The Blog with No Name

I changed my countdown timer over there on the left. Express your pity in the comments (if you feel led).

Well, I’ve now finished two days of classes. The classes are much more worthwhile than that blasted orientation. Each class section is only an hour long, which I found surprising because I was expecting classes to go for at least an hour and a half. Also, my classes seem to be randomly scattered throughout the week. One class only meets Tuesdays and Thursdays. Another class meets every day but Friday. Another class meets Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Learning my schedule is going to be frustrating. The ABA requires students to attend at least 75% of the classes otherwise they fail the class. Another way to put this is that I’m excused from 25% of all class sessions. For most of my classes my grade will be determined solely or almost entirely by the final. Awesome!

Okay, I’m starting to ramble. I’ve had a lot of observations and thoughts, but nobody really to talk to yet. I guess it would all spill out here if I let it. I won’t though.

Labor Day weekend starts Friday. I might be driving down to my grandparent’s place in northern California. It’s only eight hours away. I can leave after my last class and be there by 8 p.m. Not too bad! My only concern is homework and gas expenses. It will probably cost close to $100 just in gas.

After I work out how I’m going to operate this semester, I’ll probably get back to a regular posting schedule. Sure I’ll have a lot of work, but I also will have no life.

Oh, one final thing. I have train tracks no more than 75 yards away from my apartment. Think about that in relation to my early mornings. Express your pity in the comments.

This movie is going to be so good. The Life Aquatic is Wes Anderson’s follow-up to The Royal Tennenbaums, which is an altogether excellent movie. By the way, the trailer is excellent, so watch it!

This is interesting. I hope I have time later to dig into this a bit.

The Newborns homeschool their kids and object to the legal requirement that the local district superintendent must have final approval of their children’s education, which includes religious studies.

“It’s not the paperwork we are objecting to … because there is no religious objection to paperwork. It is the final approval by the superintendent, a secular institution, over our children’s religious education,” said Maryalice Newborn.

As a guy who was homeschooled for nearly all of his pre-college years and highly skeptical of public schools in general, I’m very bothered that any homeschool curriculum must be approved by the school district. One could probably argue that the state has a basic responsibility to uphold fundamental teaching standards (after all it doesn’t want to pay for uneducated adults later in life who can’t get a job), but my gut response is that this policy has more danger of being abused than actually preventing non-education. Most parents who pull their kids out of public education are doing so because they have serious objections or doubts to the teaching process, content, and quality found in public schools; and, in my opinion, will probably end up giving their kids a better education than the average public school student.

The US men’s basketball team is out of the running for the gold medal. You know, this makes me happy for some reason. Maybe because my patriotism is flagging. Actually, I have yet to talk to somebody who isn’t happy about these over-paid, misbehaved, arrogant atheletes losing.

My “old” college/blogging/politics buddy, Greg Piper, has a lengthy review of Kerry’s appearance on the Daily Show. What’s more important is that he got linked to by Instapundit (half-way down the post)! I’m so freakin’ jealous!

Can I just say how stupid orientations are? I have yet to see or experience one that was worth any where near the amount of time they consume. I just got out of 4 hours of pep talks, informative talks, and group discussion. I could have gotten all the same information in 30 minutes, and I don’t really need a pep talk. Kthxbye.

Maybe the next two days will get better . . .

Sometimes coming up with a title for each post is a real big pain in the butt.

Tomorrow I start First year (1L) Orientation at Willamette. Honestly, I have no idea how an orientation can last for three days, eight hours a day, but somehow they are going to do it. Believe me, I’m skipping everything I think is a crock. Classes start on Monday, so I’ll have to think of a new thing for my timer over there on the left.

It seems I have a place to live now. The landlord told me it will work out unless something strange and significant pops up. I have no idea what could. The place I’ll be getting is a one-bedroom apartment that’s a short drive from campus. I think I’ll be happy with it though I was really hoping for a place within walking distance. Maybe next year I’ll find something.

So with the combination of orientation, moving in to my new place, and hauling the rest of my stuff down from Seattle, blogging will probably be very light. These next few days are going to be a drag.

More evidence the UN is worthless. According to this editorial, Sudan is showing no fear of the UN and the possible reprecussions for not disarming the Janjaweed militia. Why am I not surprised?

TWENTY-FOUR days have elapsed since the U.N. Security Council gave the government of Sudan a month to stop a campaign of ethnic cleansing by militias and its own troops in the region of Darfur — and still the killing goes on. Monitors of the African Union and envoys of the United Nations report no substantial improvement. Attacks by the militias on civilians continue, desperate refugees continue to swell under-provided camps in neighboring Chad, and people continue to die by the hundreds each day. The government has offered only cosmetic compliance with the U.N. resolution, and yet it proclaims that it has nothing to fear from a promised review at the end of the month. Its cynicism is understandable, because Western diplomats are suggesting that the council is unlikely to follow through on an implicit threat of sanctions.

. . . Soon it may also deliver another grim verdict on the ability of the Security Council to back up its own resolutions. [ahem, Iraq?] Hamstrung by the unwillingness of veto-wielding members, such as China, to intervene, it delayed action for months, then watered down the language it finally adopted on July 30 to omit any direct sanction against the Sudanese regime. Days after that, an agreement between U.N. and Sudanese officials further weakened the pressure on Khartoum: Among other things, it converted a requirement that the government-sponsored Janjaweed militia be disarmed into a Sudanese promise to provide a list of those it admits to controlling.

The UN can’t even back up its limited threats against a 4th rate government. Why in the world should we give it any credibility at all? Once again, it will probably take the action of the US to sort this situation out.

Neat picture of the earth at night.

Yes, don’t address the issue, just go crying to the FEC. As far as I know, the Bush campaign hasn’t complained or threatened to sue over MoveOn.org’s shenanigans. The more Kerry refuses to rebut the Swiftboat Veterans (he can start by releasing his military records) the more I think Kerry’s Vietnam service is suspect.

Note how the story doesn’t even mention the Christmas-in-Cambodia story that has stuck, forcing Kerry to modify his multitude of public statements on the issue. Also note this story does reference the NYT’s skeptical article about the group, but doesn’t reference the best-selling book that gives greater details and references about the charges the group is making. Non-partisan media, my ass.

Alaskans are considering another initiative to completely legalize pot. This came up in 2000, and I remember being pretty torn about it. I read an article in a recent National Review that made a persuasive case for legalizing marijuana, so now I’d characterize myself as pretty ambivalent about the issue but leaning towards the legalization side.

Dick Morris thinks the winner of this year’s election is Osama’s call. He opens:

MORE than any other single individual, more than George W. Bush, more than John Kerry, it is Osama bin Laden who will determine the winner of the election in November.

If Americans feel that they are at war, they will rally to Bush. By a strong majority, they feel that he is the best candidate to keep America safe, prosecute the War on Terror, and — even on his worst days — stabilize Iraq. But if they feel that the war is over or winding down, they are likely to vote for Kerry. By similar majorities, most surveys indicate that voters trust him more to create jobs, help the economy, lower health-care costs, stabilize Medicare and Social Security, reduce prescription drug prices, help improve education and protect the environment.

And he concludes:

If, God forbid, [Osama] penetrates our guard and actually succeeds in pulling off a terror strike in the United States, will it help or hurt Bush?

My bet is that it will help. While many will criticize the president for failing to prevent the attack, the immediate reaction will be to rally around the White House and to grasp that we live in a dangerous world and that Bush’s superior commitment to fighting terror effectively is the way to go. While nations like France and Spain can be counted upon to react to a terror strike by surrendering and running for cover, the likely American reaction would be quite the opposite — just as Israel’s has been.

Voters face a tough decision in November: Are we at war or at peace. Their quandary is reminiscent of that which British voters faced in June of 1945 when they had to vote for Winston Churchill’s Conservatives or Clement Atlee’s Laborites. Despite the continuing war with Japan, they reacted to Hitler’s suicide and Germany’s surrender the month before the elections to vote for Labor and embrace a peacetime agenda.

But this year, I think that bin Laden will remind us frequently and graphically that we are at war. And I think that may re-elect George W. Bush.

Morris seems pretty sure of himself, but I’m not so convinced. Recently I’ve begun to think that another terrorist attack will pretty much doom Bush’s re-election chances (especially if that attack ends up assassinating him). It seems that Kerry has pushed strong enough on the “I’m-a-tough-guy-and-I-can-do-national-defense” thing that he’s made up ground in that area, and after some recent statements he has sounded awfully hawkish about Iraq (almost as hawkish as Bush). So, Kerry now doesn’t seem like as much as a pansy as he did a few months ago. Furthermore, if Bush lets another major attack happen on his watch, that will be two huge strikes for him. Would people really want to let him have a chance at a third strike? Sometimes I think that after another major terrorist attack there would be enough doubt about Bush’s policy on national defense to gut his re-election chances.

Eugene Volokh has some advice to law students (that I probably never would have thought about) after relating the troubling experience of a successful but passive law student:

So, first, make efforts to talk in class. Don’t talk just for the sake of talking, but surely you’ll have some interesting questions — ask them. You’ll also have some interesting answers that others in the class aren’t coming up with — give them. Don’t be afraid of sounding stupid to your classmates. Very few of the questions and comments that I’ve heard in class are at all stupid or embarrassing (yes, a few are, but really very few); and if you aren’t a frequent talker, your classmates will be glad to hear a new voice, instead of listening to the usual suspects.

I was always under the impression that most people in law school are going to be those types who think they’re awesome and want everybody to know it by talking a lot. I guess I’m wrong. I have tendency to be passive if the material is uninteresting, but if it’s something that gets my blood flowing I have no problems butting heads with people, even with professors.

[Ed. note: What a messy original post . . .]

I have seven articles I’ve saved over the last week that I want to comment on but either haven’t had the time or motivation to do so. Maybe I’ll get to them tomorrow.

Today I went down to Salem to try and secure a place to live. I thought I had a studio pretty much locked up, but it seems that it got rented the day after I looked at it. I didn’t want to commit to it at the time because I had some questions about it and wanted to try to talk down the rent. I guess somebody else wanted it faster than me. I looked at another studio today, but it wasn’t as appealing. It was bigger, newer, and $5 cheaper; but it wasn’t as close to the campus and had a distinct smokey smell. I’m going back down again on Saturday to check some more out. I was hoping to be moving down there permanently then, but it may have to wait. Who knows, maybe I’ll just get a PO Box and live out of my truck. I took a nap in it today. It was pretty comfortable.

You know what I hate? Drivers who can’t keep a constant speed. On the drive back from Salem, this car whizzed by me, easily going 10 mph faster than me. He then switched into my lane, and then slowed down to less than my speed. This happened quite quickly, so I had to apply my brakes or I would have rear-ended him. Also there was this stupid red Jeep Cherokee that just could not stay at any one speed. The driver, who was on this cell phone, varied his speed anywhere from 60 mph to almost 75 mph. This is extremely frustrating because I often had to either let him pass or some how pass him. Oh, another pet peeve of mine is idiots in the passing lane who are going slower than the speed limit. Luckily for them I was too tired for road rage.

Okay, my laptop is just about out of batteries. Time to go.