kylesisk.typepad.com

Kind of a fun website...

Not the most accurate or scientific site on the internet, but kind of fun/interesting nonetheless:

http://websiteoutlook.com/

In case you are too lazy to input any site domains I picked two for you:

Ohio dem site: $2,737.50

Ohio GOP site: $2,752.10

California is on the mend!

"California is on the mend!" was provided by Guest Columnist Brianna Azul. Thanks for the

submission Brianna. We miss you!

 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574443413742032356.html
 

"...yesterday Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's bipartisan tax commission recommended a road out of this mess.

The heart of the new plan is to broaden the tax base and slash tax rates on personal income, business and sales. California currently ranks at or near the top in all three categories. This has, paradoxically, contributed to the state's inability to pay its bills by driving men and women from the state and leading to revenue boom and bust. We don't agree with everything in this report, but there's no question it would be a huge improvement over the current tax code in its economic incentives, simplicity, revenue stability and fairness.

The commission hasn't recommended a pure flat tax, but something much closer to it. The income tax rate, which currently tops out at 10.55%, would be chopped to a more reasonable (but still high) 7.5%. (The plan doesn't eliminate the one-percentage-point millionaire income tax surcharge, alas.) Because about 70% of small businesses pay the personal California income tax, the commission found that California's high rate is driving enterprises to the likes of Nevada, Texas and Idaho. The number of tax rates is reduced to three from seven (we prefer one), and thanks to the elimination of credits and loopholes, the new California tax form would fit on a postcard."

Death Panel Propaganda

"Death Panel Propaganda" is penned by my buddy Goose.  If you are wondering why I am posting this it is because I have a "no editing" policy with our Guest Columnists.  It is just that simple.  Love you Goose & hope you enjoy the photo I picked for your post :-)

I love how the fear-mongering nitwits of the GOP (served well here by our esteemed host!) bite into this death panel crap and refuse to let go...as though it's the only issue of relevance when it comes to the Health Care debate.  We saw this with the "war on terror" - fear is a valuable tool and it managed to get us into two wars we're still fighting without purpose 8 years later.  The GOP has nothing to gain by the passing of significant health care while they're in the minority, so they'll use every dirty trick in the book to avoid its passing....hence the fear mongering of the death panel issue, as highlighted in a video post below.

Make no mistake about it - this very same issue happens every day whether you're insured by a large HMO or a state-run health system like this one.  How many expensive operations have been denied by insurance companies?  It's part of the business, but without the "death panel" label nobody pays it any attention.  As long as the medical business (including the insurance side of it) is a for-profit business, these decisions will always be made.

I recently heard the issue of health care summed up in a fantastic way:  As a country, we have to decide on a moral basis whether we want equal health care for every citizen, or if we believe that the guy who can afford the $50,000 operation deserves to live more than the unemployed factory worker who can't.  If the answer is health care for all (something I firmly believe in now that I'm a father of two), then we should stop bullshitting each other and focus on making that a reality.

The health care system as we know it today is broken.  We either need to fix it or prepare for the consequences our generation will be faced with.  Right now, the health care business and its incredibly strong lobbying arm is playing a clever game with the taxpayers.  Get them excited, scare the hell out of everyone who'll listen and use them to disrupt constructive debate.  That's what we've seen recently at the various town hall gatherings.  Those were carefully planned events where civil disruption was the primary goal.  It was accomplished and got the headlines, all with the backing of the health care business.

Fox News played endless footage of these town hall gatherings as though we were invading Normandy and defeating the Nazis.  Reality check:  By standing up and yelling insults at a congressperson hosting a town hall meeting, all you're doing is defending the profitability of a business.  You're not defending some moral high ground.  You're protecting a company's bottom line.  That's it.  If that's your goal, well done.  And good luck paying for your parents' medical bills.

Quote of the Day

(Insert picture of whoever first comes to your mind here)

"Don't be humble.  You're not that great." -- Golda Meir

Strickland proposes $850 million tax increase

"I promise I'm only raising your taxes by this much..."

COLUMBUS (AP) - Ohio governor Ted Strickland has proposed freezing income tax cuts to fund education in the wake of a court decision that could halt his plan to put lottery slot machines at racetracks.

Strickland on Wednesday suggested postponing the final year of the overall 21 percent tax cut for at least two years, raising about $850 million.

The Ohio Supreme Court last week ruled that the slot machine proposal is subject to voter approval, stopping the state's plans to place machines at horse racing tracks by May.

Strickland had been counting on the slot machines to contribute about $850 million to help balance the two-year education budget.

Random cartoon to lighten the mood a little

A female friend sent this timely quote to me...Hooray for Margaret Thatcher!

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." -- Margaret Thatcher

Hopefully Obama's supporters are as smart as the sheep

Political Quote of the Day

"Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men."

-- George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)

Is this what Strickland was referring to???

I'm no Einstein, but is this what Strickland was referring to when he said he was going to "turnaround" Ohio?

I don't think "1 out of every 8 Ohioans is now living in poverty" is exactly what voters had in mind when they voted for him for Governor back in November 2006:

http://www.ohio.com/news/62517117.html

Capitol Cabaret

"Capitol Cabaret" is penned by our newest guest Columnist Gambling Man.  I love the post, but after reading it I know why he wanted to write under the anonymity of a pseudonym.  Knowing his wife, she would make him a statistic if she knew he was the author of this post.  Enjoy!

Picture of (insert name of legislator, lobbyist or Statehouse staffer here) getting a lapdance at the new downtown Columbus strip club (to be open within months of the casino being built)

Capitol Cabaret

Coming to a Downtown Location Soon...

(My apologies upfront if I offend any of Kyle’s loyal readers)

 

 

 

If you build it, they will come. No, I’m not talking about the Clipper’s new Field of Dreams, Huntington Park. I’m talking lap dance competition for Columbus strip clubs that up until now have stayed speckled everywhere in central Ohio, but downtown.   You can bet your g-strings and rolled up George Washingtons, if Issue 3 passes and Penn National Gaming builds a casino in the Arena District, the economic forces of horny, drunk men with cash will surely lure adult entertainment entrepreneurs to move their business a little closer to the action.  How do I know this?  Research, of course. 

 

Now while I have walked into a few of these establishments in my lifetime, and like (okayyy love) naked women, I don’t frequent them.  But after reading Sunday’s Dispatch editorial: “No thanks, Penn National's gambling money isn't worth inflicting casino on Arena District”, my curious mind started racing about the “baggage – crime, gambling addiction and corruption”, which the Dispatch referred.  It made me wonder what else a casino might bring to the neighborhood. Ding, ding, ding… Strip Club. 

 

First I took a scientific poll and asked myself, ‘Gambling Man, would you want the convenience of a strip club next to a casino?’  The response to my poll of one was an astounding, ear splitting ‘YES!!!’.    With overwhelming poll results, I wanted to further support my hypothesis that a strip club might be in downtown’s future with additional research.

 

I preferred grabbing a few buddies and doing my research the old fashioned way. However, I suffer with an inability to tell women with names like Summer and Candy, dressed in nothing but glitter and perfume, “No” when they ask if I might buy them $20 glasses of punch.  I determined this sort of research would place a financial hardship on me.  Not to mention, my wife would kick me out of the house.  So I went to the Internet and now have to explain my ‘Search History’ was not a futile attempt to surf porn… again. 

 

Besides Kahoot’s offering a photo gallery of their best dancers  (highly recommend researching Shayla’s photos), my Internet search discovered there are websites dedicated to patron ratings of Columbus strip clubs.  I have probably already pushed Kyle’s line too far with this post, so I will not share any of those excerpts.  One helpful site did rate the Top 15 clubs, most of which I didn’t know existed (Columbus Gold, Centerfold, The Dollhouse, Private Dancer, Dreamgirls, Club X Show Bar, Dreamers Lounge, Blue Diamond, Kahoots, Vanity, Rumor’s, Sinbads, Rachel’s Show Bar, House of Babes, and Candy Store). 

 

To support my theory, I needed to find where clubs are and if any are downtown. Generally most of the clubs could be classified to three area types:

 

• Rte 315 Bethel/Henderson or Rte 161 corridors
• Airport (every airport has one)
• Ghetto Clubs i.e. Cleveland Ave/Broad St./Brice Rd.

 

My Google Map search for adult clubs painted a virtual circle around downtown.  With the exception of The Chamber and Garden in the Short North, with their inventories of naughty attire and adult devices, there isn’t a hint of adult debauchery in the immediate Downtown/Arena District. Because horny, drunk men with cash like to occasionally celebrate a win at the black jack table with a good lap dance, I conclude my theory and research is complete.  If you build it, they will come.

 

 

**(Note my research did not include reviewing local zoning laws or whether all casinos have a strip club nearby. Future research will attempt to forecast Capitol Cabaret’s location_ somewhere off  Rt. 33 near downtown or maybe in the Brewery District.  Nah! Why waste my time, Issue 3 fails by 8 points or more.)

Quote of the Day

"When people say, "You're breaking my heart," they do in fact usually mean that you're breaking their genitals.

-- Jeffrey Bernard (1932-1997)

The Role of the Ohio Supreme Court with the Brunner/Husted Residency Issue

"The Role of the Ohio Supreme Court with the Brunner/Husted Residency Issue" is penned by the great legal mind known here only as "Eye Spy."  We know how busy Eye Spy is and hugely appreciate their taking time away from legal work & family to post on here.  Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Jen Brunner hates marriage!

In Senator Husted’s voter residency case, the Ohio Supreme Court should not provide a “bright line rule” for voter residency as the Columbus Dispatch called for on Friday Sept 25^th http://tinyurl.com/yc397bl, rather, the Court should do what the Court should always should do.  It should review the law (applicable Constitutional provisions, case law, Revised Code, rules) and apply it to the facts.  Plain and simple.  Other than that, perhaps the court should put out a general warning on the application of these voter residency laws as tools to politicize and discriminate (yes, I am a Republican and think that).   A clear separation of powers should continue to exist here and in all laws where the General Assembly makes them and the judiciary applies them.  Of course the judiciary can be used for CLARITY on what the General Assembly does, but again, that is application of the law, not creation of it.  Sometimes it’s a fine line.

 

Normally we have the slots-at-racetracks situation where the legislature has pulled some controversial move (see tort reform, school vouchers) and someone doesn't like it so they challenge it in court, usually starting in a county court of common pleas.  Even when the executive branch makes what could be labeled an "adjudicatory decision" there is a method to challenge it through the system (via RC 119 in Ohio).  Normally when such an executive decision is made the only way to appeal it is through the county common pleas courts, then up to the appeals court and finally, possibly, to the Ohio Supreme Court. 

 

Senator Husted is really challenging a vote of the Montgomery County Board of Elections – Ms. Brunner is just the tie-breaker.  Such votes would normally be challenged by first filing in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas.  However, Husted has filed in the Ohio Supreme Court under both Mandamus jurisdiction and the "expedited election case" jurisdiction of the Ohio Supreme Court, and certainly the SOS will argue that jurisdiction is not proper in the Ohio Supreme Court because he should have gone through Common Pleas and Appeals Court to get there.  Remember, in order to get the Writ of Mandamus, he's got to have 3 things:  1. a clear legal right, 2. that the SOS has a clear legal duty AND 3. that he has no other adequate remedy at law.   

 

If the Court finds that this truly is an "expedited election case" and the issue of where Senator Husted votes in November, 2009 is important enough to hear now, it will accept it on that basis and ignore that he didn't go through the regular court channels.  Certainly the SOS will argue that it does not qualify as an “expedited election case.”   This "expedited election case" original jurisdiction of the Ohio Supreme Court hasn't been around very long there and there isn't much case law to look at to know exactly what will happen.

 

Ms. Brunner has simply outdone herself in a self-promoting, tiptoe through the tulips; thread the needle, decision just trashing Senator Husted.  She went through the buffet line of the options in the statute and picked the ones she liked while ignoring the rest.  She performed very interesting legislative language interpretation gymnastics, especially in her absurd application of RC 3503.02(G), on top of page 9 of the decision, regarding those holding state employment.  She writes that for that section of the statute to apply to a state employee who moves for his job, that the employee must first move out of state because she (inexplicably) applies a separate part of the same statute that only applies to federal employees. 

 

And, if there were ever someone who marriage needed to be defended against, it’s from Ms. Brunner in this decision!  Because of how she applied the marriage provisions, she just made every legislator want to get divorced or never get married, lest they be painted as living in Columbus.  She came perilously close to making it “about the family" by dragging poor Ms. Husted and his kid’s lives through this in great detail.  I thought Barack Obama told us to lay off the family.  

 

Also, could Ms. Brunner honestly tell us with a straight face that she'd write the exact same decision about a Democratic legislator (except Lee Fisher) in the exact same situation?? 

 

The legislature should review these laws to see if they are up to date and reflect reality, however, these voting residency laws will never be perfect and will always have the potential to be used in politically destructive ways no matter how well they are written.  It is up to the mature adults in the Ohio Secretary of State’s office to police that and it appears they’re in very short supply.  Let’s hope the Court can inject some sense into this cage match.

Racial Stereotypes

"Racial Stereotypes" was penned by my boy Goose.  Goose is a great contributing writer to this blog & I've been sitting on his healthcare reform post (it is ugly), but I'm happy to post this one :)

No matter how politically correct we all like to think we are, the truth is we all believe in the various racial stereotypes that exist in our society.  To name a few:  Black people can dance, love fried chicken, can jump higher than white people, have dongs longer than rulers and they're always late for appointments; Asians are good at math; Mexicans have way too many kids and tend to get sleepy; and Honkies (that's probably you if you're reading this blog) are over-bearing, love animals more than people (other than themselves), can't dance and have an uninspired wardrobe...not to mention a haircut from the late 80s.

Anyway, so I'm at the gym the other night blasting out my traps when I see a black man sporting a full track suit.  I'm talking the jacket and the matching pants.  Navy with a white stripe or two.  I think it was Puma brand.  As I found myself admiring how good he looked (yes, I'm straight...for the most part), I realized I could never in a million years pull off that look.

This brother-from-another-mother was decked out in a track suit and he had it goin' on.  Remember Huggy Bear?  Nuff said.  If I wore that outfit I'd look like a retired (or retarded) German, or perhaps worse, like Eminem.  Speaking of Eminem, I have mad respect for his talent and he's easily in the top ten list of all-time rappers, but every time I see him on TV I just can't stop smirking at how he tries so hard to act like a brother from the ghetto.  Does he really act like this in the privacy of his own gated compound?  Possibly, but my guess is that he talks more like Fred Savage than Flava Flav.

The point of my blog?  I guess there really isn't one, other than I'm willing to admit that I believe in racial stereotypes.  Yes, there are exceptions to every rule, but these stereotypes came from real-world observations and now we're all struggling to live them down...especially dorky white folk like me.

The #1 thing that could kill John Kasich's chances of beating Ted Strickland

My apologies to the four people who asked me not to do a post like this, but the Mackenzie Phillips move to go public with the incest that went on during her middle school years of all things has put me in a position where I will be quiet no longer.

It would be one thing if the Kasich camp could keep this quiet, but I am now hearing stories from dem operatives.

It is no longer a secret.  There are no secrets. 

The truth is out.

Changes HAVE to occur or this thing is going to be over before it begins.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.  Not addressing this most grave situation will not make the problem go away.  Everyone knows it is a huge problem, but everyone is walking around on eggshells because everyone is afraid to bring the subject up to the candidate.

Well, if you guys don't have the chutzpah to bring it up & I have to be the one to do it and make myself even more unpopular within the Kasich camp then so be it.  If bringing this subject out in the open spurs a conversation internally whereby you guys get this issue taken care of then it was well worth me being the a-hole by bringing it out to the corner of Broad & High.

I want the guy to win and I strongly believe that if this is not taken care of then it will be the reason he loses this race. 

Now most of you who have been reading this blog from the beginning (tomorrow is our 1 year old birthday by the way) probably think I'm going to say "money" and this is just one more post about me banging on the deficiencies with the candidate in his efforts to stay within a viable distance of Strickland on fundraising.

That is not what this post is about.  Although I believe wholeheartedly that Kasich is going to have to have $10-15 million to tell Josie & John Voter about why Strickland has to hit the road otherwise Teddy is just going to "buy a lot of truth" with $15-20 million that is not what I think is the #1 thing that could kill John Kasich's chances of beating Strickland.

The #1 thing that could kill John Kasich's chances of beating Ted Strickland is the way that John Kasich personally treats Josie & John Voter.

Simply put, John Kasich needs to quit being a jerk.

The tirade (or more appropriately named "temper tantrum") he unleashed on an airline worker is the stuff of legends at this point.

The way he (with nearly half of the meals he eats in public I'm told) treats waiters & waitresses makes normal people cringe & feel uncomfortable just being in the presence of the way he is treating other living, breathing human beings (many of them prospective voters or, after they are treated like shiitake, more aptly labeled "future Strickland voters").

It has to stop.  This is "line in the sand" time with John Kasich being a jerk to other people.

The Kasich camp better hope & pray that the dems won't have some zit faced college kid following Kasich everywhere with a video recorder or have waiters & waitresses wired for sound or this thing is going to be a disaster.

I'm surprised there isn't a Facebook Group titled "Service Industry Workers for Strickland" with stories (hopefully no video or voice recordings...cross your fingers and pray there are not any video or voice recordings yet) about the way Kasich has personally treated them when he has been to their place of work while they are earning a living to pay their bills and take care of their family.

So there you have it.

You are welcome.

I have talked about the elephant in the living room that no one would dare talk about.

Now some of you are going to be pissed off at me if some video or voice recording of John Kasich treating another human being like dirt ends up surfacing and being used in a TV commercial against him, but please stop for a second and consider just how silly that is.

You are going to be mad at me for the GOP candidate for Governor (who is a 57 year old grown man by the way) treating another human being as if they were a piece of navel lint???

I am not making him treat people like that.  He is choosing to treat people like that.

He wakes up every morning and he is faced with the choice that all of us are faced with:  Am I going to choose to be kind to people today or am I going to choose to be a jerk to people today?

For too many days, weeks, months & years Kasich has woken up and made the wrong decision.

I'm hoping for all of our sake that when he wakes up tomorrow and for at least the next 13 months he makes the right decision.

Dancing In The Street

"Dancing In The Street" is penned by our newest Guest Columnist The Gambling Man.  Hope you enjoy the inaugural post as much as I did (friggin' love the DeLay pic & reference)

Dancing In The Street

Strickland’s Slots Dance Repulsive Like Tom Delay’s Cha-Cha

 

Monday night my wife announced my regularly scheduled program, Monday Night Football, would not be viewable on our 40” flat screen. I was about to escalate my weak protest when Tom ‘the Hammer” Delay appeared on the premiere of Dancing with the Stars. If you haven’t seen Delay ‘gettin creepy’ on the popular dance show, be prepared to be disturbed.  Delay’s pelvic thrusts and entire state of awkwardness left his dance partner and judges nearly speechless. One of the judges may have said it best, “You’re crazier than Sarah Palin” . Funny thing, everyone seemed to know it was awkward except Tom Delay.

 

That’s when the comparison hit me like a lead balloon tied to Tom Delay’s dancing shoes -- Governor Ted Strickland is making everyone uncomfortable again on his slots’ dance moves.

 

The Governor’s latest Foxtrot blames everyone for his slots problems but himself.  Just add his favorite word, “irresponsible”, to a foe and you get an instant Strickland quote.  Earlier in the week he beat on Senator Voinovich for being ‘irresponsible’, not so discreetly knocked the Supreme Court around for being partisan on the slots decision, and smacked around ‘other’ unnamed ‘irresponsible’ people that want to raise taxes (aka social service advocates who I thought were part of his base).

 

It’s hard to be a country dancer most of your political life and find yourself with the spotlight on you at a disco dance-off.  That’s why Governors should surround themselves with great dancers of all genres.  But for over a year, his budget and gaming advisors have fudged education numbers, botched budget and gaming revenue projections, advised him to flip-flop on slots, or failed him on how to manage his slots partners (e.g. greedy racetracks) that break deals and will forever want & will receive more concessions. His advisors have frankly given the Governor bad strategic advice time and time again, making him look like a bad dancer that doesn’t know it.

 

And just like Tom Delay, the Governor is likely coming back next week to dance. Rumors have it he has some new dance moves that won’t be fancy or unfamiliar .   The Governor is said to be coming back as a solo act by gerrymandering the House Bill 1 slots language and issuing a new slots executive order.  The details are yet sketchy, but the idea is to essentially change the legal challenges from what’s now a referendum question to a judgment of whether slots are skilled games or not under the Ohio Constitution - perhaps a better argument for the Governor post Supreme Court decision.  Maybe this works, maybe it doesn’t, but it’s sloppy and continues to place more doubt on the Governor’s leadership credibility. 

 

So how should the Governor dance?

 

He needs a new dance advisor.  Maybe the late Patrick Swayze is available for a late night Rotunda séance and a  “No one puts Baby in the corner” kind of speech.  With the advice of the angels among him, Swayze might show these dance steps to the Governor:

 

• Step One_ The Supreme Court decision is your ticket out of the slots mess your Administration created - embrace the decision that you lost like a leader should

 

• Step Two _ Stop blaming everyone else for your slots problems.  It is yours.  Own it.

 

• Step Three_ Let the slots plan go to the ballot 

 

• Step Four_ Get rid of the cabinet members and advisors incapable of giving you sound political and policy advice

 

• Step Five_ And the most important, begin “Turning Around Ohio”  -  Lead  by fixing the budget mess with viable solutions - Stop dancing to new gaming charades

 

Short of the latter, you may not lose your office, but you might see more Statewide and House Republicans doing this in the streets around Cap Square come November ’10 (Imagine Bill Batchelder’s glasses on Mick Jagger… coincidence?):

 

David Bowie - Dancing In The Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaZCZnmdmbA&feature=fvst

 

Issue 3 Casinos in Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati & Cleveland Outcome

Pressed for time lately so this is going to be a short post.

Unless an issue is just so incredibly egregious (payday lending issue last year) thus making it easily understood by the voting populace (not that bright of a community so it has to be able to be understood in 30 seconds) then all you have to do as the "NO" side in a statewide ballot issue campaign effort is confuse the voter.

Generally speaking, a confused voter will vote "no."

Put a group of halfway intelligent people together with 35-60% of the budget the "yes" side of an issue is spending and use the majority of your smaller budget to confuse the voter and, unless your "no" side is just evil incarnate (think payday lending taking advantage of poor people or people down on their luck), the "no" side is going to win nearly every time even if the "yes" side has the best campaign team ever assembled.

At some point in time the "yes" side on these gambling issues in Ohio is going to figure out this one, single extremely important point and they are going to quit spending tens of millions of dollars trying to jam gambling in Ohio down our collective throats.

As Gandalf would say, "Issue 3 shall not pass!!!!"

I have to admit I'm a little sick to my stomach

Saying McDonald's is ubiquitous in the United States isn't terribly newsworthy. But blogger Stephen Von Worley has creatively figured out the farthest distance any hamburger-loving American could be from the Golden Arches.

The answer? 107 miles. Here's Von Worley on the exact spot in the U.S. where you'd be furthest from a Mickey D's:

"Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald's, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car!"

(From the Huffington Post)

A Doctor's Plan For Legal Industry Reform from the WSJ

A buddy of mine from college who is the true sage from Omaha brought this article to my attention. Enjoy!

Since we are moving toward socialism with ObamaCare, the time has come to do the same with other professions—especially lawyers. Physician committees can decide whether lawyers are necessary in any given situation.

At a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., last month, our uninformed lawyer in chief suggested that we physicians would rather chop off a foot than manage diabetes since we would make more money doing surgery. Then President Obama compounded his attack by claiming a doctor's reimbursement is between "$30,000" and "$50,000" for such amputations! (Actually, such surgery costs only about $1,500.)

Physicians have never been so insulted. Because of these affronts, I will gladly volunteer for the important duty of controlling and regulating lawyers. Since most of what lawyers do is repetitive boilerplate or pushing paper, physicians would have no problem dictating what is appropriate for attorneys. We physicians know much more about legal practice than lawyers do about medicine.

Following are highlights of a proposed bill authorizing the dismantling of the current framework of law practice and instituting socialized legal care:

• Contingency fees will be discouraged, and eventually outlawed, over a five-year period. This will put legal rewards back into the pockets of the deserving—the public and the aggrieved parties. Slick lawyers taking their "cut" smacks of a bookie operation. Attorneys will be permitted to keep up to 3% in contingency cases, the remainder going into a pool for poor people.

• Legal "DRGs." Each potential legal situation will be assigned a relative value, and charges limited to this amount. Program participation and acceptance of this amount is mandatory, regardless of the number of hours spent on the matter. Government schedules of flat fees for each service, analogous to medicine's Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs), will be issued. For example, any divorce will have a set fee of, say, $1,000, regardless of its simplicity or complexity. This will eliminate shady hourly billing. Niggling fees such as $2 per page photocopied or faxed would disappear. Who else nickels-and-dimes you while at the same time charging hundreds of dollars per hour? I'm surprised lawyers don't tack shipping and handling onto their bills.

• Legal "death panels." Over 75? You will not be entitled to legal care for any matter. Why waste money on those who are only going to die soon? We can decrease utilization, save money and unclog the courts simultaneously. Grandma, you're on your own.

• Ration legal care. One may need to wait months to consult an attorney. Despite a perceived legal need, physician review panels or government bureaucrats may deem advice unnecessary. Possibly one may not get representation before court dates or deadlines. But that' s tough: What do you want for "free"?

• Physician controlled legal review. This is potentially the most exciting reform, with doctors leading committees for determining the necessity of all legal procedures and the fairness of attorney fees. What a wonderful way for doctors to get even with the sharks attempting to eviscerate the practice of medicine.

• Discourage/eliminate specialization. Legal specialists with extra training and experience charge more money, contributing to increased costs of legal care, making it unaffordable for many. This reform will guarantee a selection of mediocre, unmotivated attorneys but should help slow rising legal costs. Big shot under indictment? Classified National Archives documents down your pants? Sitting president defending against impeachment? Have FBI agents found $90,000 in your freezer? Too bad. Under reform you too may have to go to the government legal shop for advice.

Statistic of the Day

Twenty years ago America produced 313 million pairs of shoes, sandals & boots; now it makes 35 million.