Week Five of Law School

Going Strong! Quiz. Torts. It was good. Made me think. Made me read closely. (Excuse me, apparently, I'm having a Hemingway-esque writing style moment. Can Sidra confine herself to no more than three words per sentence for an entire post? Let's observe.)

Made me go home and look it up.

(Ah, that would be 'no'. Hemingway, it seems, has left the building. No doubt to go whale-watching.)

The really fun bit was the conversation I had with a fellow student about transferred intent before the quiz that nearly made us late. Also, looked that up, and, of course, when the heat's not on, I find precisely the quote I wanted at the time, that when a defendant "intends any one of the five*, his intent will be 'transferred' to make him liable for any of the five, provided the harm is direct and immediate." What my fellow student had been focusing on was that many of our 'hypothetical' cases considered in class involved something like meaning to hurt (or, say, frighten) one person and actually hurting another by mistake, and I hadn't been looking so much at the transferring between people as just the concept of 'transferring' intent in general so that you can find someone liable for the result of their action, whether it's a result they intended to create or not.

So we had a kind of disconnect in our language when we tried to talk about intent.

Which was fun. To me, at least.

Anyway. Week Five. Good so far.

[*] Assault, battery, false imprisonment, trespass to land, trespass to chattels. These are all very old 'torts', or wrongdoings, for which a person may sue in a civil court for damages.

Winning the Oil Endgame

U.S. Can Eliminate Oil Use in a Few Decades

Read the article. It's sensible.

Can we maybe do this, instead of invading countries based on what natural resources we'll then have control over? Could we?

"For the first time, our report adds up the new ways to provide all the services now obtained from oil, but without using oil -- which will save us $70 billion a year," concluded Lovins. "Forging the tools to get our nation off oil forever is the key to revitalizing industry and farming."

Picture of a Smug Kitchen Witch

Wanna know why? Of course you do! Because of the following: I own the China Moon Cookbook (run, do not walk, to buy this cookbook).

Had it for years, after some friends visited the restaurant back in the early/mid-90's and got it for me.

(And this connects to the present in what way, aside from the general and inevitable progression of time? I'm so glad you asked! Why, I'll tell you.)

I've been out of a couple things for most of this year.

So, I made curry powder yesterday morning. A double batch. And Chinese 10-Spice (mandatory if you want strange-flavor eggplant, which I think I just might). And Szechuan Peppercorn Salt.

While I was at it, I should've made garam masala, but I didn't think about until I'd already used the grinder for coffee again, because that's in another cookbook (my encylopedia of Asian cooking -- no, I'm sure it's called something else, but that's what it *is*).

What I *do* want, desperately, is a separate grinder for spices and for coffee. Of course, I only want such desperately when I'm mixing spices in large enough batches to not want to use my mortar and pestle, and have been drinking (decaf) coffee recently. This is not all that common of an occurance.

Yes, my coffee today has some interesting undertones to the flavor...why do you ask?

I need to get a new candy thermometer before mixing up new batches of hot oils, and I started a brand-new sourdough starter.

So, this weekend marks my first month here in Boston. (Looks at spices. Looks window at blue, blue sunny sky.) Not too bad. Not too bad at all.