Not that I'm automatically going to believe the guy, but...

Based on an item on the news todayyesterday:

State court tells guy he never paid a ticket in 1999 and that he will have to pay it, plus almsot $1k in interest/fines. Guy says not only did he pay it in 1999, but that he is especially irked because a few months after paying in 1999 he was told he hadn't paid and had to go back to court and show that he had indeed paid. Sadly he apparently decided after some years of not being gone after to stop looking after the financial records with a paranoid eye.

Which raises two questions for me.
1) Shouldn't there be record of his going back to court to show that it had been paid. And shouldn't this be something that can be used to quash the current claim?
2) Isn't it normally the one making a claim that is expected to prove it. "You never paid!" Should be answerable with, "Okay, produce the complete file, and explain why for a decade a supposedly unpaid claim wasn't pursued."

And additional bit, a DMV official on camera said with a straight face and without apparently thinking there was anything wrong with it, "When you pay your ticket, hold onto the proof." "For how long?" "I'd say forever."

Um. Yeah.

People who take jobs they don't want to live up to...

Another post got me thinking about pharmacists who want to be allowed to pick and choose which prescriptions to fill. Now, there are some reasons I can think of why this could be reasonable. They might see that Doctor A has prescribed Medication X while Doctor B has prescribed Medication Y, which in combination will have serious side effects. It would be reasonable for the pharmacist to say, "Whoa! I don't think Doctor B knew what Doctor A prescribed. You really, really ought to make sure he knows this. If you want we can call his office and ask if he still wants you to take Medication Y when you are also taking X, or if it really has to be that medication we can call the other doctor and ask if he can change his prescription." Or perhaps they might have just received some kind of notice about previously unknown side effects. Perhaps most importantly they might see reason to believe that the prescription is fraudulent. (I actual saw this happen about a month back. The pharmacist said they wouldn't be able to fill the prescription until the next day. Then as soon as the person left, they called the doctor who had supposedly written the prescription. Strange, but the doctor's office says they have no patient by that name, nor is other information on the form correct.).

That said, whenever people come out arguing for pharmacists to get to pick and choose what to fill, they hardly ever seem to be giving more than token time to these issues. Probably because pharmacists are already able to take those issues into account. Nope it's given as a moral argument. "But it would be horrible to force the poor pharmacists to fill prescriptions that offend their beliefs."

To which I have to say, "Yeah, and who held a gun to the pharmacists head and told them, 'Go take pharmacy classes, get licensed, and work as a pharmacist -- or die!'? No one? Really? Then how is the possibility of this occurring a big surprise?" Should I be allowed to get a job as a bartender, and then say, "Whoa! Wait! Hold on! I'll serve people soda, or soda water, or if they insist mock cocktails, but I don't believe in drinking alcohol. No way I'm serving beer! And don't you dare fire me for this, I'm just obeying by moral principles!" I'd get laughed out of court, and if I went to ask my state or federal reps to change the law for me, I'd get laughed out of their office.

You know, you walked into the job eyes open. Either fill the prescriptions without a darn good reason, which doesn't include, "But I don't wanna," or maybe *you* ought to pay the expense of hiring your replacement.

It makes about as much sense to me as the kid who enlisted in the Marines, and then come Gulf War I said, "Whoa! Wait! I only joined for the college money, I don't believe in killing people, even in time of war, let me out!" Really? In you joined the Marines? The Gung Ho, storm the beach, kick the door in, and clear the way for the rest, Marines? You're a pacifist and you somehow didn't realize joining the Marines might mean going into battle? Right. You think my IQ is lower than my height in miles, don't you.