Paresh’s Blog

ok, so on the heels of the new york entry, comes a moment of pure law school and political science nerdiness. so my sister tivo’d the first episode of commander in chief, i watched it today to fill the noon-time void on tv, and i’ll never watch it again. now let me tell you why.

in the first 5 minutes, geena davis (VP and president-to-be) is informed that the president just had a stroke and is in the hospital. the president’s chief of staff says “the 25th might kick in” referring to the 25th amendment which lays out the guidelines for when the VP assumes the presidency. no sooner does he say this than the VP gets on the horn with the chairman of the joint chiefs and starts ordering ships around and starts planning a military operation. compelling drama right? well let’s take a moment to review the 25th amendment shall we? in relevant part:

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

…

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

to summarize, the VP becomes president in 1 of 3 situations: the president dies or resigns, the president writes a letter removing himself from power, or a majority of the cabinet sign a letter removing the president from power. now back to the show, none of these three situations occurs before the VP starts playing battleship. constitutionally, the chairman of the joint chiefs can’t follow the VP’s orders unless one of those 3 things happens and the VP is sworn in as president. until that time, the dude in the hospital is still the commander in chief. come on, i know it makes good drama, but can we at least make it accurate? is that too much to ask?

this kinda brings me to another point, the governator vetoed the gay marriage bill today saying “its against the will of the people” since the state voted to ban gay marriage a few years back. two things: 1. arnold talks about the “the will of the people” so much, i’m starting to think he’s a communist. someone should look into that. i’ll call up al sharpton, he’s always got time to stir up some trouble; 2. the people are stupid. that’s right, you heard me, the average voter is stupid as all get-out. i took a class on elections and voting behavior and its appalling how uninformed the average voter is. i mean, there are studies that show more people know their cholesterol level than actually know the name of their representative in congress. these are the people whose will arnold wants to follow? if he really wants to follow the will of the people, why is he running for governor again? the guy has an approval rating of 33%. seems to me the will of the people is pretty clear.

anyway, to anyone who actually made it all the way through that, thank you for indulging my super-nerd moment.

so here is my long overdue entrya bout my trip to new york. in fact, it is so overdue, i’ve had time to actually summarize it in my head so as to avoid the rambling that i so often succumb to.

anyway, so my flight out of oakland was at 7:20am last thursday which meant i had to be up at 4am to finish packing at whatnot. waking up early was no problem, it was going to bed early that was rough. as you can tell by the time of this entry, i rarely go to bed before 2am but that night i tried going to bed at midnight and i just couldn’t fall asleep. i finally dozed off around 1:30 which left me with a whopping two and a half hours of sleep. but i caught my flight and per my usual, i did not sleep at all on the plane.

so the flight from oakland to dulles was fine. watched mr. and mrs. smith which kinda sucked but whatever. i had an hour to catch my connecting flight to jfk so i check the departure board and lo and behold my flight is cancelled. long story short, i was rebooked on an 8am flight and i got united to comp me a hotel room at the hyatt dulles and got $25 in meal vouchers. the hotel was nice but dulles is 25 miles away from DC and the cabs are ridiculously expensive. hell, i thought i’d at least take a cab to the nearest shopping center to buy a clean shirt, the one way fare was $22. in the end, i just hung out in my room, watched tv and ordered $11 room service only to find out that the vouchers don’t cover room service.

so i finally got to jfk around 10am the next morning only to find that one of my 2 pieces of luggage was missing. my luggage had all night to get there and they still couldn’t get both suitcases there at the same time. god, no wonder united is bankrupt. so i had made an online reservation for the super shuttle to pick me up which is essentially “pre-pay online” b/c the service is still first come first served. its not like there was a van waiting for me when i got out of the terminal. i still had to call twice to get picked up.

by the time i got to craig’s place, it was damn near 2 and byt he time i got cleaned up and we headed out it about 3:30pm on friday. thanks to united, i basiaclly lost an entire day of my already short trip. i think i had an efficient day and a half in the city. i hit up the major sights though b/c of my time constraints, most of those sights were superficial (i.e. picture of the empire state building from 5 blocks away). i also got in some non-sights like watching the cal game at the espn zone in times square (which was awesome). i give mad props to craig for taking me around everywhere and letting me crash at his place. hopefully, i get a chance to go again with more time on my hands.

wow, its been a while. i’m too sleepy to make a real post now but expect a laborious and rambling account of my trip to new york last weekend (i posted the pictures yesterday in anticipation of an impending entry).

in the meantime, i thought i’d share what is probably the funniest thing stewie from family has ever uttered:

“I’m not gonna lie down for some frat boy bastard with his damn Teva sandals and his Skoal Bandits and his Abercrombie & Fitch long sleeved open stitched crewneck Henley smoking his sticky buds out of a soda can while watching his favorite downloaded Simpsons episodes every night. Yes we all love Mr. Plow. Oh, you’ve got the song memorized do you? So does everyone else! That is exactly the kind of idiot you see at Taco Bell at 1 in the morning. The guy who just whiffed his way down the bar skank ladder.”

holy crap that’s funny.

you all know that i’m not really one to express any kind of school pride, but this speaks for itself:

look at those stats. that’s called domination.

suck on that stanford…suck on that.

so let’s all get into our way back machines and travel back to glorious august. more specifically, the second week of august. so still reeling from the bar, i went to my mailbox and found that i had received a nice little jury summons for september 19th. unlike every other time i’ve gotten a summons, i was stoked…stoked, i tell you. i was still in amped-up legal mode from the bar, it was still way too early to have anything planned for the 19th and, here’s the piece de resistance, it was alameda county superior court in oakland. that’s big time right there. i didn’t get stuck in hayward or fremont or pleasanton, no no, i was called up to the big leagues. for the first time in my life, i actually wanted to be on a jury.

well, let’s fast forward to today. i finding that i’m forgetting more and more stuff from the bar as the days pass, my legal mode is limited to watching matlock, and while i didn’t have plans for next week a month ago, i have some pretty big plans now. so while i was making these plans over the last few days, i had this summons lingering in my back of my head, but i didn’t let it bother me. i’ve gotten lots of summons and never have i gotten past the “call the night before” stage of jury selection. i mean, why postpone my plans for a summons that i’m not going to have actually show up for anyway, right?

right, so i should have known karma was gonna come back and bite me in the ass. i make the call today and, lo and behold, my group number has to show up in oakland at 8-friggin-30 on a monday morning. if this keeps going the way i think its gonna keep going, i’m gonna have to cancel my week.

so i’ve decided that i’m gonna have to make myself an unappealing juror. how will i do this you ask? easy: if it’s a criminal case, i’ll say i believe everyone is guilty unless proven innocent and that all crimes should be punished with medieval forms of justice no matter the severity of the crime (its been a while since we’ve drawn and quartered someone right?). if its a civil case, i’ll say that i don’t recognize the jurisdiction of the lower courts and that i am committed to making damage awards that shock the conscience and go against the weight of the evidence simply to ensure that the matter is heard before the court of appeals…or maybe i’ll tone it down because i’m sure they’ve heard those lines already.