-10-03T23:31:00.000-05:00

Without addressing any of the intellectual merits or faults of Chief Justice Roberts, I am going to have to offer this criticism:

Why did he ditch Bill Rehnquist's spunky gold stripes?

I know that few did, but I liked the stripes. Granted they looked like something from Mr. Justice T (I pity the fool who fails to have standing!), but they at least broke the monotony (who likes going to places where everyone is wearing black?).

Poll: One in Five Americans say God Uses the Gulf Coast as a Bowling Alley

2005-10-02T21:16:00.000-05:00

I promise, this was intended to be a very short post, but it sort of took on a life of its own.

According to an ABC News poll, 23% of respondents say that Hurricans Katrina and Rita are “deliberate acts of God.”

I have two problems with this position.* The first, are all hurricanes “deliberate acts of God” or only the ones that are memorable. If the former, why does God like to throw us the occasional large to catastrophic storm? Does he get bored by mainly hitting the US with category two storms and having the bulk of all tropical cyclones hit absolutely nothing and dissipate at sea? Either God must seriously dislike places that are disproportionately hit (e.g., Jamaica, Florida and Haiti), or He likes to randomly shoot them in all directions (if this is case, how can randomness be a “deliberate” act of an omnipotent power?).

If only certain hurricanes are the will of God, more problems arise. As a threshold matter, how can we divine the divine and tell the natural cyclones from the supernatural? Statistically, New Orleans is likely to get dinged a time or two. If a hurricane hits an uninhabited place (or fails to make landfall), it is just an ordinary hurricane; if a major city is hit, however, it must be because God was aiming for it. This position would make a large coastal city remarkably safe from hurricanes as they would be protected from all normal hurricanes (presumably the majority of all hurricanes) and only be at risk whenever God is in a smiting mood (this is because a storm hitting, for example, New Orleans or Houston is inevitably attributed to some divine plan and never to standard weather patterns).

Assuming that The Big Guy is taking pot shots at the US (and Gulf Coast in particular), why does He seem to particularly dislike (or at least enjoying hurricaning) certain groups. Honduras, Haiti and Florida are routinely hit, and New Orleans and Beaumont are believed by 23% of Americans to be targets of the Almighty. These areas have diverse religious practices (pagan, Protestant, Jewish and God’s One True Church: Catholic). All have varying degrees of political tumult and all have varying levels of poverty (from the crushing poverty of Haiti to the endless trailer parks of East Texas and Florida). The good folks at the Volokh Conspiracy noted that, if God is sending these hurricanes, He must really hate poor people; this is drawn from the fact that, overall, the incredible majority of hurricane victims are extremely poor (trust me, Haiti makes the worst parts of New Orleans look like the Hamptons).

To use New Orleans as an example, God had plenty of potentially ripe targets. New Orleans has the remarkably hedonistic and pagan Mardi Gras festivities , the gay-pride Southern Decadence celebration and a fair number of water-borne casinos. I am in no way stating that these groups should be killed or injuried by God, this is simply a list of what various people have claimed to be potential Katrina targets.

If He were indeed aiming for these potential targets, let’s check His accuracy (bearing in mind that, being all powerful, he should probably be pretty friggin’ accurate). Katrina hit well before Mardi Gras and more or less missed the French Quarter; Mardi Gras will likely go forward in 2006 without much slowing down. Not only was Mardi Gras as an instution stopped, but the offending celebrants were missed altogether (remember, Mardi Gras is purported to be a religious celebration that is screwed up by the bead-toting tourists). With the exception of Tulane and various small colleges, virtually no drunken frat guys were adversely affected by the storm. Not only will the partying continue, but the people debauching the occasion will return.

As for the Southern Decadence extravaganza, Katrina hit a week or two before everything kicked off. Granted the parade was very subdued this year, but it will continue next year and all of the homosexuals (the elusive and contemptable group of taxpayers) weren’t in the city to face The Almighty’s Wrath. I think Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked not to inconvenience the sinners, but because destroying the city was an effective way to kill the people in it.** Furthermore, I would think that there are more accurate tools for eliminating a certain group; lightning is a much more efficient means for dispatching a discrete group than a 250 mile wide storm. I think it’s fair to say that gays weren’t a target of Katrina given the storm’s abysmal job of doing anything to harm them.

Finally, the casinos were effectivally destroyed; I don’t think very many coastal casinos survived the storm. Unfortunately for the divine plan, all of these casinos are insured and their management will not lose much money as a result of Katrina. The only up side is that the people of Louisiana will not be able to gamble for several months. Furthermore, I’m going to have to raise the overkill problem again: floating buildings may be destroyed by much simpler means than a giant, city destroying hurricane. I don’t see the benefit of killing 1,000 people to get rid of a few casinos the hard way.

If there was aiming involved, it could only be directed at one group: poor people. Mardi Gras revelers are typically wealthy college students, gays are disproportionately rich and your average food stamp user doesn’t spend much time at expensive casinos (local illegal bookies, maybe). Whereas the casinos, bars and hotels are all insured, poor people typically have no such safety net; if your apartment or government supplied housing is flooded, you lose everything you own. Also, at least 100,000 people were left in the city when the storm hit. Most of the Mardi Grasers and gay pride marchers live all across the country, so they were safe. The people who were left were too poor to own a car for the evacuation. Thus, the great majority of the 1,000 or so people who died were poor and did not fit into any other targeted group (though the looters didn’t help the aggregate innocence of those who stayed behind, it is worth noting (1) that the huge majority of the group didn’t commit any crime and (2) the looters, by definition, survived the storm and thus is another example of God missing a smitable target). This fails the rule God set before dealing with those punks in Gomorrah when he noted that he would spare the city (and the sinners) if 10% of the population is righteous; since I think its fair assumption that at least 100 of those killed were innocent, the Lot test is satisfied.

* Though I am attempting a logical argument, I am presupposing the existence of an all powerful God as defined by the Holy Catholic Chruch.
** As a papist, I don’t take a literal reading of the Jehovah v. Sodam, et al.; it is, however, a useful tool for (1) showing God’s power and (2) showing that he isn’t into indiscriminate killing.

Supreme Court votes 8-1 to lose virginity

2005-09-29T21:33:00.000-05:00

A fine article from The Onion.

The 100th post is an Aggie joke

2005-09-26T13:56:00.000-05:00

How does an Aggie protect his windows from a hurricane?

He puts the plywood behind his windows.

update:

I found this picture of some anti-war protestor. Without addressing the merits of his argument (I can't tip any of you off as to my political leanings), I simply ask "who would go out looking like that?" I'm embarassed for him.

Back home

2005-09-25T04:34:00.000-05:00

The wife and I finally found out that our apartment did, in fact, have power (she had the brilliant idea of calling to see if the answering machine picked up). Hoping to beat the traffic and make it to class, we left at midnight. Though there was some strange and heavy traffic on Highway 71, we made it in a mere 4 hours. Also, I am happy to report that I am typing this on my desktop; no one stole from us. I was so excited that the two rejection letters in the mailbox didn’t even bring me down. I’ll be sad tomorrow after I have sleep and the novelty of being back in the ghetto wears off.

life as a refugee

2005-09-23T02:06:00.000-05:00

Rita should come ashore in 24 hours, and it looks like my apartment won't be completely flooded. I am, however, thinking there is a 50/50 chance it will be looted; there have already been reports of break-ins in Galveston. Since the storm is turning, I wouldn't mind driving back now (sans the wife, she doesn't like large storms) to defend whatever hasn't been stolen yet. Unfortunately, I doubt I could make back into the 'Dena until after the storm passes. That should be fun, as all the people who spent 10 hours driving to Austin will be taking the same route I am back to Houston. The wife and I now get to balance a desire to avoid a dozen hours in the car with the need to survey how much we still have left (and mitigate the losses if it all hasn't been stolen yet).

It's sad that I'm more worried about my criminal neighbors than the hurricane.

I'm out

2005-09-21T02:04:00.000-05:00

I don't have time for a full post, so here's my email to Andrew:

The most recent Nat'l Hurricane Center forecast came out, and it looks bad for the 'Dena; the western eyewall is likely to pass near or over Houston, and my part of Pasadena is under a voluntary evacuation notice (there's a pretty good chance that nothing will happen to our apartment, but the risk is too much for the benefit of staying). The official report (not the local news muckrakers) says it should hit as a strong category 4 and "a category 5 hurricane is a distinct possibility." Since I know I won't be able to evacuate tomorrow due to all of the traffic on I-10 and the wife is getting a little freaked out, we're going to Belton to see my parents. I love starting a long drive at 3am (we can't leave until we put everything worth stealing in my car). Despite my doom and gloom predictions, you should be fine in Kingwood: its far enough north and west to avoid the bad stuff.

If the wife and I get killed driving home, feel free to make fun of us at our funerals.

Wal Mart is incompetent

2005-09-18T00:22:00.000-05:00

The other day, I listed the many types of posts on the venerable 12(e). I forgot one of the most common types: stories about stupid people at the wife’s work.

While at work yesterday, the wife was watching a suspicious looking person clutching a package while glancing about nervously. Before her eyes, the guy opened a tube of BBs and poured some into his pocket. He then started walking away with my wife following behind. She asked him “can I help you find something?” He responded by throwing the package behind a shelf. The wife asked what it was, and he told her he just happened to find some trash and decide to throw it away (behind a shelf no less).

She continued following him and eventually found a manager. She told the manager what heppend, pointed out the theif and the manager told her “there’s nothing they could do,” and that they just have to let him go. The manager wouldn’t even tell the guy to leave, so that he wouldn’t steal any more. I do not see how Wal Mart ever turns a profit.

Also interesting, is that the tube of BBs cost only $1.97. The guy was committing a crime because he wouldn’t even pay less than two bucks.

Honoring America

2005-09-11T11:57:00.000-05:00

Before the Carolina-New Orleans football game, the stadium announcer said “to honor America” and “in memory of those killed on September 11” they would have Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey sing America the Beautiful. Isn’t the two of them butchering a patriotic song in front millions of people just adding insult to injury? I’m pretty sure that the moment of silence was created with the specific intent of sparing those grieving a tragedy from having to listen to Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.

The Shrine of the Black Madonna

2005-09-11T11:27:00.000-05:00

I’ve found that most posts on the venerable 12(e) fall into the following categories: me complaining about things, listing bad things that happed to me, recounting humor anecdotes and the occasional rant. This will be of the last variety.

Watching the news I saw an interview with a reverend from “The Shrine of the Black Madonna.” This touched off a long time pet peeve: attempts to claim the race of Christ. Most American depictions of Jesus make him a white man; this church takes the position that he was black. Whether you believe that He was the Son of God, its pretty certain that he was an Israeli (I’m not sure when they stopped being Israelites and became Israelis, but I’ll use the latter). When was the last time you saw someone native to Israel or Palestine who was either white or black? Though Americans probably can’t stand the thought, Jesus most likely looked like an Arab with olive skin and curly hair. It just seems petty to claim that Jesus was the same race as you; this seems like claiming tacit aggrandizement by sharing the skin color of Christ.

I’m not asking for much, just give me an accurate depiction or description.

I love the Dena

2005-09-04T10:25:00.000-05:00

At our lovely apartment, the mailboxes are in a covered walkway in the front of one of the buildings. Yesterday, I went to check the mail and saw a very dirty man urinating on the wall opposite the mailboxes. While it did surprise me to see a guy peeing in public, I wasn’t going to let him stop me from getting my rejection letter. When I walked to the mailbox, he turned so that I wouldn’t be able to see his Wang Chung. He then yelled something at me in Spanish, so, after I saw that there was no mail, I walked away very briskly. I guess he was offended that I didn’t him the privacy he deserves when peeing on the walls of my apartment complex.

My mom, a former Spanish teacher, offered to teach me to say “how can you pee out of something so small,” but I figure I shouldn’t try that statement until I get a concealed handgun license.

car trouble

2005-09-01T13:25:00.000-05:00

I’m driving to school today on I 45 when I suddenly come to a wet part of the road. While still on the wet area, the car in front of me slowed suddenly. I slowed down and checked my rearview mirror and, luckily, there was no one close behind to hit us. While I’m looking, a large one-ton truck tries to change into my lane behind me, but he didn’t seem to notice that I slowed down. When he realized he was about to rear end me, he cut the wheel and did a ninety degree turn across the interstate toward the wall. He didn’t make it to the wall before he ran over the entire front end of a Camry. The two of them crashed into the wall. To avoid them, a small 1980s Japanese car swerved out of their way and was hit by an eighteen wheeler (I didn’t see that part). Almost as soon as I saw the truck run over the Camry, a small car comes across at a sharp angle (likely spun out by the semi) and hits my back corner. I start to fishtail into the other lane but somehow pull out of it without spinning out (and likely flipping).

After I steered it and cleared it (it’s the law), I got out and expected to not have a rear bumper. Amazingly, there was only very light scratching and a thick coating of airbag dust from the car that hit us. That car, on the other hand, had a bent bumper and exploded headlight from hitting us, and no doors on the right side from the truck that hit it. The Camry that was run over was completely destroyed, and the eighteen wheeler and other truck seemed ok.

Three ambulances, five police cars and a fire truck came by and, in the process, stopped all northbound traffic on I 45 for a while. The wife and I were the only people besides the trucker who didn’t need to be taken away in an ambulance. Surprisingly, the police ticketed the driver of the one ton truck and he actually has insurance. This had better count as an excused absence from Administrative Law and the mandatory Law Review Meeting I missed. Now all I need is for Akin Gump to call and reject me to make the day complete.

At least I don’t live in New Orleans, that would be worse than having a wreck.

random anecdotes

2005-08-30T20:45:00.000-05:00

I was going to write a post about my birthday extravaganza, but I’m too lazy.

Time was 2003 and I was starting my senior year at UT. For on-campus parking, Texas had developed a rather complex code to show your type of contract: the color of your parking sticker showed the type of permit (residential, commuter, motorcycle, etc.) while the shape showed the time period (Fall 2003, 12 month 2003-2004). Ok, so it wasn’t a complicated code, but you get my point. My senior year, I had a one semester commuter contract so that I wouldn’t have to pay all of it up front.

That year, all of the commuter permits were a lovely purple color. The fall semester permits, unfortunately, were an upside-down triangle. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a supporter of gay rights (I think the Defense of Marriage Act violates the 14th Amendment), but I’m not so big on gay pride. Needless to say, it was awkward at best driving to mass with an upside down purple triangle on my back window. They may as well have given me a rainbow sticker and a large sign that said, “If I’m parked at my parent’s house in Belton, please egg me.” I thought about cutting off the edges to make a purple hexagon, but that would either (1) get me in trouble with the parking Nazis at UT or (2) signal an affection for animals. I’ll never know why some low level parking official thought it would be funny to give so many cars pride stickers, but then again you’ll never know why I wrote such a long, dull post.

In other news, I finally received by Administrative Law book in the mail yesterday. I didn’t actually receive it so much as I went to the post office and claimed it. Apparently, it had been sitting there undelivered for two friggin’ weeks. I finally received a notice that my Amazon.com order arrived (I bought myself GTA: Vice City for my birthday with a gift certificate). When I went down to the post office with my “hey you have my stuff” card, they gave me my book. While I’m happy to have my book, I now seriously doubt that I’ll get my video game. I love the post office.

Our neighbors: Catherina O’Leary

2005-08-23T02:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I came home from school and, exhausted lay semi-conscious on the couch until the wife got off work. I managed to force myself to stay awake and talk to her until 10:30ish (a good hour later than I’d hoped). We’re laying in bed, almost asleep when we start to faintly smell smoke. This gets a bit stronger, so I walk around outside to see if the building is on fire. I didn’t see a fire, so I came back in; I couldn’t let myself go to sleep, however, because I needed to gauge whether I’m getting carbon monoxide poisoning.

The smoke gradually got thicker until it was hard to see across our apartment due to the haze. It became harder to breath, so we finally called the fire department at 2:30 am (three and a half hours after it all started). They arrived very quickly and discovered the source of the smoke: our upstairs neighbors (the ones on whom we’ve called the police four times due to their blaring Tejano music) kitchen had caught on fire and filled up our apartment with smoke. Now it’s 2:45, I’m exhausted but seriously doubt that I’ll be able to fall back asleep. Thank God I don’t have class until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

The only good part about the evening was having the pleasure of getting the Pasadena Fire Department to wake up the infernal upstairs tenants. I can’t imagine their relief when they saw “PFD” and not “INS” on the man at their door.

I like backpacks?

2005-08-21T20:14:00.000-05:00

Has anyone seen the Target back-to-school commercial with none other than Sir Mix-A-Lot rapping about how much he likes the new line of backpacks? I realize that the old school hip-hop artists (one would now scarcely call any of it rap) have fallen on hard times ever since 1992, but show some self-respect. The man made a contribution to Americana, and now he’s peddling tripe for a slightly upscale Wal-Mart.

When a musician ceases to be popular, he has several options to keep his dignity. The most virtuous is for the musician to sit back, satisfied with his fifteen minutes of fame and go back to his life. I don’t recall Billy Ray Cyrus dragging on his career too long after it ended (I could be wrong, I haven’t paid much attention to the mulleted one). The next option is to take some time off and come back. The artist can continue touring despite the fact that no one likes them. See, e.g. Mötley Crüe; Lynard Skinnard. The artist can descend into political activism like Harry Belafonte (whom, apropos, even Slate.com said “[r]eal liberals should condemn” as a racist).

Shunning all of the options, Sir Mix-A-Lot went down the path of David Cassidy; he became a two-bit hack, shilling for some overpriced, POS consumer product.

It’s a shame to lose such a talented, visionary musician as Sir Mix-A-Lot (p/k/a Anthony Ray).

I know that I've misspelled various things, so have fun with it.

Killing a bug the old fashioned way

2005-08-19T21:38:00.000-05:00

The other day the wife was cleaning and came across a small roach. Her immediate reaction was to scream like a girl (appropriately so) and run away. Upon further reflection, she decided to take the initiative and take the fight to the enemy. Naturally, she needed a weapon. She didn’t use her natural defense, the foot; she didn’t even take off her shoe and smack it. She fell back and looked for something with which to kill the retched bug. She forewent the Raid (I guess it wasn’t a Kurdish roach or she would have used the chemical weapon). Eventually, she used the traditional anti-roach weapon; the one used by our ancestors: the hammer. Fearing the strong defenses of the roach, she apparently though that only a nine inch, stainless steel claw hammer could smite the bug.

Naturally, she missed with her first swing. The roach ran under a sheet of paper, and Lauren thought it would be fun to start pummeling the entire sheet. She’s moderately sure that won the battle, though I don’t want to think of how many divots she put in the floor; it probably looks like central France circa 1916. I’m just glad the hammer was closer than the guns.

Let's Hear it for Fall 2005

2005-08-14T17:03:00.000-05:00

Back to school
Back to school
To show dad that I’m not a fool
I’ve got my lunch box and boots tied tight
Hope I don’t get in a fight
Back to school
Back to school

It looks like I’ll treat this semester like the last two: I haven’t done all of my assignments yet, so I’ll have to get to school very early tomorrow to read for Evidence and Property II. I still haven’t even bought all of my case books. This should be fun.

What is wrong with the Financial Aid Office? Part II

2005-08-12T11:21:00.000-05:00

I apologize for all of the sequel posts, but here goes.

I called the Fin Aid Office today to see if I could get the lowered scholarship question taken care of. I couldn’t even discuss the matter, however, as they claim to have no record of me accepting the award at all. For the record, I have the email from the office acknowledging that they received my award.

This could be bad, as the woman had to specifically tell me that, while they’re getting this straightened out, I’ll “still be able to go to classes and everything.” No, I don’t think I can do “everything” without a financial aid award. I can’t pay rent at my apartment and I certainly can’t move into another. Also, I’m sure there are deadlines for getting a Stafford loan payout and awarding scholarship dollars. How can they be so catastrophically stupid as to do this? They seem to have abandoned Operation Screw Sam Out of a Grand and moved into Operation Leave Sam and his Lovely Wife Pennyless and Out in the Cold.

I’m pretty sure they can write me off as a future contributing alumnis. If this isn’t fixed, they can consider me a future plaintiff (I think I’d waint until after graduation to file, however).

Driving in Fallujah

2005-08-12T07:43:00.000-05:00

I’ve often complained about Pasadena drivers; they weave, follow too closely, run red lights – all without insurance. Yesterday the wife and I were the second car stopped in the turning lane at a light on a very busy intersection. The arrow turned green and the woman in front of us didn’t go for a good two seconds; she was fiddling with the infant in the passenger seat. She finally goes – again, two seconds after the light turned green – and some big pick-up truck plows into her, scarcely even paying attention to brake. He caved in the woman’s driver side door, shattered her window and God knows what else. We left when the guy got out of his truck to help and we saw that all three people were moving around. I’m just glad she got to the light ahead of us; I don’t want to sue if it means getting side-swiped.

What really sucks is that the woman, having a baby and an old car likely can’t afford to waint for suit; she’ll probably have to snap-up the first offer the guy’s insurance company throws at her. She get a token value for her car (since it was barely worth $500 at the time) and probably nothing for her medical costs. If she has the misfortune of seeking more money, the defense will tie the case up procedurally for months, leaving the woman without a car or money to pay her doctor. Wow, now I really do sound like a liberal today.

This is day two of the apartment’s ten business day ultimatum; still no word from the punks. I’m pretty sure we can take them for $1,000-1,300 but we likely won’t get out of the lease.

Legal Woes IV -or- me vs. the man 3:

2005-08-10T12:28:00.000-05:00

Today I looked up the applicable statutes to sue the landlord. It turns out that I have a very good chance at $1030 in statutory damages. That would be fun. Unfortunately, I’ll have to file in county court where they’ll notice if I screw up procedurally and it could take longer to get a court-date. On the upside, I’ll have access to all the discovery motions I can handle, so it won’t be long until I’m sitting on all of my apartment’s records (or at least all containing complaints and the responses thereto within the last five years).

Before I can file, however, I have to send a demand letter. Today I’m sending a letter demanding that they change the lease to month-to-month in exchange for my releasing the claims. I included an addendum in the letter; unfortunately this contract didn’t contain any of the cool provisions from Contracts II (force majeure is just fun to say).

If they don’t accept the offer within the time specified, I’ll have to file suit. I’m going to put the complaint online so that you, the loyal readers can nit-pick it and find all of the mistakes I made (you did a good job at that task with the review session contracts). If all goes well, we’ll either move to Pearland before October or I’ll get to don the suit, go to court and make $1200 plus court costs.

I don’t care what Wilks said, pro se is fun.

End-o-Summer News Round Up

2005-08-01T21:58:00.000-05:00

Many things have happened over the summer, and Jeff “Tickle Me” McGuire suggested that I post them.

School

After working for a class action/mass tort firm for the summer, I’ve found my true calling. I would like few things better than to spend the rest of my career writing pretrial motions about the FRCP. I’m no longer worried about tax, so now I can (1) avoid those horrible tax courses and (2) try my hand at moot court. Oh happy day.

I’m not sure if they want this circulated, but here goes. The two people from glorious §b who were the biggest academic threats (and rivals for editorial positions) have transferred to a school outside the loop but inside the beltway. Combine this with the reported five people from §c and others from §§a and b, and all of the curves in the school just got easier for everyone; we’ll all move up a grade increment in our classes.

home life

The wife transferred out of her horrible store and into a very nice, upper middle class store in Pearland. I know it isn’t very PC, but lower income people (such as in our part of Pasadena) are, on average, extremely rude to cashiers and anyone else whom they can boss around.

We’re attempting to get out of our lease in the DMZ. We’ve sent out the complaint letters and were planning on filing suit next week. Unfortunately, they’re fixing the swimming pool today (one of our two biggest arguments), so we’re reevaluating out chances of success. We may very well be stuck in Harris County’s Purgatory for twelve more agonizing months.

what not to do in an emergency III (from Commonwealth v. Nolan, 634 A.2d 194 (Pa. 1993))

2005-07-26T18:06:00.000-05:00

Imagine you are the owner of a bar. Two people run brandishing pistols. When one yells “don’t move or I’ll shoot,” a range of appropriate responses would be politely giving up the money, not moving at all out of sheer terror or possibly even running away for cover. This woman thought the best course of action was walking toward the robbers and yelling at them to leave. As a reward for her brave decision to bring harsh words to a gun fight, she was shot three times. I realize that I only have book-learnin’ and not “real-world” experience, but one thing I’ve learned, as a general rule of thumb, is yell at angry people with guns. Politely ask the gentlemen to kindly leave your establishment; you’ll probably only get pistol-whipped for that.

This should be the last of teh "what not to do in an emergency" series for a while. I know it will be hard to live without any more, but you'll get over it. Or you won't. I don't care.

what not to do in an emergency II

2005-07-24T16:16:00.000-05:00

Fifteen days after a massive terrorist attack on the subway (or tube, as they say) and one day after a second such attack, you are told by police to stop while entering the station. One might ordinarily heed the warning, especially in light of the public “shoot to kill” orders issued to the policy. Instead, this guy took it upon himself to jump a gate and sprint onto a subway car. Such a response to an order to stop seemed to pique the police’s suspicions as the poor sap was shot five times. I’m not saying that the man deserved to die, but he was terminally stupid. If I stand up on an airliner and get out my boxcutter to try and open the infernal bag of peanuts, I shouldn’t be surprised if some sky marshal shoots me (that the government employee would be awake enough to react should be something of a shocker).

Everybody knows that the world is full of stupid people

2005-07-22T23:14:00.000-05:00

The three most amusing/notable anecdotes of last week:

3. The Gaytor broke Rule Number 3 of the Common-Law of Washrooms. I was sitting in the stall when someone sits in the one next to me. After a short while, the other person, who turned out to be my fellow law clerk, started talking to me. This is a grievous breach of the no-talking-to-anyone-sitting-down rule. Restatment (Third) Washrooms §3(b). The only two more serious offenses are looking (especially heinous if (1) eye contact is made or (2) the person look down while looking at you) and touching (Mr. Fleming creeped me out when he patted my back while I was at a urinal).

2. Andrew, attempting to justify how slowly he was righting, stated pompously “would you tell Van Gough to finish the Sistine Chapel by tomorrow?” While I realize that Van Gough is a common Italian name and could easily lead to confusion, one should make sure they’re correct when making analogies regarding their own brilliance.

1. A half-hour before my alarm clock was set to go off, the phone rings. I answer, and it’s the wife sounding very distraught. Apparently she couldn’t remove her key from the ignition. I told her to try turning the wheel, but that was to no avail. The problem continued until a fellow associate tried; she made the truly brilliant move of putting the car in park. I’ve heard it helps. (In Lauren’s defense, the thing in her dashboard that indicates in which gear she is doesn’t work, so there was some degree of guesswork on her part).

In other news, I learned something wonderful today. The drunken sister-in-law is moving back to Houston. Not only will this raise the crime rate (she is a repeat shoplifter), but she told the wife “now we can hang-out all the time!” I’m really looking forward to this semester.

I’ll give 25¢ (.14£) to the first person (other than the wife) who can identify the song from which I stole the title of this post.

what not to do in an emergency:

2005-07-20T23:03:00.000-05:00

From a case the Gardale the Gaytor found:

"The plaintiff maintained that the patient would probably have survived the heart attack had she been transferred to the hospital in a timely manner. Nurse Maddox admitted during her deposition that she had not called EMS personnel - but rather had gone into the staff break room to smoke."

me: 2; the car: 1

2005-07-18T00:37:00.000-05:00

the enemy:

I have added another element to my skills. As a sub-set of car fixing skills I already have ‘tire changing skills’ and ‘almost jump-starting my wife’s car skills’, I can add ‘headlight-bulb changing skills.’ After a mere 20 minutes, some crying and a call to daddy, I vanquished the old light and installed a fresh one. I realize that I typically exude machismo, but it really showed with my sick auto-maintenance display. Go me.

In all seriousness, the recent car-trouble incidents showed how nice the good-folk of the Dena are. The wife and I spent two bloody hours in a Pasadena Wal-Mart parking lot with the hood up, either fiddling with the battery or wainting for the tow-truck (it took 45 minutes for him to make the 2/3 mile trip). In that time, everyone who passed by – including the security guard – just stared at us blankly. Tonight, the wife and I were in the parking lot of a Pearland Wal-Mart with the hood up in 20 minutes while I was engaged in mortal combat with the light bulb. In that time, a family of five parked to our left, and the husband immediately came over, asked if I had any problems, stuck his hand under the hood and tried to explain what I should do; the explanation was a bit over my head as I’m pretty sure he mentioned some type of tool (screw-driver? wrench? spacely-sproket?). A bit later, I had defeated the old bulb and was attempting (vainly) to install the new one. A guy and his wife parked to our other side, and he told us he was a mechanic and asked if there was anything he could do to help. I told him I thought I could do it, but I’d take his help if I was still out there when he was done shopping. As if it wasn’t enough that both of the cars beside me offered to help, the mechanic came back out of the store to check on us. By that time we were testing whether the new light worked (it did), but it was appreciated nonetheless. I guess I don’t hate all people, just Pasadenans.

got nothing

2005-07-15T11:13:00.000-05:00

I don't have much to say, so I'll post some pictures of my grandfather's new kitten. If this isn't top-notch blogging, I don't know what is.

What is wrong with the Financial Aid Office?

2005-07-13T07:35:00.000-05:00

I received my financial aide award last night, and I doubt it could be more screwed up. They gave me a $5,000 work study award despite the fact that I emphatically told the office I didn’t want it (and they assured me it wouldn’t be a problem); this comes off of the total budget, so now I won’t be able to borrow as much. Losing $5,000 in loans puts a serious damper on the plan to get our of our lease and move to Kingwood. What bothers me even more, is that they (note: this could make me sound like a pompous ingrate, so be warned) lowered my friggin’ scholarship by $1,000. I met the minimum GPA to get it renewed, but they got rid of the old ones and gave a new one. I really don’t want to have to sue the school, so they had better get this straightened out pretty quickly.

the hat

2005-07-09T14:11:00.000-05:00

I’m sure everyone knows my blue South Texas hat; the fine companion I wore to school everyday (except for the three days I wore the suit). Over the months it got dirty, sweaty and stinky. After over a year of yeoman’s service, it finally gave up the ghost. It gave me a rash on my forehead, and now I must, with a heavy heart, buy a new hat. I’ll probably still wear it to exams, but you’ll finally get to see me in a different hat in August. The hat is dead, long live the hat.

Shirt Tales

2005-06-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

The other day at work (and by the other day, I mean back in May), I had to designate experts for trial; it sounds good, but it was me helping the paralegal put “Plaintiff’s Exhibit ‘A’” on expert reports. Good fun. This involved a bunch of piles of paper on the floor which I had to lean over a pick up. Our chairs are designed with an inexplicable (though someone will likely explic it) bulge near the bottom. It isn’t a gentle lumbar-shaped buldge, but a sharp jutting-out. This pulled on the back of my shirt, so that every ten or minutes, I ended up with a Kelso tuck. As much fun as it is to look like Big Randy the Baby Daddy, I didn’t think the look was for me (I don’t roll like Kelso). This made me have to constantly look around before sticking my hand down the back of my pants to fix them (at least my shirt stayed tuck in the front).

Another fun situation happened earlier this week when I went to the bathroom (I know that sentence looks bad, but deal with it). I went to the sink to wash my hands and apparently leaned against the counter in the process. Little did I know, but someone had splashed so much water onto the counter that there was standing puddle; it looked like someone tried to baptize a cat. This caused a lovely dark, wet spot right across the front of my pants, just a little bit below the waist. I don’t know much about the practice of law, but I’m pretty sure being branded a pants wetter is a bad thing. To say the least, it won’t make me seem more like Miles Davis. This left me with the Hobbsean choice between violating every law in the business-casual universe by covering the spot with my shirt tail, or looking like a big-better, bed-wetter like Cory Cougar. I ultimately decided to opt for the sloppy-but-in-control-of-my-bladder look. If someone saw me and got mad about my shirt, they might confront me, allowing me to disarm them with the witty story you are now reading. If someone saw me and thought I had gone number one on myself, they probably would have said nothing, told everyone about the incident, fire me and burn my chair.

In addition to my pointless blather, I have an interesting medical fact. When reading a case about a guy faking an injury to sue an airline, the case stated that a doctor had treated Mr. Robinson for cervical injuries when he was a child. This, much to my surprise, referred to neck problems. I want to give credit to Mandrew for having the courage/lack of foresight to put “cervical” into a google search on his work computer (unlike you slackers at the “God-forsaken hell-hole” DA’s office or the Valley, which actually is Hell, they monitor our internet traffic).

sick redux

2005-06-27T21:32:00.000-05:00

I was sick for a while up to about a week ago. I think I’m getting sick again now (gah! freaking idiot!). At least this is a new illness; my lymph nodes are swollen, my head hurts and my sinus is congested. It almost feels like the ole mono is coming back. Between this, registration and fall recruiting fever (only three more months to go), I may slow down a bit in the posting.

While I’m bothering to do something semi-productive, Andrew has again requested a new nick-name; if we’re going to be moot-court partners (more on that in a bit), he’ll need something more menacing than “runs like a girl.” I’m thinking “the Animal,” “Flash” or even “El Tigre Del Diablo.” Whatever the name, we’ll crush the Patrick/Jape and Darcy/Elizabeth teams beneath our jack-boots (I’ll need to buy some jack-boots) and laugh. Even if we don’t march over them like they’re the French Army (from 1870, 1914 or 1940; take your pick), it should at least be entertaining.

new wife

2005-06-24T07:05:00.000-05:00

I’m pleased to announce that I have a new wife. Lauren “I’d rather go to Iraq than the kitchen” is gone and Lauren “are you sure you don’t want me to cook some more chicken?” has replaced her. A few days ago she, completely randomly, decided she wanted to cook something. She seemed to enjoy herself, because she loves it now. After standing all day at work, she spent hours making what appears to be a metric ton of fruit salad. The up side is that she can cook healthy food; this will greatly aid Operation Live Past 45. With her help and some luck, I might not have the heart attack until I see the top of the hill. She’ll probably stop cooking once she realizes that I’m postponing her exclusive control of our money, the life insurance payout and her second husband Marco the pool-boy. Until then, I’ll enjoy the new wife.

Congrats Gardale and Corey

2005-06-23T07:32:00.001-05:00

[redacted]

If you find the cached version of this, the post was made in jest after an attempt to embarrass Corey while talking to a waitress. Please ignore.

The bluebook is great, and Terrell is not

2005-06-22T18:42:00.000-05:00

I was looking through the bluebook today while checking a fellow law clerk’s citations (I check everyone’s cites and give them grades on their papers; the one today was the highest yet at A-) when I came across the funniest thing in the bluebook. They use a lot of example cases to illustrate rules, all of which I assumed were real. Today, however, I found the rule dealing with omission of “the” in a case name; as you all know, you retain “the” if it is a part of the party’s proper name. To show the point, they used Czervik v. The Flying Wasp.

For those of you who are unenlightened, Czervik was Rodney Dangerfield’s character in the 1980 epic Caddyshack, while The Flying Wasp was Judge Smails’ boat. As we all know, Czervik destroyed Smails’ boat, so I guess the outcome of Czervik v. The Flying Wasp is obvious. It wouldn’t surprise me if this example has been in the bluebook since 1982 and no one on the editorial board even knows its in there; after all, how may Caddyshack quoters could there be on the Columbia Law Review today?

Now for the Terrell rumor of the day. Just a note, these are entirely speculative and this post should not be considered any more than conjecture and opinion. It does not imply the existence of facts, and any such implications are explicitly disclaimed. According to a source near to a source close to South Texas professor (no, its not Stevenson), Terrell isn’t coming back at all. His summer classes were cancelled and he isn’t on the fall schedule; the word on the street is that he’s gone forever. This same source also says that the likely outcome of all of this is going to be a choice between one’s grade and pass/fail.

The next bit-o-Terrell gossip comes from one of Rensberger’s current Property II students for the summer session. Last night, a student in his class asked him what was going on with Terrell, to which the Dean responded “we’re working on it.”

Later, I intercepted (read: was handed a copy of) an email from the ring leader of the § C “give me pass/fail or give me death” movement. He apparently met with Rensberger either today or yesterday. Ole Renny said that Terrell is the only professor who has yet to turn in his grades (apparently there is a delay between turning the grades in and their being processed, but the registrar’s website looks like a good half dozen profs are late). The school has purportedly tried to call Terrell several times, but to no avail. Apparently, the school has had no contact with and has no idea where Terrell is (I guess the administration doesn’t hang out in strip clubs, otherwise they would have found him by now). This fits with the “we’re working on it” statement, as it seems the Terrell situation is in limbo. As a result, I’m optimistic that the school hasn’t emailed me back on the Terrell issue, as it seems that they are genuinely unsure of their response. A pass/fail option would make me happier than George Bailey on Christmas.

Terrell Schmerrell

2005-06-19T23:25:00.000-05:00

During finals, I planned on writing a letter to the school complaining about ole Buford. Recently, several people have asked about that letter, so here it is. I encourage all who agree with it to email it to Rensberger (jeffrens –at- stcl.edu). Feel free to edit and change it to suit your individual taste and preferences. If you are so inclined, point others to this post so that they too can complain about Buford “the shart” Terrell. With any luck and a large response, the school might help us out like his students from last fall (they could choose between their grade and pass/fail).

Dear Dean Rensberger:

I am writing this email to express my concern regarding Professor Terrell's Property I exam for Section B. My concerns are best grouped into three categories: Terrell's giving exam questions to Langdell students, the form of the exam and the content of the exam.

After taking the exam, I learned Professor Terrell had included several questions previously given to his Langdell class. Estimates of how many such questions were included range from six to twelve of a sixty-question exam. Whatever the number, my understanding is that professors are strictly forbidden from giving exam questions to Langdell classes; this understanding is based on specific comments made by Dean Alfini at a lunch meeting with LRW II sections. If there is in fact a policy or rule against such giving of questions, then a significant percentage (10%-20%) of Professor Terrell's exam consisted of illegitimate questions.

My next major point of contention with the exam is Professor Terrell's choice to make the exam "open computer." Students were allowed to access anything on their computer, unencumbered by ExamSoft; the only limitation was that students could not access the internet. I was of the understanding that the school's exam policy only allowed the use of a computer in conjunction with ExamSoft. The Registrar’s on-line guideline regarding computer use during finals, signed by Dean Pilkington and located at http://www.stcl.edu/registrar/registrar1/examsoft.htm, reads as follows: “The only laptops allowed in examination rooms are those being used for taking final exams with the ExamSoft software.” Such a flagrant violation of exam procedures undermines the strength of the rules and made it impossible for a student to truthfully sign the pledge sheet.

My final concern deals with the actual content of Professor Terrell's exam. Several answers directly contradicted his in-class lecturing. In class, we would often engage in detailed hypotheticals on interesting and developing areas of the law. I feel that such discussions were the high-point of Professor Terrell's class. At the close of these discussions, he would tell us that the answer to the question discussed was either state-specific or still developing. On his exam, he questioned us on several of these hypothetical situations, asking us what was either the "best" or "most likely" outcome. This would not be a problem on an essay test, but it is very difficult to answer such a question on a multiple choice test. In class, he would stress that something was still “in-the-air” and undecided by the courts, yet he would expect us to predict the outcome on his multiple choice exam. There were at least six such questions that, based on his class lectures, are impossible to answer with any degree of certainty.

In addition to his questions contradicting his own lectures, Professor Terrell also asked questions contradicting the correct and actual law of property. Over the course of the semester, Professor Terrell taught several, perhaps a half-dozen, rules that are directly contradicted by writings on the subject of Property. These aren't mere disagreements over controversial points of law; Professor Terrell often flew in the face of unanimous authority. When asked about this in class, he stated that the other professors were simply wrong in their treatises and horn-books. Professor Terrell would have us believe that every single book on property, including the case book he assigned, is incorrect, and only he knows the true rule. He then proceeded to place at least four of these issues on the exam; he forced us choose between the answer he felt is correct and the actual correct answer.

I am not sure what, if any, remedial action the school should take. I do, however, urge the school to take some action. The exam procedures are intended to be rules that guide the students and the faculty so as to ensure a fair and efficient awarding of grades. Violating those rules seriously undermines their purposes and effectiveness, as it deprives students of protections afforded by the rule and encourages all, students and faculty alike, to take liberties with these and other rules and policies. Furthermore, remedial action by the school would not be unprecedented after the fall semester incident with Professor Terrell. My understanding is students were ultimately given the choice to receive either a grade or pass/fail credit. I feel the relief given to those students is fair and should be considered for the students of Professor Terrell's Spring 2005 Section B students.

car trouble

2005-06-18T20:19:00.000-05:00

I’m driving home from work when I’m on the 610-45 interchange. I hear a popping sound, and suddenly my accelerator pedal feels strange. It feels really far back and pressing it doesn’t make the car go much faster. I manage to get down 45 and exit. While I’m sitting at a traffic light somewhat near my apartment, I look down at the pedal; it’s back against the floor board and at a 45º angle. I’m pretty sure this is not right, so I lightly press my foot against the side of the pedal in an attempt to straighten it. The pedal then starting swinging like a pendulum and simply fell off onto the floorboard. I’m certain this is bad. I manage to idle into a parking lot and, accelerator pedal in hand, call a tow truck. Twenty four hours and $150 later, it was reattached and seems to be fully functional.

In other news, why is the Registrar’s office posting grades on a weekend? They’re in serious danger of doing work. I’d like to give a slow clap to Steneiner for almost getting his multiple choice test graded within the one month barrier.

2005-06-13T11:58:00.000-05:00

I’m still sick (and finally staying home from work), so this will be brief. With the posting of Kat’s grades, this makes the last two tests the multiple choice ones. I’m sure we expected this all along from Stoner Buford, but I figured Steniener would be too anal to leave the grades out so long. I’ve found several people who support the theory that he is taking so long with the grading simply because he wants to screw with us. He has the power to make us suffer and waint, and he’s taking advantage of that power. What a tool.

Also, its Monday morning, and the winners are “Runs Like a Girl” and “Cries at Night.” I’m also decreeing the name Particle “don’t trust me, I’m a liar” Man.

meh

2005-06-06T21:23:00.000-05:00

It has come to my attention that I haven’t posted anything in a while. You asked for it, so here goes.

responses to comments

Josiah: a valid point on your not posting. That’s the pot calling the kettle a lazy bum. Or something like that. Commie.

RHM: you should be happy that I’m not aiding and abetting your slacking. With my help, you’ll soon become a true Stakhonovite.

Particleman: you’re absolutely right: you aren’t paying me the dollar. As noticed to you by electronic mail, I have assigned the right to collect your debt to Robert “Gardale the Gator” Hatley. You owe him the dollar (and he promised never to take my seat.

You are claiming that I don’t owe you the dollar because you gave me helpful directions to work. First of all, you I did not ask for said directions, you conferred the alleged benefit by your own volition. That makes you an officious intermeddler and you cannot set off the value of the advice from the debt. Furthermore, By leaving early and not accidentally getting on 90 (don’t ask how), I’m managing an efficient commute without abandoning the venerable 610.

Stevo: you must offer your ADR services to Gardale; it’s his account receivable now. On the subject, I hate ADR people. What is the point of going to law school only to use your degree to professionally ask “can’t we all just get along?” You’re going to law school to learn rules of law and how to make a logical argument in support of your interpretation of that rule, or at least to interpret the rule of law to advise others in their actions. ADR people are like child-psychologists (don’t get me started on those) with JDs; I’m surprised they don’t try to get the parties to release their aggressions by hitting each other with foam bats. If any of you want to be ADR people after graduation, please spare me the time and give yourself a wedgie.

grades

I don’t think I’ll post about grades until I get them all. Even then I doubt I will.

work

I “work” for two attorneys. One of them is a nice guy, but a crappy delegator; as such, he doesn’t give me much to do. The other lawyer is in charge of the Phen-Fen pretrial stuff and doesn’t do much case-specific stuff. The upside about not doing case-specific is that I don’t have to do deposition summaries; the down-side is that I work exclusivally on the only thing common to all of the pre-trial claims: discovery issues. I’ve already written more memoranda than I’d care to remember about each and every Federal Rule of Civil Procedure that mentions, implies or causes one to reminisce about the work “deposition.”

While blazing through the ever-so-interesting FRCP and the also intriguing cases interpreting the same, I check my grades. Constantly. At first I averaged (and I’m not joking, you can ask Andrew “runs like a girl” Pearce) a refresh of the grade checking site every 90-120 seconds. After the incident with Kelso (don’t get me started on that guy), I’ve lost some enthusiasm and only check every five minutes or so.

Last week, the attorney who doesn’t assign me much gave me a fair amount to research by the next day (I can’t give away work-product information, but it involved me reading over 600 pages that day). I managed to finish at about 9:30 that night after a 13 hour shift. When I left, all of the normal people from the firm were gone and only the cleaning crew was left. As I came into the lobby, they were sitting on the couches talking to each other, but looked like they were going to crap their pants when someone opened the door. After five seconds of stunned silence, they saw that I’m only twelve years old and continued talking. When I went to the time-clock room to clock out, I found that the door was locked; the clock is in the supply room and there’s a history of the cleaning crew stealing anything that isn’t bolted to the wall. I didn’t clock out, so, when I arrived the next day, I saw that I pulled a 23 hour shift.

The other day, neither attorney assigned me anything, so I went wandering around looking for a lawyer to annoy. Just my luck, I ran into Mr. Fleming (an important guy at Fleming & Associates). He asked me what I was working on, so I ratted out my attorneys, saying that neither were at work yet and I was doing nothing. I not sure which would have smarting: having my direct supervisor mad at me or the guy whose name is on the letterhead. I finally found someone to give me work, and managed to work the rest of the day on a response to a summary judgment motion. I turned it in the next day and planned on asking my regular attorneys for work; the new guy, however, took the response to check it and handed me another to work on. It’s now been almost a week since I did any work for my assigned attorneys. I hope they don’t get too mad.

Now that I’m out of academia and in the real world, I’m not fond of what I’m seeing. People are writing with poorly structured sentences, misusing emphasis and, most disconcerting of all, completely disregarding the bluebook. Not only does one of the guys at the firm mess up virtually every single citation he does, he “corrected” my proper citations. I’m sorry, but a direct quote doesn’t need a “see” before it, the regional reporter goes before the state reporter and a short citation requires the word “at” before the pin-point citation. Seriously people, it’s not that difficult.

movies

The new Star Wars wasn’t anywhere near as good as I’d hoped. I could probably write for several hours on the subject, especially the anti-Bush line (which doesn’t logically fit with the plot, as Obi-Wan’s “the dark side is always bad, whatever the motive for it’s use” mentality is inarguably and absolute). Pretty much everyday the wife and I watch either Team America: World Police or Napoleon Dynamite.

everything else

Greenspan said we have enough oil to last my lifetime, so I can cancel the Oregon Compound (I'll still by the dozen or so assault rifles however). Shelby just peed on the my shirt. I’m sick. That’s pretty much it.

The End of Summer

2005-05-23T06:46:00.000-05:00

After a lovely five days off, the vacation is over and I'm off to work. Not only to I have the joy of driving to uptown place with the worst construction on 610, I get to sit through the first day of work without checking my grades. At least I'll get to do all of the fun first day stuff: fill out paper work, watch the sexual harassment video and learn which stores have the most slip-and-falls.

I miss school.

grades

2005-05-19T19:42:00.000-05:00

The last finals are today, so the registrar should be able to post grades on Friday. This shouldn’t be too difficult considering Coleman turned his grades in several weeks ago. Unfortunately for us, our intrepid registrar’s office (which is as efficient as it is personable) won’t post anything until Monday morning. The same Monday morning that I’ll be stopped on 310 trying to get to work. This means I’ll get my LRW grade after I arrive, and will end up crying my first day at work (normally it takes a good three days before I start crying on the job).

Steniener should post his grades quickly, hopefully by the end of the week. I doubt we’ll waint long for Contracts; Kelso seems like he’ll fly through them (though he could spend a few hours thumbing through JP’s tome). Old Buford could potentially turn his in quickly, but it will probably take him until late July to get around to running them through the Scantron. I’m predicting Bergin will take a while; hopefully she’ll be too wowed by the Magna Carta to notice everything I missed.

update

2005-05-07T11:20:00.000-05:00

The property review is moved to 11:00am on the day before the test. I'll just get to school as soon as it opens and squat in the room for a few hours.

from churchsigngenerator.com

Review session

2005-05-05T12:53:00.000-05:00

The day before the Constitutional Law and Property finals, I’m going to give a full-blown review of the course. The Con Law review will be at 10:30am and the Property at 7:30am. They will be held in room 3023, 3021, 3038 or 3039; check them all to see which one I’m in.

We’ll have a lot to cover, so they’ll start fairly promptly (within 10 to 15 minutes of the listed time). Questions will be welcome, though we need to try and get through the material as quickly as possible.

As a condition precedent to doing this, however, I’m going to need a copy of someone’s e notes on third party beneficiaries; I especially need the four tests that are applied and the answers to all of the example situations we covered in class. Either give them to me at school or email them to samharen –-at-- gmail.com.

The Man strikes back at Greenpeace

2005-05-04T08:35:00.000-05:00

Greenpeace, well known for activism, communism and terrorism, now has a new shtick: pollution. The organization and several members are on trial for criminal negligence in violating Oregon maritime oil-spill regulations. Oregon claims the prosecution is coming after the Greenpeace boat agreed to stay anchored once it realized the regulatory problems, but left anyway without fixing them; Greenpeace thinks this is being done in retaliation for being anti-logging (or because the good people of Oregon are keeping the red-fighting spirit of Joe McCarthy alive). If the hippies are right, there’s an abuse of process claim.

My second favorite part of the article (besides seeing Greenpeace on trial) was when the counsel for the defense said “Those on board [the Greenpeace boat] didn't know [of the requirements]…. ‘There was no criminal negligence here,' he said.” Apparently he didn’t catch much of criminal law or torts: ignorance of the law is no excuse and, by definition, negligence means that the defendant didn’t know what was going on.

Stupid cat

2005-05-01T19:12:00.000-05:00

Our cat, Tobit, recently stopped eating and drinking; granted I don’t know much about feline anatomy, but I’m pretty sure food and water are important. We took him to the local vet. He told us the cat was anemic and to take him immediately to some veterinary hospital for a blood transfusion. Despite the fact that I had never heard of cats getting blood (or donating blood for that matter), we went to the mattresses and took him in. That’s right, Lauren and I spent an obscene amount of money putting little Tobit in the cat hospital for 24 hours to get a bloody transfusion (I know that was a bad pun, but it’s my blog, so deal with it).

While at the vet’s office, we bought some of the expensive flea killing stuff (the kind you squirt onto the back of the neck). I managed to apply it to all three cats without spraying the cat, the wife or myself in the face.

the funniest law review article I've ever read

2005-04-28T20:32:00.000-05:00

I know it seems weird to describe a law review article as mildly entertaining, let alone funny, but this article will not disappoint. It’s the funniest thing I’ve read in a while.

Prattle on Hamlet, the Universe and Everything

2005-04-28T11:00:00.000-05:00

This is an excerpt from an example problem in a Contracts book describing Hamlet:

“He read the script, which was written in strange, complicated, old-fasioned language. From what he understood of it, it also seemed very sleazy and definitely ‘R’ rated. It was about this dysfunctional Danish family who are heavily into sex and violence. The [main character] talks too much, never has any fun....”

Brian A. Blum, Contracts: Examples and Explanations, 653 (2004). It’s amazing how much Shakespeare’s plays resemble a cross between Jerry Springer and the OC. There’s the one with the twentysomething falling in love with a fourteen year old followed by a double suicide, the wife who coerced her husband into killing the king, the ungrateful daughters who had their father thrown out in the cold, the guy who was upset about not getting picked first in kickball who caused the captain to murder his own wife, and all of the zany antics in the episode about the people falling in love in the woods. Throw in the fact that every play had men dressed as women and you would think old Bill wrote his plays with the late 1990s in mind.

The wife's job

2005-04-25T17:36:00.000-05:00

I’ve often said that Lauren works with idiots at her job, but I think this story really shows the extent of that idiocy. One of the best cashiers at her store – she is a several time cashier of the month and well liked by all – was arrested at work last week. Someone had left his credit card at the register, and, like a good entrepreneur, she took it. The card was used at numerous Wal Marts along with the perpetrator’s employee discount card. This is absurd for two reasons. First of all, she’s putting her name in the database as using her card at the exact same time as the stolen card; this made catching her relatively easy. Furthermore, it’s a stolen card. Why does she need 10% off something she’s getting for free? Did she only wanted to steal 90% of the cost of her purchase?

Lauren’s job is so bad, I can understand her getting so mad that she has to let it out by poisoning people, so long as it’s not me.

hair fixing

2005-04-23T10:30:00.000-05:00

In response to a comment thread on another blog, these are my Constitutional reasons why the courts shouldn't make lawyers (such as myself) fix their hair. I didn't want to post such a long a boring comment on P-Man's blog since his readers likely don't expect the boring crap you see here.

1st Amendment: By freedom of expression allows me to decide how I wish to be viewed by the public.

6th Amendment: Barring counsel for hair or stylistic reasons furthers no state interest and unreasonably interferes with my client’s right to effective representation.

9th Amendment: God only knows what my unremunerated rights are, so not fixing my hair could be one of them. (Personally, I think it would have been a better argument to say that the right to privacy (which I actually support) is in the 9th Amendment. It just seems like overreaching to talk about the penumbras of everything.)

13th Amendment: The state’s compulsion that I, against my will and for no legitimate state purpose, fix my hair would constitute involuntary servitude.

14th Amendment: Bald people don’t have to fix their hair, so I’m being denied equal protection. Furthermore, my bad hair makes me dissimilarly situated with those with easy-to-fix hair, thus leading to an "as applied" challenge.

5th Amendment: The combination of all of these rights and the penumbras of the penumbras of the Amendments make clear a right to make my own choices about my hair style or lack thereof. In college, having crappy hair certainly helped my right to non-procreation. Furthermore, the original intent of the framers was for lawyers to wear wigs and not fix their hair (that one’s for you, Scalia). It would deny me a fundamental liberty to take away my hair choice. Keep you rules of procedure off my body!

I think I know what article I want to write: The Constitutionality of Courtroom Decorum Rules. If that's not publishable, nothing is.

various things

2005-04-22T08:56:00.000-05:00

I came across this quote from the dissent in Dred Scott (the case that overturned the Missouri Compromise and held that a black cannot be a citizen of the US):

"[W]hen a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean." Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 621 (1857) (Curtis, J., dissenting).

This quote was in the full text of Scalia dissent in Casey. Not addressing the merits of the dissent, it disgusts me that the all-knowing editors of our Con Law book edited out his most well reasoned arguments against the majority. Is it that bad for students to hear both sides of the argument? They put in thirteen pages of the majority after all. This also bothered me in the class discussion about Roe. Trying not to sound too full of myself, I think (and Patrick and JP agree) that I could probably articulate the anti-choice viewpoint better than most of the class. Bergen tried to call on people who haven't spoken, and in so doing allowed the bone marrow hypo to go essentially unanswered. Discussing it after class, I argued at least to draw and (again, according to Patrick) possibly bested her on it.
While I see the benefit in trying to get other people to speak, but it bothers me for two reasons. The first is that people should hear both sides of the argument; there is little intellectual value in hearing a law professor (who is published on the topic) arguing against a confused law student. The other reason, this being more personal, is that it was tantamount to punishing me for participating fully in previous class discussions. If I can manage to argue a point on the separation of powers or the Dormant Commerce Clause, why should I be punished for it on the day when I finally have something interesting to say.

I think (again, selfishly) that there should be some sort of reward for helping the class discussion on the boring topics. With blind grading and the fact that professors can't raise a grade for good participation, the only possible benefit would be allowing me to talk in the biggest class discussion of the semester. Not only that, but she would know that, by calling on me, she would at least get an intelligent anti-choice argument beyond the standard "but it is alive, damnit" and the well thought out "you should have known better." Moreover, she moved the discussion in such a manner that it was assumed that there is a right to an abortion encompassed in the right to privacy; we merely argued if the state has an interest sufficient to override that right. I seriously doubt that today in Casey we'll go back to discuss whether the right actually exists in the Constitution. Between the lack of substance in the discussion and the fact that I have a zero percent chance of being called on, I'm not even sure why I'm going to show up.

In retrospect, I was indeed called on in Con Law during the abortion funding cases. Though I wasn't able to talk about abortion, I did get to make a comment on the Tax and Spend Clause. If I'm lucky, I'll get to talk about the effects of the partial birth abortion ban on interstate commerce; after all, she does enjoy calling on me for the Dormant Commerce Clause.

This post really started out simply to put in the Dred Scott quote, but I seem to have gotten off track.

Problem with the brief

2005-04-19T23:12:00.000-05:00

For our appellate brief, one issue was whether the employer responded in a timely manner to a complaint. The complaint came on March 30, the response on May 2. I figured less than a week wasn’t too bad, so mentioned the short turn around time. When I started reading my opponent’s brief, he cited some precedent and, though all of the circuit courts may not have adopted the rule yet, apparently there’s a fairly new legal concept that could hurt me: April. I missed the whole friggin’ month. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this; I found a case from March 30, 2005 which I though was two weeks old. It turns out it was closer to six. It’s amazing how much one learns in law school: from the dormant commerce clause to the intricacies and curios of the Gregorian calendar.

Consecutive days without a poisoning: 3

The wife is trying to kill me

2005-04-16T22:08:00.000-05:00

Lauren was trying to spray one of our cats to kill the fleas on him, but he was resisting. I get from my brief (for once I actually wasn’t playing Counter Strike) and hold the cat. She starts spraying, trying to go quickly so the cat won’t claw me too badly, when she “misses” (I don’t believe that part) and sprays poison right square in my face.

There I am, holding a wet and kicking cat with insecticide in my eyes. Lauren had to grab the cat to hold him in a towel (apparently it could be bad if he got in his eyes) while I had to go flush my eyes. The sink is too low, so needed to get in the shower. I had to fumble to take off my shoes and what not with my eyes closed, then stumble blindly into the bathroom. I almost tripped over the ledge to the bathtub, but managed to get to the knob to turn on the water. This was also unfortunate, as I turned on the water while standing directly under the shower head, so I was somewhat surprised by the blast of cold water.

Once the water finally warmed up, I then got to stand in the shower for fifteen minutes spraying water in my eyes. I normally take quick showers, so fifteen minutes seems like a long time, but this was worse. Fifteen minutes of just standing there, leaned against the wall getting really hot water in my eyes. Once I finally made it out of the shower, I got to turn my sore, burning eyes back to the stupid brief. I hate my life.

Finally finished

2005-04-14T21:36:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while; I know that this annoying blog is the only light in many people’s lives. I finally finished the arguments section of the brief. I extra line before hitting the page limit, so maybe I can think of a witty closing sentence. Crap, I just realized that I still need a conclusion, so I’m going to have to cut out a few more lines. I’m not sure why I’m typing in the stream of consciousness, but why not?

Also, I actually got a job yesterday. Oh happy day. Now I have to start cramming for finals again.

The coolest thing I’ve seen in years

2005-04-10T11:59:00.000-05:00

I was looking at the google satellite maps from P-Man’s blog, and I found the coolest thing. During the Cold War the US tested more nukes in the US than I’d care to remember. Many of there were in the Nevada Proving Grounds. I was looking around in northern and central Nevada, and I’m pretty sure I’ve found pictures of where they were detonated: A lot of craters, a big friggin’ crater, a fake town we blew up, and a strange level of construction activity.

These may not be actual craters, since many of our tests were underground, in which case these are piles of dirt over grounds zero. Either way, it’s damn cool.

5 teens v. 1 old man

2005-04-06T07:51:00.000-05:00

In the article, four juveniles are facing possible felony murder charges when they attempted to beat and rob a sick 64 year old. The (surviving) kids learned a valuable lesson: don't rob a guy who has a gun. After being punched a kicked, the old guy shot one of the little punks in the head. The best part is that the four survivors could be charged with the murder of their friend (I guess WI doesn't have the "defendant's hand" exception to the felony murder rule). I love America.

update: I'm a nerd

2005-04-05T18:53:00.000-05:00

After the complaint to the ICW people, I wasn’t expecting much of a response. Much to my surprise, I received a response from none other than Professor McGaugh herself. The email actually said I am “absolutely correct” in my interpretation of rule 10.2(h). After the stunning victory in traffic court, this brings the score to me: 2, the man: 0. Huzzah!

what did she call me?

2005-04-04T17:56:00.001-05:00

After class, professor Bergin and I were talking about politics, and she said (something to the effect of) "I think you're more liberal than you give yourself credit for." I'm not sure how to take that. On the one hand, she actually said something about my politics that (to her at least) is a good thing. On the other hand, and this is in all seriousness, this is the absolute first time I've been seriously called a liberal.

I knew this would happen. One day I support gay and women's rights and the next thing I know, I'm a liberal. Not even being anti-affirmative action was enough. I've worked years at crafting my heartless bastard image, and I'm not prepared to give it up.

God bless JP2

2005-04-02T20:26:00.000-06:00

The Pope in Poland:

The Pope in Mexico:

The Pope in Australia:

The Pope having fun:

I just like these:

I'm a nerd

2005-03-31T23:44:00.000-06:00

I've complained about it for months, so I finally took action. On the ICW page there is a link for "contact," so felt compelled to give them my two cents. I sent them this:

I feel that the ICW exercises fundamentally misread Bluebook rule 10.2(h). While the rule says that certain business firm designations should be removed if the party name also contains “a word such as” several listed business designations; the use of the language “such as” implies that other business firm designations are contemplated. The ICW exercises consistently read the rule as being limited to the five listed terms; the “such as” language is wholly ignored. Thus, according to the exercises, “railroad” invokes 10.2(h) but “railway” does not. Such terms as “railway,” “enterprises” and “associates” all seem to be within the text of the Bluebook rule however an answer using such terms in 10.2(h) results in an incorrect answer. I feel that it is important to call this possible oversight to the attention of the publishers.

Why exactly did Lauren agree to marry someone who would complain to the ICW people? That's as bad as someone actually calling the "if you're not completely satisfied" 1-800 number on a shampoo bottle.

This is what happens when I waint until almost midnight to do my homework. That's sad, I didn't even mean to type "waint"; I've made fun of him so much that I'm starting to do it involuntarily. Damn.

homosexual interspecies gorilla pimping

2005-03-31T08:41:00.000-06:00

Any article with the quote "homosexual interspecies gorilla pimping" must be good. It's about sexual harassment involving researchers and their gorilla. The article asks if jury selection would involve "asking veniremen how they feel about gorillas? How they feel about chimps? How they feel about Eminem?"

If you read the article, it will be well worth your time.

I go to high school

2005-03-28T23:09:00.000-06:00

I know I make fun of my school a fair amount; I tend to make fun of everything, so If figure why leave out good ole Stickle (if the tech guy can call it that, so can I). With the paternalistic attendance requirements, limits on test formats, and now possible new required bar courses, I’ve often compared the school to a high school. I was at least semi-joking, until today. Apparently this school that is attempting to train a class of successful attorneys, wants to have a prom (if you really like the idea of the prom and will get offended by reading my anti-prom rant, please go to a more productive, less offensive site). That’s right, a friggin’ prom. In high school, I can see how dressing up and going to a fancy party can make everyone feel grown up, but aren’t we supposed to actually be grown up?

If the date I would bring is my high school sweetheart with whom I might get to go to an all night after party, that’s a prom. If my date is my wife and afterward we go back to our apartment like I do every night, that’s pathetic. At least the high school students can hope for a happy ending to the evening. I know I’m cynical and perhaps the only person in the school who doesn’t like the prom, but, as Professor Bergin will now attest, I’m just a heartless bastard.

online defensive driving

2005-03-23T16:20:00.000-06:00

I'm doing this online defensive driving course for my speeding ticket, and it is the most boring thing ever. I'll read a page about whether it is good or bad to drive after drinking, then waint until some timer runs out before I can see the next page (so that they can make sure it takes the statutory six hours). Occasionally they'll show old video clips of mid 1980s public service announcements. Just to show how old these are, this is a picture of how to use the brakes.

This is wrong on so many levels: the shoe, the sock, the fact they we need a visual aid for "put your foot on the pedal."

God bless America

2005-03-22T14:52:00.000-06:00

Today I found my favorite law. I was researching prohibited workplace discrimination, when I came across this gem of an exception. 42 USC § 2000e-2(f) says:

Members of Communist Party or Communist-action or Communist-front organizations. As used in this title [42 USCS §§ 2000e et seq.], the phrase "unlawful employment practice" shall not be deemed to include any action or measure taken by an employer, labor organization, joint labor-management committee, or employment agency with respect to an individual who is a member of the Communist Party of the United States or of any other organization required to register as a Communist-action or Communist-front organization by final order of the Subversive Activities Control Board pursuant to the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950.

Unlike Canada, our lawmakers get it right occasionally.

what's wrong with Canada?

2005-03-22T10:38:00.000-06:00

Before I go on this rant I'd like to apologize; it's spring break and I have nothing else to talk about.

Fox News reports on a new drug program in Vancouver. Heroine addicts go to the hospital, request some heroine, and are given it by the doctors. It’s one thing to have legal drugs, but free drugs? Actually, it isn’t free. The taxpayers are footing the bill. That’s right Bob and Dave McKenzie, your tax dollars are buying some junkie his chiva.

The Hosers have two justifications for the program. The first is that it will cut down on HIV, hepatitis and overdose death. I know I’ll sound like a heartless bastard for saying this (which I am, by the way), but I think that takes away from the one redeeming quality of heroine use. Your average addict is more or less useless to society: he can’t work, provide for a family or pay taxes. In a socialist country like Canada, that addict is capable of receiving free health care, government housing and a national minimum income subsidy. The only thing that stopped this drain was the addict would eventually kill himself. Death was the only deterrent to drug use in Vancouver, so now there isn’t a good reason why one shouldn’t use heroine.

The other justification is that the program will cut down on crime. I think this depends on your definition of crime. If a person or group takes your money with the threat of stabbing you, you’ve been robbed. If that same person or group takes your money with the threat of confining you indefinitely, you’ve been taxed. The Canadian people are still paying for the drugs, only now the money goes away in their taxes instead in an alley. This number will get progressively bigger as the number of new addicts grows (as it always does), but the number of old addicts doesn’t change (because they won’t bloody die anymore).

Overall, it just feels wrong to me to have the taxpayers funding a self destructive habit that serves only to hurt society. So much for the common good.

Confounded newfangled contraptions

2005-03-20T06:20:00.000-06:00

Last night the wife and I had just gone to bed when her phone starts beeping; her dad had text messaged her some one sentence message. Lauren then spends a little over a minute typing a return message saying she is going to bed, and puts her phone down. About two minutes later, her dad messages her back to tell her goodnight, so Lauren spends another minute telling him goodnight. They spent over four minutes saying about five sentences. Once she received the first message, she knew her dad had his phone, so what exactly was the impediment to just calling him? Other than sending messages in class, I truly don’t see the purpose of text messaging. One of the main reasons people buy phones is to allow instant, two-way communication. Apparently it just seems cooler to attempt to type out a message on a twelve button key pad than to just talk.

the hell?

2005-03-16T16:37:00.000-06:00

Today several people asked me if I was going to the rodeo tonight. I thought it was strange that, for all the nights that the rodeo is held, so many people would ask me today; I figured it was some SBA or BOA drinking function, so I didn’t think anything of it. It turns out that the top students (I’ve heard from five to ten) from each section are invited to something at the rodeo to schmooze with prospective employers. More so than no knowing my class rank, this really upsets me. I know for a fact that I did better than a few of the people who asked me. I know who made a fair number of the highest grades in various sections, so the best an unknown person could do (by getting the an unaccounted for A or A+) would be a 3.96.

I want to complain to someone (besides the readers of this), but I have no clue to whom I should complain. I know it would likely be a waste of time, but there would be at least a chance to suck up to hiring partners. Furthermore, the principle of the thing bothers me. I checked my transcripts and they haven’t lowered my grade (and they won’t, so long as they don’t find out about those bribes), so it just upsets me that they screwed up. I know it sounds petty and annoying, but I am petty and annoying.

I almost lost a bet

2005-03-15T19:48:00.000-06:00

I’m driving home from school today when my phone starts beeping because I have a new voicemail (it randomly decides not to ring sometimes). I check the voicemail, and it’s the hiring partner at a firm. I call back, and he doesn’t answer. Twenty excited minutes later, I try again. This time he answers; what did he want? Does he want to give me a telephone interview? Am I going to be asked to fly 600 miles for the interview? No. He tells me that he would love to hire me, but because it took his secretary a friggin’ month to get my résumé from her desk to his, they’d already hired all of their 1L clerks (the firm hires more 1Ls than any other in the nation). He then went into his sales pitch for the firm and politely asked me to apply again in the fall. I’m feeling pretty good about next summer now, but that firm was my last shred of hope for this year.
If anyone wants to join me this summer, I’ll be taking tax, property II and evidence. It will make your 2L fall much easier and keep me from being too terribly bored this summer.

misc

2005-03-14T19:06:00.000-06:00

P-Man: sorry there haven’t been any updates; I’ve been trying to update for some time now, but blogger has been seriously screwed up (after three minutes of getting the hourglass after clicking on “create post,” I have to stop so that I can get back to not working on my client letter (which I still haven’t started). If you’re reading this, blogger has started working again, so I’ll continue to waste both of our time.

We did Korematsu in Con Law today, and thought of (in my opinion) a fairly decent argument that wasn’t in the case. If either of the readers were at the post-contracts review session, they would have heard it too. To make it, I would have to support the rounding up of Japanese Americans in WWII, so I decided that whoring off my beliefs and annoying Professor Bergin was probably worth (hopefully) impressing her with a novel argument. Just to clarify, if I offended anyone with my spiel, I was only doing to suck up to a superior, which is the main motivating factor in the practice of law.

The last stop on this stream of consciousness tour of my troubled mind is that, though Lauren manifest her agreement to going out with some people after class, you schmucks have yet to come up with a plan. She’s off this Friday, so someone should come up with something if you’re serious about tearing us away from our cats on a Friday night.

A final housekeeping note: to avoid the daily question of if and what we are reviewing, I’m just going to make a schedule:

after Contracts: Con Law pre-class discussion
after Con Law (except Wednesday): Con Law review
after Torts: property review

If that doesn’t work for anyone, just let me know. (I finally got to show off my 1337 html skills with the "blockquote" tag)

stupid cats

2005-03-08T07:56:00.000-06:00

Yesterday Lauren forgot to buy more toilet paper from the store, so we only have less than one roll left (before people call me a chauvinist for making my wife buy the groceries, she does work in a grocery store, I think its only fair that she do it). I get up this morning, and notice that I forgot to close the door to the bathroom last night. When I go inside, what do I find? Little Shelby with her claws stuck in the empty cardboard tube after she had spun the roll until all of the paper was in a neat pile next to the toilet. I spanked Shelby (I doubt she knew why) and flushed the paper down the toilet. Now I’m left with two problems: (1) I have no paper, and (2) I have a clogged commode because some idiot decided to flush an entire roll of toilet paper. I doubt this will turn out to be a very good day.

I realize that posts about toilet paper in general are frowned upon and that this particular post was fairly boring, but I haven’t posted anything for a while. What do you expect from a blog named after a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure? Comedy? Action? No, you expect the same boredom you remember from Civ Pro.

A firm that didn’t reject me

2005-03-03T18:27:00.000-06:00

I finally got a non-rejection from a firm! The letter from Jackson Walker’s Austin office reads:

Thank you for your recent letter and resume. We appreciate your interest in Jackson Walker. We will keep your resume on file and call you should an opportunity for you arise in our 2005 summer clerkship program

It’s hardly a request for an interview, but they’re at least going to look at my file before they throw it away. Jackson Walker’s San Antonio office’s rejection came today, and it had the standard line about the clerkship program being full. Though the letter is likely a form letter, I can always hope that they haven’t chosen their summer clerks yet (not likely) and if not, that they’ll maybe pick me (even less likely).

For now, I think my $1 is safe from P-Man.

legal woes III: the trial

2005-03-03T16:04:00.000-06:00

Today was the big day in court: I wore my suit, carried (something like) a briefcase and even fixed my hair. I had spent over six hours coming up with a comprehensive defense based on cannons of statutory construction, comparisons to the election code and a nice case from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals from 1926.

As I sat in the courtroom going over my case-in-chief, the prosecutor started calling up defendants and offering plea bargains. When he finally called me up, I told him I didn’t change my address because I am a student. He asked to see my student ID and, when he read the “South Texas College of Law” part, he almost fell over laughing. He hesitated, and told me he would dismiss the case. I think the law was in favor of his position, but he probably didn’t want to deal with a drawn out legal argument from a snot nosed little 1L.

Though I didn’t get to make my slick legal argument, I at least won. The moral of the story is that if you look annoying and persistent enough, people will rather let you win than bother arguing with you.

Property review

2005-02-25T21:06:00.000-06:00

All of you who went home early really missed out. We reviewed property after Con Law for over three hours. Three hours of standing at the podium, writing endlessly on the chalkboard and trying to come up with something to say on the fly. The upside is that we covered estates, future interest – the whole shebang. Unfortunately so many people missed it that I think I’m going to have to give the same friggin’ talk again on Tuesday / Thursday.

I had four more rejections today, one of which came from Indiana.