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Involuntary Blogslaughter

This is a blog by a second-year law student at University of Michigan Law School. This blog is filled with misspeliing, grammar mistakes, cynicism, and bitterness because of the Yale Law rejection.

Name:
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States

Thursday, April 07, 2005

I am worth only about $2 million

I am worth $2,007,344.00 on HumanForSale.com

Kind of cheap if you ask me ... Any takers?

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

70 degrees outside

This is cruel! I know I complained a lot when it was -30 outside, but at least I had an incentive to stay inside and study. Now, when exams are only 3 weeks away, the weather turns nice. Instead of thinking about Corporate Taxation or Federal Jurisdiction, I have all kinds of silly thoughts about walks in the park, playing freesbee, or having wild orgies. So please, let there be snow and cold until the exams are over!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Answer by MBA Student:

Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Boston Consulting Group, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Utilizing the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), BCG helped the chicken to leverage its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework.


Law Student:

In the matter of People v. Chicken, the chicken pleads not guilty. The chicken has no recollection of the alleged road crossing on the alleged road crossing date. In addition, the alleged road is not actually a road but a paved right-of-way. U.S.C. Sec. 3456(a)(2)(F)(iii) defines road as "An open, generally public way for the passage of vehicles, people, and animals." The paved surface in question was not a road because it was not open for the passage of animals.

Furthermore, U.S. Constitition guarantees the chicken a right to a speedy trial by an impartial jury. Chicken's due process rights are violated because chickens are deliberately excluded from the pool of qualified jurors.

In the alternative, the chicken's road crossing should be mitigated to an "involuntary path crossing" offense. The chicken's offense was commited under an adequate provocation after the chicken saw the road being traversed by another rooster.

Medical Student:

The patient came in complaining of chicken road crossing. Symptoms include sudden urges to cross things, rapid leg movement, and geospacial dislocation of the body. Performed MRI, heart palpation, and a rectal examination. The origins of this misterious affliction remain puzzling and more testing is necessary. Because the patient is uninsured, sent him home with instructions to drink more liquids.

Computer Science Student:

10 DIM CHICKEN AS VARIANT;
20 DIM ROAD AS LONG;
30 LET CHICKEN = "FEATHERS, BEAK, YUMMY MEAT";
40 DO WHILE 1=1;
50 CALL SUB CHICKEN_CROSS_ROAD (CHICKEN, ROAD);
60 LOOP;
70 END.

Philosophy Student:

[Add your own in the comments]

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Sick

Me feel sicky ... Brain not work .... citechecking due tomorrow ... very very bad ...

My Living Will

I, Daniel M., being of sound mind and body, hereby grant authority over my handling should I enter a persistent vegetative state to the United States Congress pursuant to the following conditions:

Congress shall convene for the sole purpose of determining whether or not I should be sustained or allowed to die. A special quorum for this session shall consist of at least 62% of the House of Representatives and 70% of the Senate present and accounted for. Both houses of Congress must each agree, by a simple majority, on the same course of action.

In the event of a tie in the House of Representatives, the tie shall be broken by the non-voting representative from American Samoa. If this individual is not available to break a tie, other non-voting representatives shall be called upon in the following priority:
Guam
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
Washington DC
A Coin Flip conducted by the youngest present congressman

In the Senate, a tie shall be broken by a potato sack race between the eldest Senators for each side of the argument. If one such Senator is a Senator from Idaho, he or she is to be considered to have an unfair advantage and his spot will be passed to the next-eldest non-Idaho Senator. This race shall be no shorter than 50 meters and no longer than 100 meters.

If Congress is unable to make a determination based on the conditions set forth above, then the decision whether or not to keep me alive with machines shall fall to the Bush twins. If Jenna is unable to serve in this capacity, then Bjork may cast a vote in her place. If Barbara is similarly unavailable, her vote may be cast by a well-trained parrot of Jenna's choosing.

In the event of a tie between the Bush twins (or their aforementioned proxies) then that tie shall be broken by the oldest living descendent of Adlai Stevenson.

If neither Bush twin is available to determine my fate, I would like to convene a blue ribbon panel of Dungeons And Dragons players for this purpose. The 12-person panel shall be selected by the United States Supreme Court, and will meet in the rotunda of the US Capitol building. They are to be the best such players currently available (as determined by court-appointed experts). They shall set about determining my fate based on my assorted attributes and several rolls of 20-sided die.

If it proves impossible to convene such a panel (or they are split evenly), and I am married, I would like my spouse to make the decision, but not before conducting no fewer than 75 television interviews. Any and all political causes are hereby authorized to co-opt her name and likeness for their own agendas, except the Sierra Club and National Association of Home Builders.

If I am unmarried or am married to someone who is unreasonably shy, and I have been determined not to be able to ever communicate again in any meaningful way, then please just let me die.


I shamelessly stole this from Andy Maskin

Monday, March 28, 2005

Link to other blogs/sites

If you want a link here to your blog or website, post a comment with the title and URL. I will add you to the list of links on the left side.

Productive Dreaming

I spent the entire night going over my Choice of Law Reading in my dreams. I recalled the facts of the cases I read recently, thought about implications of Erie and whether Van Dusen decision makes sense. I wish all of my dreams where as productive as last night's. I came to the conclusion that Van Dusen and Ferens does make sense under the current constitutional interpretation and the best way to reduce forum shopping is to modify the federal jurisdiction statute to not allow plaintiffs file lawsuits in an inconvenient forum. i.e. "Federal court shall have jusridiction unless another more convenient federal court also has jurisdiction."

The only downside is that I am very sleepy today and probably won't be able to pay attention in class ...

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Club Review

Every Saturday, there is a latin music night at Guy's Hollerin. This place is attached to Holiday Inn hotel, I think this is normally where they serve breakfast to their guests. It works as a sports bar during the day, and on Saturday it becomes a latin dancing mecca of Ann Arbor.

First, I was shocked to find out that they have a dress code. When I came into the door in my white tennis shoes, all eager to pay the $7 cover charge to get in, I was shot down. It turns out that the only things they don't allow are tennis shoes and baseball caps. Who would ever think that a sports bar would have such a strict dress code? But the guy at the door told me "It makes all the difference in the clientele." I always carry a pair of black dancing shoes, so I went to my car and changed. Interestingly, when I came back I saw people in swimming shorts going through, without any shoes or top. Go figure, tennis shoes - not ok, barefoot - come on in.

Anyway, this was the only hurdle that night. Other than that, it is a relatively nice place. Drinks are reasonable (4.25 for mixed drinks and draft beer), dance floor is relatively big, lots of space to sit around, music was good. The DJ put about 3-4 songs of the same type (Salsa, Mernegue, Bachata, Cumbia) in a row and then switched to the next type. People were nice and friendly, there were about twice as many guys then girls, but for some reason most guys just sat around the bar and watched. A lot of Mexican guys. It got crowded after midnight and people started leaving around 1.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Why apply to Law Review

Heidi Bond recently wrote about the reasons for applying to Law Review Here is my opinion:

1. Law Review expands your future career choices. Just like going to a more prestigeous law school gives you more options after graduation, being on a prestigeous journal gives you more options. It is hard to measure the exact edge it gives you.

I don't think Law Review played a significant factor in my OCI interview. Some interviews didn't even notice that line on my resume. Some wanted to talk about my note. At the end of the day, it seems like I got a similar number of callback and got similar offers to those students who are not on LR. So I don't know if it made any difference.

2. You will be able to eat in the library. If you run for the ed board, you might even get your own office in the library.

3. The ability to publish your own note, even years after you graduate, is priceless.

4. Law Professors respect you and sometimes are nice to you. One professor recently called me one of the best students he's ever had :)

4. Most improtantly - it trains us to do meaningless and tedious work, which is what most lawyers do . . .

5. You are a member of an exclusive club. You become friends with other people on LR. Just another social network.

Yes, I know, there are two #4. LR does not improve your math skills.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Here is an excerpt from an actual case:
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In February and March, 1996, the time at which this action arose, plaintiff was a prisoner/patient and defendant was employed as a nurse at the Huron Valley Medical Center [HVC]. Plaintiff claims that during that time defendant engaged in repeated acts of sexual harrassment. These acts began with instances of defendant grabbing plaintiff's genitals. Subsequently, defendant wrongfully administered Thorazine to plaintiff and sexually assaulted him through an act of fellatio. . . . The court, having heard plaintiff's testimony and reviewing the exhibits submitted by him [I wonder what he exhibited?], finds that his testimony is credible and he has established that the acts complainted of took place. The court further finds that the conduct of the defendant violated rights of plaintiff protected under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution [Ah, the framers of the constitution were smart enough to include a "no-blowjob" clause] in that they involved the imposition of force without a legitimate penological basis and constituted deliberate indifference to plaintiff's medical needs. . . . I conclude that plaintiff is entitled to judgment in the amount of Twenty Five Thousand dollars, plus reasonable costs.