In what may be the most dangerous and potentially explosive act since the storming of the Bastille, French leaders are taking on French models and declaring war on airbrushing. The French Parliament (and members of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party) is proposing to force magazines and other publishers to print a warning for photographs that have been touched up or photoshopped. It appears that while President Nicolas Sarkozy can insist on only short people appearing behind him to appear taller, the French politicians say “staging Oui, brushing non!” The new campaign for realism has already taken its toll with the untouched up picture on the right of Marianne in La liberté guidant le peuple (Liberty Leading the People).
Continue reading “Sacrebleu! The French Move Against Air Brushing and Photoshopping of Magazine Pictures”
Month: September 2009
Attorney Todd C. Bank really liked his Operation Desert Storm hat. Almost as much as Eastern District of New York Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis (left) disliked it. Bank, a sole practitioner in Queens, lost his constitutional claim that he had a right to wear jeans and a hat of his choice in court. Garaufis ruled that any desire to accessorize would occur outside of the Constitution and his court (or any other court for that matter).
Continue reading “Legal Question of the Day: Should A Lawyer Be Able to Wear Jeans and Hats in Court?”
Carol Hill was fired at the Great Tey Primary School in Essex after she told Scott David that his seven-year-old daughter Chloe had been tied to a fence and whipped with a skipping rope by bullies. The school had only mentioned “an incident” and did not reveal the names of the boys.
Continue reading “School Fires Lunch Lady For Telling Parents That Boys Tied Daughter to Fence and Whipped Her”
A Polish court has awarded Alicja Tysiac $11,000 against a Catholic magazine, Gosc Niedzielny, after the magazine compared her to a child killer and a Nazi. While it is impressive to see a court levy such damages against a Catholic publication in this very Catholic nation, the ruling does raise freedom of speech issues.
Continue reading “Polish Court Awards Damages to Woman Who Was Compared in Article to the Nazis for Trying to Obtain an Abortion for Health Reasons”
New York Supreme Court Judge Charles Markey takes stapling very seriously. He took counsel to task for not just injurious stapling but failing to sign pleading, which were apparently signed in blood by the clerks.
Continue reading “New York Judge Uses Decision to Chastise Attorneys on Improper Stapling Motion for “Negligent Stapling””
Dragan Jovanovic, 42, and Elvis Tahirovic, 18, were arrested this week in a bizarre kidnapping conspiracy: they drove from Fargo, North Dakota to Bowling Green to kidnap a 14-year-old girl so that she could marry Jovanovic’s 14-year-old son (who met her on the Internet).
This video raises an interesting question for educators and lawyers alike. These students at B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, NJ are being taught to chant and sing praises of President Barack Obama. Is that an appropriate exercise in a public school or does it smack of the type of cult of personality that we see in other nations?
Continue reading “Video: New Jersey Children Taught to Sing Obama’s Praises”
New Jersey police officer Robert Melia Jr. will not face criminal charges for allegedly having sex with five calves under a perfectly bizarre ruling by Judge James J. Morley. We previously discussed the case, here. Morley dismissed animal cruelty charges on the grounds that the cows may have enjoyed having sex with Melia.
Shanghai, China (The Weekly Vice) – Ying Shi, 26, apparently was correct when she complained repeatedly to doctors about a stabbing pain in her stomach, but doctors could not imagine what it might be . . . until they finally took an x-ray months later.
Continue reading “Self-Diagnosis: Woman Complains About Stabbing Sensations for Months Before Doctors Find The Cause: A Six-Inch Knife”
As we discussed earlier, ACORN has decided to move forward with a lawsuit against the independent filmmakers who showed its employees engaged in potentially unlawful conduct. While insisting that it is terribly sorry for the actions of its employees, ACORN is pursuing the people who forced the misconduct into the open: filmmakers James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles. It is curious method of contrition but ACORN is seeking massive damages for nonconsensual surveillance.
Continue reading “Contrition Through Aggression: ACORN Sues Filmmakers While Claiming Regret Over Misconduct of its Employees”
There is an interesting case developing in Florida where Robert Brayshaw is facing a year in jail under a law that makes it a crime to post a local police officer’s phone number and address. The law raises serious constitutional questions under the first amendment. Brayshaw posted the information on a site called ratemycop.
Continue reading “Florida Man Challenges Law Criminalizing the Publication of Address and Telephone of Police Officers”
Below is today’s column on the aftermath of the Joe Wilson controversy. The threat of the Democrats to punish members using certain words to criticize the President raises some novel and unresolved constitutional questions.
A car dealership in Ohio can honestly say that it will not charge customers “their first born.” The second born will do fine. In Cleveland, Ohio, Salimah Tutstone has charged that a repo company employee not only improperly repossessed her car but dragged her and her 1-year-old child while she fought to get her other child out of the towed car. The company allegedly abandoned the car with the 4-year-old child inside five miles away. The car dealership is appropriately called “Keep it Moving.”
Continue reading “Repostiltskin: Repo Man Allegedly Drags Mother Holding Infant and Then Abandons Four-Year-Old Along a Road Five Miles Away”
This video of a reporter hit by a studio light somehow missed our “perils of the press” series.
An English judge, Judge Anthony Pitts, has shocked police and prosecutors by expressly permitting prep school music teacher Helen Goddard, 26, to continue her relationship with a 15-year-old student after she is released from prison. Goodard received a 15-month sentence for her lesbian affair with the 15-year-old student.
Continue reading “English Judge Orders That Pedophile Teacher May Resume Relationship with Victim”