The SOPS, or what might you expect from government clerks

I. Introduction. It is perhaps the fifth time in about a year people direct me to the opinion of J.D. Rourke in re Meads v. Meads. Evidently readers think I'm in a position to say important things on that topic, a flattering thought I feel uninclined to resist. Evidently I should be paying attention - last time when I ignored repeated pointers of this sort I ended up missing out on Bitcoin for about half a year. So here we are.

II. The Statally Organised Pseudojustice System (SOPS). Any attempt to govern people faces a number of major challenges. Chief among them, the fact that Justice as an abstraction, that Justice which may relatively easily be embraced by a solid majority of living people in most situations, is necessarily and often enough markedly disjunct from justice as a practical matter.ⁱ It then follows that the general good reputation Justice enjoys is no guarantee of any sort of marketability benefiting justice with minusculeⁱⁱ j, her muchly battered, unhappy practical sister. In short, it'll be a pretty tough job to create practically usable representations of absolute Justice.

Also among those major challenges, the well documented and widely understood loss-gain asymmetry. It is a fact of human psychology that we hold dearer to that which we lost, above and beyond its actual value, while we disregard that which we've gained, deeming it worth less than would be factually correct. This flows out of necessary biology, seeing how the maintenance of life requires material consumption, and so the mammalian brain can't reasonably be expected to view the matter in a strictly neutral perspective. An influx from the outside to the inside is the zero level of biological survival for purely thermodynamic reasons, and because of this situation an ounce lost could mean death whereby an ounce gained does not necessarily mean life, and if it does it's only temporary anyway.

From the perspective of governance, this state of affairs has the following unfortunate implication : should a collection of people each produce p units and immediately consume p units, their per capita contentment will be p. Should however a collection of people each produce p units, be taxed for k units (where k < p), benefit from government prestations worth exactly k units, and as a result consume p units, their per capita contentment will be p - nk, where n > 0 (though hopefully < 1). In other words, even in the socialist ideal society where everyone produces exactly the same, and even if we throw in capitalist ideal methods, where government waste is exactly 0 and k = k, nevertheless there's a loss through the simple workings of the different psychological treatment of loss and gain.

These fundamental considerations among many others, more minute, more intricate but perhaps as dangerous in aggregate, explain why any attempt at implementing Statally Organised Pseudojustice Systems is a doomed entreprise. The only way these can be operated in practice, and indeed the only way these have been successfully operated in practice, is as extraction engines, whereby the nk factor and the difficulties of translating ideal into practice are overcompensated by despoiling a larger, oppressed group.

The Imperial Roman "Justice" worked fine for as long as there were Gauls and Dacians to bring over for nude parades in Rome, and for every one of the million Roman citizens there were at least a couple deaths each generation among the tens of millions of people the entire system was being based on. The British Empire could afford the facade of "Justice" on account of the jewels of India, Napoleon's domestic recodification was paid for and supported by the same noblemen that made Talleyrand exceedingly rich, and through the same process. Frederick's celebrated "Potz, Mohren, Blitz und Kreuzsakrament, wer kriegt so prompt wie der Preuße sein Traktament!" is not quite unrelated to the "Sie gönnen mir nicht Schlesien und die Grafschaft Glatz und die hundert Millionen in meinem Schatz." part of that same song.

Coming to more recent times, there's no American justice system without the great benefits actual American leadersⁱⁱⁱ such as Carnegie and Morgan brought through the subversion of a weak and disorganised world market by the use of the trade monopoly, price dumping and any and all tricks and subterfuges the job of fighting the economic war entail. There's no Japanese justice outside of what could be financed by the spearheading of Asian worms to feed on the carcass of once mighty, now ruined United States, and the reason Singapore is "civilised"^iv in our terms today has strictly to do with the fact that they're effectively fleecing many to feed themselves, much like we used to do back when we were "civilised" too.

Alas the world we are currently inhabiting is awash in information, which significantly reduces the volumes of available sheep significantly past the vanishing horizon where a grand Government utopia is still in any way feasible. Indeed it is the case that we can't afford the grandiose edifices nor the grandiose pretense of our illustrious antecessors a hundred or two hundred years ago, and as such the survival of justice in any sort of practical sense wholly depends on it being very, but I do mean very small and unobtrusive. This is quite an unobvious point to the clerks born and raised for the clerkdom, for the very loss aversion discussed above : when confronted with the collapse of the support for their entire intellectual life one's a lot more likely to call the notion absurd than to see my point.^v It is this illuminating perspective that I will then employ to explain the dissonant reaction produced in Mr. Rooke (the "living flesh and blood sentient-man") by the actions and statements of Mr. Meads (idem). We will first proceed on a point by point read of the matter, then see as to some conclusions.

III. The Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument [OPCA].

These persons employ a collection of techniques and arguments promoted and sold by ‘gurus’ (as hereafter defined) to disrupt court operations and to attempt to frustrate the legal rights of governments, corporations, and individuals.

The focusing on the "gurus" is perhaps ill advised, roughly of the nature and structure of Roman imperial administration in Jerusalem focusing on Jesus. While it's perfectly true that at some random point in time the deep seated, irreconcilable discontent with a certain government form was amusing itself with the elucubrations of one particular out-of-work carpenter picked from the gutter at the outskirts of society, it's the particular discontent that's the germane issue. Early Christianity was, and to a large degree modern Christianity still remains, in the words of Mr. Rooke, "contemptibly stupid, when reduced to its conceptual core", especially if we were to consider any comparison with the infinitely more subtle, elegant and well thought out Roman (which is to say, pagan) alternatives. So what of it ?

Why would it be that people in increasing numbers reject the putative "rights" of governments and corporations ?^vi Are these so rejected "rights" just or injust ? Just or inJust ? Can there be constructed a theoretical system which excludes them to no great loss ? Will such a theoretical system overtake the current, on the wave of exactly that discontent and powered by exactly this differential of costs and benefits ? Certainly not questions to be entertained by a judge as long as he remains in his clearly delineated, subhuman pen of a government clerk, but certainly chief concerns should he choose to take the step out of that cave, into the cruel light of day and consider things for what they are, doing the job of the anthropologist, or political scientist, or whatever it is he's concerning himself with.

This category of litigant shares one other critical characteristic: they will only honour state, regulatory, contract, family, fiduciary, equitable, and criminal obligations if they feel like it. And typically, they don’t.

Someone brought a larger quote including this snippet into earlier comments, along with the interesting observation that indeed Mr Rooke eschews actually enumerating those obligations, and with the implication that he does so because they are simply innumerable. An outright rejection by people of innumerable obligations as such seems on the first analysis reasonable. What is their incentive to accept them ? This question needs a very good answer, with the caveat that arguments ad baculum on one hand have a tendency to be quashed by larger sticks and on the other hand are very weak defense for those who aim to present themselves as representatives of order, reason and generally "good", as it's extremely rare and quite improbable for the orderly, reasonable or good to actually possess the baculum. In fact, the opposite is so often true the simple device works as a direct and immediately decipherable representation : he with the stick is the disorderly, violent one.

As a preliminary note, I will throughout these Reasons refer to persons by their ‘normal’ names, except to illustrate various OPCA motifs and concepts. OPCA litigants frequently adopt unusual variations on personal names, for example adding irrelevant punctuation, or using unusual capital and lower case character combinations. While OPCA litigants and their gurus put special significance on these alternative nomenclature forms, these are ineffectual in law and are meaningless paper masks. Therefore, in these Reasons, I will omit spurious name forms, titles, punctuation and the like.

I personally find this part the more amusing circumstance in the entire case, but also quite illustrative. What is "Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta" ? Well, let's see here. Historically, nobles held the right to dispense justice, see infangthief/outfangthief and all that. Historically, nobles^vii also held court, which is to say a gathering of their more trusted servants and followers. As they were not particularly immune to the J-j tension discussed above, soon enough the creation of js was invested in those courts, as a particular construct born out of the melding of authority with competence. So that's why it's called "court" rather than valley or rue. Queen's because of a complicated game of international roulette played by the British sovereign some centuries past which saw him left with a chunk of Canada, rather than say the US State of Illinois or whatever, merged with the even more complicated game of domestic roulette which resulted in the British having a few female sovereigns historically, and yet another bout recently which saw Elizabeth II as a good option for the throne. So there you go, Queen. Bench because seating was originally rare and a sign of respect, and because J-j so just one guy isn't enough or it'd have been Queen's Chair. And Alberta because whatever, it's a proper name, I imagine if you ask some knowledgeable Canadian they can tell you the history, I personally couldn't care less.

In short : there are reasons why it's called "Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta", but they are purely historical reasons of no immediate interest. It could as well be called "The Most Honorable Rooftop of the Nosepicker's Pole of Caroline" should justice have been traditionally dispensed from off a rooftop on the authority of some schmuck known for his nostril fingering by some specialist clerks standing on poles (perhaps somewhat in the manner of Συμεὼν ὁ στυλίτης^viii). It could have been called "Cellar of the Lady of the Lake of Louise", should justice have happened in cellars under the supervision of moistened bints distributing swords^ix. To him that's not involved in the common history that has established these points as certain but ultimately irrelevant conventions, or to him that's not interested in that history, they do indeed appear ridiculous, and to the same degree. All equally ridiculous.

Mr. Meads has the congeniality to gloss over the large pile of bizarre, untenable, accidental and in the end laughable conventions Mr. Rooke constructs his life out of, with allegoric drawings above his head and complicated stylings used in writing that for all the pretense aren't quite entirely functional. Mr. Rooke however is so very immersed in his particular set that he can scarcely conceal his glee discussing Mr. Meads complement of equally bizarre, untenable, accidental and in the end laughable use of symbolics. Their plight is common, for each seeks to punish the other for the same trespasses : Rooke foists upon Meads notions as to what "the Court’s contempt authority is", Meads foists upon Rooke paperwork as to the dire patrimonial consequences of using his name without proper license (to the tune of 100 million US dollars per violation). Who is the fool here ? Ostensibly, the one with fewer armored divisions, to repurpose an old observation of Stalin as to the Pope. In the end, their problem is otherwise unresolvable, as far as each is concerned, the other's "living flesh and blood sentient-man" person is unauthorised and shall be terminated forthwith.

The only problem I see with the notion, and a slight problem it is indeed, would be that the intelligent third party reading their exchange is inclined to side with neither. I find myself about as likely to take up arms to defend the ultraged honor of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta as to protect the inflamed honor of the "Cellar of the Lady of the Lake of Louise". Perhaps a teensy bit more inclined towards the latter, as Louise is a name I like more than Alberta by virtue of past association with a whore of that name. I suppose this puts me in contempt of both Court and Cellar, and I suppose one day I might come to care. In the meanwhile, either will have a lot of trouble enlisting support for their cause among the free thinking, and while in the case of Mr. Meads this is scarcely much of a loss, in the case of Mr. Rooke this spells out the end of a system upon which many hopes rest, including his own family's hope for sustenance.

What shall become of Mr. Rooke should he find himself one day in a far and remote territory, severed from communication with his sovereign by many months' worth of travel, unable to receive troops to support his particular set of assumptions ? Shall he somehow muster the courage here displayed by Mr. Meads, and appear in front of a large and complex system of the opposition to plainly state his thinking and expose it to the public ridicule, that simplest, oldest and cheapest method of extracting subordination known to ape ?

Perhaps he will, and should he do so he might find himself in a much better position to appreciate these vexated litigants, because their position is roughly as follows : here's a list of all that you've agreed to by virtue of being born, all of it detrimental, unpleasant and restrictive in the most invasive and intolerable of ways, and notwithstanding our patent inability to produce any proof of your agreement. Here's how things are done, because we say so. Here's the unavoidable result of things working that way, which is detrimental to you. This is by your agreement, which exists because we say so. Should you try to avoid said innumerable list of detriments we have an equally innumerable list of further extra bonus detriments, and should you somehow manage to beat us at our own game we will declare this is unfair and change the result anyway.

Doesn't seem particularly just, does it ? I guess it isn't. We might discuss whether it is a fair representation of the situation at hand just as we might discuss whether a woman that has had six children from a man, along with the means to raise them and further a quarter ton of silver and a house has any imaginable grounds to bring any action against him after finding another. As far as I can tell it is currently the more common practice among the ten billion people living for such a woman to be executed in some public fashion rather than for the government clerks to pester her unfortunate husband, whereas it is also the prevailing notion among same billions that the pretenses, intricacies and absurdities of Canadian, and indeed white government are not to be tolerated on this Earth.

If I believed that Mr. Meads acted sincerely (which I do not), I would conclude Mr. Meads misapprehended the scope of the responsibility and authority of a case management justice. However, this, instead, seems to be a kind of OPCA document that purports to unilaterally foist a particularly impressive sounding string of gibberish obligations upon me.

Meanwhile various courts (perhaps, arguably, to a lesser degree in Canada) have in fact proceeded to sanction and support very similar behaviour on the part of corporations. Apparently "by clicking here you agree to be bound" is fine, however "should you wish to utter my name you'll have to pay eleven billion dollars" is not. What's Adobe got that ::Dennis-Larry:Meads doesn't ? Is it the columns ? He could add more! If the court is willing to bother children over "copyright infringement" because that's what some third party has written in some particularly impressive sounding string of gibberish, why is the court not equally bothering random people for the same nonsense ? I suppose the in-system answer would be something along the lines of pointing out that merely asking that qualifies one as a conspiracy theorist or something. Nevertheless, the point stands : if legal persons are allowed to come with arbitrary, self created EULAs and natural persons are not this puts the latter at a significant disadvantage in the marketplace. This is vexing, and the result is vexation.

From a review of these documents, it appears that Mr. Meads is purporting to split himself into two aspects. One gets his property and benefits, the other his debts and liabilities. The ‘Mr. Meads with liabilities’ has entirely indemnified the ‘Mr. Meads with property’. He also appears to instruct me and the Bank of Canada to use a secret bank account, with the same number as his social insurance number or birth certificate, to pay all his child and spousal support obligations, and provide him $100 billion in precious metals. Mr. Meads has also purported to create various contractual obligations for those who might interact with him, or who write or speak his name.

This is, of course, nonsense. As I have noted to Mr. Meads, these materials have no force or meaning in law, other than they indicate an intention on his part to evade his lawful obligations and the authority of the Court and government. He is an OPCA litigant. That has legal consequences for him, which these Reasons will explain.

The funny part here is that very similar devices have in fact been used successfully before the common law courts at an earlier date, when it suited the government's purpose that they'd succeed. Consider for instance the method of converting fee tail to fee simple, the process known as "common recovery : the owner in tail of land (A) would convey it to B (tenant a praecipe) so that a third (C, the demandant) would sue for it. In court, B defended his right saying he acquired from A. A would appear and vouch for his right stating that he had acquired it from D (usually a fraudulent alternate identity of A himself). D would fail to appear, or run from court and so on. Formally, the judgement would require that C recover the land (giving him title in fee simple) and D compensate B in equity. The prosecution of a fictitious alter-ego being not particularly productive, the net result of this entire process was barring the entail, the transformation of land title from A's fee tail to C's fee simple.

In Canada, this category of litigation traces into the late 1990’s, representing the spread of concepts that emerged much earlier in the United States. Our Court’s experience has been that persons involved in the OPCA community often hold highly conspiratorial perspectives, but there is no consistency in who is the alleged hidden hand. Another uniform OPCA characteristic appears to be a belief that ordinary persons have been unfairly cheated, or deceived as to their rights. This belief that the common man has been abused and cheated by a hidden hand seems to form the basis for OPCA community members perceived right to break ‘the system’ and retaliate against ‘their oppressors’.

It is perhaps worth pointing out that such litigation does not exist before 1970 or so. The steady increase in the early two decades hence, the significant increase in the third and the explosion in the fourth neatly follows the evolution of taxation^x and because it so follows objective, quantifiable changes in the environment it can not broadly be considered irrational behaviour. Nitpicking at the individuals bringing such litigation and their usually shaky grasp of the law and procedure is not necessarily sufficient to establish them in the wrong. Past their often childish antics^xi there may be quite a barb hiding. Consider :

Lindsay’s misconduct goes further. Lindsay was, at a minimum, a “cheerleader” for an attempt by OPCA litigants to ‘arrest’ an Alberta Provincial Court judge during a hearing.

What if they had proceeded to try the judge ? What if a lot of people all over the place start arresting judges, whether for "spurious" reasons or not ? I'm not currently intervening in the judges' business of packing people off to jail for spurious reasons, why would I intervene should the shoe switch feet and the people start packing judges to jail for spurious reasons ? Why would anyone intervene, or care ? It's always a dangerous job to be doing any front office job for unpopular government.

The bluntly idiotic substance of Mr. Mead’s argument explains the unnecessarily complicated manner in which it was presented. OPCA arguments are never sold to their customers as simple ideas, but instead are byzantine schemes which more closely resemble the plot of a dark fantasy novel than anything else. Latin maxims and powerful sounding language are often used. Documents are often ornamented with many strange marking and seals. Litigants engage in peculiar, ritual‑like in court conduct. All these features appear necessary for gurus to market OPCA schemes to their often desperate, ill‑informed, mentally disturbed, or legally abusive customers. This is crucial to understand the non-substance of any OPCA concept or strategy. The story and process of a OPCA scheme is not intended to impress or convince the Courts, but rather to impress the guru’s customer.

Mr. Rooke's hurt sense of centrality is cute. Indeed, how dares anyone focus on anything but the important game Mr. Rooke plays! Society does not work that way! This is not allowed! Scandal!

When gurus do appear in court their schemes uniformly fail, which is why most leave court appearances to their customers. That explains why it is not unusual to find that an OPCA litigant cannot even explain their own materials. They did not write them. They do not (fully) understand them. OPCA litigants appear, engage in a court drama that is more akin to a magic spell ritual than an actual legal proceeding, and wait to see if the court is entranced and compliant. If not, the litigant returns home to scrutinize at what point the wrong incantation was uttered, an incorrectly prepared artifact waved or submitted.

I have had over the years occasion to grill litigants that either prosecuted or defended themselves in a variety of cases, mostly civil, plenty administrative, some criminal. Even taking only those that were successful, and had retained traditional counsel and followed such advice as they may have received, it is a point of fact that as far as they were concerned, they engaged in peculiar, ritual-like court conduct, that they could not if pressed explain the content or the point of documents that they had themselves signed, which often they had not even read. Should their aims be frustrated in court indeed they'd retire to contemplate at what point the wrong incantation was uttered, what incorrectly prepared artifact was waved and to try and establish if a better magician should be employed or instead a different, more auspicious jurisdiction be selected. This is the universal fact of contemporary litigation, and I very much doubt Mr. Rooke is innocent of it. Moreover, I suspect he's simply being facetious.

Mediaeval alchemy is a helpful analogue. Alchemists sold their services based on the theatre of their activities, rather than demonstrated results, or any analytical or systematic methodology. OPCA gurus are modern legal alchemists. They promise gold, but their methods are principally intended to impress the gullible, or those who wish to use this drivel to abuse the court system. Any lack of legal success by the OPCA litigant is, of course, portrayed as a consequence of the customer’s failure to properly understand and apply the guru’s special knowledge.

In point of fact Medieval alchemy is the mother matrix of modern science, from physics and biology very much to psychology and what have you. It is further the mother matrix of religion, and for that matter law. I can scarcely see why it'd have such a bad name in the eye of Mr. Rooke.

This discussion could continue indefinitely, but it seems to me the chief points were made. Time to move on to

IV. Conclusions. There's certainly a group of nuts agitating themselves in open court simply for the attention. There's certainly a larger group of con men, mostly Internet-based, that are trying to sell various "Information Products" to do with taxation, patrimonial obligations and anything else.^xii. My concern however is that these two hide a large and growing third group, which will tear the state apart in the most chaotic, nonsensical and ultimately wasteful manner possible. My concern on this topic is slight, as all that's unlikely to significantly affect me. The inability to adequately respond displayed by those people whom it will significantly impact, and who also tend to represent themselves as the reasonable, cultured and informed parties in all this doesn't promise too much however.

It would seem on the face of it that the rational reaction of Mr. Rooke, rather than trying to resolve a problem by liberal application of the very thing that seems to have created it in the first place, would be to push for reform of his own professional group. The correct solution to this problem is not trying to play the role of the pot calling kettle back, or attempting to poke fun at perceived strangeness of behaviour from under a gown.

The correct solution to this problem is making the totality of all laws and regulations comfortably fit within a hundred or so pages, which is as much as the common citizen can comfortably read and absorb. An adjuvant could perhaps be the reform of schooling so as to improve the reading comprehension and reading appetite of the same common citizen. A significant reduction of tax impact from its current two thirds to five sixths towards the twelfth to tenth it historically averages over the course of human history is not in any way avoidable. Corresponding paring of governmental services, and a disproportionate paring of government nosiness is both required and unavoidable.

Such a world would, of course, require the abandonment on the part of government clerks of all sorts of delusions of self-importance and personal centrality that they obviously hold quite dear^xiii Experience teaches that when confronted with certain defeat it is better to yield immediately and sufficiently rather than try and hold, in the sense that he who yields may in the end be allowed to hold a little more than what the situation in the field warrants, whereas he who tries to hold will certainly be allowed to hold less if anything at all. Then again, experience also teaches that experience rarely teaches anyone anything at all.

Que sera...

1. To illuminate this matter, consider the notion that it is inJust to kill people in no position to defend themselves. This is a better formulation of the general injunction against murder in that it finds currency with a more diverse crowd, including groups that routinely engage in murder for all sorts of reasons, such as for instance that Pashtun clan that nursed and then delivered a lost US soldier (Marcus Luttrell) to his kin.

   Now consider how this formulation of Justice works with ordinary manifestations of justice such as capital punishment. The pressure has in later years been resolved in the sense of mostly getting rid of capital punishment, but that is no sort of solution : it merely cuts the teeth of justice for no good reason, as indeed capital punishment is and remains a just requirement of the justice system. It also fails to deliver any sort of benefit outside of an illusory "calm", seeing how the significant J-j tension that created the problem in the first place is in no way resolved or even seriously appeased.

   The conflict, of course, is procedure versus nature, and it works the following way : in order to be able to build commerce, I must be allowed to create substitutions. Thus for a certain worldview the man, bound and gagged, about to be hanged is in fact just as able to defend himself as he was when he committed his crime, for which previous, representative identity he now stands about in the manner a voodoo wax doll stands for some remote flesh and blood person. This substitutive view of the world conflicts with the naturally occurring, obvious observation that in point of fact a bound man about to be hanged isn't quite in a position to defend himself, and his hanging can be interpreted as nothing but cowardice, which then mars the substitutive system of thought in the eyes of the naturalistically inclined. Since nature precedes nurture it is quite to be expected that in the general the substitutive view will fare poorly in this world. [↩]

2. Apparently stylistical points aren't universally and always meaningless. [↩]
3. As opposed to the pretenders, various politicos such as US presidents etc. [↩]
4. In the sense of Imperial civilisation, with the courts and all. [↩]
5. In the end this makes little difference, as limited as its impact is : the most it decides is whether the particular clerk will have to be killed rather than re-incorporated into some future sort of social organisation. [↩]
6. Other than "because they are evil", please. The notion that those who consistently act to frustrate our own desires and expectations are Satan is a little unbecoming of someone aspiring to a life of the intellect. [↩]
7. The king is just another noble, for the record. [↩]
8. Apparently weird squiggly things also aren't universally and always meaningless! [↩]
9. Hardly the basis of a system of government. [↩]
10. Broadly understood, statutory patrimonial obligations not born out of contracts. Alimony qualifies. Parking tickets qualify. [↩]
11. Consider the following snippet :

    Lindsay’s rhetoric is also documented. R. v. Lindsay, 2004 MBCA 147 (CanLII), 2004 MBCA 147 at para. 35, 187 Man.R. (2d) 236 provides a review:

    The appellant's court filings abound with unfounded and scurrilous accusations of "corruption and criminal activity at all levels of the justice and political levels," "unlawful Gestapo [S]earches," "unlawful court fees for justice" and judges who "wilfully violated a court order" and "participated in the cover up." Even on the first page of his notice of appeal we find this gratuitous and insulting greeting:

    I'm Baaaack!!

    And you thought I was gone! NOT! I still demand the rule of law be obeyed ‑

    If you know how.

    The appellant takes issue with words such as "scandalous, vexatious, frivolous, and irrelevant" that the motions judge used in describing portions of his affidavit and brief. That description was clearly invited and justified by the tenor of his material.

    You'd think the situation is that a forum user was banned, subsequently unbanned and now he's there to rub it into the faces of the moderators involved. Apparently Canadian judges are ill equipped to deal with the Internetisation of life. Then again, who isn't ?
    [↩]

12. Literally anything else, that's what the Warrior Forum is for : otherwise unemployable individuals harping about how they work sixteen hour days in order to make money while they sleep at the rate of a dollar and a half an hour ; expert advice as to the best way to mesh yellow underline with bold red text ; the most recent and best photoshopped boxes - these are a sort of graphical amulets added to give a perception of reality to the "products" and so on and so forth. [↩]
13. I guess that's banal, if they didn't they'd have found better jobs. [↩]