Mackenzie's Weblog

Is it so wrong. . .

. . .that I love wine? I really don't know all that much yet, but the process by which a simple grape is turned into the divine is somehow fascinating. There's so much to learn, I sometimes am giddy with all the possibilities. Well, ok, maybe not giddy, but definitely excited.

Right now, I'm trying to expand my cellar somewhat. This means money, of course, so it's slow going. I mention this because my birthday is upcoming. I won't mention it further.

I'm thinking it would be pretty cool to start a little informal wine club in town, basically consisting of a few friends. Maybe do a small tasting party once a month or so where everybody brings in a bottle based on some kind of theme. That would be nice. I would also like to figure out a better way to store my wine, since I hope to keep some of it around for a long time. There's no way I can afford this, and I have no basement. The temperature in my house varies too much, so I have to come up with something else.

I have a dorm-sized refrigerator in my closet that I haven't so much as looked at in years. I'm thinking of getting an inexpensive wood cabinet, maybe at a garage sale, and putting the guts of the little fridge in it. This would bring down the temperature just enough, and would be a hell of a lot cheaper. Has anyone done this? Advice? Other ideas?

Strange Days

I've had a rather odd couple of days. Besides a little craziness around the office, yesterday was quite weird. I left the building to go to my car (I drove the carpool) to be blocked by a police officer. It turns out, there was a pipe bomb or two in the mailbox in the Safeway near where I was parked. The paper reports that it had no explosive material.

I was driving the pool, but the only other person I was to pick up doesn't have a cell phone. After waiting a bit to see if they'd finish soon, I started walking towards her office. She did eventually call me to find out what was up, and we met in the middle.

By the time we got back to my car, everything had been resolved, at least as far as the bomb was concerned. We were, naturally, quite late getting out of town. I chose a route which would get us out as fast as possible, but, of course, a train was interrupting our passage. This is actually really odd, there's almost never a train on that track, but there was today.

I turned around and took an alternate route, one with an overpass for the train. I figured the train was probably really short and it would have been quicker to just wait, with my luck. That wasn't the case, though.

But wait, there's more!

This morning the fire alarm went off in the (government) building in which I work. I grabbed my thumb drive and my MP3 player (because, you know, I have priorities) and headed out. I still don't know what happened, but the women in the neighboring office and I wandered downtown and got some coffee.

I'm just waiting for the next weird thing to happen.

Final Orchid Bits

It took a couple weeks, but soon enough my orchid was fully bloomed. The plant, in the end, has 48 separate blooms. It would have more, but early on in the process I accidentally broke off one of the first branches. Still, I think it worked out nicely.

(You can also see my smashing african violet. It is doing quite well.)

[Update: I should mention that the flowers are starting to fade. It seems short, but when I look back, it has indeed been about a month.]

SCOTUS Opinion

I mentioned in the comments to this post I mentioned that I don't really know enough about John Roberts to really have an opinion on the nomination. That is still true, but there is one "controversy" that I do know enough about.

Many people are making a lot of comments on the fact that Roberts signed, and presumably worked on, a brief for the senior Bush administration opposing abortion. Now, this is just silly to make a huge deal out of this. Lawyers are paid to advocate for their clients, and sometimes their clients' positions will be different than their own. It is a straw man, easy to knock down. It really is no evidence of his true opinion.

Let me be clear: I'm staunchly pro-choice. I would like to see someone relatively liberal taking up the court. I'm critical of the choice of Roberts, though I don't have an opinion at this time. That is due to his close Republican ties and work history, though, and not because of what briefs he put his name on. I am all about people being very critical of this fellow, but this is just not the way to do it. By focusing on this brief issue, all the opponents do is divert the attention from real issues to one that can easily be refuted.

A better strategy would have been to hold back a day or two and do some real research, instead of hitting the first thing that comes up. If this really is the only thing that does, well, unfortunately the only grounds to oppose the nomination will be ideological, which is a harder sell. We'll see what happens, but without something earth-shattering, it seems likely that October will see Associate Justice Roberts on the bench.

Law School Advice

OK, it's time for a little more law school advice. When entering law school, one must be prepared to do a lot of reading. It's a different kind of reading, so you have to be prepared. To that end, buy this many highlighters:

From left to right was more or less the order I used them. I highly recommend the fat ones to the right. It's difficult to find ones that actually strike the right balance between good color and not bleeding through the page.

Your turn.

Conference Update

Today, so far, was the most fun day at the conference. We did the whole Ropes Course thing, which was pretty cool. I learned a little something about myself. Apparently, I climb like a monkey. I did all the high ropes stuff and it was neat. My arms will be really tired, but that's the price we pay. I remember when I was a kid, I used to climb trees and houses like crazy, but that was a long time ago. I'm looking forward to maybe going with my best friend J. Say hi to fun!

That's about it for today. I'll have a short law school advice post up tomorrow, so all you 0Ls take heed.

Bad Sign

Without going into too much detail: when you're staying somewhere and there are signs in the communal bathroom that say, "Yell Flush: the showers can burn!" that is a bad sign.

What's up with the press?

I'm not sure what's going on these days. I can't figure out why the press isn't going after Carl Rove a lot more. There's blood in the water, or so I would think.

What's more, nobody seems to be looking at where the ultimate responsibility lies. I mean, really, it's so frustrating to see people focus on Rove when I really think his boss needs to take responsibility for those actions. This isn't limited to Republicans, by the way; I think Clinton also failed to take responsibility for some of the actions of his employees.

If Bush were smart, he'd fire Rove. As a political animal, I'm sure he'd understand. This would also be a great way to promote the issue of integrity, which would be good when Jeb runs, which I'm sure he'll do at some point.

Of course, as a pretty anti-Bush guy, I hope he doesn't do the politically smart thing. It seems to me that Bush is pretty much done, and the more mistakes he makes, the better for whoever runs Democratic in the next election. I hope that it's all downhill from here.

(Incidentally, credit where credit is due. I'm glad Bush met with Democratic leaders about his Supreme Court nominee. Not that I'm terribly optimistic about whether he listened, but it's an improvement.)

Quick Note

I'm looking outside my window and its pretty cool. It is apparently very windy out, because the trees are going nuts. I can see some trees being buffeted by the wind, but it's against the backdrop of a storm-cloudy sunset. It's quite beautiful. I would take a picture, but it wouldn't do it justice.

That's it, I just thought I'd comment on something beautiful I'm looking at. Appreciate the little things, people.

Military Policy

I've long thought that it was rather silly to keep women out of combat positions in the military. Yesterday, a really good argument for my opinion occurred to me.

If people are going to be fighting the (presumptive) enemies of my country, I want them to be the best, most skilled fighting force in the world. I want them to be given a gun, and be able to shoot the people they're supposed to shoot.

Why, then, are we giving weapons to a bunch of people who can't seem to hit a urinal from less than a foot away? I mean, come on, guys, get with the program. It's disgusting. I know you can do better than that, and I would feel much better if I didn't have to pee while standing in a pool of urine. I know it's awful, people, but maybe shame is the only way to get people to change their behavior.

And while we're at it, has nobody ever heard of flushing? I have it on good authority that this problem isn't limited to men. All it takes is pushing the little lever and all our lives would be made much simpler. I'm sure the people we hire to clean the bathrooms would appreciate it. Have some consideration.

The New World

I'm usually a big fan of the technology. I'm not a huge fan of technology for the sake of technology; I think it really has to be useful. Neat doesn't cut it.

Podcasting is a great example. I've expressed my opinion in the past. I listened to some podcasts from the Legal Underground and AI, but I wasn't super impressed. I liked AI's, other than being a bit short (because I was entertained), but Evan's were not really my thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Evan, and I love the mugs he sent me, but his podcasts were not really inspiring to me. There seems to have been some improvements lately, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with it in the future.

Anyway, I recently gave podcasting another try with the new iTunes. I've found a few really cool shows and been really impressed by the entertainment and education value. I'm hooked, with the one exception that there's a natural limit to how many podcasts one can fit in. Right now, including a lot of back episodes, I have almost 3 Gigs of audio to get through. Most of the shows are weekly, so I should catch up in short order. It's pretty fun.

In miscellaneous other news, I just want to drop a shout out to the Dancer, out with whom I hung for an hour last night. Also, a shout out to my best friend J, who turned me on to the half-price bottle night at Grand Ave. Pizza. We had a great Chianti that neither of us would have bought at full price. It's our new knitting spot! Finally, thanks to the Laramie City Council for passing a recorking law. That meant that J and I had no pressure to finish that great bottle and, in fact, she took home an alcoholic doggie bag. It's Great!

Note on the Bombings

When one joins the military, I think there's an implicit understanding that putting on a uniform means you are accepting that you become more or less a walking target. Theoretically, you're putting yourself between the civilians of your country and its enemies. I appreciate the burden that those in uniform take up, even as I am often dissatisfied with the execution.

That's all the more reason that targeting civilians is just over the line. Especially in yesterday's case, it accomplishes nothing. As has been pointed out, the British are experienced in living with violence, far more than we in the U.S.

Even while my sympathies go out to those affected by this and other violence, I'm certain that their strength and resiliency will come through.

I Hate Comment Spammers

Over the last few days, my site has been under attack. On Monday, I got about 130 comment spams. On Tuesday, I got about 360. I couldn't add the spammer's URLs to my blacklist because the script was too busy looking at the comments and assuming everything was fine. My version of MTwas old (because they started charging for stuff), so I had no way to simply turn off comments. I was forced to upgrade my MT installation, which may have some fallout later. If things are a little off the next few days, it's because I'm tweaking my installation.

My rage for these waste of flesh beasts we call comment spammers is currently boundless. I want to keep this blog relatively clean, but rest assured that the things I'd like to do to any comment spammer, should I get my hands on one, make the Inquisition look like high school detention.

Note

I've been attacked by comment spammers recently. Comments are disabled due to throttling. More info later.

Law School Strategy

I promised Josh in these comments that I would address his question about planning his undergraduate GPA with an eye to law school. The question is really whether one should keep an undergraduate major (to which one presumably is attached) and possibly get a lower grade, or change majors to one which is presumably easier and allows a better GPA.

This is a tough question because there are really a lot of things going on. First, there's the issue of whether law school is a dead certain educational goal. If there's no chance of changing to any other path, and you consider your undergraduate degree to be a mere stepping stone to your JD, then it really doesn't matter what your undergraduate degree is. In that case, go ahead and get the easier grades.

It comes at a price, though. One is the risk that you'll change your mind and prefer something else. If this happens, then having a bachelor's degree in a field you're not into will really suck. Also, there's the possibility that if you're in a field you don't like, your grades won't be all you would like, despite having relatively easy classes.

A second consideration is what kind of law you might be interested in practicing. If you're all about working in a huge firm and pulling down six figures, you're going to need to go to a "top-ranked" school. Really, that's about all the rankings are good for; see my rants here and here (the latter has some advice for picking a school).

The trade off to that plan is the work involved and the rather huge debt you'll incur. Personally, I don't think its worth it.

Here's the thing: most people only go to college once. You should do your best, of course, but life is not about your career. Also, in law school, I think it matters a lot more that you learn as much as you can while you're there than you go to a "top-ranked" school. Take a look at the school(s) you're interested in and see where their GPA has been the last few years for incoming students. That should give you a target.

Try to remember, though, that you should construct your career to suit your life, rather than constructing your life around your career. Personally, I would recommend that anyone take a few years to go out and work in the "real world" for a few years. It gives one perspective, and, FWIW, age is a the best predictor of success in any graduate school.

I hope that's helpful. Feel free to ask any more questions.

Someone Else's Great Post

This holiday is a great chance for me to get some work done, so no major posts, but I wanted to highlight this fantastic post by Ian Ayres & Jennifer Gerarda Brown over at Balkinization. I agree with just about everything they say.

The one exception is that if churches want to refuse to conduct same-sex marriages, I say let them. But they need to be aware that for many straights (more as time goes on, I hope), this violates our conscience and we will likely vote on those policies with our feet. I've gotten a sense that more people are willing to switch churches than they have been in centuries past. In time, churches, then entire religions, will have to adapt. Granted, ones with vast hierarchical structures (read: Catholicism) change more slowly, but I like to think that even they change over time. Heck, the Catholic Church used to burn people at the stake, and they seem to have gotten out of that game, right?

My word on the vacancy

I consider myself a cynical optimist. The Dancer disagrees, I acknowledge, but that's just how I see it.

What is that, you ask?

Simply put, I expect the worst to happen, for people to be nasty to each other, for evil to triumph. But if it does, I generally see the good in whatever happens. This means I'm usually on the bandwagon with fatalist, "this will not work" kind of talk, but then I sort of shrug my shoulders and say, "let's go for it anyway!"

So naturally when I heard about O'Connor's pending retirement, I was quite unhappy. I consider myself fairly liberal, in case you didn't get that already. I, like many, figured that a Rehnquist retirement wouldn't be too bad because he's already ultra-conservative, so how bad could it get? I was most worried about Bush appointing someone I couldn't respect, like Scalia. I don't agree with Rehnquist, but I can at least respect his intellectual honesty far more than someone like Scalia.

Even so, I've heard a lot of groups 'mobilizing,' already talking about sending letters to congresspersons about whoever is nominated. I think that's a bit premature at this point. I say lets just wait and see. If you want to mobilize, do it quietly, but lets not panic.

Like many liberals, however, I worry about an O'Connor vacancy would fundamentally change the composition of the court. Replacing both her and Rehnquist with mini-Scalias would have unfortunate consequences for the country. I had thought that O'Connor would do what she could to wait out Bush to see if someone more moderate would follow. I thought she would see the danger of letting such an extremist shape the court. (I think she would feel the same about someone as liberal as Bush is conservative.) So I was surprised.

But maybe this could be a blessing. There's already been some speculation that he doesn't plan on retiring this term, or perhaps that this may have altered any such plans.

What if that was somewhat by design? What if he was still deciding and this would tip him into staying longer? The order of retirement, I think, makes a big difference. If Rehnquist left, I don't think the fight over his successor would be as fierce. Sure he's the Chief, but overall I think Democrats would let it go somewhat. An O'Connor successor, however, would be fought tooth and nail. And I think that is the point. Both sides would have to spend a lot of political capitol in such a fight. In today's climate, with a plodding war and a recently-failed major social security initiative, Bush's capitol is not likely to refill as quickly.

I think the end result will be that there will be a bloody confirmation process for O'Connor's replacement, but in the end Bush will be able to get in more or less who he wants. He'll be weakened, though, and he'll have to make more compromises for his next nomination, someone more moderate, someone like O'Connor. The end result will be a return to the status quo, more or less.

[Update: Jack Balkin (who is much smarter than I am) also believes that an O'Connor vacancy will be hard-fought, though the rest of my speculations remain unsupported. Also, Mark Graber believes that the democratic focus should be on the mid-term elections. I think the idea has some merit in the PR value, but it is still frightening to think what the Court might look like.]