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Requires QuickTime, I think.

(link via Boing Boing)

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"My feet were just having a bad day." - Angela

Insert Your Own Angela Joke

The world's first known piece of printed pornography, described as the "quintessence of debauchery," is expected to reach up to 35,000 pounds ($65,040) when it is auctioned next month.

"Sodom," penned in the mid-1670s, has been attributed to John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester and is described by auction house Sotheby's as a "closet drama rather than for the stage" with pornography "in almost every line."

"It is one of the most notorious publications in literature and makes most pornography written 300 years later seem tame."

The book centers on the decision made by a lustful King to "set the nation free" by allowing "buggary" to be "used thro' all the land" and then details the dire consequences.

Let Me Finish Dealing With Fall First Please

The paperwork for the Spring '05 semester came in through the mail today. I'm scheduled to take 16 credits but I'm seriously considering dropping a 3 unit class. Tuition is $15,200.

Forget Studying For Finals, I Need To Practice My Ping-Pong

An email just received.

Tessa has sent you a link to a weblog:

Dearest Wayne (i.e. Mentor)
We all have good days and bad days and this was just a bad day for you. Ping-pong brings people together, not divides them apar...oh, who am I kidding? I won, you lost, and I'll take you on for Gatorade any day.
Much love,
Your Favorite Mentee

Blog: Inter Alia
Post: I Got Spanked By My Mentee

Seriously, who trash talks over ping-pong? And all of people, Tessa. Who knew she had it in her? I must be having some effect on her as a mentor.

For All The 1Ls Working On Their Outlines

And because I'm really too lazy to do any real posting, I direct you to this old post.

A Simple Request

State Bar of California officials were scratching their heads Monday as the pass rate for the July bar examination hit an 18-year low.

Results released late Friday show that only 48 percent of the 8,062 individuals who took the test passed. The pass rate for a main test date hadn't been that low since 1986, when it was only 44 percent.

"Generally, across the country, I hear we need to look at bar pass rates," said Smith, dean of San Diego's California Western School of Law.

He also said pass rates in California are "noticeably lower" than in other states and that it might be time to reconsider how harshly the state's exams are graded.

More than reconsider before the July 2006 bar, please.

Protect Your Unripe Banana Brian

The Banana Guard was specially designed to fit the vast majority of bananas. [All of them at least 6 inches. --Ed.] Its other features include multiple small perforations to facilitate ventilation thereby preventing premature ripening and a sturdy locking mechanism to keep the Banana Guard closed. The Banana Guard is of course dishwasher safe for easy cleaning.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

A few of the things I'm personally thankful for this year.

• Chemerinsky's treatise on Con Law
• LexisNexis' Understanding series
• Case briefs
• Jack Daniel's
  
• Sandy's Con Law outline
• Starbucks
• Laptops
• Ms. Pacman
• Spider solitaire
• Vodka
  
• Text messaging
• Origami
• Beer
  
• Really funny videos from the web and when I say funny I mean funny not "funny" as in porn although I really like to watch those in class as well but only in Con Law class because I sit way in the back.
• The 1Ls
• The U
• Seven Jeans
• Mixed drinks
  
• Group study rooms 11 & 12 - not that I've had occassion to use them, but I'm thankful knowing that they're available for "studying" - *wink wink*.
• Having window blinds in my White Collar Crime class.
• Being able to stand and have my head above water.
• Wine
• Having an alley way to take an emergency piss in because I don't piss in children's playgrounds.
• Alcohol
• Good times.

A full list of things I'm thankful for to come if I should be really bored and not completely drunk.

Drunken Text Messaging

I've received two of 'em in the past week - it's becoming a trend - and they highlight the differences between a drunk Bunny and a drunk Brian.

Drunk Bunny's message: A drunk bunny says "hi"

Drunk Brian's message: U smell bad and i am drunk

Quiz Time

Your score as a human being is 88.3.

You are close to ideal. So close, and yet so far. Amusing, really, to watch someone squirm so close to the vaunted ranks of perfection and still remain so very, very ordinary. It is all one can do to keep one's ingratiating smile from polluting one's perfect face.

Actually, one recommends you take the quiz again and lie a little.

Happy Birthday Sean!

No big cock for you this year. But may you otherwise enjoy your day with all the drunken debauchery that it deserves.

I Got Spanked By My Mentee

And not in the good way - not that I'm into that sorta thing. I'm talking ping-pong people. It was 21-7, 21-8, 21-13 Tessa all the way (do notice my improvement however, which is about the only saving grace there is for me). And no, I didn't lose on purpose. And yes, I must now hang my head in shame because I lost to a girl. And yes, ping-pong is NOT a sport because a girl defeated me in it.

A Stocking Stuffer

I can see Brian making this his next impulse buy on eBay. It would go nice with the autographed Britney Spears memorabilia that he purchased off of that site.

Only one of the above statements is true. Care to tell us which one Brian?

Proximate Cause?

A piece of grilled shrimp flung playfully by a Japanese hibachi chef toward a tableside diner is being blamed for causing the man's death.

Making a proximate-cause argument, the lawyer for the deceased man's estate has alleged that the man's reflexive response -- to duck away from the flying food -- caused a neck injury that required surgery.

Complications from that first operation necessitated a second procedure. Five months later, Jerry Colaitis of Old Brookville, N.Y., was dead of an illness that his family claims was proximately caused by the injury.

A List

So the SBA has decided to sell t-shirts with a Top Ten Reasons To Go To SWLAW, or something like that, on the back. Here are a few suggestions.

1. Some of our graduates pass the Bar.
2. Close proximity to the corner taco shack and many toilet stalls on campus for afterwards.
3. The grading curve... wrong list... nevermind.
4. Our library is an award winning historic preservation landmark. Everyone else's library is just a piece of shit, especially Loyola's.
5. Johnnie Cochran went to that other law school.
6. Low academic admissions standards = really hot 1Ls... sometimes... every other year... on a good year... when the stars and the moons align correctly.
   
7. We spell contract with a K and only a K. Other law schools do the same too but this is not about them so eff' 'em.
8. Tea room is much easier to spell than kafeetearia and way more hoity toity cooler to say as well.
9. Esteemed professors Tribe, Dershowitz, and Fried... wait that's Harvard... nevermind.
10. Group study rooms 11 and 12 don't have windows meaning that lots of "studying" is to be had inside(a *wink wink* if the quotes around studying aren't enough to connote wild orgies).
11. We have a great entertainment law program and really, who doesn't want to practice entertainment law?
12. At SWLAW, IRAC stands for the self-affirming message, I Really Am Cool.
13. SWLAW is the Howard University of the west.
14. We're not Whittier Law School.
15. Professor Riley - before she was pregnant.

Back To College I Should Go

Thank You Trini

For the post below. But the hugs and kisses should really go all around to everyone. For as much as Brian and I may have done, we didn't do near everything that had to be done for the many resulting successful accomplishments of the SBA. So everyone on SBA give yourselves a pat on the back and if you desire more* I'll** be in the library all day today and tomorrow.

Congratulations SBA and may we accomplish even more next semester.

*Hugs, kisses, sexual gratification, etc.
**I'm willing to satisfy the desires of all attractive females. Brian will handle the males and ugly females.

Hugs and Kisses all around

The SBA proudly announced its two most valuable Commissioners at this evening's final fall meeting - Wayne and Brian. As part of the congratulatory speech made by Karla, she urged all in attendance to shower both of these fine gentleman with some hugs and kisses.

Knowing Wayne wouldn't toot his own horn (or would he?), I had to share this with the blogger world to spread word so that everyone* could express their love and appreciation for the SBA's MVCs - Most Valuable Commissioners.

Great job fellas!

*All the attractive 1L females

Oh Goodie

The new Southwestern Reporter Online is up. A 1L sectionmate as well as my White Collar Crime professor are featured.

So Guess Who Found Out About My Blog Now

Professor Norman Garland, is the greatest law professor ever! A much better professor than those schlubs Tribe, Dershowitz, or Fried.

I really should have done this blog anonymously.

Flat Tax Revisited

I was sent the following in an email in response to my earlier post about a flat tax.

How does the flat tax measure up when it comes to simplicity, fairness, and economic incentives?

Making the transition from the current system to a flat tax would involve countless complications. Would the deductibility of home mortgage interest be eliminated for all homeowners regardless of when they purchased their property, which might be perceived as unfairly changing the rules in the middle of the game? Or would deductibility be phased out somehow? Any phasing out process would almost certainly be enormously complex. Similar transition problems would arise for changes in rules affecting capital gains, depreciation, corporate interest expenses, and so on.

• The ivory tower version of the flat tax would be unlikely to resemble the less pure, more complicated version that Congress would actually enact. Almost certainly, Congress would strive to minimize the wrath of the large and well- financed constituencies who would defend the individual and corporate tax breaks they fought so hard to create and sustain in the past. As a result, some write-offs would be likely to endure. So would the complexity that each retained tax break entails, perhaps magnified by transition rules.

• By reducing the top tax rate and eliminating taxation of investment income, which is predominantly collected by families with the highest incomes, a flat tax would provide an enormous windfall to the wealthiest. For such a tax to maintain the same level of government revenue, everyone else would have to pay higher taxes. As a result, a flat tax would be less progressive than the current system but less regressive than a pure consumption tax.

• A Treasury Department analysis of one prominent flat tax proposal estimated that the plan would reduce taxes for those in the top 5 percent of the income distribution and increase the burden for everyone else. The average tax rate would decline the most for those in the top 1 percent of the income distribution and increase the most for those in the bottom 20 percent.43 These changes are due mainly to the elimination of graduated rates, the exemption of investment income, and the demise of Earned Income Tax Credit.

• The flat tax would remain as vulnerable to tax avoidance attributable to undeclared income as the current system.

• If a flat tax that ultimately emerged from the political process retained some tax breaks, those write-offs would continue to enable some taxpayers to pay less than others with similar incomes.

• New opportunities for corporate tax avoidance and evasion would be created as businesses sought to redefine taxable sales as nontaxable interest received.

• The ripple effects from eliminating various deductions could be enormous. For example, charities probably would be hurt by the absence of the charitable deduction, employer-provided health insurance and other benefits might decline because companies could no longer deduct such expenses, and housing values could fall after the elimination of the home mortgage interest deduction. The magnitude of such effects are unpredictable, but they could be considerable.44

• The tax increase a flat tax would likely impose on low-, middle-, and some upper-middle income households could slow down the economy significantly if implemented suddenly.

My thoughts on this later. Or if someone smarter than me would like, feel free to respond in the comments.

So?

Below are the most popular interests cited by eHarmony members.

Interests most often cited (ranked):

Women

1. Friendship
2. Family
3. Talking with Friends
4. Traveling
5. Listening to Music
6. Conversation
7. Movies
8. Learning
9. Live Music
10. Dining Out

Men

1. Friendship
2. Family
3. Listening to Music
4. Movies
5. Traveling
6. Conversation
7. Talking with Friends
8. Learning
9. Dining Out
10. Live Music

Dilemma II

Poker or study for finals?

July 2004 California Bar Exam Results

The search for names begins here.

The State Bar's Committee of Bar Examiners reported today that 48.2 percent of the applicants passed the July 2004 General Bar Examination (GBX).

This rate is just slightly lower than the 49.4 percent passing rate on the July 2003 GBX. If the 3887 people who passed the July 2004 examination satisfy other requirements for admission, they will become members of the State Bar.

Preliminary statistical analyses show that of the 8062 applicants who took the July 2004 GBX, 68.5 percent were first-time takers. The passing rates for the 5521 first-time applicants were:

* 62.8 percent overall
* 69.4 percent for applicants who attended California law schools approved by the American Bar Association (ABA)
* 65.8 percent for applicants from ABA schools outside of California
* 28.6 percent for applicants from schools accredited by the Committee but not approved by the ABA
* 9.1 percent for applicants who studied law at unaccredited law schools
* 36.2 percent for correspondence law school applicants
* 42.3 percent for those that were not allocated to a law school (because they did not take the GBX within one year of graduation) Most of these applicants are graduates of ABA-approved law schools.