Archive for Lawyers, Guns & Money

Don’t-pay-for-software day

Today apparently is don’t-pay-for-software day. I say this because today is both Pirate Day (or Talk Like A Pirate Day) and Open Source Day (or Software Freedom Day). Both celebrate classic ways to not pay for your software.

The other alternative is taking them literally together like this:

Pirate Open Source?[/caption]

We might need to call this union holiday Confused-About-What-I’m-Doing-Day or You’re-Doing-It-Wrong-Day.

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The worst possible PR

Sometimes companies do silly things, get bad PR, and then retract them or try to correct the situation.

Sometimes companies do silly things, get bad PR, and then make retarded statements that let the entire world know not to deal with them.
I won’t say this is one of those times since I don’t want to get sued.

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They might be gi…unions

Webster’s defines the phrase labor union as: an organization of workers formed for the purpose of advancing its members’ interests in respect to wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Along those lines, I present two different things to read. They have lots of clickables to sources and such should you care to investigate further.

Getting the ABA Out of the Law School Accreditation Business
100 Years of Medical Robbery

I’m familiar with the Volokh Conspiracy but not enough to know what their leanings are politically. The Ludwig von Mises Institute however I am familiar with. It is a libertarian academic organization (perhaps a thinktank) that follows the Austrian School of economics. In my mind this is a Very Good Thing ™.

Edit: M, I had my mechanism wrong. The ABA’s control is via school accreditation. From the wiki link “Specifically, in most U.S. jurisdictions, graduation from an ABA-accredited law school is expressly stated as a prerequisite towards being allowed to sit for that state’s bar exam, and even for existing lawyers to be admitted to the bar of another state upon motion.”

I am not a fan of a government license to practice something that depends upon some issuance of a private group in general. Regulators shouldn’t be run by those they regulate.

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Obama’s Inauguration Speech

Barack Obama’s Inauguration Speech

According to the “Inauguration Speech Generator:

My fellow Americans, today is a drunk day. You have shown the world that “hope” is not just another word for “corgi”, and that “change” is not only something we can believe in again, but something we can actually nom.

Today we celebrate, but let there be no mistake – America faces tasty and fuzzy challenges like never before. Our economy is purple. Americans can barely afford their mortgages, let alone have enough money left over for video games. Our healthcare system is ghetto. If your toe is sick and you don’t have insurance, you might as well call a ninja. And America’s image overseas is tarnished like a boobie aardvark. But sexing together we can right this ship, and set a course for Mexico.

Finally, I must thank my sick family, my soft campaign volunteers, but most of all, I want to thank paladins for making this historic occasion possible. Of course, I must also thank you, President Bush, for years of flying the American people. Without your exotic efforts, none of this would have been possible.

Mad Libs FTW.

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I Swear It Wasn’t Ein

Some bad dog was recently caught on tape shoplifting a bone from the pet store:

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If NERF is illegal, only zmobies will have it

Bowling Green State University has banned NERF guns on campus.

Why were there NERF guns on campus anyway? Well it turns out that humans on BGSU’s campus were using these NERF guns to protect themselves from zombies. I applaud the humans at BGSU for their attempt and have to wonder if the administration there may already be xombiefied.

Maybe this banning of NERF weapons provides the BGSU humans the opportunity to get real zombie defense kits. I personally recommend the following equipment:

  1. Fire Axe (any brand)
  2. 1911 .45 ACP pistol (choose a reliable brand)
  3. Benelli Tactical Shotgun (collapsible to conserve space)
  4. Body Armor (look for something resistant to slashing and bludgeoning)
  5. Helmet (braiiinnnsssss)
  6. Some optional but handy items you might also want.

  7. Incendiary Grenades (burning is very effective versus most undead)
  8. Flamethrower (see above)
  9. Barrel of Kittens (too many brains can distract zombies and temporarily stun them)
  10. Holy Water (generally considered effective against undead. Also you can give yourself last rites)
  11. Mark III Suit (this is pretty much zombie immunity all in one. and badass looking)

Some additional pieces of advice:

  • Don’t mess about with knives vs. zombies. Stabbing doesn’t work. They need to be chopped up into tiny pieces or you are still in trouble.
  • Stick to explosive or incendiary bullets if possible. Again the explosion thing.
  • Don’t waste your time using a riot shield like the one kit I linked to. It just gives the zombies something else to grab a hold of and won’t stop them anyway.
  • Unlike normal video game combat rules, don’t aim for the zombie’s head. There isn’t anything useful there. Aim for center of mass. Hope for a knock down or dismemberment.
  • If you are a descendant of Abraham Van Helsing a zombie attack would be a really good time to wake up Alucard.
  • Zombies hate garlic. It won’t stop them from eating your brain, but at least they won’t enjoy it as much.

I really don’t think the BGSU humans are going to follow my advice though. According to the article:

The human’s main form of defense used to come in the form of Nerf guns, but is now being downgraded to balled up socks and marshmallows.

That’s doing it wrong.

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Priorities

You’re on your weekly beer run with the wife and baby cause everyone knows marriage and parenthood lead to alcoholism. Who or what do you use a seat belt on?

This guy chose to strap in his Busch and leave the baby to bounce around his back seat. Needless to say, he was arrested and taken off to jail.

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Weddings

Nothing quite tops off a wedding than vampire porn. Gratz to sage and minerva.

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BA

BA is something we’ve talked about in the past here at Abodes. Being a reader of a consumer policy and law blog, I see that there’s a lot happening with congress listening to why BA is bad.

Unlike most posts, I can add a call to action here, support the arbitration fairness act by writing your congress people.

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Binding What?

Some of you might be aware of my dislike for Binding Arbitration.So we see a mix of that with occupational hazards for contractors in Iraq in this story about a woman’s time in a shipping container. It doesn’t seem as good as some other’s time in a shipping container.

But back to the story – because of binding Arbitration and the fact it happened in Iraq it looks like she gets the short straw. Not fun. There are plenty of better ways to be bound.

(Editor’s note: There may very well still be criminal charges filed, especially considering how much media attention this is starting to get. Arbitration only applies to civil cases.)

(Editor’s Editor’s note: Bush has given many of the contractors in Iraq the ability to get out criminal charges for stuff that happens over there and it did happen in Iraq. They might have be able to press criminal charges.) 

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