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Kudos to CSPAN: Better and Better…
C-SPAN remains the most important (and entertaining) tv channel in operation today.
The Iraq War Debate between George Galloway and Christopher Hitchens was engaging and raw as hell. The
Judiciary Vote on John Roberts was must listen radio after the hearings. Kudos also to this past weekend’s coverage of both the pro and anti war demonstrations in DC. So far, my top two C-SPAN moments of recent months have been the first Senate Foreign Relations Cmte hearing on Bolton (I love our Senate Foreign Relations Committee) and the James Yee media roundtable.
Seriously. Its better than ”Lost."
Crap
I think I have an ear infection again. I hate ear infections. I should really think about going and seeing a doctor. Normally I wouldn’t, but I have to go see him anyway to have him sign a form for the adoption. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to make an appointment.
Oh well, at least it’s not an eye infection. Those are even less fun. Some day I’ll tell y’all about the time I made the eye doctor cringe and say “Eww.” That inspires confidence, I tell ya.
The Procedure With No Name
The first paragraph of this AP dispatch struck me as odd:
The Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court to reinstate a ban on a procedure that critics call “partial birth” abortions, setting up a showdown that could be decided by the president’s new choice for the court. [Emphasis added]
So what do supporters call the procedure? Doesn’t it have a “correct” medical term?
Actually, those questions are largely rhetorical. I just think the reporting style is funny. It’s sort of like saying “the President critics call ‘stupid neo-con monkey boy’ issued a proclamation yesterday....” Come to think of it, that could be rather entertaining.
Adoption Training Recap
In which Mr. Wilson summarizes the adoption training session he and The Missus attended last Friday.
Publicity Hound Arrested
Cindy Sheehan was arrested in front of the White House today in yet another publicity stunt. The media, of course, love it. Normally I would just sign and move along, but something caught my eye:
About 50 people were arrested in the first hour, with dozens of others waiting to be taken away. All cooperated with police.
Sgt. Scott Fear, spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, said they would be charged with demonstrating without a permit, which is a misdemeanor.
Of all the places speech ought to be free, outside the White House seems like one of the most obvious. Instead, one of the country’s most obnoxious moms was arrested for, uhh…
When they reached the front of the White House, dozens sat down ... and began singing and chanting “Stop the war now!”
Happy Faces
I love watching tourists as they enter and exit Nebraska Bookstore. It is a destination for them, a Place We Have To Go While In Lincoln. They accelerate as they walk in, and they almost always turn back to look into the windows just one more time when they exit. They are drawn to the place. It is great fun to observe individuals and groups as they enter and exit the store, something which I get to do almost every day while walking to and from my office.
Saddam Hussein Trial Nuts Rejoice
I’ve been following some of the rumblings about the upcoming SH trial, although purely as an avid observer of the ECHR’s developing doctrine on extraterritorial jurisdiction and how it might apply as a possible defense. Personally I think little will come out of any extraterritorial application of the ECHR however, for both political and legal issues. It is indeed a stretch, although worth a noteworthy mention.
In anycase, the good folks over at Case Western Reserve Law School have assembled a pretty good selection of international law experts and put together a Saddam Hussein trial blog called Grotian Moment. Lots of good reading over there for those with an interest in following trials other than Scott Peterson’s or OJ’s.
A Minor Thought About Law Journals
The law journal world. Yes law journal editors and faculty advisors take a lot of shit, some of it deservedly, and some of it not. Now I would like to offer some thoughts to any takers out there.
In my opinion, possibly one of the stronger reasons why the law journal status quo should remain is pure speed. The journals would lose much of its utility, both to practitioners and academics, if recent case analyses and developments were not published in a timely manner.
The problem is, even with the current set-up, truly timely publication is becoming a rare experience. There are of course exceptions. For instance, much kudos to the American University’s Human Rights Brief. Not exactly a school with an Ivy League reputation, but their edit of an earlier article I wrote for them was the best I have ever received and the process was extremely fast.
I can’t say the same for several other journals. This week I received an edit back from a journal (which shall go unnamed) affiliated with one of the Ivy League law schools for an article I had submitted in the early summer. The article contained an analysis of a case decided in February of this year. In his communication to me, the editor informed me that actual publication wouldn’t occur until 2006. Thus, this article containing an analysis of a case decided in February 2005 won’t actually be read by anyone until a year after it was originally decided. (In all fairness, I should add that the edit itself was outstanding however).
Then there was another experience I had with a journal affiliated with a middle of the road law school. In this article, which I submitted in the late summer of 2004, I made a prediction about a yet undecided case on the dockets that was – at the time I thought – likely not to be heard until the spring of 2005. I accepted an offer of publication from this journal with the under
standing that it would be published promptly and in a timeframe which made me comfortable believing that it would come out prior to the actual decision on the case. Needless to say, the article didn’t get published until after the case was argued (and a year after I had originally submitted it) and the court made its judgment. So here I was predicting the outcome of a case that was already decided. Luckily for me the prediction was correct. In both instances of negotiating a publication offer with the aforementioned journals, the editors informed me of “timely publication” in an identifiable time period, and in both instances that has not occurred.
Yes I am complaining, perhaps unfairly. Any publication is a good publication (unless it truly is horribly mangled by the editors). But I would like to urge editors and faculty advisors to be less discreet and more transparent when it comes to informing potential contributors about publication timelines. And if a journal is behind schedule (and I have heard of journals that were several issues behind schedule), the editorial staff should do their utmost to prioritize getting back on track. I am not a fan of unnecessary faculty intervention, particularly when it comes to substantive issues. But having said that, faculty advisors should take more of an active role if the journal they are advising is woefully behind schedule and the editors aren’t taking the appropriate initiative to speed things up to a reasonably acceptable professional standard. Not doing so hurts the reputation of the school in general. Of course, I would be amiss NOT to criticize writers who do not work with editorial staff in a timely manner. Nothing is a worse than the errant contributor/lazy law professor who is offered and accepted a publication slot, and then decides that he can completely ignore the editorial timeline, jeopardizing timely publication of the entire issue. And yes, that certainly occurs much more often than anyone would like.
Just Plain FUBAR
I like Jeb Bush a lot more than his brother. Seriously. The guy is a damn good governor. I’ll give him that. But when he gets all ”mystical/exotic/oriental” I find it a bit strange, particularly as an Asian-American. Hmmm. I got no “moo-goo-gai-pan” recipes or karate moves to teach him…
“Create your own blog, remain anonymous and get round censorship!”
Issued today by “Reporters Without Borders” - Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents.
The Final Word on The Correct Name for Those Displaced by That Bitch Katrina
From the American Society of International Law:
Victims of hurricane Katrina are internally displaced persons, not refugees
In widely circulated media reports in the days following the disaster of hurricane Katrina, victims of the hurricane were labeled “refugees.” Other reports had victims rejecting such classifications and insisting on their status as American citizens. As a matter of international law, it is clear that persons who were forced to flee the hurricane and the subsequent disasters on the Gulf coast are not refugees. Rather, the international community refers to such persons as internally displaced. A particular set of international standards applies to them.
Refugees are persons who flee abroad because their own government denies them human rights protection either by persecuting them actively or by not helping them against dangers emanating from third parties. International law protects such persons by means of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol and regional instruments such as the 1969 Refugee Convention of the Organization of the American States (OAS) and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration.
The victims of hurricane Katrina who had to flee their homes have neither left the United States nor lost any of their human rights vis-à-vis the U.S. government. However, they have left their homes involuntarily and thus are internally displaced persons within the meaning of the 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. The Guiding Principles describe such persons as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not cros
sed an internationally recognized State [international] border” (preamble, paragraph 2).
Not So Grand
I doubt this surprises most of you, but The Grand isn’t doing as grand as either the city or Douglas Theaters had hoped. The article does a good job of showing how dirty the city’s hands are in the fiasco that is The Grand. The article states that the city squeezed Douglas to take a risk on The Grand in exchange for allowing Douglas to maintain its monopoly in Lincoln (via the restrictions on theaters outside of Downtown). That Douglas didn’t call the city’s bluff shows how little common sense the company used before diving head-first into a project that few people outside of City Hall and the Downtown Lincoln Association thought could succeed. It doesn’t help that The Grand’s interior is not especially well designed, and that, despite its moniker’s implication otherwise, it is just another theater. Douglas didn’t even bother to follow the nationwide trend of sprucing up food and drink options at the snack bar.
I can’t help but be reminded of another project for which expectations among a few were high, but support from the public was weak. Like the Archway Monument, The Grand can be saved. (The question of whether or not it, like the Archway, should have been built in the first place is moot at this point.) But at what cost? Specifically, at what public cost? Lincolnites have already been forced to chip in over $3 million to support a theater that few of them have been willing to support with their business. Is it fair to ask Lincolnites to help out again by keeping out the very competition they may want to support?
Seven A.M. Seasickness
My morning bus driver is a Sea Captain. “Huh?!” you ask? Sea Captain is one of the categories I assign bus drivers to. A Sea Captain is a driver who, by virtue of his inability to apply even pressure to the gas pedal and/or brake pedal, makes his riders seasick by the time they arrive at their destinations. Bonus points are awarded if he can actually make his riders unable to stand or if he can turn their faces green.
Other bus driver categories include Slammers, Grumps, Sprinters, Bureaucrats, and Mimes. I have a whole list of ‘em in my head. I should write them all down sometime.
“Two Thumbs Down!” -God
Everybody’s a critic. Even God.
Last night was date night for The Missus and I, and we decided to be really adventurous by checking out The Aristocrats at The Ross. Unfortunately, God went all soup nazi on us and declared “No obscenities for you!” He enforced His decision by knocking out the power to several blocks in and near Downtown. That seems overkill to just keep us away from perhaps the dirtiest movie of all time, but hey, He’s God. I figure He knows what He’s doing.
So no The Aristocrats review for you folks this morning. Instead, check out these photographs of cute puppy love unspeakable pedophilic beastiality action.
Fire Steve Pederson!
The title of this post is a lie. I don’t actually want Steve Pederson to be fired, but apparently a whole bunch of people do. How do I know this? Well, for one thing I’ve blogged on the topic before. But that was last December. Surely Husker fans are over that by now, right?
Wrong.
I’ve been watching some interesting trends in my referrer logs lately, and a ton of people have been coming across Lincolnite by searching for “fire steve pederson” or variations on that theme. It isn’t just the same guy over and over again, either. Different people, coming from different search engines, using slightly different search phrases. Day after day after day.
You’d think some people aren’t happy with the offense or something.
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