The Blog with No Name

A new series by the guys who did Red v. Blue. Should be good. Red v. Blue season 1 was excellent. I lost interest in season 2 though.

Okay, back to work.

Quick take on the debate. Kerry won as far as winning goes in something like this. He was much more polished than Bush, and he didn’t seem wimpy. My reflex thought after the debate is that the only thing I don’t like is his emphasis on negotiations, summits, and other talks. Talk is cheap, and we must back up our talk with a walk that puts fear into our enemies. I’m not convinced Kerry believes that. Though most of his content wasn’t too bad, there were several moments that his beliefs were just plain, hopelessly incoherent. The best example of this when Lehrer asked Kerry about sending the last soldier to die for a mistake and whether he thought Iraq was a mistake. He said it wasn’t a mistake, but he has said so many times it’s the “wrong war, at the wrong time, in the wrong place.” Okay, how is that not a mistake? I don’t think those two positions are mutually exclusive. Kerry is nuancing himself to death, and it muddles his message.

Bush um-ed and uh-ed too much. Too much silence as well. So many times I just tried to will him to speak more fluidly. Kerry completely outshined him in that respect. Also, Bush started to sound like a broken record by constantly referring to Kerry’s flip-flopping and denigrating our allies. Nothing really new with Bush, which shouldn’t be surprising because I pay more attention to him than Kerry.

My favorite lines (all somewhat rough paraphrases):

Bush lines:
“Nobody told me to go to the UN. I went there myself.”
In reference to the misjudgment about the amount of insurgents left after the war: “We thought we’d whip more of them going in.”

Good Kerry lines:
In reference to Iraq rebuilding: “The question isn’t how money is being spent, but whether the right decisions are being made to make America safe.”
Good quip after Bush directly asked Kerry a question: “Sure, let’s just go change the rules right now and have a real debate.” [Yes, please!]
In reference to the I-voted-for-it-before-I-voted-against-it statement: “I made a mistake about talking about the war. The president made a mistake in going to war.” [Excellent zinger, but I'm not sure most voters see it as a mistake in a speech rather than flip-flopping.]
Characterizing Bush’s future plan for Iraq: “You can summarize it four words: more of the same.”
“We outsourced the job [capturing Bin Laden] to Afghan warlords.”

[Edit: Removed original scare quotes. Kerry won. No need to qualify it.]

Yanked from The Corner:

I ku; you ku; he,
She, or it ku; we ku; you
Ku; they ku. Thanku.

I met somebody new last night. I think his name was Dwight. He didn’t talk too much. I happened to have my digital camera with me, so here are couple of pictures of him with me.

This first one was taken right after I told a funny lawyer joke:

This one was right after we realized that it was true:

SpaceShipOne soared into space again. Things got a little dicey for a bit as it ascended, but the pilot managed to correct the problem. On the first flight things were a little hairy as well. Astronaut Melvill has more guts than I’ll ever have.

To claim the $10 million Ansari X Prize he only needs to hit an altitude of 328,000 feet one more time in the next two weeks. Not that he really needs it. He’s already in the history books and has Paul Allen bankrolling the endeavor.

The article also has a neat story about a 9th grader who’s already taking steps to form a space travel company. That’s looking ahead, kid!

This is just too much. Normally I’m pretty ambivalent about illegal immigrants. I have a principaled belief that they shouldn’t be in the country, but this is tempered with pragmatism that if we were to boot them all out our lower-end –and necessary!– labor force would be gutted. Effectively, this puts me in an inert political state: I don’t do, say, or care much about it. However, in the above article, my inertia is overcome by the sheer outrageousness and stupidity of what is going on.

Let’s start with the issue:

Oakland police officers have stopped setting up roadblocks to check whether drivers are under the influence because of a rash of complaints from the Latino community and City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente.

The checkpoints, which allow officers to demand licenses and proof of insurance, are an effective way to get drunken drivers off Oakland’s streets, city leaders agree. But the checks also have ensnared dozens of illegal immigrants who are not licensed to drive yet otherwise obey the law.

The police are engaging in activity that is entirely laudable. They are seeking to prevent drunk drivers from killing other people. As far I can tell from the article they aren’t profiling, they aren’t discriminating, they aren’t purposefully looking to crack down on illegal immigrant drivers. Of course, some would argue that all of that is probably going on, but, for once, just this once, can we give police the benefit of the doubt and assume that there isn’t a substantial amount of suspicious motives?

Now, this guy, De La Fuente, succeeds in getting the police to stop this life-saving activity because it catches too many people who not only illegally entered the country but also are illegally driving by having no license and insurance? It’s as if he’s saying, “Look you gotta stop doing these checkpoints because you’re catching too many lawbreakers!”

And how much contempt does this show to the legal citizens and legal drivers who want as few drunk drivers on the road as possible? This guy thinks that aliens deserve the right to drive without license and without insurance even though every other law-abiding citizens must have those! So, the moral here apparently is if you broke the law coming into the country, you can go ahead and keep breaking the laws.

For legal residents of Oakland, these checkpoints do three wonderful things: reduce the number of drink drivers, reduce the number of unlicensed drivers, and reduce the number of uninsured drivers on the road. This translates to fewer driving fatalities, fewer driving accidents, and fewer accidents where one of the drivers is uninsured. It is only the people who aren’t even suppose to be here who suffer significant negative consequences. And what are those negative consequences? A towed car and paying something a little over $125 to get it back. A quick and dirty cost-benefit analysis says that this is Grade A Stupid.

UPDATE: An IRC buddy just pointed out that the DUI checkpoints have already been re-started with some changes. The last graph is very interesting:

Word credited the checkpoints, funded with state grant money, for helping to reduce the number of fatal accidents in Oakland, down 22 percent this year from 2003. Five of the last six fatal accidents involved unlicensed drivers, he added.

I’m sure those last 6 accidents may not be representative of all the accidents, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Here’s a short article about some of the junk science behind the drinking age policy of the US. Here’s the gist:

Yet the federal bureaucracy has never served as a neutral moderator when it comes to alcohol policies. Rather than conduct reasoned, impartial scientific inquiry, agencies such as the DOJ, the Department of Transportation, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism throw all their weight squarely on one side of the debate. Indeed, they have created a drinking age industry. Research designed to promote the current drinking age gets federal funding, a stamp of approval, and widespread dissemination, regardless of its scientific merit.

Personally, I think our drinking age policy (which the article says is the highest in the world) is extremely inconsistent and stupid. It makes no sense to me that my little brother, who’s 19, can decide who is President, decide to fight in a war, and decide what he’s going to do with his life, but he isn’t allowed to make the decision on whether to have a beer or not. This inconsistency can only be eliminated by either lowering the drinking age to 18 or raising the age of majority to 21. Both solutions have merits. The former increases liberty. The latter would protect society from the harmful decisions and actions that immature, unwise sub-21 year olds are bound to make (not that 23 year olds are always better), though it will deprive our military of recruits entering their physical prime.

I’m too tired and hungry to do a couple of serious entries, so I have a couple of pictures instead

This is where I spend most of my time these days. It’s my carrel in the law library:

This next one is my favorite t-shirt and my lucky test day shirt:

Finally, here’s a boring picture of the creek that flows through the Willamette campus:

I’ll have a few more pictures soon.

I had a dream last night that I was in the Safeway on top of Queen Anne hill in Seattle buying some groceries, and Senator John F. Kerry was in line in front of me. I think he was buying some milk. He was dressed in plain clothes. He seemed shorter than I thought he would be. He was nice enough but a little distant, as if he had something else on his mind. We chatted only for a bit. I made some remark about how he doesn’t have to worry about Seattle not voting for him. I felt like it would have been very rude to tell him I wasn’t voting for him.

Dunno if that means anything, but it was my first politically-oriented dream.

Space tourism by 2007? That seems unrealistically early, but I probably shouldn’t underestimate the power of the entrepreneurial spirit. I have faith in Branson and Allen. They want to start the space tourism industry, and they have the means and the will to do so. This is why billionaires are a good thing.

World Vision has an emergency aid donation program. You can donate online, and, if I remember correctly from a radio ad I heard, $30 is enough for one potentially life-saving aid package.

On Saturday night, I got to see my first professional boxing match, Slugest V. One of the boxers in the feature fight is a cousin of a friend of mine. It was pretty cool to see it. Some of the fights were almost boring, but the good fights were especially fun to watch. Unfortunately, my friend’s cousin got beat after 8 rounds and a split decision by the judges. The announcer, who is the brother of the boxing commissioner, was horrible, which really detracted from the overall flow and energy level of the night. I couldn’t believe how bad he was. I felt embarrassed for him, especially when he actually started singing the national anthem. The ring girls were a nice feature. I wish I hadn’t forgotten my camera.

Chalk up another victory for political correctness. My dad’s alma mater caved:

“Bring Me Men,” the Air Force Academy’s prominently displayed phrase removed from campus during a sexual assault scandal last year, will be replaced Friday.

The Academy’s ‘Bring Me Men’ sign had been in place since 1964.

The new sign will read: “Integrity First. Service Before Self. Excellence In All We Do.”

The new sign just doesn’t have the pithy ring to it as the old one did. I think it sounds downright awkward.

My aunt was one of the first women to graduate from USAFA, and her and my dad were the first brother/sister pair to go through. They even had their picture in the Wall Street Journal!

Yesterday I finished my fourth week of law school with a bang: a startling early mid-term. I don’t know why it was called a mid-term, but it was. The test consisted of only one essay question, and I had 30 minutes to read the fact pattern, anaylze it, and determine how a court should rule on a motion to dismiss a declaratory judgment due to lack of in personam jurisdiction. It was the fastest 30 minutes of my entire life. I could have sworn only 15 minutes had passed when a lady popped her head in to tell us that we only had 5 minutes left. So I zipped off a conclusion, and then went back and tried to flesh out my analysis as much as possible. I think I did pretty good.

After the test, I went out with some people from my class. It was the first time I really got to know some of my classmates. It’s nice to finally start establishing some relationships.

I’m going up to Seattle today to check up on my little brother. He start undergrad at SPU on Monday. We’re going to try to go to a boxing match tonight. Sweet! I probably should hit the road . . .

Yay! Tax cuts are most likely going to be extended and broadened! My heart is literally flittering with happiness right now. I feel like I just got kissed or something . . .

It’s very satisifying to see law makers cower in fear of their constituents if they vote against tax cuts. Maybe the Democrats will now stop their bogus accusation that the Bush tax cuts screwed over the middle-class.