One of the biggest reasons I’ve got a beef with lawyers is that they’ll use the skimpiest of reasoning to tie big pots of money to their cases. Remember the idiot congressman from South Dakota who plowed through a stop sign and killed a motorcyclist?

Well, a judge has decided that Janklow was “on duty” when he plowed through the stop sign, so Randy Scott’s widow, mom, etc can all tap into our collective pockets to pay for Janklow’s crime.

Now, before you go all teary-eyed on me, remember that A) Janklow’s personally liable for the act, and B) Janklow’s insurance company will have to cover the act. Also, bear in mind that if one of my sailors (federal employes every one) had been in a similar circumstance, he would most likely been found “not in the line of duty”, and in addition to any criminal and civil punishment, action would have been taken under the Uniform Code of Military justice for Unauthorized Absence for the time he missed while in jail.

So the man with $40 million of the people’s money claims that the sitting veep is out of touch

MiRi “Sonyk-Rok” won the 2004 U.S. AGC and was interviewed on Conan. If only I could compete at this level…

Today’s reason: it’s all confused and wrong.

The core values of the GOP (personal responsibility, reduced governement, state’s rights, etc.) are being subverted for the agenda of the Christian Coalition. The most important item for the GOP today is finding a new way to remove rights from homosexuals and keep the words ‘under God’ in the pledge (and somehow fanatiscism is the norm of even the closeted homosexuals who support the party) and even mild expressions of dissent can get you arrested at Bush events. No wonder people who previously considered themselves conservative are ready to leave the party behind.

The settings on my T-Mobile Sidekick let me set a screen saver message that rides over this picture:

I’ve got a really lame “Hi!” on the message right now. I challenge you to give me a caption that’ll crack me up everytime I see the screen saver. Your only limitation is 32 characters (letters, numbers, spaces and punctuation.) Feel free to abbreviate, etc.

For the winner? Your choice of a “Dell Memory” Polaroid picture frame or a Dell magnetic mini-dartboard with 2 darts.

Man, the rich will do anything to avoid paying taxes. Take this guy who filed as an “S” corporation with himself as the sole shareholder, had his employer pay the corporation. The guy then drew a nominal salary of about 10% of his annual compensation, and took the rest in dividends. Why? Because over 4 years, he was able to avoid paying about $600K in Medicare taxes.

What kind of a slimeball would game the system like that?

Hey, look – it’s Senator Edwards!

And the supreme irony? Mr. Edwards has claimed that he set up the subchapter S company to protect himself from legal liability. You know it’s time for tort reform when even the trial lawyers say they’re afraid of getting sued.

So “this guy” in Pennsylvania goes in to his doc to get his ticker looked at, and tells the doc that he drinks about a six-pack a day. The doc then reports it to the state due to a CYA law that requires doctors to report any condition which would potentially impair a patient’s ability to drive. The state sends the guy a letter saying that he’s got to “get treatment” before he can get his license re-instated.

The guy has a clean driving record with one DUI over 20 years ago; it’s not like he’s been a repeat offender or anything.