Stupid Lawsuits: $65 million for a pair of pants

Story:  Judge’s missing pants lead to big suit

So the dry cleaner loses this guy’s (who happens to be a judge) favorite pair of pants.  That sucks.  He asks for $1,000 (the whole price of the suit).  They find the pants.  He says, “Nope, not my pants!”  (Paraphrased.)   He sues.  The dry cleaner has offered to settle for $3k, $4.6k, and $12k.   So he says no and comes up with some crap about not being able to use that dry cleaner, having to rent a car to drive to another one, etc.  [NOTE:  WTF planet does this guy live on?]

Anyway, this guy should be stripped of his judgeship and disbarred.  We have huge problems with frivolous lawsuits and a judge shouldn’t be setting this kind of example. 

/rant

 

Acting Indignant

Trainwreck is one of my favorite terms.  You know its horrible and you are appalled that you are watching it, but you can’t look away – that’s a trainwreck.

Paris Hilton is a good example of trainwreck.  I don’t really care about some crazy heiress, but I just can’t look away.  I’m pretty sure that is somehow the case with much of America.

CNN has plasted this article:  Paris Hilton sentenced to 45 days in jail as the home page feature with a big picture for the last six hours or so and I, of course, eventually had to read it.  It made me laugh.  What a broken family.  What delusional lawyers.  Some of the shit these people say is disturbing.  Let me highlight the facts (plucked from the article.

The facts:

  • September 7, 2006:  Arrested for reckless driving.  Police report she appeared intoxicated and failed a field sobriety test.  She had 0.08 blood alcohol, which is against the law (to be fair, I think this is on the nose for the level that is illegal…. and she probably has a really high tolerance LOL.)
  • January 2007 (no specific date in the article):  She pleads no contest and gets some fines, alcohol education, and 36 months of probation.  It doesn’t say it in the article, but it appears her license was suspended at this time.
  • January 15, 2007 (after the no contest):  She is pulled over, informed she is driving on a suspended license, singens some that acknowledging she was not to drive.
  • February 27, 2007:  She is pull over again because she is speeding with no headlights on.  (Nice!)
  • As of April 17, 2007:  She has not enrolled in the alcohol education program she was required to enroll in as of February 12.
  • Today (May 4):  She shows up ten minutes late for her court appearance.

During the hearing (all quotes are from the CNN article):

As a city prosecutor said during closing arguments that Hilton deserved jail time, Hilton’s mother, Kathy, laughed. When the judge ruled, Kathy Hilton then blurted out: “May I have your autograph?”

That cracks me up.   As I’m reading this I’m thinking, “At least her mom knows she’s out of control and needs some sense knocked into her.”  But alas, the indignation of it all:

When a reporter asked what she thought of the judge’s decision, a visibly angry Kathy Hilton responded: “What do you think? This is pathetic and disgusting, a waste of taxpayer money with all this nonsense. This is a joke.”

Yes!  Ms. Hilton it is a joke!  If anyone else had gotten pulled over (for speeding with their lights off) on a suspended license after a DUI.  Oh wait, I mean pulled over twice.  And ignored the court by not going to the required alcohol education and further taunted the court by showing up late….. well I think they would have gotten much worse punishment all around.  Paris is out of control, everyone who reads the news knows it, and now she knows she is not above the law.

But it gets worse.  Her lawyer says:

Defense attorney Howard Weitzman said he would appeal.

“I’m shocked, I’m surprised and really disheartened in the system that I’ve worked in for close to 40 years,” Weitzman said.

He said the sentence was “uncalled for, inappropriate and bordered on the ludicrous.”

Let’s address these one at a time:

  • Appeal.  Oh good let’s waste more taxpayer money!  WTF is he appealing on?  “Your honor my client is rich, thinks she can ignore the court, and can throw a lot of money at this.  On those ground’s I would like to appeal.”
  • Wow 40 years as a lawyer and this disheartens him?   Maybe he hasn’t seen the chonology of this in bullet format for easy digestion.  WTF is up with this guy, he needs to get a grip or maybe he’s so disheartened he’ll resign.  We can only hope.
  • OMG I don’t even know what to say on the last one.  45 days in jail for a reckless driving (DUI), two driving on a suspended license, ignoring court orders, showing up late, etc.  If anyone else had done that they’d be in jail a lot longer.

Oh and to cap it all of he says:

“I think she’s singled out because of who she is,” Weitzman said.

Yeah for special treatment! 

Wow, anyway she needs better lawyers that say things like:  “YOU CAN’T DRIVE UNTIL THE SUSPENSION IS UP!” and sign her up and force her to go the court order alcohol education program.  I mean she’s freaking super rich, how hard is it to get a freaking driver!

Gah.

/rant

In Game Spam

You know a game is crazy when bots login every few minutes and spam everyone with messages like:

1000g for only $99.  We powerlevel 1-60, $200. 

Etc.  They have URLs, but no need to help them out by posting them here.  It’s annoying. 

I guess it’s a sign of success that so many people want to buy gold and power-leveling services.  But the spam is really starting to get overwhelming.  I’m curious to see how Blizzard handles this. 

I’m actually in the camp that says buying gold and in-game stuff is ok.  I know a lot of people disagree, but I’m sure we all agree that in game spam sucks. 

 

Stupid Lawsuits

This is the kind of crap that goes beyond frivolous lawsuits into something totally different:

Sarcastically, judge tosses KFC trans fat lawsuit

In my opinion, if you bring a stupid lawsuit like this – one so laughable that the judge just tosses it out – here is what should happen:

  • You pay all the legal fees of the defendant.
  • You are billed by the court for the cost of the courtroom, the judge, the bailiff, and anything else.

This decision would be up to the judge.  We don’t want every failed case to be penalized like this, but for unreasonable crap that wastes the time of the legal system and a lot of taxpayer money there should be a penalty.  Further, not everyone has the money to defend themselves from this kind of bullshit so there should definitely be a path to get your money back if you are a defendent in this type of crap.

Earth-like Planet: This Is Huge!

CNN article:  Scientists find most Earth-like planet yet

This is a huge deal.  Given how big the universe is and how little of it that we can actually see and we’ve already found an Earth-like planet.  We’re rapidly advancing the things we can see using more powerful telescopes and various other technologies and we’re seeing a lot more of the things around us in space.  This is a big deal.  I think there is a reasonable chance we see some strong indication of life on another planet in this century.  We might not get proof, but I think we’ll get close. 

This will change peoples perceptions of reality.  Right now, the idea of extra-terristerial life is so alien (excuse the pun) to most people that they don’t really consider it a real possibility.  I think even among the scientific community there is a high degree of skepticism.  I’ll admit to being skeptical, but I think given the size of our universe that it’s crazy to think that life has not developer elsewhere.  Discoveries will start to make the case for extra-terrestrial life very strong.  I never expected things to move this fast.  Finding an Earth-like habitable planet within out visual range is shocking and amazing.  Again taking the vastness of our universe and the little swath we can see and then finding this planet is, well, wow. 

I feel like I’m rambling now, so I’m going to stop…. but wow this is an amazing discovery.  The ramifications…

UPDATE:  Here is another cool article from Time – Life on the New Planet?

innertube update

Well I went back to the site, went to watch The Unit again and it offered to play from the beginning or resume.  I resumed.  It seemed to work.  Then right at the exciting conclusion – when the shooting starts – it plays a FREAKING PROMO REEL for THE SAME EPISODE I am trying to watch.  

PLEASE SOMEONE AT INNERTUBE – FIX THIS CRAP!

innertube, CBS, and crappy video

I don’t watch much TV, maybe 4-5 different series.  Two of them, The Unit and Criminal Minds are on CBS.  In the last two weeks my CRAPPY POS Scientific Atlanta DVR has failed to record the last 10-20 minutes of the most recent The Unit and the last two Criminal Minds.  I suspect this is because it didn’t have enough space and it was two stupid to make space by deleting old crap.  So I went to the web in hopes of finding these episodes (legally).

Neither are available on iTunes, which if you’ve been reading I have recently been testing with AppleTV.  That would have been cool.  Becuase then I could have watched them.

So while Criminal Minds is strangely unavailable, CBS does offer the most recent episode of The Unit online through their video service, called Innertube.

I’ve now watched the “full episode” of last nights The Unit twice.  Except that the ENDING IS NOT FREAKING THERE.  WTF!  I mean making me watch it twice – well the commercial at least, you can fast foward through segments of the show, but not the commercials – is really annoying.  But how can they not have the ending?  If it is intentional it is the must consumer unfriendly, crappy thing ever.  I mean its not like I have some other way to see what happened.  If it is unintentional, which I hope is the case, someone is really idiotic.  FIX IT!  These guys wonder why YouTube is killing them.

This is not making me a fan of innertube or CBS.  Not that they care, but gah. 

Success and Blogging…. Spam?

I wrote a while back about wondering what defines success in blogging (post).   So I started getting a few spam posts.   Then I got more.   I assume this meant I was getting indexed somewhere, perhaps pretty favorably.  And then the spam just started getting out of hand.  I installed Akismet

Today I see:

Akismet has protected you from 918 spam comments.

918!  In a month or so.  (Can’t remember when exactly I installed it, so much for scientific tracking.)   Wow!  That’s crazy.  I guess that’s a partial indicator of success.

I recommend getting Akismet if you are you using WordPress.

Rewards for Being Dumb

Wow, this is the kind of stuff that scares the crap out of me:

Schumer calls for subprime bailout (New York Democrat wants funds to help subprime borrowers.)

What we should be doing:

  • Borrowers: If someone took one of these loans and they can’t pay, there should be a foreclosure. However, I’m all for allowing them some kind of class action against the shaded mortgage brokers and banks who gave them the loans. But really it should just make them whole and it shouldn’t come from other tax payers. The mechanisms for this already exist and I am sure there is no shortage of shady class action lawyers looking to jump on this bandwagon.
  • Lenders: The government should crack down on these clowns.

There are two principles near and dear to me at play:

  • Responsibility: If people are too stupid to read their loans or do some simple calculations they probably shouldn’t be buying a house. This country already lets people abdicate personal responsibility way too much. Buying a house is a big responsibility, people shouldn’t be rewarded for being stupid in the way they do it. It’s not fair to all the people who were. The problem is politician’s love to position themselves as “helping the little guy” when in fact they are just letting people shirk responsibility for being stupid.
  • Wasting Money: Anytime my tax dollars go to fix someone elses mistake IT PISSES ME OFF. What a waste, I don’t pay taxes to fix other people’s mistakes – I pay them for infrastructure, security, and advancement (ie: science, research, etc.). Of course our government pisses away a lot of money on stupid stuff. But this is really stupid. Let the system sort it out.

Schumer and everyone else behind this: Stop grandstanding and shut the fuck up unless you are going to actually do something reasonable to fix it.

/rant

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