The Evil Lawyer - Netflix Series

THE EVIL LAWYER (2026) | Thai Legal Drama Official Trailer | NETFLIX
MovieDigger

Lawyers and judges in Thailand. Mek, a young lawyer working as a public defender, son of a judge, has a 'friend' who is the son of Anan. Anan is the head of the national police, or some such. A big shot in any case.

Our boy gets arrested for the murder of his 'friend'. His lawyer (his uncle) cannot find a way to get him acquitted, so he hires Jittri, the nastiest, highest profile lawyer in town and things start to get interesting. Jittri realizes the system is riddled with corruption, so she has no qualms about doing whatever is needed to get her client acquitted, including threats, blackmail and bribery. A guy they need to testify gets busted, so Jittri digs up a guy to take the fall for him. When Mek asks him why he agreed to go to prison, the guy tells him it has got to be better than working on the fishing boat.

Seems Anan has a fleet of fishing boats and he press gangs refugees (illegal immigrants) from Burma into becoming crew on his boats. If you survive working on these boats and get back to shore in one piece, you might get paid, but more likely you will be deported back to Burma.

8 episodes

Crazy

Multnomah Athletic Club on Monday evening. (Aaron Mesh)

Willamette Week has a fine example of the difficulty in balancing civil liberties with public safety.

Multnomah Athletic Club Attack Inflames Civil Commitment Debate by Andrew Schwartz

The man who smashed a car full of explosives into the upscale Portland athletic club early Saturday morning has several earlier encounters with law enforcement.

Peter Pan

Why does British copyright law have a "Peter Pan clause"?
Chris Spargo?

I am mending from my recent hip surgery. I am done with the walker, I don't think I ever really needed it, but my wife, concerned as she is, insists that I use it. Given how much help she is, I try to follow her directions.

Strange things going on in my body. Doc gave me a bottle of (40) 5 mg tablets of Oxycodone, saying take one or two ever four hours. I've been taking one or two a day until yesterday. Yesterday evening I started feeling very cold and the pain in my hip was becoming more pronounced, so I went ahead and took one. Within an hour the coldness and the pain had lessened significantly. So the cold is my new indicator that maybe it's time for another oxy.

I think the reason I wasn't needing very many oxy early on was because the drugs they used during surgery had not completely worn off. I'm still not taking very many oxy, maybe 3 or 4 a day which is just a fraction of my maximum prescribed dose.

Chauncy & the FBI

Chauncey Billups. (Blake Benard)

The boss is a big fan of the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team, so we noticed when the FBI arrested Chauncy Billups, the head coach of the Blazers, on accusations of gambling.

It sounded a little off to me. Near as I can tell all these games were private, they weren't held in any licensed venues, like a casino, which makes me wonder why they are any of the FBI's business in the first place. Further, it strikes me that someone who is playing poker with people he doesn't know is a mark looking to get fleeced.

Then I picked up a copy of Willamette Week in a coffee shop down in South Waterfront this morning, and found this story:

Waiting On the Flop by Anthony Effinger

The federal case against Chauncey Billups look flimsy to criminal lawyers. 

Wherein I found this little tidbit: 

"They are playing in an illegal poker game," the [New York criminal defense] lawyer, also a former Federal prosecutor, said. "There's a certain Caveat Emptor that comes with that."

All in all it sounds a like a big power play. The Feds want to bust some Mafia big shots, but the only thing they've got is this gambling scam. Well, remember how they got Al Capone - Income Tax evasion. So that might what they are doing here. Chauncy apparently had little to no actual involvement with this scam, but he ranks highest on the celebrity scale, so they put his name front and center in all their announcements to the media.

P. S. Previous post that mentions Chauncy.

Palais de Justice, Bordeaux, France

Palais de Justice, Bordeaux, France

The title is a misnomer. The architecture firm that designed this building (RSHP) calls it Bordeaux Law Courts. Construction from 1992-1998.

What makes this building unique is that the courtrooms are housed within structures resembling giant wine vats—an evident tribute to Bordeaux’s renowned winemaking tradition. - 281archdesign

Palais de Justice, Bordeaux, France

Look on Google Maps for Palais de Justice, Bordeaux, France and you get a big pile of Tram Stops and no obvious indication of this building. It took some looking to locate it. Google calls it the Tribunal Judiciaire.

Via Construction Physics by Brian Potter

Liability

2025 Mazda Miata

Dennis was related his son's tale of woe at lunch today. His son recently (like within the last year) bought a new Mazda Miata. The car developed a problem with the headlights - they would just turn off for no reason. Not good if you are driving at night. He took it back to the dealer, as you would, and they 'fixed' it. On the way home, the headlights shut off, so no, it wasn't fixed. Took it back to the dealer. This time they replaced the headlights. Son refuses to accept the car. Replacing the headlights is not going to fix the problem. So now they are headed to arbitration.

I'm thinking that the problem here is that while your average automotive technician (that's what they call mechanics now-a-days) may be perfectly competent when it comes to basic mechanical repairs, when a computer is involved, all bets are off. There are only three people in the entire country who are familiar enough with the computer system and the diagnostic tools to be able to correctly identify the problem. Computer systems are so reliable that there are not enough problems to make it worthwhile to train enough technicians so that you can have someone on hand when a computer does flake out.

This led to speculating about why cars with seemingly minor damage are often totaled (manufacturers don't want to get hit with any future warranty claims). I asked Google about this and all the explanations are something about the value of the car and the cost of repairs. I ain't buyin' it. Now I'm thinking the problem is that insurance companies don't want to get sued by someone when this car breaks down or, god-forbid, is in an accident. The basic economic only pan out if you can get out from under any potentional future warranty or liability claims. There is small niche of Americans who like nothing better than suing someone for something. All you need is be successful one time and you can start to think that this might be good way to make a living, maybe even become prosperous.

Death to Hamas

UNRWA - Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images

and those who aided and abetted them:

Trump DOJ Strips Hamas-Linked UN Agency Of Immunity For October 7 Massacre By Hank Berrien

"The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine ('UNRWA') played a significant role in those heinous offenses."

Excerpt:

In a  letter from the United States Attorney, Southern District of New York, to U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres regarding the case Estate of Tamar Kedem Siman Tov et al. v. UNRWA, the text stated:

The complaint in this case recounts atrocious crimes committed by Hamas on October 7. And its factual allegations, taken as true, detail how the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (“UNRWA”) played a significant role in those heinous offenses. Previously, the Government expressed the view that certain immunities shielded UNRWA from having to answer those allegations in American courts. The Government has since reevaluated that position, and now concludes UNRWA is not immune from this litigation. Nor are the bulk of other defendants.

The lawsuit states:

The atrocities committed by Hamas in the October 7 Attack were not only acts of terror, genocide, and crimes against humanity, they were torts in violation of the law of nations. Because, as detailed below, the Defendants’ actions aiding and abetting those torts in violation of the law of nations, including but not limited to their funding of Hamas, occurred in significant part in the State of New York and in this federal judicial district, this Court has subject matter jurisdiction and venue over Plaintiffs’ claims against these Defendants. Many of the Plaintiffs separately have claims against Defendants for aiding and abetting Hamas’ violations of the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (“TVPA”), which requires no such New York nexus.

Torts? What's a tort? Google tells us:

A tort is a civil wrong, meaning an act or omission that causes harm to another person or their property, for which the law provides a remedy, typically monetary damages. Essentially, it's a violation of someone's legal rights that leads to a claim for compensation.

I won't be happy until Hamas is ground to dust. If that takes grinding the most high Khamenei and his cohorts to dust as well, so be it.

Illegal Immigration

Illegal Immigration

Seems like Illegal Immigration can be a hanging offense. The Hansen case was decided in 2023.

With the amount of corruption and waste that DOGE is uncovering, it makes me wonder who was minding the store. Evidently no one. It's like whatever security there was, was hired by the crooks to make sure no one noticed that they were letting in boatloads of aliens while simultaneously shoveling money out the back door.

Pardon Me

Conflict

I like this idea.

I read somewhere that accepting a pardon means you are admitting guilt for the crime, and a guilty verdict follows you around forever. I am sure a lawyer could find a way around this, but it's an interesting idea. But what crime do you record when no charges have been filed, no court has tried the case, and there is no conviction? Or do you just assume that since the President has pardoned someone, you can assume that someone is guilty?

Both Biden and Trump have pardoned people. Most of the people Biden pardoned have not been convicted of anything. Trump's pardons were for the tourists who got rounded up on January 6th. At least one of those people has refused the pardon and intends to fight to have their conviction overturned.

I only recognized a couple of the people in the image, so I cut the image up into 9 individual images and fed them to Google. Google was only able to identify two of them:

• Adam Schiff - top left - California. Currently U. S. Senator, previous U. S. Representative for 24 years. 
• Zoe Lofgren - top center - California. U. S. Representative for 31 years. 

I think the bottom left image is Liz Cheney, former U. S. Representative from Wyoming.

I know I've seen a few of the others, but I cannot name nor can Google tell me who they are.

Munitions & Rules

The FAL in Cuba: Left Arm of the Communist World?
Forgotten Weapons

I'm a bit of a sucker for FAL automatic rifles. While I do like the way they look, I think I like them because they are exotic, as in I have never seen one in person.

At the end of the video Ian is going to demonstrate shooting one of these rifles in full-automatic mode, but he can't show us because of YouTube's rules. I would kind of like to see that because Ian is not a big guy and the FAL shoots a 308 cartridge, which is substantial.

Then we have this video by Demolition Ranch where he was demonstrating just what kind of things YouTube allowed regarding automatic weapons:

Youtube Legal Gun Content...
DemolitionRanch

Okay, YouTube has rules, the government has rules and your friends have their own rules. Rules change. I'm not too worried about the rules.

Anyway, the business about the freighter blowing up in Havana harbor piqued my interest. Another case where the CIA might have been sticking their fingers in. Nice thing about explosions, any evidence pretty much gets obliterated.

La Coubre explosion 4 March 1960

On the page with the image I found this block explaining the rules governing the inclusion of this photo. Awful lot of legalese.

Licensing

	This work was created in Cuba and is now in the public domain because its term of copyright has expired. According to Cuban law #14 and subsequent amendments, copyright terms in Cuba are the following:
Type of material Copyright has expired in Cuba if... Copyright has expired in the US if...¹ Photographs Used more than 25 years ago First published in Cuba without compliance with US copyright formalities and used in Cuba before February 20, 1972 Anonymous works (not photographs) Used more than 50 years ago First published in Cuba without compliance with US copyright formalities and used in Cuba before February 20, 1947 Corporate and government works Never (perpetual copyright) Published before 1929 (95 years ago) All other works More than 50 years has passed since the 1st of January following the death of the author a) Published in Cuba without compliance with US copyright formalities, author died before 1947 or b) Published before 1929 (95 years ago)
Note 1: For a file to be hosted on Wikimedia Commons, it must be in the public domain in both Cuba and the United States.
¹ For a work to be public domain in the United States, its copyright must have expired in Cuba before Cuba joined the Berne Convention on February 20, 1997.
Note 2: Notwithstanding the conditions set above, the state of Cuba may decide to transfer to the state the copyright on works when the copyright term for the creator of it has expired, as set by the 48º article of Cuban Copyright law. Such works would not be free of copyright, and may be deleted at any time. English ∙ Español ∙ 日本語 ∙ русский ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體） ∙ +/−

Alec Baldwin

Judge throws out Alec Baldwin manslaughter case

Why am I hearing about this from RT? Oh, if might be because I won't pay for subscriptions to known liars like the Washington Post and The New York Times.

I thought this was a bullshit case from day one which was what, two years ago? It's taken this long for the courts to figure out it was bullshit? It did draw a lot of attention and now I wonder if that wasn't the plan all along. Everyone knew the case was bullshit, but if you are playing with firearms you need to be careful. By dragging this out across the headlines for however many months they did, they may have impressed all the Hollywood prop guys that you can't be messing around. So maybe all this bullshit did some good.

Witness to the end of Civilization

IAman reports from the eastside of Portland. A neighbor pushes a lightweight, two drawer Craftsman tool chest out in the hall. He snags it and advertises it on Facebook:

June 27,2024

Amazingly it received 235 clicks & 10 messages, within a couple hours.

Guy came right over, his wife wants it as a base for a flower planter

The guy retired after 25 years driving city bus.

So I asked him about this neighborhood.

He said it is getting better. It is certainly better than the "nums" street slang for the streets 122nd through 188th (or thereabouts), that area houses poor people displaced by gentrification. More crime there.

My building super says all of Portland was so nice, back 1992. He attributes the shitty streets to the homeless (bums) drawn in by $1000 a month they get & lack of cops.

Speaking of Cops, Joe, tonight's security guard has an app for his work with a magic-cop button, pressed, guarantees a cruiser within minutes. Only used once in 2 years for some recalcitrant homeless female that refused to leave a property. Joe trained as a boxer for a couple years and has an electric zapper on his flashlight. His company is going to upgrade their defense weapons soon.

I went to mail a letter tonight, riding on the KPX.

No lobby, no mail slots, drive-up boxes removed. WTF! Angry as I pull out of the USPS parking lot I am faced with one of those littered nasty looking homeless sites, a couple of greaseballs standing around. I pull up & call out "Heh, you know why the post office removed the mail boxes?" "Yeah" the head tweaker reponds "because of people like you!" Whoa... Haha he beat me to the punch.

Greaseballs 2 IAman 0

I watched a bum rifle through our dumpster without leaving a mess, then he pulled his two wagons next door and cleaned up & picked up trash before looking for cans. Takes all kinds I suppose.

Later the same day:

Worried about my KPX250cc security, from face book I buy:

• Heavy chain & lock
• Brake rotor lock
• Cover (perimeter) alarm 

The nice fella I bought them from said the cover alarm served him well alerting 3 times to thieves. Says he lives in Vancouver because “yeah where you live is a jungle of crime”

Driving back to PDX I stopped by the scene of the crime (ebike theft) at Winco. Couple greaseballs scoping out the parking lot. I take their pictures and they leave. I go to the front desk and tell the head clerk my tale of whoa, she responds “crime is bad here, that's why I moved”, I tell her that Winco has been offering platitudes but otherwise is unresponsive, she takes my info and promises to give it to the manager. Outside I talk to the security guard and he says they typically have 10-12 thefts per day in the parking lot while they are on patrol.

I did everything corporate Winco told me to do, just to ignore me. Winco had 3 nice emails to me says their 3rd party was CSC and they would help me. They ignore me is what they do. (Using AI to write emails of empty platitudes to customer inquiries)

I ask the apartment manager if I was robbed could I see their video. “No.” Is there any circumstance I can see it. “No, cops only.”

So this video surveillance is a crock of poop…..until someone with $money$ or a gun needs to see it.  And then the video has looped or the camera lens was on, or other horse hockey.

Returning back to the Apartment, I see the building construction manager, a no nonsense sort of guy, Bill. I said I am getting spooked about the neighborhood, he conveys “good”. Talking he relates a couple anecdotes.

The construction site were losing tools and materials to greaseballs. Then a greaseball tent compound is built next to their parking lot. Cops don't do anything. Once the greaseballs were out of their tents, Bill had his boys throw the entire compound into a 20 ton trash bin and covered it with broken concrete. Greaseballs haven't been back since. Yay!

Several of his crew were mugged. A couple at knife point. A couple beat the shit out of one set of greaseballs. And then 3 teens held up a crew at gunpoint and tried to steal their tool trailer. The victims call the cops, the teens scatter. Cops leave, teens come back immediately, guns drawn. Victims call the cops bus. card number cops come back immediately and at gunpoint detain the teens and haul them off.

Then there was that evening, cops serving a warrant across the street, the respondent came out guns blazing, the cops shot him dead.

Bill’s solution? Move to a small town in idaho. “This is not going to get any better here.”

Once the construction security leaves, there will be a feeding frenzy of the greaseballs on every aspect of the apartment securities weak points.

BTW don't feed the street people. Bleeding hearts here drop boxes of food or feed them out of the car trunk. After they leave, piles of trash is thrown to the wind.

I'm called to the lobby, Fedex has a delivery for me and the property managers are not allowed to accept packages. The little black gap toothed driver responds to my question “how is the neighborhood here?” “not as bad as east of 122nd, there they follow my truck around waiting for an opening.”

I cannot depend on the cops, stores, nor my apartment management. My neighbors look helpless.

Life has gotten very interesting, like how war is interesting. 

 My Bike is “secure”. I am less enthusiastic about tracking down greaseballs who thieve from me. I’ll need to find another use for my Appletags.

Maybe a quick draw handgun is in my future. I may just stay castled up here, only leave by Tundra for destinations deemed safe.

PS As I finished this I called my cousin, while talking I spy out the window a greaseball walking to a neighboring dumpster, thinking the worst that he will dump trash everywhere, just looking for bottles/cans…….but wait he holds up in a corner of the lot , a buddy comes over they exchange packets, light up something in foil, puffs of smoke, the bottle boy doubles overs for a few minutes, a “fentanyl pose” me thinks, while his buddy walks in circles. After 5 minutes the bottle boy straightens up, then leaves while leaving trash behind him. I yell “Pickup your trash” he does so without complaint. His buddy tries to backtalk, I ask him to just wait there, I have somebody he wants to meet. He leaves. It's funny they cannot see me, just a big Borg like structure talking to them.

Related news:

In major decision, Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

California Proposition 47

The impact of Prop 47 on crime in San Francisco

California Bob has a few words to say on the subject.

Background:

Passed in 2014, goal was to "lower incarceration." It raised the threshold for felony theft from $400 to $950, and lowered simple possession of illegal drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor. 

Cheekily marketed as the "Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act," b/c the money saved on incarceration would be reinvested in county-level "prevention."

Many claim Prop 47 eliminates penalties -- but the fact is misdemeanors are still punishable by 1 year in county jail or $1,000 fine. Jail time, theoretically, is still there.

However, fewer arrests happening, b/c (1) retailers don't want the danger or liability of having employees intervene, and (2) theft is a low priority for cops and DA's and (3) if arrests are made and convictions happen, judge aren't handing down sentences, b/c "reduce incarceration." So everybody's just kind of given up.

Interestingly, Texas has a $2,500 threshold for felony, much more lenient than California. And 8 other states have thresholds more lenient than CA.

Many blame Prop 47 for the "flash mob" shoplifters, but gangs of people robbing the Gucci store are still very much a felony -- not protected by Prop 47. Flash mobs are more a result of social media coordination, not reduced penalties.

One big impact is drug arrests: many drug arrests used to get settled in "drug court" with diversion to rehab, and there were some success stories with that. Now, with drugs no longer being arrested/charged, the addicts just languish on the streets, stealing and trashing things up.

There is a move to overturn Prop 47 and it should be on the ballot in November. It will probably be overturned.

My views:

Solution to shoplifting is with the retailers. Cops can't be everywhere. There are strategies to reduce theft for retailers: controlled entry like Costco, or keep stuff behind the plexiglass. More costly but doable. Putting a $10,000 Prada purse on a shelf next to an exit is inviting theft, and really, why should taxpayers pay for Prada's security?

Currently jails are only used to confine dangerous people. Jail as a deterrent is underrated. The only way to have a secure society like Singapore or Switzerland is to aggressively arrest crooks and lock them up. That would take a lot of investment, but omelet/eggs.

Putting addicts into some sort of rehab is preferable to letting them languish on the streets. Doesn't have to be rehab, a simple cage would be fine.

Lengthy but good discussion here:

Proposition 47's Impact on California's Criminal Justice System

Legal Defense Funds

A few days ago Daniel Perry killed a lunatic on the NYC subway. His legal defense fund has raised over a million dollars. 

If you Google "january 6th defense fund" you get one to link the actual site and then a bunch of sites about how Trump ripped off $250 million from somebody. 

If you go to the January 6th Legal Defense Fund site, there isn't much there. It's barely even a website. This case has been going on for over two years, and this is the best they can come up with?

The January 6 Legal Defense Fund has a page on Give Send Go, but I think there must be something wrong with these people. They have raised $200K, but their goal is only $750K. They have fighting Congress for two years and that's all the money they have raised? Fighting with Congress entails hours-days-weeks-months of sitting and waiting for the windbags to finish what they are saying. Lawyers charge by the hour. How much windbaggage are you going to be able to absorb with $200K. Probably used that all up in the first month. I'd say they probably need more like 100 million to defend all of the defendants against our mafia controlled Congress.

So my question is: why hasn't the Jan 6th Legal Defense Fund gotten their act together?

Gun Liability Insurance

Revolver

This idea just occurred to me. I don't know if it's a good idea or a bad one. I am sure that most everyone will object to it. Whatever. Here goes.

How about we require everyone who carries a gun to carry a large liability policy, like, I dunno, a million dollars or so. Of course many people have guns at home and do not normally carry them, but since they have them in their possession they easily could pick them up and carry them. So everyone who has a gun would need one of these policies.

Now people of the gun will object that it infringes on "their right to bear arms", and enforcing a  requirement that all gun owners obtain such a policy would be an invasion of privacy.

Making it an absolute requirement that all gun owners carry such liability insurance would never fly. But we could start by making it a requirement that you need to show proof of such insurance in order to buy a gun or ammunition. It's pretty much universal that you need to have insurance in order to operate a motor vehicle, so requiring insurance for certain activities is nothing new.

Now people are going to object to the government keeping records of all the gun and ammunition sales, but it doesn't need to be like that. The government has made it a legal requirement that you need to demonstrate that you are of age in order to buy liquor, but the government doesn't keep track of all those transactions.

But where is this insurance going to come from? From insurance companies, presumably, certainly not from the Federal government.

Now the rates might be kind of high to start with, but as more people acquire policies, the rates should drop. Given that there are a zillion gun owners in the USA, and given the small number of incidents where a previously solid citizen goes off the deep end and kills someone, insurance shouldn't cost the individual gun owner more than about ten dollars a year.

It would be up to the insurance companies to vet the applicant. Some insurance companies may discriminate against some people for any number of reasons, and you really couldn't blame them. They are signing up to be on the hook for a million smackolas if Johnny Q. Customer decides to go round the bend. But insurance is a private business, not a government thing, so there might be other companies that would be willing to insure Johnny Q.

Hopefully, by putting insurance companies in charge of deciding who is qualified to carry a firearm could reduce the number of nut cases who can obtain guns. And if they do, and they do run amok, well, at least the victims will get some compensation.

It would probably be ten years or so before such a policy started making an impact.

Yup, I'm late to the party San Jose passed a law back in January. As expected, some people are contesting it. If it passes the challenges, the law is supposed take effect in August.

Soup Kitchen

Judge Kimberly A. Knill of the Orange County Superior Court
Nose stud and visible tattoos? Yah, sure, Bill.

A semi-amusing story about a billionaire and his troubles with his local community.

You Only Hang Twice by Bill Gross, billionaire and petty irritant

Just last week I was approached by a Hollywood producer to be the consultant on a new James Bond sequel to be titled "You Only Hang twice". Having received a restraining order nine months ago in the famous Gilligan's Island trial, I and my wife Amy had just been sentenced to five days in jail (with time off for community service) for playing 15 minutes of music at 9 pm in our backyard pool. The music was below city decibel limits but was somehow disturbing the peace of our noise-sensitive neighbor. NO police citation was issued but what the heck, a crime must have been committed if the neighbor simply called police and complained he couldn't sleep at such a late hour.

Enter the hanging judge of the Laguna Beach shore, a 57-year-old lady with pierced nose stud and visible tattoos, to retry and rehang the highly visible target of Bill Gross – ex-Bond King and obviously still "full of himself" senior citizen. She would try me twice, she would hang me twice – thus opening a potential career in Hollywood for me and her at a point in my life when climbing the stairs was taking up an increasing amount of my daily routine. The judge I have since learned only does "restraining order" cases in Orange County, but these two trials encompassing four weeks of court time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees (a mere $1,200 fine for me though) could presumably be a stepping stone for the judge for greater court assignments. Even the appellate court. But perhaps my fury runneth over a little too much here. Time will tell but in any case, she'll have a prominent place in the script and may even get to act in her own role. I'm too old for my part it seems. They're thinking of Jake Gyllenhaal! But I would have preferred Tom Hanks.

Anyway, the interesting part of all this to me was our immediate assignment to the Santa Ana soup kitchen for two days of community service. No orange suit duty on the highway thank goodness, just two days at nearby Santa Ana where coincidentally I had volunteered several times in the past to serve Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Like one of my friends remarked at a lunch last week, "Community service? Gross has performed and provided more community service in the past 20 years than anyone in Orange County history!" But no matter – truth, justice, the American way, and judicial ambition would prevail.

But here's the interesting part. Having volunteered at this same soup kitchen before, I was expecting a similar cast of "down and out" people in need of a hot lunch. Indeed, as Amy and I cut chicken for the soup and fruit for the fruit cups, we were then assigned to pass out what was actually a gorgeous enchilada lunch replete with cheesecake and chips when the doors opened at noon. Due to COVID, however, there was no indoor dining – in fact the new routine featured a drive-through lane where a large percentage of cars were nice SUVs and pickup trucks. "Say what?" I whispered to Amy. Each "customer" was handed a meal with more calories than the ones at a McDonald's drive-through and in addition, many special requests were fulfilled. No downtrodden homeless people at this soup kitchen! There were vegan meals, gluten-free meals, five kinds of bread, and orders from the cars to skip the meal but to give them mini-sacks of avocados and artichokes for special diets later in the day. There was one request for a feminine hygiene package and several for prophylactics. But not to be outdone, requests for "doggie bites" and cat food kept Amy and I scrambling from noon to 3 pm. "Hundreds were served" to use the McDonald's phrase, and well served I might add. We worked beside a volunteer who told us he came two days a week to feel good about helping other people. He was a little bedraggled looking and had to take the bus from Long Beach to get there. I told him that was a wonderful gesture but silently thought to myself, "Buddy, you've been screwed. They're living better than you".

And so perhaps we have all been screwed if the Santa Ana soup kitchen is any example. A trophy for every kid has moved up the maturity ladder to an artichoke for every adult. Many of those requesting vegan were well dressed and apparently not lacking in the finer accoutrements of daily life. "We can't discriminate against those who have already been discriminated against," remarked one of the permanent staff. "We can't deny them twice". Ah yes I said to myself – I know what you mean.

 The story then rambles off into a bunch of financial mumbo-jumbo which I found pert near useless.

Via ZeroHedge

I Fight Evil

I Fight Evil Forces - Francis Alexander

Hertz, the car rental company has a couple of problems. First problem: "The company filed for bankruptcy on May 22, 2020, citing a sharp decline in revenue and future bookings caused by the COVID-19 pandemic." - Wikipedia. They seem to be getting along okay now.

The other problem is a couple hundred customers are suing them for false arrest, saying that Hertz claimed they had stolen their rental car when they had in fact paid for it.

I went looking for information about this lawsuit but I didn't find much except the name of the lawyer who is handling the case - Francis Alexander, which is where I got the cool image at the top.

This wouldn't have bothered me much, I mean no more than any other story of people getting screwed by giant, incompetent organizations, except I was just talking to IAman the other day about car rental companies and how I had tried all the others, found them to be garbage and finally settled on Hertz because the business of renting a car from them was so smooth. The last time I tried to save a couple of bucks on a rental car the counter man made me listen to a 15 minute spiel about all kinds of bullshit I wasn't interested in before he would finally give me the keys and let me go.

These days I only rent a car when mine is laid up in the shop for a few days, and then I rent from Enterprise because they have lots of little local offices.

Via Knuckledraggin My Life Away

TMAP - The Media Accountability Project

The Media Accountability Project Trailer from The Media Accountability Project on Vimeo.

Looks like we might have an outfit that could step into the shoes that the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) abandoned I don't know how many years ago. Or maybe the ACLU just has their hands full and can't handle the landslide of crap coming down the hill.

Via The Feral Irishman

Repair Wars

Watch Repair

Repair Wars on Make: is a good story about legal battles being fought between manufacturers and people who want to be able to repair their own equipment.  I've been hearing stories about John Deere tractors and Apple products for while now, but I'd didn't realize the problem was so pervasive.

We need a new ACLU

Near as I can tell, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) has become a lapdog for Social Justice Warriors. In other words they are spending their efforts fighting issues that don't matter to most people. To be sure, those issues no doubt mean a great deal to the people who are contributing cash money. That's fine, that's what they want to worry about, I'll let them.

But there are any number of other issues that are more serious and are screwing people over left, right and center. With that many problems you'd think someone would have started an organization to pick up the slack.

There might be one, but evidently I'm not holding my mouth right, because five minutes on Google turned up nothing that looks like it might be a serious alternative to the ACLU.

I wonder if it might be because people outside of the ACLU's echo chamber tend to think in terms of personal responsibility and aren't prone to making donations to anybody, especially someone who is going to spend the money on lawyers.