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Things I have said repeatedly this afternoon include: "It's OVER."
written this morning
With one eyebrow raised to the sky, I followed a link to the infamous whale.to for an apparent argument that the tsunami several years ago was actually caused by a "nuke".
Second paragraph makes reference to "fake hurricane flooding" in New Orleans.
I. What. Seriously.
What's supposed to be fake? The hurricane? I'm pretty sure that happened, and would be prety hard to fake, given how far weather effects for hurricanes and cyclones reach. (Speaking as someone who lives about a thousand miles from cyclone latitudes: trust me on this. We haven't had one even close to the severity of Katrina hit northern Western Australia in my lifetime, but cyclones still affect the weather in Perth significantly when they're hitting Broome.)
The flooding? Because there's an awful lot of evidence that the flooding happened.
Is it some kind of weather control thing? I don't know. I don't think I want to.
returns some hours later
So!
The pre-trial conference for the insurance thing finally happened, and... I pretty much won.
Well, my lawyers won for me, anyway. They negotiated a settlement about fifteen times the initial offer - out of which I have to pay legal fees that amount to about 7.7% of the total. They had given me an initial range of what they thought they could get, which the barrister said he thought might be slightly high... and yet, the final amount was a tick over the upper end of their estimate. And it's definitely an amount I find acceptable.
I should get the money in about ten days - the insurance company pays my lawyers, who deduct their fee and transfer the rest to my bank account. On some level I really like just the fact that at no point do I have to pay my lawyers myself, it's just part and parcel of the Stuff They Handle. Of which there's been quite a lot, and it's been an unbelievable relief to me along the way that all of this process has, since I engaged them, been Not My Problem. I don't have to know how to deal with it or fix it, my lawyers do that. I didn't have to deal with the discussions with the opposing lawyers today - I sat elsewhere, and periodically one of my lawyers would come and talk to me if they needed information from me, or just to update me on progress.
I am fortunate in that I was recommended one of the handful of non-scabby personal injury lawyers who don't charge you anything until the whole thing is finished; they paid for all sorts of medical tests and things, and it all gets sorted out now. (The insurance commission pay for most of that. And about two thirds of my legal fees.)
I talked about it with the barrister, and mentioned my bemusement at the risibly terrible initial offer the insurance people made. He observed that about 50% of people take that offer.
Which of course is why they do it. Ironically, in cases like mine, if they'd offered me, say, five times as much as they did, I might have taken it, and in the end it cost them a lot more than that (not just the settlement, but also all my medical and legal fees), but sadly they probably do come out ahead this way - financially, if not morally.
Oliver and I talked about motor vehicle injury in Australia a bit. It's interesting the way Australian legal precedent goes on this one - even if, say, someone steps out from behind an obstacle directly in front of you, and you couldn't possibly have seen them, and you were travelling at the speed limit, and you brake immediately, but hit them anyway because it was not physically possible to avoid it - legally, you're At Fault. And when it comes up in court judges have noted that, specifically, no blame should be placed on the driver's ability or character, as this was unavoidable, but preference states that...
Because Australian legal precedent is based on the fact that third party insurance, which does, in fact, cover injury to other people, is compulsory.
The driver who hit me has never been identified, and never will be. However, the Insurance Commission is still liable, because I was injured in a motor vehicle accident and was, in fact, legally Not At Fault, and that's what they cover, for everyone.
Seriously, some things about Australia are pretty thoroughly awesome. (Like the AEC. Which we also talked about but I'm all tired and going to chill out for a while now.)
With one eyebrow raised to the sky, I followed a link to the infamous whale.to for an apparent argument that the tsunami several years ago was actually caused by a "nuke".
Second paragraph makes reference to "fake hurricane flooding" in New Orleans.
I. What. Seriously.
What's supposed to be fake? The hurricane? I'm pretty sure that happened, and would be prety hard to fake, given how far weather effects for hurricanes and cyclones reach. (Speaking as someone who lives about a thousand miles from cyclone latitudes: trust me on this. We haven't had one even close to the severity of Katrina hit northern Western Australia in my lifetime, but cyclones still affect the weather in Perth significantly when they're hitting Broome.)
The flooding? Because there's an awful lot of evidence that the flooding happened.
Is it some kind of weather control thing? I don't know. I don't think I want to.
returns some hours later
So!
The pre-trial conference for the insurance thing finally happened, and... I pretty much won.
Well, my lawyers won for me, anyway. They negotiated a settlement about fifteen times the initial offer - out of which I have to pay legal fees that amount to about 7.7% of the total. They had given me an initial range of what they thought they could get, which the barrister said he thought might be slightly high... and yet, the final amount was a tick over the upper end of their estimate. And it's definitely an amount I find acceptable.
I should get the money in about ten days - the insurance company pays my lawyers, who deduct their fee and transfer the rest to my bank account. On some level I really like just the fact that at no point do I have to pay my lawyers myself, it's just part and parcel of the Stuff They Handle. Of which there's been quite a lot, and it's been an unbelievable relief to me along the way that all of this process has, since I engaged them, been Not My Problem. I don't have to know how to deal with it or fix it, my lawyers do that. I didn't have to deal with the discussions with the opposing lawyers today - I sat elsewhere, and periodically one of my lawyers would come and talk to me if they needed information from me, or just to update me on progress.
I am fortunate in that I was recommended one of the handful of non-scabby personal injury lawyers who don't charge you anything until the whole thing is finished; they paid for all sorts of medical tests and things, and it all gets sorted out now. (The insurance commission pay for most of that. And about two thirds of my legal fees.)
I talked about it with the barrister, and mentioned my bemusement at the risibly terrible initial offer the insurance people made. He observed that about 50% of people take that offer.
Which of course is why they do it. Ironically, in cases like mine, if they'd offered me, say, five times as much as they did, I might have taken it, and in the end it cost them a lot more than that (not just the settlement, but also all my medical and legal fees), but sadly they probably do come out ahead this way - financially, if not morally.
Oliver and I talked about motor vehicle injury in Australia a bit. It's interesting the way Australian legal precedent goes on this one - even if, say, someone steps out from behind an obstacle directly in front of you, and you couldn't possibly have seen them, and you were travelling at the speed limit, and you brake immediately, but hit them anyway because it was not physically possible to avoid it - legally, you're At Fault. And when it comes up in court judges have noted that, specifically, no blame should be placed on the driver's ability or character, as this was unavoidable, but preference states that...
Because Australian legal precedent is based on the fact that third party insurance, which does, in fact, cover injury to other people, is compulsory.
The driver who hit me has never been identified, and never will be. However, the Insurance Commission is still liable, because I was injured in a motor vehicle accident and was, in fact, legally Not At Fault, and that's what they cover, for everyone.
Seriously, some things about Australia are pretty thoroughly awesome. (Like the AEC. Which we also talked about but I'm all tired and going to chill out for a while now.)
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ps. nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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also
I just got an e-mail from my mother that's guaranteed to infuriate Chas. And possibly you. Fair warning.
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I'm not dealing with it for now, I can show it to you both when you get back.
I've been making a To Do list. On it: Applying for Austudy, so I can start the waiting period for having too much in the way of liquid assets. (I think. I might call up tomorrow and ask "so what if I don't have them now, but will shortly?")
If I can get Austudy it will reduce the rate at which I use up my soon-to-exist savings. :)
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The Australian legal stuff sounds very cool!
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What's supposed to be fake? The hurricane? I'm pretty sure that happened, and would be pretty hard to fake, given how far weather effects for hurricanes and cyclones reach.
It affected the weather as far away as Canada (seriously, Quebec had flooding because of it, despite being over 1,000 miles away). We had downpours of rain in Maryland and Virginia, and the midwest had tornados and floods. The only disaster in US history that equals it is the 1906 San Franciso Earthquake and Fire (which basically destroyed the entire city of San Francisco).
Actually, there are remarkable similarities to the 1906 Earthquake, from insurance fraud on a massive scale on behalf of both individuals and insurance companies, civil engineering concerns on a major scale, lethal force on behalf of the army used to stop rioting, and minorities being among the most devastated (basically all of Chinatown burned to the ground and the city government then tried to use the quake as an excuse to kick all Chinese immigrants out -- luckily, they failed).
Somebody really ought to make a movie about it -- it would be an opportunity to air a lot of commentary and criticism about Katrina in a less sledgehammery form than a movie about the hurricane itself. (And while they're at it, a movie based on the Taft and Roosevelt administration -- Teddy Roosevelt, that is -- inquiries into whether or not "water cures" performed during prisoner interrogation in the Philippino-American war was torture would also be nice and timely -- quote from one officer's testimony before the Senate, "He is simply held down and then water is poured onto his face down his throat and nose from a jar; and that is kept up until the man gives some sign or becomes unconscious.... His sufferings must be that of a man who is drowning, but cannot drown." Sounds awful familiar, huh?)
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Conspiracy theorists are weird. I mean, have they not noticed how many conspiracies and attempted conspiracies fall apart because people can't shut the fuck up? But somehow THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE keep quiet about 9/11/tsunamis/NEW FUCKING ORLEANS...it's boggling.