Of course it was Orange County.
Dude. You say "utter mess" I say "pass the popcorn"
Judge should've reduced the penalty by a few $100k to set aside money for the kid's inevitable therapy needs.
3: Are you saying my child is crazy? I will track you down! You will regret this!
Note to all, this is the kind of person you come across as by pulling that funny subcontinental accent of yours at parties.
Okay, I take back my complaints about being the only parent on the PTA. It could be much worse!
Of course it was Orange County.
Ha! My thought reading the article was "How is this story not from Florida?"
I'd been following this one for a while. The best part is that the couple at one point sued the LA Times and OC Police Department for defamation, while their criminal case was still pending, and then confessed to doing the supposedly defamatory stuff. Also the Mom was a self-published crime novelist who wrote a book about a kidnapping, and then sued anonymous Amazon reviewers.
and then sued anonymous Amazon reviewers.
That's awesome.
I would expect a crime novelist to be a better criminal than this.
10: Now you know why she had to self-publish.
Orange County, California is the Orange County, Florida of California.
Oh also the Dad was the partner in charge of recruiting for his (totally respectable) OC law firm.
5: Or this scene from the US version of The Office's painful first season.
Ava Everheart, that's such a Google-proof name to adopt.
Of course she was having an affair with a fireman.
So I did Google. The top results show two Facebook pages. One for a Princess! I'm afraid to look.
16: But even he couldn't put out the fire of her crazy.
"I will track you down! You will regret this!" should become an Unfogged catchphrase, I think.
Her blogspot page links to an about.me, which links to the defunct kenteaster.com. The first has this wonderfully constructed paragraph:
When it comes to her qualification, then Ava is a well-educated woman. She was an undergraduate from University of California, Berkeley and completed her law from UC Berkeley SOL Boalt Hall; Berkeley, CA.
Also: a literal flag-waving picture.
Poor kids. They too had their names changed to Everheart.
20: One begins to understand why her novel was self-published.
I feel like 20 may be some kind of weird spambot website thing but who knows. I feel like I read somewhere that she moved to Cuba to avoid the civil trial.
Its pretty cool the spambots have become sentient enough to write entire two-entry blogs.
Won't help for long. Thanks Obama!
Oh, googling, that turns out to be wrong. She showed up at the civil trial and denied doing anything at all even though she'd already pled guilty. Good strategy!
with a drug-planting scheme against a former PTA president, and two graduates of elite law schools in jail.
Not graduates of elite law schools!!! I would never have expected such a denouement.
I don't think anyone from my law school class has been convicted for anything. In each of my elite high school and elite college classes there are at least two convicted murderers that I know of, one of whom I knew pretty well.
I wonder if anyone from my year at my not-elite-precisely-but-certainly-a-well-regarded-SLAC has been convicted of anything especially awful. It would be nice if so - I've always felt that I'm letting down the side by having a pink collar job, and the thought of one of my contemporaries having done something measurably worse than not living up to their degree is cheering.
(As you'd expect, everyone I knew who was from a working class background has gone on to either working class careers or maybe low-level nonprofit careers; everyone whose parents were professionals is a professional. Presumably this means that everyone whose parents committed terrible crimes has gone on to a life of villainy.)
Presumably these people have both now been disbarred?
She showed up at the civil trial and denied doing anything at all even though she'd already pled guilty.
In the American legal system, there are two kinds of courts, and they totally don't have anything to do with each other. Seriously. Don't sweat it.
33: I don't think it's been proven that they underbilled anybody, so no.
If she's still allowed to practice, Ava sounds like the ideal person to represent the lone Malheur holdout whose last stand is being liveblogged in the New Hampshire thread.*
*Assuming he survives.
32: I forget, did you attend M., C., or S.O.?
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I need grammar help. Where would you insert hyphens into the following phrase:
"laptops and tablets for students programmes"
This is referring to two different types of programs programmes, inclusive of those that hand out laptops, and those that hand out tablets (as opposed to lucky kids who get both laptops and tablets).
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I wouldn't use a hyphen at all. But I would write students' with an apostrophe.
An apostrophe? I don't see it. "Students' laptops" would take one, but "laptops for students'"?
I'm coming up empty. This has to be said super-consisely?
Clarity:
"laptops and tablets for students' programmes"
So, "laptops- and tablets-for-students programmes"?
"Programmes that distribute laptops and tablets to students" would be preferable.
This has to be said super-consisely?
Its going to be referenced a bunch of times in the document, so yes.
How does "Laptops- and tablets-for-students programmes" work?
I don't actually like it, but I think it's the best you can do if you can't rewrite the sentence.
(laptops and tablets for students) programmes.
44 is correct. I didn't understand what Spike was getting at.
You can't say something like "...which we will refer to as laptop programs and tablet programs, respectively"
Given 45, how about "student device programmes"?
44 was something like I was thinking. Except I had come up with "laptops and tablets-for-students programmes." Unclear about that first hyphen.
"Student device programmes" isn't bad, except for the need to define it, and the fact that nobody actually calls them that.
"laptops/tablets-for-students (L/TFS) programmes"
or
"laptops- and tablets-for-students (LFS/TFS) programmes"
Then use the acronyms.
Acronyms, eh? That wins on concise, but looses points for opaque. I'll think about it.
The real test is, can I get through this thing without using the word "stakeholders."
55: See if you can work in some language about drowning and shooting bunnies. I hear thats trending in the education world right now.
So, define it:
"Programmes that distribute laptops or tablets to students (student device programmes)"
or:
"Student device programmes (programmes that distribute laptops and tablets to students)"
and then talk about student device programmes (or SDPs, but like you say, opacity).
Stipulating a definition that doesn't match actual usage sucks, but the alternatives look painfully clunky.
I wish I could just call them "laptops-for-students programmes." Its unfortunate that some places are giving their kids tablets instead. I mean, sure, poor kids get to read the internet and download apps, but you can't write a term paper without a proper keyboard.
"In this study, we recommend that SDPs be leveraged by stakeholders for drowning and shooting bunnies."
How about just "computers-for-students programmes"? Why be specific about the presence/absence of a keyboard when you don't have to?
62 makes a solid point. Keyboards are obviously not the sine qua non of "computer", since computers predate keyboards as input devices.
I mean, sure, poor kids get to read the internet and download apps, but you can't write a term paper without a proper keyboard.
No choice but to get a 2nd job, so they can afford to purchase.
65: That was ambiguous -- of course they wouldn't be purchasing a keyboard.
Turing machines for students programmes.
No choice but to get a 2nd job
These kids will be lucky to get first jobs, which is why they need computer skills to begin with.