I stole this from Kristina: follow up

My computer has been replaced, and I was able to recover nearly all my data from the old one!

Here are the answers to the songs from last fracking semester!
1. The Donna's - do you want to hit it?
2. Avril Lavenge - complicated
3. MB20- real world
4. Godsmack - bad religion
5. Queen - we are the champions
6. RATM - No shelter
7. Linkin Park - Breaking the habit
8. Aerosmith - Something's gotta give
9. Devildriver - Digging up the corpses
10. Kittie - Charlotte
11. Lords of Acid - the dude
12. AFI - Death of Seasons
13. Edna's goldfish - purple
14. Mest - What's the Dilio?
15. Mephiskapheles - Saba

Shit, I don't even know who Devildriver is or where I got it...but that's what it played!

An Old Gripe

I won't pretend that this entry is insightful or original, but both genders are guilty of forgetting some obvious things, which means repetition is unfortunately necessary.

A few weeks ago, one of my friends here in Bloomington got me interested in a law blog by Dizzy. The blog is mostly about relationship gripes, and manages to entertain while also giving us guys useful intel about how "the other side" is thinking. Of course, by subjecting myself to a stream of complaints about men, I'm inevitably going to run into things about the way women think and/or act that make me want to bitch back. Things such as this post and this post.

The first post is about a guy who got his hopes up about being able to take a colleague home, and since he was about to be leaving the job anyways, he figured he had both good shot of getting a yes and not much to lose if he got a no. He took the shot, she apparently tried to gently wave him off, he missed the hint, she then directly said she didn't think it was a good idea, and he then proceeded to completely air his feelings, guaranteeing an embarrassing and awkward time for all parties invovled. The guy here is clearly a bonehead for disregarding the direct shootdown; the woman there did just fine. But, it wouldn't have been good enough for Dizzy if he stopped at "I don't think that's a good idea." Dizzy is griping that he didn't catch onto the fact that she "had clearly rejected him" from the beginning with the hint--as if the situation that resulted would still have been his fault even without the direct rejection--and it's this expectation that has pissed me off for years.

It isn't because her interpretation of what the woman said is unreasonable. Not only was it reasonable, it was right, and her reasoning for why the woman said what she said makes perfect sense. But, there isn't anything "clear" about a hint or any statement that requires reading between the lines--as a matter of definition. (And remember what our LRW prof's keep telling us, if you need to use words like "clearly" in making your argument, it's precisely because it's not clear!!!) Whenever people look beyond the face value of words, there is always room for different interpretations. What interpretations are more reasonable depend on the listener's own point of view, experiences, biases, mental processes, etc. It also depends on the speaker; different people might even have spoken the same words for different reasons. For example, from my own point of view, if a girl I'm attracted to asks me if I had plans after the current engagement or if I was just going home, I might very well say that I was tired and planning on going home even if I was open to the idea of going home with that person. This is because (1) it's just plain true, (2) the other given choice of having plans already pretty much precludes a hookup, if that's what I want (and still true), and/or (3) I might need to deflect any inferences that the reason I look the way I do is because I'm in a bad mood when I'm actually doing fine; I've just been in that noisy bar too long and I'm coming off my buzz, and nothing would please me more than to go someplace quieter where I can be more comfortable, both physically and emotionally (and again, true). I know you're saying that one's crazy but that really is the way I usually feel after the 2 hour mark. I might say 'drained' instead of 'tired' though--whatever. The point is if you get me in a better environment, I'll perk up. We can argue back and forth about the reasonableness of different interpretations, but it doesn't matter if the listener is right or wrong or even reasonable or unreasonable--especially because a person under that sort of emotional stress probably can't think rationally in the first place! What matters is that because our minds work differently, we will inevitably reach different conclusions--and that's assuming the listener even tries to read between the lines at all. Because of this, when you try to communicate in hints, you assume the risk of the hint not being communicated. Period.

And don't give me any of that crap about how you're using hints becaue you don't want to hurt his feelings. That's a cop-out, or at best, a sign that you've forgotten a lesson you should have learned by now: that at least to us, there are far worse things than being rejected. We're mentally prepared to take "no" for an answer (well, not Bonehead apparently...), but we will be justifiably pissed off if we end up having to deal with a greater emotional harm later down the road that could have been prevented with a little up-front honesty.

What's more is that I'd be fucking pissed if I found out I missed a golden opportunity because someone tried to read something into something I said that wasn't there. (It's happened before, except by people far more important than casual hookup candidates.) Since I don't want to bear the costs of misinterpretations, I deal with my friends honestly. Naively, I suppose, I expect the same from others. I'm quite sure that if it had been me in the Bonehead's position, I would have missed the hint too, and while I do fault myself for some degree for being dense on such matters, I do fault the speaker more for making the choice to communicate ineffectively. And in keeping in line with the tradition of the "advice" motive of Dizzy's blog (not to imply that advice by me to women is as useful as hers to men, of course. I have no such delusions), I'll add to this rant that if I can't trust someone to say what she means and mean what she says, it's unlikely that I'll be interested in her. It's inconsistent with my belief in relationships being based on mutual respect, and probably also a major reason why I'm single.

The second post is along the same lines. Dizzy graciously offers us advice on how to get laid--thanks!--and offers us some useful intel: that what women really want is someone who's great in bed. Well shit, that's encouraging, because after hearing about the stupid nitpicky stuff that I hear women criticize people about it's nice to hear that the key is actually something that we can expect to matter and that we have some control over. Besides, I've always had much more trouble being invited the first time than I have being invited back for a second. ; ) So far, so good... But then my hopes are dashed, because I then find out that we are being evaluated on this based on the degree of control we're willing to give up in social situations (witholding personal secrets, not exerting influence on other's decisions, deciding on a partner instead of "keeping one's options open," etc).

First off, if there is any relationship between a willingness to give up that sort of control (some of which reeks of tired gripe about committment) and "performance," it's very attenuated. I'm willing to give Dizzy this much though--someone with a personality that is amenable to accepting the vulnerability that comes with "losing control" is also going to be more self-confident and more willing to let go of inhibitions, and will therefore be more passionate. (If I'm wrong about how the dots are connected, please correct me, because I don't want to set up a straw man.) The problem with this is that personality does not tell us much about actual behavior. Behavior is situation-based. It's entirely possible that a person who does not display vulnerability-accepting behavior in a social context is quite willing and able to cut loose in a more intimate setting. I just fear what else is on that list that wasn't mentioned, because really, I want to know if I'm accidentally sending any messages I don't know about!

This is actually another one of my old relationship gripes. I call it "the test." As in, your girlfriend (or potential gf) isn't sure about something about you, and tries to approach the problem quasi-scientifically. She thinks up a hypothesis and a way to test it--if you do X, then you must be/think Y. The problem is that the variables are never controlled and the whole thing is invalid. One uncontrolled variable here is the social context, and it renders the analysis invalid.

I have to admit though, that I can only be so frustrated with this last one, because I'm guilty of doing it as well. One of my main criteria is my own estimate of the quality of the "experience," and I can't say I have anything reasonable to base it on either. My hypocrisy goes only so far, though. I won't state flatly that a woman who does X or doesn't do Y is going to suck. I won't go farther than "probably," and I'm acutely aware of the fact that I've been surprised before.

Leadership Requires Moral Clarity

The President has decided not to meet with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, and apparently not to accept his invitation to a debate as well. That didn't come as a surprise, but does that mean we should be OK with it? I'm a bit put off by the thought of an American president running away from a debate with any other head of state; the fact that it would be with a head of state as pompous and arrogant as Ahmadinejad and from a state as rogue as Iran makes it so much worse. But the real kicker is that this comes at a time when America needs to demonstrate moral leadership even more than it must demonstrate military resolve.

We're told that a debate right now would be a distraction from the more pressing issue of getting Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment programs. Well, that's certainly true, it would be a distraction... but I don't hear any counteroffers of having a debate after Iran brings itself into compliance. Forgive me if I sense that there's a bit of a cop-out here. A more likely explanation (and rather obvious, considering this came as no surprise to anyone) is that the debate will pretty much be an opportunity for Iran, Venezuela, et. al. to spout off all their complaints against us, and we don't want to face it.

Well, that's a problem. If we're being blamed for being "the root cause of all the problems in the world," we sure as hell need to face up to that charge. We're afraid to do so. Part of this is because we're worried that, although our detractors are wrong on most points, we will not be able to effectively rebut them and the global attention will hurt our image regardless of who is right. The other part that bothers us is that we know in some ways, they are going to be right, and that most of us within the US are going to learn things about ourselves we didn't know and were happier not knowing. Both of these excuses suck ass.

First of all, we never miss an opportunity to compliment ourselves on how great our political system is. One would think that in a country with such an advanced system, great politicians, orators, researchers, and scholars would be produced. We should be able field a team that can create and communicate a winning argument. Yeah, I doubt Bush is the best guy to actually articulate the argument. But Cheney may well be, and I don't see any problem with offering someone else. I'm sure Ahmadinejad wants Bush because he knows Bush will make an ass of himself, and he'll be angry if we offer a pinch hitter. And not offering Bush will signal weakness in the sense that we know Bush can't debate worth a damn--but guess what? The whole world already knows Bush is a shitty speaker. Making a counteroffer will put Ahmadinejad on the defensive though, because then he'll have to choose what is more important, embarrassing a leader with just 2 years left in his term, or having a discussion on issues that will continue to be important to the 3rd world for decades to come. By running away altogether, we signal weakness not only in Bush himself, but in America's policies as well.

Second, if we are doing wrong in the world, sticking our heads in the sand isn't exactly the kind of leadership we need to be demonstrating. The conflict we're in now is one of ideology, and what happens in the minds of people all over the world is just as crucial as what happens on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. If we want to persuade the poor, hopeless, and angry masses of potential terrorists not to resort to violence against the West, we can't do it by being hypocrites and by providing them with reasons to hate us. We're trying to persuade them to adopt a different moral order, because we know that the progress of society requires peace and stability and that peace and stability can only be achieved if (1) people are willing to accept their differences and co-exist rather than resorting to force, or (2) the sovereign is able to force the same views upon everyone and is repressive enough to ensure stability. We also know that the absolute power of (2) corrupts absolutely and will not work over time, and even while it is working it imposes terrible costs. A moral argument is not persuasive, however, if it comes from an immoral source. Clerics and other leaders will not endorse democratic reform and non-violence if they are firmly convinced that doing so will simply allow the US to expand it hegemony to their detriment. The rank-and-file will be happy to listen to radicals who blame the US for injustices as long as we fail to refute the cases where we are right AND to apologize and make amends for the cases where we are wrong. There will be such cases.

In our policies, there is often a conflict between acting in our interest and doing the right thing. We may be realizing, however, that our place in the world cannot be maintained through force of arms alone. It requires maintaining the cooperation of our allies and breaking up the unity of our enemies. Our old ways of supporting corrupt regimes, covertly toppling governments, assassination, exploitation of economic power, etc., must be reigned in if we're to be perceived as the "good guys" we like to believe we are. Doing the right thing is becoming our interest.

So why not tell the world that we are doing the right thing when we are accused of causing problems? Why not apologize when they are right, and resolve to act consistently with our values? This is what the version of America that exists in our hearts and minds would do; isn't it worth a little discomfort to make the America that actually exists act the same way?

Applying legal concepts to ordinary buisiness dealings (AKA: Why non lawyers hate us)

I just received my replacement system. I don't know if it works yet, because I can't plug my keyboard in. Apparently, this new system (a Dell Dimesnion E310) only supports USB keyboards and mice. I had a conventional keyboard with my old Dimension. They did not send a compatible keyboard with the E310. And I am thoroughly pissed. So, I'm about to send this email to tech support:

The system is here (mostly). Thank you.

However, it appears that this system does not support conventional mice or keyboards. The Dimension that I bought did, obviously.

I would like to point out that when I agreed to receive a new system and to send the orginal system back, I was promised, "Since your system is no longer in production at our factory, the replacement system will be refurbished. It will meet/exceed the specifications of your original system." (Emphasis added) The system you have sent me does not meet or exceed the specifications of my original system because my original system supported conventional mice and keyboards, while the replacement cannot.

As a rememdy, I propose that Dell ships a keyboard that is compatible with the E310 system to me. In the alternative, if I am forced to buy new components in order to have a system that functions, then I will not ship back the original system. The sale and/or use of salvaged parts should adequately compensate me for Dell's breach.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed.

Sincerely,

Ken Bach

I'm actually a little weak on whether there was actually an offer and acceptance here, or on whether they are obligated to replace the keyboard under warranty, but no need to tell them that yet. Hopefully I can save myself a trip to Best Buy.

Progress Report

So far, so good. I've been able to find the time to work out as planned without missing too much. My record was not perfect, however most of the sets I missed I was able to make up over the weekend. What I didn't expect was that it wasn't busy-work type stuff that bumped most of my workouts, but social engagements. That's not something I feel too badly about. Overall, I'm giving myself a B+ for the week.

Goal Progress: On target, completed nearly all sets for the week w/o unduly interfering with other priorities.
Completeness: Mostly complete. Missed regeneration and prehab sets. Made up strength and prehab sets.
Performance: weight range for upper body sets low, but improving quickly. EAS (cardio) performance OK in the 0-12 minute range, but need to maintain effort for the longer sets.
Motivation: Adequate. Will be considered good when I begin looking forward to going to SCRC. Will be considered great when the more it hurts, the better I feel. Currently at the "I don't care if I'm tired, I'm doing all the fucking reps" stage. Being in a room with other people, about half of whom are female, about 85% of whom are quite attractive, helps a lot with that one.
Injury: OK. No sign of tendonitis. Some residual soreness in calves after runs.
Fatigue: Moderate. Feeling a little worn out at the beginning of a set sometimes.
Nutrition: Good. But could be improved. I pretty much stuck to the plan from last weekend to Thursday, but from that point forward consumed too much beer and soda and spaced my meals too far apart.

Reflections on the War on Terror

Like many others, I've spent the last two evening watching ABC's path to 9-11 and the President's speech, so I've been thinking about where we on in the war and where we soon could be. I'm starting the feel that the situation is rather bleak.

There's really no excuse if we fail in Iraq. We have competent, adaptive people on the ground and a country that wants to be secure. I'm personally aggravated because we only hear about Iraq when US personnel die or when there are significant civilian casualties. We rarely hear about their political system, development of education, development of government and social institutions, and anti-terror raids. It's not a balanced picture, and it's sapping our will to fight. And that's just the thing. We can win. But in the final analysis, we may lose anyways because we're pussies compared to the fundamentalist extremists. We bitch and moan about high gas prices, health care, and the occasional casualty for a war many of us don't even understand, while our enemies completely dedicate themselves to the cause, forsaking their careers, family, safety... risking their lives, and in some cases, voluntarily giving their lives, to that cause. If these people only understood the futility of using force over beliefs and the value of religious and intellectual tolerance, they would be heroic. But we can't be bothered by the reality that we're in a war that's bigger than a regional flare-up; we just want to get on with our normal lives and be happy.

America may well be in military decline, and not just unconventionally. We have allowed eastern antiship missile technology to exceed ours. We have allowed eastern air to air missile technology to equal ours. We are allowing petty environmentalists to endanger our capability to defend against subsurface threats. The day may very well be coming when our forces are denied access to areas of the world where we need to maintain a presence to secure our economic interests. But as the world's only superpower, we don't care because we don't see a new Russia emerging. That's a big mistake, and it may cost us far more than proliferation of nuclear weapons to new states (although probably not as much as proliferation to terrorist groups). Again, this state of affairs isn't because we're not better than them. It's because we're allowing them to beat us. It's a question of will and priority. Our missile priorities have turned sharply to the strike role, despite the proven ineffectiveness of the LAM against terrorist targets (due to them getting the hell out of dodge) and a reasonable appraisal of their effectiveness against conventional targets (will be shot down by air defenses before reaching them). What really matters in a conventional battle isn't stand-off LAMs, but air supremacy. But, in our arrogance, we have assumed that we will have air supremacy by default and have spent our money on programs that exploit this assumed condition. With Russian and Chinese equipment and expertise being sold around the globe, that assumption will likely prove not to be true.

Security is not a fixed status. One does not attain it and then not worry about it anymore. America feels that it has done just that. We feel safe because we are the only superpower and because terrorists seem unable to strike targets outside of the mideast at present. And because of that, we feel we can just go on our merry way and not have to worry. We're wrong about that, and if we don't wake up we are going to lose our position in the world. And considering just how badly our ideological enemies and developing rivals want it and how far they are willing to go to get it, I'm not sure we deserve the top spot with our current attitude.

Making a Commitment

I think it's time. For too long, I've sit around watching my muscles shrink and my gut expand, and I haven't done anything about it besides complain about my lack of motivation to change the trend. There was a time when I could make my own motivation and it wouldn't matter. I'm not sure if I'm back to that point, but if I'm not I need to get there. In any case, at the moment I think my brother has provided enough motivation for me to push me along to the point that I can do it on my own.

So, today, I started on Mark Verstegen's excercise plan, which is essentially the same plan that my brother introduced to Special Boat Team 20 (yep, he's in the Navy). The SEALs are expected to follow suit. After all, SBT20 was plagued by overuse injuries under their older plans, and those injuries dropped off to ZERO after the new plan was implemented. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. And better still, it isn't supposed to take much more than 30-45 minutes a day. Considering my tendonitis and my time constraints, this seems just about perfect.

Right now, my only real goal is to implement the plan and stick with it. I think once I get it to be a routine, I'll view it as one of my daily responsibilities, just like going to class or reading cases. I think I'm going to manage. I've already tweaked the recomended plan to fit into my schedule and bought some equipment. Also, I've been regulating my diet much more strictly than I have in the past since mid-summer. I've stuck with that so far, and I think I'm going to rachet that up a notch as well... I'll have to check my intake levels and see how close they are to the targets (right now I don't know, I'm adhering to the principles rather than any strict plan).

With any luck, this will be an important step in getting my life to where it should be. Who knows, as my health and energy levels improve, I might even stop being the non-smiling mopey guy all the time. We'll see...

It's alive!

Sort of. It's been brought to my attention that fellow IU law bloggers have *gasp* actually linked my page! Seeing as it is that I might actually get more than 2 hits a month, I should probably start writing again now that things have started up again.

Speaking of starting again, this semester terrifies me. Between the normal courseload, job-searching, journal, and moot court, I think I'm going to be thoroughly burnt out by winter. And I know a lot of you are sick of hearing the complaints of the journal monkeys, so I apologize to all of you reading this that feel that way. The fact remains that I feel that I have to do both journal and moot court and that it's going to hurt, so there.

Normally, to help me through the dark times...or to be honest, to exacerbate the problem, has been my underpowered yet reliable Dell desktop PC. But, as fate would have it, that PC did not survive my moving to Poolside. I don't understand why exactly; it wasn't dropped or slammed around or anything. But it's very dead. So dead that even after having techies here twice, replacing the motherboard twice, replacing the processor, replacing the power supply, reconfiguring the memory, and going over every diagnostic procedure four times, Dell still doesn't know WTF is wrong with it and is replacing it with a new system. I better get something above my current specs because this new system's memory will NOT be compatible with the one I have now, and I very recently purchased a now-useless upgrade. They also want me to ship the hard drive back, which is sort of aggravating. That old drive is probably not worth more than $20, but the data on it is worth a shitload to me. It isn't clear that I'll be able to transfer the data to the new system, but I'm sure as hell going to try.

I can't wait for Season 3 of BSG to start. I can't wait so bad I've re-watched just about every episode from Season 1-Season 2.0. Why not Season 2.5 too? Well, because they haven't released the DVD yet and because the .avi's are on my dead fracking computer! Sci Fi was supposed to put a summary program on On Demand, but they didn't. They were supposed to but the same on their website "for the entire month of September." They didn't. Miraculously, they managed to post the first "webisode" up today, but at a mere 4 minutes, it doesn't do much to help my withdrawal. I need to go toaster hunting, and soon.

Well, without my 'puter or BSG to amuse me, I guess I'll have to rely on my old fallback, alcohol. Unfortunately, I tend not to drink a lot unless I'm in a good mood. So, I need to get myself in a good mood quick for this weekend. I'm not sure how to do that. Any ideas? I have one that involves shooting people. I better make sure that won't be too expensive on my budget. ; )

Oh... and as for the answers to last semester's post about random music... I do have a list of all the files. But, you guessed it, they're on my other computer!