To Outsmart Oneself

I wanted to share this hilarious account of an exchange in a courtroom where an overzealous attorney outsmarts himself.

Lawyer: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "Did you check for breathing?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
Witness: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
Lawyer: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?"
Witness: "Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere."

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The illustration to this post is just a random picture of that ridiculously handsome Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, 33. 

Can we ever get to see too many pictures of Chris Hensworth? Or for that matter of any of the other strikingly handsome men?

Accepting Facts

The American radio and television journalist Andy Rooney is quoted as once having said, "People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.”

The Swedish legal system is based on what is sometimes called the Continental European legal system, where laws are codified in statutes that are passed by the elected legislatures. The laws are then interpreted by the courts in the cases that come before them. The courts are however bound by the the wording and framework of the laws and the intentions of the legislature and cannot interpret the freely or without basis in the wording. The Swedish Supreme Courts interpretation of the laws (precedents)  then limit the lower courts and their own future interpretation of disputes where the facts of the cases are the same. 

I have been at a tiresome meeting today. The object of the meeting was to inform and advice the 74 attendees on how the existing laws in Sweden regulate a specific dispute and what the relevant precedence is that would be applied by the courts when deciding their dispute.

The biggest problem to deal with was that about 25 of those at the meeting (the loudest naturally) were not there to listen or to be informed but instead to argue, from a purely emotional standpoint, how they believed - or would have preferred - the laws and the precedents to have been different.

I do not mind working for a change of existing or laws or how they should be interpreted. In Sweden such a change cannot be achieved in the courts solely but needs a lot of political footwork and lobbying against the legislature.

The 25 people at the meeting had little or no knowledge of the Swedish legal system and had probably seen too many American films and television dramas - where the legal system is completely different - of how victories and change of law comes about through valiant court battles with cunning and impassioned lawyers. Any explanation of how their disputes would be adjudicated by a Swedish court was meaningless to them, but instead only proved to them that there was something lacking with the lawyer.

Lawyers, Makeovers & Housewarmings

Well, I am feeling a bit strange today. Nothing at all has pissed me off or irked me enough to make me rant and rally in a post. All has been just humdrum in a sort of calming way.

So I´ll just go ahead and tell you about my day in SecondLife yesterday.

First of all - just to warn you silly buggers who may try to mess with me - I retained a lawyer in SecondLife yesterday. Yeah, I know I am one myself but only a bad lawyer acts on his own behalf.

My lawyer is an American and one fierce cookie I can tell you from the start. She is totally fearless and protects my ass like a lioness protects her cubs. Hell, I even had to stop her from slamming a restraining order on some people for looking at me weirdly the other day. (Note-to-self, remember to pay her 1 L$ when you get in-world, so she doesn´t try to weasel her way out of our attorney-client relationship.)

A good part of the afternoon I spent giving Matt McMillan, nee Gaboian, a well needed makeover. Matt is an alt I use in the Tiny Empires-game. Although he is an alt of mine by some freakish accident he has turned out to be straight, the poor man. Well I started off by giving him my shape with a few minor differences and then he got new skin, new hair, new eyes and a brand new tartan. The tartan was from Elle74 Zaftig of course, nothing but the best would do!

This is what he looked like as a Linden-noob and here he is after the makeover. It´s a big improvement I think.

Later that evening I was invited to a friends housewarming party. It was Ewa Aska who had built a new house for herself, she is an awesome builder in SecondLife. The house was beautiful but the coolest thing was the dance floor, I thought, we danced over flamingos and crocodiles. You can see it here in a picture I stole from Blanche Argus´s blog (please note the capital B in Blanche).

The other guests at the party were mostly from the Tara Hill-collective, so I was left pretty much to myself except for the "Hi´s" and "Bye´s".

I had a few clarifying IMs during the party though. I managed to tell a woman I had been pissed with her but that it was passing now and also a guy that I had never been pissed with him just with a female friend of his, but that that was also passing now. And finally I managed to talk nicely with another friend whom I hadn´t met for a while, to her I was quite pleasant I think, no bitching at all - would you believe it?

There you go, parts of my day all summed up in one post, and those were the interesting parts.