There has been a huge award in a novel malicious prosecution case over the alleged theft of pet turkeys. In 2004, defendant Ralph Dupps accused Robert and Jennifer Klippel of turkey-napping their pets and then releasing them back into nature. While the charges were dismissed, the Klippels sued and were just awarded $4.25 million
They claim that the ordeal drove Robert Klippel to alcohol and drove Jennifer Klippel to the use of sleep aids and depression medication.
What is fascinating is that this is a lawsuit against the Dupps as opposed to the state.
The turkeys had been a long dispute over their scaring Robert Klippel’s son and defecating in the Klippel yard. A police officer allegedly suggested just shooting the birds. The Klippels admit that they took the turkeys to a wildlife preserve. The Dupps then went to police who issued warrants for petit larceny on the Klippels who spent 10 hours in jail.
The case involved arguments under nuisance and the right of owners to take such actions. The jury obviously agreed.
Source: IslandPacket
Mespo
Please do what you have to to avoid actually accepting that your country has made some terrible mistakes in the past and the present. The Red, White and Blue spectacles you wear will render history perfect to you I’m sure.
While most Europeans do appreciate the sacrifice made by your brave service folk in WW2, including me, they are under no illusion as to the motives as to why your government finally decided to stop acting like Switzerland in this matter.
You were attacked.
Up until that point Nazism was a useful money maker for your businesses. I don’t think they did nearly as well as Switzerland out of it, but it is telling that even after everything was discovered about the true horrors of nazism even the interest was not waived.
A not so erudite America once wrote, “Show me the money.”
Indeed.
lottakatz,
I fully understand the point you are making as I remember expressing the same thought many years ago during and after Nam. The problem then was that I had a brother and several friends serving and had to temper my words out of respect for their situations … the feeling that war was made so much easier for old men sitting in their comfortable offices in D.C. and elsewhere to declare … thanks to the draft. Isn’t it strange that on this same issue, ease of declaring war, all these years after Nam, the exact opposite opinion of the draft is now in the discussion.
I don’t know the answer. When LBJ was President he found it very easy to invent lies (Tonkin Resolution) to justify sending young men to war and he could increase the draft numbers easily because the Congress allowed it. Fast forward to present day and the lies Bush told to justify another war and he had no difficulty committing troops and increasing the numbers. If he had a draft would he have found it even easier to accomplish?
If I were to give you the numbers for young men and women who signed up after 9/11 that I knew, those numbers would have been larger than the six I mentioned in my previous post. The 6 I mentioned signed up in 2009 and 2010. I repeat that not one of them met the example of those you knew. They all wanted to join the military and not one of them had to. In the case of the three highschool grads (2010), I know for a fact that their parents argued strenuously against their enlisting but to no avail. As a friend, I must now do as they … support the young men who have all now left for basic training (2 Marines, 1 Air Force).
I don’t understand their decision to enlist but I accept it and yet it is much easier for me to understand, even relate to the point you are making.
In my opinion, normal young men and women seek excitement and envision the military as a way to “see the world” … old men sit in their offices plotting ways to make more money, gain more power, grab more ground caring not one whit for the young lives they will waste … that’s what it was all about during Nam (with the draft) and what it is all about today (without the draft).
We need the military to protect our nation should we be attacked … greedy and vile old men have perverted that need into what we have today. I don’t support the vile and greedy old men but Nam taught me one thing … the young men and women need our support precisely because the position the old men hold are positions we gave them.
So, even though I fully understand the point you make and in my youth would have fully agreed … I can not agree today. I support the young men and women in the military because, unlike 50 years ago when I bore no responsibility for putting the greedy old men in office, today, I do bare some of that responsibility. I voted for Barack Obama … I helped put him in office because I believed he would end the wars. My mistake … though the other choice, McCain, was worse.
I’m not going to blame the military rank and file … I blame the greedy vile old men and they are the ones I will fight.
One point I will make in favor of the draft … when the young men and women are coming from all over the country and from every layer of the society (not counting the Dick Cheneys and Bill Clintons who all will find ways to avoid the draft) … it is harder for the public to get “comfortable” and ignore the reality of war.
“so heroic” sb some heroic. Sorry.
Blouise, Your reply that you knew people (some family members also) that joined up after 9-11 out of patriotism is the exception I make in my own mind to my generally universal lack of respect for the military as a class but even then there are exceptions. With the lies and nationalist propaganda after 9-11 I can easily see young people joining up. 4 or 5 or 6 etc. years later after the truth of the Administration picking a fight of choice or now the migration to Afghanistan I can only wonder ‘what is wrong with those people, don’t they know their choice is built on lies.’ I don’t have any respect for those choices or the people that make them as upholding so heroic ideal.
They’re part of the problem, not the solution. The solution is to starve the military of personnel until a draft must be re-instituted. A draft IMO would tend to temper wars of choice. So would fighting a war entirely by mercenary force. I would hope that at some point the financial drain of fielding a mercenary army, air force etc. would make a war of choice unsustainable. Sending willing but (in major part) ignorant volunteers repeatedly into a meat-grinder to maim and kill and be maimed and killed just prolongs the madness. It’s morally reprehensible IMO.
Having said that and believing it totally I do have to clarify that I wish no individual’s in uniform ill; it is precisely the waste of life and health that make me think warfare is the most odious of human occupations and actions.
mespo,
I may be wrong, but I think Wayne has reinvented himself…I not sure which..but the writing style of a poster has all of the smack without the venom….
mespo,
“He that’s ungrateful has no guilt but one; All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.”
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Gotta love that quip….lol
harebell:
Despite sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives and untold treasure to save the whiny Brits from a menace of their own making, we’re now criticized for not doing it fast enough to suit them and without the enthusiasm harebell deems appropriate. Funny lot these Brits- safe and secure in their homes due to our efforts but ever-anxious to criticize those who put them there and still keep them safe.
Still, the Brits do produce fine thinkers and writers. (harebell, an obvious exception). Take poet Edward Young for instance, here’s a fellow who knew a thing or two about his countrymen. He famously said, “He that’s ungrateful has no guilt but one; All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.”
Now there’s a man worth saving. Amen, Eddie, amen.
Mespo
Nice Churchill paraphrase.
But I do believe that it took a wee while longer than the date of the original (June 1940) for the USA to finally decide whether it was pro-NAZI or not and to actually get involved (Dec 1941). Yeah you loaned money to the Brits, but this was no ideological decision for the majority of your countrymen. It was all about the money you could make. Please don’t tell me that you did this out of the goodness of your freedom loving hearts. (Britain paid off the last of the WW2 debts in 2009)
It took some under the table tactics from the likes of Dahl, Stevenson and FDR to actually tilt your country against the totalitarian menace that Nazism represented at that time. The majority of your country folk were quite happy to profiteer off of the ambitions of some evil bastards in Europe, but hey the bottom line has always been important to you guys. The final straw was the attack on Pearl Harbour which allowed your president to actually do what was right for the right reasons against the views of a fair proportion of your citizens.But hey, you do the holier than thou thing. The UK paid it all off interest and all…
Meanwhile Ollie is excused, Ronnie is hospitalised, Bush is ignored and 100 of 1000s die year after year after year.
Pinochet, forgot about him or just chose to ignore that. Ignoring mistakes makes you like Bush/Cheney and not like decent Americans.
I’m not anti-American I just like needling those who think that blind nationalism is a virtue; and also those who can’t actually read and reply to genuine objections with any coherence. Your xenophobic assumptions about my providence tell me all I need to really know about you.
As for the national debt, fine but every day you go further into the hole and the figures I gave were for 2009. Where are you now? Tell the 40 odd thousand dieing every month for lack of health care insurance.
But hey “we’re #1” hey??
Lottakatz
I love what you said about facts
mespo727272
1, August 9, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Blouise:
“Even on the attack you are a gentleman.”
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A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.
~Oscar Wilde
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………..or intentionally takes the cheap shot.
– Blouise (perhaps a bit presumptuous to tag onto Oscar Wilde mea culpa)
Blouise:
“Even on the attack you are a gentleman.”
**************
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.
~Oscar Wilde
Mespo,
I loved that famous Churchill quote. It reminds of the old movie, Sink the Bismarck! “I don’t care how you do, you must sink the Bismarck.”
mespo727272,
Even on the attack you are a gentleman.
Thanks for the stats on our debt … I have copied and plan to use.
By the way … my study of the Enlightenment has taken me all the way back to the 1400’s … the more I read, the more there is to read!
rafflaw,
To the uniformed that was a cheap shot at sarcasm. But I am in total agreement with David Stockman, unfortunately, when we had the opportunity to work on the same side, be was screwing with TEFRA..and screwed a lot of folks…like the infrastructure…why if someone had 100,000,000.00 dollars and wants to place it in General Obligation bonds and they get the interest on the money invested and the most that they make is say 5% per annum. This was in the early 80’s who cared. But no, it had to be tinkered with that the max for an individual is 35,000.00 and 42,000.00 for a married couple. Then they have to pay tax over the fixed rate of return….Now, he is in agreement that this was a bad ideal to limit these types of investments….took a while…
Blouise,
You are correct….I have been juggling like a street vendor in May…..
Byron:
“give the guy a break, those are really big numbers.:)”
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Come now a professed “citizen of the world” should like macro-economics –real MACRO.
Blouise:
“So I’m going to hypothesize (a proposed explanation for an observable phenomenon, don’t yell at me, Slarti), given his choice of alias and the subject matter of the link introduced by mespo that got all this going, that our poster is from Great Britain, maybe even Scotland and to reveal his “home” would weaken his argument that trashing America and Americans is justifiable given their actions upon the world stage. (A Brit telling us that would be laughed off the blog)”
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Excellent logic there Blouise. I salute your hypothesis, Madame Curie. I do hope’s its true. If so, I vote we revise Churchill famous lines in honor of Harebell:
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might and money–lots of money, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
[bold face addition mine – Sorry, Winnie.]
Mespo:
give the guy a break, those are really big numbers.:)
Your markers are held by folk like China($799B), Japan($752B) and the UK($249B). You are passing on other people’s money that they …
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You are just as numskulled as the Tea Party crowd. The vast majority of our national debt (75%) is owed to guess who? The American people. We have the largest market in the world and the largest producing economy. That’s why folks like the Chinese are dying to get in here and will take our markers. Even with that roaring buyer’s market, the entire foreign held debt is 25% of the entire debt with those inscrutable Chinese holding a whopping 7%–Ooooh, saints preserve us! For your info and according to the latest CIA (I know, the CIA are all liars who dress like Rambo and go around overthrowing benevolent Latin American coup leaders as they skip home from Sunday school) estimates the US national debt ranks 47th among the world’s economies in terms of percentage of GDP. Not exactly Mozambique numbers, but respectable among the Western democracies where we rank behind Italy, France, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, etc, etc. We even figure behind those economic wizards from Japan, Singapore, and (gasp! and Are baap re!!!), India!!! You do recall Japan? They’re the folks, as we were told in the 90’s, that were going to buy us all.
Like most viewers from afar you see the speck in our eyes and miss the beams in your own. Next time try a fact or two before you venture out into “Survivor: Deepest Darkest America!” The tribal council’s meeting and things “ain’t” looking good for you! [note “ain’t” — uncouth American colloquialism. Memo to self: “America solely responsible for world’s grammar problems].
BTW, I don’t hate you because you’re anti-American: I loathe you because you’re dimwitted and thus anti-American. Maybe I can get John Stuart Mill to revise that quote about the relationship between stupidity and conservatism!
Thanks Blouise!
rafflaw,
AY has a lot of balls … in the air tonight 😉
AY,
I concur with the caveat that, in my opinion, he was a willing scapegoat no matter what others may say to the contrary … a fall on your sword kind of guy … I didn’t like him … ever