Little Beeblebrox no more

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5032906.stm

Grr. Arggh.

Pville Town Council

School president to student: "Get on the internship bus and leave governing to real people."

Why the change in tune for Mike "if you get elected to the House of Delegates, I'll give you 15 credits of DRW" Farris? Could it be that the idea of a student making decisions about the school's water and construction requests is more frightening than that of one making grand changes to the commonwealth's religious liberty, freedom of contract, and civil liberty protections? Perhaps concerns about allegations of the school "leaning on" a member of the council with whom they have a relationship of trust? Six years atop the institution just left him more jaded about the present potential of those little rising leaders? We report, you decide...

(article here for the next few weeks)

(In the interest of fairness to Mr. Farris, note that his DRW offer of long ago was not meant seriously or literally at the time. It is not inconsistent with his general interest in the ascent to positions of influence, but was understood as light-hearted encouragement, not a bargain.)

Schedule

Having neglected this blog for some time, I am hoping that the following will serve as adequate excuse for my so doing:

4-25 AM - Int'l Business Transactions
4-27 AM - Conflicts of Law
4-28 PM - Corporations
5-4 AM - Law in Cyberspace

The 30-page paper for Law of War I turned in last week. All in all, this semester has been great, the classes enjoyable. Prayer appreciated as I try to solidify what I know into a ready-made gel for glooping back onto the exams. (Yes, open book exams are a wonderful thing, but they can be more work than closed, because of how much more detailed your preparations can be and how little you need to worry about actually memorizing the stuff...)

Cut scenes

Robert Duvall, discussing his role of Lt. Col. "Napalm in the Morning" Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, reportedly claims his greatest disappointment about the movie is that F. F. Copola cut a scene in which he places a baby in his medevac helocopter after personally shooting both its parents. He thought the scene made his character more complete.

Too many Lawsuits?

For better or worse, however, no limit exists on the number of lawsuits one individual can bring in a lifetime.

--Chancellor Chandler, in In re Fuqua Industries Shareholder Litigation, 752 A.2d 126 (Del. Ch. 1999)




Counsel for the [board of directors] point out in their [brief] that, "plaintiffs and their family appear to have been singularly unlucky investors--they are named plaintiffs in at least thirteen lawsuits (including this one) challenging allegedly improper conduct [citations omitted]." It is unclear what nefarious intent the defendant directors would have me infer from this statistic. While the Kahns' experience might qualify them as icons of Delaware corporate jurisprudence, in my view, their wisdom in forum selection should hardly subject them to a presumption of misconduct. But cf. [the judge sua sponte cites seven suits, "among others" in which the directors were named defendants].

--Chancellor Chandler in Kahn v. Icahn, 1998 Del. Ch. LEXIS 223 (Nov. 12, 1998), n.1.

Woman wins fight against British Primary Care Trust

Ann Rogers of Swindon, Wilts, England won on appeal the right to drugs for treating her breast cancer. The treatment costs about £20,000 annually. The court held that the factors on which the government denied her treatment were irrational and did not prevent discriminatory treatment (of some patients but not others).

While this gets to the obvious problems with socialized medicine (low prices create an artificially high demand, meaning long lines or arbitrary denial of service, etc.), it also gets to the ultimate inability of any system to create equality. The British system attempts to provide medical treatment without reference to ability to pay for it. However, where that system fails, as it inevitably will, ultimately, only those with the money to afford effective lawyers will end up with treatment.

To paraphrase Enemy at the Gates' Danilov, "We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy of your neighbour's. But there's always something to envy. Medicine, legal aide, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a socialized one, there will always be rich and poor."

(article here)

Student Associations

Yesterday, I was asked to join a group called "Law Students for Choice."

Freaking Arminians.

How do aliens relax at the end of the day?

266 million mile long alcohol stream found in space.

Ok, it's methanol, not ethyl, but who's to say that the aliens don't prefer that sort of alcohol?

Pointless headline of the day

Seen this morning over someone's shoulder in the Post Express: "Rebel Breaks Laws."

Gee, give the guy a break. There weren't any signs in the jungle saying "do not take up arms against your government."

Record-breaking drug user

UK doctors have released info on the long-term effects of too much ecstasy (and its combination with certain other controlled substances). The gentleman in question apparently took some 40,000 tablets over 10 years (around a dozen a day).

Short-term memory loss, while a serious consequence of such behavior, is also probably one of the funniest - he would repeatedly do certain activities, unaware that he had just done them, and only remembering his intent to do them.

Moral of the story - don't do drugs, but make video recordings of those that do.

My Answer (see previous post)

Vowels seem to give an amount of continuity and certainty, connecting the "real" sounds with by certain designated open sounds. Besides giving us a greater range of possible words (thereby increasing our ability to communicate, create, and exert dominion over the earth), it seems vowels are indicative of the "do fully" rather than the "get by" mentality that led to European conquest (more or less) of the entire globe. I can't say for sure that the sun never setting on the English language is a result of vowels, but they are at least consistent with each other.

Vowels also allow a certain irrationality, as (in English), the vowel shown in a spelling has little real connection with the sound produced (e.g., try rhyming dough {doe}, cough {kof}, through {threw}, hough {hok}, lough {lahk}, sough {sef}, and bough {bau}; see also ought {ot}). It forces a sort of mental expansion, a realization that the things that we are told do not entirely line up with reality, but that neither is reason to disrespect and disregard them nor is it reason to bind ourselves to it. We still say our words how we want, and only loosely tie them to the vowels we see. This use of the old while constantly reexamining it and using only what is expedient is representative of the post-Harvey scientific world; it is probably no mistake that spellings were standardized shortly before we were able to turn our knowledge into heavy industry - a use of combined wisdom, acceptance of the unknown, and mental path of least resistance.

Spoken vowels are the primary means by which local pronunciations are formed; written vowels, therefore provide unity despite differences. This "you may say it your way, and I mine, but we're both English," attitude may not have led to democracy without a lot of other help, but it does at least constantly force us to recognize the finitude of our own knowledge, consider what things are right in an absolute sense and what are only relative and defined by man; in essence, a sort of micro-philosophy of itself.

Colonialism, industrialization, democracy, and postmodern philosophy all because of vowels? Perhaps not in any direct causal link, but the ideas seem to have been there waiting to be realized.

Postmodern philosophical question

How would life be different today if English did not have vowels (a la Hebrew)?

Discuss.

Especially looking for input from the Blue Roomers, as this seems up their alley. My answer forthcoming when I formulate it.

Frozen Dead People Update

The market has spoken where the courts too long - the guy who was keeping his parents on ice has announced he had to creamate them when their freezer broke. Oh, well. Here's to somnicide.

Return

I am managing to keep myself pretty busy right now, so I will leave you with only this ponderment:

Why is it that there was no difficulty changing back to driving on the right side of the road, but it took a few days to get re-adjusted to walking on a sidewalk in a right-side system?

Also, if the US didn't have exorbitant import taxes on alcohol, would Baccardi be able to survive?