Friday, December 15, 2006

Advice for law students

If your professor ever uses the word "interplay" in class, the topic under discussion will be the exam. No exceptions.

One more to go (this afternoon)...

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Bird songs changing to rap in urban environments

This being finals, I will provide a link and you get to do the legwork. While "rap" may be a bit of an overstatement, it is how the Beeb portrayed it, so I'll leave it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6209498.stm

Friday, December 01, 2006

Why we need student associations

The following was circulated by the Student Bar Association at my school:

Know a little something about tax returns?

The SBA is looking for someone to head up the 2007 Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program for GW. The basic purpose of VITA is to provide tax return preparation assistance to low-income, elderly, indigent, or non-English speaking taxpayers. The program is part of the ABA Law Student Division and works in conjunction with other schools in the area to assist these taxpayers with their income tax return issues.

If you are interested in helping organize this program, please email [address].

Granted I normally don't go in much for the whole "helping poor people" thing that a lot of people devote significant portions of their lives to, but in looking at the ad, it just strikes me as strange. From what I remember of the Income Tax course, indigent people frequently don't even have to file returns. If you don't have a job, you are a day laborer, you are a contractor, or your employer doesn't withhold, and you make little enough, the IRS doesn't want your paperwork.

So while the elderly and non-English speakers probably could use help, the rest of this just, well, makes me wonder who exactly puts this sort of thing together.