Things Inside My Head.

 Here's a quick snapshot of what's inside me noggin this morning, in no particular order:

1.  I plan to ask for a kosher meal at today's FBA luncheon.

2.  It's almost worse that Con Law Perfesser Obama legitimized Gitmo, indefinite detention, and military tribunals than it is that "rancher" George W. Bush instituted these Constitutional aberrations in the first place.

3.  Could Johnny Storm really be dead?

4.  I totally agree with Andrei Codrescu on NPR the other day about defacing my new e-book with some "crowdsourced" idiocracy contest regarding highlights:

And this thing on my Kindle is supposed to be new. And then I discovered that the horror doesn't stop with the unwelcomed presence of another reader who's defaced my new book. But it deepens with something called view popular highlights, which will tell you how many morons have underlined before so that not only you do not own the new book you paid for, the entire experience of reading is shattered by the presence of a mob that agitates inside your text like strangers in a train station.

 5.  Dan Le Batard may finally have to blame someone I've never seen him identify before as being responsible for anything negative, ever -- the players.

6.  Wes Parsons was only hoping to lose the latest citrus canker trial by $3 million, but instead lost by $12 million (plus fees and substantial interest), but what's $10 or so million between friends:

"I was hoping for the amount of compensation already paid, which was around $3 million."

Question -- wasn't there a defense on liability too?

7.  This post is starting to resemble Greg Cote.

(Note -- no offense, but I have met Greg Cote).

Dispatches from a Hangdog Bankrupt

This morning I was listening to KUT, our local public radio affiliate, when I heard the story of a rare book dealer who filed for bankruptcy in Austin. His story is told in a series of dispatches which appear on McSweeneys.net, which you can access here. My favorite story (which was featured on the KUT show and can be found in episode 4) was about the Travis County Constable who wept when the debtor's girlfriend invited her in for coffee as she was serving papers on him. My second favorite was the story of the debtor's interview with his attorney about how to value his cat on the schedules. While the attorney is referred to by the pseudonym Mr. H, you can pretty well figure out who it is, since there are not many male consumer bankruptcy lawyers in Austin whose last name starts with H (and no, it is not Pat Hargadon). The dispatches convey a lot of interesting information and capture the human element of failure poignantly. It is well worth your reading.