Can You Smell The Intellectual Bankruptcy?

The Draft Cassandras are wearing the smell of desperation like a pre-teen bathing in bad-knockoff perfume. No shred of evidence, no matter how unworthy, seems too little to confirm the fears that a draft is coming. A case in point:

(Since it's another post on the draft-related hysteria of Brian "Any readers of draft age. . . . need to begin making plans before it is too late" Leiter and friends, I've put this one below the fold.)

Over. Done. Brain Fried.

Well, the Note's done. I've handed it in. And it's a bit bittersweet.

I mean, I know it's not finished. If I wanted to get it into "publishable" form, which I might, there'd be several months of revising it into a very narrow piece of scholarship. Some sections would have to be ruthlessly trimmed. Others would have to be polished so that their points shined brightly.

But really, that's not what I'd like to do. What I'd like to do is post it somewhere so that my peers could look at it. I'd like to hear what folks in Michigan, or California, or London had to say about the piece. And I'd like to take those recommendations, weed through the good points, the bad points, and the points I'm obviously not explaining enough, in order to come up with an argument that I was really satisfied with.

Sadly, it's not to be. But at least it's done.

Bluebook Citation Challenge

I'm not sure I'm taking this Note quite as seriously as I should be anymore. I've just run across two citation problems--things I don't know how to Bluebook for the life of me. And because I find it amusing, I'm going to share.

Challenge to law students: figure out how to Bluebook the following:

1) This blog entry on Begging to Differ.

2) This Wikipedia entry on Godwin's Law.

Oddly, if published, this Note may be only the sixth reference to Godwin's Law in Lexis-Nexis's database of law review articles. Who said that legal discussion was disagreeable?

And They Go To The Polls

So heavily have I been involved in the Note that I've not had a chance to quickly jot down my response to the most important news of the day: Iraq held its elections. Most of the commentary below is for my benefit: I'd like not to lose track of my thoughts on this. It's more like Unlearned Hand's sentiments (and PG collects some good pictures here), rather than anything thought through. If that's what you're looking for, Instapundit's been talking about this all day.

Hunkered Down

Afraid I'm in the midst of a very long date with Miss Note, which is why you've not seen me for a few days. It's the blind date from hell, by the way, and there are so many things I'd rather be doing than making googly eyes at her for hours on end. But nothing that I've been wanting to say recently could be said briefly. Perhaps after this interminable evening is over, I've tipped the waiter nicely, and kissed this not-so-pretty charm school reject goodnight, holding the door ever so gentlemanly and thinking up convenient excuses in case she invites me up for coffee[1], you'll be treated to a veritable orgy of real writing here.

One thing I'm learning: I really hate legal academic writing. I'm actually quite fond of the memorandum style I used in my job over the summer: succinct, to the point, suited to purpose. That I can do. But law reviews and law review style are addicted to footnotes in a manner that is only slightly more maddening to read than to write. Anyone up for writing a virus that disables the footnote function in MS Word? (That is to say, disables it more thoroughly than MS's buggy code already does?)

[1]: Most Note writers will probably pick up on the meaning of this extended metaphor. Otherwise... don't worry about it. Note writing does horrible things to your mind, including making you wish for excuses to write mythically, metaphorically, or at least in such a manner that you don't need goddamn footnotes.

(Ed.--erm... you realize what you're writing now, right?) (Author: D'oh!)

The Lack of Refractive Qualities of Dorm Glass, or A Warning to the Afternoon Post-Coital Set

So I'm working on a relatively high floor of a university building today (location omitted to protect the guilty), chatting with a friend about a matter of great and principled import. I had listened to his point and was just managing to get passionate about a rebuttal--really managing some eloquence, or perhaps just some heated grumpiness--when I notice that his eyes are bigger than pie-plates, and he's not really paying attention anymore.

"Erm... what did I say?"

"Oh," he replies, "Nothing. I was just wondering why there's a naked woman in that window over there."

In surprise, I turned around, and sure enough in the window across the street there's a young lady's bare back on display. Somewhat in disbelief, I muttered, "No, it's just a skin-tone colored shirt and a trick of the light." But then she turned around, and... well, let us merely say that a room full of law students lost all reasonable doubt about the nature of the situation.

Neither she nor her apparent partner--who showed up near the window a minute later--evinced the slightest sign of realizing that they had become part of the scenery. And after a bit, they faded back into the room and out of sight.

Anyway, as a public service announcement for those living near Columbia, or even those who merely live in big, crowded cities: if you're wandering around in the buff, shut your curtains. After all, university campuses are filled with individuals who have homework, and virtually anything is a better distraction than doing that. There will never be a shortage of people looking out of windows, and more than likely they'll end up looking into yours.

Such a long day...

The day has been exhaustion upon exhaustion. Wednesdays are a sign of exactly how poor I am at scheduling. Every single one of my classes meets on Wednesday. Add to that a Law Review meeting, the need to plan out my TA session[1], and the ever-present pressure of my Note, and I think I understand why Wednesday evenings are so demotivating. My main goal tonight is to get to bed somewhat early.

One thing I loathe about this whole Note deadline: the guilt. I got back exhausted tonight, and something defiant said, "Screw it. I'm tired, I can't string a sentence together to save my life." So I picked up my copy of Kafka on the Shore, and for the next hour I revelled in the tale of a strange runaway called Kafka and Nakata, the crazy old man who can talk to cats.

Typical of Murakami, Kafka swims in an atmosphere of longing wonder. Similar in structure to Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, its chapters have alternating narrators, switching between first and third person, and tell stories that seem only distantly related. But unlike Hard-boiled, Kafka's stories don't differ as much in style or mood. Both characters are undergoing a similar strangeness, and both seem fractured in ways that feel consistent: you can see how the two stories will "fit" much more easily.

Reading Murakami makes me want to write myself. Though I worry a bit about if I'll have time--the young associate is supposed to have time for nothing but work--there's something in my that would like to use my early law experience as fuel for a novel. Sure, what I know of practice thus far isn't extensive enough to confirm my impressions, but it seems to have some very Murakami qualities to it: an environment with a rigid structure (upon which a more surreal or mythical character can be imposed); a number of characters of varying degrees of normality, helpfulness, and isolation; and mundane qualities that can be made magic. For some reason my heart says that practice is more likely to be a catalyst for whatever creative urges I have than law school is.

But whatever. None of this rids me of the guilt: two hours lost to the novel. I suppose I should sleep, so that tomorrow I may return to the Note.

[1]: At some point, I really ought to describe my classes/projects for the term on this blog. One more item for the to-do list, eh?

Because it's a virus that's going around

Certainly if one were to ask what tort most bloggers are, there's only one right answer?

take the WHAT INTENTIONAL TORT ARE YOU test.


and go to mewing.net. because law school made laura do this.

Perhaps to no one's surprise, it's the same result as Heidi. I'd never have guessed that Will would turn out this way. I guess I'll watch my Manhattans when he's around.

Minor Annoyance

I know it's a little thing, but I really wish that when Financial Aid sent out an announcement of a scholarship opportunity, they'd include more than just the words "Scholarship Opportunity" in the subject line. Since November 23rd, I've received nine such mailings, none of which have been of any use to me.

None of them have been useful because I am not: (1) domiciled in Bronx County; (2) a native of New York City; (3) of Polish descent; (4) Jewish and living in Queens County; (5) (second announcement of 2); (6) a resident of Passaic or Bergen County, New Jersey; (7) of Italian heritage; (8) a (presumably racial) minority law student; or (9) a woman.

Two of these I recieved today while I was working on my Note. Normally incoming email is a welcome distraction, and perhaps it's just the foul mood one gets while completing an unwelcome task, but I felt quite a letdown upon opening them. After all, the subject line basically says "APPLY FOR MONEY" while the body text says "NOT FOR YOU!"

For the most part, these seem to be private groups spending their own money, so I have no gripe against the concept of the scholarships themselves. Still, even if it's just grumpiness on my part, it would be rather nice if they'd put the relevant race/gender/location restriction in the subject line, so I could just delete the message and go on.

UPDATE: I've discussed this with a friend who pointed out that, despite having very little demographic similarity with myself, she's not eligible for any of the above either. Therefore, I think if I become wealthy enough to endow a scholarship in the future, I shall create "None of the Above" funds, available to any student unable to apply to any other scholarship offered by a participating university that year. That way everyone has at least one envelope to open.

I'm Moonlighting as a Law Student

Sometimes I wonder the degree to which I'm actually a law student, and not a random PC tech support guy. Some of today's note time was again spent getting some critical files off a broken computer.

I think I'm going to get one of these. The most common task I'm asked to accomplish is the recovery of files that someone didn't back up. A hard drive enclosure like this would allow me to pull the hard drive, plug it into my machine (through USB) and burn DVDs of anything that needed recovery. This done, I could just let the user reinstall Windows through a recovery disk.

Of course with my luck, after spending $45.00 on the enclosure, CLS would experience a sudden wave of hardware/software stability and I'd never have to use it. Which is, of course, why I don't just buy the thing.

Very Long Rebuild Times

My apologies to any readers who are trying to leave comments. For some reason this blog is experiencing some very long rebuild times. It probably has to do with the RSS feeds, and I'm going to address that today.

In the meantime, please hang in there: comments are being stored, but my not show up immediately.

Writing Contest Announcement

The Pacific Legal Foundation sent me an email last week asking me to hand on this contest announcement to their readers. I'm a bit late in getting the word out, but in case you're interested:

Pacific Legal Foundation is awarding $9,500 in its Sixth Annual Program for Judicial Awareness Writing Competition. This year's competition includes three essay questions, regarding the applicability of the Supreme Court's "rough proportionality" takings standard; whether the GDF Realty Investments v. Norton decision can be reconciled with the Court's modern Commerce Clause jurisprudence; and whether the concept of "regulatory givings" is consisten with the purpose and function of the Takings Clause. More information is available at our blog.

Theme of the Week

The Note is almost finished--it's now the home stretch towards the final edit. I really, really need to focus on writing this week, which means I really need to do a lot of blogging. (I know, it sounds contradictory, but I explained it recently. Trust me on this.)

To encourage all sorts of creative thought, I've given this week a theme. For a while now, I've had a number of oddball articles that I've been meaning to put up here, but I've not really gotten around to completing them. But since this week at Three Years of Hell is "Conservative Contrarianism" week, I should have plenty of good reason to put things on paper.

To give you a taste of what I'm talking about: for a while now, there's been a lot of moaning in the blogosphere about how picked upon conservatives are in academia. This week, I'm going to write about what's fun about being a conservative in the Ivy League. There's a lot of fun stuff that no one mentions that often, and it doesn't even involve secret handshakes.

Anyway, that's my theme this week. We'll hope I can sustain it for a whole seven days, but in any even, I hope it sustains me through the Note.

Not quite hotter than hell, but...

It's about seven degrees outside. (That's Farenheit. For my English readers, that translates to "real bloody cold.") But my room is so warm that I have the window open. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this.

Symposium on Sentencing

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that starting today and continuing tomorrow, the Law Review has been holding a symposium on sentencing. The Federalist Society's blog has been doing some liveblogging of the event, including the keynote speech by Judge William H. Pryor, Jr. Between law review work, my note, and a splitting headache, I missed today's events, but thankfully my classmate PG (also of De Novo) covered things.

The Phytoplankton Agenda, or The Very Cunning Plan of the Evil Mr. Plankton

I'm here to straighten out some agenda issues and keep my readers informed on the hidden scoop. You know, the things that get decided in smoke filled rooms. The hidden plans of the secret masters. The dark whispers of those who pull the Illuminati's strings. What I'm about to tell you could get us both killed, so be quiet about it.

You see, James Dobson of Focus on the Family believes that SpongeBob Squarepants is part of the homosexual agenda. Prof. Eugene Volokh replies that Spongebob has a tolerance agenda. Finally, Glenn Reynolds thinks that SpongeBob has an asexual/bisexual agenda. (No one who has seen how SpongeBob dresses is considering a metrosexual agenda.)

They're all wrong.

This is all just a plot to fund The Plankton Agenda, the complete destruction of the Axis Of KrabCake: The Krusty Krab, the Krabby Patty, and all things SpongeBob Squarepants.

I went to great risks to find the actual items of The Plankton Agenda [1], so that you, my special readers, could know what was actually happening:

So there you have it. You're "in the know" now. Personally, I've never been very fond of SpongeBob, so I think I'll go buy some little kiddies a toy or two. Show your support for the Plankton Conspiracy!

[1]: The Plankton Agenda, A Jerry Bruckheimer Film, coming soon to theatres near you.

[2]: U.S. Patent Pending.

More Political Haruspicy, or Not Every Chicken Little Is A Cassandra

A plea for a little help from my readers:

I had figured that after the election, most of the nonsense that was going on about the "draft to come" would calm down, and fair enough, it did. Howard Dean isn't mentioning it as a centerpoint of his campaign for DNC chair. It's not turned up on Democratic talking points in recent weeks. Indeed, now that the election's over, it's not much in the news.

There's a reason for this: it was always a pretty flimsy prediction. First it was premised a bill put forward by Charles Rangel. (This didn't bother some law professors.) Then it was premised on difficulties in recruiting for the National Guard. [1]. Now, it's premised on the idea that we're going to war with Iran.

I've referred to this kind of thing before as "political haruspicy." I'm wary of doing it myself, although I've made a prediction or two. (Most notably, that same-sex marriage or civil unions will be legal in all 50 states by 2008, although now I'm leaning towards 2010.) On the internet, it's especially dangerous, because your predictions can be so easily referenced.

But predictions about the draft seem particularly pernicious to me, because they started with a credulous acceptance of "alert" emails which left out salient information (such as Charlie Rangel), and have proceeded from distortion to distortion. So this weekend, I'll be launching a page: the Cassandras of the Draft. It'll be a permanent link from my homepage, and will allow my readers to add links and quotations from any of the Augurs of Impending Doom. I'll also include a countdown clock, giving the exact number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds until Bush has not started a draft. Who knows: if a draft actually does start, I'll be making these people look like predictive geniuses. On the other hand, if no draft occurs then no one will be able to disclaim their words.

In any event, I need a good list to get this going. So I'd like to use this entry as an initial clearinghouse while I'm designing the page. If any of my readers know of a pundit, blogger, politician, or other notable who has predicted a Bush reimposition of the draft, please drop a comment and a link below. And if you have a chance, spread the word.

Oh, and one rule: we're talking about a general draft, one actually involving the selective service. Not a "back door draft" involving the use of military contracts, drafting people into AmeriCorps, or whatever else. Let's keep it focused with this general rule: if it doesn't involve selective service cards, it probably doesn't belong here.

[1]: Chris and I recently had a discussion over why overheated rhetoric does one little good for analysis, and this is one reason. Yes, we're having a hard time recruiting for the National Guard. A serious discussion would ask whether we were having trouble recruiting for the non-reserve military, and whether, were we to reverse the troop cuts of the early 1990s, we'd be able to fill the ranks. But it's not particularly surprising to find out that when both reserves and non-reserve ranks are being called up, fewer people wish to volunteer for reserves.

There's a serious criticism of Rumsfeld's policies on troop strength, and a criticism that I have great sympathy with: that whatever the long-term costs, we should increase the size of our standing army (and even raise taxes to pay for it) because calling up reserves on a long-term basis is bad for morale and effectiveness. Pushing this would have been an excellent issue in the last election. Instead, much of the democratic intellectual firepower was focused on scaring Americans with the fantasy of an upcoming draft.