Jeremy > Chicago

I just wanna say . . .

Thank you.

Not 4th place--3rd runner-up

I don't want to talk about this:

The Mariners’ rotation put up a combined ERA of 5.16 last season, better only than Florida, Tampa Bay and Texas. Management addressed that concern by acquir[ing] Erik Bedard from the Baltimore Orioles . . . .

I can't remember a time when Rangers' fans haven't lamented to each other: "What we really need is pitching."  But did we fight for Bedard or Johan Santana even invite some old has-been like Randy Johnson or Roger Clemens?  No.  We fought for Torii Hunter.  A center fielder.  And lost.

At least we stole Nolan Ryan from the Astros again.

Let's be frank

I know I've been posting a lot the past few days, but I'm trying a new blogging strategy.  Maybe it'll become clear in the next few weeks if the strategy holds.  Maybe not.

I always knew that King Frank (or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as he is sometimes known) was a tough guy, but I never knew quite how tough until I ran across the following passage in my current reading:

Roosevelt kibitzed with the press as he sat in bed receiving his haircut.

Any guy knows that there is nothing quite so itchy as the back of your neck the day you get a haircut.  I can't imagine sleeping in it.  Wow.  But hey--it ain't easy being king.

So sad, but so true

Joe Posnanski, a journalist who covers the K.C. Royals (the team we fought with for most of last season for the worst record in the AL), wrote this limerick about America's Texas's Waco's my team.  So sad, but so true . . .

The search goes on for a pitch panacea
Chan Ho, Loaiza, now Vincent Padilla
The lineups, quite sadly
even with Milton Bradley
Lose 10-8 and get the idea

Anybody remember that weekend or so last year when Johan Santana struck out 18 Rangers, then we smashed the Orioles 30-3?

Yeah . . . too true . . .

Shame

Last night, we had some family over for my birthday, and, naturally, politics came up.  When my mother found out how I voted, she got pretty upset.  I stand by my vote.  Until last night, I've been pretty reticent about whom I support (or at least, I haven't come right out and said it), and I'll continue to do that.  But I will take a stand on one thing: Barack Obama is (probably*) not the antichrist.  And I think it's a despicable, fear-mongering attack unworthy of even debunking.  But for those of you who question his commitment to "traditional" (whatever that means) American values, you should read this article from Christianity Today, in which Obama is quoted as encouraging people to read their Bibles.  This quote I particularly like:

If people find [my support for civil unions] controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.

And later, on the Bible and public policy:

Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our Bibles. Folks haven't been reading their Bibles

I'm not saying how I voted out of the real fear of retaliation (I have a summer job in the Department of Justice that I wouldn't mind turning into a post-graduation job).  If people had made the same attacks on Hillary Clinton or Bill Richardson or John Edwards or John McCain or Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee or anybody else, I would respond the same way.  Fear-mongering should have no place in today's America; there's enough real fear to go around without adding illegitimate fears to it.  Besides, what else did Jesus say?

Don't worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself. You have enough to worry about today.

Anybody who tries to keep somebody out of office by referring to him or her as the antichrist ought to be stoned, Deuteronomy-style.  Then again, I'm against content-based speech restrictions, so they can say whatever they want.  Make that stoning Dixie Chick-style.

 

 

*I say "probably" because my understanding is that nobody knows who the Antichrist is or if it's even one particular person.  And that's one bet I don't want to lose.

Viva la Democracía

I love voting.  I love all the signs set up along the streets leading up to your polling place.  I love the electricity in the air as you wait in line to vote.  I love sitting down in front of the machine and thinking "OK--this is it."  The moment of picking your future and permanently choosing whose side of the fence you're on.  The moment you've been talking about for months has arrived.  It's time to put your ballot where your mouth is.  I love it.

If you haven't voted by the time you're reading this, it's probably too late.  But it's not too late to register for November.  If you care anything about your future, get out there and vote.

¡Viva la democracía!*

 

 

*I saw this scrawled in spray paint on the side of a McDonald's outside Caracas, Venezuela, in the summer of 2002, shortly after Hugo Chavez had been deposed and reinstated.  Imagine if our gangsta thug vandalizers were politically active.

Thomas Paine, or a Royal Pain for Smart Kids

IRAC.  I do it every day.  You figure out what the issue is, determine the most appropriate rule, apply the rule to the circumstances, and get your answer.

Common sense.  I use it every day, too.  You look at a situation, stick it into your intuition, and wait for the answer to pop out.

We call the steps in the process by different names, but you usually get the same results.  IRAC just tells you why and how you got there.  Common sense is like flying up to Minneapolis; IRAC is like taking I-35.  You don't even have to know what you're doing when you use common sense, but if you don't know how to use IRAC or you don't use it right, you could end up in San Francisco after accidentally turning left in Des Moines.

I like to think about this kind of stuff.  How the brain and/or mind works.  Maybe that's why this article, comparing psychology and common sense, was so interesting to me.  Here's my favorite quote:

Ultimately what really sets psychology apart from common sense is the scientific method.

And

once psychological findings become well-known, people [might] incorporate them into their intuitive thoughts and behaviour.

And then it becomes "common sense."

Beautiful.

I love me some trufe

Fareed Zakaria is one of my favorite columnists.  If you don't read him, you should.  (I'm talking to you, Justin Scott.)  Here's a great quote from this week's column:

The facts about [free] trade have been too well rehearsed to go into them in any great detail, but let me point out that NAFTA has been pivotal in transforming Mexico into a stable democracy with a growing economy.

Here's the gist, something that countless history, economics, and political science professors have argued: People don't care about civil rights or even respect unless their stomachs are full.

I think Maslow said something similar . . .

Can she explain irony?

Three of my favorite things--irony, grammar, and Lost--come together in this from one of the many interpretive sites:

Explain the Lorentz Invariant for we English majors

Now, I don't want to get too technical, but I can tell you this: English majors modifies we, which is the object of the preposition for.  So the correct pronoun is the objective pronoun us.  I'd be willing to bet that she said "we English majors" because she thought it sounded right.

But between you and I, it's not.  I'm so bad.

The cartophile is never lost

For only the second time in my memory, a television show almost made me cry.  The first time it happened, my wife and I were watching Lost on DVD, catching up so that we could watch the new fourth season as it aired.  I think you know what I'm talking about.  Yep, that's right: Greatest Hits.  I don't want to ruin it for you, but when Charlie writes on his note to Claire that the greatest moment of his life was the night he met her . . . it sounds so sappy here, but man . . . in the moment--wow.  Excellent writing.  I told my wife that night that episodes like that make me want to write stories.

Then tonight, it happened again.  I think you know what I'm talking about.  That's right.  The Constant.  I don't want to ruin it for you, so I won't tell you about the ending.  But man . . . !  Imagine Romeo & Juliet, except that Juliet wakes up before Romeo kills himself.  And the episode itself was amazing.  I'll be honest.  I was afraid that making Desmond a time traveler would be really cheesy and destroy the integrity of the story.  But they pulled it off.  I won't tell you how, but it worked.

And now my piece of Lost theory.  I think that the Oceanic Six all work for Ben after they "escape," just like Sayyid.  I mean, after tonight's episode, it was all too clear that Ben's man-on-the-boat wanted Desmond to get to the radio.  I don't think it's too far out there to suggest that Desmond needed to get to the radio for the Oceanic Six to get off the Island.  I don't know how Ben could obtain that kind of power over the Original 48, but I don't put it past him.  Ben = awesome.  Lastly, I think Penny plays an important role in the long-term development of the storyline.*  At least I hope so.

P.S. -- I think that Penny's dad knows about the Island.

 

 

*I'm just spitballin' here, but maybe Penny's dad is connected to the Dharma Initiative and, for whatever reason, he is waging war on Ben and the Others.  The Oceanic 48 somehow got caught in the middle, and I think Penny plays a crucial long-term role in extricating the survivors from the conflict.

I demand a recount

Where are Osler's Razor and Civ Pro Prof Blog on this so-called fair ranking???

It's rigged, I tell ya.

Imagine the Family Picture Wall

This couple is amazing: they have been married for 83 years.  That's longer than almost anybody I know has been alive.  Think of it this way--when they got married, Calvin Coolidge was president; the NFL was three years old and featured teams like the Akron Pros, the Milwaukee Badgers, and the Oorang Indians; women had only voted in one presidential election; and the USSR had not yet begun teething.

But here's something else amazing.  The last paragraph of the article reads:

Their family includes six children, 39 grandchildren, 101 great-grandchildren and 40 great-great grandchildren.

So by my addition, that's 186 living, lineal descendants.  Sheesh.

Why Federal Statutes Are Terrible

In my five quarters of law school, I have become familiar with two basic legislative drafting styles: federal and state.  In my humble opinion, the States generally do a better job drafting legislation (and administrative rules, for that matter) than do either Congress or the federal agencies.  While I'm rather ashamed of the Texas Constitution, there are myriad federal laws equally as (uselessly) complex.  I'll name two biggies I've studied: the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26 of the U.S. Code) and the Immigration and Nationality Act (part of Title 8 of the U.S. Code).

Wray Herbert may shed some light on this phenomenon through a recent post on his fascinating blog, "We're Only Human."  In it, he writes about an experiment recently performed at Indiana University where the researchers had various size groups try to solve problems.  (He describes the experiment in more detail.)  He notes that:

When the problems were easy, the [biggest] networks did best. . . . But as the problems became trickier, the small[er] networks tended to perform better. In other words, the truism that more information is always better proved untrue when life got a little messy. And as the problems became even more complex, the small[est] networks proved most clever.

Given that statutes try to resolve some of the most complex issues facing society, it's worth noting that a federal law must be approved by no fewer than 269 individuals (218 of 435 Representatives and 51 of 100 Senators).  The same law being passed by, for example, the Texas Legislature, would require the approval of only 92 individuals (76 of 150 Representatives and 16 of 31 Senators).  I did some quick research, and the average requisite majority among the state legislatures is 75, about 1/4 what Congress requires.  Only seven States require 100+ majorities: New Hampshire (214), Pennsylvania (128), Georgia (120), New York (108), Massachusetts (102), Minnesota (102), and Missouri (100).  Several States do not even have 100 legislators (most notably, Delaware (62) and Nevada (60)).

All this to say two things.  First, I like numbers.  Second, two heads may not always be better than one.  Or maybe I should say: 535 heads may not always be better than 60.

I Love Lucy--Adopt a Puppy

This past session, the Texas Legislature, or "The Lege" as my college prof called it, passed H.B. 2328.  This bill amended the animal cruelty statute.  I'm working on a paper about this new statute, so I'm trying to keep up with current events in animal law.  All that to justify this: I ran across an article from PETA entitled Uninvited Guests at the Westminster Dog Show.  In case you're lazy, the uninvited guests are holding up signs accusing breeders of destroying the chances of shelter animals.

I'm not going to tell you to go vegetarian or that animals have the same rights as humans.  But if you're in the market for a puppy or a kitten, give your local shelter a chance.  I did it a few years ago, and I haven't looked back.

What's in a name?

I stumbled across a rather interesting article theorizing about the significance of the names of several characters in Lost, particularly John Locke, Danielle Rousseau, and Mikhail Bakunin.  Even if you don't like philosophy, it's a pretty interesting and short article, and I recommend it.

A Life in Six Words: "Angry Guy Gets Law License, Sues"

Today, the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog posted an interesting article entitled, "A Life in Six Words: 'Angry Guy Gets Law License, Sues'."  To distill your life into six words requires you to boil your life to its essence.  What six words most convey who you are, where you've been, where you're going, why?

I challenge you--what's your life in six words?

UPDATE:  I'm thinking about these as my six words: "Masten: Why can't we be friends?"

This Just In: David Beats Goliath

My least favorite thing about football is that everybody leaves before the game is over. 

Tonight, we flipped over to the Super Bowl when there was only about a minute left.  We saw Eli Manning throw a pass straight into the hands of Plexico Burress in the end zone, and (with the extra point) the underdogs were ahead 17-14.  Tom Brady wasted the last 35 seconds trying to throw 864-yard passes.  Then, when the Patriots couldn't convert their fourth down, the Giants had to run a play to run out the one second remaining on the clock.

You know who didn't see that play?   Bill Belichick.  According to the announcers, he had already left the field and was walking up the tunnel.

I haven't felt this good about a world champion since the Marlins beat the Indians in 1997.

Beware the Fourth of March

I don't consider myself a "grammarian," but I appreciate good grammar and I try to cultivate it.  I'll admit that I bought and read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves; thoroughly enjoyed Tim O'Brien's Tomcat in Love; and even peruse Strunk & White when I get bored.  (Grammarians will note that I broke up the parallelism.  I think parallelism is a style issue rather than a grammar issue.  I want to emphasize that while I read and enjoyed the first two books (past tense), I continue to read and enjoy the third (present tense).  My stylistic choice has been made, grammar be damned.)  So I will take it as a personal birthday present that my 25th birthday has been proclaimed National Grammar Day by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar.

So, between you and I me, let's talk right speak properly.

Justice John Edwards?

I'll be honest.  I like John Edwards.  As a person.  As a trial lawyer.  Maybe not so much as a candidate.  But does anybody really think he's Supreme Court material?  I don't know.  I guess he could join the ranks of odd people who left Congress for the Supreme Court, but that would go against recent trends in Supreme Court membership:

• Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.: practicing lawyer, then D.C. Circuit judge
• Justice John Paul Stevens: law professor, then 7th Circuit judge
• Justice Antonin Scalia: law professor
• Justice Anthony M. Kennedy: practicing lawyer and lobbyist, then 9th Circuit judge
• Justice David H. Souter: practicing lawyer, then New Hampshire AG, then a romp through the New Hampshire judiciary (including a few years on its Supreme Court), then 5 months on the 1st Circuit
• Justice Clarence Thomas: government lawyer and administrator, then D.C. Circuit judge
• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: law professor and women's rights advocate, then D.C. Circuit judge
• Justice Stephen G. Breyer: government lawyer and administrator, then 1st Circuit judge
• Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.*: government lawyer, then 3rd Circuit judge

So--eight of the nine justices spent at least some time on a federal circuit court; the one who didn't was a committed law professor and highly respected as an academic.  The last Congressional justice was Sherman Minton, who represented Indiana in the Senate for six years during the Great Depression, just before he was nominated to the 7th Circuit.  Edwards--and Mr. Clinton, for that matter--has spent no time on any federal circuit, nor is he highly respected in academia.  Besides that, he's not nearly mysterious enough to even hope to get through confirmation.  So can we stop with this weird idea that popular politicians can be on the Supreme Court?

Then again--Chief Justice Earl Warren was the Republican Vice Presidential nominee in 1948, only five years before he was appointed chief justice . . .

 

*Does anybody else think it's funny that George W. Bush, who has the same name as his father, nominated two justices for the Supreme Court who also share their names with their fathers?

So wait--Jacob is a Christian?

Here are my thoughts on the return of Lost.  There is a world of Lost blogs and web sites out there that are rife with commentary on the season premier, but I have to take these things one step at a time.  So I'm going to talk about the recap episode first, and, maybe later I'll delve into commentary on the season premier.

First--I think it's fascinating (and potentially important) that Ben narrated the recap episode.  I've seen a few of these (they remind me of those old checklist baseball cards), and they typically have non-characters narrating.  For example, back when I watched Grey's Anatomy, they had a no-name coma patient narrating.  Yet the Masters of Lost use Ben.  Hurley might have been entertaining.  We know that there are dozens of survivors and Others we don't know yet, so any of them could have worked.  But Ben.

Which leads to my second question: Why Ben?  Ben seems to have this uncanny ability to know everything.  He knows everything about all the survivors.  He knows about Jacob, Walt, and Locke.  He knows who Naomi is with.  He even knew how to deprogram the Invisible Fence of (Not Quite) Certain Death when he was only 12 years old.  He is the guy that I think most people look to for the answers about the Island.  Maybe that's why--Ben is the go-to guy when it comes to the Island, so we'll go to him for a recap.

Which leads to my third question: Did Ben tell us anything new in the flashback episode?  I think he did.  I definitely wouldn't be surprised if he did.

Finally, one quick thought about the season premier.  Is anybody else getting scared that everything is just in Hurley's head?