Brian Gerke wrote to me in consternation about this New York Times article about the British elections, quoting:
The voting seemed not to have been disrupted by an explosion outside the building housing the British Consulate in New York just after polls opened across the country at 7 a.m. local (2 a.m. Eastern time) The polls close at 5 p.m. Eastern time.Brian wondered, "Why on earth would a tiny and amateurish explosion in New York (nine floors below the consulate, it should be noted) have any effect on the British election?" Pity even the Times is so Americentric--or perhaps it's just really Manhattan-centric. He continued, "I am, however, left with a very amusing mental image of a middle-aged woman in Leeds fretting to herself, saying, 'Oh dear, they've blown up a flower pot in the States; how shall we ever vote now?'" I'm guessing middle-aged, because of course anyone older would remember the Blitz and be quite unimpressed.
In other colorful imagery, Rishi sent me a decision by U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent, JOHN W. BRADSHAW, Plaintiff, v. UNITY MARINE CORPORATION, INC, that includes this:
Both attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact — complete with hats, handshakes and cryptic words — to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed. Whatever actually occurred, the Court is now faced with the daunting task of deciphering their submissions. With Big Chief tablet readied, thick black pencil in hand, and a devil-may-care laugh in the face of death, life on the razor's edge sense of exhilaration, the Court begins.And it just goes on from there. It's posted on National Review, and I was concerned it was more conservative bashing of Judges, but Kent was appointed by Bush the First, and I think they just posted it because it's kind of unusual.
