Disabled con artists and their shyster lawyers are becoming a problem.

Gary Walker was horrified when legal documents arrived at his small restaurant notifying him that he was being sued for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal law that requires wheelchair ramps and other features for the disabled.

The feeling turned to anger when Walker found out the man suing him, Shiloh Hobleman, had filed a series of practically carbon-copy lawsuits against more than a dozen small businesses in the area.

"Hobleman is what can only be characterized as a `serial plaintiff,'" Walker's lawyer said in court papers. "Except for the named defendants, each of the ADA complaints is virtually, if not exactly, identical to the instant suit — right down to the typographical and grammatical errors."

My wife Liz was in a wheelchair for several years. Here's an old post about that, and what I said about it:

We also got to be quite the crusaders for handicapped access. Our local Lions club replaced itÂ’s front doors because they were a designated voting station, but wheelchairs couldnÂ’t fit through them because of the center jamb. Two stores modified their register layouts because Liz raised enough hell (up to the county level) about wheelchair access and, more importantly, fire safety. I once got into it with the manager of a computer store (major chain) because they had the aisles packed with stacks of extra inventory, and I was kicking them over one by one as we shopped to make room for the wheelchair. He wanted to call the cops, but hesitated when I wanted that too. The county supervisor got involved and I assume theyÂ’ve changed their ways, but weÂ’ve never gone back. I refuse to give my money to assholes.

YouÂ’d be surprised how many times someone pulls up in front of a store and blocks the wheelchair ramp. If they have the grace to apologize when they come running out and see us waiting, weÂ’d figure they learned the lesson and be more aware next time. If they didnÂ’t care, IÂ’d scrape the chair along their car getting around it. Call the cops asshole, and make sure you mention how you were threatening a lady in a wheelchair.

So I've seen what kinds of problems the ADA is supposed to solve, and I've seen the difficulties caused for the disabled when those laws are ignored. At the same time, we never even considered suing.

I hope they can come up with some way to limit these nitwits who make a career out of filing ADA lawsuits (I especially like the judge's decision to not award costs to the one plaintiff). However they manage it, it'll have to be fair, and that's going to take someone with the wisdom of Solomon. And a thick damn skin, because you know the nanny-state believers will be crawling out from under every rock to whine about disabled rights.

Posted by: Ted at 06:02 AM | category: Links
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Would you survive a zombie emergency?

Official Survivor
Congratulations! You scored 64%!

Whether through ferocity or quickness, you made it out. You made the right choice most of the time, but you probably screwed up somewhere. Nobody's perfect, at least you're alive.

According to the results, I scored higher than 99% of males my age.

Link: The Zombie Scenario Survivor Test written by ci8db4uok on Ok Cupid

I'm assuming I rate slightly above 'spare' with the guys at the Ministry?

Posted by: Ted at 12:06 PM | category: Links
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From the Jawa Report:

Achmed: We demand 1 million lira for Sgrena's release! (pinky to mouth)

Sgrena: Er, 1 million lira is like $700 U.S. dollars.

Achmed: Oh? Really.....

Sgrena: Yeah........

Achmed: Ok....We demand 1 billion lira! (pinky finger to mouth)

Sgrena:....

Achmed: What? Too much??.....

Sgrena: Well.....er.....better. That's like $700,000 U.S.

Achmed:.....

Sgrena:......

Achmed:.......So?

Sgrena: Wouldn't you be able to fund more Iraqi 'Minutemen' to kill the Zionist-Crusader forces with like a trillion lira......???

Achmed:.......

Sgrena:...............

Achmed:You know we invented the zero, don't you?

You owe me a keyboard.

Posted by: Ted at 06:09 AM | category: Links
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Now this is interesting. Check out this recipe that wasn't sent in to the Carnival. I'm having a hard time believing that a cat wrote that post because, frankly, I don't think a cat would care enough about anyone else to bother. But then, I'm a dog person.

Posted by: Ted at 04:56 AM | category: Links
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1 Sounds like a kitty who is trying to kill its humans. Why DO cats want us to die? Mine trip me all the time. Don't they realize that they will not get food of their own when I am gone?

Posted by: dawn at March 14, 2005 12:56 PM (bNYuK)

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Russ alerted me to this a few days ago, but I couldn't find a link until now.

Danny Joe Brown passed away.

Danny Joe Brown, a founding member of Southern rockers Molly Hatchet, and singer and co-writer of the band's biggest hits from the late '70s, died on Thursday at his home in Davie of complications from pneumonia. He was 53.

Brown had been a diabetic and had problems with his health for years.

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The Milwaukee Admirals edged my Cleveland Barons over the weekend. In accordance with the prophesy By the rules, I hereby display the victorious Admirals logo here

and provide links to Brian J and Frinklin, who doubled up for Beer City.

Posted by: Ted at 04:42 PM | category: Links
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Eric of Off Wing Opinion asks:

Has Miracle knocked Slapshot out of the top spot for the greatest hockey movie of all time?

The comments are interesting and amusing, and personally, while I liked Miracle a lot, it doesn't top Slapshot.

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Most everyone has heard of the SETI@home project, where you can download a screensaver that uses your PC's downtime to process data collected by the big radio telescopes pointed "out there" looking for life.

There is a similar effort to utilize PC's as a massively distributed platform to study protein folding.

What are proteins and why do they "fold"? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out their biochemical function, they remarkably assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, remains a mystery. Moreover, perhaps not surprisingly, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious effects, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, and Parkinson's disease.

Check out details here, and Rich has more links and information at his place.

Posted by: Ted at 10:04 AM | category: SciTech
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The ladies have Valentine's Day, and are showered with roses and chocolate (you did shower someone sweet, right?). Well, a gentleman has come up with a brilliant equivalent for us guys. March 14th shall henceforth and forevermore be:

Steak and BJ Day

No cards, no flowers, no special nights on the town; the name of the holiday explains it all, just a steak and a BJ. Thats it. Finally, this twin pair of Valentine's Day and Steak and Blowjob Day will usher in a new age of love as men everywhere try THAT much harder in February to ensure a memorable March 14th!

I'd say that I think this is a fine idea, but being a guy, that would be redundant.

Thanks to the guys at The Ministry of Minor Perfidy for pointing this one out, and who've redecorated and returned refreshed and kicking butt. Mmmmm, Caribou steak....

Posted by: Ted at 08:31 PM | category: Links
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I've talked about Infocom games before (Zork is an example). Now, thanks to Alan Brain, you can recall the good ol' days, or find out what you were missing.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (online versions).

Posted by: Ted at 05:02 AM | category: Links
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Cindy, aka Squipper, of Dusting My Brain fame (who is also a podcasting pioneer I might add), is rooting for the Hamilton Bulldogs in the Jamboree this season. Her Bulldogs edged the Barons in this weekend's game and so I'm posting her team logo here.

Nice doggie.

Posted by: Ted at 04:50 AM | category: Links
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Courtesy of Dustbury, 1,159 words the NFL won't put on your authentic football jersey.

Posted by: Ted at 07:10 AM | category: Links
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From Blather Review:

Y'know, I was eating Alpha-Bits one morning and was surprised because I saw that it read "oooooo." Then I remembered that I was eating CheeriOs.

There's more, and it's all good.

Posted by: Ted at 11:39 AM | category: Links
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Via Physics Geek, some ideas of how to let vacationing co-workers know you were thinking about them. Drink alert on this one.

A few days ago Mookie was telling me about this interactive buddy flash game, and I finally tried it. Oh man, is this addicting. You start off with a generic virtual buddy, and you get money for each interaction. Start small with tickles and shoves and such, and eventually you build up to tossing around fireballs and grenades. If you're not convinced that you need to release your pent-up psychotic yet, you can also purchase "skins" for your buddy, so that you're abusing interacting with Dubya, Michael Moore, and many others.

Posted by: Ted at 09:30 AM | category: Links
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