A couple years ago, the family went through a toll booth in Illinois by mistake without paying: we mistook an automatic lane for a cash lane. We spent the rest of the day trying to reach someone to pay the toll only to be told that it would not be necessary. I thought of that experience today after reading about Ronny Williams and Cora Lewis of Pflugerville, Texas who have racked up $236,026.32 in unpaid tolls and fines. We are obviously on opposing ends of a guilt spectrum. By the way, Mandy and Stephen Dyment of Hutto were not far behind with $217,619.79 in unpaid tolls and fines.
Category: Bizarre
Walmart appears to struggle at times to find ways to lower itself in the estimation of the world from stripping people of benefits to firing sick employees to arbitrary treatment of employees to destroying history to alleged bribery to reporting families to police for innocent pictures. Not long ago, the store fired an elderly greeter who was attacked by customer. Now, a Michigan man, Kristopher Oswald, says that he was fired after trying to help a woman being assaulted in the parking lot during one of his breaks. What is interesting is that Walmart is not denying his account.
Continue reading “Walmart Worker Intervenes To Help Woman In Parking Lot . . . Walmart Fires Worker”
My opposition to the ever-expanding trademark and copyright laws is well known. (For a prior column, click here). Common phrases and symbols are being snatched up as Congress and the Obama Administration continue to yield to every demand for higher levels of penalties and prosecutions. Now we have a personal injury firm — Geoff McDonald & Associates — that has knuckled under to a threat from GEICO insurance because it used an obvious (and stated) parody in a commercial. This is an office filled with attorneys and yet they pulled the commercial because of an obvious joke. If they cannot stand up to the copyright and trademark hawks, consider the position of average citizens faced with threatening letters. Even other insurance companies have folded under pressure from GEICO in parody commercials. It is not clear if GEICO will now move against zoos and elementary schools who try to feature geckos. Before I am sued by the lawyers at GEICO, the picture to the left is a body part of a common gecko found in the wild. He has no connection to the insurance company and is not meant to mock it in any way.
There is an interesting decision out of the King County Bar Association after the bar grappled with questions from lawyers as to whether they can smoke marijuana after the state legalized pot despite that the fact that it is still deemed a crime under federal law. The bar associate said that the ethical lawyer could smoke pot so long as it did not interfere with their ability to represent clients. While some would question that standard, the same personal responsibility on consumption applies to alcohol use by lawyers.
Continue reading “Seattle Bar: Lawyers Can Ethically Smoke Pot”
Some of you may recall that in 2011 we discussed the efficiency and logic of Portland officials dumping 8 million gallons of drinking water after a man urinated in the city’s open reservoir. Well, it has now happened again. After a 21-year-old man admitted urinating in a Mt. Tabor reservoir last Wednesday, the city cut off its key water supply and dumped 7.8 million gallons of drinking water. The question, again, is the logic of such a move. Even if one does not accept that, as industry experts often spouted, “the solution to pollution is dilution,” this is such a tiny amount of impurities as to be untraceable. This would be no more than 12 ounces within 8 million gallons of water.
For many of us, Congress has become a circus like environment with two parties exercising a duopoly of power despite record levels of contempt from voters for their conduct and policies. For sane people, Congress simply could not get more bizarre. Think again. At the height of the vote to end the government shutdown, Dianne Reidy, an official reporter with the Office of the Clerk, took the mike and began to condemn Congress (starting out well) and then rave against Freemasons (ending not so well). The most troubling thing about the scene? For many voters, she still seemed the most sane and honest person in the chamber.
Continue reading “Just When You Thought Congress Could Not Get More Bizarre . . .”
Contractor Rufus McDonald, 52, is upset. He found historic papers of Harvard’s first black graduate, Richard T. Greener, in the attic of an abandoned home. He immediately offered to sell the papers to Harvard but was disappointed by the offer made by the school. Faced with what he describes as an insulting offer for such invaluable papers, McDonald announced that he would burn them unless people gave him more money.
The Richland County Sheriff’s Deputy Paul Allen Derrick has been fired after a video was put on YouTube showing him handcuffing a woman after an argument with her in a Columbia, South Carolina restaurant. The police report says that Derrick approached the woman but that 23-year-old Brittany Ball showed no interest in him. They then got into an argument. Things then went from bad to worst as the video below vividly demonstrates.
While the House of Representatives have been locked in a wrestling match with the White House for weeks over the budget, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., KY) has been quietly forging a deal that would re-open the federal government – largely on the terms of the Democratic members. This morning, however, various sites are reporting on an added item to the deal: a $3 billion earmark for Kentucky. They are calling it the ‘Kentucky Kickback” and objecting to how these deals reflect the resumption of “business as usual” in terms of spending.
Continue reading “Kentucky Kickback? Mitch McConnell Accused of Cashing In On Deal With Democrats”
We have often discussed the increasing use of zero tolerance policies that allow administrators and teachers to shed any obligation for judgment or discretion. This is no more obvious than the bizarre case of Erin Cox. Cox did what most people would consider the responsible thing when called by a friend who was concerned that she had too much to drink: she agreed to serve as her designated driver. That act resulted in her discipline by North Andover High School, which is defending its decision to punish her as a technical violation of its alcohol policy.
Alabama Rep. Steve Hurst (R-Munford) is hellbent on castration it seems. Despite the fact that his colleagues blocked his bill to legalize castration of convicted child molesters if their victims were under the age of 12 (and make them pay for the procedure), Hurst has reintroduced the legislation.
Continue reading “Alabama Legislator Reintroduces Castration Bill”
There is an uproar over the rather refined tastes of the bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst. Despite the serious financial problems of the church and a new Pope who (to his and the church’s great credit) is shedding many trappings of the papacy, the bishop is building a luxurious home and offices next to Limburg Cathedral in the state of Hesse. Originally, estimated at €3 million, the complex is now up to €31 million. It includes a few items that seem out of place with a vow of poverty. He has now been called to Rome — apparently to answer why he seems to be a walk-on for a Robin Hood remake movie.
Continue reading “German Bishop Under Fire For Expensive Tastes”
Occasionally, something will happen that shows a latent tendency of dishonesty in people regardless of class or station. Once the lights go off or security is suspended, there is an explosion of thefts or some riot. I remember one Christmas seeing what looked like lawyers or businessmen trying to use umbrellas to unhook fur decorations on the Christmas tree in the Daley Plaza that were part of a Canadian holiday display. One was actually on the other one’s shoulders. I am not sure why I am always surprised. However, this weekend, the food stamp computer system in Louisiana experienced a glitch where it would not show the limit on cards. Most stores stopped purchases with the EBT cards. However, Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, Louisiana decided to continue to make sales. The word quickly spread and the stores were mobbed with shoppers who took virtually every item off the shelves. Then the EBT cards came back online with the limits on the cards . . .
Continue reading “Walmart Store Picked Clean After Computer Malfunctions In Louisiana”
As many of you know, I love football and support God’s true team, the Chicago Bears. However, I have long complained that I never take the kids to football games because of the pervasive swearing and drunkenness. For families, the most obnoxious element has taken over these games, drunken, adolescent adults who use games as an excuse to shed every notion of decency and civility. We are experiencing what Europe has faced with soccer hooligans as families are increasing abandoning stadiums. Last night showed the depth of the problem. After fans recently went to his house after a loss to berate him, Texans quarterback Matt Schaub lay on the field with an injured leg as Texan fans cheered his injury.
Continue reading “Texans Fans Cheer As QB Schaub Laid Injured On Field During Games Against Rams”
I took the kids to see “Gravity” last night at a 3D IMAX theater, which was fun. I thought it was an entertaining movie but you had to suspend your disbelief (and any rudimentary scientific knowledge) at a film that is a chain of implausible or practically impossible events. (I also had to suspend my normal dislike for Sandra Bullock as an actress and not constantly hope for a catastrophic airlock failure). However, the scientific barriers to Gravity as a film pale in comparison to the historical barriers presented in the critically acclaimed movie “Captain Phillips” with Tom Hanks. I was always like Hanks as an actor and this film is being cited as one of his very best performances. Yet, there are a few critics: the crew of the Maersk Alabama who say that the film is best on a demonstrably false account and makes the wrong man the hero in the famous standoff at sea.