Category: Society

Politics, Society

SEALs Elude Mouse

-Submitted by David Durmm (Nal), Guest Blogger

We have previously discussed the attempt by Disney to trademark the term “Seal Team 6″, here. Disney has withdrawn its application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office “out of deference to the Navy.” Several days after Disney filed its application, the U.S. Navy filed its own application for trademarks on the phrases ‘SEAL Team’ and ‘Navy SEALs.’ The Navy had established a beachhead with its longstanding trademark of “SEALs,” which it has licensed to video game producers.

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Politics, Society, Things That Tick Me Off

Florida Governor Rick Scott & The “Private” Town Square

Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

Florida Governor Rick Scott (R-Fla) may be changing his name to Rick “Scoot” after his rousing speech at The Villages Retirement Center Town Square in central Florida. Crowing over budget cuts to programs for homeless veterans, meals for poor seniors, a council for deafness, a children’s hospital, cancer research, public radio, whooping-cough vaccines for poor mothers, and aid for the paralyzed, the tea-party darling decided the public square was the perfect place to squelch any dissent. Ordering sheriff’s deputies and that endless coterie of blonde Republican fresh-faced staffers to comb the crowd for Democrats and any other persons sporting “liberal looking pins and buttons,” the Governor banned them contending the event discussing the public’s money and re-enacting the signing of Florida’s budget was a very “private” affair among friends.

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Bizarre, Society, Torts

Joy Ride for Justice? FBI Agent Wrecks Stolen Ferrari After Taking Friend Out For A Spin . . . DOJ Refuses To Pay For Damage

For FBI agent Fred Kingston, it was a sweet assignment. The FBI had seized a stolen 1995 Ferrari F50 — one of only 50 such cars in the United States. Kingston was instructed to move the car from the FBI garage and so Kingston reportedly called Assistant US Attorney J. Hamilton Thompson to come along for the ride. The agent ended up crashing the car — causing $750,000 but now the Justice Department insists that it is not liable for the damage.
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Bizarre, Criminal law, Society

Rain or Shine: Postal Worker Caught Defecating on Home . . . Retained By Postal Service And Given New Route

The Postal Service is under fire in Portland, Oregon after it decided to retain a postman who was captured on film peeing and defecating on a home on his route and simply reassigning the postman to another route.
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Constitutional Law, Courts, Politics, Society, Torts

Kentucky Supreme Court Recognizes Paternity Claim From Adulterous Affair and Puts An End To The “Bastardy Cases”

The Kentucky Supreme Court has handed down an important ruling (below) that Christopher Egan can make a paternity claim even if the child is the result of an adulterous affair. It is the rejection of a long-standing bar on such claims under a type of “dirty hands” rule for adulterous affairs. The court turned its back on a long line of morality based cases once called “bastardy cases.” Justice Bill Cunningham (right) in dissent accused the court of throwing the institution of marriage on the “funeral pyre of modern convenience and unanchored values.” Justice Daniel Venters (left) excellent majority decision is available below.
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Bizarre, Criminal law, Society, Torts

Taking the Bite Out of Crime: Florida Dentist Arrested After Fighting 85-Year-Old Patient Over Dentures

Florida dentist Michael Hammonds, 57, has been arrested for assault and battery after getting into a wrestling match with a patient over a pair of dentures. When police arrived, they found bruise marks on Virginia Graham, 85, who tried to get her dentures back from Hammonds and was allegedly held given her will at the office.
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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Politics, Society

Obama Administration Threatens To Turn Texas Into No-Fly Zone

The attempt by Texans to resist the controversial TSA security measures, including groping adults and children, has resulted in an astonishing threat by U.S. Attorney John E. Murphy who is threatening to turn the entire Lone Star state into a no-fly zone if a bill passes the legislature. HB 1937 allows for “prosecution and punishment for the offense of official oppression by the intrusive touching of persons seeking access to public buildings and transportation; providing penalties.” With the return of stagecoaches to Texas, you may want to book now — seats are scarce and there are a lot of blackout dates.

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Criminal law, Society

Disabled Man Thrown Face Down From Wheelchair By Police — Police Later Claim He Fell Out of The Chair

This video has raised serious concerns of how the D.C. Metro transit officers put a wheelchaired man into custody. The video shows the officers slamming the man face first into the concrete. Later you can see the man is laying near a pool of blood.
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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Politics, Religion, Society

Meet Bradlee Dean: Profile of Perfidy

Minnesota has seen the best and worst of its society in the debate of a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. The best was Sen. John Kiesel, who was a profile of courage. The worst was the pastor invited to give the opening prayer, Bradlee Dean, a profile of perfidy (as in a deliberate breach of faith when you agree to give a nondenominational prayer and then give a sectarian diatribe). Dean’s record of hateful and bigoted statements was well-known before he was invited to the legislature to start off the day of debate on the rights of homosexual citizens to marry.
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Military, Politics, Society

Meet Rep. John Kriesel: A Profile of Courage

At a time of intense intolerance and homophobia in American politics, Minnesota GOP Rep. John Kriesel took the floor to beg his colleagues not to vote for a constitutional amendment that would ban same sex marriage. Kriesel’s simple words and humanity offer a true profile of courage to politicians across the country.

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Bizarre, International, Society, Torts

Slug Causes Traffic Death in England

In England, Katie Dagley, 19, died in an accident as bizarre as it was tragic. In something out of a proximate cause question on a torts exam, a traffic light-controlled bridge malfunctioned after a slug cause the lights to malfunction. That’s right, investigators believe that the slug left a trail across a circuit board that caused it to short out. That caused the lights to malfunction and Dagley proceeding against traffic on a one-land bridge in Tamworth, Staffordshire.
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Bizarre, Criminal law, Politics, Religion, Society

Catholic Order Admits Officials Knew Priest Belonged To Board of Alleged Pro-Pedophilia Group and Was Previously Arrested For Exposing Himself in Public

The Dutch Catholic Church and the Salesian order are under fire this week after it was disclosed that a priest not only served on the board of a pro-pedophilia organization but defended adult-child sex. To make matters worse, high ranking officials were apparently aware of the 73-year-old priest’s activities. The priest is known only as “Father Van B.” Moreover, Superior Jos Claes says that he does not believe that such activities would present a serious problem for the priest.

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Bizarre, Society

End of Times Tragically Comes True For Michigan Teen

It is the type of thing that only teens would come up with as a way of celebrating the continuation of times on Saturday, May 21st. Many people were having fun with the bizarre delusions of Camping and his followers predicting Judgment Day with parties and postings. A group of five teens in Michigan, however, decided to celebrate the end of the world by jumping into the Kalamazoo River, including Anthony Thompson who notably could not swim. Well, you can guess the rest.
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Religion, Society

Failing Out Of Rapture: Turley Blog Re-Opens After Unexpected Continuation of Times

Well, I went off to my annual trip to Shrine Mont for the rapture (leaving our weekend editors to face the Judgment alone), only to face another Monday with no pre-arranged blog stories. Who would have known that you couldn’t trust an 89-year-old religious fanatic foretelling the End of Times? In Alameda, California, Harold Camping will only say that “It has been a really tough weekend” and he is “flabbergasted” that the world has continued to exist. Talking about a tough Monday to have return to work and face our office mates around the water cooler.
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