Law School Quote of the Day

Courtesy of my Trusts & Estates professor:

"Anytime you have to modify the word legal with the word 'technical' you might want to look at creditor protection, because there is a good chance someone is getting sued."

Ah attorneys...making the world a better place one "technically legal" act at a time!

Slipping, slipping, slipping into the future

Time is no man's friend.

It is not within your control. You do not employ time it employes you, and it is quite the bastard boss.

It seems that time is always making fools of us. There is always too much or too little time. Never just enough. Never the perfect amount of time.

The Bible says that there is a time for everything but note that it doesn't say there is enough time. It may be time to reap, but that doesn't mean that you will be able to finish the reaping before its time to sow.

Time sucks because it always makes us feel like we are laboring through life. If we waste it we feel guilty. If we lose it we feel sad. If we enjoy it we wish for more. Time is insufficent. It leaves us wanting.

See we are fools. Fools for living life under the perameters of a concept with we created only so that it could torment us. Fools for letting things we can't control dictate our lives. Fools for putting stock in minutes instead of relative quality of life.

From where I am sitting I can see three clocks. Twelve numbers all telling me what I should be doing and what I no longer have time to do and how long I have before there is something new I have to do. Numbers telling me how long I've wasted writing this blog entry.

There are so many ways to mark the passage of life and yet we are just sadistic enough to pick the one that's laughing its ass off at us.

A little late

So I thought I would do a post about the things I am thankful for. It's a little past Thanksgiving, but I figure it's always a good time to be appreciative of the things that make life nice.

Things I am thankful for...

1. Television

Seriously. Thank God for TV. I am so happy to have escaped covicts, genetically evolved superheros, regular superheros, lostaways, dramatic highschoolers, rich dramatic highschoolers and much, much more at my fingertips. I think if I had to choose between television and running water it would be a toss up.

2. Breaks

I hear we in America take a lot less vacations then everyone in the rest of the world. That doesn't really make sense though b/c we are still the laziest and fattest nation in the world. How does that work? Maybe it has something to do with the above. Screw it, who cares, this post is supposed to be about thankfulness.

3. Latinos, the Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Italian and Thai.

Where would we be without ethnic food? Imagine if all we had to eat was burgers, mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. Okay well it sounds bad to me.

3 and 1/2. Peppers

I am thankful for peppers because I hate bland food.

4. A boring family

I'm glad we are boring b/c that means we are doing well and are happy. It may be more exciting to have a family who yells and fights and chases each other with the carving knife but I'll take my nice boring family.

5. Jesus

If all he did was give us Christmas that would be enough, but the whole salvation thing was really the icing on the cake.

6. The Internet

It killed wonder and I now happily have a lot more time to think about other stuff. Like celebrity break-ups and how hot Johnny Depp is.

7. Laws

Because someday I'm going to make a lot of money helping others circumvent them.

8. The Mall

Because shopping makes everything all right.

9. Politicians

Because without them my family would only have Religion to talk about at the dinner table. Believe me you prefer the political discussions.

10. Frat Parties

Without them my parent's love may never have blossomed and I might not exist.

Things they are a changing

Lets begin at the beginning. I'm a Republican. I don't hate Donald Rumsfeld. I don't hate George Bush. I do hate some of things George Bush does and a lot of the things he says. I don't think he has done a bad job in office at managing things such as the economy and the war. I do think he has done a very poor job managing relationships such as those with foreign countries and the American people.

I would argue that, up to this point, the fallout from the Bush administration (for the American people) has been largely theoretical. This is partly predicated on my belief that Iraq has been reasonably well managed according to what my expectations were, now this argument falls down in light of the expectations of a large part of the American public. What I'm saying is that I don't necessarily consider the death of American soliders fallout from mistakes made by the Bush administration, but rather fallout from war. While death is always a tragedy and ripe topic for the blame game, I'm supporting the Bush victory track (commence argument regarding the impossibility, futility and irreverance of victory now). As I was saying...the theoretical fallout from the Bush adminstration: the downward spiral of the economy (not happening), the crumbling of the US due to national debt (time will tell), everybody hates us (maybe so but are you really feeling that on a personal level), ect.

The time of theoretical fall out has passed however, and we are now feeling the real fallout. And who is suffering for this? The Republicans (dems commence cheering, jeering and I-told-ya-soing now). So when it comes down to real, concrete, hard-felt consequences of Bush's terms in office, the Republicans are taking a good old-fashioned beating. Congressional incumbants such as Jim Talent and the numerous other congressmen whose seats where "picked-up" by Dems and Donald Rumsfled (who possibly deserves it) have been forced to take a bullet for good 'ole GW, while the former gets another couple years to redeem himself. He will step over the bodies of said sacrificial lambs and begin the Bush Administration Reinvention Tour 2006. Dems beware because this guy is a Pheonix rising from the ashes and he has convinced the public before. People are going to be partly pacified from the results of this election and if Bush can dig down deep and find his diplomatic side then they aren't going to be nearly as mad in 2008.

So on behalf of Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush I say:

To Republicans...I'm sorry but you did it too.

To Dems...you are welcome.

To the American public...here's hoping you are fickle enough to be pissed at someone besides us by the time you cast your next ballot.

An Open Letter to Lost (Spoilers)

Here's the thing lost. I hope you are as smart as I think you are. If not, I'm going to be very disappointed.

Let me start by saying that we all know how to get Jack to perform a surgery he doesn't want to. We all know how to get Jack to do anything he doesn't want to do. Point a gun at Kate's head. Simple. Direct. 100% effective.

So, Lost, if you expect us to believe that Ben needed some elaborate "get Jack to like us" plan you are woefully underestimating our intelligence. What do they always say in psychological thrillers? The good are always so predictible.

This brings me to the second thing I would like to say Lost. If you think I'm buying the whole Ben bad, Juliette good thing then you are cracked. If Jack is buying it then he deserves a swift kick in the ass. Like anything is ever how it seems Lost.

That is all.

p.s. If Juliette really wants Jack to kill Ben she should just put a gun to Kate's head. Eureka!