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January 31, 2006
First good day in a long while
I had an interview today - on one hour's notice!
It was with a professor whose class I spent kicking a reasonable amount of ass just hours before. He said I was qualified, which means more face-to-face than it does in an autopenned five line rejection letter. I should find out whether I get the research position soon, which will mean the days of mass-mailings, mass-rejections and questioning my self-worth could soon be over.
Posted by rj3 at 5:08 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
The Elephant in the Living Room
Washington Post trackbacks are an endless source of entertainment, since the often point me to blogs I'd never read. Today's seletion is the Brothers Judd, who miss the point completely on the domestic spying mess:
The problem for "civil libertarians" is that even before you get to this utilitarian analsysis you have to clear both the constitutional structure of the Republic and convince people that the feds listening to calls from terrorists is an abridgment of our civil rights.
Who, exactly is saying that no spying on terrorists should be allowed on civil liberties grounds? Nobody. We've all made peace with the concept of warrants, secret or public, FISA or Baltimore City criminal criminal court, beforehand or within 72 hours. Of course, it would be a great opportunity to tar the ACLU if they argued that terrorists should be wiretaps, but that's not what they're saying.
What all this comes down to is Judd's proposition that this is about "feds listening to calls from terrorists." How do we know that they're not listening in to Democrats or Dixie Chicks? We don't, because FISA has been eliminated as a check on the power of the executive, a check put in after America found out that Nixon was using wiretaps to keep an eye on political enemies. Of course, we hope, for the sake of national security and the respect of the rule of law, that the only thing being kept secret is "feds listening to calls from terrorists." The problem is that we don't know and we can't under the wartime-president-as-king model.
It's one thing to trust President Bush, Attorney General Gonzalez and every shift boss at the NSA who makes the day-to-day decision on who to listen to, but that's not not good enough in a constitutional republic. Pretending that opponents of the system want to shut it down completely instead of making it accountable won't change that.
Posted by rj3 at 9:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 30, 2006
The President of Middle Earth
I may be permanently constrained from completely understanding the American psyche as a result of growing up in a household where the newspapers delivered to our doorstep had no funnies. Instead of growing up with Calvin and Hobbes like every other kid, I had Lewis and Safire to go with breakfast.
However, the Times did run some cartoons; namely, the selection of editorial cartoons that appeared every Sunday in the Week in Review, which I gobbled up. Wasn't I precocious?
Many years later, I still appreciate a good political cartoon. Today, this one from Nick Anderson caught my eye.
I think it distills how a lot of people, including myself, view the wiretap flap: not part of any wider strategy beyond the jealous guarding of any shred of additional power the administration can seize. None of this would have been needed if the NSA had gone to the FISA court, even after the fact. Even if the FISA court was seen as a problem, the administration could have pushed Sen. DeWine's lowering of evidence standards for wiretaps, but they opposed it.
Anything to banish the daylight.
Secrecy at all costs, even when it isn't needed. Very nice M.O. for the "leader of the free world."
Posted by rj3 at 11:01 AM | Comments (583) | TrackBack
This PUD's for you
Today marks the start of the trial of former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, which is hopefully the end of a shameful period in the energy industry. One of the reasons we know just how shameful it was is thanks to the tiny Snohomish Public Utility District (PUD) in Washington State. Faced with charges for non-payment of $122 million in hyper-inflated spot market power, this utility fought its case before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by doing what the government should have done itself, had it not been so busy peddling the falsehood that regulation caused the California Energy Crisis: going through hour after hour of Enron phone tapes, looking for malfeasance.
What they found was shocking in frankness, if not effect. When Clinton Administration Energy Secretary Bill Richardson signed an order requiring out-of-state power plants sell surplus energy to California, an Enron trader named Bill told a Nevada plant official to shut it down by any means necessary:
Bill: Ah, we want you guys to get a little creative.
Rich: OK.
Bill: And come up with a reason to go down.
Rich: OK
Bill: Anything you want to do over there? Any -
Rich: Ah-
Bill: Cleaning, anything like that?
Rich: Yeah, Yeah. There's some stuff we could be doing.
Sure enough, the plant went down for repairs and Enron kept selling on the spot market at an inflated price. Other conversations show how traders mask energy sources, congest uncongested power lines to collect extra fees and screw over the now-famous "Grandma Millie":
Person 1: “…all the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers of California?”
Person 2: “Yeah, Grandma Millie, man. But she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to [expletive deleted] vote on the butterfly ballot.”
Lovely. No wonder this stuff has been found to be too prejudicial to use in the Lay and Skilling trial.
As far as I can tell via LexisNexis, there hasn't been any action on the $122 million Enron claims Snohomish owes it. That's a lot of potential debt to have hanging over your head, so if you're a current or former Snohomish PUD employee or customer, I'll buy you a beer if you can find me today.
Posted by rj3 at 8:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 29, 2006
ANWR, Kuwait, peak oil and ideologues who don't know what they're talking about
Photo taken this summer somewhere between Homestead and Miami, Fla.
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, to borrow a meaningless and trite phrase, is "stuck on stupid" on ANWR and energy policy. Today, it's the speculation that Kuwait has 51 billion fewer barrels than previously thought, or a decrease of more than half:
As I understand it, some of this reflects inflated estimates from past years (I had an item on similar questions about Saudi reserves, and I've seen speculation that Iran has less than it lets on), but of course it's in the interest of these countries to inflate their reserves, thus discouraging additional drilling and competition that might lower prices.Perhaps this is an argument for not drilling in ANWR and elsewhere in the United States yet -- leave that stuff in the ground for a few decades while consuming Middle East oil now, and eventually we'll be selling oil to them. Or not...
A side note: is every single geopolitical/geological/meteorological event an opportunity to stick it to the French and the Muslims, or are only a few cataclysmic enough to make it worthwhile? The fact that Kuwait has a little less oil than we thought is about as far as Reynolds gets without putting his righty-conventional-wisdom goggles on.
Sure, the argument can be made that Reynolds is simply arguing against ANWR, but I know sarcasm when I see it. Besides, Reynolds' implied opinions aside, the statement itself betrays some ignorance about the reserve.
According to the Energy Information Administration, we imported nearly 308 million barrels of oil in November and produced about 142 million barrels. Refinery inputs totaled about 451 million barrels, which means 9.4 years of American refinery inputs, not counting for any increase or decrease in demand.
The U.S. Geological Survey says this about ANWR:
Technically recoverable oil within the ANWR 1002 area (excluding State and Native areas) is estimated to be between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels (95- and 5-percent probability range), with a mean value of 7.7 billion barrels.
You can blame those estimates on career geologists who hate George Bush and want to stymie him, but I don't think many people will find it convincing outside of your blogroll. Assuming the mean estimated numbers are correct, if they extracted all of the oil out of ANWR all at once, without any waste, it would sate American demand for a year at a half. In other words, the centerpiece of the Cheney energy policy is a margin of error within Kuwait's estimation error. If it comes to the point when the Middle East runs out of oil, the petroleum economy will be more or less gone thanks to market forces and 7.7 billion barrels won't bring it back.
Oil won't ever "run out," simply because it will become far too expensive to use it the way we do now far before the last drop comes out of the ground, wherever and whenever that may be. The question is whether America as a nation wants to stop deluding itself now and pump up the CAFE and R&D, or whether we would prefer to rely on snake oil cures for a few years so the short-sighted oil execs can get the profits in the bank before the golden parachutes are calculated.
UPDATE: Some paragraphs reordered.
Posted by rj3 at 9:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 28, 2006
Among the many things making me more stupid
Whoever had my American Legal History textbook was a complete moron, since the highlighting and markings show a legal acumen the likes of which accumulate in a tic-tac-toe playing chicken whose cage has been lined with the Pacific Reporter. In a book on legal history, the previous owner has underlined two seemingly random sentences in Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia and written "Democracy" in the margins. Similar obvious and non-noteworthy observations abound.
I'm not one of those people who buys used textbooks to piggyback on useful notes - I selected this particular book out of the stack because of the sparse highlighting and notation - but it becomes distracting when you're simultaneously trying to process information while lamenting a stranger's braindead observations.
That, and who the hell highlights the case names? It's not like they aren't already set off in big, bold text.
Posted by rj3 at 7:26 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 27, 2006
You down with LNG?
Yeah, you know me!
You should probably be down with liquefied natural gas as well, since it's cleaner and safer to get out of the ground than coal. Sure, it's not renewable, but it pollutes less and we have the generating capacity to use it, unlike solar. Sure, building facilities to accept and regasify LNG will increase our use of foreign gas, but having more options for obtaining fuel helps mitigate price swings and preserves domestic supplies for real crises. Any sensible energy policy spreads the risk and focuses on adjusting the mix of power sources to lower prices, emissions and geopolitical risk while recognizing that all goals can't be met at once.
That being said, there are a lot of legitimate details to be dealt with. In the rush caused by high natural gas prices, too many companies have proposed too many terminals up and down the coasts. It seems clear to me that most of these proposed terminals won't get built and there is a significant risk of overbuilding depending on the regulatory situation.
On a political level, safety is a major issue. An LNG tanker is like a gigantic pressurized fuel bomb. Just like a nuclear power plant, most people wouldn't want to live or work near where they unload. These concerns are driving local opposition to terminals, such as the proposed Hess facility in Fall River, Mass.
When confronted with a problem, you can protest, or you can give up. You could also get behind a plan that addresses your concerns. If the risk from a tanker is too big, move the terminal offshore, on to a manmade floating island 13.5 miles off the coast of Long Island. Of course, you won't stop the hardcore anti-LNG crowd from complaining, even if it comes out as gibberish:
"My initial reaction is we have grave and serious concerns about paving over the ocean and treating it like commercial real estate," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, a statewide group based in Farmingdale.
Paving over the ocean? Is that supposed to be an argument that is worthy of a response? Esposito gets even dumber in the Times:
A leader of the coalition against the floating terminal, Adrienne Esposito, was dubious of the island proposal, saying "the more we learn, the more it sounds like the island of Dr. Moreau," referring to the H. G. Wells novel that was made into three horror movies.
The Atlantic Sea Island Group, which wants to build this thing, should issue a press release promising to keep genetic engineering on the facility to a minimum and to make it less like The Island of Dr. Moreau or The Island and more like "Fantasy Island." If you can't fight nonsense with logic, then fight it with nonsense.
"Dee tanker! Dee tanker!!"
Posted by rj3 at 10:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 26, 2006
What's in a name?
Going through some old emails, I came across the early discussions on what to call bluestate. Here was the list, as of Nov. 8, 2004:
Academy
Archetype
bluestate
Downtownuptown
Envy
Fever
Jolt
Metro
Revolutions
Verisimilitude
Watch Me Jumpstart
Zero Zero One
I think we made the right choice.
Posted by rj3 at 1:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Feel it dude, it's gratitude
As you might have guessed by the tone of this blog, I've been in a bit of a rough patch lately. I'm having trouble concentrating on work and I can't stop fretting about finding something to do this summer. That being said, studying the law, in particular at this school, beats the everlovin' heck out of my old job. Really now, who leaves a job they like to take on piles of debt and move to a new time zone?
Therefore, in hopes of bucking up and feeling a little more grateful for the privilege of spending hour upon hour in the library, I present myself (and you) with the top ten reasons I quit my old job.
1) My cube. No window, no light, minimum decoration, lest people come over more often to see me blogging and listening to internet radio. The cubicle is such a stifling method of office organization that I counted among the benefits of working in my corner of the floor the fact that it was low-traffic (nobody bothering me) and the lack of screen glare from a window.
2) The neighborhood. Full of marble and concrete government buildings, when the few trees between Judiciary Square and Union Station weren't in bloom, the landscape didn't even show the full range of grays available at the paint section of Home Depot.
3) The steam table joint where I ate lunch most days. Sure, the cashiers were really nice. Sure, they let me fill my tray all over again for free when a Capitol Police officer knocked my tray over. Sure, duck quesadilla day was the best (it was probably just chicken, but whatever). Still, the DC steam table lunch is eerily analogous to the plight of the office worker: there are many choices, but they're all flavorless and will make you fat and lethargic.
4) Showing up by 8. Ten months out of the year, the sun wasn't up when my alarm went off, which made me perpetually tired. When I got to the Metro stop near work, one escalator at my exit was always undergoing repairs, which meant that people going in both directions used the same (stopped) escalator. Lines formed, as if the dreary warren of office buildings was some sort of exclusive nightclub and we were the worthless peons angling for a chance to bump up against Paris Hilton.
5) The chances of advancement. Nil. My boss's boss had it in for me from day one, probably because my boss hired me during a staffing crisis while he was away on vacation. He came back and I was there.
6) No happy hours. Every time someone quit (about once every other month), my office got a long table at the dark, depressing bar around the corner from the office to have a "happy hour." I never had any fun. The really cool co-workers had to leave early to be with their families. Happy hours are where workers are supposed to bond. If you never go for drinks after work, you never bond. It's not that hard to understand.
7) Lack of Communication. My boss had an office; I had a cube. Therefore, we never spoke casually and I seethed with the sort of resentment you can only build up against someone you don't speak with casually. The entire operation consisted of little more than two dozen people. I only saw some of the only people who worked at the other side of the office in the men's room. I don't like to talk on the can -- they did.
8) Being broke all the time. I worked two jobs and still had to order PBR when I really wanted Yuengling. I only saved a buck, but it seemed worth it at the time, given DC rent.
9) The people I had to deal with on the phone. In the interests of not giving too much away, I won't say exacly who I needed to speak to on the phone, but here's a hint: they were on opposite sides of the political spectrum and they used yours truly as a conduit through which to yell at each other.
10) The sinking feeling I got every morning in the elevator up to the office. I don't get that here, thank God.
Posted by rj3 at 7:01 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack
January 25, 2006
Worn down and hanging around
You know it's time to take a study break when you look back on your notes and see this, all alone and without explination:
Constitutional Analysis
- Bork – intentionalism/originalism – batshit crazy
Yeah.
Posted by rj3 at 8:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It's the little indignities
Photo stolen from Flickr.
Some stranger stole my seat in class today, forcing me to the back of the room. I'm much, much angrier about this than a person viewing the situation from a neutral perspective would expect me to be.
Posted by rj3 at 10:07 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
January 24, 2006
Never leave home without bus fare
The criminals of Baltimore take a little longer to learn the lessons we understood at age 12:
Burlgary // Someone broke into Apollo Trucking Co. in the 4300 block of Eastern Ave. early Sunday after knocking a hole in the cinder-block wall and drove away in a company-owned fuel truck. The truck was found abandoned with its engine running at Haven and Lombard streets.
Actually, you'd probably be better off walking.
Posted by rj3 at 3:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
"Peak Corn," part 2
In the previous installment, a commenter noted that ethanol is not truly renewable since ethanol plants require natural gas to operate. Today, the Wall Street Journal [sub. req'd.] reports that this is a problem possibly solved by poop:
Panda Energy International Inc. plans in the coming months to begin construction on a plant in Hereford that will produce 100 million gallons of ethanol a year. To Panda, the manure eliminates the need to burn expensive natural gas in ethanol production. To Hereford's farmers, the arrangement is the answer to a prayer, and they have signed contracts agreeing to give their manure to the company free of charge.
Like ethanol itself, it isn't a complete solution, but it's a start.
Posted by rj3 at 9:39 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 23, 2006
I like Glenn Greenwald when he's angry.
Posted by rj3 at 1:54 PM | Comments (262) | TrackBack
Surprises
Two things from this morning:
1. The neighborhood Starbucks, the temporary closure of which was lamented here, is back in operation. It looks about 10% better, but about half as full of customers. Given the slow pace, the baristas got to talking:
Barista 1: It's booked now - in March, I'm going to Nassau.
Barista 2: Where?
Barista 1: Nassau, in the Bahamas.
Barista 2: That sounds nice. Are you going to go to the Starbucks in Nassau?
Barista 1: Yeah, probably.
2. I have what you might consider a small shiner. My left eye isn't black-and-blue, but it's very, very puffy. I have no idea how this came to be, since I barely left the house yesterday. I think this means that I'll be spending a few days at a library desk facing a wall until it dies down.
Posted by rj3 at 8:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 22, 2006
They should have cast Ewan McGregor to play me
There is a Bluestate movie.
This guy plays the clerk at Crooked Beat who sold me that Rapture 12".
I think the story of four ragtag bloggers with nothing but a semi-functional mixer and dream lost something in the transition to the silver screen. Here is the film's blurb:
Imagine for a moment that it is 2010. Blue States are seceding from the United States and those who have pushed, demanded and begged for a God-less society finally have what they asked for. No moral absolutes, government schools nothing more than indoctrination camps, tolerance mandated by law. Would you be willing to take your family there on a mission for the truth? Witness one family's sacrifice to do just that in Bluestate - Tolerance for All, an independent movie produced by Openlight Studios.
Tolerance for all? Heaven forfend! Upon additional investigation, I have discovered that this Bluestate has little, if anything to do with the Bluestate I know and love. Instead of an exciting story about the power of strong mixed drinks, LCD Soundsystem and Spandau Ballet to bring people together, the best I can glean from the trailer is that the movie is about what would happen if everything fundamentalist Christians believed about liberals and secularists were true. It's as if the script came about after a thousand-person game of telephone.
Still, I expect a check in the mail for this.
Posted by rj3 at 5:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 21, 2006
Pimp my life
The quality of my driving has greatly decreased since I started law school.
Posted by rj3 at 11:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 20, 2006
Land Speed Record
Shortest period of time between job application (via U.S. Mail) and rejection (via email): 25 hours.
Posted by rj3 at 2:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
There is a mole out there
I'm pretty sure that "at a party" (scroll down) was me.
Posted by rj3 at 11:27 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 19, 2006
Make way for the J-O-Beeee!*
OK, no more complaining about how I can't get a job. I sent letters to every judge in three district courts last night and ran completely out of nice resume paper. I'll be at it again today, hitting up DC industry groups that don't have any specific listings.
Meanwhile, I'll take a break for this campus event: On Durbin, on Boxer, on Feingold, on Clinton!
*Yes, the cool kids are expected to catch grime references now.
Posted by rj3 at 9:48 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
January 18, 2006
Snake eyes
The usual haul from the mailbox is one to two law firm rejection letters per day. Today, I got four, which gave some companionship to the three other rejection letters that had spilled on to the second wall in my apartment that will soon be completely covered with rejection letters. Another dozen, and I will be able to completely envelop myself in form letters sent by big, important companies that don't want anything to do with me.
All this would be the price of doing business and landing a good job, except for the fact that I have not, after four dozen letters, had a single expression of interest. Everyone I know who sent letters to firms has had at least one interview. Many have offers. As for me, a non-diverse fellow with the bad luck to be from the biggest, toughest market in the country (New York), I'm completely out in the cold.
What next? Now that it's late enough that I have to divulge my mediocre grades, the scrapping over remaining opportunities will become even more intense. Part of the social compact at this school, the unwritten laws that keep us from ripping one another to shreds, is that everyone will graduate with a good job. That's not going to happen this summer, so I'm somewhat afraid to see what my friendly colleagues will do when they have to fight over jobs with professors or spots in a clinic.
If I sound bleak now, just wait until February.
Posted by rj3 at 2:23 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
It's long underwear time again
WGN's Tom Skilling has a dire prediction:
For nearly a week, a series of global computer projections have indicated atmospheric changes in the North Atlantic may return our continent's weather pattern to one more typical of December than of the abnormally mild past three weeks. It's a forecast trend which continued Tuesday and suggests the final days of January--less than two weeks away--may feature a resurgence of arctic air over eastern North America, including Chicago and Midwest.
Interesting factoid: Skilling's brother is former Enron CEO and COO Jeff Skilling. Let's hope that neither of them is very good at predicting the future.
Posted by rj3 at 10:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 17, 2006
There will never be "Peak Corn"
I was a little busy yesterday, so I didn't get the chance to post on this inane New York Times story about competition between food, feed and ethanol users for the nation's corn supply. The basic thesis is that as oil prices rise, ethanol demand also rises, which could crowd out the food market, causing... FAMINE AND STARVATION!!!!
"The rising corn prices may be good news for farmers, but they are worrying some food planners."We're putting the supermarket in competition with the corner filling station for the output of the farm," said Lester R. Brown, an agriculture expert in Washington, D.C., and president of the Earth Policy Institute. Farms cannot feed all the world's people and its motor vehicles as well, Mr. Brown said, and the result is that more people will go hungry."
First of all, famines these days are almost entirely political. When taken as a whole, there is more than enough food to go around. The people who are starving from a lack of food in 2006 are starving because of wars, poorly thought-out land reform (in Zimbabwe, for example) and possibly inadequate crop insurance in some parts of the world with underdeveloped financial sectors.
Here in America, where ethanol-gasoline blends are required by several states, the government has spent $41.9 billion over a decade to prop up corn producers who can't make money selling the stuff at market rates. If ethanol increases corn prices to the point where corn producers make money, these programs could cost far less, saving in taxes what we lose at the supermarket checkout line. In addition, some of the oil the ethanol will replace comes at a cost to taxpayers, who pay for production tax credits, environmental cleanup and other subsidies.
So relax, grab a corn muffin, and start worrying about something more realistic than an epic battle between the engines and stomachs of the world.
Posted by rj3 at 2:14 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Blogger blindness
Perhaps it started with David Brooks' column last month explaining the concept of MySpace and Facebook to the middle-aged exurbanites who he supposedly speaks for. Now, everybody is worried about exhibitionist teens attracting the attention of unsavory charachters (and parents) via blogs and online profiles.
The Washington Post jumps on the Bandwagon of Deep Concern with an article about kids in DC suburbs posting up too much personal information and then acting shocked-SHOCKED when someone in a position of authority finds out.
Ironically, many teenagers are outraged or embarrassed when parents or other adults go to their sites. "I think they see it as a violation of their personal space," said Madeira's Cole. "They feel as if their diaries are being read."
There was a time when you cut post more or less whatever you'd like on Friendster, MySpace or a blog and still sleep well at night, safe in the knowledge that the only people who would see the pictures of your drunken escapades are the sort of people you'd go out drinking with.
Those days are over now.
As I learned when I started my first job out of college, all of your new co-workers Google you when you start a new job. It took about an hour between the time when my boss send an email notifying the company of a new hire and when I noticed a traffic spike on my old politics blog, on which I posted my name. By the end of the week, I took it down and started to look into starting a new site that didn't have my name on it. Why did I think that nobody would find out? Perhaps because I had never talked about blogs with people who did not have a blog themselves. My name was on the page and the page was accessable to anyone with Google, so my misinformed understanding of who could and would visit it was really inexplicable.
For me, the consequences were minimal since the content was strident, but not particularly embarassing. However, given the sort of material you see on MySpace, there are now probably hundereds of thousands of people who willingly post embarassing pictures and information about themselves within full view of people who are willing to set up a free account. Now that the cat is out of the bag with regards to these interpersonal networking sites, high schoolers and adults alike need to be more vigilant with what they allow other site users to see. Given the prevalence of drug testing and background checking, what vigilant employer (law firms especially) wouldn't want to know about your weekend activities or political leanings?
The bottom line: Our little Internet party was fun while it lasted, but someone forwarded the invitation to the boss, so we're all going to have to behave for the remainder of the evening.
Posted by rj3 at 11:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 16, 2006
in defense of my alma mater
Every now and then, I read the student newspaper of my alma mater, the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, just to see what people are talking about on campus these days. This op-ed by columnist Zach Goodman refers to a two-year-old takedown of Johns Hopkins in New York magazine that I hadn't seen before.
New York has a history of running about one article per year attacking my high school, either because we're too spoiled, too pressured to get into an Ivy League school, or that some students are a little too enamored with "gangsta culture." I've missed the last few years of these hit pieces, but if history is any guide, they will follow the same tired lines of attack as they have in the past. The Hopkins attack
attempts to explain the unpopularity of Mayor Bloomberg (a Hopkins alum who, since this article ran, won re-election in a landslide) by fabricating a new stereotype of Hopkins students from whole cloth:
Hopkins has a knack for producing a singular sort of character—one in which the DNA of the computer jock has been gene-spliced with that of the arrogant med student—and it’s an ugly hybrid. The classic Hopkins grad isn’t just a dork; he’s a dork with a superiority complex. No less a figure than Steven Muller, a longtime president of the university, once remarked upon the school’s “nerdlike atmosphere” in a speech, and virtually every Hopkins grad can reel off a list of classmates who fit the mold.
Yes, Muller said there are a lot of nerds at Hopkins. That's not an original observation. But are Hopkins students really that arrogant? More than one late night Natty Boh-fueled bull session in which a room full of bleary-eyed students sitting in a circle list the other colleges that rejected them. Since it's often seen as a sad, cutthroat place in the middle of a dangerous, bizarre city, the school is rarely a first choice for all but a few pre-meds and public health types, two groups who, contrary to popular belief, do not combine to make up the majority of undergraduates. Most students at Hopkins come here well aware of where they stand in the world. If you want to find a school that graduates students with superiority complexes, look at Harvard and Yale, not Hopkins.*
As the article progresses, it becomes more clear that author (and Hopkins alum) Christopher Bonanos doesn't have a problem with arrogance, he has a problem with technocrats:
“Hopkins is results-driven,” says alumnus Dan Holzer—gather data, solve the problem. “Bloomberg will pass a property-tax hike of 18 percent, and it doesn’t matter to him that it’s going to make a lot of people unhappy.” He’ll pass the smoking ban because it’s good for you. If you disagree—well, clearly, you’ve just proven yourself too stupid for your opinion to count! Consider the joy Bloomberg took last week in touting the success of his midtown-traffic-rerouting program. Cars now roar along at 6.1 miles per hour rather than 4, the mayor proclaimed, adding, “It would appear that it was a very good idea.” He’s the Republican Al Gore.
Get off your high horse, Holzer! Good public policy isn't made by people who get it as a sign from God or because they feel through a way to solve a particular problem. Sure, any politician wants to make voters happy, but if he wants to balance the budget, raising taxes might be the only option is running up unlimited debt isn't in the cards. If he wants to make traffic flow more smoothly in Midtown, perhaps re-arranging traffic patterns could help. If, lo and behold, it actually works, how is it arrogant to say so, especially in the milquetoast manner in which Bloomberg does so?
Running a major city requires more than truthiness and gladhanding. Even Rudy Giuliani, in many ways the anti-Bloomberg because of his charisma and endless personal vendettas with political enemies, had the most success in actual governance when he focused on individual problems or inefficiencies and solved them through reason and experimentation. This is where the Hopkins style, if it exists at all, manifests itself in Mayor Bloomberg. The school is not a hand-holding place where administrators worry about things like self-esteem and a "supportive learning environment." If you aren't succeeding, you had better figure out why not and fix it, because the odds are that your advisor doesn't know your name and isn't likely to give you an inspirational speech. That sort of environment churns out people who focus on results and don't have much tolerance for people who need motivation. If that's what makes "a dork with a superiority complex," then so be it.
*By which I exclude anyone I know who went to Harvard and Yale. You are all awesome people.
Posted by rj3 at 8:14 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 15, 2006
Into the belly of the beast and out in 48 hours
Thanks to everyone who came out to Bluestate last night.
Photos are on the way.
UPDATE: Everyone's photos from Saturday night are going under this Flickr tag.
Posted by rj3 at 7:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 14, 2006
Wow, our very own haters!
Here's a Hint, everybody's least favorite DC hipster music site, has decided to bear its teeth at Bluestate:
Saturday 1/14:
If you are the kind that just hates local music and has to have a DJ select label-approved music for you, Bluestate runs opposite Mousetrap at the Black Cat. Bluestate is free and will have better music, but Mousetrap will have the hot bitches you never see at a local show.
Oh, really? No local music? It's not like yours truly spun a night in which every other song came from within the loving embrace of the 495. It wasn't easy, dusting off Go-Go, Teenbeat and Dischord classics, seeking out the new hotness and mixing these diverse sounds together into something to induce the shaking of asses, but at least I tried.
Also, just because we make Express now and then and as a result get some record-company schwag, which we generously give to the public (you're welcome!) doesn't mean that we're their puppets. I select every song, as do N.M, M.G. and Kyle. Just because Here's a Hint can't find any advertisers doesn't give license for this sort of jealousy.
Eat your Wheaties, install a chin-up bar in your mom's basement, and you too can one day achieve moderate local success.
Posted by rj3 at 5:15 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack
January 13, 2006
Having it both ways
via Mr. Berube, we learn that academic bias hearings in Pennsylvania went out with a whimper. Highly touted spechers cancelled, students failed to come forward with complaints and most of the incidents that prompted the hearings, such as a pre-election screening of Fahrenheit 9/11, turned out to be false or unverifiable.
The president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni had an interesting response:
“In fact, the very paucity of complaints is the best evidence we’ve yet seen for the argument that conservative students are intimidated into silence,” Ms. Neal continued. “Despite our years-long national campaign to get conservative students to expose their liberal professors’ schemes of indoctrination, we’ve come up with next to nothing. And nothing could testify more eloquently to the pervasiveness of campus conservatives’ persecution than this next to nothing.”
Complaints mean that there is a problem.
No complaints mean that there is a problem.
Is there any way to show that there is no problem with liberal "indoctrination" from the very schools that educated the right-wing hacks doing the complaining?
A word of advice: if you have your cake and eat it too, you'll end up looking like Rush Limbaugh.
Posted by rj3 at 11:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 12, 2006
Poppin' a CAP
The National Review is reporting that the record of Concerned Alumni of Princeton shows no mention of Samuel Alito. The new question ought to be whether Alito lied about his membership in his 1985 job application.
The bottom line: Is it worse to have been a member of CAP, or to have lied about involvement in a racist and sexist organization to get a job with the Meese Justice Department?
In case you need to be reminded how nasty CAP was:
"In my day (the dean of students) would have been called to task for his open love affair with minorities" wrote one alumnus in the magazine [CAP's publication, Prospect] in 1980.In 1984 Prospect noted that a female coal miner who had won her job through a discrimination suit had died in a mining accident. The item concluded, "Sally Frank, take note." Frank was a former student who successfully sued to open the doors of all-male eating clubs at the university to women.
(hat tip: Volokh)
Posted by rj3 at 10:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The best you can is good enough
Well, not really.
Grades are in, and I'm not impressed. I fall somewhere around the middle of the pack, but I'm not sure where, since the school hasn't published percentiles yet. At last night's celebration/pityparty/college basketball bacchanal, everybody in the admittedly self-selecting group of people who gave a number did better than me. Whether that means I surround myself with good company or that I'm bringing the crowd down is a matter of perspective.
I'm going to get answer keys for my final, but until then, I can't make heads or tails of the grades. I have some issues with my legal writing professor's teaching and grading style that I share with many members of the class, but I won't go into it here. Out of the four classes wih final exams:
- The two higher scores were in the classes I spent the most and least amount of time on. I earned a lower score in the classes in the middle.
- The two higher grades came from female professors. The two lower grades came from male professors.
- The two higher grades came on the first two finals. The two lower grades came on the last two.
- Thw two higher grades came on finals for which the professors provided two old exams. The two lower grades came on finals for which I had one or zero old exams.
- The two higher grades had no multiple choice questions. The two lower grades had at least some multiple choice questioons.
- The higher grades came in classes that were held earlier in the day than the classes in which I earned the two lower grades.
What can be learned from this? I probably burned out halfway through the finals period. There is a reason why I'm surrounded by so many marathon runners in law school.
Posted by rj3 at 8:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 10, 2006
Why I got the Nano instead
The pay side of Google Video is up and running, offering the world a large variety of content for the computer and iPod Video, probably mostly on the strength of "Lazy Sunday."
Just like the launch of a new cable network, the initial programming lineup has a little filler:
That looks like fun viewing for the train to work in the morning.
In the free area, check out Bikini Calculus. Yes, it's exactly what you think it is. Funny how most attempts to make a boring subject interesting by injecting something that isn't boring actually makes that not-boring thing, well, boring.
Posted by rj3 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
John Yoo: A tough nut to crack, literally. (Ewww.)
Earlier: I meet the torture lawyer.
Posted by rj3 at 11:48 AM | Comments (407) | TrackBack
We Major
For all of my remaining D.C. readers: The SOB's triumphant return is this Saturday.
A year ago, we were just a bunch of nerdy bloggers who decided to be DJs even though we didn't know how to operate the equipment. I would not have been surprised if we didn't get asked back after our first night.
Come share in the minor miracle that is one year of Bluestate.
Posted by rj3 at 11:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 9, 2006
Worst publicity-seeking war of words ever: Franz Ferdinand v. Oasis.
Posted by rj3 at 11:17 PM | Comments (439) | TrackBack
Feels like the first time
I've been back in school for a week and I've noticed something that I didn't expect: I'm as clueless about my classes as I was during the beginning of the first semester. Especially in Property and Business Associations, concepts are flying around and I only have a bare-bones understanding (if that) of what they mean and how to apply them. Instead of feeling a little stupid, as I usually do, I now feel really stupid.
I blame this on previous success. A month ago, I consered myself on top of a topic if I could understand it backwards and forwards, cite the restatements, cases and my own notes. It took all semester to get to that level of understanding, a level I never reached in any subject as an undergraduate. Although my as-yet-unreleased grades will determine how right I was, I sure felt prepared.
Now, the slate has been wiped clean. I have no superstructure on which to hang all of this new information. Nothing has really come together, but one can't expect that after a week. All I can do now is get some coffee a-brewing, sit down with my big fat books and dig in until it starts to make some sense.
Posted by rj3 at 4:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Here's the most cogent argument addressing the major legal issues regarding the (once-) secret domestic spying program from, of all places, the University of Chicago.
Posted by rj3 at 3:02 PM | Comments (277) | TrackBack
January 7, 2006
The Coffee Economy
It took a huge amount of willpower to get up early this morning, not dawdle around the apartment until noon, and make it to the library at a reasonable hour. One of the reasons I was able to work up this willpower was the fact that I had no milk and would thus have to get coffee at the Starbucks on the way to campus.
When I got there, instead of the usual Street Sense hawker, two fresh-faced twentysomethings accosted me with good cheer.
"Sorry, but we're closed for renovations. There's another Starbucks down Huron Street! Here, have a $4 gift card! There's also another location on Michigan!"
It's cold. I obviously haven't had my morning coffee. The only reason I can stand toothy morning TV personalities is because they're in two-dimensions, not chirping their misplaced exuberance all up in my grill.
So I ducked into the Dunkin Donuts next door.
I've never seen the staff there so happy. There were four, instead of the usual two, all of whom were grinning ear to ear. They had set up a rope to direct the line, which would likely be long, seeing as that it's the only other place for decent coffee on the block. Sure, I could go to Huron Street if I really wanted Starbucks. Sure, Dunkin Donuts will only give me cream and sugar, not skim and Splenda. Still, you'll find me at Dunkin Donuts for the same reason some people climb Everest: because it's there.
UPDATE: Something to think about before my Starbucks reopens. Frankly, I barely ever get anything other than a regular ol' coffee.
Posted by rj3 at 10:26 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
January 6, 2006
In which I apologize for not growing up in your dumb little town
Last night, the prestigious firm of (A) & (B) held a reception for 1Ls. Even though they have no intention of hiring any of us this summer, they wanted to wine, dine and schmooze us into a state of warm joy in regards to their firm. Coming into the event, I knew that I hate these cocktail parties because I’m very bad about walking up to strangers and chit-chatting with them. Sure, I can ask the right questions of the young associates pressed into service selling the firm (“what I really want to know is how good is the quality of the mentoring you received?”), but I’m not good at mumbling boilerplate with the law students from other law schools.
As I always do, I found someone familiar to huddle with in a corner of the room. Then, like a good party host, a young associate came up to us. The conversation went as follows, word for word, except for the names, which have been changed, obvs.:
Associate: “Hi, I’m Mr. Associate.”Me: “Hi, I’m R.J.”
Fellow Law School Student: “Hi, I’m Fellow Law School Student.”
Associate: “Where are you from?”
Me: “New York”
FLSS: “(smallish Midwestern city)”
Associate: “Oh, me too. Sorry R.J., I’m sure New York is interesting, but I have to talk about smallish Midwestern city with Fellow Law School Student. So, where in smallish Midwestern city did you grow up?”
Then, they just kept on talking about their dang common hometown, physically moving to cut me out of the circle.
Really now. Why cut me out so rudely? I know it’s not because you want to sleep with FLLS, since you mentioned where your wife went to high school (hint: it was in the Midwest). Damn that heartland elitism!
Posted by rj3 at 9:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 5, 2006
Quote of the Timeframe
"No case holds that an act [of Congress] is discretionary merely because the President is the actor."- Nixon v. Sirica, 487 F.2d 700, 712
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January 4, 2006
Back to work
New York Public Library, main reading room.
TFAL will return to its regular schedule tomorrow.
Posted by rj3 at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 3, 2006
Everybody keeps on talking about it, nobody's getting it done
Biggest a-holes of the legal world: The firm of (redacted), (censored) & (removed), who sent me a large, heavy envelope that did not contain an invitation to interview, but a rejection letter with a copy of their thick recruiting brochure. What's the point, to show me what I'm missing?
As it stands, I have dedicated a wall in my closet to post law firm rejection letters. I'm up to 15, without about twice that many still outstanding.
Posted by rj3 at 12:26 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
January 1, 2006
Even years rock
The Articulatory Loopy NYE party ended in a massive food fight. Happy 2006, y'all!
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