Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Fair point.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Explain the form of commuting with a lower carbon footprint than not commuting.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

You mean raise taxes significantly to pay for $3 trillion in infrastructure? Or just float it as stimulus? Or take it out of the gilded corporate welfare program known as the defense budget?

Where’s this money?

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

All of the above.

You just answered that question.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

You realize all of those things are listed because they are unlikely to impossible in the current system, even allowing for Democratic control of all three branches.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

In all of those places. We don't need to win a war and "own the world." We just have decided to cut taxes and not pay for anything.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

damn Hank. STP

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

The big court buildings I stood on to reach the thought were built with tax dollars. As were the interstate highways. And my point is the current system, as you say, won't build them. but "finding money" isn't the problem, the problem is spending what is here.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

I'd say, "well, Sebby, you sure got me there," except that is not responsive to what I said and I don't disagree with you. But otherwise, you sure got me there.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Big ornate courthouses and city halls are worthless monuments. If we’re building, build things that link us. Transportation has a better multiplier than big govt buildings.

Courthouses are the biggest of wasted spaces. You can handle all that stuff in much cheaper facilities. Hell, we’re already doing loads of hearings by video conference.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Sure it is. You’re assuming we need and will always have offices where people get together. I disagree.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Tax me more for high speed rail? Cool. Tax me for a new pile of concrete for a bunch of judges and men in cheap suits to mill about collecting hourly rates, and clerks to drink coffee? Fuck no.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

I was using the courthouses as a symbol of government infrastructure and spending. For you to have a call on where to spend I think you'd need to get elected. Everyone hates on spending for one thing or another, we can't have a plebiscite for every spending decision.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

You think debt-financed spending is unlikely???

No, you mean debt-financed spending on infrastructure is unlikely because the GOP won't vote for it unless there's room for their contractor pals to profit. Might be right.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

We need and will always have offices where people get together. People being people and all.

Sure, tech will mean marginally less need for them over time, but there's a big core that isn't going away for all kinds of reasons.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Speaking broadly, we will always need and have offices where people get together. Some people will not need them. The proportion of such people may go up.

Three data points:

My uncle is a consultant. Some years ago, he decided to work from his home in Taos, NM, on the theory that he could work remotely. It didn't work. Most days it worked, but on the days when it didn't work, it really didn't work. Some piece of office equipment would break and he'd have to have what he needed overnighted. Etc.

One of my colleagues, an exec at my level, works from home in another state. But she still needs to come to the office every month.

The price of real estate on Sand Hill Rd is crazy and all the VCs are there.

Silicon Valley is full of companies disrupting markets formerly limited by geography (think of eBay, Google, Cisco, and so on). In the middle of Silicon Valley, why should that real estate matter so much? Because sometimes as the leveling effect of geography that you see takes hold, the marginal competitive advantage from geography matters more, not less. If a bunch of VCs are chasing a deal, do you want to be the one who isn't on Sand Hill Rd and who tries to do it by telephone instead of in person? Of course not.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Ann Coulter ftw:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DzdjhfFVAAA3AOJ.jpg

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

https://mikegraymikegray.files.wordp..._gob.gif?w=748

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

News flash: I don’t bill. Just create pockets of money to pay for the G5. I fly commercial. Free on points, or courtesy of wonderful people. Ps I spend my work days also dealing with people with terminal cancer. Thankful most of the money goes to them.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Really? Even our new super-lib governor knows its an impossibility in today's politics, impractical, and cost-impossible. But he still wants to spend something like $13 biillyon in approved bond measure, and Fed, funds for a 110 mile super fast train between two ag towns, when you cal already go between them on Amtrak for $36.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cal...ait-and-switch

LessinBanff, Alberta

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

When you can fly south worst for like 29

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

]
Well, not between Merced and Bakersfield, but I get your point.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

When I was hanging out on the old lymphoma floor (we don't have cancer wards any more, we have beautiful rooms with stunning views that cost a fraction of the drugs they pump in, because it brings in the cancer cases), I had a steady stream of the clients I have in biotech coming through and visiting and often talking shop, and it helped me realize how important some of the work I do is. BTW, the folks in finance and software - I didn't see them as much, they're more focused on the money than the human stuff.

So, yeah, when I beat my cancer I was ready to do more work. And I saw much more clearly why I do this stuff.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

YMMV. I like finishing a project. Nice to build things. But even then, it's more just the addiction to doing something, anything, that provides a goal. Once you're in, you must finish. Then you're done and you realize you are just living for the high of completing a goal.

A good friend of mine won a huge amount of money in a case. He and his spouse immediately quit everything and never looked back.

I don't see how anyone in litigation could retain a desire to continue that work. First, no one goes into it for any reason but money, as it's an awfully annoying way to make a living. Second, it's random. The first time I won a seven figure settlement by bluffing with a truly dubious claim, I felt the whole profession was a joke. Then it happened a few more times. And while this happened, I saw clients who had really strong cases lose.

Life is largely random and much of it is luck, but a system where winning or losing, or getting a small or draconian sentence can often depend on a judge's mood, or some quirk of timing, is not one in which "God's work" is performed.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

More it's just the money and calculating what the hit would be to the lifestyle if you sign off and live off what you've accumulated, if any.

It's pure randomness but part of what we do is not play win or lose but compromise. Settling for less than you want is better than losing a shit claim; it's way better than losing a good claim.

On another note, crossing the street in Thailand is one of two very dangerous activities, the other being eating chicken. One you can factor in how far the car, scooter or tuk tuk is; the other you never know until it's too late.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I had never noticed that but watching the next episode, you’re right.

Which I share, like my last comment, mostly to highlight my own ignorance.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

Really? Crossing the street is a challenge?

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

Not a challenge just something you have to train for. You don’t have lights that act like the minute break between rounds in a boxing match.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

I assume an old guy who has enough cash to afford a G5 can probably afford to keep it flying without continuing to work, or could downsize a bit and enjoy life in a perhaps smaller private jet.

Settling a shit claim actually felt pretty bad. I dinged a medical professional on an absolutely bullshit case and I'm pretty sure if there was such thing as karma, I'd suffer some really awfully malady for what I did. Our client was a fool, the injury claimed was not the professional's fault, a mediator told us so, but following the Nuremberg Defense, I did as I was told and we extracted a nice check based on threat of trial. That kind of thing is a bit easier when you're doing it to a large corporation. But I harmed an individual. That I had to do it because I was just an employee has never made the feeling that our system is seriously fucked up, and what I did was cosmically wrong yet totally ethical within that fucked up system, go away.

I have many of the same views of plea bargains. There's a deep inconsistency, a massive contradiction, in having a system ostensibly built to determine truth rely almost entirely on deals, acting, gamesmanship, and negotiating skill.

And yet I still happily refer cases and love to get those "money for nothing" referral fee checks in the mail.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

Why not just have your driver take you across?

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

I doubt I'll ever face this challenge whilst married. I'd have no business reason to go to Thailand, so it'd have to be a personal trip.

And few males are known to visit Thailand for respectable reasons. YMMV, of course, but one of the ickiest (npi) exchanges I had with a sex harassment defendant involved Thailand. This guy was sued for spanking a young clerk in the office. Claimed she was coming on to him. I'm trying to get a settlement done and the dude says, matter of factly, "We have to get this signed by Friday. I'm going to Thailand for three weeks." I did not relay that to opposing counsel for fear the demand might increase. (There was absolutely no doubt in my mind why this creep was going to Thailand.)

Another college friend went there on vacation once, sans the Mrs. I recall being astonished. "Does she know why folks go to Thailand?" They're no longer a couple.

Again, there are many reputable reasons to go to Thailand. But it's not high on my bucket list.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Does anyone fly Southwest anymore? I rarely find them to be cheaper than other domestic airlines.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

I was all set to take the California Zephyr to Chicago next month but had to back out due to a conflict.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

This is why subrogation is great. No emotions. Known damages (mostly property and BI). No hourly billing. But like PI, you have to get the right cases.


It's not actually great. But it isn't terrible. I don't hate it?

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

I really don’t know how to be any clearer. I. Make. Money. For. My. Boss’s. G5. NOT. MINE. I FLY ECONOMY.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

No. You fly JetBlue. That is sub-economy.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

I think I may upgrade from JetBlue to Greyhound. Actually Bangkok air today.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

I, ummm, never thought that? I was talking about your boss. Hence, “old guy.”

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

https://media1.tenor.com/images/acd1...temid=11015126

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Here's the thing: You don't have to continually do this. I understand you're trying to convey a bit of deference on issues you haven't spent your life dealing with, but you overdue it a bit. Just be open to listening and avoid constantly pushing back based on your experiences (see: every conversation I've ever had about the concept of colorblindness).

TM