![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm running a little late I think...
Mar. 26th, 2004 09:30 amI need to be at the dentist office in Bellevue in half an hour, but I'm not ready to leave yet.
I don't know why I let myself be talked into such early appointments, when I know I normally get up around noon. I should have just asked for a noon or 1pm appointment, but I take the first thing that's offered to me.
So... in the Department of Redundancy Department, we have two examples of people going WAAAAY overboard on the hyperbole. The first I just heard on the radio a few minutes ago as I got out of the shower:
"Of course, there are tremendous health risks to even considering taking steroids."
Wow. I never knew thinking about something was so dangerous!
The other was from the lawyer of a guy who was convicted this week of tax fraud. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison for some things he did which basically benefitted his company, but not really himself, which his boss was fully aware of him doing, and which costs investors many millions of dollars. Naturally, I agree that a 24 year sentence is a little ridiculous, but it's the result of our new tougher laws... as usual, we end up nailing small people hard in our attempt to stop the next Enron scandal. But his lawyer, in explaining exactly what he did and why the sentence was completely inappropriate, ended by saying, "This could happen to anyone!"
With all due respect, it could not happen to me. That's because I've never knowingly (or even unknowingly) bilked anyone out of millions of dollars for any reason or for anyone's benefit. In fact it couldn't happen to my sister, and she at least is a CPA. There are lots of people out there that this could not happen to, because they would not have broken the law.
What it really boils down to is not "I'm sorry I broke the law" but "I'm sorry I got such a big sentence for breaking the law." But whatever.
I don't know why I let myself be talked into such early appointments, when I know I normally get up around noon. I should have just asked for a noon or 1pm appointment, but I take the first thing that's offered to me.
So... in the Department of Redundancy Department, we have two examples of people going WAAAAY overboard on the hyperbole. The first I just heard on the radio a few minutes ago as I got out of the shower:
"Of course, there are tremendous health risks to even considering taking steroids."
Wow. I never knew thinking about something was so dangerous!
The other was from the lawyer of a guy who was convicted this week of tax fraud. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison for some things he did which basically benefitted his company, but not really himself, which his boss was fully aware of him doing, and which costs investors many millions of dollars. Naturally, I agree that a 24 year sentence is a little ridiculous, but it's the result of our new tougher laws... as usual, we end up nailing small people hard in our attempt to stop the next Enron scandal. But his lawyer, in explaining exactly what he did and why the sentence was completely inappropriate, ended by saying, "This could happen to anyone!"
With all due respect, it could not happen to me. That's because I've never knowingly (or even unknowingly) bilked anyone out of millions of dollars for any reason or for anyone's benefit. In fact it couldn't happen to my sister, and she at least is a CPA. There are lots of people out there that this could not happen to, because they would not have broken the law.
What it really boils down to is not "I'm sorry I broke the law" but "I'm sorry I got such a big sentence for breaking the law." But whatever.
