Month: August 2008

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Insult on Top of Injury

Like so many others, Sarah and I studied for the bar via BAR/BRI, though we used the iPod home study course because Chicago’s academic year ran halfway through the BAR/BRI Texas course. So, we got our iPods, diligently studied, and hopefully passed the Texas bar. Then we sent our iPods back for refunds of our $600 deposits (yes, you pay $600 for the iPod course on top of the $$$$ for the regular course, then a $600 deposit, all for a $179.48 iPod nano), which, predictably, is where things got really stupid.

We hadn’t heard from BAR/BRI, at all, despite the fact that UPS delivered our packages some time ago. You see, we very carefully sent them in two separate packages addressed one by each of us, because of the likelihood that somebody would get confused, only record one, and try to stiff us $600. Of course, come to find out, somebody got confused, anyway, by the arrival of two iPods from people with the same address and last name. So, he recorded one of them, put me down for a refund, and put Sarah down for $600 of incompetence fees. When I called to figure out what was going on, the lovely young lady on the other end – after misspelling my name repeatedly, refusing to believe my name is Ed, refusing to listen to which way Sarah spells her name, getting confused, crashing a computer, putting me on hold, dropping my call, and explaining that the status on her computer was irrelevant because all refunds are processed promptly and without fail – insisted to me repeatedly that it was all my fault for sending them in one box and, thanks to the intrepid warehouse staff of BAR/BRI Texas, my incompetence has now been rectified, restoring the perfect record of BAR/BRI’s database.

Sigh.

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“Car Free” Days a Wash, At Best

Hilarious. People try to be environmentally friendly by completely and randomly interfering with other people’s lives, and they unsurprisingly make a hash of things:

Only in Seattle could an event touted as a way to help the environment get washed out during what is supposed to be the driest time of the year.

Car-free days is part of Mayor Greg Nickels’ campaign to encourage people to walk, bike or take mass transit.

One neighborhood is closed off to car traffic during selected weekends this summer.

Favorite quote:

“I think it promotes awareness of whatever we’re promoting awareness of,” said resident Thomas Hubbard.

Well, obviously!

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Obama’s Strategy: Interrupted Sleep Patterns?

So much for the build-up to The Announcement of The Pick. So…that Text Message came at 2:22am CDT | Jeff Emanuel online. Favorite line:

The promised Text Message from Barack, which was purported to be a way of having supporters be “the first to know” who he was “introducing to the world” as the campaign’s VP pick (funny, I’d heard of Joe Biden before this — several times, in fact, like when he said Obama was a dangerous candidate for POTUS because he’d need “on the job training,” when he observed that 7/11s always seem to be run by Indians, and when he called his new boss a “clean, articulate” black man), arrived at 2:22am CDT.

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More on Obama & Ayers

Stanley Kurtz is doing more great digging. Michelle Malkin is calling out the troops in the form of a phone and email campaign. For a good overview of what’s going on and what’s in the Annenberg Challenge papers, see here, in which we learn more about the connection between Obama and Ayers, about how Ayers applauds the leadership of Hugo Chavez, exclaiming that “La educacion es Revolucion!”, and much more.

Meanwhile, Power Line has further detail and collects a lot more coverage.

Earlier coverage: Just What Is Obama’s Connection to Bill Ayers?

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Just A Little Biased, Maybe?

From an article on Obama’s claim that McCain “doesn’t know what he’s up against”:

“He can talk all he wants about Britney (Spears) and Paris (Hilton), but I don’t have time for that mess,” Obama said.

His remarks carried forward a theme of feisty campaigning he debuted earlier in the day.

I’m sorry? When a presidential candidate is making snippy remarks – apparently out of the blue, since there’s no content to the article – on a day when a major poll has him suddenly down 5% to his opponent, I think it’s a little generous to call it “carr[ying] forward a theme of feisty campaigning.” More accurate phrasing: “expressing that his day is really not going well, and he’s not happy about that.”

There’s also this gem:

McCain also has spoken out strongly against Russia’s invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, using Obama’s absence from the campaign trail during a Hawaiian vacation last week to take a hard line against the Russian government. His tough talk led some of Obama’s foreign policy advisers to suggest McCain may have complicated the conflict.

McCain did not “use Obama’s absence.” He spoke up coherently and intelligently on a topic that he’s entitled to have an opinion on, anyway, and should have an opinion on as a presidential candidate, in contrast to Obama’s confused and halting blather about “encroach[ing] upon Georgia’s sovereignty.” He apparently needs international organizations involved in order to “condemn” or “review” anything that is going on.

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