I got nothing else to say, so I will just give you this- a cat in a banana split costume eating a banana:
Why not?
by John Cole| 56 Comments
This post is in: Cat Blogging, Open Threads
I got nothing else to say, so I will just give you this- a cat in a banana split costume eating a banana:
Why not?
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Fucked-up-edness
This is another one of those things that makes you wonder WTF is going on out there in the world:
Citing cases dating back as far as 1928, a judge has ruled that a young girl accused of running down an elderly woman while racing a bicycle with training wheels on a Manhattan sidewalk two years ago can be sued for negligence.
The ruling by the judge, Justice Paul Wooten of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, did not find that the girl was liable, but merely permitted a lawsuit brought against her, another boy and their parents to move forward.
The suit that Justice Wooten allowed to proceed claims that in April 2009, Juliet Breitman and Jacob Kohn, who were both 4, were racing their bicycles, under the supervision of their mothers, Dana Breitman and Rachel Kohn, on the sidewalk of a building on East 52nd Street. At some point in the race, they struck an 87-year-old woman named Claire Menagh, who was walking in front of the building and, according to the complaint, was “seriously and severely injured,” suffering a hip fracture that required surgery. She died three months later.
Her estate sued the children and their mothers, claiming they had acted negligently during the accident. In a response, Juliet’s lawyer, James P. Tyrie, argued that the girl was not “engaged in an adult activity” at the time of the accident — “She was riding her bicycle with training wheels under the supervision of her mother” — and was too young to be held liable for negligence.
In legal papers, Mr. Tyrie added, “Courts have held that an infant under the age of 4 is conclusively presumed to be incapable of negligence.” (Rachel and Jacob Kohn did not seek to dismiss the case against them.)
But Justice Wooten declined to stretch that rule to children over 4. On Oct. 1, he rejected a motion to dismiss the case because of Juliet’s age, noting that she was three months shy of turning 5 when Ms. Menagh was struck, and thus old enough to be sued.
This is why the world hates lawyers.
Life Is Pretty Much Downhill After the Breastfeeding StopsPost + Comments (281)
by John Cole| 61 Comments
This post is in: Dog Blogging, Assholes
For those of you keeping score at home, it takes approximately sixty seconds for a Jack Russell Terrier, once tied outside, to knock over the mums, knock over the pumpkin, and then get hopelessly tangled in a yard sign and then start yelping like you are being beaten.
Atta girl, Rosie.
by DougJ| 87 Comments
This post is in: I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own, Pink Himalayan Salt
Henry Farrell has written the definitive Megan McArdle put-down piece. He lists several examples of where she lied or volubly heh-indeeded some other wingers’ lies and failed to correct herself when she was caught out on it. And he makes a good general point:
While I believe that there is an excellent case for intellectual charity when one is dealing with someone whom one does not know, or who usually seems straightforward, intelligent and honest, I also believe that it is positively harmful to intellectual life to extend such charity to people who engage in persistent obfuscation and shoddy argument over a period of years.
If people don’t want to be mocked as pernicious charlatans, they should strive to be more accurate. And I say the same thing about the epic level of VSP whining about the Colbert-Stewart rallies: if media/political elites don’t want to be seen as buffoons, they should stop acting like buffoons.
by Kay| 114 Comments
This post is in: Education, Election 2010, Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, DC Press Corpse, Flash Mob of Hate
Jean Schmidt delivers Republican campaign message to 1st graders at a Catholic school:
Parents of Cincinnati elementary school students are upset over remarks made by U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt. She reportedly brought up the abortion issue in front of children as young as 6. The school’s principal sent a letter home to parents on that same day informing them that the topic of abortion came up during Schmidt’s appearance.
Here’s part of the apology letter the school sent parents after Mean Jean turned a civics forum into a stealth campaign event:
I do not recall the exact words she used, but she paused towards the end of her speech and stated that this would be the only time when she would be ‘political’ in her address. She defined abortion as the taking of a child’s life in the mother’s womb. She indicated that abortion involves the killing of a child before it is born. She was not graphic or any more detailed in this regard. Later, when a child asked about it, she indicated that an abortion is something that a doctor does when a mother requests this.
The school’s principal asked that parents keep the incident within the parent community to avoid the school becoming “embroiled in any sort of political controversy during an election season.”
Reading the school’s letter, it’s clear Schmidt carefully and deliberately inserted the anti-abortion speech, because she actually prefaced it with an announcement she was now going to be “political” and a child asked a question on abortion only “later”, after she delivered her stump speech.
Schmidt is a war-mongering clown, so I’m not surprised she’s blatantly pushing the GOP political agenda on 1st graders in the week before an election but the incident brought this particularly brutal and cruel media-generated “controversy” to mind:
President Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to public school students on Tuesday has set off a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas and are asking school officials to excuse the children from listening.
The uproar over the speech, in which Mr. Obama intends to urge students to work hard and stay in school, has been particularly acute in Texas, where several major school districts, under pressure from parents, have laid plans to let children opt out of lending the president an ear.
It was complete bullshit, of course. Reagan and Bush I did the same thing, and no one batted an eyelash. FOX News promoted the lie, mainstream media picked it up and it was treated it as a legitimate controversy. Complete bullshit, ginned up by conservative activists and treated as fact.
There have been tens of false charges leveled against Obama in the last two years but this one hit me hard. It was so clearly malicious and mean-spirited. It was about barring the schoolhouse door not to The President, but to this President. It was about denying his legitimacy as President, but it went further. It was about assuming he had the absolute worst intentions, and insisting he prove he didn’t. It was about questioning his character with not a shred of evidence to back up the allegation, and making him sit for a test that has been applied to no other President in my memory, but one that this President, uniquely, has been forced to take again and again.
“Did President Obama set out to indoctrinate 1st graders? Perhaps! Discuss”.
“Will President Obama seat a death panel to deny senior citizens medical care? Perhaps! Discuss.”
President Obama passed the school entrance test that conservative activists insisted that national media administer. He was grudgingly and with great reluctance permitted to address school children, where he urged them to work hard and stay in school.
That national media went along with this blatantly race-based nonsense and gave him a test prior to admission that no other public figure in my memory has been forced to take is something I won’t forget, or forgive.
by DougJ| 92 Comments
This post is in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute, Our Failed Media Experiment
Jonah Goldberg calls for Julian Assange’s murder.
He (Assange) told the New Yorker earlier this year that he fully understands innocent people might die as a result of the “collateral damage” of his work and that WikiLeaks may have “blood on our hands.” WikiLeaks is easily among the most significant and well-publicized breaches of American national security since the Rosenbergs gave the Soviets the bomb.
So again, I ask: Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?
It’s a serious question.
Of course, this is nowhere near as bad as using the word curb-stomping in a post.
When hundreds of thousands of Iraqis die as a result of “collateral damage”, that just proves freedom is messy. It also earns the architects of the collateral damage Medals of Freedom, natch.
If you don’t think that the right is serious about using violence to take power, you’re not paying attention.
(h/t BGinChi)
by John Cole| 85 Comments
This post is in: Bring on the Brawndo!
The NY Times has an op-ed on why lethal injection is in fact tantamount to torture, and I can’t help but think writing about this is just an exercise in futility. The American people are about to go to the polls and elect a large number of people who enthusiastically embrace torture of anyone the government yanks off the street. Does anyone think they give a shit if a condemned man is tortured?
I’m really very pessimistic about the future. But hey, all the right people will probably get some more tax cuts.