I am at Stanford to speak at a conference at the law school this week. I had the opportunity to walk around this truly magnificent campus today, a renewed pleasure that I would recommend to anyone.
Continue reading “Stanford Holds Constitutional Conference On Executive Power”
I have previously authored columns and blog entries criticizing the airline industry for its nosedive in customer services and accommodations. (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). The includes the planned switch to “bench seating” where passengers are expected to start bringing their own cushions. Despite the rising criticism of airlines making record profits while continuing to strip away every comfort, there is a new report that Southwest is now turning its back on passengers. The airline and Airbus are going to stuff another seat into coach class with new A380 superjumbo carriers.
Continue reading “Cattle Call: Airbus and Southwest Moves To Add Even More Seats To Coach”
Patients in the Bronx have learned that the dentist who performed their procedures — including botched procedures — was actually not a doctor but an office manager. Valbona Yzeiraj, 45, worked as an office manager at Dr. Jeffrey Schoengold’s office and claimed that she was a trained professional from her native Albania. However, even if true, she is not licensed to practice medicine in the U.S. but performed procedures on patients, including a root canal that left a patient with an infection and another with “persistent pain” two years after the procedure.
There is a bizarre case out of Long Island where Dr. Anthony J. Moschetto, a cardiologist, allegedly had the office of another doctor torched, then attempted to have the doctor killed to get his business. The evidence in the case presented at the press conference is equally notable, though less compelling than the rest of the reported case against Moschetto.
A California judge has ruled that the girlfriend of former Clippers owner Donald Sterling must pay back the $2.6 million given to her in gifts from Sterling in a surprising ruling that defines these gifts as community property even though the couple was separated and moving toward divorce. Judge Richard Fruin Jr. awarded Shelly Sterling most of the nearly $3 million she had sought. I have previously discussed how the case highlights the often troubling line of what constitutes prostitution and what constitutes a gifts. [Notably both Sterling and Stiviano deny having a sexual relationship] If Sterling had given V. Stiviano money directly for sex, it would be illegal. Instead, he gave her millions in gifts as part of a relationship. Regardless of where to draw that particular line, Fruin said that the line on community property is drawn to include the house, luxury cars and expensive gifts given to Stiviano as she served as the companion of the octogenarian Sterling.
There is an interesting lawsuit out of New Orleans where two undercover Louisiana State Police troopers, Sgt. Joseph Patout and Master Trooper Christopher Treadaway, stopped for Sushi and parked illegally across the street. A booting company employee promptly booted the vehicle and when the police came out, they ordered him to remove the boot. The employee refused without their paying the fine so they arrested him, searched him, took the key and removed the boot. The attendant, Brandon Hardeway, was never charged and the company was then fired by the parking company in what many suspect is the company’s currying favor with the police over the incident. What is most striking is that there does not appear to have been any discipline, let alone termination, of the officers responsible.
Two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International airport have been fired after investigators found that a male TSA employee would select handsome men that he wanted to fondle as part of a secondary patdown. Before you give the TSA much credit however you may want to read on.
Police are pursuing those responsible for the death of a 2-year-old boy at a church in Texas where the parents and pastors starved the boy to rid him of his possession by a demon — only to try to resurrect the dead boy later with the use of blessed oils. Police say the pastors at a Balch Springs church starved a 2-year-old boy they said was possessed by a demon, and later held a ceremony to resurrect the boy. The parents are believed to have taken the body to Mexico while Aracely Meza, 49, was arrested Monday and charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury by omission. The boy was given only water for 25 days and died on March 22.
There is a bizarre and disturbing case out of Bakersfield California where Officer Aaron Stringer has been put on leave after he allegedly admitted that he liked to play with dead bodies and was seeing tickling the feet of a dead man (shot by police) and saying “tickle, tickle.”
It was five years ago that the puzzle world was rocked by a Sudoko cheating scandal. Now the chess world has faced its own scandal with the effective banishment of Georgian champ Gaioz Nigalidze, who was found to have secreted a smartphone in a toilet to cheat during an international tournament. This brings a new meaning to the chess terms of a “bust” and a “bye.”
One of our commenters posted this video yesterday and I thought it was so funny I wanted to share it with everyone. This is Zooniversity’s North American porcupine, “Teddy Bear,” who demonstrates an surprising type of speech for a porcupine as he resists giving up a cob of corn.
The trial of former Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo is in its second week and the jury will consider an extremely disturbing police shooting case where Brelo, 31, is charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams following a Nov. 29, 2012 police chase and shooting.
We have yet another tough case of how to handle a parent who seems devoid of basic sense, let alone basic instincts. The mother reportedly dangled her two-yera-old boy over a railing at a cheetah pit and then accidentally dropped him. Fortunately, the cheetahs did not attack but the boy’s leg was hurt.
Continue reading “Cleveland Mom Dangles Toddler Over Cheetah Pit At Zoo and Then Drops Him Into Pit”
We have yet another arrest in a school for an act that would have previously resulted in a reprimand and a parent visit with the principal — or at worst a suspension. Florida eighth-grader Domanik Green was accused of breaking into the computer system at the Paul R. Smith Middle School in Holiday, Florida to play a prank on a teacher. He changed the background of the teacher’s computer to show two men kissing. For that, he was charged with a felony for computer hacking. He will be tried as an adult. He is fourteen years old.
Continue reading “Florida Eighth Grader Charged With Felony For School Prank”
It appears that we would all be better off if we just let our dogs sniff our rear ends. In Buckinghamshire, researchers have found that dogs have a 93% reliability rate when detecting bladder and prostate cancer. The research by by Dr Claire Guest and her colleagues has been published in Humanitas Clinical and Research Centre in Milan.