Coming out of the woodwork post friday open post

I'm headed to Kurume for a weekend. While I have been told that Kurume has the highest number of love hotels per capita in Japan, I'm going there for other reasons. What's up with your weekend?

Comments

[joel hanes]

work

I'm so far behind that "caught up" has receded out of sight over the horizon, and I can't remember what it looked like.

[envy]

Recreational landscape photography, volunteering, and running. The latter strictly if the whole Law Enforcement Torch Run (distance unknown as of this writing) thing I'm doing tomorrow afternoon doesn't break me off.

[Countme-In]

"I'm going there for other reasons."

Do you have a cite for that?

Plus, the sentence is one more word than five words, which could trigger an OBWI 212-comment thread of irrelevance regarding imprecise meta you and meta me.

Meanwhile, Thug-in-Chief Christie cuts the Medicaid Mendoza line to something close to $6000 from something around $24,000 in New Jersey.

Then commandeers a taxpayer financed helicopter to his kid's soccer game, which lands a hundred yards short, necessitating a fat-assed Ralph Cramden 10-foot traipse to a limo, which delivers murderer Christie to the sidelines.

Then he refuses to pony up, because Eddie Muenster Rand already had every pony and clown up to the White House to lecture the nigger.

[liberal japonicus]

Well, if 3 other guys come out of the woodwork to agree with me, it will be QED.

At any rate, I think that the Rand name is a pretty mean millstone to put around the neck of Eddie Muenster, but the Munsters were working class stiffs and the Addams family were wealthy eccentrics, so I guess that's the way things go.

[Laura Koerbeer]

I work this week end. I will help a paralyzed lady get out of bed. I will clean and change a bedridden old woman who is crippled with rhuemtoid arthritis. I will grocery shop for a woman who is wheel chair-mobile. I will cook and clean house for grandmother who has cancer. All of them are Medicaid recipients. All of them are on Food Stamps.

In Chritie's state they would not quailfy for help. In Florida they would have to take drug tests to get their Food Stamps.
If the Republicans in Congress have their way Medicaid will be cut even more. As will Medicare and unemployment.

I hate the people who are still rationalizing their support for the Republican party.

[hairshirthedonist]

You know I don't need much of an excuse to come out of the woodwork.

Hey, Count, you can't talk about our governor like that. Only we can talk about our governor like that.

[CCDG]

I hate people who still rationalize that Democrats are any better than Republicans.

[russell]

The sister of a good friend of mine worked for a brief but illuminating time as a maid in a somewhat famous "love hotel" in my hometown back on lovely Long Island.

I'm not sure the Japanese version can top the stories she has to tell.

That said, I personally am looking forward to LJ's promised post on Japanese attitudes toward sexuality.

My weekend will be my wife singing Friday night, I have a quick one-set gig Saturday in Central Square in Cambridge, we go hear the premier of a friend's opera based on the tale of Dorian Gray on Sunday.

In between, I mow rake and edge the lawn, and try to befriend the vibraphone I picked up last weekend. Maybe do some stone work in the yard.

Somehow I've reached the point where chores are kinda fun.

[JanieM]

Russell -- where and when in Central Square?

[Tony P.]

CCDG: I hate people who still rationalize that Democrats are any better than Republicans.

Dobie, to paraphrase FDR, we welcome your hatred.

--TP

[joel hanes]

Attn moderators :
double-posted commercial comment spam at 02:24 AM

[russell]

I hate people who still rationalize that Democrats are any better than Republicans.

With all due respect, the "they're all the same" thing just does not pass the credibility threshold anymore.

The two parties are not the same, and they are not equivalent in terms of the benefit or harm that their policies create.

And yeah, I'm sure I hold that opinion because the D's are relatively closer to my personal political stance. But that's only because I'm not looking for a return to the days of McKinley.

I sincerely don't have a big problem with conservatism per se, but the national Republican party today is insane. Stark raving mad.

I'm obliged by ObWi etiquette to append "IMVHO" to that, so please consider that done, but it's a position that I hold considerably beyond the strength of mere opinion.

[Phil]

Let's see . . . tonight, my band is playing a 45-minute set as part of a slate of five bands providing entertainment at the Twinsburg/Macedonia (OH) chapter of the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

Tomorrow, I may take my bike down to the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area and get some biking in, or I may just sit in my backyard in a lawn chair and drink. It's a tossup.

Sunday, I'll be spending the afternoon taking a shift watching my grandmother, who has Alzheimer's.

And that's my weekend in a nutshell.

[McKinneyTexas]

I am getting ready for a fairly big trial. It just might get a bit of publicity and I am fairly sure the topic is prime Dr. S bait. And I do mean prime. The bell rings June 13th and it will run 2-4 weeks. The plaintiff is named Jamie Leigh Jones. Feel free to google. I'm on the defense and it's a 'no offer' case, and for good reason.

In other news, my son landed a job in Houston and he and his fabulous bride are now home. My wife will house hunt with them this weekend. I will take time off to fix Sunday brunch.

My only quibble with Russell is that there are still actual conservatives in the RepPart, but they are drowned out by the True Believers. I bailed because the RepPart in Texas is an embarrassment to the point of nauseating.

[Slartibartfast]

Tomorrow evening I test for black belt. The school should be packed; we do testing three schools at a time. I'll probably go in tonight, review my forms, and do some stretching.

I'm just doing this to become more effective in oppressing the sick and the old.

[liberal japonicus]

I'm in my (non) love hotel and just wanted to thank Slarti for the spam cleanup, though I am only chiming in because we are both guys.

[Ugh]

I'm just doing this to become more effective in oppressing the sick and the old.

Just them? ;-)

[Model 62]

Google tells me Jamie Leigh Jones is the woman who claims to have been drugged and gang-raped by KBR employees while she was working for KBR in Iraq.

Criminal charges were not brought (contractors in war zones enjoy immunity). Jones is pursuing a civil lawsuit.

So there probably will be a fair amount of publicity.

Erm, good luck?

[wj]

Thanks, joel. Before I clicked on Comments, I figured I was going to be the only one whose weekend looks like normal work days. But right at the top, I find out different.

In my case, I'm going to be writing documentation, re-writing other documentation, and (for a change of pace) writing yet more documentation. Whee! Well, at least we will hopefully have the novelty, for the computer industry, of manuals which are actually in coherent English.

[wj]

McT, but if all of us who are (relatively) sane bail out of the Republican Party, it will never get better. And how long would it take to start an effective new party to provide an alternative to the Democrats?

The last time a new major party got started in the US was, IIRC, the Republicans. That was almost entirely based on opposition to slavery. Is there a real issue today which is being ignored by both parties, and which would similarly galvanize a new national party?

[Doctor Science]

I can't wish you good luck, McK. I can only hope that you do your job in a way that is clean, legal *and* moral. I don't know what you mean by "a 'no offer' case".

[joel hanes]

> weekend looks like normal work days.

Oh no, not quite.

Saturdays are special: I get to wash a week's worth of clothes before I go to work. And the office is quiet; no interruptions.

[Ugh]

I don't know what you mean by "a 'no offer' case".

Maybe, no offer from the defendant to settle, though I don't what the "good reason" for such a stance would be, maybe some sort of admission opening up additional lawsuits?

[joel hanes]

Is there a real issue today which is being ignored by both parties, and which would similarly galvanize a new national party?

Employment, the stagnation of the middle class, and the hegemony wealth.

[Doctor Science]

As for me, Tuesday was my farm day and it was very hot and humid. My friend and I went to the picking field (strawberries and snap peas) early, and part-way through I took off my glasses because they were falling off from sweat. I *think* I put them in my pocket.

My friend was the driver, and when I got home and she had left I realized that I didn't have my glasses. These are the ones I use for driving, not for work (which I do at home), so it wasn't a CRISIS situation. So she searched her car, came back and got me, took me to the farm, we looked in the fields, we told the farm stand I'd lost my glasses.

She then took me to order a new pair of eyeglasses, because my prescription always takes a week.

Then on Wednesday evening I get a call from the farm: Your glasses have been found! Oh Frabjous Day! Luckily, I decide not to try to cancel the eyeglass order.

Yesterday we go to the farm, I go to the lost & found shelf, and there are: a pair of glasses the same shape as mine and *almost* the same color. But they aren't my prescription, not at all.

So now I still can't drive until next week, and I wonder: which is more likely? That two people with *very* similar glasses lost them in the fields at the same time, or that the other woman now has my glasses, because she dropped hers but picked up mine?

But at least the weather broke.

[Slartibartfast]

Just them? ;-)

No, I'm an equal-opportunity oppressor these days. But it helps to have efficiency, the better to spread the oppression around.

It also helps to round out the oppressor skillset, so I'm off twitpic-ing select parts of my anatomy to female friends of some congressman or other. That should be good for a few laughs.

[Ugh]

Dear Jeff Bezos,

I am not buying a fncking kindle. Yet, every time I go to your fncking home page, there that fncking thing is, staring me in the face. Please, for the love of God and sanity, stop.

Sincerely,

Ugh

[Model 62]

Speaking of amazon: visit your local bookseller instead.

Don't have a good local bookseller and enjoy the convenience and breadth of product offered by the online sellers but would still like to help small local booksellers (even if they aren't local to you)?

You don't have an option, there, as far as I know. But it's got me wondering why local booksellers haven't gotten together to build their own online thing. Kinda like affiliate marketing. Signin, id your local bookseller, order, pickup at the store or on your porch.

[GoodOleBoy]

'I hate people who still rationalize that Democrats are any better than Republicans.

With all due respect, the "they're all the same" thing just does not pass the credibility threshold anymore.

The two parties are not the same, and they are not equivalent in terms of the benefit or harm that their policies create.'

I couldn't find "they're all the same" in the referenced statement. They're not the same. There are core issues within each that differ radically from each other and, IMHO, represent the essence of what is, in fact, a similar division in the views of the electorate. And each is filled with 'crap' that needs to go away.

A radical political action is in order. It is my hope that the House not accede to raising the debt limit until an agreement on controlling entitlement expenditures, reducing defense spending, and reforming federal tax law is in place.

[Turbulence]

I heard that Slarti tried verbally oppressing some people. It didn't really work because they couldn't figure out what he was saying.

Rumor has it that LJ tried to setup his own blog to coordinate oppressing people. But since being too ignorant to securely host your own blog correlates really well with being too ignorant to realize that you're too ignorant to securely host your own blog, there was no oppression, only fail. And spam, lots of spam.

[Rob in CT]

My weekend... mowing the lawn, which is ridiculously overdue (death of old mower, new one finally delivered today). Finishing up planting the veggie garden. The tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, carrots and lettuce are all in, but I need to plant a couple of rows of snap peas. Some stuff around the house, as usual. Playing with my daughter. Playing with the dogs too, for that matter. Grocery shopping. For the first weekend in a while, we're not going anywhere, and it's going to be nice.

...

I assume "no offer" means the defense is standing firm, asserting zero liability, and refusing to make a settlement offer.

I hope... justice is done.

[Slartibartfast]

I heard that Slarti tried verbally oppressing some people. It didn't really work because they couldn't figure out what he was saying.

It is indeed a sad state of affairs when telepathic adepts fail to assemble a cogent argument from my component pieces.

;)

[Tony P.]

wj: The last time a new major party got started in the US was, IIRC, the Republicans.

When the GOP was started, it was a Northern-based, anti-slavery, pro-Union party. It has since become a Southern-based, anti-civil-rights, Confederate-talking party. The Democratic party has made pretty much the reverse transition over the same century and a half. The LABELS have not changed, but in substance we have seen the creation of at least TWO new parties in the lifetime of some people who are still living.

Parties are made of people, and some of the substantive change was due to people changing party labels rather than changing their ideologies. Many Southern white racists, disgusted by the civil rights mania they saw growing like a cancer in their Democratic party, bit the bullet and switched labels.

So: switching labels when your traditional party has taken a disgusting turn is not unheard of. By switching, you may be abandoning your old party to the crazies, but you get to influence the make-up and the ideology of your new party. Just a thought.

--TP

[GoodOleBoy]

' Many Southern white racists, disgusted by the civil rights mania they saw growing like a cancer in their Democratic party, bit the bullet and switched labels.'

And many Southern white non-racist, disgusted by the big Federal government focus of the liberal eastern Democrats, bit the bullet and switched labels.

[Ugh]

I admire the fiscal-issue-focused, non racist, liberal eastern (but not western, northern, or southern) Democrat big-government disgusted, republican party bullet switcher and label biting current GOPers.

[wj]

Ugh,
ugh!

Regards,

[DaveC]

I hate Mr. Hoffmeister. He was my Assistant Principal in high school, and tried to expel me on the last day of my senior year.

[Countme-In]

Better late than never.

[CCDG]

I,however, never felt oppressed by Slarti until I learned he could roundhouse kick me in the head(I'm 6' 2"). Then,suddenly, everything he said made perfect sense and I agreed with it completely. Really. On any subject. I promise.

But that's just me, and in case I run into him in person, and he happens to figure out who I am, and he's in a bad mood.

[DaveC]

Oh, give me a break, Count. Hoff delivered an edict that anybody who did not show up on the last day of school would not be allowed to graduated, which by the way was totally ignorant. Because my class periods for that day were Phys Ed and Art, I just had to sit in "study hall" for eight hours. I was accused of "acting inaproppliately" and getting stoned on lunch break, which were completely ignorant allegations.

[DaveC]

I apologize, I meant to put the last comment on the hate and ignorance thread.

[Bernard Yomtov]

GOB,

And many Southern white non-racist, disgusted by the big Federal government focus of the liberal eastern Democrats, bit the bullet and switched labels.

Many? There weren't many. Sorry, but it's true. The overwhelming majority of southern whites were racist. Not that they were KKK'ers, or even hated blacks, but they definitely favored segregation and a social system that regarded blacks as effectively sub-human.

This may be unpleasant, but I think it's true. Of course there's an easy way to prove me wrong. Show me all the white southerners, and conservative northerners, for that matter, who fought to have state segregation laws overturned. That, it seems to me, is what a non-racist who opposed both federal intervention and segregation would do.

Wake me when you come up with some names.

[GoodOleBoy]

'Many? There weren't many. Sorry, but it's true. The overwhelming majority of southern whites were racist. Not that they were KKK'ers, or even hated blacks, but they definitely favored segregation and a social system that regarded blacks as effectively sub-human.

This may be unpleasant, but I think it's true. Of course there's an easy way to prove me wrong. Show me all the white southerners, and conservative northerners, for that matter, who fought to have state segregation laws overturned. That, it seems to me, is what a non-racist who opposed both federal intervention and segregation would do.'

I may actually make some progress here in gaining an understanding of how one attains the label 'racist' in the eyes of progressives. Now I see that I can be called a 'racist' if I resided in the south during the period of great social unrest half a century ago and was not active in efforts to overturn state segregation laws. How easy it is to qualify!

[russell]

When you say "great social unrest", what you are referring to is the end stages of almost a hundred years of deliberate and violent effort to maintain de jure policies of explicit racial segregation in defiance of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The "unrest" included acts of organized, systematic terrorism and murder.

Which, of course, followed a couple of hundred years of chattel slavery.

It wasn't limited to the south, it was just generally more explicit there. In many places, it was literally apartheid.

The primary difference between the south and the north as regards the history of slavery and the attitudes toward and treatment of blacks is that the south historically had an economy based on using, raising, buying and selling black people as beasts of burden.

Simple garden variety hating on black folks could, and can, be found pretty much everywhere across this great land of ours.

In any case, I'm not sure "social unrest" quite captures the full flavor of what was going on.

A hell of a lot of white people in this country, north south east and west, were, and are, racist, and a hell of a lot of those people transferred their political allegiance from the D to the R party in the wake, specifically, of LBJ's endorsement and sponsorship of civil rights legislation in the 60's, followed by the R party's *explicit and deliberate* adoption of policies intended to appeal to folks' resentment of those civil rights laws.

That is the history. It is what it is, and there is little point or value in trying to pretend it's otherwise.

If that cap don't fit you, good for you. It fits a hell of a lot of other folks.

[liberal japonicus]

open thready stuff

Ugh, could you drop me a line at libjpn at gmail? Thanks

[McKinneyTexas]

I can't wish you good luck, McK.

Could you wish the other side good luck? The hardest cases about which to keep an open mind are those that cut against our core leanings.

I can only hope that you do your job in a way that is clean, legal *and* moral.

Do you have reason to believe I wouldn't? More to the point, shouldn't every lawyer in every case do his/her job in a way that is clean, legal and moral?

I don't know what you mean by "a 'no offer' case".

Most civil suits are settled out of court. It is a rare case that goes to trial without some kind of monetary offer "on the table." There is no offer in this case. Nor has there been, nor will there be.

I hope... justice is done.

Justice is done when a fair and impartial jury hears all of the evidence and reaches a decision under proper legal instructions from the presiding judge. That's as close as we come to justice in our system. It works fairly well, not perfectly, but is far superior to any alternative of which I am aware.

[hairshirthedonist]

More to the point, shouldn't every lawyer in every case do his/her job in a way that is clean, legal and moral?

Yes, which is good reason for one to hope that they would.

[ral]

McKinneyTexas: It works fairly well, not perfectly, but is far superior to any alternative of which I am aware.

Again I am pleased to agree with McKinneyTexas. With all its flaws, it beats single combat hollow.

[Turbulence]

It works fairly well, not perfectly, but is far superior to any alternative of which I am aware.

I always wonder about statements like that. Is the American adversarial system really so much better than the continental system where magistrates are empowered to be aggressive fact-finders? I can see costs and benefits to both systems but it is not at all clear that one is totally superior to the other.

In my own field, I'd be hard pressed to tell you which technology or platform or language is "best"; it all depends on what problem you're trying to solve. Different options are better in different domains. Some options are just universally awful and should never be used, but there are usually at least a few different reasonable choices. It would surprise me if the realm of legal systems was so different in that regard.

Moreover, the process of becoming expert in any one technique seems to blind us to the possibilities for other techniques. As we refine any one process, it gets harder and harder to see how a radically different process might work, in part because we keep making incremental improvements to the process we've already selected. People who make optimization systems often talk about optimizers getting trapped in local minima: the software found a solution that's pretty good, and better than anything else nearby, so it stays there, even though there are better solutions just over the horizon. I wonder how often societies get stuck in local minima.

[cleek]

I'd be hard pressed to tell you which ... language is "best"

it's C++.

you're welcome.

[Ugh]

LJ - I hit you, let me know here if you didn't get it.

[Ugh]

Also, I second Turb's questioning of the American adversarial system of somehow being the best at finding justice. Too often, it seems to me, it devolves into rooting for your own team to win. Or the resource imbalance distorts the process. Or the supposed impartiality is not there (more often than not).

It's also horribly expensive and time consuming, should anything go to trial.

[Bernard Yomtov]

GOB,

Now I see that I can be called a 'racist' if I resided in the south during the period of great social unrest half a century ago and was not active in efforts to overturn state segregation laws. How easy it is to qualify!

Or perhaps "former racist." Or perhaps not racist. What did you think about segregation a half century ago? I don't insist that you marched and campaigned. There were lots of pressures. But did you at least disapprove, privately or in converstaion with friends?

The point I am making is that the south was racist, by which I mean that an overwhelming majority of its white citizens favored both Jim Crow laws and racist practices which were not required by law. If you doubt that consider the politics of the place. Most election campaigns amounted to the candidates competing to see who could yell "n*****" the loudest.

What, bluntly, annoys the hell out of me is those who claim their concern was all about states' rights, or "strict construction," or whatnot, and had nothing to do with race. I just don't think there were very many for whom that was true.

[ral]

Ugh: It's also horribly expensive and time consuming, should anything go to trial.

That is the big defect... even before trial it's very expensive. A party with a genuine grievance but insufficient resources is at a serious disadvantage.

[Phil]

Justice is done when a fair and impartial jury

I think I found the problem. Ain't no such animal, and ain't no lawyer I've ever met who actually wants one. If they did, jury consultants wouldn't exist.

[McKinneyTexas]

It is true that complex cases are expensive to try. On the plaintiff side, the attorney charges a 40% contingency, advances the costs of litigation and recoups those costs from the client's share of the recovery. In cases where attorney's fees are not part of the recoverable damages, the client can net anywhere from half to well less than half of the ultimate recovery. The upside for the client is that he/she has no risk other than losing.

On the defense side, it is very expensive to be sued. Which is why the "cost of defense" is a common starting point on getting cases settled. Depending on the strength of the plaintiff's case, damages can and sometimes do run well into the millions of dollars. At the extremes, you have meritless cases with highly speculative and conjured losses vs gut liability and very real damages. My current docket has representative cases at both extremes.

As for the "one magistrate" vs "12 impartial jurors", my preference is twelve people hearing both sides of the story for the first time against one person who builds the story and then decides who wins and who loses.

Phil is sort of correct. No one is truly impartial. It is not the human condition. And lawyers would much prefer a jury that loves their side of the case and hates the other's. However, because the knife cuts both ways, most lawyers will take impartiality and an open mind over getting a jury that starts out leaning one way or the other. That is, most experienced lawyers.

[envy]

I'd be hard pressed to tell you which ... language is "best"

it's C++.

Pfffft. You kids and your fancy, new-fangled, gee-golly bells-and-whistles. In my day, we used malloc and goto and we liked it!

[JanieM]

lj -- I tried going to hocb.net and got some kind of real estate blurb.

??

[DaveC]

Maybe Ugh was trying to fix bbcode?

[Turbulence]

The problem with hocb is most likely that the domain name registration expired and so the registrar has put up a search page to try and net some cash. The correct thing to do is for LJ to renew the domain registration.

[liberal japonicus]

Hi, Ugh, check your mail. Everyone else who seems to be starving for the hocb fix, I hope to get it sorted out, but I'm off to Vietnam for a week so I might not get it done until I get back.

[Ugh]

Vietnam is tremendous.