And it doesn't matter too much then whether it's Dewey, Cheatem and Howe, or Thurgood Marshall, that's representing you; if you're owed the money by law, you're owed the money, regardless of your lawyer's bona fides, political leanings, or popularity at coctail parties.

Ironically, I just had a huge flamewar at my blog when I made fun of trial lawyers, whom I do hold in a certain amount of contempt. (Having been one, tho never a member of ATLA, I'm informed enough to be entitled to my "prejudice.")

At issue here, however, is not some "creative" lawyer trying to contrive some new duty to warn, or whatever, that purportedly would have saved Obese Oscar Hufferpuffer from stroking out after his 6 millionth Whopper and 3,000th carton of Marlboro's. There are actual constitutional and statutory rights that each of us enjoy by goddam law in this matter of government eavesdropping, not by the connivance of your more resourceful ambulance chasers. EVEN IF an ambulance chaser or two took some of these FISA cases, s/he would be just -- sometimes the ambulance carries a person who should sue and reap recovery.

But every 6 months or so...I just DO IT. With cheese.

Now, if I could only advise the NSA that they may not intercept my fone or email exchanges sans warrant, unless I decide to let them do so, every six months or so.

I blogged on that very thought a while back:

All very good and well, Arne, but there have been no updates in a damn coon's age. If one wishes to warn one's readers, friends and family -- what is the terror color now, huh, Mr. hot shot blogger?

As near as I can tell, we ain't had a color alert since about the '04 election. What, prithee, are you doing about that?

Yes, I did.

True story.

Some years ago I was helping a non-profit (that provides services to mentally retarded adults) write grants -- one of the bigger fish denied us, and at a meeting of the board I sniped that the grant-denier was an outfit of "niggardly jerks."

OMG. Jaws dropped. Eyes went all round. An uncomfortable silence ensued.

So...I began to explain what the word means, and more importantly, to what it holds no relationship. And could tell I was in an "to excuse is to accuse" situation and so then shut up.

Jebbie: My sins are many and the deepest crimson, but for what am I forgiven this time?

I'm a libertarian who had somewhat tilted GOP, but went straight Dem in '06, and have been attacking the Republicans tooth and nail for a few years now.

And I'm doing all that why, again?

A NYC, Midtown lawfirm I was in once seriously considered -- looked at and negotiated for -- office space in the WTC. Didn't take it, or that's where the firm would have been on 9/11. Suppose that affected me much?

I think Glenn has a similar story. Elpehantman and his ilk want to monopolize the horror. He and the likeminded may all f*ck themselves.

Not so simple as right = wicked and liberal = wunderbar. See Scalia's dissent on the "left" in Hamdi: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-6696.ZD.html

Thomas has never been Scalia's puppet, and was not here -- he was WRONG om Hamdi. Thomas, however, did the right thing in Raich, (med marijuana) when Scalia did not.

There is no consistent libertarian on the High Court. No one who votes per principle. All nine are ad hoc.

Making Swiss steak at my son's this afternoon, I decided to watch MSNBC as I did so -- oh, citizens, we are saved. The Congress via the Mitchell hearings is investigating whether Roger Clemons knew he was taking steroids or human growth hormones! And MSNBC is all over it!

Glenn is awesome, but for all his virtues he can be a bit impatient. But honestly, if you've followed his blog here and in his pre-Salon days, you'd know he's been accused of being everything from: a right-wing mole, a far leftist, a Ron Paul shill, an Obama supporter, and in the tank for HRC. And that's just a partial list. (He's also a libertarian hack taking his orders not from Joan Walsh, but from me according to one former regular -- I *am* a libertarian who has worked with him on some projects. We are, however, not Borg.)

It gets very old. Constantly having people read positions into stuff one never wrote or even implied. He's had to "defend himself" against all sorts of petulant -- and even deranged -- people who think they divine his true intent.

So, give him a break. And don't read into what he writes -- or doesn't write -- anything but what he says.

I virtually never promote my own posts here, but I became outraged by one of the largest, most reactionary blogs that linked to this post, and I pretty much went ballistic by the content "The Jawa Report's" filthy attack on Glenn. I feel a need to share my fury:

http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2008/02/15/7876