Here is No Why

June 26, 2008

Why I Oppose the Death Penalty

This is an old story now, but the U.S. Supreme Court decided that child rapists cannot be subjected to the death penalty. I view this as an extremely good thing, not because I support child rape (I don't) but because after considering the issue for a long time, I am fundamentally opposed to the death penalty. Let me give you some reasons why. The empirical stuff. I've heard that it costs more to execute a criminal than it does to house him for life. I've also heard about various studies that prove that the death penalty has no deterrent effect....

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June 16, 2008

And Yet, the World Keeps Turning . . . .

Certain counties in California kept their offices open late tonight for the express purpose of granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. While I'm happy that all couples in the nation's most populous state finally get to enjoy the benefits of marriage--whether they be emotional, financial, or whatever--I'm still more pissed by the fact that it's 2008 and only two states in our Nation recognize the right of two people that love each other but happen to have the same reproductive organs to express that love in what has become a very important way. I think that I am a fairly...

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May 22, 2008

Life, the Universe, and Everything

I don't really believe in fate. I think the idea that certain things are meant to happen is laughable to me. I mean, if some things are meant to happen, then surely all things must be meant to happen--otherwise, how could the things that were meant to happen happen at all? You follow? I'm not sure where I stand on God, but I reject out of hand the idea that if there is a God, he sat down a trillion years ago and decided that I would write this blog post and then misspell the word "blog" just now and...

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April 30, 2008

What the Fuck Are We Paying Attention To?

For fuck's sake, people. Can someone sit me down and explain to me, using really short words, why there is a controversy over what Barack Obama's jackass of a pastor said? Seriously. I just want to make sure I understand what's happening here, so let's recap. Obama went to a church. The guy that delivered the sermons at that church made completely ridiculous remarks after Obama stopped going to the church. And that's the whole thing, right? I mean, I didn't miss something, like the part where Obama told the guy to say those wacky things? That didn't happen, right?...

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April 29, 2008

What's the Point, Really?

I was walking to the courthouse here in Madison yesterday when I found that I was surrounded by people with signs and shit. There were about seven people, each holding antiwar signs. Some of them had slogans on them like "Honk to end the war." And a few passing drivers would honk. But I just thought to myself "What the fuck do you hope to accomplish here?" I mean, certainly you're not hoping to raise awareness. Everyone knows we're at war, right? I mean, most people do. And the people that don't probably can't even read your signs, so they...

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April 18, 2008

Yay Obama!

A while ago, I was having this conversation with a friend of mine about how I hated Hillary Clinton. My friend then accused me of not supporting her candidacy because she's a woman. That was fucking preposterous and, given my relationship with that friend, kind of hurtful because, as is now a well-established principle, I am not a sexist. I told my friend this, and then she asked me a question I couldn't answer: which of her policies do you disagree with? It's not that I agreed with all her policies, it's that I didn't know which of her ideas...

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April 1, 2008

They Deserve the Curse

I don't really like baseball. In fact, I actively dislike it. I think it's a boring, tedious sport, and I think that far too many of the people involved with it are unscrupulous pseudo-athletes, not to mention generally bad people. Still, one of my favorite memories from a few summers ago was watching the Cubs play at Wrigley Field with Mr. Vice, pH, and Emily-in-Chief. That was a just a good time at the ballpark, even though I hardly remember the game. One thing I do remember, though, was thinking how cool it was that there were all these bars...

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March 25, 2008

Judicial Elections Are Stupid

Even before I went to law school, it seemed to me that electing judges--the people in our system that are most supposed to make decisions based on something other than what they happen to believe personally--is stupid. The federal system, at least as it was explained to me in sixth grade, made a hell of a lot of sense: in a representative democracy, you have to strike a balance between giving the majority what it wants and protecting the rights of the minority. Electing the legislature makes sense, then, because it means that the people that write the laws are,...

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March 7, 2008

Fascists Come in All Shapes and Sizes

As some of you may or may not have noticed, I love curse words. Although I have lately attempted to cultivate the ability to curb my use of swearing in certain circumstances, I nonetheless talk like a sailor in normal circumstances. It should come as no surprise, then, that I find South Pasadena's attempt to ban cursing to be, well, fucktarded. South Pasadena's City Council passed a proclamation making the first week in March "No Cussing Week." It's a largely symbolic gesture aimed at increasing civility and "elevat[ing] the level of discourse." Because there's no better way to elevate discourse...

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March 1, 2008

The Whole Fucking World Is a Fraud

It seems like lately everyone is lying about everything. First, there was the whole A Million Little Pieces thing. Then, there was Kaavya Viswanathan, the "prodigy" novelist and Harvard student whose novel was discovered to be riddled with blatantly plagiarized passages. Then Marilee Jones, Dean of Admissions at MIT, admitted that she had completely made up several degrees she listed on her resume. And, perhaps most damaging to Mr. Utah, it was revealed that Bear Grylls is a fraud. And just today, these stories are on CNN's front page: Misha Defonseca, the author of a book called Misha: A Memoire...

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January 27, 2008

Of Repression and Butt Babies

Apparently, the FCC, those minions of repression and near fascism, have decided to fine ABC almost $1.5 million after it showed a naked female butt during prime time. There are a couple of things I'd like to say here. First of all, our society really needs to get its head out of its ass. Everyone has butts, just like some people have tits and vaginas and other people have cocks. It's not the fucking end of the world, and it's a stupid attitude to decide that all nudity is inherently offensive or sexual or whatever. I mean, seriously. Why do...

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December 31, 2007

Concerning God, Jesus Camp, and My Opinions Thereof

I am not a Christian. I was raised Catholic, and I even did my First Communion. But somewhere between that and my Confirmation, I came to see that the whole thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense. At the time, that was due almost exclusively to the extremely lazy catechism teachers I had when I was growing up. As I've gotten older, I've come to understand that there are many people of faith that are intelligent and articulate and that have real, substantive, internally consistent answers to tough questions. My teachers were nothing like that. It never made sense...

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December 16, 2007

Kill 'Em All

I probably know as little about baseball as it is possible to know while still being able to correctly identify a baseball game in progress. There are bats involved, I think. And something about grand slams, although baseball grand slams apparently have nothing to do with breakfast items at Denny's. In any event, I don't know anything about baseball and I think it's a boring fucking sport and I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a baseball glove than watch baseball. While watching the Packers game today, the issue of the Mitchell Report came up. But I've read about the...

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December 9, 2007

Of Keggers and Sex Parties

In college, a lot of my friends moved in to this six-bedroom house just off campus. I didn't live there, but I might as well have moved into their living room. I don't know if this happens everywhere else, but there was this trend in Flagstaff where houses would have names. For example, my friends lived in The Mothership for a while. And there was also the Pryor House. And a few others that I never went to or that I went to so few times that I can't remember their names. Still, there were a lot of discussions about...

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November 29, 2007

That's Cool--I Don't Know How to Raise Kids, Anyway

A Massachusetts state legislator has introduced a bill that would make it illegal for parents to spank or otherwise physically discipline their children. This, frankly, is astounding--I can't believe that someone would actually think that it is an appropriate use of the State's power to tell parents how to raise their children. I can think of few things that are more personal and private than the decisions a parent makes about how to raise children. I can't imagine that any parent would claim that anyone other than their children are more important or that any relationship is more important. If...

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November 5, 2007

Logic Should Bring Us Together

Although my opinions might sometimes suggest otherwise, our world is not black and white. I cannot accept that two political parties perfectly represent the views of the 300 million individual Americans. In fact, I'm not even sure that the Republicans and the Democrats do a good enough job of representing the views of the majority of the citizens. I know that neither perfectly represents my views, at the very least. So why is our country divided so clearly and bitterly? I'm not really sure, but I do know this: regardless of who's to blame, it's up to individuals to fix...

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November 2, 2007

Concerning Freedom of Speech and Homophobes

The father of a veteran who's funeral was protested at by Fred Phelps's crazy church won a $10 million verdict the other day. The church defended on First Amendment grounds but it was a civil case, so I'm not really sure what the First Amendment has to do with anything--the First Amendment doesn't preclude suits for intentional infliction of emotional distress, for example. Still, I think the underlying question--whether the First Amendment protects hateful protesting at a funeral--is interesting. As a preliminary matter, I think I should say that I don't think this kind of protest is justified, desirable, or...

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October 5, 2007

Sports Fans Are Irrational

Before you read any further, you should know that I don't know shit about baseball. And I want to keep it that way. The sport fucking sucks. I was talking with Co-SME today about the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs. He explained that he hated Cubs cans because they were all arrogant assholes who thought that the Cubs were the best team ever, regardless of how awesome or not awesome the team actually is during any given season. Then he went on to tell me that the Brewers are "awesome." He then conceded that the Cubs played better than...

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September 27, 2007

Fuck Animal-Rights Activists

You know that stereotype about how all high-school kids dissect frogs in biology class? That's one high-school stereotype I definitely did not experience. My biology class dissected fetal pigs. And it was awesome. My teacher even helped me pry the pig's brain out of its skull for extra credit. How that warrants extra credit, I don't know. But I did it, I got extra credit, and it was awesome. Anyway, as I was looking around for interesting things to read, I found this article. Apparently, Japanese scientists have found a way to create frogs with transparent skin, which allows the...

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September 19, 2007

"The Hypocrites of Homosexuality"

One of my favorite books is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Although it's ostensively a science-fiction book, it's one of the few pieces of writing that I think truly transcends that genre. Anyone--sci-fi geek or otherwise--would enjoy that book. Although I've known that Mr. Card is a member of the Chuch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for some time, I hadn't really cared too much. Then today, for some reason, I wandered over to his Wikipedia page, and found a link to an article he wrote called "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality." In it, Mr. Card discusses his--and the...

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July 12, 2007

Concerning Human Nature

As longtime readers may know, I hate hippies. I hate hippies for many reasons, but it's mostly because hippies have stupid ideas. One night during college, some friends and I engaged in a conversation about human nature. We discussed what human nature was and what it meant. I respected most of the people in the conversation, which included Mr. X. But the problem was that there were also various hippies involved. We were also drunk, but that's not the point. Anyway, we were in the middle of this conversation and we had essentially reached what Mr. X. likes to call...

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June 19, 2007

Stupid School Policies

There was a lot of talk when I was in middle and high school about school uniforms. Personally, I hate the idea. There are a few basic arguments in support of school uniforms, none of which resonate to me to any degree. First, there's the argument that, by making everyone dress the same, social stratification is reduced. Well, that's just stupid. Seeing as how I was an outcast for many reasons in addition to my cheap clothes, I can't really gauge how much of the high-school social-stratification problem (if it's a problem at all) is due to the brand of...

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May 29, 2007

But Who Will Protest the War?

Cindy Sheehan's going home. I thought she had gone home a long time ago, but I guess not. Ms. Sheehan's always annoyed me. It's not that I'm not sorry that her son died--I am. I clearly have no idea what losing a child would be like, but I imagine it would be very, very terrible. So I'm certainly sympathetic for her loss. But I guess that's one of my issues with her: I feel terrible for every parent that's lost a son or daughter in the war. Ms. Sheehan's loss, while terrible, is not unique. That hasn't stopped her, however,...

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April 29, 2007

I Fucking Knew It!

Prosecutors in McHenry County, Illinois have charged Allen Lee, an eighteen-year-old high-school senior, with two counts of disorderly conduct after Mr. Lee wrote an essay which contained some violent images. You can read the full text of the essay, along with an explanation from Mr. Lee about its content, here. Two passages in particular lead to Mr. Lee's arrest. In the first, Mr. Lee says the following:"So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone…, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would...

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April 23, 2007

Charlton Heston's Hands Are Neither Dead nor Cold

One of my favorite things to do is read the opinion section in student newspapers. This has never been more enjoyable than in college, where the Lumberjack provided some of the worst-written, most incoherent student opinions ever. Good times, good times. Here at the UW, I usually read the Badger Herald opinions because, well, the Daily Cardinal sucks. Yesterday, I picked up the Friday issue of the Badger Herald and flipped to the opinion section. What I saw was shocking only because of its predictability: a student wrote a piece arguing that the Second Amendment is out of date. In...

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April 20, 2007

"Anytus and Meletus Cannot Harm Socrates"

As those of you who frequent this blog (read: my friends) may know, I have a degree in philosophy. My favorite philosopher, by far, is Socrates. I can't really tell you why this is the case, but I know that this is true. As is the case with Jesus Christ, I can't tell you whether Socrates was real or merely a figmet of someone's imagination. But, as with Jesus, I can tell you that we can learn invaluable lessons from Socrates. The most important of these involves Soctates' death. Let me briefly relay that story for those of you who...

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April 18, 2007

Let's Not Rush to Judgment

This may seem like a strange sentiment coming from me; I'm not exactly regarded as someone who waits until all the information is in before making a carefuly, deliberate judgment. Still, the tragic events at Virginia Tech have forced me to conclude that we have to wait before we make the various judgments we're going to make. First, I think it's important that we remember that not every lonely, depressed, isolated, or shy person is going to become a murderer. From what I've read, Cho Seung-Hui's behavior was bizarre, dramatic, and perhaps calculated. Unfortunately, in his case, this behavior indicated...

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April 12, 2007

There Is No Right Not to Be Offended (Updated)

The Don Imus controversy is ridiculous in almost every way. I must admit that I had never heard or heard of Don Imus before this whole thing started, but a friend has described him as a conservative Howard Stern. Fine, so he's a shock jock. No big deal. Given that that's his job--he gets paid to be shocking and outlandish--I wouldn't have thought that his stupid comment about the Rutgers basketball team would be a big deal, either. But I'd've been wrong. The fact that the comment started such a huge controversy proves not that Don Imus is a racist...

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March 22, 2007

Great--Now Everyone Thinks Mexicans Are Idiots

I'm sure many of you have been keeping up to date with the U.S. Attorney scandal centering on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. To recap briefly, certain members of Congress (mostly, but not exclusively, Democrats), are upset at the firing of several U.S. Attorneys throughout the country. Although the attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and, theoretically, can be hired and fired completely on the president's whim, the Attorney General has been accused of firing certain employees solely because they were not sufficiently loyal to the Bush Administration. Mr. Gonzales, for his part, has admitted that he made misrepresentations...

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March 18, 2007

The State of Affairs in the Real World

The past few days have been pretty ridiculous. I feel like I've been on vacation, actually. But a very tiring, stressful, short vacation. That's not to say it's bad, just that the past few days have been a significant departure from the status quo. There's been so much going on, and there's so much on my mind, in fact, that I don't think I can weave it all in and out in one coherent narrative. So, I'm going to break this post up into sections. Law Revue The annual Stuart's Law Revue show was last night. I have to admit...

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March 15, 2007

More Nonsense from Little Green Footballs?

I was bored the other day, so I decided to go check in on Little Green Footballs to see if they were still up to their racist crap. Turns out, they definitely are. But what I found most interesting was this post. The story the post refers to is about observant Muslim employees at Target that, due to their religious beliefs, refuse to so much as scan products that contain pork, such as pepperoni pizzas or packages of bacon. The post then rants about this, and the comments are pretty much just variations on the theme. But it got me...

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March 5, 2007

The Kaplan Thing (Updated)

As you may or may not know, several students at the University of Wisconsin Law School have accused professor Leonard Kaplan of making incredibly racist remarks about the Hmong in class. Obviously, the controversy brings up a lot of questions about academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the proper atmosphere to create at an institution of higher learning. But I believe that we cannot address those issues, although they are important, until we have the facts straight. Sadly, no one involved with the issue has made a concerted effort to clarify what actually happened, and the media has utterly failed...

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March 1, 2007

"If You Have a Word Like 'Good,' What Need Is There for a Word Like 'Bad'?"

As a general rule, I am hard to offend. That's not to say that I'm hard to upset or hurt--those are entirely different things. But I am very, very hard to offend. In fact, I can think of only one time in my life that I would consider myself to have been "very offended." It's not clear to me whether this is because I have thick skin or because I've been lucky. Hell, it might even be that I just haven't been paying attention. But, yes, I can think of only one time when I've been extremely offended. And when...

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February 24, 2007

The Right to Die

Santi asked what my opinion on doctor-assisted suicide is, so here it is. First, I think it's helpful to make a little bit of a distinction between doctor-assisted suicide in the abstract and in the real world. In the abstract, if someone makes an informed decision that they want to die, for whatever reason, I think society should generally respect that decision. What I mean by this is that there shouldn't be laws against killing yourself. Of course, I hope that, if you decide that's what you want to do, your friends and family would try to stop you. I...

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February 8, 2007

Are You Fucking Serious?

As a general rule, I hate having the government tell me what I can and cannot do. In an ideal world, I think that a consenting adult, or a group of consenting adults, should be able to do anything as long as there are no direct negative consequences to anyone outside the consenting adult or group of adults. Regardless of what idealogy this idea is normally associated with, I'm not antiregulation per se; to the contrary, I think most laws are good, even where they violate the principle I've just laid out. In certain instances, the right of the group...

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December 6, 2006

From My Cold, Dead, Overweight Hands

New York City has banned trans fat. I have to say that this is one of the most ridiculous exercises of legislative power I've ever heard of. I honestly can't express how fucking angry I am because of this law. Let me explain. It's my fucking body. I'm overweight, but I'm not an idiot. I don't eat healthy and I don't exercise enough. That's my fault. You know what, it would be great if I ate healthier food. I would lose weight as a result, and I would probably live longer. I wouldn't be winded after going up a flight...

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November 8, 2006

A Dark Day for the Land of Brats, Beer, and Cheese

Well, I have to say that I'm very sad right now. I'm disgusted that this state, a state I've come to love, is apparently full of homophobes. Listen to me. Letting two people who love each other, regardless of which reproductive organs those people happen to have, marry each other can't possibly hurt you. It's just incredible that people don't see that. I don't care what religion you are or what you believe or who you're married to or who you want to marry. That doesn't give you the right to tell anyone else that they don't deserve the same...

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November 2, 2006

Six Days . . .

The elections are in six days. That means that, in six days, we get to see if Wisconsin will be the first state in the country with voters intelligent enough to reject a constitutional ban on gay marriage. While I'd love to believe that the people of my state are not ridiculously homophobic, I doubt that we'll be able to pull it off. I don't understand why people support this thing. No one, not a single person, has been able to explain to me how allowing gay people to marry would hurt anyone, let alone straight people who are married...

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October 18, 2006

Stuff That's on My Mind

I noticed something yesterday as I was walking to school. Or, rather, I didn't notice something. That's right, those fucking cows are finally gone! Happy days are here again. I honestly can't believe that they kept them out that long. That's fucking bullshit. Two days of those ugly things was way too much, in my opinion. Apparently, a Massachusetts school has banned playing tag. That's one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever heard. Tag is what kids are supposed to play - that's just what you do. The game's got everything - running, screaming, chasing, tagging! And there are...

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October 11, 2006

Mr. Barrett, You Are an Idiot, Sir

Kevin Barrett's back in the news. For those of you who are unaware, Kevin Barrett is a part-time UW-Madison professor who made headlines over the summer because he was planning to teach a course which, in part, explored the question of whether the Bush Administration was actually responsible for the September 11th attacks. Althouse discusses that controversy here, and you can read about Barrett generally here (although that article may not be neutral, as Wikipedia announces at the top). Well, now Mr. Barrett is back in the news. Now, say what you will about whether this semi-qualified loser should be...

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October 10, 2006

Why Would Anyone Complain About Seeing Breasts?

I meant to write about this topic some time ago, but never got around to it. Now, because of this post over at LawNut and this article, I've been reminded of my idea. Originally, I was inspired to write about public breast feeding because of some controversy over the cover of a woman's magazine that featured what I considered to be a beautiful picture of an infant breast feeding. I can't find a link to that cover or article now, so if anyone knows what I'm talking about, please let me know if you have a link. In any event,...

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September 28, 2006

Of Evil and Reparations

Now, I have always maintained that, in the world, good and evil are real, objective things. Sometimes, it's hard to defend that position because the real world makes it hard to apply the categories "good" and "bad" sometimes. However, there are several instances in which those categories can be applied fairly easily. The clearest available examples fall into the category of "evil." For example, the Holocaust was evil. I was recently reminded of that fact when two siblings were reunited after being separated by the Holocaust 65 years ago. I'm an only child, but I see the bond that exists...

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September 20, 2006

It's Even Worse Than I Thought

As I discussed here, Spanish television is bad. And not just bad in terms of quality or whatever, but bad in terms of being exploitative and pandering. If the American values and decency people think they have something to complain about on Fox, they should take a look at Univision every now and then. As it turns out, the whole thing is even worse than I thought. I found this article on CNN.com today. The show is called Sin Tetas no hay Paraiso, or "Without Breasts, There's no Paradise." Let me quote the synopsis: [The show] revolves around a 17-year...

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August 30, 2006

What Is it That Matters?

When I was an undergrad working towards my philosophy degree, I would occasionally tell my friends that I wasn't able to do something with them because I was working on a paper for a philosophy class. One of my friends, Chris, would constantly tease me by saying that I should just turn in a paper with "Why?" printed in huge font. Honestly, I thought it was funny, but it made a good point. Some people might think that philosophers have - or, more appropriately, think they have - all the answers. But what studying philosophy teaches you, or at least...

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August 17, 2006

Fuck Yeah!

So, in the Star Wars movies, the Emporer uses a classic ploy to gain power. First, as Darth Sidious, he arranges a blockade and then attack of the planet Naboo. As Senator Palpatine, he then convinces the ruler of that planet, the naive Queen Amidala, then only 14 years old, to call for a vote of no confidence in the current Supreme Chancellor, Vallorum. With the leader thus deposed, Palpatine plays on the sympathies of the Senate and is elected to the post of Supreme Chancellor. Then, he secretly orders a clone army that will be unquestioningly loyal to him....

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August 10, 2006

Little Green Bigots?

So, Little Green Footballs is a blog that's been getting a lot of attention lately. It's one of the blogs that helped break the story that the Killian Documents, which were offered as proof that George W. Bush's service in the Texas Army National Guard was less than exemplary on 60 Minutes, were forgeries. More recently, it helped break the story that a picture taken by a Reuters freelance photographer was altered using Photoshop. Given all the attention that blog's been getting, I decided to check it out myself, just to see what was going on over there. What I...

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June 10, 2006

Of Alternative Means of Expression and the Limitation of Thought

Everything I've written on guitar lately sucks. I can't come up with a cool sounding riff or chord progression, much less an actual coherent song. And I won't even talk about the lyrics. I just can't fid a way of saying what I want to say without actually saying it. Maybe the problem is that I don't even know what I want to say. I've always thought it was strange when people said things like "I don't know how I feel." How could that be, I thought: you have direct access to all the relevant information. How could you not...

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June 9, 2006

Random Crap and a Crappy Sushi Restaurant

I want to write something right now, but I don't know what I want to write, so I'm just going to start writing and see what happens. I'm listening to "Ava Adore" by the Smashing Pumpkins right now. That's a decent song. I heard tonight that one of my most hated people at the Law School, let's call him "The Lord of All That Is Douche-ie," has a "really hot" girlfriend. Not surprising, really, since that's what this guy's all about. It's also not surprising that this guy turned in all his potential mate capital for a girl who's physically...

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March 29, 2006

Two Things on Which I Must Comment

Ok, first, at Althouse's blog, she gives a link to this article. It discusses a conference during which Christians got together and talked about how they're persecuted. I want to take a moment to point out how stupid these people are. (I want it to be understood that it is not my position that all Christians are stupid - just that these particular ones are.) White evangelicals make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population, and 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But three-quarters of evangelicals believe they are a minority under siege and nearly half believe they...

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March 27, 2006

Masked Justice

So, yesterday we filmed for Law Revue (the show). We have two movies this year: the first is Brokeback Hill, starring Walter Dickey and Michael Smith as wanna-be Torts professors. The second is Community Justice Commandos. I was involved primarily in the second one, in the starring role of "Commando No. 1." The Commando costume includes the following: black shirt, black pants, black shoes, black tie, black judge's robe, black ski mask and black sunglasses. In order to film it, Cole and i had to run around the law school in the outfit i've just mentioned beating up undergrads and...

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March 6, 2006

There Are Such Things as "Right" and "Wrong"

I knew this guy once. He was a complete fucking moron, totally worthless. Anyway, he believed that the sky was blue because "air molecules" were blue. Since there's a lot of air in the atmosphere, he claimed, the sky looked like it was blue. This is one of the stupidest things i've ever heard. Ever. First of all, what in the fuck is an "air molecule"? There's no such thing! Air consists of nitrogen and oxygen and a few other gases. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as an "air molecule." Since an air molecule...

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March 4, 2006

Penguins, Gays, and Stupid Fucking People

Apparently, there is a book called And Tango Makes Three. It is a children's book that retells the true story of a penguin egg that was "adopted" by two adult male penguins. According to the reviews at Amazon, it's for kids in pre-school through the third grade. It's illustrated and features cute drawings of a fuzzy little baby penguin and his two adoptive parents. It's cute and heartwarming and wholesome, right? Not according to this article. Apparently, at least two incredibly stupid, idiotic and just plain myopic parents have complained about the book being in the children's section because of...

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February 14, 2006

Of Hate and Animus

So, some kids here at the University of Wisconsin vandalized the property of a homosexual RA. Vandalism is, of course, not cool. In addition, i don't personally believe that vandalizing someone's property because they're gay is cool, either. In fact, i think that's patently uncool. And stupid. Homophobia is stupid. Having gotten all that out of the way, though, let's consider the fact that the kids have been charged with felonious because their crimes, though misdemeanors, are aggravated because they're "hate crimes." This seems pretty fucking stupid to me, as well. To begin, let's consider what the homophobic vandals actually...

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February 11, 2006

The Beetle in the Box

Famed philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had this hypothetical in his Philosophical Investigations. One of my philosophy profs., Dr. Malone, was very intrigued by it. I never understood it. It involved people carrying bettles in boxes. It was, as near as i can tell, an attempt to demonstrate that the idea of private language (a language known only to you and spoken only to yourself) is nonsensical. I wrote a paper about the idea of private language once, arguing that private languages were possible. Now, i'm starting to wonder if i have developed my own private language. I haven't developed my own...

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January 26, 2006

Of "Never" and Executive Power

First, an explanation. The Spanish word for "never" is jamas (my spelling could be incorrect). Jamas is pronounced in the exact same way as "Hamas," the fringe organization that just won a majority in the Palestinian parliament. I wonder what will happen now that Hamas will be in control of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has refused to redefine its goals and has, in the past, expressed the belief that Israel should be eliminated. How much of this and other goals Hamas will accomplish, or even attempt, remains to be seen. What i find interesting is the democratic question: did democracy...

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