Five Questions
Without understanding what it entails, I agreed to participate in a blog meme. I assume after I answer Xrlq’s five questions, I have to get five other bloggers to agree to be interviewed by me and answer 5 questions. If you want to be asked some questions, leave a comment. Xrlqy Wrlqy asks, I answer:
1 What’s your take on the proposal to arm judges in Illinois? Support as a baby step in the right direction, or oppose under the time-honored legal doctrine of tu et me similis autem melior?
I don’t understand your crazy, moon language. But I figure from high school Latin (actually, a friend who took high school Latin) that means Like you and me, only better. Not a legal doctrine but a catch-phrase. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned following politics, it’s that catch-phrases are better than actually, you know, having substance.
Update: I thought by picking the catch-phrase, that would imply I opposed it. However, Xrlq doesn’t think I answered. So, I oppose packing judges, unless everyone else can pack too.
2 What to do about the regulation of blogs? Sign the petition, or “don’t just do something, stand there?”
I have not signed the petition because petitions are about as useful as 10,000 hippies gathering in a square to protest oil/war/blood/SUVs/Tibet/etc. Like Seagulls, they come in, make a lot of noise, crap all over everything and leave. Hippies, not petitions. But petitions don’t accomplish much. I’m much more inclined to call my representatives and bitch. I did add blogs (along with dogs and guns) to My Cold Dead Hands list. Good thing I didn’t add money or I’d be dead.
3 Do all peeple from Knocksvill spel krappyly, or jist the wons yall eleckta publick offus?
Shore do seem lack it. Jus aks dis feller.
4 ANWR drilling – good or bad?
Anything that kills off caribou is good. What have they done for us? And I hear there’s oil there.
5 How about that bankruptcy reform?
Do you mean actual bankruptcy reform or the corporate benefit version? Long and short: If you wanna play, you gotta pay. People who are capable of paying their debts should pay them. Or they should be sued senseless. If you’ve ever been paid pennies on the dollar, you know how much it sucks.
Conversely, predatory lending is also a problem. These stupid credit companies that intentionally loan to high risk people should not be rewarded for engaging in the high risk = high return game. If you loan to someone who can’t pay, you’re a dumbass. You can’t take the risk part out of the game.
The current bill only addresses one side of the equation.
Update: I didn’t answer this one good enough either. I would say the reform of making people who can pay actually pay is good. However, it should be accompanied by a crackdown on predatory lenders.
My concern would be that po’ folk or until recently affluent folk who suffer some sort of financial setback (like illness) and are now effectively po’ folk could be forced to file under Chapter 13 when Chapter 7 is more appropriate. I would not put it passed some overzealous attorney or bureaucrat.
March 18th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
[…] | Main |
Five Questions: Tom
|By SayUncle|
Continuing the blog meme, Tom volunteered. CounterTop also volunteered, which means I need three m […]
March 18th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
[…] Filed under: Bloggin — tgirsch
Xrlq started it (to my knowledge), and Uncle continued it, and now I guess it’s my turn. HereR […]
March 17th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
I wish I had said that.
“Conversely, predatory lending is also a problem. These stupid credit companies that intentionally loan to high risk people should not be rewarded for engaging in the high risk = high return game. If you loan to someone who can’t pay, you’re a dumbass. You can’t take the risk part out of the game. “
March 17th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
Ask me the questions, Uncle, I’m not afraid!
As to Xrlq’s questions:
1. I’m indifferent. Doubt it would hurt anything, doubt it would help anything, either. If armed and supposedly trained sheriff’s deupties weren’t able to subdue this guy, what makes you think a presumably less trained judge would fare any better. Particularly since they’d have to get around that blasted robe!
2. Sign the petition and bitch to your representatives. Both will do an equal amount of good (read: almost none), but if you don’t try, you lose your right to bitch about it.
3. Not being from Knoxville, I’ll abstain from this question.
4. Mostly bad. Wouldn’t be so bad if there were assurances that the oil would actually be used domestically, and if it were tied to increased effeciency requirements, and if cleanup costs were pre-paid. I like the jobs it potentially creates, and hate virtually everything else about it.
5. A gift to the credit card companies, with little if any actual “reform.” You’d do a lot more good by banning APTs then by going after the little guy who lost his job or got saddled with huge medical bills (or even going after the two-bit credit fraud man). Rule of thumb: one bankrupt Kenneth Lay is worth about 10,000 bankrupt SayUncles and tgirschs and Xrlqs.
March 17th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Not sure if the meme allows follow-up questions or not, but on the off-chance that it does, could you elaborate a litle on Nos. 1 and 5?
On #1, yes, you did correctly decipher my bad Latin, but I can’t really tell what your answer to the question is. For, or against?
As to #5, I’m similarly confused. On the one hand, your statement that people who can pay debts should pay them sounds like a ringing endorsement of the means-testing requirement of the present bill, which would require many high earners (and no po’ folk) to declare BK under Chapter 13 rather than Chapter 7. On the other, you bring up predatory lending, which is only tangentially related to bankruptcy law, and which is largely a matter of state law anyway. (See, e.g., Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 47-14-103, 104, 110, 47-15-102, etc.). You then note, correctly, that the current reform bill addresses only one side of the equation – as does the entire Bankruptcy Code. So, on balance, are the reforms a good thing or a bad thing?
[BTW, I don’t fault you, or 99% of the blogosphere, for mixing up BK issues with predatory lending, either on the state vs. federal level or over the more general fact that you don’t have to show dishonesty on the part of any creditor in order to declare bankruptcy against all of them. I do fault the Puppyblender for muddying these issues, however. As a law professor, he ought to know better – and probably does.]
March 17th, 2005 at 4:16 pm
Post updated with answers, xrlqy.
March 17th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
Donkey shine (mercy bowcup, grassy ass).
March 17th, 2005 at 5:43 pm
I’ll respond to the questions.
March 17th, 2005 at 5:54 pm
As to XRLQs questions
1. I generally don’t care whether they are armed or not, but think the ability to get the right to carry acknowledged for all Illinois citizens is enhanced if judges have to go through thte same hurdles (or are outright prohibited).
2. I agree with you Uncle that petitions are worthless. Like I’ve commented before, I think most of this is nothing more than some publicity hungry appointees and journalists looking for cheap press. Gut feeling is it aint gonna happen and I havent spoken to anyone here in DC who has convinced me otherwise yet.
3. My spelling is pretty bad – especially on the blog which I don’t proofread or edit – but I am neither living in Knoxville anymore nor from there generally so I don’t know what it means. I was talking to someone about taking a job in Chattanooga yesterday though, so maybe I’ll be close again.
4. Good. We need the natural gas (much more important than oil) and btw almost everything the enviros say about the place is a pretty blatant lie (or serious overexageration). Can’t wait to drill somemore. We are pretty proud around here that we finally got it approved – though its still got a long way to go until its final.
5. I agree with you – if you loan money to high risk lenders you deserve what you get. However, too many otherwise legitimate looking businesses and individuals play games with the system – using bankruptcy as part of their business model – and something needs to be done to fix it.
March 20th, 2005 at 10:51 am
The founders of our country liked petitions. They seemed to think they were a good way for citizens to seek redress for greivances against their government. The difference between bitching to your representatives and petitioning your representatives is a petition shows how many people agree with you.