Terrorism = Forum Shopping?

Over drinks last night we were talking about what could make someone decide to give their life to be a suicide bomber or to fly planes into buildings. One of my fellow interns suggested that people who do this may just be "forum shopping." They realize they live in a world where there simply is no justice, so they decide to take their complaints to a higher court, be that the court of Allah or whatever higher power it is they worship.

Needless to say, I think my fellow intern really enjoyed Civ Pro.

Posted 07:11 AM | Comments (2) | general politics

NaNoWriMo News

Speaking of NaNoWriMo (which I was in the last post), this will be my third (or is it fourth?) year as a participant, and from the July update, it looks like this year will be better than ever. First, Chris Baty, the founder of the "event" or "contest" or "insane spectacle" — whatever you want to call it — has published a book:

No Plot? No Problem: A low-stress, high-velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days will be out in September. It's 175 pages of fun strategy, tender support, and merciless pants-kicking, all designed to help you thrive in November's frenzied creative milieu. Once read, it will also give you the ability to speak Italian and see through steel, though the publishers don't want me to talk about that.

Sure, it's a shameless ploy to make some money off of all those aspiring novel-writers out there, but I've been getting writing encouragement and advice from Baty for several years and I can tell you this book will probably be worth your pennies.

In addition to the book, NaNoWriMo is partnering with a non-profit group to help build a library somewhere in the world where people don't have access to such a thing:

That group is called Room to Read, and they've built over 1000 libraries in areas like Cambodia, Nepal and India. We'll be donating 20% of NaNoWriMo's net proceeds to them this year. Our goal for 2004 is to raise enough money to build a NaNoWriMo-sponsored library in a community that could otherwise not afford one. This may seem like a ridiculous goal, but if there's something that NaNoWriMo excels at, it's ridiculous undertakings.

I don't think NaNoWriMo has ever had much in the way of "proceeds," but now there's a better than ever reason to make sure that changes. I can't wait for November. (But, well, yeah I can. I've got lots to do between now and then!!)

Posted 07:08 AM | life generally

Two Days

My summer internship ends tomorrow, Friday the 13th. Is the date somehow significant?

Strangely, I don't really want this job to end. It would be great if I could continue doing it through school for 10-20 hours/week or something, but I just can't see how that's going to be possible. This fall will be full with EJF, NLG, and ACS obligations and activities, not to mention some journal work, plus class, plus novel-writing through november. Oh, and then there's are all that career research I should probably be doing and all those resumes I should probably send out. Isn't now the time I'm supposed to be getting clerkship applications ready if that's something I want to do?

It's going to be one crazy fall, no doubt about it.

Posted 06:59 AM | Comments (1) | 1L summer 2L

Confidence to Defend

A lesson of this summer: It takes a lot of confidence to be a public defender. Very often, the odds are against you and you're going to lose. Sometimes your client is actually guilty, sometimes your client will have confessed whether he/she was guilty or not, sometimes the evidence will be so stacked against you that your client's guilt or innocence appears irrelevant. And at all times the state has a formidable array of resources amassed against you — primarily the police with their investigative authority thinking they work for the prosecutors, and the prosecutors themselves, who may have significant advantages via the laws of discovery in your jurisdiction, via their cozy relationship with the police and w/certain judges, and just through the supposed moral force of "representing the interests of the state." If you're a defender, these are the main forces against which you must struggle every day. And that struggle is not done quietly in your office, or via briefs and motions you have the time to write at your liesure. Some of your work will be there, but a great part of your work will be going to court every single day, facing the police, the prosecutors, the judges, complaining witnesses -- all of them (except, theoretically, the judge) there for one reason and one reason alone: To tell you you're just plain wrong. There you stand, just you and your client (and if you're lucky, a witness or two willing to testify on behalf of your client), and your job is to convince a judge or jury that regardless of what all these people are saying, your client should not be punished (or, in some cases, should be punished very little).

If you don't have a lot of confidence in yourself, in your knowledge of the law, in your role as a public defender -- if your confidence in any of these weakens or fails, you will be toast.

Posted 06:43 AM | Comments (4) | 1L summer

The Book I Am?

You're Watership Down! by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

[link via Half-Cocked; see also Buzzwords, aka The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.]

Posted 05:54 AM | Comments (5) | life generally meta-blogging

Slow Loading

Reader Survey: Have you noticed ai loads very slowly these days? For me, the right sidebar loads immediately, but the main content (the blog posts) take forever to pop up. Is this true for you, as well?

And if so, do any of you webslingers out there have any tips on how to speed things up? At first I thought maybe it was just a slow mySQL database or something, but then I remembered that MT pages are static—they don't rebuild every time your refresh the page—so that can't be it. What could it be?

Posted 07:35 AM | Comments (8) | meta-blogging

Two Questions:

1) Why is the Bush campaign requiring people to sign "a pledge to endorse President Bush" in order to enter campaign events?

2) Why do our "terror alerts" always seem to come within days of other news that could damage the Bush administration? Is there a pattern here?

UPDATE: See also:

• Fear of Death Wins Minds And Votes
• The Prez Who Cried Wolf

Posted 06:59 AM | Comments (5) | election 2004 general politics

Birthday / Blogday

In the middle of moving (which is what I've been doing today and what I'll be doing next weekend, as well), I almost forgot: Happy Birthday to ambivalent imbroglio, which recorded its first post two years ago today. That would mean August 8th is this blog's birthday, except that it wasn't really "born" so much as created, or started, or some less organic and spontaneous verb. Therefore, I guess August 8th is ai's "blogday." So Happy Blogday, ai! I hope you'll hold my attention and the attention of at least a few readers for many, um, more posts.

And yes, I realize it's completely bizarre to anthropomorphize my blog by addressing birthday/blogday wishes to it. It's an illness, but don't worry, I'm seeking treatment.

When I first began this blog I was still in graduate school working toward a PhD in English, but I had begun to realize (in typically melodramatic fashion) that I probably wouldn't stay there much longer. A year later, I had moved to D.C. and was waiting to start my first year of law school, while also obsessively following the race among the Democratic candidates to be the party's nominee for president. Now we have a Democratic nominee—someone who was at the bottom of my list for most likely or desirable canddiate—and I'm now just weeks away from starting year two of law school. Year one wasn't really that bad, but then, I didn't really expect it would be. Time flies when you're having something approximating fun.

I hope this time next year I'll be looking back at my second year of law school with satisfaction at how much I've learned, and with a much clearer sense of where I'm going with this legal education. It would also be nice to have either, A) some sort of project set up so I can apply for an Equal Justice Fellowship, or B) a clerkship lined up with a federal judge in Michigan, Montana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, California, Washington, or Oregon (not necessarily in that order of preference). I'd also like to have an income next summer, but you know, money is overrated. Let's see... I'd like a new computer and maybe a motorcycle and a new bike and a new president and health insurance for everyone w/out any HMOs. Yeah, that would be nice.

As an ex-girlfriend of mine used to tell me, it's good to want things.

Posted 08:16 PM | meta-blogging

Link Love

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit and Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy for linking to Blawg Wisdom and recommending it to their readers. Their links pushed the site from 79 page views two days ago to 1218 page views yesterday. Today it's at over 500 and counting fast. Isn't it amazing what a little link can do?

Posted 08:46 AM | Comments (2) | advice meta-blogging

Letter to Mr. Comment Spammer

Dear Mr. Bob@y####o.com,

Thanks for bombarding my site with spam comments in the last few days. Your ability to send 6-8 spam comments per hour to the multiple blogs that compose ai is very impressive. I would be in awe of your abilities, but for the fact that they are so pathetic. For now, deleting your comments and banning the IP addresses from which you send them is quite a little hassle for me. If your goal is to be a pain in my ass, you are succeeding. However, in the spirit of fairness I feel obliged to tell you that when MT 3.1 comes along with its new improved Blacklist, I will crush you.

Have a nice day,

-ambimb

Posted 08:37 AM | Comments (7) | meta-blogging