Legal Commentary

Boise Police Officers Taser Man on Buttocks, Threaten to Rape Him With Taser, and Then Claim No Fault in Modest Settlement

Posted on February 15, 2010
We previously followed the case of Gerald Amidon, who sued the Boise police department for allegedly threatening to sodomize him with a taser and using excessive force in his arrest, including tasering him on the buttocks. He has now settled for only $150,000 and, despite a highly disturbing tape of the incident, the [...

Ready to Weir: Fur Flies At Olympics Over Outfit of U.S. Figure Skater

Posted on February 15, 2010
U.S. figure skater Johnny Weir is the subject of an international outcry over his insistence on wearing real animal fur in his figure skating outfit — despite his prior promise to yield to demands that he use faux fur. Weir says that he has decided not to stay at a hotel out of fear for his [...

Lab Love: Science Publish Findings on the Dynamics of Entanglements

Posted on February 14, 2010
This picture could be the most moving Valentine that scientists could send each other on this special day. Scientists have finally shown who entanglement works, the quantum process in which two objects share the same existence. For our regular science geeks, just send this picture to your geek girlfriends and explain that it is [...

Sex Tape Leads Abbas To Fire Top Aide and Call for an Investigation

Posted on February 14, 2010
Palestinian officials are rushing to support Rafiq Husseini, shot by a former Palestinian intelligence officer and top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is embroiled in a sex-for-favors scandal. However, Abbas has now dismissed his aide and called for an investigation, here...

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School Confiscates Valentine Cards After Head Teacher Finds Kids Are Not Emotionally Mature Enough to Handle The Tradition

Posted on February 14, 2010
Head Teacher Peter Turner at Ashcombe Primary School in England announced that all Valentine Card would be confiscated because children are not emotionally mature enough to deal with the tradition. In a newsletter, Turner said that children get upset when they are “dumped” — apparently they are less upset learning about such authoritarian [...

Meet Clifford Garrison: The Alleged ?Honeymoon Bandit?

Posted on February 14, 2010
According to police, Clifford Garrison is simply irresistible to women. Known as “The Honeymoon Bandit,” Garrison allegedly woos women and then runs away with their money. It is the wooing part that leaves me a bit confused. Garrison, 60, allegedly swindled more than half a million dollars out of his wives in 2000...

HAPPY VALENTINE?S DAY!!!

Posted on February 14, 2010
Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone on the blog. It is a special day when we technically remember the burning at the stake of two Valentines in Rome. Valentine of Rome was a priest burned on the Via Flaminia about AD 269. (You can still see his toasted relics at the Church of Saint Praxed [...

The Right Chemistry: Loving Doctor Isolates Physiological Causes for Love

Posted on February 14, 2010
Ever wondered why your heart raced at the first sight of your wife or husband. Dr. Loving has the answer. Dr. Timothy Loving explains that it is literally having the right chemistry. To be accurate, chemists generally send Valentines reading “Baby, You Make My Adrenaline and Epinephrine Soar...

Obama Administration Seeks To Strip Cellphone Users of Privacy Protections

Posted on February 13, 2010
The Obama Administration is appealing a ruling in favor of privacy before the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit — seeking to allow it to track people by their cellphones and arguing that there is no privacy expectations to prevent tracking without probable cause...

Wedding Crashers: Kenya Arrests Couple and Guests At Same-Sex Marriage While Protesters Call For The Suspects To Be Burned Alive

Posted on February 13, 2010
Kenyan police showed the world what state-sponsored homophobia looks like this week when police raided a same-sex wedding and arrested all suspected homosexuals. Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya and police were notified of a same-sex wedding scheduled to take place at a private villa in the beach resort of Kikambala...

Bank of America Forecloses Again On The Wrong House

Posted on February 13, 2010
Bank of America appears to foreclose on homes with the level of care of a random drive-by shooting. We previously followed the foreclosure of a series of wrong homes (here) while denying any liability for such errors. Now, we can add the names of Charlie and Maria Cardoso, a Massachusetts couple foreclosed despite [...

U.S. Curling Association Raises Money With ?Hurry Hard? Condoms

Posted on February 13, 2010
With the start of the Winter Olympics, one new accessory is being marketed by Kodiak Technology Group CEO Daniel Field to raise money for both the U.S. Curling Association and Monterey County AIDS Prevention. Now you can buy “Hurry Hard” condoms — named after the encouraging call of curling teams to sweep faster...

Professor Arrested for Murders at University of Alabama

Posted on February 13, 2010
The academic community is shocked by the news that not only were three faculty members murdered at the University of Alabama but that the suspect is a fellow academic. Amy Bishop, a biology professor, is facing murder charges in the shooting deaths of three faculty members and will be charged with the wounding of [...

Raptor Eats Cheerleader

Posted on February 12, 2010
There must be some National Association of Cheerleaders filing a complaint over this, but it is pretty funny. I can begin to understand why the Raptors set league attendance records — though you have to subtract the number of digested cheerleaders from the final number...

Video: Three Seattle Metro Guards Watch As Teenagers Rob and Beat Girl In Front of Them

Posted on February 12, 2010
This video is perfectly mind blowing. Three security guards in a Seattle Metro bus tunnel are shown watching a group of teenagers beat and rob a 15-year-old girl and do nothing to stop it beyond call 911. Olympic Security Services, a private firm in Tukwila, supplies the security officers under a contract that says that [...

Florida School Officials Scrap Plan To Use Stimulus Money To Handout $350,000 Worth of Free iPods

Posted on February 12, 2010
For those who are suspicious of the massive stimulus payments to states, they need look no further than the Polk County school district where officials announced that they would use stimulus money to give away $350,000 of free iPod Nanos. After media coverage, the school has backed down from its not-so-stimulating plan...

Heal Thyself: Doctor Sent to School After Swearing At Obese Patient

Posted on February 12, 2010
A surgeon in New Zealand has received a formal reprimand for using bad language in telling a severely obese patient to change her lifestyle. I wonder what the doctor in New Zealand said (in today’s story) after the teenager stole his puppy back to keep him from being euthanized, here...

Passing the Buck: Teenager Steals Dog to Prevent It From Being Euthanized

Posted on February 12, 2010
Police in New Zealand have an interesting necessity defense to deal with in a theft case. Bronson Stewart’s puppy, Buck, was hit by a car and neither Stewart, 19, or his father could afford the money to pin the puppy’s broken leg back together or the lower price to have the leg mputated...

Reid Blasts ABA Over Nevadan Nominee

Posted on February 12, 2010
Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., blasted the American Bar Association over its mixed evaluation of Gloria Navarro, his nominee to the United States District Court. Reid, who has previously relied on ABA ratings in opposing or supporting nominees, told the ABA to “get a new life...

Bad Pitch: Weight-Loss Pitchman Trudeau Held In Criminal Contempt

Posted on February 12, 2010
United States District Judge Robert Gettleman in Chicago has held infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau in contempt after Trudeau encouraged fans to write and call his chambers. The result was clogging the court’s email and phone system. Trudeau is the author of “The Weight Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About...

?CHIIE? Coins Become Instant Collectors? Item ? And National Embarrassment

Posted on February 12, 2010
It is a numismatists’ dream come true. The Chilean mint has issued thousands of 50-peso coins with Chile misspelled as C-H-I-I-E instead of C-H-I-L-E. The manager of the Chilean mint has been dismissed. While worth only about ten cents in face value, these coins are already valuable collectors’ items worth far more...

Obama Administration Blasts British Court For Disclosing Abuses at Guantanamo Bay

Posted on February 11, 2010
The Obama Administration has taken the rare step of criticizing a British court. Why? Because the court released a few paragraphs of a report that confirmed our abuse and torture of detainees. Spokesman Ben LaBolt denounced the release of the information and threatened to cut off access of the British to classified information [...

Welcome to the Black Hole

Posted on February 11, 2010
No, this is not a story about Congress. A new program shows what scientists believe it would look like to approach a black hole. Now, you can experience the light show without the inconvenience of being crushed to the size of a pea by the gravity. Thomas Müller and colleague Daniel Weiskopf of the [...

Iowa Legislator Seeks To Bar Courts From Using Precedent or Case Law

Posted on February 11, 2010
Republican Iowa legislator Jason Schultz has introduced legislation to rid the state courts of the scourge of . . . precedent. Schultz wants to pass a law that prohibits the “use [of] judicial precedent, case law, penumbras, or international law...

Cat Starts Fire in Family Home . . . Dog Saves Family

Posted on February 11, 2010
It is no secret that I am a dog person and I have taken heat for my warnings about a widespread cat conspiracy to enslave humans (here). However, you cannot ignore the story out of Lake Worth, Florida where Bubba, a Golden Retriever, saved a sleeping family by alerting them to a fire ...

?You Say You Want A Revolution?: How To Reform Our Political System

Posted on February 11, 2010
This month, members of Congress have introduced an amendment to the Constitution to reverse a recent ruling by the Supreme Court to allow Congress to regulate corporation engaged in political speech. Constitutional reform is no simple task. However, if we are finally ready to amend the Constitution to achieve political reform, why not make [...

LAWDRAGON: VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE LAWYERS

Posted on February 11, 2010
For many, voting for your favorite lawyers is akin to voting for your favorite parasitic worm, but LawDragon has announced the roughly 3,000 lawyers who made the cut as National Finalists to the annual selection of the top 500 lawyers. I am thankful to have been nominated (here), but the greatest interest is who [...

Rap Sleet II: Pennsylvania Man Arrested for Blowing Snow on Plow Driver

Posted on February 11, 2010
If Charles Gill and Ryan Knight are looking at five years for throwing a snowball at a snow plow, one can only imagine what they would get using a weapon like a snow blower — a difference akin to a single-shot .22 caliber hand gun and a Thompson machine gun...

Sharia Court Grants Annulment to Arab Ambassador After Veiled Wife Turns Out To Have Facial Hair and Crossed Eyes

Posted on February 10, 2010
In Dubai, an Arab ambassador was given an annulment by a Sharia court from a woman who he claims used a niqab to hid her crossed eyes and facial hair. He claims to have only met the woman a few times before their marriage and she always wore a veil...

The Myth of Adonis: Indian Star Claims Heathrow Staff Passed Around Copies of His Full-Body Scan Pictures

Posted on February 10, 2010
Security officials have been struggling to assure travelers that full-body scans at airports are completely private and that records are destroys immediately. Those claims were undermined this week with allegations that airport employees copies and distributed pictures of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan in his naked body scanner at Heathrow...

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