Thursday, October 19, 2006

OPPORTUNITY AND FEAR

So I go into this interview for a contract paralegal job for this firm in SR. I guess it went pretty well because before I know it, the guy is offering me a job as an attorney at 2400 billable hours at 65K. The law school I went to is not a prestigious one, which means that any opportunity that comes my way must be pounced upon almost without question. The interesting thing is that it is in what I wanted to do; probate and trusts. Provided I pass the bar I'm an attorney. If I don't, then I'll get less money and won't be able to take the bar in February. They will train me and get their moneys' worth out of me, and I'll take it again in July, in the meantime getting valuable experience.

Now 2400 hours is completely unbelievable. That means that for the next year, I will have no life. Until I get up to speed, it will be hard. VERY hard.

But I'm hungry, still relatively young, and excited for the challenge. Hard to believe.

Of course, this puts a little more pressure on me to pass the bar. But the test is already taken. The dice are rolled.

I start monday.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Mother assaults father with baby

The recent fashionable trend toward impulsive behavior has reached a new low
here when a woman attacked her husband with her own baby...

Cats that look like Hitler

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Found this interesting

Guide to Korean military capacity

"The North Korean regime is regularly portrayed in the Western as the lunatics in charge of the asylum. The traditional US deterrence posture rested on the ability to launch a devastating counter-strike against any country that used weapons of mass destruction against America, its allies or deployed forces. Such measures worked against the Soviet Union, whose leaders were rational and risk-averse, but some argue that they may not deter rogue states such as North Korea, whose leaders are indifferent to their people's welfare. Although North Korea's strategies and tactics can be (sometimes purposely) baffling, the country is being run by extremely intelligent and very rational people with a strongly developed sense of self-preservation. The North Korean acquisition of weapons of mass destruction stems not from an indifference to deterrence, but rather a keenly developed understanding of the uses of deterrence."
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In other words, it is a huge mistake for us to allow the popular conception of Kim Jong Il, in riduculing him and portraying him as completely insane, to cloud our judgment of their capability and intentions.

Monday, October 09, 2006

The Korean situation


For those of you up for a five-minute lesson on Korea, here it is.

1. North and South Korea formed at the end of WWII when the Soviet army met the US at the 38th parallel which is now the border between North and South Korea. South Korea is an ally of the US, a capitalist nation, and somewhat a democracy. It is far more prosperous than North Korea.

2. North Korea is the most frightening, most Stalinist nation on earth. In the last ten years somewhere around a million people have died of starvation. Formerly ruled by Kim Il Sung, it is now run by the dictator Kim Jong Il, his son, who overseas a terrifying police state in which there are informers and spies everywhere and any kind of dissent is swiftly dealt with. There are a lot of rumors swirling about him, and the story from Washington is that he is irrational and dangerous. Nonetheless when Madeline Allbright met him, he did not appear to be so, and judging from their shrewd movements in using the threat of a nuclear North Korea to blackmail the west, I'm not sure how much I believe the party line. The Chinese are interested in propping up this regime because if it topples refugees will flood China.

3. Most of the money is spent on the military, which is a formidable force of around 800,000 men, some 4,000 tanks, 800 aircraft and other weapons, much of which sits directly on the 38th parallel within range of Seoul. The North Korean military has enough artillery in range of Seoul to level the entire city. The South Korean military is vastly outclassed by the North Koreans.

4. The US has a contingent of some 28,000 troops sitting near the DMZ of the 38th parallel, the largest contingent outside of Iraq. Due to the mountainous terrain of Korea, it is unlikely that the US would defeat the Koreans as easily as the Iraqi army was defeated.

5. George Bush moved away from diplomatic solutions after the Clinton administration attempted many such overtures and labeled N. Korea as part of an "axis of evil". During Bush's presidence the N. Koreans have developed a nuclear weapon, developed a delivery system which can probably reach the west coast of the US, and now tested a nuclear weapon. Sources say that they probably have enough plutonium to build up to eleven weapons.

6. The US has already fought a war on the Korean peninsula in which some 40,000 Americans lost their lives and which nearly involved the single greatest defeat in American history. After an initial attack by N. Korea, the US drove the Northern forces all the way to the Yalu river, at which time China intervened on behalf of the North Koreans. The 38th parallel remains the border between these two nations, with families cut in two who have never seen each other.

7. It is estimated that an attack on N. Korea by the US would cause the deaths of upwards of ten million people.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

North Korea tests a nuclear weapon


North Korea tested it's first nuclear weapon on Monday, confirmed by a South Korean report that a 3.6 tremor was felt. For those of you unfamiliar with the significance of this, North Korea is ruled by Kim Jong Il, a Stalinist dictator with a huge standing army and weapons which are probably capable of reaching the west coast.

The possible outcomes;

1. A militarized Japan intent upon building a new army and nuclear weapons
2. an invasion of South Korea and subsequent American involvement
3. An invasion by China
4. a preemptive strike by the US against North Korean targets
5. The most likely option is negotiations between North Korea and the US, China, Japan and South Korea in which Korea will blackmail us to obtain food for their starving citizens. Upwards of a million people have starved to death in North Korea in the last ten years, and the regime is constantly on the verge of collapse.

Both two and three raise the possibility of a nuclear attack on South Korea or China. A nuclear attack on California, in the event of American involvement, is also possible.

For those of you who need it explained more simply, this is a very serious international crisis unlike any since the Cuban missile crisis.

I have figured out how to get comments...

Be a little insulting. I've been a nice guy for so long, flying under the radar, and where has it gotten me? 0 comments...again and again...

I've decided to try a different tactic, as you can see by my latest offensive posting about Mommybloggers, a trend that I would like to see curtailed.

As you will notice below, there are three nasty comments from an anonymous blogger. I coincidentally posted on the blog of a "radical feminist" (read raving insane bitch) after google searching for an article about people who hate kids. You can find her unhinged ravings, which are so extensive that you wonder if some Alaskan meth is involved here
it's good for a laugh, although the fact that she advocates important issues should not be dismissed even though SHE should be. She does for women's rights what Michael Moore has done for the war in Iraq. Taken a good cause and connected it with a lunatic. Apparently I am not the first person to discover her endlessly droll attempt at browbeating half of the planet into submission, nor will I be the last.

Another horrific mommyblog

They say that this the age of self-absorption, and there is perhaps no greater example of that than the proliferation of "mommyblogs", which are for the most part all exactly the same; women and their "beautiful" children and the trials and tribulations of being white, upper-middle class and having a lot of time to punish us with bad writing.

Good writing is about life, and while there are those who can illuminate for us the moments of beauty that come from the relationship of child and mother, it is a very rare thing. Good writing transcends our identities, in large part. Mommyblogs are all about the identity of the author.

This is really a large part of the essence of what blogs are about. There are those that are facing outward, at the world, usually speaking about politics or events, and those facing inward.

I must admit a bias against the inward facing blogs, and perhaps that is unfair, but for the most part they sound selfish and unashamed of that selfishness. It is one thing to be a self-centered person. It is another to have absolutely no shame about it.

Here is an example of one: wendiwen

I normally don't like to take on other bloggers, but when it comes to mommyblogs, I can't hold back. Read this sentence: "4. I know now that baking soda and baking powder are not the same! A lesson learned the hard way."

I don't know how anyone gets through life with at least trying to bake something ONCE...

here's some other links about this particularly annoying trend:

clubmom

"Amy Corbett Storch is a freelance writer whose thoughts on motherhood and other disasters can be found at amalah.com. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and her son, who just so happens to be the most delicious baby on the planet"

ouch...

this article describes an article that raised a stink. I only scanned through it so I can't summarize it for you, but apparently a lot of mommybloggers found it insulting.

I can tell you that a blog from a female perspective is probably not much different in my mind. Good writing is niether female, nor male, nor mom, or dad. It just is. The focus on the identity we are fascinated by in the 20th century has gotten a lot of bad writing published and left a lot of good writing out in the cold. We all recall hearing the song "It's hard out there for a pimp" at the Academy awards and many of us winced more than a little at how the rights of women and the rights of blacks could have such a collision. But that moment was important. When we pay attention to who we are, we forget that perhaps the greatest gift of a writer is to ask who THEY are. I don't pretend to have it, but I know it when I see it.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Not doing your homework can be dangerous

MADISON, Wis. - A state lawmaker, worried about a recent string of deadly school shootings, suggested arming teachers, principals and other school personnel as a safety measure and a deterrent.
ADVERTISEMENT

It might not be politically correct, but it has worked effectively in other countries, Republican Rep. Frank Lasee said Wednesday.

teachers packing

furthermore: "In Thailand, where officials have been waging a bloody fight with Muslim separatists for the last two years, some teachers carry weapons for self defense as they are viewed as part of the government. In Israel, teachers are not allowed to carry weapons in the school, but security guards at the entrances are armed."
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I guarantee you if I had a gun when I taught in Vallejo, there would have been a lot more homework turned in. Does anyone think it is strange that Pennsylvania is using Israel as a model?

Treasonous gas

A man who farted loudly when asked what he thought of the President of Poland was arrested and later failed to appear for court. A manhunt is underway to locate him..

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Idiot corporations

Given the size and wealth of American corporations, we often mistakenly believe that such power is the result of vast intelligence. It leaves us assured that no matter how poor, insignificant and powerless we are, being rich, important, and powerful is no innoculation for stupidity. I would like to thank both Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice for allowing me to maintain my illusion of superiority over the last few years.

I found this article while perusing the pages of Slate in which

"Lots of you complained about your company's idiotic plan to cut costs by clamping down on the purchase and use of office supplies. J.S., a former employee of U.S. Bank, recalled that the company refused to order or pay for Post-it notes. At a very large name-brand data provider, pens and Post-its are apparently kept under lock and key. A relative of a telephone company employee reports that the gigantic firm said it "will no longer purchase supplies such as pencils, and paper, and Post-its" for the office where the employee works."

Still further: "The desire to cut costs by saving or recycling paper clips aroused the most incredulity and anger. Former Bear Stearns employee B.B. recalls being given a bag of paper clips on his first day "with the explanation that the firm would never buy paperclips … This was on the direction of [legendary gazillionaire CEO] Ace Greenberg, and the company seemed almost proud of this inane cost-cutting measure." A former Bank of America investment-banking analyst recalls that the megabank "once told its employees to use paper clips instead of staples because paper clips could be re-used to save money." According to one correspondent, managers at a data center of a different firm were asked to "keep a listing (on a piece of paper) of each clip that we used, and the reason for the use!"

Monday, October 02, 2006

this is funny

overheardinnewyork

Dude #1: All the women in here are pretty unapproachable.
Dude #2: I'll approach the shit outta them.

--Fat Cat, Christopher St

Gastric Adventures: Zucchini Parmesan

Why

This is really creepy

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)




Ahhhh...the exuberance of the 70's....

evil woman

Living thing

Telephone line

Strange magic