Blawg Roundup #2

Following up on last week's tremendously successful (or at least efficient) Blawg Roundup, ai hereby presents a rather random list-like string of links (w/comments, of course!) to a few of the many happenings in the blawgs I read this week. To kick things off, Jeremy Richey writes a letter to Justice Breyer explaining why the honorable Justice should give him a job. If Breyer happens to see the message, I predict the dancing bananas will be simply too much for him to resist and he'll be offering Jeremy a job in no time. In attempt to scare the pans off of us (get it? pans? ha!), E. McPan announced a hiatus from blogging. The world was sad, but then the hiatus ended, but then it started again—sort of. Now she has gone argyle! Personally, I'm just happy to see her still posting. I are amused by E. McPan. On the commercialization of blawgs front, Buffalo Wings & Vodka is selling itself to the highest bidder. Check out the eBay auction and get your bid in right away! The auction ends January 26th. (Ok, you won't actually own BW&V if you win, you'll only be the “sponsor” and get your name on the blog.) I noticed that Mr. Buffalo does not say anything about how long he agrees to continue publishing. Does this mean I could bid $10k to be the blog's sponsor, only to have it close down next week? Hmmm. This reminds me of the corporate-sponsored undergrads. Eek. Denise at Life, Law, Gender has started her second third semester of law school and has realized she is overcommitted. Boy, do I know the feeling. There really are so many opportunities available during law school, it's hard to pick and choose where to spend your time. For those with a taste for discussion of politics (beyond the inauguration), Three Years of Hell has endorsed Howard Dean for Chair of the DNC with tongue planted deeply in cheek. Earnest interlocutor “Mike” and less patient interlocutor “Martin” test the irony in the comments. But the inauguration was the big political deal this week, and for that Law-Rah at WonL offers a heartfelt paean to her president and fellow Texans. Totally unrelated: Law-Rah has also earned a dubious distinction. [insert smiley] Back to the law school, Kelly, at Just Playing, learned some of her grades yesterday and she wasn't thrilled, but it sounds like she has things in perspective. I guess now is as good a time as any to confess that my grades from last semester (I know three out of four so far) show that it was my worst semester evah! at least as far as grades go. There are reasons for that, but to Kelly and anyone else who has recently learned they had lower grades than they'd hoped for, take heart! We will find jobs, and we will do good work for people who need our help. The gunners will have all the money, but as the countless ranks of bitter (rich) BigLaw lifers attests, he or she who has the most toys only “wins” in the short run. And in the new-to-me blawgs category, JD2B notes the introduction of two new blawgs written by 0Ls (people who have applied to law school but have not yet begun): Aspiring to Become A Lawyer (who applied to an astounding 31 schools!) and Narkoleptomania. JD2B also mentions Divine Angst, who has begun posting reviews of her visits to law schools she might attend. So far she's reviewed Georgetown and George Washington in D.C. She really liked GULC, and she liked the GW campus, although she found the law school buildings themselves a little difficult to navigate. I know the feeling; it took me a full year before I felt I could navigate pretty much anywhere w/out too much trouble. DA also found a photo tour of GW, which is interesting. The place looks surprisingly good in pictures. Note that the “computing resources” page features a picture of someone using a Powerbook to access the wireless network; nowhere does it mention that GW actively discourages students from using Macs. I wonder if this was intentional. Finally, Blawg Wisdom has been updated for the first time in a while. I just haven't found much to add recently, and the submissions have dried up, of late. Here's an idea to grow Blawg Wisdom and make it more useful to people: Would anyone like to be a contributor of wisdom? Your job would be to post links to good advice for law students and law school whenever you find it, or to write original “advice posts” when the mood strikes. It seems it would be good to have a couple of contributors at every level (0L-3L and recent grad), so if you're interested (or if you have thoughts on this idea), please let me know.

Posted 12:03 PM | Comments (4) | 2L meta-blogging

Post-Inaugural Friday

Some Friday fun for you:

• JibJab's latest animation gets some good licks in against Bush and Co, but manages to give the impression of being critical and funny in a non-partisan way.
• A great clip from Fox News where the interviewer was surprised when her interviewee wanted to talk seriously about the election.
• The jury pool from hell included a morphine addict, a former mental patient, and other interesting characters.
• 49% of Americans polled say Bush is a “uniter” (another 49% say he's a “divider”). What did Bush unite? Oh yeah, global opposition to his policies!

Posted 07:47 AM | Comments (4) | general politics

Shut Out

Whoa. I just got out of jail! Not. Had you going there for a second, though, didn't I? Ok, maybe not. Anyway, as expected, I didn't get arrested or have any cop trouble. I walked. A lot. And carried a sign all over. Someone gave me a sign from Not In Our Name that said “Not Our President!” so I carried it around all day. That was find during the anti-war march, but once I got down around Pennsylvania Avenue and the big parade route, the fur coats and cowboy hats started telling me I was wrong, he just got sworn in, and if he wasn't my president I should leave the country, yadda yadda yadda. Really only about a half dozen people actually said anything; many more just gave me dirty looks. But they were right. He is my president. The part of the sign I liked was the middle (“NO”) and bottom, which said “Not In Our Name.” That seemed like a good message for today: I don't want these things (war, privatization of social security, torture, flouting the Geneva Conventions, destroying the environment, doing nothing to fight poverty and everything possible to make the rich richer, etc—I don't want these things to be done in my name. I know that they are being done, so the only thing I felt able to do today was express my disagreement with them, and I think my sign did that. Anyway, I marched and chanted and it was good. The parade route was as I figured—locked down. They broke Penn Ave. into “zones” so if you entered at one checkpoint you couldn't move down the street more than a block or two. This meant that if you wanted to enter the “protest zone” (at 4th and Penn next to the Canadian Embassy in John Marshall Park), you had to enter.... where? I couldn't figure it out. You certainly couldn't get there from the 14th street checkpoint, and the 7th street checkpoint was shut down when I was there (police going nuts, pepper spray, full riot gear with sticks drawn, etc.), and I couldn't get there from the 3rd or 2nd street checkpoint (near the D.C. courthouse), either. So as far as I was concerned, the parade was a shut out. I could have hung out behind the bleachers somewhere to watch it go by, but I wasn't really interested in seeing the parade, I was interested in being part of protest that the parade would see. Anyway, after walking around for four hours, I was hungry and tired and decided I'd just head home. I didn't want to spend one damn dime today, so rather than buy a hot dog and keep trying, I just headed home. Oh, I did have one fun exchange with some men in suits and trench coats. After I got through the security checkpoint at 14th street, I had my camera in my hand and I turned to take a picture of the security screeners. As I did so, a hand grabbed me and turned me around, telling me I couldn't take pictures of the security. So I said, “why not?” Suit: It's the rules. Me: What rules? Suit: The rules. Me: Who made those rules? Suit: (confused pause) The secret service. Me: Are you secret service? Suit: (more confused pause, looking at suit partner who is no help) I, uh, I'm working for the secret service, yeah. I really didn't want any trouble, but the guy just seemed so clueless and shocked to even be asked any questions I could hardly resist. Still, I was about to go on my way when a riot-gear wearing law enforcer stepped right up to me with German Shepard lunging at me on the end of its leash. “There's no reason for you to be taking any pictures of security,” the guy shouts in my face. My first thought was, 'well, actually, there's a good reason for me to take pictures of this and that is to document any potential violation of my rights.' But hey, I wasn't going to argue with the riot gear and the big doggie, so I just said “ok” and walked off. Not that exciting, really. It gave me the distinct feeling that it would be pretty easy to get arrested around there, but like I said, that wasn't really why I was there. So that's it. G.W. Bush has been inaugurated for a second time after being actually elected for the first time. Hoo-freakin-ray. Pictures here. UPDATE: I finally got through to the DC Indymedia site, where you can read a blow-by-blow of their view of the day, a sort of editorializing summary of things, and more details about the pepper spray party the police hosted downtown. Apparently a group of “anarchists” got a little rowdy around Adams Morgan early this morning, as well. NPR is reporting about 16 arrests, windows broken in businesses and a bank, etc. UPDATE II: A “mainstream media” article about counter-inaugural activities around the country.

Posted 10:56 PM | Comments (2) | election 2004

It's On

So this is the inauguration day that I still can't believe is happening. Check out these 34 scandals from the first four years of Bush II (and another take on that theme), then explain to me why this man is being inaugurated today. There are many reasons, I know; unfortunately, none of them give me much hope for the future of the U.S. or the world. But hey, I'm used to being wrong, so here's hoping that I'm “the opposite of correct” (as Prof. CrimPro is fond of saying) about how much damage the Bush administration will do in the next four years. That said, this isn't a fun time to be in D.C., what with all the men in cowboy boots and tuxedos topped with cowboy hats and the women running around in their full length furs—on the metro, no less! Last night I had to stand still for the whole ride up the escalator from the metro b/c I was surrounded by these people who didn't understand or give a damn about escalator etiquette. I wanted to shout “stand right! walk left!” until they got out of the way, but instead I just stood there and listened to them talk about how great this whole inauguration party is turning out. Yay yay. So I can see why some people are going to Vegas for the weekend. There's so many stimuli there to overwhelm your senses maybe you could just forget about what's happening here. But I won't be in Vegas. Instead, I'm heading downtown to see what new and dubiously constitutional ways the D.C. Metro Police, the Secret Service, the FBI, the Capitol Police, etc. have dreamed up to make sure protesters stay invisible. GW is closed today (as is most of downtown D.C.) so instead of doing homework, I'll be observing what passes for representative democracy in action. I took some photos of the pre-inaugural set up in the last few days, and I'll be taking some more photos of the actual event (at least what I can see of it) today. If I don't post later today, please come bail me out of jail.* If you haven't already, you might want to check out the Counter-Inaugural 2005 site to see what's going on along those lines. * I'm kidding. I have no plans to be involved with the police except through the lens of a camera.

Posted 08:54 AM | Comments (3) | election 2004

News Archives?

Does anyone know a good resource for archived news stories? I'm looking for something like the Common Dreams News Center where archives are categorized by date and you can scan all the headlines from a given month or date range. In fact, the Common Dreams site is exactly what I'm looking for, but the selection of stories is too limited. Lexis offers archives of wire service stories and major newspapers, but the only way I know to reach them is through a targeted search and since I only vaguely know what I'm looking for during a certain time period I just want to browse headlines in that period. Many newspapers offer archives of their news stories, but they want you to pay for access and, again, the only way to reach the archives is through keyword searches rather than by date ranges. So, if you know of a resource where AP or Reuters or Knight-Ridder wire stories are archived by date range (like a blog would do it), please send me a link. Please? Pretty please? You'll be doing me a big favor! p.s.: This makes me think it would really be worthwhile for someone to start a blog where they just copied all the headlines from a major newspaper (or maybe BBC news—someplace where the archives are freely accessible) into a day's post w/links to the articles. Then, when people have research needs like mine, they could go to that blog, find the appropriate date(s), then scan the headlines for that date and access the articles they wanted. I bet this is out there, somewhere, I just don't know where...

Posted 04:06 PM | Comments (5) | life generally

Comment Spam Killer?

Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type, are supporting a new collaborative effort to get rid of comment spam using a “nofollow” attribute. More here and here. Download the plugin here. I've already installed it. The directions are a little vague on which directories the files are supposed to go into, but it seems to be working. If you view the source on a comments window, you'll see any links in the comments are followed by the “rel=nofollow” tag. Cool. At this point, I'll happily try just about anything (short of eliminating comments altogether) to reduce the amount of spam I get. Since I upgraded MT-blacklist and installed the MT-DSBL plugin, the spam seems to have decreased dramatically, but some still gets through occasionally. Unfortunately, the side effect has been that at least one person who wanted to comment wasn't able to because the comment was blocked by Blacklist or the DSBL filter. It would be great if comment spammers lost their incentive to spam so I could remove those filters and thereby avoid that problem. Is this “nofollow” thing the silver bullet we've all been hoping for? Maybe I won't have to implement s-code after all. UPDATE: For the record, I just checked yesterday's logs and on the last day before I implemented the “nofollow” plugin, this MT install received 3,827 hits to its comment script. I assume that number will drop if the “nofollow” thing actually discourages comment spammers. We'll see.

Posted 06:34 AM | meta-blogging

99 Problems But CrimPro Ain't One

This is how Prof CrimPro started class last week: He kicked off the semester by saying that many people are highly critical of our criminal justice system, then he said we were going to watch a short powerpoint presentation and listen to what some of those critics have to say about the system. The next thing we knew, NWA “F#@$ tha Police” (I'm trying to be family-friendly here; lyrics) was thumping through the classroom of over 100 students, while the lyrics scrolled in foot-tall letters on the projection screen at the front of the room. This was followed by:

• KRS-1: Sound of da Police (iTMS link;lyrics),
• Prince Paul: The Men in Blue (“NY's largest crew”) (not in iTMS; lyrics),
• and, that's right: Jay-Z: 99 Problems (iTMS link; lyrics).

So now you see why I got 99 problems but CrimPro ain't one. I'm gonna love that class. I'm going to have trouble keeping on top of the reading, but I'm still gonna love that class. I actually have some great classes this semester . . . . At least it seems that way after the first week. I'm knocking on digital wood, but in this moment I'm feeling like I might actually enjoy this semester if I can just learn to be fully functional on 5 hours of sleep each night instead of 7 or 8. Oh, and if I could stop reading blogs. Is there a 12-step program for that?* All right. I better read me some CrimPro now or one of my 99 problems is going to be you know what. *It was actually blawg that reminded me to post this story. I've been meaning to post it since it happened last Tuesday, but I've been swamped and crazy and putting it off for some reason, but Blonde Justice just posted the track list of a mix CD she just made and it included a track that triggered this memory and I figured there was no time like the present.

Posted 06:38 AM | Comments (6) | 2L

Don't Send Word

I just got an email with a Word document attached. The document contained the only information that made the email worth opening, so I obviously had to open the attachment. It took maybe a full minute for Word to start up and show me the stupid document, I looked at it for all of 10 seconds just to make sure it said what I thought it said, and then I quit Word because it's such an awfully-written piece of bloatware that it slows my machine down if I leave it running in the background. For these reasons and others (e.g., many people don't have Word and it's a proprietary format, Word docs are larger than many other formats and therefore take longer to send and receive, etc.), Word attachments are a cruel and unnecessary form of communication. Instead of sending Word docs, please consider the following alternatives*:

• If you want to send information in email, send it in the body of the email whenever possible.
• If you created the information in Word, you can just copy and paste into your email.
• If you simply must send and attachment, Word also offers a nice feature called “Save As” that allows you to convert your document to plain text or rich text, either of which are preferable attachment formats (because they can be opened by just about any word processor).
• If your document contains tables or the formatting is important to its meaning somehow, the Mac OS allows you to save any document as a PDF, so if you're using a Mac, it's easy to attach a PDF instead of a Word doc, and the PDF will allow your recipient to see the document exactly as you created it.**
• If you're using Windows and don't have a simple means to create PDFs, use Word's handy “Save As” feature to create an HTML version of the document, then attach that. The HTML version can be opened in any browser (and probably by most email clients), so, again, it's a much more considerate and convenient form of communication.

*Possibly the only worse form of document attachment is the WordPerfect document; generally, the above tips apply to this format, as well. ** Of course, PDFs aren't a much better format than Word docs for many Windows users. Every time I use a Windows machine and need to view a PDF I'm dismayed anew at how poorly the system handles them. Even on a fast machine it takes forever to load the Adobe viewer so you can see the PDF. The Mac OS has a handy built-in PDF viewer called Preview that opens PDFs as fast as you can open a plain text document.

Posted 06:28 AM | Comments (1) | mac geek

Library Love

I'm just heading off to school in the freezing cold weather (D.C. went from a high of 70 last Wednesday or Thursday to a high of about 25 today) and I wanted to mention that I'm in love—with the library. I spent Saturday in the library at school making copies of cases from real books and I just loved it. It was fun. There was something almost thrilling about looking at a case citation, browsing to a row of shelves, running my gaze along the line of spines counting up or down to the correct volume I was seeking, then pulling it out and flipping through the pages to find a direct, simple, and logical correlation between the case citation and the book I held in my hands. There's a satisfaction to physically finding, holding, and flipping through the book of cases that just isn't possible with online research, regardless of how great Lexis and Westlaw might be. That said, I wouldn't want to have to do too much serious case research with books only; online services offer much better and broader searching capabilities, and I wouldn't want to give those up. But for small projects, or when you know the exact case you're looking for, going to the books is a nice breath of fresh (old?) air. BTW, the reason for my little library excursion was a source collection assignment for the journal I'm on. This was the first time I had to do this, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was nowhere near as difficult as I'd feared. My task was made easier by the fact that our editor kindly did the source compilation part of the assignment for us (thank you!) and then divided up the article so that I had only 9 actual sources to locate and copy. Yeah, I had to copy multiple versions for several of the sources, and Shepardize and Keycite them, as well, but that's not so bad. I ended up with 8 cases and one journal article to locate, which is nothing compared to the obscure sources other people have had to track down. But as easy as it was, the exercise suggested to me a better way for law journals to operate. Rather than having law students trudge around killing thousands of trees by making multiple copies of all the sources an author cites in an article, why not make the author submit the sources with the article? Here's how it could work: An author submits an article as usual. The editors or readers assess it; if they decide they want to publish it, they email the author asking for copies of all of his/her sources, which he/she can then send electronically if the files are available, or in hard copy if not. This makes the author more accountable for his/her work, and saves the journal time and effort. Wouldn't it be much more efficient? Of course, it's possible that the primary value to a law student of participating in a journal is the source collection, which gives students practice in getting around a library. This would be lost under the above plan, but the experience may not be that valuable, anyway, since students doing source compilations just find predetermined sources; the hard part of legal research is tracking down the citations in the first place. Whatever. I better shut up and get to school to get my reading done. I hope everyone is enjoying their MLK Jr. Day...

Posted 02:44 PM | Comments (4) | 2L

Blawg Roundup

Ok. I've been resisting for a long time, but I can't help myself. Evan's idea for a weekly summary of notable posts and links on law student blogs is just too good to not blatantly copy. Plus, now he's doing his via podcast, so my all-text version may fill a bit of a void. Or not. But in the spirit of imitation being the most sincere form of flattery, I give you my own Blawg Roundup, which will purport to be a quick list of links I've seen in the last week that were notably notable—comment-worthy, even—in some way. First, sadness: Mixtape Marathon is talking about going gently into that good night, as in, ceasing to blog. Her posts have been rather sporadic recently, but still always smart and witty and fun and enjoyable. The Marathon will be missed, but her readers can take heart that she's considering starting up something else, somewhere else. I hope so. In lighter news, who would have thought someone could make a trip to the automatic car wash sound so funny? I certainly didn't, but second person singular's recent experience at the robo-wash (complete with hilarious tangent about the childhood trauma attendant to coin-operated rocking horses at the supermarket) had me rolling on the floor. I'm telling you, this guy can write. Elsewhere: Nudum Pactum, a 1L at the U of Chicago, notes that fornication is now legal in Virginia. Such a progressive state, Virginia. Those folks better be careful or they're going to find the foundations of their civilization crumbling thanks to “liberal” reforms like this. The First Annual Section 14 Mustache Contest finished this week with participants categories entered in categories such as Most Redneck and Most Pornstar. Pictures are available for the 'stache fetish in you. Monica is going to spend her spring quarter in Alaska working for the Anchorage Public Defender. This is old news, but I just found it and it makes me insanely jealous. I want to go to Alaska. I want to be in a school were a full year of actual legal work is required to earn my degree. I still can't believe, in all my attempts to find a good school for public interest law, no one ever mentioned Northeastern to me. I still may have been stupid and ended up at GW, but least I would have done so knowing I had options. JD2B (possibly the most-linked blawg) was full of tasty links this week, including the fact that the Sentencing Law and Policy blawg was cited by Justice Breyer in his Booker dissent. Is this the first time a blawg has been cited in a Supreme Court decision? JD2B also notes that it's possible to get a J.D. in two years in the U.S., thanks to a recent ABA rule change. It's a little late for me now, but good to know, nonetheless. The blawg formerly known as Sapere Aude, which “intends to be a source of information by and for the students of Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis,” has changed its name to IndyLaw Net. For now you can access the site both at its old blogspot location and its new URL. Also, if you haven't seen it, IndyLaw Net points to the story about the two men in NY who got arrested for telling lawyer jokes in a courthouse. They're charged with disorderly conduct, and have already received an offer for free legal assistance from, um, a lawyer. According to Overlawyerd, the offer was one of many. Finally, Whatever Remains offers a possible solution to some of the most active MT spammers—some MT Blacklist expressions to block the spam. I'll give it a try. Speaking of which, if you have trouble posting comments for some reason (your comments are being filtered out), please let me know and I'll see if I can fix it.)

Posted 12:30 PM | Comments (1) | law school meta-blogging

Bush Gives World Finger, Again

Last Wednesday the U.S. officially gave up the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. After at least one and a half years of searching, the search teams found nothing. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said:

“After a war that has consumed nearly two years and millions of dollars, and a war that has cost thousands of lives, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, nor has any evidence been uncovered that such weapons were moved to another country,” Pelosi said in a written statement. “Not only was there not an imminent threat to the United States, the threat described in such alarmist tones by President Bush and the most senior members of his administration did not exist at all.”

That's all true; it's just a restatement of what the Bush administration has already admitted. Pelosi called on President Bush “ to explain to the American people why he was so wrong, for so long, about the reasons for war.” Here's a better idea: Instead of demanding an explanation (which has been a fruitless demand for nearly two years now), why not demand impeachment? Presidents have obviously faced impeached proceedings for far, far, far, far, far less. Oh, but no need, because the president “knows” he did the right thing:

“Nothing's changed in terms of his views when it comes to Iraq, what he has previously stated and what you have previously heard,” McClellan said. “The president knows that by advancing freedom in a dangerous region we are making the world a safer place.”

Awesome. I'm so glad the president “knows” this, despite all evidence to the contrary (even assuming, for the sake of argument, that “advancing freedom in a dangerous region” is what the U.S. is doing). His administration's own statements tell the story of how much reality matters to them. But accountability? Fuggedaboudit. Anyway, it's already taken care of. The president says so:

“We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections,” Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. “The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me.”

An “accountability moment.” Beautiful. I mean, as infuriating as this statement sounds, I hope Bush is right. Unfortunately, I fear there are going to be many more “accountability moments” in the years to come (some of them may also be called “blowback” or “unintended consequences of absolutely criminal foreign policy decisions”), but for the world's sake, I hope I'm wrong.

Posted 09:20 AM | Comments (1) | election 2004 general politics

Air America Coming to D.C. & Podcasting

This is probably old news, but I just learned that Air America Radio will start broadcasting in D.C. tomorrow morning. Say hello Progressive Radio AM 1260. it sounds great, except that I already have access to too many good radio programs I don't have the time to listen to, so this will only add to that problem. I guess that's a pretty good problem to have, though—better than having nothing you ever want to hear. If Air America and NPR would embrace podcasting (and at least one NPR program already has) , I could probably listen to excellent radio every waking hour of my days. That probably wouldn't help me do all of the work I actually need to do these days, but it would be pretty cool, nonetheless. Speaking of podcasting: I read blogs that seem to be talking about nothing else these days. Do any readers of this blog create podcasts or actually use a podcast feed aggregator and listen to podcasts? And speaking of aggregators, is Bloglines a copyright infringer?

Posted 08:58 AM | Comments (3) | general politics meta-blogging