Thursday, November 13, 2008

How far will you go to defend your first year case notes?

ASU student pummels would-be robber


November 7th, 2008 @ 9:42am


by KPHO.com


Arizona State University student Alex Botsios said he had no problem giving a nighttime intruder his wallet and guitars.

When the man asked for Botsios' laptop, however, the first-year law student drew the line.

"I was like, 'Dude, no -- please, no!" Botsios said. "I have all my case notes…that's four months of work!"

Police said Gabriel Saucedo entered Botsios' apartment through an open window early Thursday morning. When Botsios woke up, Saucedo threatened him with a baseball bat, police said.

He was just like, 'I'm going to smash your head in,'" Botsios said.

At that point, the law student wrestled the bat away and began punching Saucedo, Botsios said.

"I basically grabbed him and threw him this way, and he held onto the bat so it threw him to the ground," he said.

Police said they took Saucedo to the hospital for stitches before they arrested him on charges of armed robbery and kidnapping. Other than a bruised knuckle and a few scratches, Botsios was unharmed.

Janet Botsios, Botsios' mother, said she took the first flight from Texas as soon as she heard what happened.

"I'm like putting my face in my hands, and I just couldn't believe it," she said. "I was like, 'Oh my God.' I'm so glad he watched all those police shows his whole life … He knew how to take care of himself … I'm very, very, very proud of him."

Alex Botsios said he learned one lesson from the incident: don't leave windows open.

Otherwise, he said he is happy that his laptop is unharmed.

"It's my baby," he said. "Don't mess with my computer."

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Banjo used in brain surgery

Check out the video on the BBC page.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7665747.stm


A musician who underwent brain surgery to treat a hand tremor played his banjo throughout to test the success of the procedure.

Eddie Adcock is one of the pillars of Bluegrass Music and realised his tremor could threaten his ability to perform professionally.

Surgeons placed electrodes in Mr Adcock's brain and fitted a pace maker in his chest which delivers a small current which shuts down the region of his brain causing the tremors.

A surgeon filmed the operation at the Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Porcelain & Plumbing

Porcelain & Plumbing
(inspired by actual events)

by Ipsit Dixit

We had begun searching for a new house
To leave our apartment behind;
Not that we’re really the type to grouse:
We’re just the “fee simple” kind.

We wanted a place with more than one bath
To accommodate guests staying over;
We saw a listing with one full and one half,
And drove out to go look it over.

The first level clearly was just top class
With quality work all around,
With hardwood and tile and lustrous glass,
And hardly a flaw to be found.

We saw the unfinished basement, though,
With concrete floor in minimalist mode.
We looked to see where the “half bath” would go,
And saw a free-standing commode.

I sat on the lid and I looked all around,
Viewing each bare bulb that shone,
Peering into each corner of the grey concrete ground,
And up to the kitchen, from that porcelain throne.

Porcelain and plumbing we had for sure,
But not sink, nor walls, nor door.

I think the advert was a wee bit misleading,
When all the “half” had was only flush seating.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Finding Fault with the Victims of Ike

Let me preface by saying that I am both glad that Ike was not as bad as it was feared it would be and that I have great sympathy for those whose lives were turned upside down by this storm. I have never had to evacuate my family. I can only imagine how difficult it is to decide what to take and what to leave, to turn your pets over to a mass shelter, to face the prospect of losing all that you worked for.

However, news reports indicate that some 140,000 persons stayed behind after the evacuation order was issued.

Now, lets assume that some of those were abandoned and would have wanted to get out- elderly, infirm, and such. It is also likely that others stayed behind because they could not get out such as those who took too long and were trapped.

The news interviews with those who stayed because they expected to "ride out the storm" or because they "wanted to experience the storm" strike me as having made a grossly negligent choice. There may be few or many of these, but their choice put others in danger and that is hard to accept.

Predictably, emergency services at all levels are rescuing these folks now. The financial cost is great but the human cost is higher as thousands of emergency personnel risk life and limb to save those whose own negligence put them there. Sure, this is their job- though it is worth noting that Texas, like Pennsylvania, provides most local emergency services through volunteer companies- but increasing the risks that others face is the essence of negligence.

For example, three folks in Galveston went out to the end of a pier to "experience" and photograph Ike's landfall. When the pier was wiped away behind them, they were stranded on the end through the storm. They are lucky to be alive at all and I have no doubt that they have the experience of a lifetime.

The Coast Guard, spotting them from the air yesterday morning conducted a search and rescue and brought them out safely.

I hope they, and any others like them, realize how stupid it was to vie with Mother Nature, on the one hand, and how fundamentally wrong it is to act so negligently.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

English Only Golfing

The LPGA has instituted an "English only" rule.

I suppose it sucks for the Scots... Invent the game but barred from international competition because no one can understand you.

The LPGA has decided that it has a responsibility to its members to further their careers off the course and that growing the game among English speakers is critical to that mission. Perhaps someone should explain that English only speakers make up a VERY small minority of the people on the planet and that, with an average birth rate hovering around 2 children per family, that percentage will be less every year.

More to the point... What could be more offensive than to be told that your language itself makes you unqualified to bang a ball around a big field? You can beat par at Hilton Head but your interviews don't play well on SportsNight. Sorry, you suck. Loser.

A more offensive display of ethnocentrism is hard to imagine.

Assholes.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

My Wonderful Legal Career

[Below is an actual "Serial Writing Paper" submitted in law school to satisfy part of the professional writing requirement for my JD. Ah, law school. Remember law school? Is it any surprise how many lawyers end up twisted, pill-popping, alcoholics? Anyway, the professor was not amused by my work product, but that was no surprise, since I'm pretty sure he had his sense of humor surgically removed and replaced with a second, ah, sphincter.]


Topic: How do you envision your legal career in seven years? Be specific.

In seven years, I envision myself with a diverse practice including divorce law, property law, bankruptcy law, Fifth Amendment law, and prisoner-rights law, tort law, and appellate work.

After incurring significant debt to attend law school and graduating in the bottom quintile, I will take a legal job at a 35% cut in my current pay. I will work 80 hours per week as a junior associate, and my wife will be forced to work overtime and take part‑time jobs to help meet mortgage and student loan payments.

After several years of this, my wife’s health will fail and she will be forced to quit her full‑time job as well as one of her two part-time jobs. She will go on disability and quit the last part time job. In the meantime, I will increase my hours from 80 per week to 100 per week, in a valiant (if not vain) attempt to increase my income from 65% to 75% of the pre-law level.

On the verge of declaring bankruptcy, my lovely wife, having borne a greater burden than any woman should be asked to, will sue for divorce. Overwhelmed with guilt for having effectively abandoned her in my pursuit of a legal career and for having saddled her with a mountain of foolish debt, I will not only agree to the divorce, but to all the terms set forth by her lawyer. I will assume all the debt from student loans, credit cards, and the like. I will agree to the sale of the house, assigning all proceeds to her, agree to spousal maintenance of 50% of my gross income, and agree to guarantee health insurance. She will get the dog.

Bankruptcy court will generously give my creditors most of the rest.

Shortly after moving into a tiny efficiency apartment, and learning the wonders of shopping at the dollar store, my car will break down. The cost of the repairs will make it impossible to meet all my obligations of rent, debt payments, and spousal support, not to mention food, utilities, et cetera. Within a few months, utilities will be cut off, and a few months after that, the landlord will refuse to renew my lease.

After the eviction, I will live in my ’98 Beetle “for just a little while to save money”. The number of hours I work will increase from 100 to 140 per week, since I really do not have anywhere else to be anyway. The increase in my professional productivity will be offset by the deterioration in my personal hygiene.

After years of having taken mass transit in from the suburbs, I will discover that the cost of parking in the city is greater than rent and utilities combined. Parking on the street in an effort to make ends meet, one night, my car will be towed. I will be disoriented and dismayed when I awake in a South Philly impound lot, but it will slowly dawn on me that last night’s wild dream of being towed while sleeping in my car was not so wild after all.

The expense of the cab to and from the bank to withdraw the cash, along with the fees and penalties, will consume almost all of my available funds. Driving out of the lot, I will discover that my brakes have failed because the car had been towed with parking brake on. Unable to stop the car, I will drive into the impound lot administrative building. My car will be impounded. Again.

With all my changes of clothes behind a razor-wire-topped fence, locked in the Beatle, in South Philly, my coworkers will begin complaining to management of the odor wafting from my cube. I will no longer be invited to client meetings. About three weeks after the impoundment, as my hygiene declines, a senior partner will walk in on me late one night as I attempt to take a sponge bath in the executive wash room. I will be fired. (There are just some purposes to which a designer original, color-coordinated, 100% Egyptian cotton, terrycloth, executive face towel should never be put.) The next day I will assign all interest in my pension funds to my wife.

I will win the city’s tort claim against me for damage to the impound building, arguing that the city’s towing contractor owed a duty of care to release the parking brake before actually towing the car (or else to use a flat bed tow truck). I will, however, be held responsible for impound fees that exceed my net worth.

I will homestead a beautiful, undeveloped, open space at 16th and Vine boasting a superb view of the Center City skyline above and the I-676 expressway below. When the city sanitation crew appears to remove my few pitiful belongings I will eloquently protest the seizure of my property and irrefutably argue against the legitimacy of such confiscatory policies. However, the crew, and the police officers providing security for them, will be unmoved. Pressing my case with the zeal expected of a Beasley Law graduate, I will be arrested by police in an attempt silent a vociferous critic of the state.

I will be charged with interfering with a city worker in the lawful performance of his duties, with uttering terroristic threats, with assaulting a police officer, with resisting arrest, and with camping in a public park without a license. Utterly trumped up charges, mind you, but wickedly effective, for from within the bowels of the criminal justice system, my voice—if not unheard—is muffled. I will file appeal after appeal. I will file for writ of mandamus after writ of mandamus. And, even after I am disbarred, I will barter my legal expertise in exchange for my safety.

A little more than seven years after law school, I will be the consigliore of cell block “C”.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Populism Revisited

In a prior post, I took a swipe at the Obama campaign as “Populist” and asserted that Obama lacks the demonstrated competence, experience, and intestinal fortitude to be President.

Ipsit Dixit responded with a thoroughly academic critique of my internet post.

In my experience, little internet discussion follows the structure of academic discourse. It rarely defines terms, presents both sides of an argument, or fairly discusses complex issues. Internet postings have more in common with Thomas Paine’s tracts than Blackstone’s commentaries.

While thoroughly researched, painstakingly attributed, carefully constructed, and eminently fair discussion of current events is of great value, my post was not intended to fulfill those worthy goals. It was, instead, intended to draw on common definitions and ideas to express frustration with what I see as another example of “king-making” by the media.

Perhaps I will be more successful in my second attempt.

In my opinion, it is “Populism” that underpins the Obama campaign.

I did some research into the term “Populism” and found that there is little agreement on its meaning. It appears to have been coined to represent the People’s Party of the late-1800s through early 1900s. These early Populists favored monetary policies that supported labor unions and policy that favored the maintaining of privately owned farms. The also opposed the private ownership of utilities and multi-state corporations.

I have understood “Populism” to be the symbiotic relationship between political leadership that seeks to appeal to a broad “common-man” interest and a population that seeks controls over interests perceived to be uncontrolled by the larger society. So, Populism in 1920 favored labor over owners, government control over railroads, and greater regulation of financial interests. To my mind, Populism today favors US labor over globalization, control over mortgage finance and markets, and the greater regulation of financial interests. The common thread is that the interests of the “common man” trump the interests of corporations and those at the top of the economic ladder.

“Populism” is a pejorative term in my eyes.

Guilty as charged.

It is pejorative because the attempt to appeal to the “common-man’s” interests through the distilling of complex problems to catch-phrases, a common technique of Populists, is, to my mind, inherently dishonest. It seeks power by promising the democratization of financial interests and the socialization of services without possession of the mandate or power to accomplish those ends.

Ultimately, my gripe with the Obama campaign is that it has its roots in a Populist appeal and that it draws its strength from and the complicity of a media that is engaged in “king-making”- by which I mean the ability of the media to decide a winner and then manipulate the populace into voting for that person.

Obama is a fine speaker. He is charismatic and his speech-writers are at the top of their game. When “on-script,” Obama makes few gaffs and his campaign has deftly handled any mistakes.

Obama also has an excellent groups of “handlers”- by which I mean those persons who day-in and day-out manage the complex affairs of a politician so that the politician can concentrate on appearances. This group includes high-level strategists, personal dressers, marketing people, administrators, and a host of paid and volunteer people without whom a candidate would be overwhelmed with tasks.

If we want to think ill of “handlers,” there is some cause.

Handlers refine the message and shield the candidate from scrutiny. So it was with Clinton, whose handlers snuffed story after story during his presidential campaign. So it is with Obama whose handlers have kept discussions of Obama’s stand on issues important to religious voters off the table.

McCain has handlers too. (I like to think that McCain’s greater experience and stature in politics gives him greater control over his message, but I may be deluding myself.)

One of the most important job for handlers is to place candidates in the most favorable position to receive accolades without risk of de-masking their weaknesses. Obama’s handlers have been particularly good at this task and McCain’s particularly bad.

One strategy that Obama’s team employed to great effect during the Primary (hard to believe that we are still in the Primary season, given the present contest) was to overwhelm one’s experienced opponent with media saturation. Undoubtably, it is Obama’s personal magnetism that has made this possible, but it is to his handler’s credit that Obama has been able to capitalize on that advantage.

Almost as soon as he won his Senate seat, Obama began running for President. Obama has no experience with the hard-fought compromises that make this deliberative body work. He simply hasn’t been there long enough to learn the complex inter-personal relationships that bring a bill to a vote or doom it to committee. Unlike LBJ, a man with an immense amount of experience in pushing through legislation, if Obama becomes President, he will be forced to rely upon others for the skills and experience in legislating that he lacks. In this respect, Obama reminds me of Kennedy.

Hillary Clinton had considerably more experience but was much less likable. Consequently, Obama’s team was able to develop a relationship with the media that made every Clinton misstep a catastrophe and most Obama missteps an asset. Obama’s call for unspecified change received unmitigated support from the popular media and uncritical reporting has bolstered his bid for election even beyond that of far more experienced contenders.

Compared to Obama and Clinton, McCain is an “expert” on legislation and the relationship between the Legislature and the Administration and among the Houses, Members, and Senators.

(McCain became an US Representative in 1982 and has served continuously as an US Senator since 1986. He has also been either the sponsor of or co-sponsor to some of the most complex pieces of legislation in history such as that which took on campaign finance and immigration overhaul. Like or hate those bills, McCain was instrumental in bringing them to the floor.)

The crux of the matter is that Obama has not demonstrated an ability to lead and relies upon celebrity to create the impression of charismatic leadership.

The popular media is in the midst of a love-affair with Obama that has built him into a colossus of popular appeal. For example, People Magazine ran a front-page article about the Obama family. The unfettered praise heaped upon him by the mainstream media has only abated in the last week or so and then, only after McCain scored points against Obama by attacking Obama’s celebrity. However, being popular, even charismatic, is only valuable to a leader in-so-much-as those attributes compel cooperation from other government officials. Celebrity must not be a substitute for demonstrated experience, ability, and determination that we need in a President.

The short of it is that the media’s attempt to “sell” me on Obama makes me greatly mistrust him. The media’s attempt to dissuade me from voting for McCain makes me take McCain more seriously.

What concerns me is that Obama’s campaign and the media are so anxious to sell us on change for change’s sake that the particulars are lost. Obama’s website is no more illuminating because it speaks almost entirely in inspirational language. (Before you say it, my friend, I don’t have any idea what Conservative pundits say about Obama. I don’t listen to them and couldn’t care less about their opinions. In MY opinion, Obama’s “plans” are woefully short on details and it is those details that are supposed to substitute for legislative experience on which we are to base our support. If Obama wants my vote, he needs to explain the steps that will garner the support of the States and the US legislature. Without it, it is so much fluff.)

As importantly, I have not seen any reason to believe that Obama has a mandate for change within his own party- begging the question of whether Democratic control of both the Executive and Legislative branches will matter at all. (This is the nature of my attempt to parallel Obama and Bill Clinton as presidents.)

Ultimately, Democrat or Republican, the drafting and amending of legislation is shielded from popular review by an army of lawyers, lobbyists, party elite, and rules. A President cannot navigate that swamp of conflicting interests by popularity alone. A President must be able to harness their popular appeal.

I closed out the prior post by alleging that, like JFK, “Obama will find that there is a huge difference between conceptualizing a ‘better world’ and doing anything to get us there.” And further, that “[l]ike Clinton, he [Obama] will find that it is a lot more satisfying to make big speeches than to attend to the day-in-and-day-out functions of an Administration. And, like Clinton, I suspect that an Obama Administration will be rudderless and corrupt. He will likely be the unknowing chief of a scandal-plagued tribe.”

Though Ipsit Dixit took great offense at these conclusions, I must affirm that they represent a realistic assessment of the likely outcome of an Obama election. (I retract that allegation that Obama’s staff will walk off with White House property like Clinton’s did. Mine was an unfair shot.)

I don’t have any reason to believe that Democratic control of the Senate, House, and Presidency will make one iota of a difference to the vested interests that are aggressively shifting their funding from GOP to DNC. Obama and the national Democratic Party need filthy money as much as the GOP ever did. Once taken, whether through direct donations or through back doors like the 527s, those interests will continue pulling strings… the strings will just be a different color. Thus, even if we credit Obama as being scrupulous and faithful in his promise of “change,” there is no evidence that the presently Democratic controlled Senate and House will do more than give lip-service to that change.

Without the ability to insert himself into the legislative process, an ability that comes only with experience, Obama hasn’t got a prayer of making substantive change, not looked for by the national Democratic Party, a reality. We have been here before… JFK was President.

I suspect that Obama, who seems like a “good man,” will find, as Bill Clinton did before him, that the problems facing his administration are much greater and more complex than he ever imagined. The temptation to abdicate responsibility for those affairs to subordinates will be great. Since those subordinates will be chosen by the party’s elite, they will come to Obama (again, assuming Obama to be impeccably honest) tainted and corrupt. Without careful oversight, a skill not demonstrated by Obama due to his utter lack of executive experience and in serious question, as Ipsit Dixit notes in his reply to the previous post, during his campaign, how could his administration be other than corrupt? We have been here before too… Clinton was President.

Ipsit Dixit was offended by the perceived slight that Obama supporters “accept, without challenge, the assertions of others if assertions are spoken loudly enough and resonate with our desires.” He sees my noting that “I don’t think of myself as ‘smarter’ than other people’” as a mere feint.

The post was written with the mind to my fellow posters, all of whom are, in my esteem, brighter than me. To state that Ipsit Dixit is a critical and intelligent Obama supporter provides no answer to the charge that Obama is riding a Populist wave that may well sweep him into the Presidency.

There are lots of critical, intelligent persons who support Obama; but Obama’s campaign seeks supporters are reflexively supporting him. If they vote Obama because everyone else is or because George Clooney says they should, so be it.

Similarly, McCain is hoping to tap into the reflexive support of deeply conservative persons. If they vote for McCain because Chuck Norris says they should, so be it.

Both campaigns, I suspect, will take votes and money from any source in the offing. If it be racists, communists, atheists, or zealots… so long as they don’t claim to speak for the campaign, their offerings will be accepted.

Such is politics.

As for the foreign-policy credentials and such, that was all Ipsit Dixit. I actually didn’t post about the need for foreign policy experience in a President.

I will say, though, that my view of a presidency is more narrow than that commonly accepted and that foreign policy experience is invaluable.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

HIV Bar Stripped from Immigration Law

Bush has signed a bill that strips HIV from the list of "communicable diseases of public health significance" for which an alien can be barred admission to the US.

Some perspective please.

I did a definition search and do not understand why HIV is not "communicable." Sure, the means by which the virus is communicated are limited. However, HIV infection, particularly among African Americans and sexual minorities continues to exact an horrific toll.

Perhaps the more scientifically-minded among us can weigh in on the technical difference that makes leprosy a "communicable disease of public health significance" and HIV not.

What I am about to say will sound cold. I don't mean it to be; but I am a nationalist at heart and care about American interests much more than unassociated foreign interests.

The US may well have an interest in reducing the costs of HIV drug treatments to populations in other countries. We certainly have an interest in coming up with better treatments for our own people. I don't see any interest in bringing HIV infected persons to the US.

HIV is almost universally fatal. While the inevitable can be delayed with some extremely expensive medical treatment, the outcome is set from the moment that the virus begins its replication.

The article suggests that the bar doesn't matter anyway because there are so many persons who came here illegally to obtain treatment in the US. Even if this is true for persons from Mexico, the assertion doesn't take into account visas issued to persons from developing countries which are now subject to the bar.

Frankly, cold though it may be, I think being HIV positive, even if due to no fault of one's own, should be a bar to admission to the US.

Friday, August 08, 2008

Large Hadron Collider goes online Sept. 10

CERN announced that the first attempt to circulate a beam through the Large Hadron Collider will be on September 10th, 2008.


Some photos of the LHC.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/the_large_hadron_collider.html


What do you think of this?

That's it!!! I'm takin to the streets.

Random House Publishers has pulled a book about the Prophet Md.'s child bride due to fears that it would be perceived as an insult to Islam and could spark violence.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0736008820080807

What a load of shit!!!

Lots of books are insulting... even meant to be insulting.

As a Catholic, I find James McCarthy's, "The Gospel According to Rome," to be deeply offensive. Similarly, Lorraine Boettner's, "Roman Catholicism" is about as awful as I can imagine. And who can forget Dan Brown's, "The Da Vinci Code?" (Lets face it, if Catholics needed proof that the popular media hated us and wanted our church dead, the hoopla and attention this book and movie generated should have been sufficient. I still can't bring myself to watch any Tom Hanks because of it.)

But, writing offensive stuff has been the hallmark of Western literature for many centuries. In one sense, I think it could be fairly said that it is the awful, the poorly researched, the intentionally deceptive, the hateful that molded our concepts of Free Speech.

The State will always support that which affirms the common culture. It is the offensive that needs protection. So, while it is often prudent to self-censor- not too much- and appropriate to refuse support to that which is designed to bring discredit to your beliefs, it is important that there be easily accessed vehicles for publishing the outrageous and awful.

This is one of the reasons that I favor the unregulated internet.

It is probably fair to say that the internet is the first publishing vehicle that is easily accessible to virtually everyone. There is virtually no evaluation of content- hell, they let ME publish- and the cost of publishing, is, for most in developed nations, pretty low. Have computer, will publish.

This is why the refusal of a publishing house to publish a work on the basis of fear alone is so dangerous and disturbing.

If Random House pulled it because they didn't think it was good enough or because they didn't believe it would sell enough copies, I would have no problem with it. Private company, private rules. But, to pull the work out of fear or because it would offend strikes at the core of Free Speech.

It also sends a bad message that terrorism can stifle ideas. So, if you want your group treated fairly, you should threaten and terrify. Random House, in effect, is saying that it will cave to strong and injure the meek.

This is hardly a formula for supporting Free Speech.

I should note that I am not advancing the notion that private companies should endanger their interests to propel larger Western ideals. Each board, like each individual, has to decide how much risk they are willing to take to support the society that makes their standards of life possible. However, I think less of Random House for having made this decision.