A Florida jury has handed down a massive privacy violation award in favor of professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea. The jury of four women and two men voted to give Hogan $115 million in damages against Gawker Media, Gawker founder Nick Denton and former editor Albert Daulerio for violating his privacy by publishing an excerpt of a sex tape. It is a shockingly large award when one considers that the jury could still add punitive damages on top of the award. Notably, Hogan was seeking $100 million in the lawsuit.
Category: Bizarre
We have another example of copyright and trademark laws have boldly going with no logic has gone before. The latest lawsuit is by two movie studios which contend that a crowdfunded Star Trek fan film has violated copyright law by using the Klingon language, among other alleged violations. To use the Klingon profanity (which cannot be translated on a family-oriented blog): QI’yaH!
Continue reading “QI’yaH!: Paramount and CBS Studio Sue To Claim Ownership Of Klingon Language”
There is an interesting story out of Nashville, Tennessee where an alert, tech-savvy victim was able to solve his own crime. The man, a committed gamer, was shocked to return from a vacation to his apartment to find it ransacked. Gone were various valuable items including his PlayStation 4, PS4, two televisions, a laptop, and other assorted items. Then he noticed something odd: the PS4 was still connected to his wifi.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor.
I guess I will defer to Pete Seeger’s lyrical talent to explain through verse the disappearance of our friends pejoratively referred to as “birthers”: that is, those who assert President Obama was born in Kenya and as such is ineligible for office due to not being a “natural born citizen” as required by the US Constitution.
Now that Mr. Obama is in the final year of his presidency, one would think that Birthers would be legions to storm forward and attack presidential hopeful Ted Cruz, who by his own admission and clearly established facts, was–are you ready for this–born outside the USA!
It begs of course the question…Where have all the Birthers gone?
Continue reading “Where Have All The Birthers Gone? Cruz Is Running”
I have long been a critic of legislation that forces citizens to make healthy choices in their eating or drinking or lifestyle, including the “Big Gulp” laws like those in New York City. Once politicians start to dictate health choices, we have seen the desire to become insatiable as more and more “bad choices” are banned. One such example occurred in my home city, Chicago, when the city council banned smokeless tobacco (as well as raised Chicago’s smoking age from 18 to 21). While the age change will create the anomaly of having 18 year olds subject to the draft in war but not able to choose to smoke, it is the smokeless tobacco that is the most problematic element. There is no second-hand chew health problem for other people as there is for smoking. This is merely an effort to force people to make the choices that the government deems health or correct.
Brian Earl Taylor, 21, last week had a unique way to show that he is soulful after being convicted for unlawful imprisonment and carrying a concealed weapon. He did so in song before an audience of Washtenaw County Trial Court Judge Darlene O’Brien and assembled lawyers and onlookers. He chose “Hello” by Adele as shown in the video below.
Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been widely accused of being a key architect of “rigging” the primary in favor of Hillary Clinton. Among the various controversies surrounding Wasserman Schultz was her blocking Bernie Sanders’ campaign from accessing the DNC’s voter data files, which contain email addresses and telephone numbers for constituents. Now Tim Canova, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University who is running against Wasserman Schultz for her seat in Congress, has revealed that found out that he too is blocked from accessing Democratic voter data. Mind you he is a Democrat but the state Democrats confirmed that only incumbents can gain access to the valuable resource in what critics have said is a blatant effort to favor such candidates. Canova has made the denial to the VAN system part of his campaign while various groups and individuals have campaigned for her to be removed as DNC head.
Continue reading ““We Stand With Our Incumbent Members”: Opponent of Wasserman Schultz in Florida Denied Access To Democratic Voter Data”
The D.C. legal community was rocked today with news that Chief Judge Richard W. Roberts has resigned after being accused of a sexual assault when he served as a prosecutor in a high-profile case 35 years ago. The alleged victim was a teenage witness who has not sued Roberts.
We have been discussing the increasing intolerance on the left for conservative and controversial speech. A case in point comes out of Topeka, Kansas where Adrienne Foster, the director of the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission, is facing calls to resign for simply supporting Donald Trump in comments made to the Kansas City Star.
There is a bizarre story out of Fort Worth Texas where a driver videotaped a police officer spraying what appears to be pepper spray at a group of oncoming motorcyclists. The video below is slowed down to show the officer clearly spraying what looks like mace at the group as they drive by.
There is a story out of Lansing Michigan where a well-known prosecutor, Stuart Dunnings III, has been arrested on prostitution-related charges. Dunnings once prosecuted such sex crimes but has been accused of potentially hundreds of prostitution-related incidents, including soliciting for one woman to become a prostitute. His brother was also charged.
Continue reading “Top Michigan Prosecutor Arrested On Prostitution Charges”
Nikita “Nick” Mackey (left), an attorney and former house representative from North Carolina, has secured a new trial for his client Nicholas Ragin, but not exactly as he had hoped. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has tossed out Ragin’s conviction because Mackey slept through parts of his trial while serving as his defense attorney. However, Ragin spent 10 years on a 30 year conviction for conspiracy and racketeering.
This election just seems to get weirder and weirder. On the heels of her praise and then unpraise for Nancy Reagan on AIDS, Hillary Clinton is again being charged with rewriting history in attacking Bernie Sanders for his absence on the health care fight back in 1993-94. New York Times reporter Amy Chozick quoted Hillary Clinton in a tweet saying, “I don’t know where he was when I was trying to get health care in 93 and 94.” The Sanders campaign quickly responded with a picture showing Sanders standing right next to her and then released another signed picture where she commended him for his work in seeking such national health care coverage at the time. CNN and other media outfits already called out Clinton for the “cheap shot” in falsely suggesting that Sanders did not support the auto bailout. This is not going to help those low trustworthiness numbers plaguing Clinton.
This week we discussed the effort to impeach two student leaders at Bowdoin. Their offense was wearing sombreros as a fiesta-themed party. Now, there is an effort to impeachment a conservative student leader at the University of Southern California for inviting a conservative speaker to campus. Jacob Ellenhorn appears to have done little more than facilitate conservative voices to be heard on campus.
We have another abusive crackdown in Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Egypt has seen a dramatic rollback on civil liberties under al-Sisi. In Egypt, a teenager was jailed for cartoons of Muhammad and a leading businessman was attacked for a cartoon of Micky Mouse with a beard. Then there was the three-year sentence given Amr Nohan, a 22-year-old law graduate for posting a Facebook image of el-Sisi with Mickey Mouse-style cartoon ears. A leading cartoonist Islam Gawish, 26, was arrested in Egypt by the hyper sensitive al-Sisi government. Now Egypt’s Attorney General Nabil Sadeq ordered an investigation into a TV presenter, Azza Al-Henawy, who simply criticized al-Sisi for not delivering on promise.
Continue reading “Egyptian Journalist Criminally Charged After Criticizing Al-Sisi”