Tort reform

Yesterday I learned that doing law school reading is a lot harder than college reading after you have had a beer or two. I was hanging out with Erik in the early evening, and still had to try to get some work done after. But I just couldn't bring myself to care about strict liability according to the Model Penal Code. I ended up doing that thing where you actually read every word on the page, but you don't really comprehend any of it. Better hope I don't end up as a criminal defense lawyer representing you in a strict liability case. And you also had better hope I haven't subsequently become illiterate so that I can't go back and read the relevant sections before I argue the case. That's right, you'd better hope you don't have an illiterate lawyer. Unless he's super charismatic. For example, I would take an illiterate Barack Obama to be my lawyer.

Speaking of Mr. Obama, he just delivered his address to Congress on health care reform. Sounded pretty good to me. But I'm from Massachusetts where everyone already has health care. We're kind of like Cuba, with less Spanish and communism. I liked most of what the president said. He held out some olive branches to Republicans. Like tort reform. But I was mostly excited about that because I now know what that means! Basically, in this context, it's harder to sue doctors. Sounds cool, but it's not actually. I was also distracted by the editor's choice of camera shots a good deal of the time. Why do you have to show a member of Congress looking at his Blackberry rather than paying attention to the leader of the free world? It's not very nice. But then again its not very nice to ignore a public speaker. Or to shout out "You lie!" in the Chamber of Congress while the President of the United States is giving a speech (I'm looking at you Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina!).

I just saw an ad on TV: "West Virginia, wild and wonderful!" I would like to add "with your cousin" to the end of it. Just kidding, I don't know anyone from West Virginia. I'm just going by what I've seen on t-shirts. And heinous New England stereotypes. But that's my favorite kind of stereotype. It's the kind where anyone who isn't from New England is inferior and if you aren't from New York or California either you must be mentally deficient. Hell, you can even be mentally deficient if you are from New York or California. The rest of the country is all either the midwest or the south. We've never heard of things like the Pacific Northwest. It's a figment of your imagination. Like the moon landing.