Barack Obama, law professor; Wiley Drake, idiot

• Check out the terrific article in the New York Times about Barack Obama's years as a law professor: Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Apart

• Meanwhile, over at the OC Reg, R. Scott Moxley informs us that, a little more than an hour after this morning’s earthquake, Buena Park’s “Reverend Wiley Drake named the seismic event, ‘the California Queer Quake,’ and announced via email to his nationwide followers that ‘another queer quake [is] trying to get California's attention.’”

“We had better listen,” he added. (See ”California’s Queer Quake”.)

Stupidity and cell phones

(Above: there was an earthquake. Naturally, everyone phoned someone. And they kept doing it.)

WE’RE STUPID PEOPLE.
If you’ve been following the science news, then you know that there’s been a mysterious lull in seismic activity around here lately. It's portentous.

The Reg’s Science Dude now reports that “Scientists have found a way to detect changes in rocks that precede small earthquakes on the San Andreas fault, a possible step toward creating an early warning system for Southern California.”

That’s great. But the Science Dude goes on to say, “The southern branch is of particular concern because it could cause massive death and destruction in Orange County, about 60 miles away.”

Yeah, massive death. We knew that. But we don’t like to talk about it much, do we? The Reg buries its seismic stories in blogs like “Science Dude.” Nobody but me reads "Science Dude." And I forget everything I read there. I'm going to the beach.

UPDATE (11:45 a.m.): about five minutes ago, we felt a pretty strong earthquake. Lasted at least five seconds.


CELL PHONES ARE STUPID, BUT THEY’RE NOT KILLERS.
In this morning’s New York Times, John Tierney lists 10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List, including “killer hot dogs,” “killer sharks,” and “carcinogenic cellphones.” Turns out, the “nitrite” weenie worry was a bust, as was the grilling-killing freakout. According to new research, weenies aren’t even a big threat re saturated fat. (But I bet tofu dogs are much better for you.)

Guess how many people died from shark attacks in the world last year? One.

Do you watch Mythbusters? Then you know that, as far as fuel economy goes, you’re better off using you’re A/C rather than driving with your windows open. According to Tierney, “After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.”

Thanks to the reliably unreliable Larry King, who seems to select guest experts with a randomizer, lots of people are afraid of their own cell phones, but, in truth, nobody can identify a way that those stupid things could hurt you, and “epidemiological studies have failed to find consistent links between cancer and cell phones”—i.e., there is no reason to suppose that there is a correlation between cell phone use and cancer.

I’m pretty sure that the Reb and I are the only Orange Counties who do not own one of these gadgets. We hate ‘em. At least I do. That’s got nothing to do with cancer, though.

WAIT. CELL PHONES ARE KILLERS.
This morning’s Inside Higher Ed reports a curious element in the U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s new student orientation program: they are “adding warnings for new students about the dangers of “ped-texting” — sending cell phone text messages while walking.” Apparently, some of these kids just walk out into the street like zombies.

Of course, we all know what happens when you talk on your cell phone while driving. People are bad enough drivers as it is. Teenagers should not be allowed to talk and drive. Well, they should not be allowed to drive. Or talk.

SHOT IN ASS. DON'T KNOW WHY.
According to the OC Reg (Man found shot in the butt in Stanton), well, a man was found shot in the butt in the city of Stanton.

Authorities don’t know how this happened to the guy. They’ve interviewed him, and “He’s doing his best to cooperate,” or so says a cop. But he’s so goofed up, he’s no help.

I bet the guy has a cell phone. They should check it for nitrate residue.

COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL.
Yesterday, the Reg reported that two Tesoro High School seniors would be appearing in court (See). Recently, these kids were charged with “altering public records, computer access and fraud, burglary, identity theft and conspiracy in what prosecutors described as an elaborate plot to better their odds of getting into college.”

They’ve retained a celebrity lawyer—Larry King regular, Mark Geragos.

Looks like these kids were way out of control. One of them “altered his Advanced Placement exam scores, stole an English test he was caught cheating on, and pilfered master copies of tests, some of which were e-mailed to dozens of Advanced Placement students.”

No word on whether these kids have cell phones.

Why I hate cell phones

I recall one night maybe a year ago in a parking lot. Seemed like nobody was around. Maybe there was one guy about forty yards away, where it was dark. But somebody was madly talking to somebody. It was creepy. How could this be?

It be all right. It was this solitary guy, walking across the parking lot, unapologetically yammering at full volume on his goddam cell phone. I hated that guy. I hated how he weirded me out and he never even knew or cared.

You’ll be talking to somebody and then, wham, something starts buzzing on the table; or maybe some goofy calliope music plays; or maybe there’s the sound of nuts cracking coming from somebody’s pants.

Your companion suddenly looks at a spot on the wall and then reaches for their goddam cell phone. They look away from you. You’re gone. You’ve been forgotten. You shuffle away like Puff the freakin’ Magic Dragon—only to run into somebody else walkin’ and yackin’ on the phone. You step out of their way. You’ve always gotta step out of their way, ‘cause, when they’re talking, they’re morons, and they think they own the fuckin’ universe.

Hate ‘em. Cell phones I mean.

Why do people—especially kids, but adults too—always embrace popular new gadgets? It’s the kind of thing little kids should do, not adults. New modes of life—IMing, going through your day listening to music and utterly ignoring everything and everybody around you, suddenly startin’ up a phone conversation while you're in the bathroom—you’ve gotta take a beat, man. Don’t just jump in there! How do you know this isn’t just ridiculous? I mean, it’s new, so how would you know?

It’s this endless enthusiasm for jumping right in there and feeling really good about being part of the mindless horde who doesn’t think about anything but just does stuff—that’s what pisses me off. If that’s the way people are, there’s no hope. None at all.

I swear, soon somebody will find a way for two people to drink the same Coke—serially, I mean—probably with weird-assed straws shaped like Ronald McDonald and comin' out of your neck—or maybe they'll figure out a way to surgically exchange ears, and everybody will be all over it with their "new" ears and punctured necks. They’ll smile and laugh (through their neck hole) and think you’re obviously an asshole if you’re not into it too.

See, this has to do with how conservatism does not exist in this country. If you’re conservative, you’ve got this idea that things barely work as it is. And that means, mostly, you don’t wanna just shuffle the deck just for the sake of shuffling. Things could get worse. We could lose what we've got.

But, in this country, everybody’s into shuffling. Everybody's moving around and doing new things. And it’s all about commerce and somebody with something new to sell. The money people: they’ll change everything around without a thought, except the thought of how to make money and more money. And everybody goes along with it, ‘cause they’re morons, and they don’t think about how the most valuable things might just be imbedded in away of life. So you don't want to mess with it too much. You gotta be careful. Take it slow, if you can.

But who thinks like that, like a conservative?

Mythbusters last week on Letterman: