Why I'm a Republican

I am a registered republican. There's two reasons for this. First, Karl Rove is hot in leather and second because when I vote I do it to protect my interests and promote the government that I want. I can do that best as a republican. The politicians that have positions most contrary to my interests tend to be republicans. The loudest voices opposing immigration, civil rights, and accountability of the government tend to be republicans. The candidates that tend to oppose education and science tend to be republicans. The candidates with the closest ties to corporations also seem to be republicans.
I have a choice, as a registered democrat I can spend the primary promoting a candidate I most want and then vote for the dem in the final elections. Hoperfully he wins. If he didn't hopefully republicans picked someone reasonable.
As a republican I can rely on the dem primary winner to be at least acceptable while working to stop the worst republican candidates before they make the general election. In the primary the voting pool is much smaller and participation is much lower. My vote has a much bigger impact here. If I can eliminate the scariest republicans then the general election becomes a choice between some democrat and a hopefully moderate republican. I can vote for the dem, unless he's really sleazy, and even if the dem loses the republican won't be that bad of a choice.
Oregon didn't have a republican presidential primary in the last election but I did get to vote against anti immigrant, anti conservation, anti labor candidates for Senate and House. If the president had been on the ballot it would have been my 3rd opportunity to vote against Bush for President, and after the general election it would have been a total of 4 times. How many dems can say that?

I read two things today on Fark that drove me up the wall. First, this judge is giving people the opportunity to avoid a jail sentence by going to church. I think this pretty clearly violates the establishment clause. People who go to church and engage in religious worship receive a benefit that is unavailable to non worshippers. That means that every decision this judge has made, where this offer was extended, can probably be overturned. This is going to cost the people of Kentucky a lot of money in court costs for all the appeals, and possibly in providing public defenders for the appeals. That doesn't even bring into account that there is no reason that this would have any effect on the defendant's drug use, there's definitely no evidence that that would be the case. I didn't look but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that this judge was elected. One more reason, Texas by the way is the biggest reason, not to elect judges.
The second thing I saw was the list of the Ten Most Harmful Books. Hopefully everyone has read at least a couple of them. I don't think anyone has honestly read Das Kapital, but whatever. I liked the tagline on Beyond Good and Evil, "The Nazis loved Nietzsche." The Nazis also loved the Bible, Heidegger, lagers, and the Bavarian country side. They also got the graffiti wrong. It goes "'God is dead' Nietzsche, 'Nietzsche's dead' God, 'Some men are born posthumously' Nietzsche". The other really funny entry is Dewey's Democracy and Education. It's condemned for advocating "thinking skills". Lord, what next? If people start thinking they'll want study science (Darwin got two honorable mentions) and treating women like people (The Feminine Mystique and Second Sex made the list.)

Book Worm

I've been able to read several books during this break. I love reading non law stuff. I read Freakonomics, Death of a River Guide, Devil in White City, and then I picked up The DaVinci Code. After the first 30 pages I knew I should have put it down and walked away. After reading books that were so good the D.C. was like stepping in a pile of horse shit. I'm curious if the movie will be as bad as a Grisham movie.
I give off the impression that I don't put a lot of effort into school which isn't true. I work hard, I spend a lot of time reading and studying the law. It just happens that I tend to do it outside of the context of my classes. I know I can follow the game plan, bust my ass and maybe get a B+ or I can generally follow along and wander around studying the legal issues that really interest me and get a B. So it may be true that I spent half as much time studying Biz Ass as other people in the class, I probably am one of a couple students who was following new decisions in the SCOTUS, the 9th and 7th Circs, and the State Supreme court. I'm the only one I know who reads law review articles for fun. I do a lot of work, I just do the work I want instead of the work I'm assigned. Any 1Ls coming shouldn't get the impression that school is just about playing crosswords on your lap top and eating bad food in the cafeteria.
I got invited to a Latino GOP internet discussion group. I don't know how that happened. Do I come off as a Republican? I am a republican technically but I don't think I come off as one, I happen to understand things like evolution and geology. I'll have to stop wearing my "kick their ass and take their gas" T shirt or something.

Grades and Gripes

I got my grades back. I thought I hadn't done very well b/c they changed the curve and figuring out where I stood involved math. It turns out they hadn't changed the curve so this is my best semester yet. It is also the semester where I tried the least. There was only one class I read consistently for.
The class I read for the least was my best grade. I attribute that to my prof's awesome teaching powers. Fear his powerpoint stance! He even put a lecture up on MP3. It's awesome. I might remix it up. The F.R.E.ak! Mix.
The second best grade was the class I read the next least for. Unlike the other class I often did the crossword instead of paying attention in lecture and skipped a couple of few times. I wrote an outline for this class in the couple hours before I took the examine. This prof, Aggressive Crotch Display, was not my favorite prof and I think by largely ignoring him I did myself a great service. When it was time to vomit up what little I knew I was able to keep it clear and concise, unlike his lectures. Let this serve as a lesson to all the 1Ls coming in. It's not how much you know but how well you can write the little you do know. And a prof can be the biggest attribute or detriment to learning a subject well.
I've got to register for next year. I'm kind of excited and wonder how many classes that I sign up for I'll keep. Last year I think I kept 4 out of 10. I think I'm going to load heavy on criminal law and employment. I'm having a hard time finding the leisure studies section of the catalog.
Does anyone know anything about radioblog? They don't have a FAQ (how stupid is that?) that I can find. I'm thinking of setting one up but I would like to know how well it gets along with blogger. I just ate a mango and I have to floss. Rock On.

Anxiety and mistrust

Basically, I just don't want to get hurt again. I know what's going to happen though. I'm going to breakdown and go to Regal and give them eight bucks to see Revenge of the Sith.
I know it's going to suck, the reviewers are all lying and I'll tell you why. They're all saying it's good b/c they don't want to get that dirty used feeling we all had after Attack of the Clones. The reviewers are enablers for an abusive George who sweet talks us at the latest convention and treats us like trash at the box office. "I'm really sorry about that last one, but the next movie will be better don't worry. I promise."
We end up back in the theater watching the future Darth Vader whine like he needs a restraining order every time Padme comes up. A comment on that, it's great to see where Luke's whining comes from. "But I was going to Tosche station to pick up some power coverters." It runs in the family of the most powerful Jedi in the universe. Great. It wasn't as whiny when Luke did it, maybe b/c Luke was likable once he saved the princess and blew up the Death Star. Anakin's report from crybaby land makes me imagine Anakin calling and hanging up on Padme in the middle of the night. He does it over and over again until Padme gets a protective order. That's why Attack sucks, I imagine Darth Vader getting served with a restraining order. Lucas failed to make Darth Vader credible if I'm thinking of a restraining order as a reasonable solution to the Dark Lord of Sith.
Throwing a bunch of screaming Wookies and Yoda in a lightsaber fight doesn't make up for the last crappy movie either. Adding that stuff is like picking up flowers from Safeway on the way home from drinking at the bar. It doesn't cut it.
I'm pretty angry about this and like my friend Mr. N. says, I've got abandonment issues with George Lucas. Well I'm going to see the movie, but not the first day and even if I end up liking it, which I'm pretty sure I won't, I'm still mad. Up yours George.

Great Weekend

I had a wonderful time this weekend. I went and saw the Epoxies play on Saturday. The show was great, Telephone was awesome, and all my favorite Portland crushes were there. There was a little adjustment but they now go:
1. Roxy Epoxie, I no longer want to be Joan Jett's roadie of love, I want to be Roxy's roadie of love.
2. The bassist from Telephone. Her hair is really rad.
3. The Cure Girl, I pointed her out to my friends. I said, "That's the girl I call 'Cure Girl' that I have a crush on." They said "The one that looks like Robert Smith?" I said "Jesus, I never noticed that, I just called her Cure Girl at Random." Cure Girl has slipped to Number three b/c of the complete and total radness of the bassist from Telephone.
4. The Mortician, who I have not had the good fortune to bump into again. Portland's a small town, I don't know what the fuck is up with that.
5. The Barista. There are actually a couple of Baristas and I thought one of them was vegan but I found out she wasn't and so she was going to be ranked as the only barista. Then I tried to talk to her and that was just a bad idea and so at this point it's just The Barista encompassing all the cute Baristas in Portland.

So besides obsessing on cute girls I see around town I need to get my ass in gear and get a job. I also started reading a book. It was fiction. It is so cool. I could read three of these a week. I'm reading Death of a River Guide right now. It's by Richard Flanagan. He wrote Gould's Book of Fish, which I think is genius.

I've started to worry a little about finals. Worst case scenario, the prof I wrote the paper for calls me and says I ruined her summer and she wants to see me in her office. The weird thing is I was talking to my old man and he wanted to know how I thought I had done. I told him that I had never taken a class by these profs before so I had no idea of how to evaluate how I did. That's really great that you can pay $26K and have no clue how you've done in your classes b/c the grading is so random. Law profs will say it's not random. The problem is they compare what they do to other law profs and the process for picking law profs picks people that are so far out the mainstream that it's hard to figure if there is any objective grading going on.

I also want to point out that there is no such thing as a German pocket constitution. This sounds random but it's packed with meaning to me.

A moment to reflect

I am awesome. I turned out my seminar paper by 4:45. That's fifteen minutes early. I then went to the libary and finished my take home final. I'm now about to walk out of the library and go home and take a shower. Then I plan on a 2 front assault on my liver. Beer will approach in a flanking motion while Maker's Mark and John Jameson hammer away at my sobriety in fierce head long melees meant to disorient my liver. Once my liver has been rendered defenseless Beer and Whiskey will gleefully corrupt my thought processes and lower my inhibitions. Hopefully by 2 this morning I will be semi coherently hollering Finnegan's Wake.

Tomorrow in the harsh light of my hangover I will begin to comtemplate the grades I will recieve. My liver will begin to recoup and reap it's nasty revenge for the transgressions of tonight. Everyone enjoy your weekend.

4 Hours 57 Minutes 22 Seconds

Let me start out by saying how much I love table of contents. It may not look like you have much of a paper but then you start putting headers in there, some sub headings and pow organization starts happening. I made the difficult decision to put my headings in all caps. I think it looks a little classier and creates a contrast to the subheadings which aren't in all caps. It says, "Hey, I thought about this."
I think my chest will probably itch less once I've handed this paper in. It seems to be my chosen distraction. There's a benefit to that. I can sit in front of my computer and vigorously rub, without scratching, my chest without breaking up my typing. If I had chosen something else to distract me, like my stubbed toe, I might have to sit in the bathroom and soak my foot or something. I still want to throw myself on the floor but whatever.
I think all that's left for me to do on my paper is write a conclusion, then go back through and make sure my analysis follows my thesis and it leads reasonably to a conclusion. If I don't hit the minimum pages I can start playing with fonts but I'm kind of proud that I have yet to actually see how many more pages I can get from Verdana as opposed to New Times Roman.

I know what you're thinking, but no I didn't get my desk at Dania. Lately I've become dependent on Langer's cranberry juice. I could probably pass about any urine test you threw at me. That's page fourteen I'm on right there by the way. 

The law review articles have climbed off the floor and started to engulf my bed. My cat ran away before she drowned in Lexis printouts. 

This is where the magic happens. When I get that chain email to choose a book and look at the fifth sentence on page 123, this is where I turn. Note the law review articles piling up on the floor. 

Paper of despair

You can follow my classmate's struggle with the same class over here. While she may prefer the Bundesverfassungsgericht I'm pretty much a Grundgesetz kind of guy. I'm no longer using the P-word.

Westlaw are bastards

I need to answer two more bonus questions and then I complete Westlaw trivia and I get 2000 points. That's like halfway to Emeril Ware. I logged on today to knock out my two final questions and rule the land with all my Westlaw points. Westlaw said that I've answered all the questions. What the hell? I've answered all the questions? Then why are there two questions left until I get the 2000 point bonus. Man, I've got half a mind to send a whiney law student email to those guys. This kind of crap is why I use Lexis more often.
On the paper I figure if I write at least one page every hour for the next 35 hours I should have it covered. I'm glad I'm not the professor who has to read it. Feel free to email me and distract me with funny Daily Show clips, alternate remix versions of La Macarena; or career updates on Emanuel Lewis.

On a scale...

Okay, on a scale of 1 to Itchy! I'm at whatever number correlates to leering at brillo pads and daydreaming about crawling across astroturf to scratch my chest. It's all the itchiness of a dry scab with the added bonus of short wiry hair that's looking prone to becoming ingrown. I'm going nuts.
I have a day and a half to write a paper. I'm actually worried that I'm not going to get it done. I spent 10 hours today working on it and I'm having the kind of organizational problems that dowse you with writer's block. No, really, I'm going nuts here.
Is anyone else as excited as me that Stryper is going to tour again? The Yellow and Black Attack!
Apparently I have a panza b/c I eat too many nachos, not b/c I drink too much beer. Horale! I'll just cut down on the nachos and quesadillas and soon I'll look like Brad Pitt.
This is so fucked up I was happy to find out it was faked.
I Have That On Vinyl is the best blog name ever. I've said it myself in that sneering record nerd sort of way.

Bitchin' about exams

I finished my last exam. I've got a paper to finish by 5pm on Friday. It's going to be tight but whatever. I don't have to take a test for awhile. I need to get moving on the job finding thing. All my friends start moving around soon and my usefulness as a big guy with a truck will be in high demand. There will be many free pizzas and beer.
Over on Buffalo Wings and Vodka there's a thread in the comments section about bad exam experiences. I posted about prop trans, or at least I think I did. That's my worst exam so far. Anyway the common line in the thread is that we all taught ourselves some subject in the middle of the exam to pass. At first that seemed kind of scary. Would you want someone who didn't prepare and winged it as your attorney? I thought about it a little more and this is the rationalization I came up with. We all have learned how to process a very complex idea and provide an adequate solution to a problem in short period of time under stressful circumstances. That's got to count for something. When I get my grades back I'll let you know if I still buy that rationalization.
I need to get some sleep. Rock on.

Girlfriend Chronology

Elena is part right. This is an ex girlfriend I dated while in Portland. There's a chronology adjustment though. I moved to Portland in 1998. I started this blog in February of last year, which I believe is 2004 (My brain is so finals rattled that I'm not sure what is exactly last year). This specific ex girlfriend was from around 2001 to 2003 I think. I have a few other lurking ex girlfriends. Only one occurred during the period of this blog. I did mention her, I just didn't talk about the break up or anything very personal.
My ex's are all amazingly talented people who are so fantastic that I don't want to talk very much about them. When you deal with a person on a day to day level you see them differently. Abraham Lincoln's wife had problems with the way he dealt with simple family life duties, she thought he was too lenient on his children.
I don't want to talk about the wonderful people I've had the good fortune to date b/c I'll complain about miniscule things. The exgirlfriend I mentioned, who I felt was a little crazy, is the most talented portrait photographer I've ever seen. Yet what I had to deal with, b/c I wasn't getting my portrait taken all the time, is whether or not she should choose a restaurant once in a while. My complaints are petty. That's why I don't talk about my exes. If I have a girlfriend I'll be upfront about it.
Maybe on the next post I'll do a chronology of my life.

New CD

As I went to bed last night I had convinced myself that I needed a specific CD b/c it would be mandatory for me to understand a certain musical movement. It was very important that I get that CD. This morning when I woke up and walked down to the record store and to get my coffee I couldn't remember it. I have no idea what it was.
I finished Biz Ass. The exam wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I've got one exam left and a paper. Then I will be ready to RAWK! like a maniac. Motley Crue is coming in concert. Actually the Epoxies are playing on the 14th and I'm psyched.
I want to plug myspace for a second. I thought it was kind of cheesy when I first found it, mostly b/c there seems to be a lot of guys with their baseball hats on backwards and with their shirts off. I've been using it to get information on small bands lately and I really like it. My four favorites right now are the Epoxies, Telephone, Magneta Lane, and The Woes. I've got my little deal here so if you're on and want to add me or whatever feel free. If you know a cool band on there let me know that too.
I was eating dinner with Ms. P from school yesterday. We were at an Italian restaurant and they had manicotti on the menu. I mentioned that I had an ex girlfriend who loved manicotti and I never knew where to take her. (I also used to joke with her that manicotti was just bland enchiladas and why wouldn't you want to eat enchiladas in the first place.) About three minutes after that my ex girlfriend comes into the restaurant and gives me her number and says I need to call her and shows me a notebook with an old picture of me, from about ten years before she knew me, a Get Fuzzy comic about Douglas Adams, and a recipe for tacos. She then says she's being too crazy and has to go. My ex girlfriend is super sweet and a little nuts, but in a charming way. But I think this is a little past cute crazy. I'm trying to do a two part balancing test. Would the amount of drama and crazy I would have to deal with be worth maintaining good will, we share a few friends, and avoiding guilt b/c she seemed really earnest.

7th Circizzle!

My friend Ms. M sent this to me today. She's taking her last final right now and I'm pretty dang envious. I am still trying to scale the Biz Ass wall. Corporations are stupid.
Anyway in U.S. v. Murphy, which you can find here, the first footnote says

The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called
her a snitch bitch “hoe.” A “hoe,” of course, is a tool used for
weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar
with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden’s
response. We have taken the liberty of changing “hoe” to “ho,” a
staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris
raps “You doin’ ho activities with ho tendencies.”

My chest no longer feels like it has a vicious carpet burn, but the itching is starting. That means the scabbing has started! Body modification is awesome.

I spent most of yesterday hooked up to computer doing online biz ass lessons. I think it's starting to stick. I should have studied to take Biz Ass first and done Crim and Evidence last. Those classes make sense. I tell you I will never be a transactions attorney. Unless there's a defendant, and that defendant can come sit down in court next to me, I don't get it. After Secured Trans I'm not taking anymore Corp type classes. Employment law, criminal defense, and torts for me. I want to sue entities and protect people, not the other way around.

Hi, I'm completely normal. Let's network. Give me a job, hey how about sports! Below are some graphic photos that may not be suitable for veiwing during meals. The necklace isn't done yet and in the words of Narduar the Human Serviette, "I apologize to anyone who had to look at me." 

Why am I wearing a diaper on my chest? For keeping cracker crumbs out of my chest hair of course. And what a panza. 

Picture of my new tattoo. 

Close up. Look at that skin irritation! You'll notice that this is significantly different than what I originally had planned on getting, but that old design was just too busy. It looked too muddy to make a good tattoo. 

I don't know what the new black is.

I do know that Biz Ass is the new Prop Trans. Man I would rather take Evidence two more times than take Biz Ass the first time.
So anyway I came across the Supernanny on TV. The idea of the show was kind of strange to me, but I guess the way that US culture is set up now what else are you going to do? My knee jerk reaction is that, if I don't know why my kid won't behave I should go ask all my aunts. At least one of my cousins behaved that way and so one of my aunts will know how to fix it. Now that nuclear families are so insulated and the families are so much smaller this isn't a viable option for most people.
I always had a supernanny at my house. It held my old man's pants up. You want to act up and throw your dinner on the floor? Supernanny will make sure don't ever do that again, and that you don't sit down for an hour. You want to cry and scream? Supernanny will give you something to cry about. You want to talk back to your mom? Supernanny will answer you everytime. To assist supernanny when it was holding my dad's pants up while he was at work my mom had the pretty good nanny, a wooden spoon. It worked nearly as well.
I know it's not enlightened to hit your kids but my cousin's and I were all raised on the belt. Only one of us got arrested for anything serious. Most of my cousin's are successful, educated, and well respected. It didn't seem to have such a negative influence. But I look at what white kids I grew up with who werent' whipped have compared to what they started out with and the way they were raised didn't seem to work so well.
I think part of this is due to the fact that they were the first generation of people who weren't supposed to be whipped and no one really told their parents what to do instead. I wonder how that's going to shake out with next couple generations of Latinos. I know I'm not supposed to whip my kid, but what am I supposed to do? Timeout doesn't seem to cut it and the only thing that worked on me was the belt. Where am I supposed to learn the new mysterious technique? And how will my kids brag about what a bad ass their old man is, my old man could lay one down on you and have is belt back on so fast it would take you a day to realize you got whipped, if I don't have a belt to give them some stories.

Biz Ass

I can't hack it. I took my evidence exam this afternoon and I've been trying to read my Biz Ass stuff all day. I've read 50 pages in 7.5 hours. My favorite DJ is playing around the corner. I might go check that out instead of fighting with this book. I'm crapping out. I'll take my book to the pub and listen to the DJ and learn me some Biz Ass.
I have no attention span and have been totally unable to retain anything lately. I can't figure out why. I'm sleeping, I'm drinking a reasonable amount of coffee, I'm getting my walks in. I've just hit some wall. I need to shake it out. I need to rock. I'm making devil horn with my left hand now and humming "Iron Man".
So anyway the NCLR didn't kick me out. They thought I might not be a Hispanic male because I was trying to cook for myself but they checked it out and I'm legit. They asked why doesn't a smart guy like me have a girlfriend. They said that their cousin's madrina, Chema, has a niece that I should meet and that she'll be at mass and why don't I go to mass more often. It was a spooky letter.
I haven't found any exciting flash games so I've just been listening to Little Steven's radio show. I think that's about the best thing I've found on the internet in a while. It needs to be finals more often, but without the testing or learning a whole bunch of stuff all at once. Maybe I should just listen to Love all night. No pub and rock n roll. Need rock n roll. Love is rock n roll? Okay, but I need varying rock n roll to increase my roll, I've got the rock, I need the roll.