Legal word of the Day: Mayhem

Mayhem ['mae-'hem] (n)

willful and permanent crippling, mutilation, or disfigurement of any part of another's body; also, the crime of engaging in mayhem

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law ©1996

This term falls under the fun category of words which have a specific technical meaning but are applied metaphorically in common usage. These are the words that mess with someone's head if they get used to the technical usage and then hear people throw them around where they don't really apply, e.g.,
"The rowdy youths did all kinds of mayhem."
"But I thought you said they only spray painted some mailboxes and broke a few windows."

It was only a matter of time

The L.A. Times reports that the first health insurance companies to begin trimming back their offerings after the reform bill are now doing so. [Article here.] It should probably come as no surprise that when you take away someone's incentive to provide a service, they cease to provide it.

I found particularly funny the (in his mind) rhetorical question posed by the reform pundit in the article: "Insurers need to decide if they are in the business of providing care or denying coverage." Actually, neither. They are not in the business of providing care, but risk management. Requiring them to do something else sounds like an invitation for them to go on strike to me.

Legal word of the day: Champerty

Champerty (n.) ['cham-per-te]; Champertous (adj.) ['cham-per-tes]

An unenforceable agreement to fund litigation for another in exchange for a portion of the proceeds of the suit.

Näkemiin?

Rumors are that Kimi Raikkonen may not go back to Formula 1, but stick around with rally racing. Best of luck to the Finn either way, but we'll miss him in F1.

Wolverine

"Essentially, this movie is about Hugh Jackman, the hottest actor ever, with the most un-attractive haircut ever. But, somehow it works."

~EKL

Luxury car worth £1.2m clamped outside Harrods

Click title for the story!

I seriously need some of these!

Lone Ranger

What many people don't realize is that when the Lone Ranger's parents died, they had not passed their property on directly to the Lone Ranger, but instead had created a fund for his maintenance, which was administered by Tonto. This is why Tonto is always referred to as The Trustee Sidekick.

Prison yard auto repair

If you ever find yourself needing to put a water pump belt back on its pulleys in a car with less than two inches of clearance, there is nothing like a homemade tool for pulling off the job. Not shown is the 1x4 which went through the loops to provide a foot pedal/pull bar. Also thanks to a kind contractor who provided the third hand needed for finishing.

Tool not recommended to establishing turf or maintaining dominance in maximum security pen.

Intentional Naughtiness

We found out that Warwick blew a head gasket, and will be in the shop for a week. Soon after hearing this Helmy decided that he was not getting enough attention. On our way home from a weekend away, just before we crossed back into Virginia, his temperature spiked and after we looked him over we found he had split the belt that drives the water pump. Since we will not put up with intentional naughtiness we left him north of Lucketts for the night, just to see if he would start behaving. We will be bringing him back home tomorrow, and we got him a new belt. We are not rewarding him, but the old belt is totally useless since he pitched his little fit.

AAA

Once again we are thankful for AAA. We are not quite sure what is wrong with Warwick, but we are glad we did not have to leave him on the side of the LCP.

Blast!

In Virginia, the use of non-mining explosives (e.g., for road construction) requires the user to have a blaster's license from the State Fire Marshall, pursuant to Virginia Code § 27-97.2. Once granted, the license is good for three years and can be renewed at three year intervals. However, each time a set of fingerprint cards must be submitted with the application.

Which leads me to wonder, in addition to running background checks, do they keep track of how many fingers each blaster still has?

Pesky Puritans

Reuben was determined to stay on track. "[The United States] can have riots, but not sustained [civil] wars, because the sides are too geographically mixed and the resources are too one-sided."

[Dr.] Torrent shook his head. "The seeds of civil war are always there, in every country. England in the 1600s--nobody would have believed that those pesky Puritans could provoke a Royalist versus Puritan civil war, and yet they did."

--Orson Scott Card, Empire

Don't mess with old guys

Four German pensioners, in their 60s through 80s, found guilty of kidnapping their financial adviser after he lost over $3 million of their money. The quartet not only managed to bind him with tape and gag him, they got him into a box and shifted him into the trunk of a car before driving him across Germany and stashing him in a basement. Oh, and they beat him badly enough to break several of his ribs.

Full story here.

Matchless

Brit army bike, Dutch made, all original still and in working order, it is 1 of 300 of its kind.

The owner thought it was flattering that I wanted to take its picture.

Boys, stop drooling.

(And I really like that German car next to it.)