Thursday, November 17, 2005

Quote unquote "...The Bush Administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them. Suggesting that to challenge or criticize policy is undermining and hurting our troops is not democracy nor what this country has stood for, for over 200 years. The Democrats have an obligation to challenge in a serious and responsible manner, offering solutions and alternatives to the administration’s policies. "Vietnam was a national tragedy partly because members of Congress failed their country, remained silent and lacked the courage to challenge the administrations in power until it was too late. Some of us who went through that nightmare have an obligation to the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam to not let that happen again. To question your government is not unpatriotic -- to not question your government is unpatriotic. [Emphasis mine.] America owes its men and women in uniform a policy worthy of their sacrifices...." -- Democratic Sen. John Kerry? Um, no: Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel  11:29:45 PM    Comments []

These guys are lawyers? (Yeah, that was my reaction, too.) This photo of Florida personal injury attorneys John Pape and Marc Chandler is from their Web site, which features the mascot of a pit bull in a spiked collar. (The whole thing seems kinda gay, if you ask me, and I should know. Still, if I had to have a lawyer, I wouldn't mind if he were a young beefy stud -- as long as he didn't wear a tank top, shades and a backwards baseball cap to court.) Anyway, the Florida Supreme Court ruled today that Pape and Chandler's use of the pit bull motif in its advertising violates Florida's rules regarding legal advertising. Ambulance chasers picked wrong mascot From Reuters today: A Florida law firm's television advertisement featuring a pit bull, a dog breed known for its aggression, is misleading and an affront to the legal profession, the Florida Supreme Court ruled [today]. Responding to a complaint by the Florida Bar, the state's highest court sanctioned a pair of Fort Lauderdale attorneys whose advertisement showed a spike-collared pit bull in the company logo. The bar also objected to the company's telephone number: 1-800-748-2855, or 1-800-PIT-BULL. The advertisements "demean all lawyers and thereby harm both the legal profession and the public's trust and confidence in our system of justice," Chief Justice Barbara Pariente scolded [in] a unanimous decision. The court said the ads violated a prohibition on legal advertising that suggests behavior, conduct or tactics that are contrary to rules of professional conduct. Attorneys John Robert Pape and Marc Andrew Chandler were ordered to attend an advertising ethics workshop and receive a public reprimand from the Florida Bar. Pape disagreed with the ruling but stopped short of saying the court was barking up the wrong tree. "I really can't get into it much," Pape said. "It's a hot-button issue for me." I wholeheartedly agree that it's just wrong to compare lawyers to pit bulls. Lawyers are a lot more like this animal: (Yup, that's a weasel. Slap a spiked collar on it and Pape & Chandler have a new mascot, methinks.) Anyway, it's funny that the legal "profession" seems to have no problem with the fact that five Repugnican-president-appointed "justices" of the U.S. Supreme Court -- rather than the American voters -- picked George W. Bush as "president" in late 2000*, but pitches a fit about the sanctity of the legal "profession" when some ambulance chasers use the pit bull as their mascot. I mean, you could just as easily -- no, much more easily -- say that the U.S. Supreme Court's late-2000 Bush v. Gore decision "demean[ed] all lawyers and thereby harm[ed] both the legal profession and the public's trust and confidence in our system of justice." But nooooooooooooo, it's things like mascots that are the black eye on the legal "profession," so let's go after shit like that. *In fact, I think it's ironic that the Florida Supreme Court ruled on the use of the pit bull as a mascot for lawyers when it was the Florida Supreme Court whose jurisdiction the U.S. Supreme Court illegally usurped when it took up the case of Bush v. Gore in order to install George W. Bush into the White House in late 2000. 8:34:35 PM    Comments []