It seems to me that you must be a fat cunt

I’m an animal lover.  Not in the South Park “chicken lover” kind of way, but in the “doggies and kitties enrich my life” kind of way.  So I was pleased to see that a Republican Congressman from Michigan has introduced a bill to let you deduct the cost of pet care.  All was right in my world until I came to the passage below that I bolded:

Animal care can be outrageously expensive. I've probably spent enough money on my cat's ailing kidneys to buy a small car.

Should the government be helping out? One Republican congressman thinks so, and has introduced a bill that allows pet owners to deduct the cost of animal care from their taxes.

The bill would let you deduct as much as $3,500 a year, according to NPR.

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan said he's heard that economic hard times are causing some people to give up their pets.  

"When you think about the relationship between people and pets and the humane way that it helps people think, it seemed to me to be a good idea," McCotter said in a video about the bill, according to NPR.

Some pet owners are thrilled at the idea. But it seems to me that if you choose to have a pet, you should be able to pay for it. 

Do we need a doggy tax break? - Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money

The author of that bolded post is someone named Kim Peterson.  I have no idea who Kim Peterson is… but I have a pretty good idea that she’s a fat cunt.

My assessment is based upon the fact that she didn’t write “It seems to me that if you choose to have children, you should be able to pay for them…”  Kim, I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but poor people fuck like rabbits and breed like cockroaches.  They can’t afford to have kids, but they choose to have them anyway.

My tax dollars go to pay for such bullshit like WIC, Medicaid, and welfare for people who chose to have children they couldn’t afford.  Quite honestly, I’d rather help a sick cat than a sick child.  Because when the cat grows up, it isn’t likely to carjack me, rape me, or get drunk and crash its piece-of-shit car into me.  The worst thing a sick cat will do to me is shit in my yard.  If, god forbid, someone’s cat jumps my fence and drowns in my pool, I don’t have to worry about a lawsuit.  But if someone’s kid drowns in my pool, I’m probably going to get my ass hauled into court because someone else is a piss-poor parent.

To the best of my knowledge, calling a woman a fat cunt is the most serious insult available to Internet users.  If, by some chance, Kim is actually a man, then I will have to resort to the most serious insult you can make against a man on the Internet, and call him a fag.  Because only a fag or a fat cunt would think there’s a problem with letting people deduct the expenses of pet care from their taxes, but be fine with childcare deductions.

There’s a reason lolcats are all over the Internet, and lolkids aren’t.  Cats > Dogs > small furry creatures > house spiders > kids. 

I ALMOST SHIT MY FUCKING PANTS… when I read that Obama wants to scrap McCarran-Ferguson

My response to the Obama presidency thus far has been a solid “meh.”  But if he pushes Congress to repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act, I’ll sing the man’s praises forever.  I’ll also spearhead the effort to rename McCarran International Airport to Obama International Airport.

Mr. Obama on Saturday praised the Senate bill passed by the Finance Committee last week as “a reform proposal that has both Democratic and Republican support.” Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine is the only Republican in either house of Congress to support any of the five Democratic health care bills.

The president complained bitterly about the insurers’ attack on the legislation. “The insurance industry is rolling out the big guns and breaking open their massive war chest to marshal their forces for one last fight to save the status quo,” he said.

His signal of support for reviewing the industry’s antitrust exemption put him in league with Democratic leaders in Congress pushing for repeal or revision of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which was passed in 1945 to keep regulation of insurers in the hands of the states. Although he did not explicitly endorse overturning it, a spokesman said it was the first time he had raised the matter publicly as president.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, testified at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday in favor of getting rid of the exemption. A day later, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House speaker, said, “There is tremendous interest in our caucus” in such a move. 

Obama Threatens Insurers’ Anti-Trust Exemption - NYTimes.com

The great part about pushing to repeal the MF Act (and it is an MF’er) is that no average citizen will get riled up about getting rid of an antitrust exemption.  I mean, 99% of Americans don’t even know it exists, and 99% of those couldn’t care less.  It’s not like antitrust law gets anyone’s knickers in a twist, you know?  Insurers can spend a fuckton of money to try and prevent the repeal of the act, but they’re not going to be able to get people riled up enough to call and write letters.

Still, I’m skeptical that Dems have the sac to get this done.

GOD DAMMIT there is nothing “novel” about the admission of evidence found on the Internet

I’ll save you the bullshit “novel” evidence discussion and cut right to the money quote:

"The decision affirming Clark's conviction and sentence speaks for itself, and we agree with the Indiana Supreme Court that Clark's MySpace entries were admissible at his murder trial," said Bryan Corbin, a spokesman for the Indiana attorney general's office. "The result appeared clear from the simple application of long-standing Indiana law that has been applied to letters, diaries, phone and personal conversations, etc. In our view, there was really no reason to treat a MySpace page differently 

Legal Technology - MySpace Entry Admitted as Murder Evidence

(a) It’s 2009.  Neither the Internet nor social networking sites are “new” or “novel.  (b) A MySpace comment is no different than a hand-written note.  The next journalist who tries to act like it’s new/novel for Internet evidence to come in is getting a kick to the shins.

How about we just bar debt collectors from using anything other than certified mail?

No email, no telephone, no Facebook, no Twitter.  Just certified fucking mail, like non-scumbag companies use to communicate with people about serious matters?

Arguing that you broke the law in order to comply with it is not, apparently, the way to win an argument before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In a tart but analytical opinion, the court said a debt collector could not defend itself by saying it acted in good faith when it intentionally violated one requirement of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act so that it will not run afoul of another provision.

Niagara Credit Solutions Inc. argued that it broke the rule saying debt collectors must identify themselves and tell a debtor it is calling to collect a debt so that it could comply with a rule barring debt collectors from communicating about the debt with third parties (such as a roommate who hears an answering message from a debt collector 

Law.com - 11th Circuit: Don't Break the Law to Comply With It

Let’s just be honest.  Debt collection agencies are full of scumbags, douchers, and fucknuts.  They lie, make misrepresentations, and threaten consumers.  The world would be a much better place if companies had to do their own debt collection. 

The FIRST?! wiretapping use in an insider trading case?

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.  2009 marks the first time the government ever used wiretaps to catch people accused of insider trading?  And after watching The Soprano’s, I thought they used wiretaps on everyone.

One of America's wealthiest men was among six hedge fund managers and corporate executives arrested Friday in a hedge fund insider trading case that authorities say generated more than $25 million in illegal profits and was a wake-up call for Wall Street.

Raj Rajaratnam, a portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with up to $7 billion in assets under management, was accused of conspiring with others to use insider information to trade securities in several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas F. Eaton set bail at $100 million to be secured by $20 million in collateral despite a request by prosecutors to deny bail. He also ordered Rajaratnam, who has both U.S. and Sri Lankan citizenship, to stay within 110 miles of New York City.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference it was the largest hedge fund case ever prosecuted and marked the first use of court-authorized wiretaps to capture conversations by suspects in an insider trading case.

Law.com - Billionaire Among 6 Nabbed in Hedge Fund Insider Trading Case

Why the fuck did these chuckleheads show up to the SCOTUK ceremony?

Breyer, I understand.  But why the fuck did Scalia and Roberts show up?  If I recall correctly, these two chuckleheads act like foreign law is not only untrustworthy, but also “the devil.”

Queen Elizabeth II formally opened Britain's new Supreme Court on Friday in a ceremony attended by high court justices from the United States and around the world.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and top judges from Canada, Australia, India, South Africa and Europe attended the ceremony for a court the government says will make the workings of justice visible and accessible to the British public.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia watched the ceremony, which included prayers led by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and a verse for the new court by former poet laureate Andrew Motion.

Law.com - Queen Elizabeth II Opens New U.K. Supreme Court

Pharma Has Already Left Michigan, You Fucking Liar

Way back in 1995, Michigan enacted a bullshit law that says that if you’re injured by any drug approved by the FDA, you cannot sue the manufacturer of that drug.  This law has fucked countless Michigan citizens and relatives of Michigan citizens who died from defective drugs.  Michigan is the only state in the Union with such a law, and perhaps coincidentally, Michigan has one of the worst economic climates in the Union.

So check out this shit that Larry McQuillan wrote:

But personal injury lawyers have found a sympathetic audience in the Michigan House of Representatives, which voted recently to repeal the FDA defense. Unbelievably, [I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE IT – Ed.] legislators also moved the goalposts by making the change retroactive to 1996.

If personal injury lawyers are allowed to destroy the reform, it will expose the pharmaceutical industry to lawsuits retroactively. Faced with the possibility of spending billions on lawsuit defense, drug companies will scale back research and development spending.

The industry will also likely pack up and move out of Michigan to places with more sensible tort laws. Michigan, already in dire straits, will suffer further harm and drive out more jobs. This claim is not exaggerated -- most vaccine manufacturers have already left the United States for Europe because of lawsuit abuse in America. 

Ending drugmakers' exemption will cost jobs | Detroit Free Press | Freep.com

Hey Larry!  I’ve got some bad news for you.  The pharmaceutical industry has already pulled out of Michigan:

…Pfizer pulled out of Michigan for good in 2008, citing the need to save money. The company's Ann Arbor campus alone — a two million-square-foot space — employed 3,600 people, mostly for research and development. The site was the worldwide capital of the company's research and development. Now, a third of its employees have been relocated, another third found pharmaceutical jobs outside of Michigan and the rest were left to fend for themselves.

Meg Young: Why Pfizer fizzled | The Michigan Daily

Larry of course knows that pharmaceutical companies have been eliminating jobs in Michigan since that great “reform” law was passed.  But he won’t tell you that.  That’s because he’s a fucking liar.  Want proof?

Note how he writes that most vaccine manufacturers “have already left the United States for Europe because of lawsuit abuse in America.”  Note how he doesn’t breathe a word about the Vaccine Compensation Injury Fund.  Here’s what the Department of Justice has to say about the program:

The VICP is a program designed to encourage childhood vaccination by providing a streamlined system for compensation in rare instances where an injury results from vaccination.

Over the past 12 years, the VICP has succeeded in providing a less adversarial, less expensive and less time-consuming system of recovery than the traditional tort system that governs medical malpractice, personal injury and product liability cases. More than 1,500 people have been paid in excess of $1.18 billion since the inception of the program in 1988.

. . . .

Another positive result of the program is that costly litigation against drug manufacturers and health care professionals who administer vaccines has virtually ceased. Although an individual who is dissatisfied with the Court’s final judgment can reject it and file a lawsuit in state or federal court, very few lawsuits have been filed since the program began. The supply of vaccines in the U.S. has been stabilized, and the development of new vaccines has markedly increased. 

DOJ Vaccine Compensation Program - About the Program

I say that Larry is a liar for not telling you about the vaccine program. It could be that he just has no idea what he’s talking about and is instead a corporate whore pushing an anti-lawyer, anti-lawsuit message.

I’d bet money that if Larry got a prescription for say, Viagra, and it made him go blind, his attitude about pharmaceutical lawsuits would change.