Lowering the Bar

Secretary of State in Possession of Coca Leaves

Coca leaves were given to Secretary Rice as part of a gift by the president of Bolivia, during Rice's visit to that country in March.  The leaves were embedded in a guitar that President Evo Morales gave Rice, an Andean guitar with a coca-leaf inlay.

Officially, the United States government frowns on the receipt of material from which illicit drugs can be made.

According to the report, it was "unclear whether [Rice] immediately realized what adorned" the guitar.  She told Morales, "I'm a musician, you know," and strummed the instrument happily.

Senior State Department officials said they would check customs rules to see whether the coca guitar could be brought back to the US.

Reuters via My Way News

Iraqis Can Now Buy Terror Insurance

The New York Times reports that at least one thing has a guaranteed future in Iraq: terror insurance.  The state-owned Iraq Insurance Company has begun to insure ordinary Iraqis against, according to the policy rider, "the following dangers: 1) explosions caused by weapons of war and car bombs; 2) assassinations; 3) terrorist attacks."

It appears to be the first off-the-shelf terrorism policy in the world, according to insurance experts contacted by the Times.   For 125,000 dinars, the policy will pay out five million dinars, which sounds like a lot, and it is a lot of dinars, I guess, but only about $3,500 American.

American consumer-rights advocates say the policy is way overpriced.  According to the expert the Times quoted, for the equivalent of 125,000 dinars you could get maybe $75,000 in coverage, "and that would cover you no matter how you died."

So far the company has sold about 200 individual policies, and is negotiating with government agencies and employers to sell group policies, which is probably a good sign that things are going really well in Iraq.  Although they say they have yet to pay on a single claim.  "The contract is a good luck charm," said an IIC executive.  Could be, or it could be that a guy who happened to be standing next to a car bomb has a little trouble filling out the claim form.

New York Times

The 'Heavy Hitter' Will Sue Nevada Bar For Right to Keep Slogan

The State Bar of Nevada has dared to challenge Glen Lerner, a Vegas lawyer who advertises himself as "The Heavy Hitter" in his television ads.  Apparently, they told him to stop using the phrase, saying it was misleading to consumers because there may be heavier hitters out there.

"The bar told me by calling myself 'The Heavy Hitter' it was false and misleading because it was stating I'm the only heavy hitter," said Lerner.  "It's beyond ridiculous."

"Beyond ridiculous" is an ironic phrase for Lerner to be using, given the nature of his ads.  According to the report, some ads show Lerner "spinning like a human tornado [I prefer "Tasmanian devil"], generating cash for his clients," while others show him cutting checks for his clients as an announcer screams, "Gooooooooaaaaal!"  Yet another shows, for some reason, a giant phone falling on an unsuspecting litigant.  "They said it created anxiety," Lerner said.  "Does the average person really believe a giant phone is going to land on them?"  Probably not.   Although if I hired him I would not only expect, but demand, that he spin like a Tasmanian devil while generating cash for me.

Lerner says he will sue in federal court to protect his First Amendment rights to free speech.  I haven't analyzed this yet, but actually there are a fair number of cases on point and he probably has a pretty good argument.

Goooooooaaaal!

Lerner's website, which still uses the term "Heavy Hitter," has a short video ad (none of the above, unfortunately), along with details about Glen.  Among other things, it notes that he "got accepted" at Harvard, Dartmouth, Stanford and Duke law schools (although he actually went to Tulane), and that he has worked as a Teamster and a garbageman "to better understand many of the people he would someday represent."

CourtTV.com
GlenLerner.com

How Your Homeland-Security Money Is Making You Safer

Just kidding -- it isn't.

Four-and-a-half years (most of it spent in long security lines) and umpteen billions of dollars after September 11, the Transportation Security Agency has implemented effective security measures to prevent dangerous materials like explosives from getting onto our nation's airplanes.  According to their website, anyway.  According to federal investigators who recently tested those security measures, problems remain.

Such as, they have a slight problem stopping bombs from getting on airplanes.

 

To be specific, investigators from the Government Accountability Office tested security by deliberately trying to smuggle explosives and other bomb materials through security checkpoints at 21 airports.  Successful smuggles: 21.  That's a smuggle-success rate of approximately 100 percent.  Put another way, it is a smuggle-detection rate of 0 percent.  Or, dollars spent per bomb found: infinity dollars.

Quote from NBC News:

In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through.  Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials.

Quote from the chairman of the 9/11 Commission (you remember them):

I'm appalled.

Quote from a TSA spokesman in response to the NBC report:

[D]etecting explosive materials and IEDs at the checkpoint is TSA's top priority.

Quote from me:

Hey spokesman dude -- your "top-priority" efforts have resulted in a zero-percent success rate.  How are the other priorities coming along?

So, tell me again: why are we all standing in those long lines?

MSNBC.com
Congressional Budget Office Report on Homeland-Security Spending

Senator is Unclear "What a Trillion Is"

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted to (again) raise the government's debt limit to nearly nine trillion dollars.  The government has been running huge deficits for the past few years and Congress has had to raise the limit every year for the last four years.  This year, it was raised to $8,965,383,933,372.98, or thereabouts.

Actually, I made up the digits after the 5, because the new limit is reported only as $8.965 trillion, so obviously the remaining four hundred million bucks or so is not that important.  The government probably left it in the pocket of those pants it was wearing the other night.  It'll turn up.

Maybe part of the reason it keeps going up is that it just doesn't seem like real money at this point.  Or maybe they just aren't any good at math.  Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) said earlier this week that "It's hard to understand what a trillion is.  I don't know what it is."  That wouldn't worry me so much if he weren't the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

Reuters interviewed a math professor, John Nolan, to try to provide some sense of "what a trillion is."  To him, of course, it was "not a big number at all" as numbers go.  For the rest of us, he suggested this: to hit a trillion dollars you'd have to spend a million dollars every day for almost three thousand years; or, to put it another way, to spend that much in an average lifespan you would have to spend well over thirty-five million dollars a day.  Ironically, the work required to spend that much money would probably kill you pretty fast, so you'd never actually get the trillion spent.  One of God's little jokes upon thee.

Don Albers, who is associate executive director of the Mathematical Association of America, and past president of the Society for Getting Beat Up and Having Your Lunch Money Taken, said that the big numbers are not really the issue.  He said, "I don't think the problem so much is understanding that number as just understanding whether they've got more money coming in than is going out."  Oh.  Well, they don't.  They really don't.  Can I be Senate Budget Committee Chairman now?

Reuters.com

Murder to be Tried for Murder

Corey Miller is now awaiting retrial for a second-degree murder charge after his conviction and life sentence were overturned on appeal.  Miller is a rap artist who went by the name "C-Murder" at the time of the alleged murder.  C-Murder was charged with murdering a 16-year-old at a night club in Harvey, Louisiana, in 2002.  His defense was probably not helped by the prosecution's frequent references to him as "Mr. Murder."  (I don't know for sure that that happened, but it wouldn't surprise me.)

In a clever and subtle move, C-Murder has apparently now changed his stage name to "C-Miller."  I don't see how that's going to help.  If you're going to play this game, why not change your name to something like "C-Innocent" or "Dr. Gandhi"?  "C-Miller" just destroys all his street cred without helping his case one bit.

Peace out.

AP via FindLaw.com

Man Seeks Damages for Damage Caused by Man

Curtis and Rhonda Gokey, of Lodi, California, have both filed claims against the city for damage to their vehicle caused when one of the city's dump trucks backed into it. Driving the dump truck: Curtis Gokey.

Gokey filed a $3600 claim even though he admitted the crash was entirely his fault. There was no evidence it was intentional, however, but the city took the position that because Gokey's own negligence caused the damages, he had effectively filed a claim against himself.

After the city denied the claim, Rhonda filed her own lawsuit. The city's attorney said it would be denying that one too, arguing that under California law the car is community property and so the legal analysis is the same.

Her claim was for a larger amount ($4800) because, she says, "I'm not as nice as my husband is."

Update: The city did in fact deny Rhonda Gokey's claim as well. Neither Gokey seems to have appealed.

Marital Spat Escalates to Use of Napalm

Police in Mexico's Yucatan province were called to the scene of a domestic disturbance in the town of Oxkutzcab, where they found a married couple's home burning in the aftermath of a fiery explosion.  Witnesses told police that the fight between Juan Espinosa and Irma Contreras had escalated from mere argument to knife-throwing, shooting and eventually the use of homemade gasoline bombs.  A local official confirmed the report to Reuters News.

Later, the couple tearfully embraced and reconciled their differences.  Actually, not.  They were described as "recovering separately" from their injuries suffered in the battle.  Espinosa told reporters that he was glad his wife had suffered third-degree burns, while Conteras said she was sorry she had not "hacked off his manhood" during the fight.

Experts say that almost fifty percent of marriages end in knife-throwing, shooting and eventually the use of homemade gasoline bombs.

Reuters via My Way News

Cuddling Ticket Overturned

A diligent sheriff's deputy in Oregon gave Faith Miller a ticket in February for sitting next to her husband while he was driving.  Because they own a "spacious 1988 Chrysler Fifth Avenue," she has to sit in the middle of the front seat instead of by the door if she wants to "cuddle" or "snuggle up," as the activity was variously described by the Associated Press.  But that means that she cannot wear the car's shoulder harness, which is what bothered Deputy Darren Broome.

Deputy Darren had given the Millers a warning last summer about the same practice, which Faith Miller readily admitted she disregarded.  But the deputy remembered them when he pulled them over again in February, and this time he wrote her up for a $97 ticket.  "Now I'm stuck way over by the window," she lamented, "and can barely even reach my husband."

After doing some research, though, Miller found no provision in Oregon law that actually required adults to wear a shoulder harness.  A statute does require it for children, but not adults.  The sheriff's office agreed with her interpretation of the law and voided the ticket, bringing an end to the month-long non-cuddling ordeal.

AP via My Way News

World's Newest Democracy Enters Modern Age

No, not Iraq.  Be serious.  I'm talking about Sark.

Sark, the smallest of the Channel Islands, is a self-governing dependency of the British crown, meaning that it is technically owned personally by the Queen but is not part of the United Kingdom.  Sark is about 5 square miles in size and holds 600 residents.  For the last 450 years, Sark has continued to operate under the feudal system -- the heads of the island's 40 ruling families meet periodically to raise taxes and decide legal issues.  Until Wednesday, anyway, when these legislators -- known as the Chief Pleas -- voted to adopt democracy (for everybody else, that is).

Many Sarkers, or whatever they're called, were perfectly happy with the old system.  "Feudalism is a great system and has worked very well for the island," said one.  "[We were] hoping to reform through evolution, not revolution."  Only 165 of the 600 residents bothered to participate in a poll on what kind of government they wanted.

Until the Queen has approved the changes and the new legislature gets to work, Sark will retain its feudal laws, many of which date back to 1565.  The president of the Chief Pleas, called the "Seigneur," is required to take an oath of allegiance, pay annual rent, and maintain 40 armed men to "keep the Island free of the Queen's enemies."  (The "40 armed men" are still required by law to own muskets.)  The rent has never been adjusted for inflation and so is currently about four bucks a year.  One of the perks the Seigneur gets in exchange for these duties is that he or she is the only person on the island allowed to own pigeons, which is nice.

My favorite of the Island's legal rules is that you are still apparently able to get an injunction the old-fashioned way.  According to Sark's official website, "Under Norman custom a person can obtain immediate cessation of any action he considers to be an infringement of his rights.  At the scene he must, in front of witnesses, recite the Lord's prayer in French and cry out "Haro, Haro, Haro!  A mon aide mon Prince, on me fait tort."  This is called the "Clameur de Haro."  You then register your Clameur and the actions must cease until the court can hear the matter.  This is so much better than our boring old motion for a temporary restraining order.  I just want to be able to register my Clameur.

USATODAY.com
Official Website of Sark, That Small, Sweet World of Wave-Encompassed Wonder