Big World of Law

It was a big week in the realms of law and law school. The SCOTUS kicked the week off with a big decision in the Michigan affirmative action cases; Sua Sponte linked up some reactions from blogville. The Court followed up and ended its session yesterday by striking down a ban on gay sex acts. (Full text of all the Court's decisions available in PDF form here.) For more interesting thoughts on these decisions, don't miss the conversation between Dahlia Lithwick and Walter Dellinger in Slate. (Plus today's entry here.)

On something of the other extreme of the legal realm, Sua Sponte threw down the latest entry in the ongoing and much appreciated thread of advice to future One-Ls. JCA provides a great service to those of us who will be heading to school this fall by linking to many of the other entries in this thread from the likes of Waddling Thunder, Alice, Garret, Dodd, and Jeremy (who responds to JCA's advice here). Taken all together, all of these blawgers provide an invaluable survey of insights on some of the biggest variables of law school. At this point, I can't really evaluate any of the advice, but I do hope to avoid the "it chews you up and spits you out in mangled pieces" kind of experience JCA seemed to have. Having just completed One L, I certainly hope (and am very confident that) Jeremy is right—law school just doesn't have to be that hard. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Finally, and in a related vein, if you've got a blog and you're in or headed to law school, check out Law School Insider's special blogger offer: Two books for $10, so long as you have a blog and you promise never to sell the books. I've already ordered my two copies, but since I only need one, let me know if you'd like the other. [Link via JD2B a few days ago. Maybe if I complain about the lack of permalinks at JD2B every time I mention the site it will eventually add them? And comments would be great, too! JD2B always serves up great links; I bet it would attract some great conversation, too.]

Posted 06:20 PM | law school

Virtual Results

The MoveOn.org primary is over, and to no one's real surprise, no single candidate won more than 50%. The top three candidates were:

1. Dean: 43.87%


2. Kucinich: 23.93%


3. Kerry 15.73%

The next closest was Edwards at 3.19%, which means all other candidates were in the single digits. What seems most remarkable about these results is how different they are from the "conventional wisdom" we've been hearing from radio pundits, Democratic and Republican party people, and other media sources. All of these people talk about Lieberman and Kerry as front-runners (and as Joe Conason noted the other day, Lieberman and Kerry do lead in the most recent nationwide opinion polls), yet Lieberman only garnered a paltry 1.92% of the MoveOn vote. The disparity between random opinion polls and the opinions of MoveOn's members almost certainly highlights the fact that those members are further to the left than the "average" American. However, the disparity also suggests the influence of the media on public opinion: The media have been saying Lieberman and Kerry are the leaders, the polls show them leading, the media say they're leading, the polls show them leading, etc. It's a self-fulfilling circle. So in my book, the MoveOn primary accomplished an important goal by showing the "average" voter (should he/she hear about it, anyway) that what the media is telling him/her and what he/she sees in the polls is misleading, at best.

The same Conason piece mentioned above also notes that the Wall Street Journal has recently been giving Howard Dean favorable coverage. Conason's take on that is that the WSJ thinks that if Dean wins the Democratic nomination, Yubbledew will easily win the election because Dean is too far left for most Americans. I think (and hope) that the WSJ is wrong. From my little corner of the world it looks like the strategy of being a "moderate" has failed Democrats (see, for example, elections 2000 and 2002). For example, why should we vote for a Lieberman, who seems to agree w/the Yubbledew Whitehouse on just about every issue, when we could just vote for Yubbledew? Why vote "Yubbledew-lite"? If that appeals to you, why not just vote for the real thing (in all its extremist horror)? That's why I think Dean would be a great pick for the Democratic nomination: He's clearly differentiating himself from the Republicans, and that's a lot more than can be said for many of the other Democratic candidates.

Finally, the MoveOn primary is a reminder of how important it is that we are able to trust election results. The debacle of Election 2000 has shaken many citizens' faith in our electoral system. Several months ago I noted that some people think the demise of exit polling and the rise of Republican-owned computerized voting machines have put the final nail in the coffin of democracy in the U.S. Although I'm optimistic that that's overstating the case, it seems important that we come up with a way to somehow verify the results of Election 2004 so that, regardless of the outcome, we'll all accept it a little more easily. The best way I can think of to do that is with some sort of non-partisan, non-profit nationwide exit polling. I imagine a nationwide network of registered volunteers who would conduct these exit polls and report their findings to some central authority. Preferably, the volunteers would be respected (and trusted and non-partisan) members of their communities—perhaps clergy, perhaps lawyers, perhaps ???? And the central "authority" would have to be an equally respected and non-partisan body—perhaps something like Vote-Smart.org. The registered pollsters would have to undergo some sort of training to make sure that the polling was done uniformly and as scientifically as possible. The point would be that if the results of the vote-count differed dramatically from the results of the exit polls, we'd have evidence of foul play.

Does this sound good to you? Any ideas on how to get this moving? Perhaps we could get bloggers to start the Foundation for Election Result Accuracy (FERA). Anyone?

Posted 01:23 PM | election 2004

Transmogrify!

The redesign saga continues. You can now get your daily dose of ai in your preferred color scheme! Just click on the "transmogrify ai!" dropdown menu in the right column, choose a color, and feel the magic envelop you like the warm rays of the sun on a beautiful summer day. That wouldn't exactly be today in D.C., where the weather is hot and dangerous—according to the radio, the air is so toxic today (code red!) that, if possible, you should avoid standing outside to gas up your car. Wow, it's great to live in the city!

But the transmogrify thing is cool, don't you think? Thanks to Joni Electric's site-skinning info, which helpfully links to the Empty Pages Tutorial that worked the magic. The transmogrification doesn't affect anything but the home page, but hey, it's a start.

Now ai has its very own transmogrifier, just like _________. (Props to anyone who can fill in the blank—looking for a sort of pop cultural figure who had lots of fun w/a transmogrifier in the past.)

So what's your favorite color?

Posted 12:18 PM | Comments (4) | meta-blogging

The New ai

Introducing the new and improved ai! Your favorite cynical pre-blawg now features completely new, hot from the oven special sidebar features, including:

• ai Quick & Dirty: The new home for all those hot links that mostly speak for themselves. I use ai for a sort of database to keep track of interesting tidbits, but although I might want to remember something, I don't always have a lot to say about it. ai Q&D solves that problem. Visit the complete collection of quick and dirty links at the ai Q&D homepage today!
• An abbreviated blogroll: Readers have complained that the classic ai design was too cluttered. The new, simpler design features a shorter blogroll containing those links on which ai relies most for its wit, wisdom, and pithy commentary. But not to worry: You can still easily access the complete collection of ai links from the right-hand column of the ai Q&D homepage. Click early and often.
• One Year Ago Today: ai began publishing just over a year ago, so once it officially passes its one-year anniversary, this new feature will go live. Check back often so you don't miss a moment of the excitement! ;-)
• The ai Booklist: Your one-stop shop for all the basic details about the books in which ai is currently most interested. The ai Booklist features links directly to Amazon.com so you can buy buy buy with minimal hassle. It's all about consumption and kickbacks, so get clicking! [This feature is temporarily AWOL. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thanks. —the management]
• Creative Commons License: ai is now licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike license. This means you can do whatever you want with it, so long as you give proper credit and license the output under the same terms. Or something like that. IANAL (I am not a lawyer), so who knows what this really means...

Enough of the spiel. The truth is, I've been working on a redesign for days now and it's just not doing what I wanted, so this is what we get for now. The site should look right in IE for Windows and Mozilla for both Mac and Windows. (I've tested Camino, Firebird, and regular Mozilla.) It looks a bit off in Safari and Explorer for Mac. There's something funny about the way these Mac browsers handle background image positioning w/CSS (or maybe the problem is with all the other browsers—who knows), but I've given up on figuring it out for now.

Other problems: The countdown feature in the right column is clearly screwed up. Law school orientation begins August 16th, last I checked, so I don't know what's going on there. The "transmogrify ai" feature should allow you to change the ai color scheme, but that's not working right, either. (If anyone knows anything about PHP and can help make this work, I'd appreciate any tips.) Finally, what the hell happened to my damn booklist! Heads are going to roll!

Posted 01:33 PM | Comments (6) | meta-blogging

Warning: Redesign

FYI: ai is currently under construction. If the site disappears or begins behaving erratically, the problems should only be temporary. Thanks. —the management

Posted 12:44 PM | meta-blogging

Get This Party Started

If you're dismayed by the direction the U.S. is heading (wretched economy, global aggressor, increasingly imperiled domestic social programs, skyrocketing budget deficits exacerbated by obscene tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, etc.), and especially if you like to think of yourself as "liberal" or "progressive," then you definitely have reason to care about who wins the Democratic presidential nomination. However, because of the way the primary system works, most of us don't have much say in which candidates rise to the top of the pack in order to be serious contenders for that nomination. Not only that, but with so many candidates running, it's going to be pretty difficult for any one of them to gain the momentum he/she is going to need to defeat Yubbledew. Now, MoveOn.org is trying to change all that by holding a virtual democratic primary. Anyone can vote (you just have to register), so get to it! If the primary produces a clear front-runner, MoveOn plans to support him/her for the Democratic nomination and then for President. That could change the face of presidential elections forever. Don't you want to be a part of history? (Of course, if no front-runner emerges, MoveOn's virtual primary might have about zero effect, but, well, it's still worth a minute of your time to vote, I think.) And even if you don't want to vote, MoveOn is a good starting point for learning about the candidates at this relatively early stage. MoveOn has compiled a complete survey of most of the Democratic candidates' responses to seven questions MoveOn members voted most important for Democratic nominees to answer. (Lieberman refused to answer the questions; not surprising, since Lieberman is the leading contender for the title of "Bush-Lite.")

For more on the virtual primary, see "Progressive Popularity Contest" by Michelle Goldberg. She summarizes the event nicely when she writes:

Whether the MoveOn primary yields a meaningful measure of progressive support, Democratic aspirants are certainly taking it seriously -- some with grace, some with grumbling. The front-runners in the online race -- Howard Dean, John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich -- are trying to get out the vote while praising MoveOn for enhancing the democratic process. Those expected to fare poorly in the primary are attacking a process they say is skewed against their candidates, even as they urge their people to participate.

MoveOn's critics aren't wrong -- the process is tilted toward candidates favored by the group's progressive base. But MoveOn has never claimed to be a disinterested party, which is part of what makes the primary unique. It's less a survey of Democrats than a contest for the endorsement of American progressives, a group MoveOn aims to organize to balance the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

Apparently, Gephardt is among those who expects to do poorly, while Dean expects to do well. (I can't find the statement that Dean is supposedly rebutting, but Goldberg mentions in her article that it came from a Gephardt "staffer.") While it's not surprising to see the candidates sniping at each other (they're competing against each other, after all), it is dismaying. If the Democratic candidates throw mud all over each other, that will just leave less work for Yubbledew when the race is finally narrowed to two.

And on the subject of divisiveness, it's anyone's guess what's going to happen w/the Green party this election. L. and I actually went to a Dean rally last night in Arlington to watch him officially announce his candidacy, and although his speech was good, it was hard to pay attention because a Green Party supporter stood behind him throughout the majority of the speech waving a giant "Vote Green Party" sign. So here you have Dean saying "Let's take our country back!", while "Vote Green Party" is bobing over his shoulder the whole time. Halfway through the speech, Dean supporters tried various antics (climbing on a large stepladder, taping together multiple Dean for America signs) to obscure the Green Party sign, but that only escalated the whole spectacle into a foreboding symbol of what could happen in the upcoming election: The conflict between Democrats and Greens will become a colorful sideshow spectacle that dominates the media coverage of the Democratic campaign. Meanwhile, Yubbledew will get a free pass on everything (like he did in 2000) and we'll end up with 4 more years of Bush—but this time, he won't be restrained by the need to run for election again. I'd call that a nightmare scenario, which only makes it more crucial that the Democratic nominee be far enough to the left to bring some of those who voted for Nader in 2000 back into the Democratic tent. The MoveOn primary could do a lot to push things in that direction. Results will be published Friday...

Posted 09:49 AM | election 2004