The Law is an Arse

These are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
___________________________

ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
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ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
____________________________________

ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
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ATTORNEY: What was the first thin g your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan.
_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
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ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.
_______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?
_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh....
_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!
_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh?
_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Independence Day

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964):
Speech On the Granting of Indian Independence, August 14, 1947

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of Inida and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

II

The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!

We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrowstricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.

On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.

Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom

that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.

The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.

And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.

JAI HIND.


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Source:

Reprinted in Brian McArthur, Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches (London: Penguin Viking, 1992), pp. 234-237. by Prof. Arkenberg.

Something just spurred me on all of a sudden. Hence, created this lil piece.

Vande Mataram

A report..wimbledull! - Donna Gee

It’s Wimbledon time again - and the whole of Britain is bracing itself for the world’s greatest tennis tournament. Or is it?Like it or not, the fact is that not every Brit is turned on by the sight of foreigners dressed all in white picking up gleaming silverware and oodles of cash for pinging balls across a net ad infinitum. I say foreigners because you can count the number of homegrown players fit to string the rackets of the overseas stars on one hand. One finger actually - Andy Murray. And despite his PR machine’s efforts to refute reports that he said he’d support anyone but England at the 2006 World Cup, I am quite convinced the 20-year-old from Dunblane is one of that vast army of Scots who have no great liking for the English. Apart from that, Murray probably won’t even be playing through injury, while our other 21st-century

legend, perennial nearly-man Tim Henman, is unlikely to get beyond the first round. My money’s on the world No.78 going out at the first hurdle, whoever he’s drawn against. Even if it's a ball boy. In his prime, poor past-it Tim was so near to being a superstar but every time he got within sight of actually winning a Slam, he bottled it. No, that’s not fair - he’s never been a Colin Montgomery. The reality is that Tim - who reached six Grand Slam semi-finals - was never good enough to actually win a major title. A nearly man doomed to fall at the last hurdle because his abilities were a tiny bit inferior to the real champions.I fear that Murray, charisma bypass and all, will go exactly the same way. He’ll never quite make it, just like Roger Taylor, the previous Brit to reach the Wimbledon semi-final in 1973. The last home player to win the men’s singles, Fred Perry, managed it before even I was born - completing a hat-trick of successive titles in 1936. And it’s now 30 years since we had our last ladies’ champion in Virginia Wade.Talking about British women players, I couldn’t even name one of the present lot, let alone get excited about her chances. But you can bet the UK media will go wild if one of them gets beyond round one.You’ll gather from my comments so far that I am not a big tennis fan. So if I, with my middle-class grammar school background, can’t get turned on by Wimbledon, what is there in it for the grass-roots Englishman - like the footy-loving guy who is hooked on Man United, Liverpool, Spurs or Arsenal? A Swiss and a Spaniard battling out a cat-gut war at the oh so snobbily named All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club? (Let’s face it, we all know it’s going to be a Federer v Nadal final). Or boring Belgian Justine Henin storming to yet another Grand Slam title against some faceless young woman with a Russian-sounding name?Granted, the galleries will be packed every day - predominantly by middle and upper-class women and girls with posh accents yelling ‘Oh, my gosh’ after virtually every rally. But the working classes certainly won't be there in abundance swigging down the champagne and guzzling those strawberries and cream. And the extortionate ticket prices will have nothing to do with it. Now I admit I’m a bit if a snob myself . . . but I find the whole event really stuck-up. It leaves me cold - particularly those antiquated Wimbledonisms like calling the main men's event the ‘Gentlemen’s Singles’. For heaven’s sake! Maybe the idea is to keep Fred Perry’s memory fresh but those sort of expressions went out with rationing.When Wimbo-phoria kicks in every year, I start to wonder if it’s me who’s out of touch. But I know so many people who really couldn’t care less about it - certainly until the latter stages - that I’m convinced my impressions have some substance.What about all you football fans? Do you find Wimbledon Wimble-dull? Come on guys, be honest with me…

Signs that mean its summertime..

Found this interesting!
It means its summer when -

1) Thierry Henry is off to Barcelona.

2) You keep checking the internet to see if you've signed someone. You just did it now.

3) And again.

4) The Mailbox is half as long as normal.

5) Thierry Henry is off to Real Madrid now.

6) Man United release a new kit.

7) Football pundits find themselves shoehorned into covering other sports.

8) As do football journalists. Quick, look busy.

9) Someone English is cheered all the way to the fourth round of Wimbledon from Henman Hill or Murray Mount or somewhere.

10) Actually, Andrew Murray's f**king Scottish, isn't he? Let's not cheer for him.

11) Sue Barker sits there and tells you it's a "Great British summer of sport".

12) You end up knowing the names of half the footballers' agents in the Premier League.

13) Old pros are forced to play football as satellite TV desperately scrabbles around for material.

14) Spurs target a top-four finish.

15) Your skin has gone a funny lobster colour and hurts.

16) Golf seems interesting.

17) Everyone gets excited waiting for the fixture list. Ooh, we play every team twice! Once home and once away! I can't wait!

18) You actually start to miss Alan Hansen.

19) Cricket is the new football. So we're told.

20) You try to convince yourself that the awful player linked with your club has just been misunderstood in the past.

21) And as for those players you've never heard of, well, best check their stats on Football Manager. That'll work.

22) You start to fancy Clare Balding.

23) Sky Sports News is even duller than normal.

24) Fernando Torres is linked with a move to the Premiership. (Note: In previous years, this role was regularly filled by Benni McCarthy).

25) You tell yourself staying up all night to watch the Copa America and MLS is normal.

26) It's Liverpool's year.

27) You suddenly realise you've got a wife and kids and that you haven't spoken to them for nine months. And they hate you.

28) You contemplate seeing if you can find your old Subbuteo set in the loft.

29) You persuade your family this year's holiday should be in Norway just so you can watch live football. Brann are top, you know, and Odd Grenland have only won once. Fascinating.

30) You persuade yourself the Intertoto Cup is really great.

31) You start craving cold lager at 10am every day.

32) You get so desperate that you start watching Eurosport 2 in the hope some football comes on.

33) You find yourself travelling 100 miles on a bus to watch the youth team's reserves playing a pre-season friendly.

34) You realise it's 3pm on a Saturday afternoon and you're holding your missus' bags in Top Shop. And even though she's trying to talk to you, all you're thinking is 'Ooh, I remember when Top Man used to sponsor Leeds'.

35) You love being top four or hate being in the relegation zone. Even though the league is entirely alphabetical.

36) You breathe a sigh of relief when you realise pre-season friendlies start in the first week of July. Because watching your out-of-shape side play Stevenage is just great, isn't it?

37) Newcastle sign 15 players. Only one of them is a defender.

38) You start to work out how many players it would take for your side to break into the Big Four. Then you think how great it would be if you somehow won your first ten games and managed to stay ahead of the rest and be in with a shout of the league.

39) You convince yourself it's worth sticking a quid on it at 2500/1 odds. 50p, at least.

40) You put the other 50p on Man United getting relegated at 7500/1. Anything's possible, right?