I rode an elevator with three lawyers once. I think that qualifies me as a legal advisor but claiming to be a lawyer might be stretching it too far.
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Just to note that there is no “Chinese” language. Cantonese and Mandarin are distinct languages by the standards of linguists. Because of the Chinese writing system, they may be mutually comprehensible in writing, but they are distinct languages.
I learned this from a colleague who taught Mandarin at my college after years teaching it to people in the State Department. The Chinese government uses Mandarin but insists that there is such a thing as “the Chinese language,” and that that’s what it’s using, not Mandarin. if a foreign scholar like my colleague so much as suggests that Mandarin and Catonese are different languages, they will be barred from entering the country. So foreign scholars play along, with a wink wink nod nod.
Just thought people might be interested.
Btw, I read The New Republic article Nicole’s been reading, " The Long and Extremely Urgent To-Do List if Democrats Take the House." Well, toward the end I just skimmed. Great ideas, but such a long list that it’s impossible, as the author acknowledges. Let’s hope Dem leaders, the conventional and more progressive, figure out a path forward to a 2028 trifecta.
And since I’m half-watching Lawrence O’Donnell right now, why is the progressive Texan Garcia he’s interviewing wearing a big-gallon hat indoors at night? I can’t tell you how put off I am by those hats (and boots on city streets, though I can’t be sure Garcia was wearing cowboy boots). They just make the men (and sometimes women) wearing them look so silly to me and I bet to many in parts of the country where this affectation looks ridiculous. But I do give Texans and other Westerners credit for “all hat and no cattle.”
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I dunno. She claimed to be the “General Counsel” for an outfit in the U.S. That might be her biggest problem.
Interesting to me as the mother of a doctor and a lawyer (sigh, I know). My son held the title “Doctor,” IIRC, after his third year of medical school. He got licensed later. (Can’t remember when – when he was a resident? When he had completed his residency and fellowship? I think the latter.) My daughter the lawyer worked at a law firm before she took the bar. Was she allowed to call herself a lawyer? Never occurred to me to ask. She passed the NY bar on her first try. Long before, as a law student, she had submitted motions and such on behalf of her profs (Innocence Project and then Defense Project). I don’t know what she briefly did for the NYC white shoe firm she worked for after leaving law school (to pay off her debts) and before she’d taken the bar, but I think she was allowed to call herself a lawyer. She most probably had to pass the bar exam before clerking.
I dunno. Credentializing in each profession is its own world. Maybe Zacharia was allowed, professionally and legally, to call herself a lawyer/attorney (do the two words matter?) just because she’d received a law degree. I really do not know. But she’s plainly a (an inept) bullshit artist and nincompoop. That’s what matters.
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Not in Texas, but did spend 18 months at Ft Hood as a draftee.
Those hats are silly and any hat indoors a silly x 5.
My opinion is that any hat indoors is wrong if you’re in a restaurant with cloth napkins and wearing a hat you should be taken out and severely injured.
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Miss Guilfoyle doesn’t do the ingenue as well as she used to.
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Another late night entry. Today I picked up a bit of discussion on Albany, NY’s public radio of Jodi Mithcell while I was driving for groceries. I had no idea what sparked the discussion. A play, maybe? Well, whatever that was about, there’s this NYT headline:
Joni Mitchell Is Now an American, After 60 Years of Living in the U.S.
On Tuesday, she announced the news of her U.S. citizenship on social media with a video and a photo of herself at the ceremony.
Why now? My guess, because she loves both countries equally and wants to bring us back together again.
Here’s a free link to the NYT story: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/13/arts/music/joni-mitchell-us-citizenship.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IlE.tdU-.8ecRj6Kz67tJ&smid=url-share
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Trump is now so off his rocker that I’m glad he’s out there campaigning for Democrats.
In his Alaska speech, not only did he deny overall planetary warming, but claimed the planet’s atmosphere and seas were cooling and “climate change” was a hoax. Hard to make much sense of that, but he was talking to people who live in higher latitudes. Such people are more aware of climate disruption because of polar amplification effects. Then came the claim that the ice caps are growing, defying his own NASA tracking, which shows shrinkage of the North Polar Ice Cap (sea ice minimum) over the past 45 years going from 7 million km2 to 4.5 million km2. Please, more rallies like this from our low-latitude president!
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Imagine that!
Trump debates calling off livestream of firing squad execution after learning Fort Hood shooter was paralyzed
It was during the those conversations that Trump learned Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down — he was shot in the back by law enforcement during the 2009 shooting at Ford Hood — and that he now uses a wheelchair, the sources said, which made showing the execution publicly less palatable to the president
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Katie seems more like hamburger than the product of slow slicing, yet Trump knew the steaks were high when he chose her.
China’s modern legal examination system dates back to the early 20th century, when reformers like Shen Jiaben (沈家本) sought to modernize the empire’s legal system. As Vice Minister of Justice, Shen, inspired by the Western legal system, led reforms that abolished centuries-old forms of torture such as lingchi (凌迟) or “slow slicing,” separated civil and criminal law, and established China’s first government-run law school in 1906 to cultivate legal professionals.
https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2025/11/evolution-of-chinas-legal-exam/
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Is it too early to start the Scaramucci count?
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Well, they had to backtrack from their public execution by firing squad so had to get their wood from other sources.
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Kim is optimistic:
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Deeply ingrained habit from my grandparents, parents and amplified by 10 years in the Coast Guard. That hat comes OFF as you step through the doorway.
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And I want to know why she’s dressed like a cocktail waitress on an oil rig.
No. You are not a lawyer until you pass the bar*. Period. Full stop. Just ask Jim Jordan if he’s a lawyer. And it is not possible for her to have passed the bar in China. While she has a passing ability to understand and speak Mandarin (enough to “surprise people by commenting in a conversation”), there are two things about becoming a lawyer.
The exam is entirely in Chinese - they don’t specify whether it’s Mandarin or Cantonese or both - and you must be fluent enough to read, comprehend and write your response.
And you must be a Chinese citizen. Neither applied to her.
Just look at what this law school cautions recent graduates
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Maybe Scott Jennings should hit the bull pen.
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… all matter of gritty information to come to light.
We’ll see…
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