Did you catch it ?

[Half Fast]

Yes, people seem to forget the "flattening the curve" doesn't change the area under the curve. It just keeps from overwhelming the hospitals.

I'll quibble with that a bit.

The purpose of the hospitals IS to change the area under the curve. The point of flattening the curve is to let the hospitals treat and save more people. If the hospitals can't reduce the area under the curve, then there is no purpose to flattening the curve in the first place.

 

[RJM62]

Yes, people seem to forget the "flattening the curve" doesn't change the area under the curve. It just keeps from overwhelming the hospitals. Also, the original orders and publicity campaign were not based around people themselves being afraid of dying, but of bringing it home to vulnerable people.

But I think rules are being relaxed, if not formally, then informally. In the past week I have received calls from medical facilities asking if I wanted to schedule totally optional medical tests (eye follow-up, mammogram).

This baffles me too. But there are some people who get upset when authority tells them what to do, no matter what it is.

Yes. There are freedom-loving people who are reasonable, and there are freedom-loving people who are idiots. We're just like any other group.

Masks may be of debatable value, but wearing one is no hardship and may do some good. Anyone willing to die on that hill isn't playing with a full deck, in my opinion.

Rich

 

[Everskyward]

I'll quibble with that a bit.

The purpose of the hospitals IS to change the area under the curve. The point of flattening the curve is to let the hospitals treat and save more people. If the hospitals can't reduce the area under the curve, then there is no purpose to flattening the curve in the first place.

Maybe you didn't understand what I meant. Instead of the curve being steep and overwhelming the hospitals at some point, it's flat, so that even though there are the same amount of patients, they are spread out over time.

How many times did we see diagrams like this? I'll grant that as time goes on, treatments or vaccines may be found so the area under the yellow curve will be smaller.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-borough...lizations-are-from-people-sheltering-at-home-

This is a very interesting report. Suggests that perhaps the people who are sheltering at home are being infected by the essential workers which come to their houses.

 

[Half Fast]

Maybe you didn't understand what I meant. Instead of the curve being steep and overwhelming the hospitals at some point, it's flat, so that even though there are the same amount of patients, they are spread out over time.

How many times did we see diagrams like this? I'll grant that as time goes on, treatments or vaccines may be found so the area under the yellow curve will be smaller.

This plot shows number of cases, but I'm talking about number of fatalities. Maybe you didn't understand what I meant.

If the hospitals aren't overwhelmed, more COVID patients can be treated, and therefore fewer should die. If the hospitals ARE overwhelmed, COVID patients have to go without treatment and therefore more die. Also, as more are treated and survive, herd immunity improves so even the total number of cases goes down.

So the number of deaths in either scenario shouldn't be the same. If the hospitals aren't saving any lives, they're useless and there's no point in preventing them from being overwhelmed, but I don't think that's the case.

 

[Warmi]

It would be interesting to see how other behaviors would alter among the populace if mortality stats were blasted in people's faces 24/7 around driving, eating healthy, drinking, smoking, cancer, etc. I get it, the unknown here is that unlike a car accident this is contagious. But we see it with planes, flying is remarkably safe, but thanks to the media most people have a lot more fear getting in a plane than they do a car (not to say that Corona is more or less deadly than driving/flying, but illustrating that people have become hyper sensitive to corona as they have with flying.. even though there are many other things that may be more likely to kill them..)

My whole understanding of the original containment measures (masks, etc.,) was not because people are scared of dying, but because we didn't want to overwhelm the hospitals. It seems, that if we can keep hospital capacity at a reasonable level some measures can be made smarter

IE, rather than banning driving because it might kill you we require seatbelts, air bags, and not driving drunk. We let people fly, but have a strict set of FAA rules to keep it safe. This is the direction most places are going, re-opening, but with reasonable measures

I honestly don't understand why people are up in arms over the mask thing. I'm also not aware of anything in the Constitution or Bill of Rights that regulates what a person may or may not wear on their face, etc. I'd rather not wear a mask, but honestly, do I really want to breath in the effluent of the average populace?

These days what’s in the Constitution is becoming increasingly irrelevant .. can you arbitrarily shutdown business in the name of some public policy ( medical or otherwise ) , which is essentially appropriating private property for public use, without just compensation ? The Constitution say you can’t but of course you can .. it is happening now.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

 

[Everskyward]

This plot shows number of cases, but I'm talking about number of fatalities. Maybe you didn't understand what I meant.

If the hospitals aren't overwhelmed, more COVID patients can be treated, and therefore fewer should die. If the hospitals ARE overwhelmed, COVID patients have to go without treatment and therefore more die. Also, as more are treated and survive, herd immunity improves so even the total number of cases goes down.

So the number of deaths in either scenario shouldn't be the same. If the hospitals aren't saving any lives, they're useless and there's no point in preventing them from being overwhelmed, but I don't think that's the case.

I see what you are saying now. The number of deaths would be reduced because the hospitals are able to care for all the patients. I agree.

 

[Half Fast]

These days what’s in the Constitution is becoming increasingly irrelevant .. can you arbitrarily shutdown business in the name of some public policy ( medical or otherwise ) , which is essentially appropriating private property for public use, without just compensation ? The Constitution say you can’t but of course you can .. it is happening now.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Next we'll have to worry about flattening the curve of lawsuits so we don't overwhelm the courts. This mess is going to be litigated for years.

 

[MuseChaser]

These days what’s in the Constitution is becoming increasingly irrelevant ...

That is probably the most frightening statement I've read in a very long time, at least in terms of the future of our country. The fact that anyone can consider the document and principals upon which our country was founded "irrelevant" at any time is truly troubling.

 

[Half Fast]

That is probably the most frightening statement I've read in a very long time, at least in terms of the future of our country. The fact that anyone can consider the document and principals upon which our country was founded "irrelevant" at any time is truly troubling.

That's been happening since at least the 1860s. And probably before.

 

[AKiss20]

Update: the Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to the PA shutdown order and refused to grant a stay with no dissent amongst the justices.

https://www.usnews.com/news/nationa...es-to-lift-pennsylvanias-coronavirus-shutdown

The PA supreme court also ruled along similar lines
https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/202...reme-court-challenge-gov-wolf-shutdown-order/
https://www.penncapital-star.com/co...s-challenge-to-wolfs-business-shutdown-order/

 

[denverpilot]

Update: the Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to the PA shutdown order and refused to grant a stay with no dissent amongst the justices reported.

https://www.usnews.com/news/nationa...es-to-lift-pennsylvanias-coronavirus-shutdown

The PA supreme court also ruled along similar lines
https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/202...reme-court-challenge-gov-wolf-shutdown-order/

Always nice when you can just say no and not do your job. Wish my work was like that.

 

[Kenny Phillips]

Always nice when you can just say no and not do your job. Wish my work was like that.

When it comes to government versus people, the courts generally lean toward government, as they are government.

 

[Juliet Hotel]

This is a very interesting report. Suggests that perhaps the people who are sheltering at home are being infected by the essential workers which come to their houses.

Or... that while they're not working, they're also not staying home 100% of the time and they're doing something to comprise their safety when they're not home.

 

[Tantalum]

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

I'm assuming the "...or public danger;" portion is the justification. To play devil's advocate, the private property is not really being taken for public use .. requiring a restaurant to close doesn't take that property from the business owner nor is it putting it towards public use. It's not like they're demolishing these businesses and building air strips and railroads. One could also argue that the various assistance programs out there may be considered just compensation

What I'm more surprised by is how easy it was to close everything down. If you want to put a deck on your house it could take a (very) long time to get the appropriate building permits, etc. Want to shut down a whole economy (regardless of the cause), that basically happens overnight

Surely there'll be some fascinating studies in the aftermath of this regarding the constitution, state, vs federal, vs local laws, etc.

lways nice when you can just say no and not do your job. Wish my work was like that.

I totally get the sentiment.. if the government had to function as a private business entity they'd never survive.. but to counterpoint that, the courts need to be able to have some say as to what cases they'll take. Part of the reason we have so many dumb lawsuits out there and a tied up court system is because (in my opinion) the court doesn't say "sorry, no thanks" enough. It's a famous case, but the fact that you can take someone to court for having hot coffee, or for drinking cleaning solvent and getting sick (in the absence of a warning label) is ridiculous. Sure, you can hire a lawyer for whatever you want, but the courts really ought not hear most of the things they do. A reasonable person should expect coffee to be hot, and that cleaning solvent is not food

 

[Tantalum]

Or... that while they're not working, they're also not staying home 100% of the time and they're doing something to comprise their safety when they're not home.

Indeed.. and I wonder how aggressive people are treating the "stay at home order"
-if you sealed yourself in a box you wouldn't catch it.. so for people to be sheltering in place and still getting sick means that there are various degrees of "staying at home" that people are doing. The daughter bringing her grandma groceries twice a week may be enough to get that grandma sick

 

[denverpilot]

I'm assuming the "...or public danger;" portion is the justification. To play devil's advocate, the private property is not really being taken for public use .. requiring a restaurant to close doesn't take that property from the business owner nor is it putting it towards public use. It's not like they're demolishing these businesses and building air strips and railroads. One could also argue that the various assistance programs out there may be considered just compensation

What I'm more surprised by is how easy it was to close everything down. If you want to put a deck on your house it could take a (very) long time to get the appropriate building permits, etc. Want to shut down a whole economy (regardless of the cause), that basically happens overnight

Surely there'll be some fascinating studies in the aftermath of this regarding the constitution, state, vs federal, vs local laws, etc.


I totally get the sentiment.. if the government had to function as a private business entity they'd never survive.. but to counterpoint that, the courts need to be able to have some say as to what cases they'll take. Part of the reason we have so many dumb lawsuits out there and a tied up court system is because (in my opinion) the court doesn't say "sorry, no thanks" enough. It's a famous case, but the fact that you can take someone to court for having hot coffee, or for drinking cleaning solvent and getting sick (in the absence of a warning label) is ridiculous. Sure, you can hire a lawyer for whatever you want, but the courts really ought not hear most of the things they do. A reasonable person should expect coffee to be hot, and that cleaning solvent is not food

Agree but they did hear the hot coffee case, and if you’ve read it, it was because the stuff was hot enough to cause third degree burns amongst other things.

Seems like with local governments making up laws without even a vote on much of it by actual elected officials, with a serious threat of real damages to parties involved...

SCOTUS shouldn’t be turning down cases.

Mayor McCheese the parade float guy shouldn’t be setting legal precedent without some significant forced guidance from above, methinks.

Ignoring/denying the Constitutional cases is at best, bad PR for the high and mighty robe wearing modern clerics of truth and the legal system as gospel religion.

I haven’t read their rejection yet though, to see if the lower level level beagles just sent a super dumb case to them without merit.

 

[RJM62]

Indeed.. and I wonder how aggressive people are treating the "stay at home order"
-if you sealed yourself in a box you wouldn't catch it.. so for people to be sheltering in place and still getting sick means that there are various degrees of "staying at home" that people are doing. The daughter bringing her grandma groceries twice a week may be enough to get that grandma sick

I don't know where they picked up the virus. I do know that most of the people in question were "high-risk"; and that the government's control-oriented approach is doing absolutely nothing to assist them in staying home.

I'be been using the phrase "aggressively protect and assist" to describe the isolation part of the plan I advocate. High-risk people would be aggressively protected and assisted. The latter part is where the current lockdown approach most dramatically fails because you can't just tell an elderly or immune-compromised person to stay home without enabling them to do so.

Aggressively assisting the vulnerable would include (among other things) well-being checks, grocery shopping and delivery, medication delivery, and rides to medical appointments by some means other than the bus or subway (which are the absolute last places a vulnerable person should ever be).

You can't just wave the magic wand of social control and expect people to comply, unless you expect the elderly and infirm to just stop eating until after election day. If you're going to tell them to isolate, then you need to enable them to do that.

But as I've said before, the politicians in charge are all about control. Service, not so much.

Rich

 

[denverpilot]

The daughter bringing her grandma groceries twice a week may be enough to get that grandma sick

The math says it’s not a “may” but a certainty given enough time.

Grandkid wiping it all down and leaving it outside and not giving grandma a hug, increases that timeline significantly, but doesn’t stop it necessarily.

It’s basically what we are doing for my immune suppressed butt until June when one of the effects of a drug wears off.

But I finally kinda went out yesterday. Vet trip for a dog who needed XRays, went inside a pharmacy, went inside USPS to pick up prescription dog food that usually arrives UPS (USPS has stopped large package delivery to our neighborhood — we get to go expose ourselves at the post office 15 miles away), and we ate a fast food breakfast.

I had to do USPS because the box was way too big and heavy for Karen.

Quite the outing. Haven’t been any further than the country gas station in a month and a half.

Let ya know if I die. LOL. Pretty unlikely.

The car line around Starbucks as we drove by was 20-25 deep. Same as any normal day there. Looked quite “essential”. LOL. We are in limited opening now, of course.

So far the events that could’ve triggered outbreaks don’t appear to have had any effect, and the outdoor protests were over two weeks ago now as the first one. There’s a local guy making graphs with events like those marked on the timeline.

We even did take out again for dinner. Little local bar that’s struggling. Was delicious, my little Covid risk burger with a side of sweet potato fries. Ha. Karen went in and grabbed that. Borrowed my paper mask that does nothing because she forgot hers. Ha.

Thinking about having some non-essentials come install some new appliances. Especially a plumber to come deal with the jackassery I found under the kitchen sink before someone can easily plug and play a new dishwasher.

Dog has spondylitis in his back probably his whole life and apparently almost tore the equivalent of both ACLs in his hind legs and was barely showing it. He’s got good drugs and had some knee injections to protect the cartilage while they decide if he needs surgery.

He’s moving better today but he likes his new drugs which are making him sleepy. Lazy butt over here snoozing. Stoner dog.

 

[RJM62]

The kids who were grab-assing on the beaches during spring break might be excellent grocery picker-uppers for the elderly. Most of them probably have immunity. Combine that with standard precautions, and it reduces the chances of their infecting someone considerably.

Rich

 

[denverpilot]

The kids who were grab-assing on the beaches during spring break might be excellent grocery picker-uppers for the elderly. Most of them probably have immunity. Combine that with standard precautions, and it reduces the chances of their infecting someone considerably.

Rich

“I’ve already had Da ‘Rona.

Mind y’own bidness.”

T-shirts coming soon... for all the cooped up unhappy people... who want to speak to the manager!

LOL!

Few months away I reckon.

August when the heat kicks in and poor neighborhoods start seeing people shooting and stabbing each other over a cough without a soaking wet sweat filled mask being on or off.

Haha it’ll happen.

Some idiot shot a security guard at a Dollar Store over the mask thing already I heard.

Gonna get super stupid if the government morons don’t start the PR pitch to the long game and how to play it.

There never was a short game. Dangerous misperception of the initial attack strategy.

 

[bnt83]

The spike in depression, domestic violence, suicides, pain caused by not being treated due to postponed services, millions of people jobless, enormous disruption of the food supply further contributing to the stresses already imposed on the common folk, giant obvious power grabs, raiding the treasury over and over, where does this crap end?

 

[Kenny Phillips]

The kids who were grab-assing on the beaches during spring break might be excellent grocery picker-uppers for the elderly. Most of them probably have immunity. Combine that with standard precautions, and it reduces the chances of their infecting someone considerably.

Rich

But they must have immunity, not probably have immunity.

 

[Warmi]

The spike in depression, domestic violence, suicides, pain caused by not being treated due to postponed services, millions of people jobless, enormous disruption of the food supply further contributing to the stresses already imposed on the common folk, giant obvious power grabs, raiding the treasury over and over, where does this crap end?

It will end as soon as the “untouchables” , government employees , start losing their jobs en masse and ... yes , they will.

It is one thing to keep proclaiming “ we are all in this together” when you are on a sort of extended home vacation with guaranteed income ... but that will not last , eventually you will run out of other people’s money , especially if you constrain them from making any significant money in the first place.

 

[azure]

Update: the Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to the PA shutdown order and refused to grant a stay with no dissent amongst the justices.

I'll be interested to learn what their reasons were for not hearing the challenge. The US News article doesn't give much detail there.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Indeed.. and I wonder how aggressive people are treating the "stay at home order"

If you have a look at the graph I posted before (available at http://steinmetz.org/peter/Medical/MobVsLockdown.png) you can see that people were fairly aggressive (40-50% reductions) initially about 1-2 weeks before the lockdown orders. Then it has been drifting back, depending on state. Some are nearly back up now to baseline levels.

 

[Tarheelpilot]

That is probably the most frightening statement I've read in a very long time, at least in terms of the future of our country. The fact that anyone can consider the document and principals upon which our country was founded "irrelevant" at any time is truly troubling.

Listen to some of the governors in our country. They are openly disregarding the constitution.

 

[IK04]

by the looks of things....people are too stupid for self preservation.

"By the looks of things." meaning those with shopping carts full of toilet paper?

Topic smoosh!

 

[Tantalum]

It is one thing to keep proclaiming “ we are all in this together”

Ugh, I hate that dumb thing people keep posting and saying.. it's akin to the motivational kitten posters "hang in there"
--for one this, we're certainly not all in this together in the same capacity. We may be riding out the same storm, but we're certainly not on the same boat

 

[denverpilot]

Listen to some of the governors in our country. They are openly disregarding the constitution.

Some are about to slap chop the Parade Mayors, too...

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ne...-counties-abused-their-emergency-15252168.php

Be interesting to see which ones are still in office after it’s all over with.

 

[denverpilot]

Ugh, I hate that dumb thing people keep posting and saying.. it's akin to the motivational kitten posters "hang in there"
--for one this, we're certainly not all in this together in the same capacity. We may be riding out the same storm, but we're certainly not on the same boat

View attachment 85574

Just in case anyone doesn’t know, the photo and headline are from a satire site. But still true.

 

[Bell206]

I'll be interested to learn what their reasons were for not hearing the challenge

FWIW: on various legal forums they reference the motion before SCOTUS on the PA stay at home orders was only for a temporary injunction to lift the order, not to try the case. It supposedly was the same injuction request denied by the PA Supreme court as the original case has not been fully tried in the lower PA courts. The same forums state SCOTUS only gets involved if the federal goverment is party like some of appeals court decisions on immigration. Regardless, this is only the beginning as there are numerous big money litigations fixing to hit the courts on these orders.

 

[Tantalum]

Just in case anyone doesn’t know, the photo and headline are from a satire site. But still true.

isn't it sad that we've gotten to a point where we have to explicitly state whether something is actually fake news or not

 

[Half Fast]

isn't it sad that we've gotten to a point where we have to explicitly state whether something is actually fake news or not

Fake news has existed since Gutenberg. At least.

The bright side is that today some fake news is actually being called out.

 

[denverpilot]

isn't it sad that we've gotten to a point where we have to explicitly state whether something is actually fake news or not

US Newspaper history prior to the modern age was rife with owners who literally paid for things to happen so they could have exclusive rights to the story, to sell their rag.

Artic adventurers, aviators attempting records, all sorts of stuff.

So it was different than 24/7 destructive partisanship on repeat, but it was always somewhere between real and fake.

Financial news is the fakest. Predict what’ll happen tomorrow, you probably wouldn’t be behind a TV desk, you’d be rich beyond your wildest dreams and hanging out on your private island somewhere. If you are really that good at it, anyway. I guess the nearly six figure salaries and a handful that are higher must pay better than their investments. LOL.

Noticed for a while the traffic reporters were pretty bored around here. Limited opening and drivers who haven’t gone anywhere in six weeks fixed that problem instantly, it appears. The radio reports sounded like any other weekday when we were running our essential errands. Crash here, crash there, off ramp closed here, blah blah.

 

[Dana]

Next we'll have to worry about flattening the curve of lawsuits so we don't overwhelm the courts. This mess is going to be litigated for years.

YES!! Let's quarantine all the lawyers... for the next hundred years...

 

[Palmpilot]

YES!! Let's quarantine all the lawyers... for the next hundred years...

Do that and you'll find out what tyranny is REALLY like!

 

[Half Fast]

Do that and you'll find out what tyranny is REALLY like!

Right.

Forgive me for not remembering the simple, common lawyers at Lexington and Concord who bravely faced the British Redcoats, handing out subpoenas to them. Known as "The gavel heard around the world," that was the start of the American Litigation War that brought lawsuits against King George and ended his tyranny, giving us the independent nation we have today.

 

[denverpilot]

After watching a week of fraidy cat people with paycheck privilege posting things making fun of protesters as if they’re better than them, I decided to post this for them.

Still haven’t caught the ‘Rona, still expect it’ll get to me eventually. Still have actual medical orders not to be out, and not just some recommendation or illegal law from a politician who didn’t take a pay cut and seems to be essential standing at a podium blathering.

But I did come up with a nice idea for the nurse and her office. See if y’all agree.

——-

I noticed today the people usually loudest about class warfare and “privilege” suddenly like sending poor people to retrieve their goods in a pandemic, very much. So much they’ll make fun of anyone protesting to go back to their regular job instead of their new delivery or grocery gig.

Own a business that could open with the same low levels of protection offered at the grocery store that you don’t even go into anymore? They’ll make fun of you for fighting to open it. Privilege.

The stockers and checkers don’t get your non-essential lifestyle.

Get me my Amazon boxes, peasant. Bezos can sell those things you used to. I shall not be bothered to get off this couch and venture forth to the dangerous world where the risk of death is <1%.

Your UPS driver is your slave.

Perhaps my “essential” who’s been out since the beginning and in direct contact with hundreds of people, could show you your “privilege” and suggest ways you could learn to take your own life risks?

But we all know you meant to say “expendable” if you believe your own silliness that this is now about flattening curves. Curve flattened. Better get your head in the long game.

Many can’t join you and your celebrity idols in Hollywood and politics, in your couch sitting privilege.

Crack open another bottle of “essential” you had delivered from the liquor store and a nice joint from the “essential” pot shop and await your deliveries by those folks less fortunate — and say they’re all bad people for protesting your government that’s “protecting” you, and not them. That’s a good look.

Send some other expendables with guns to arrest surfers, too. You sure aren’t going to go do it.

Sergeant at Arms! Arrest that peasant. I’m busy watching Netflix here!

Hypocrisy looks good on you. Comes with designer pajamas and logo and diamond encrusted team logo face masks apparently?

I won’t judge. I’ll just recommend my essential worker tell the boss that she’s working on other essential workers first, when you show up expecting her clinic to be open.

Oops you fell off that ladder remodeling your basement and ripped yourself open. Have a seat. We’ll be with you after all the essentials.

You can sit for hours in the waiting room with the same style mask she has used for over a month, for as long as it takes to get to your non-essential ass.

Have to get those essentials back to work before you of course. I think she will like this plan. Essentials and elderly of course. You can sit and wait.

You’re just headed back to your couch anyway. An extra couple hours of risk? Pfff.

Nothing at all compared to those serving you.

Check your privilege?

Maybe the Docs and Nurses can help you do just that. I’m certainly not against them doing so.

Maybe your favorite politician will stop by to change your dressing? Deliver some stuff to your house? I’m going with... not likely.

 

[RJM62]

Right.

Forgive me for not remembering the simple, common lawyers at Lexington and Concord who bravely faced the British Redcoats, handing out subpoenas to them. Known as "The gavel heard around the world," that was the start of the American Litigation War that brought lawsuits against King George and ended his tyranny, giving us the independent nation we have today.

I wouldn't be too hard on lawyers. Yeah, there are far too many ambulance-chasing shysters. But there are also lawyers who love the Constitution and defend the freedoms it guarantees with as much courage and passion as did the citizen soldiers who fought at Lexington and Concord.

Rich