There is an interesting nuisance case in Detroit where Alan Markovitz has erected an art piece in his backyard. It so happens to be lighted at night and fully visible when his ex-wife looks out of her windows next door. It is a large piece giving a middle finger salute.
Category: Bizarre
It may be a sign of the apocalypse but I find myself not only in agreement with Sarah Palin but angry at her treatment by a MSNBC host. Palin recently canceled a NBC interview with Matt Lauer over the failure of MSNBC to discipline host Martin Bashir for saying that someone should defecate in Palin’s mouth after she compared federal debt to slavery. While I once worked for MSNBC, I have been shocked by the effort of the network to be the Fox News of the left — with hosts often blindly supporting the President, seriously comparing Holder to Moses, and even defending the surveillance of journalists (which Bashir did) in defense of the Administration. For civil libertarians, it has been a blow to see MSNBC yield to a type of cult of personality around Obama while basic civil liberties are being denied by this Administration. However, Bashir was able to hit truly a new low and the lack of a serious response beyond an on-air apology sends the message that anything goes when the target is a conservative and critic of the President.
We have often discussed the worsening environment at football games for people who want to just watch the game with family and friends. American football is going the way of soccer with drunk and obnoxious fans ruining the games with continual profanity, fighting, and taunting. Rob Hopkins, a Buffalo Bills fan, is the poster boy for this trend. Hopkins decided to slide down the upper deck railing without any thought of the people below him. He fell from the upper deck on to a fan seated in the section below during the game against the New York Jets. The shoulder injury from the 30 foot fall is now the least of his problems. He has been banned from the stadium, fired from his job, and could be looking at a criminal charge. All for being a certifiable idiot.
We have previously discussed actual evil twin defenses in past cases (here and here and here and here). However, a case out of Colorado Springs now has a detailed opinion specifically allowing the use of the defense in a major case. District Judge David Shakes ruled Friday that an Army artillery officer, 1st Lt. Aaron Lucas, could argue that his twin brother may be responsible for a series of sexual assaults.
Submitted by Charlton Stanley (aka Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger
The dirtiest secret of all in the health care professions is not insurance. It is about tired staff.
On March 16, 2013, Registered Nurse Elizabeth Jasper had just gotten off work. She was driving her small SUV eastbound on Ohio 50 when it left the road, going airborne, and hitting a tree. The wreckage careened into a parking lot. One does not need to be an accident reconstrucionist to know the crash was not survivable, by just taking one glance at the wreckage.
Beth Jasper, RN, is dead at the age of 38. She leaves her husband and two children. The preliminary investigation so far has revealed Nurse Jasper was supposed to work three 12-hour shifts that week, but had been held over to work extra doing specialized procedures. She is believed to have fallen asleep at the wheel.
Since that time, James Jasper, her widower, has filed a lawsuit against her employer, Jewish Hospital and its parent company, Mercy Health Partners of Southwest Ohio. As details of the lawsuit emerge, it shines a spotlight on a fact of corporate health care in this country which most people never knew.
Continue reading “Worked To Death: Fatigue and the health professions, the dirty little secret.”
If news accounts are correct, Cleveland and Lisa Cox may be the personification of a consumer society . . . to the point of treating their son as an unwanted or defective product. The couple is charged with abandonment after they took their 9-year-old son back to the Butler County Children’s Services where they adopted him at 3 months old. They are seeking the termination of their parental rights and responsibilities.
Continue reading “No Returns: Ohio Parents Return Adopted Son . . . After Nine Years”
The problem with being a murderous religious extremist is when you behead your own allies in one of your blood-soaked celebrations of hate. That is the problem facing the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). The group held one of its signature beheadings with joyous killings and prancing around with body parts only to learn that the victim was a wounded anti-government soldier. Oops.
A Montgomery, Alabama officer has resigned shortly before being fired after the release of a video shows him drag racing another motorcyclist. The other man, Lawrence Lee Spillers, recorded the encounter on his helmet camera and says that he never thought the officer would be fired in releasing the video.
This is an incredible commercial. However, it was particularly interesting for me because yesterday we discussed liability for warning defects in television commercials. Look for the warning at the end.
Continue reading “Dammed If You Do . . . Volvo Warns Viewers Not To Try This At Home”
Former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is warning people about Pope Francis. Palin told CNN that the Pope’s statements of tolerance and accommodation have “taken her aback” but that she hopes that it is just another misrepresentation by liberal mainstream media. We have discussed how inspiring Pope Francis has proven to Catholics and non-Catholics alike by shedding the trappings of the papacy and living a simple and humble life of a priest. More importantly, he has reached out to gays, atheists and others in a way that is truly historic. In this short time as Pope, he is credited with bringing large numbers of people back to churches in the West. However, Palin is uneasy with the Pope for the very same reasons that people are rallying around him.
Continue reading “A Bit Too Mavericky? Palin Declares Pope Francis To Be A Suspect Liberal”
I often express bewilderment at the actions of public school administrators particularly in their enforcement of zero tolerance policies. However, what happened at Lakeview Middle School was not only wrong but a bit creepy in the defense of a senseless policy with Dr. Phil-like pseudo-pyschological rhetoric. When sixth-grader Caitlyn Jackson, 12, died on Saturday, her classmates came up with a wonderful idea of making teeshirts in her favorite colors to honor her on Monday. Students spent the weekend preparing the teeshirts. However, when they arrived, school administrators ordered them to take off the t-shirts or turn them inside out or put tape over Jackson’s name. The reason? After hearing about the preparation of the students over the weekend, they decided it violated a ban on “permanent memorials” and was not healthy of students to be reminded of the loss. Of course, they did not tell parents and waited to traumatize the students at school. Eventually, after an outcry and anger from parents, the students were allowed to take the tape off and wear their teeshirts.
We previously discussed the outrageous act of Harvey Updyke who poisoned the famous “Toomer’s Oaks” because he is an Alabama fan. He has now been ordered to pay $796,731.98 in restitution to the university. He will be allowed to pay $500 a month . . . for 132 years.
A Florida appellate court has ordered a new sentencing for Percy Edgardo Torres, 44, of Jacksonville in light of a tongue-lashing that he received from Judge Russell Healey who used his sentencing to lecture him on his violation of Catholic principles.
We have previously discussed the inspiring story of Malala Yousafzai, who has captivated the world in her struggle after being shot in the head by Muslim extremists for her advocacy of female education. It is a story that appears destined to be read around the world but not in Pakistan where various organizations have banned it from private schools. One educator objected that she referred to the Prophet Muhammad without using the abbreviation PBUH — “peace be upon him.” For that, she is viewed as a dangerous heretic not a heroine.
Continue reading “PBUH or Perish: Educators in Pakistan Ban Malala Yousafzai’s Book As Anti-Islamic”
We previously discussed the case of former Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson who committed various prosecutorial abuses to secure the imprisonment of Michael Morton (shown here), now 58, an innocent man who spent 25 years in jail. This includes a discussion this weekend on the blog. He has now pleaded guilty and will received just 10 days in jail as part of his settlement.