4.04.2003

 

Sorry for all this news stuff I've posted lately. I'm started to look like a regular blogger. At least the mass media's perception of "regular bloggers." I'll stop it.

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Here's your first sign that optimism for the war in Iraq has waned within the Administration.

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Here's an interesting read from my pals at Samizdata.

Let the jingosim continue. But also, let's remember the good points they make.

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4.03.2003

 

It embarrasses me that anyone could even consider this as a legitimate law and good policy.

My initial reaction is that the Oregon legislature needs a quick lesson on the Constitution, but with the Supreme Court handing down such unpredictable jurisprudence, one never knows.

And honestly, can't the state of Oregon have bigger problems worthy of the attention of the legislature than protests?

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My back really hurts and my neck has stiffened up. The combination has made typing extremely uncomfortable. So I'm going to take a quick break today. I hope to be back tomorrow.



I hope this gratuitous Victoria's Secret picture makes the break better.

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4.02.2003

 

I'm getting my chance to do my good deed for the month of April this week.

An aquaintance of mine teaches grade school (second grade, I think, but I might not remember that correctly) in a predominantly Hispanic area. As I understand, her entire class speaks Spanish, and as such, she has really had to improve her Spanish skills. Recently her class read a book entitled "Flat Steven" about a boy whose bulletin board falls on top of him during the night, flattening him.At first, Steven is sad at this turn of events, but when he learns he can do new things not possible before, his mood changes. At one point, he folds himself into an envelope and sends himself to California to experience new adventures.

It seems this girl's class has decided to make flat Stevens of their own, calling them Esteban plano, and putting them in the mail to their friends and family for new and exciting adventures. The class has asked the recipients of an Esteban to take him around with them for a week, documenting their adventures, before returning Esteban, perhaps with a letter and some photos, to the class so that they can learn about new areas and the adventures that Flat Steven enjoyed.

Anyway, one girl in my friend's class has no family or friends to whom she could send her Flat Steven for an adventure. So my friend called me up and asked me if I would help out and take an Esteban plano around with me and write a letter in Spanish to my adopted second-grader once our adventures reach their terminus.

I'm privileged to do so, and I hope people who happen to see me taking pictures with a paper doll this week don't laugh at me too much.

First stop: beer darts tonight. Oh the adventures we will have.

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Maybe I should drop out of law school and go into prognostication.

Not two days ago I wrote about this. Now the White House is following my lead.

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4.01.2003

 

Haven't roller bags made our lives easier? Who even remembers anymore what it was like to lug a big suitcase through the airport, set it down, pick it up and take two steps, repeat 40 to 50 times, and finally get to check it in at the counter? Do you? Nowadays, trying to identify our black roller bag suitacase from among the other 12 black roller bags on the baggage claim carousel seems our biggest problem; the aching shoulders, peppered with shoulder straps, the blistered palms aching from the leather handle are all a thing of the past. God bless you, roller bag.

I hate the damn things.

Maybe I should rephrase. I hate how enamored we have become of the roller bag. We love the damn things so much that we want every bag of ours to have two rollerblade wheels and a pull-out handle.

I used to work in the downtown area of one of the largest cities in this country, and I commuted to work using public transportation and my two lovely footsies (and I really do have pretty feet, especially for a man). Every morning, I blended into a crowd of people denser than any "Where's Waldo" torture you could possibly imagine. Everyone bumping each other with their briefcases, document bags, laptop cases.

Except for those bastards with the roller bags. They just walked trailing that thing behind them, rolling it over feet and bumping it against knees. This from a bag probably no more than a foot high and two feet wide, like a standard laptop case. But with a three foot extending pull handle and two cute little wheels.

The roller bag has become something of a popular item at the Cornfield College of Law as well. More than a few students have these relatively small bags which they roll giddily down the halls, serenading us with beautiful sounds of click click click at 8 in the morning.

Every time I see it I just want to come running over and plant the sweetest "It's a miracle field goal attempt from 59 yards!" kick on it you could possibly imagine.

Don't misunderstand me, in the realm of travel, the roller bag has made my life and yours much more pleasant. I have a bright red roller bag that I adore, and I keep all my scuba gear in a travel bag that has these beautiful little Tonka truck wheels on it. But we can all use the help with suitcases; any joker without some freakish ability to pack six days worth of clothing into a duffel bag (see: Hose Monster) knows that even a quick weekend jaunt requires at least 30 pounds of crap stuffed into a big bag. Having wheels and a little pull handle to negotiate all that crap around just makes sense.

But when your bag is only slightly bigger than a bread box, are you so pathetic that you need wheels to help you out?

Look, I know laptops can weigh a few pounds, and hey, law school books get a little heavy, but honestly, neither weighs *that* much. And seriously, those backpacks with wheels on them... it's already a backpack, for the love of Pete. You already have two convenient straps to help you schlep it around on your dorsal. Besides, law school is actually just a sequel of high school, so go throw your damn books in your locker like you did before 10th grade gym class. Then you won't expend so much energy towing your crap around and you can experience greater success at dodge ball. It's not hard.

I therefore, in my infinite wisdom and knowledge that I will some day rule the world, impose these two simple guidelines on the permissibility of roller bags:

1. If you're actually transporting real stuff, or lots of it, such that you require a bag that reaches at least above mid-thigh, you might have a legitimate reason to employ rollers. However, unless you are an anvil salesman or required to move around other heavy equipment as part of your daily life, you only have permission to use a roller bag for purposes of traveling and transporting large amounts of items.
   
   
2. If the length of the pull handle of your roller bag exceeds the height of the bag itself, you are to burn said bag immediately. Under no circumstances should a bag have wheels if it requires the pull handle to more than double the profile of the package.

I hope this has been informative. Lazy asses.

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3.31.2003

 

I would love to hit the streets (or maybe the Republican fundraisers) some day and ask a few questions. In this order.

1. Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000?
   
   
2. Are you in favor of a balanced budget?
   
   
3. Do you support the military actions in Iraq?
   

Assuming I received “yes” responses to all these questions, and I feel confident saying that a healthy portion of the public would respond in a similar manner, I would have but one more inquiry:

Would you support a tax increase?

Generalizing along ideological and political lines (and emphasis on the “generalizing”), I imagine this would mark the point where the answer would change.

Two and a half years ago, I didn’t think a tax cut seemed like a good idea at all. Bush’s desire to cut taxes formed one of the principle reasons causing me to feel that I could not vote for him. Irrespective of the structure of the tax cuts and who received the greatest benefit, I opposed the idea of cutting taxes because I didn’t think this nation had the fiscal responsibility to reduce federal spending in connection with reduced federal income. After finally putting an end of decades of deficit spending, the Congress and the Executive got their things together and balanced the budget, and ultimately starting running respectable budget surpluses.

And how we responded. The economy kept rising, the mood on the streets and the floors of the exchanges generally maintained a pleasantness to which we had grown accustomed. We starting calculating how quickly we could pay down the national debt, how reducing the deficit would ultimately lead to more financial prosperity.

But we decided to say that if our government had more money than it was spending that we wanted it back. And how.

I’m not one of those people who blames the recession of the economy on the new fiscal policies of the current Administration. The markets had begun their turn southward before the Supreme Court effectively settled the 2000 election, and certainly before Bush took office. And I’m not one of those people who thinks himself smart enough to say that I have foreseen the Iraq conflict coming for years either.

But I did feel at the end of 2000, as I do now, that the political future of this country is never certain, and that unexpected circumstances will always arise that will cost our government money if we wish to effectively create a solution. And I felt then, as I do now, that having a little war chest (ugh, please pardon the pun) sitting around drawing interest and waiting for unexpected events is something of an intelligent idea.

Especially when the country fares, financially speaking anyway, rather well, as we did when we elected Bush.

I might be one of the only people in this country who would willingly support a politician who wanted to raise federal taxes. Yes, I like getting more money back on my annual tax return and I like have less money deducted from my income in the first place. On the other hand, for as much as I like to bitch about it, my government does an incredible amount of wonderful things for me, and I recognize that these resources and services cost money.

It’s pragmatism to think this way, at least in my sort of humble opinion.

* * * *

Economists had projected $300 billion deficits this fiscal year. Before we went storming into Iraq. President Bush just recently asked Congress for between $70 and $80 billion to fund that campaign. From where will this money come?

Now if you adamantly oppose this war, you probably have a taller soap box on which to stand, from which to question the Administration’s ability to pursue the best interests of the citizens of this nation.

But if you support the war, and abstractly you believe in a balanced budget, would you still vote for President Bush in 2004? He’s already out trying to correct the first major mistake of his daddy’s presidency (not finishing off Saddam), and you can bet he won’t make the same mistake his father did by saying something like “Read my lips: no new taxes” and then raising taxes. Granted, W has not made a comment like his father’s, but all his rhetoric about tax cuts, especially that in the two years and two months since he took office, paint him pretty much into a corner. This Bush will not support a tax hike until at least 2005, when he has safely won his second four years in office.

So would you vote for someone espousing a tax increase?

I at least would certainly consider it.

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This absolutely deserves a look.

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Direct quotes from today:

My girlfriend: Penises move when they are waking up.

Me: I think I'll go stand in the closet tonight and blow mine.

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