MIAMI IS HOPPING

 The Magic City is alive. You can feel the energy in the air from Ocean Drive to dive bars in Wynwood to the stuffy eateries of the Gables and Pinecrest. 

And what is fueling this energy? 

Canes v Gators. 

Families take sides. Law firms are fractured. The judges have been furiously texting each other. 

The town is hopping. 

Predictions? 

THE H WORD

 Florida's Governor has banned the use of a word, starting with H, that is used to describe a weather phenomenon with cyclonic action that rhymes with...well, we cannot think of anything it rhymes with,  but it is the name of the U of Miami sports teams. 

The tragic news is that the system, which will be named Helene if the winds exceed 74 mph, is bearing down on the west coast of Florida right where ....wait for it....most of Florida's judiciary is now located at their judicial college (Motto: "Sometimes wrong, never in doubt."). This means that their vacation   seminars on Thursday and Friday will be canceled and  your favourite Judges will be scurrying (adjective intentionally used to make reference to something else which scurries) home ahead of the storm. 

Here are the seminars being canceled which will be reset. 

Thursday 9-11 am: Gavel Selection: "The gavel chooses the Judge Mr. Potter."

Thursday 1-4 pm: Calendar scheduling. Or "How I show up at 11 for my 9 am calendars and you can too!" (Requires subscription to Instagram Account "@Just_ Judgin" ).

Thursday 5:30-8 pm: Vodka Martini Mixology. Those cutups from the new 6th DCA show off their bartending skills whipping up the best vodka martinis.  Highly recommended for the lawyer who is told she cannot use fear in a self-defense case and loses the appeal PCA. 

Friday 9-11 am.  Voir Dire- who needs it? Strategies to shut lawyers down in jury selection and move the trial along- tee times at 5pm don't open up very often- neither do mani-pedi appointments at your fav salon. 

Friday 1-4 pm.  Second Continuances? Surely you jest.  You tried every case within a month of getting it when in private practice. There's no reason every lawyer cannot be as successful and efficient as you were. 

Friday 530-8 pm. Elevator Pitches made simple over wine. The doors close and you find yourself alone with the Governor's chief of staff in an elevator. You have 15 seconds to explain why you should be elevated to circuit court/district court of appeal/ Florida Supreme Court. Choose a wine flight (California Cabs; Interesting Pinot Noirs; Racy Rose's) and sip and learn. 

When you see your favourite judge make sure to tell them how sad you were to learn that a pesky storm had the temerity to interfere with their important judicial studies. 

COURTS OPEN THURSDAY

 As Miamians dug out from under several dozen misplaced leafs and some twigs blown about, our intrepid court leaders have announced that Courts will be open on Thursday. 

We should all do our best to struggle through the hardships (our Starbucks ran out of coconut milk, which is a big deal for us) of being battered by yet another storm and go about the business of rebuilding our lives. 

#Miamistrong

#Miamiwewillrebuild

DODGING A BULLET

It is hard to feel thankful that we are not getting gob-smacked by a major hurricane. Our good fortune is our neighboring state's misfortune. 

In the spirit of prior hurricanes, misses and hits, we revise our much desired Rumpole's Hurricane list and Q & A. 

Q: What do the categories mean?
A: The category numbers refer to the "Saffir-Simpson Scale" (literally "the Saffir- Simpson Scale"). The scale relates the square of the amount of liquor in metric ounces needed to forget the impending disaster.  Since there is an exponential difference between the damage a cat2 and cat3 storm causes, you need four metric ounces of liquor to forget the impending damage of a cat2 storm, but nine ounces to forget a cat3 storm. 

SURVIVAL LIST
* denotes a new addition to the list. 
Four Bottles Tito Vodka.
*Four jars olives.
Three Apples. 
Two Oranges.
Bunch of Bananas. 
*Four Bottles Hayden-Basil Bourbon.
Two Bottles Bullet Bourbon.
One case Coca-Cola.
One box power bars.
Two flashlights.
One Radio.
One case C batteries.
One case water, 16Oz bottles. One case per person per two days of anticipated delay before rescue. If you listen to the local channel 7 type TV station, then add 30 cases water per person per day. 
*One Book: Crime and Punishment.
*One bottle sleeping pills, or one book "The collected humorous speeches of William Howard Taft." 

Q: Should I use a generator?
A: Only run the generator during the storm. After the storm, surreptitiously run a power cord from your neighbor's generator. 

Q: How dangerous is a hurricane?
A: According to most meteorologists who work for Channel 7 or who have worked for the station  over the past decade in Miami, most hurricanes threaten 90-95% of all life within a five hundred mile radius of a storm. Your chances of surviving a storm rise -according to Channel 7- in direct proportion to the amount of plywood you buy from Home Depot multiplied by the number of hours you wait in line. So for example if you buy ten sheets of plywood after waiting two hours, your chances of survival rise twenty percent. 

Q: Will courts be closed? 
A: In Miami and the rest of Florida -yes. In Broward County-NO. And in the words of one prior chief judge "warrants for missing court during hurricanes will be the priority in being enforced once the storm passes."

So there you have it. Everything you always wanted to know about a hurricane. 

WE DON'T LIKE IKE

UPDATE: JOSEPHINE. WELCOME TO THE PARTY

IKE'S PATH?

WWII not withstanding.....

Just remember what the government scientists say: "There is no global warming. Al Gore is a kook. There is no global warming. Al Gore is a kook."

If you repeat it long enough when you have nothing else to do (like when you're sitting in a dark house with no power because one of the dozen of killer hurricanes that have nothing to do with global warming have finally struck you down) then you may in fact one day believe it- despite all the evidence to the contrary. 

It's actually a form of meditation and it works. George Bush and Dick Cheney spent hours repeating "there are weapons of mass destruction...there are weapons of mass destruction" despite all the evidence to the contrary. 

See You in Court when it's  not closed for a hurricane warning. 

PS. Don't for one second let your guard down about Hurricane Hanna. Despite the fact they think it's going north, they really have no idea. This storm just sits there spinning and defying predictions.  Meanwhile keep an eye on Ike, and if you have any time left, work on your cases. 

PSS. We're entering the second news cycle after the Palin storms, and a little birdie told me that over night polling is starting to show negative effects on the McCain campaign on issues of vetting Palin, and his decision to select her. 

Also Dolphins are 3 point dogs with the J...E...T...S coming to town. Lay the points and go with gang green this week. Our NFL coverage starts Thursday with our predictions on the league and then Sunday we will have a full slate of picks for you. 

Finally, with a tip o the hat to Miguel De La O, we came across this quote from Collin Powell:

"He didn't have a lot of experience in running a presidential campaign, did he?"
-- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, interviewed on Good Morning America,  when asked if Sen. Barack Obama had enough experience to be president.

STORMY WEATHER

SUNDAY MORNING TROPICAL STORM HANNA UPDATE: THE  PROJECTED PATH HAS CHANGED- SEE BELOW

Meanwhile, one Broward County Circuit Court (Motto: "Hispanics not welcome") race is headed to a mandatory recount as the battle for second and third place was less than 111 votes, and rumors surfaced that at least 10% of the electorate had cast their votes for Pat Buchanan.  The Herald story is here.

And we couldn't make this up if we tried: The Herald has this headline: "The National Weather Service recommends that you stay out of the Atlantic this weekend."

Gee, with two named storms and two depressions following right behind them, you think they're right?

Two Labor Day Weekend storms bear down on Cuba and the United States.

Sunday morning Update: Gustav is taking direct aim at New Orleans. There is a mandatory evacuation order, and President Bush promises to get the government to provide help as soon as he returns from his ranch and the Labor Day holiday.

Gustav batters Cuba Saturday morning before heading into the Gulf where it's expected to gain strength and then strike somewhere on the Gulf coast. We can all rest assured that the President and his disaster team will react with the same alacrity and professionalism that made us all proud of the Government's rescue efforts after hurricane Katrina.

Ignore what we wrote below: as you can see from the chart, the expected path of Hanna has now changed. Longer range forcasts by the National Weather Service have Hanna striking Sioux City South Dakota, Tallahassee, Buffalo, New York, and Seattle, all within a two day period. Stay tuned. 

Meanwhile Tropical Storm Hanna is making what is known in meteorological  terms as the WHNIIWDT* turn to the west and is expected to pass between South Florida and Cuba in the Florida Straits (defined as "area where hurricanes like to go") before passing over Cuba (Motto: "Bienveniedos:All Hurricanes are welcome here.") and then (as impossible as this is to believe) will be making the "classic Hurricane pivot to the North" where it is expected to follow Gustav into  New Orleans, where Pat Bentar has been hired by the State to sing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" over and over again on the stage in the New Orleans Super-Hurricane Dome.  

Labor Day Hurricane of 1935:

Long time residents of Florida know of the deadly"Labor Day Hurricane of 1935" which struck the Florida Keys, coincidentally, on Labor Day in 1935.  The storm was believed to be the first Cat 5 storm of the 20th Century.  Because most of the Keys were not wired for Cable TV or the Internet in 1935, there was little warning of the impending monster storm. An 18-20 foot storm surge killed over 400 people in the Keys, including over 250 WWI veterans who were in the lower Keys in work camps working on the railroad, which the storm washed away. 

For  those of you with nothing better to do this long weekend, there is a Memorial to those who died in the Keys in this storm at Mile Marker 82 in Lower Matecumbe.  Approximately 300 unidentified victims of the storm were cremated and their remains lie in this simple Memorial.  

Well, that's enough fun and frivolity for one post. The simple truth is that all of us in South Florida feel real empathy for the citizens of New Orleans. The cable news is now full of pictures of people standing in hot lines (again) as they wait for buses to take them out of the path of the storm.  We always feel a little guilty hoping that a hurricane misses us, because our good fortune becomes someone else's misery. All we can do is hope and pray that this storm weakens and strikes the least vulnerable part of the US. 

*(we had no idea it would do this)

OUR WORLD IS ENDING

Note: The following attempt to whip our reading public into a state of hysteria has been sponsored by PUBLIX- where shopping for hurricane supplies in a state of panic is a pleasure, the HOME DEPOT- where the clerks from the criminal court file room have designed a state of the art checkout system, guaranteed to have you out the door within a day of standing in line to purchase your emergency hurricane supplies; and channels 4, 7, and 10- where the quest for ratings require that they issue a minute by minute update of a storm that has some rain and winds of 20 MPH.

COURT STATUS: Both the Dade Clerk of the Court website and the

11th Judicial Circuit website are silent as to the possible court closings from the approach of tropical storm Noel.

Although the International Association of Anonymous Legal Bloggers guidelines suggest that we shut down the blog when wind speeds exceed 40 MPH, we will endeavor to bring you the same up to the minute breaking news service that we have provided in the past- unless the bars in South Beach remain open, at which point you're on your own.

TIME IS MONEY

We would like some feedback from our readers on the subject of Judges being on time. Specifically, while everyone it entitled to be late once in a while, what we are interested in are Judges who set calenders to begin at 8:30 and then do not show up to court until 9:15 or so. We have had several private emails complaining about certain Judges. Since we have not noticed this as a problem, we cast the issue upon the troubled waters of our disgruntled readers. Is there a problem? And if so, who are the ones that qualify for habitual offender status?

See You In Court, unless the panic over a little rain sends us scurrying to the nearest bar.

HAVE THE PEOPLE AT THE HERALD LOST THEIR MIND?

We are not referring to the multiple deliveries of the daily paper that we receive.

We are referring to this headline today:

What would end the drought? A hurricane.

Let us randomly throw out a few names: Andrew; Katrina; Rita; Wilma.

We understand Florida is in the midst of a drought. We understand we need rain. What we don't need is some 220 mile per hour storm smashing through Miami, knocking out power for July and August, destroying homes, devastating communities. Not even the prospect of not having to sit and watch certain robed readers labour through 98 page calendars is sufficient for us to wish such a prospect on our community.

In other headlines today, the Herald hoped that all the new draft picks for the dolphins would not injure their knees during the mini-camp; that the surgeon for Dwayne Wade would not make a grievous mistake; and that George Bush would not choke on another pretzel.

Judge Charles Greene:

The comments were running three or four to one against our call for his resignation. Our readers are more forgiving then we are. Let us posit this query: if you represented a client before him, and he ruled against your client, how would you answer your client's belief that Greene did it because he didn't like the way your client looked? There is a reason a Judge is supposed to avoid the appearance of impropriety, not just impropriety itself. It is the reputation of our courts for fairness and justice that we are trying to protect. That reputation is valuable, and Greene has destroyed his ability to ever be viewed as being fair. He needs to go.
Check out our new Judge Greene poll.

See You In Court.

PS. If the Herald does get its wish, lets hope the hurricane doesn't hit during the big federal wing ding in the Keys next weekend. How would we ever get by without our friendly federal friends?