Occupy Wall Street Has Something for Everyone

Politics, economic debate, and now hot chicks.

And incredible bad asses:

And even judges with some balls (ok, this was in Nashville)

Vaginal Obsession – TSA, you’re doing it wrong

If you had to create a chart of the things I like and the things I don’t like, vaginas and the TSA would clearly be at opposite ends. The vagina is truly a wonderful thing, when properly cared for. Your mileage may vary depending on diet, grooming, genetics, and a host of other factors. But, in general, vaginas are a wonderful thing.

The TSA is not a vagina. It is not even vagina like. Even though it is run by a bunch of twats, it can’t even get close to being in the vagina zone when it comes to coolness.

I’ve never hidden my hatred for the TSA.  When I go through security, I always opt for the pat-down, and I make sure to make it difficult for the agent. Why? Because when I was in basic training, they taught us that it is our duty to make captivity as difficult for our captors as possible. I harass TSA employees when I see them in public, reminding them in grocery stores, theaters and anywhere else I find them that they are low forms of shit, and I advocate that we all do the same).  They are only doing their jobs? Well so was John Demjanjuk.

As much as I hate the TSA, I must admit that we have something in common: We both got a thing for vaginas. Of course, I prefer mine to be over the age of consent — the TSA harbors no such prejudices. Nope, not at all.

But, if I may be so pompous as to declare myself qualified to offer instruction on how to care for and attract vagina — TSA, you’re doing it wrong.

The TSA’s latest victim is prominent feminist blogger Jill Filipovic, of Feministe fame.  Ms. Filipovic recently took a trip to Dublin and, upon arriving, found a note from a TSA agent who’d discovered a vibrator in her luggage:

“GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” (source)

She reacted in a way that was noticeably un-second-wavy of her — with a sense of humor. She wrote:

Total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not ok, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room. (source)

The TSA’s reaction to this incident was predictable, given how it responds to terror threats: Namely, it enacted a remedy that will never be useful in the future. The screener got shitcanned.

But, is that really what anyone wanted? Filipovic has as much right as anyone to demand that this TSAsshole lose his or her job. Nevetheless, she did not call for the agent’s head. (She admirably dislikes Coldplay more than she dislikes this Agent).

It’s easy to scape-goat one individual here, but the problem with the note is that it’s representative of the bigger privacy intrusions that the U.S. government, through the TSA and other sources, levels every day. The invasion is inherent to the TSA’s mission, regardless of whether a funny note is left behind — the note only serves to highlight the absurdity of all this security theater. (source)

Filipovic went on to write that she is pleased that the TSA took the issue seriously, but firing one person who made a dumb mistake really misses the whole point.

I get no satisfaction in hearing that someone may be in danger of losing their job over this. I would much prefer a look at why ‘security’ has been used to justify so many intrusions on our civil liberties, rather than fire a person who made a mistake. (source)

Instead, the TSA seems to treat this as an isolated incident — or a failure by one of its drones. Meanwhile, the actual issue, which Filipovic tried to make us think about, is lost in the guffaws over the gooey gewgaw.

After we get done chuckling about Filipovic being anonymously told to “get her freak on,” I hope that we can think about how the TSA’s Freudian field day with our reproductive organs demonstrates the absurd nature of its very existence, the failure of its mission, the lie that it represents. It hasn’t got a damn thing to do with keeping us safe. I wish that we could think about how you should never try and have an agency devoted to such a high-falutin goal like airline safety, when you staff it with low-grade morons who are not fit to reproduce, let alone do anything else. Anyone who even wants that job must be a twisted, broken, loser; the kind of person who has lamented their loss of power ever since they left third grade and had to return the “hall monitor” sash to the principal’s office. Next time you are at the airport, just try detecting any intellect in the TSA agents you encounter. You will fail in that task. That alone should tell you that the agency has no reason to exist. If the job were actually important, we would never hire people who are this desperate, stupid, or lazy, to try and do it. And, when you give a powerless idiot a little bit of control, that misused power will find its own center, and that center is apparently our ‘nads.

Filipovic’s experience is no mere outlier. Take the recent tale of Amy Alkon — my client. The TSA only pried into what Ms. Filipovic inserts in her vagina; in Amy Alkon’s case, the TSA actually went up in there.  Repeatedly.  Four times over.  Naturally, Ms. Alkon did not like this and used her free speech rights to express her outrage over the event, shining the light of truth upon the TSA’s misdeeds, and calling the agent’s actions “rape.” Filipovic herself reports that even the FBI would agree with this assessment.  Unlike Filipovic, Alkon did not (so far) find out that her tormentor was fired. Ms. Alkon received a demand letter for $500,000 from Thedala Magee, the TSA agent with whom she had her little run-in. (Well, from her lawyer, but you get the point). 

It might have been undignified for the screener to scrawl a note about Filipovic’s sex toy – but unfortunately, that seems to be where the bureaucracy got hung up, and the real discussion about civil liberties got swept under the carpet — again.

Oregon: No Country for Old SLAPPers

Hello, world! As the latest victim to roam the halls of The Legal Satyrcon headquarters, it’s my pleasure to kick things off with a little story of SLAPP suits gone wrong in the Pacific Northwest.

Crystal Cox is a woman on a mission. She obviously does not like Oregon attorney Kevin Padrick or his company Obsidian Finance Group and she has harnessed the power of the internet to make her feelings about him public. Blogging at a website with the creative url http://www.obsidianfinancesucks.com/ Ms. Cox aired a number of grievances about Padrick and his financial services company. Padrick responded by doing what many crybabies do when people say mean things about them on the internet: he sued her for defamation.

Although Ms. Cox seems to be guilty of many crimes against good graphic design and standard capitalization, her blog posts on the subject of Obsidian Financial should fall under the shimmery force field of First Amendment protection because if you can’t bitch about people you don’t like on the web, then the terrorists have won. The U.S. District Court in Oregon seems to agree, because it recently granted the defendant Ms. Cox summary judgment for the vast majority of the blog posts she published.

Back in July, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment because Ms. Cox’s blog posts were protected by the First Amendment. Because her online diatribes amount to her opinion, the blog posts are not actionable. The court applied the Ninth Circuit Three Factor test for determining whether a reasonable factfinder could see the blog posts as reasonable assertions of fact:

 (1) whether in the broad context, the general tenor of the entire work, including the subject of the statements, the setting, and the format, negates the impression that the defendant was asserting an objective fact;

(2) whether the context and content of the specific statements, including the use of figurative and hyperbolic language, and the reasonable expectations of the audience, negate that impression; and

(3) whether the statement is sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false.  Gardner, 563 F.3d at 987.

Applying these factors to Ms. Cox’s writing, the court concluded that one would generally not go to a website called “obsidianfinancesucks” for an evenhanded reporting of objective facts. The court rightly recognized that they were dealing with a gripe site; one that was full of delightfully one-sided rants and dedicated to the hyperbolic venting of Ms. Cox’s personal feuds. In short, her blog posts her opinion. The opinion makes clear that blogs are especially prone to opinionated content and not a great source for cold, hard facts. Bloggers who wish to follow her example should make sure they stay away from posting provable (or disprovable) assertions, but should feel confident in the knowledge that when the bile gets too high they can spew it as long as they stick to their own opinions.

The Oregon District Court did see room for possible liability with just one of the many, many blog posts at the heart of this lawsuit. An article she wrote for another site was full of language that could imply assertions of fact, including specific allegations that the plaintiffs failed to pay their taxes. Ms. Cox is apparently representing herself, so you can’t blame her for not taking advantage of every protection the law affords. Oregon, like Nevada, has an anti-SLAPP statute designed to protect people from harassing lawsuits whose only real purpose is to chill speech with legal threats and the grim specter of defamation litigation. OR. REV. STAT. §§ 31.150 et seq. (2001) gives defendants in speech-related civil actions a special motion to strike that they can use to have the Court dismiss the suit at an early stage unless the plaintiff can show that there is a probability that they will actually prevail on the claim. Generally, the anti-SLAPP provision is available for any lawsuit arising from speech regarding government proceedings or in a public forum in connection with an issue of public interest. There is also a catch all for speech for conduct in furtherance of the exercise of the constitutional right of petition or the constitutional right of free speech in connection with a public issue or an issue of public interest.

Getting Sued for Being Mean

Unlike Lance Armstrong, Michael O’Connell also has a neck scar. (source)  His coworkers decided it would be jolly good fun to call him “uni-ball” and “cut-throat”.  Apparently, Mr. O’Connell had a problem with that.  He already had some form of anxiety disorder, so he claimed he was being harassed and somehow that implicated his disability.  He was subsequently canned.

Forgetting that filing a lawsuit would mean that the public would now be apprised of his deeply personal loss, Mr. O’Connell decided to sue his former employer for discrimination, IIED, and retaliation.  Judge is allowing the IIED claim and retaliation claim to stand. (Decision)  The retaliation claim is one of my favorites:  Judge found the guy didn’t properly prosecute the discrimination claim itself.  But, even if you don’t have a valid discrimination claim, it is still unlawful to be fired for making a bogus discrimination claim.  Technically, you could accuse everyone you work with of being racist, sexist bigots, and you cannot be fired for it, no matter how poorly it affects office morale to be accused of being a racist, sexist bigot daily.  I don’t know anyone who has ever tried this, but it would be an interesting case.  It would take a lot of something Mr. O’Connell lacks.

The IIED claim is an interesting one.  Typically, you cannot sue your boss for an injury, including emotional injury, that occurs on the job; that’s why we have workers’ compensation.  It is meant to get you speedy medical and replacement wage benefits in exchange for not being able to sue the boss.  (The medical benefits were a fantastic thing for workers 100 years ago; nowadays, with most people having insurance, it makes things more complicated.)  But, there are state variations and, for egregious conduct, apparently Mr. O’Connell was found to have stated a valid claim in his jurisdiction.

It is an interesting tort, like bullying laws, that significantly restricts freedom of speech.  How mean are you allowed to be to someone before you owe them for their therapy bills?  The most inappropriate man may need to be careful if he dares criticize a resident of Illinois.

 

Fisker Cars to be built in Finland, after taking a $529 million U.S. government backed loan

And the imbeciles are not happy.

Fisker says that he could not find a plant in the U.S. to assemble his new flagship vehicle, so he went to Finland to build the car — creating 500 jobs in Finland. (source) Fisker says that once the $97,000 Fisker Karma takes hold, it will help move his plan for a lower cost sedan, which he plans to build in Delaware.

What nobody is yelling about is why he couldn’t find a facility in the United States that was ready to go. We let most of our plants go to pot, our work-force is uneducated and lazy, and it costs more to employ an American than even a Finn — even though you generally pay the Finn a higher salary. Why? Because you don’t need to pay a Finn’s health care costs.

I took a drive through Buffalo, NY with my father-in-law, and he pointed out all of the places where automotive manufacturing plants used to be. An abandoned building here, a burned out complex there, all the places that supported families and funneled parts over to Detroit, its sister-in-pain. The next day, I drove to Toronto. On the way, I saw Ford’s massive, gleaming, modern, facility. Why is it there? Because when you employ a Canadian, chances are you’re not getting some lazy dipshit, and when you pay him $50,000 a year, you’re not also throwing $15,000 on top of that for health care costs.

Thanks Republicans.

Skinny Puppy returns

By J. DeVoy

Just a few days before Halloween, my silent prayer to satan was (partially) intercepted by Ogre, Cevin Key and Mark Walk, who hath given the world its latest Skinny Puppy album, titled “hanDover”.  Gloriously, this is some of SP’s darkest work yet – which, for those familiar with the outfit, is quite the statement.

 

Yay Democracy!!! Oh, um… oh… err…

Oh, um… oh shit… not THAT kind of Democracy…

Tunisians revolt to throw off a repressive regime, and vote in an Islamist regime.

Pure Evil

By J. DeVoy

Looks like this.

h/t Roosh.

Sometimes the Internets are really mean…

And sometimes, they are a wellspring of awesome sweetness. See this reddit thread. Jesus fuck. I really did not want my faith in humanity restored today. Tough shit for me, I guess.

H/T: Ken @ Popehat

Happy Halloweenie!

Up next from the “Chrissakes will you lighten up” department: It takes a special group of people to try to ruin Halloween. A handful of college students in Ohio (who have likely never had sex with a partner) are protesting certain Halloween costumes. Source. Their “I’m a culture, not a costume” ad campaign has a sufficiently forlorn looking collection of ethnically diverse students next to Halloween costumes that portray their particular ethnic background while holding a sign that says“This is not who I am and this is NOT OKAY”. There’s an asian chick in front of a geisha costume, a middle eastern guy in front of a terrorist costume,  a latino guy in front of a pistolero costume- you get the idea.

Since whitey didn’t make it into the campaign, may I, on behalf of my Norwegian brothers and sisters, be the first to protest the slutty Viking motif being peddled by these guys?  I can assure you Viking women never wore silver pleather. MAD FACE! And my catholic friend takes issue with the priest / nun costumes. Nuns don’t wear fishnet stockings! That’s offensive! My Wiccan buddy most definitely does NOT have green skin and PETA just called. Don’t even think about dressing up as a cat this year. What’s next? No “Occupy Wall Street” costumes because it’s insensitive to hippies? These are the kind of assholes that hand out apples and scented erasers to trick-R-treaters instead of candy.

Amazing Hooker Shape Shifts Into a Donkey!

We’ve all woken up in the morning with someone and thought “jesus, she looked a lot better in the dim lights and through the beer goggles.” The usual result? An uncomfortable bit of silence, an “I’ll call you later,” which never happens, and your buddies make fun of you a bit the next day.

Therefore, we can all identify with poor Sunday Moyo. Well, maybe not entirely.

Sunday Moyo, 28, was found by police officers performing a sex act on the donkey, who was lying on the ground tied to a tree, just after 4:00am local time, a court in Zvishavane, about 185 miles (300 kilometers) south of the capital Harare, heard. (source)

Don’t judge. Not yet.

When he was brought before the court, Mr. Moyo had the best story ever.

Although he was not formally asked to enter a plea, Moyo admitted committing the crime but told the magistrate an enthralling tale which had the court in stitches.

“Your worship, I only came to know that I was being intimate with a donkey when I got arrested,” he began.
“I had hired a prostitute and paid US$20 for the service at Down Town night club and I don’t know how she then became a donkey.” (source)

I’ve been to Bangkok and Tijuana, and lots of other shady places. I’ve seen hookers shoot darts out of their vaginas across a room and hit the target every time, pull strings of razor blades out of their cooch without a single nick, and all kinds of other amazing magical hooker tricks. The fact is, hookers are magic just like unicorns. So, who knows… maybe Mr. Sunday is telling the truth. Although, it does seem to violate The Five Rules of Shape Shifting.

No no… don’t judge yet.

He also claimed he was in love with the animal, telling the court, “I think I am also a donkey. I do not know what happened when I left the bar, but I am seriously in love with [the] donkey,” The Herald newspaper reported. (source)

Ok, you are now clear to judge.

The First Amendment is for Christians Only

Oh Flori-duh, you never fail to amuse.

Clay County Pastor, Ron Baker of Russell Baptist Church in Green Cover Springs, FL holds weekly prayer sessions near the Clay Hill Elementary school’s flagpole. To make sure that everyone knows about it, the school principal, LArry Davis put out a newsletter supporting the prayer meetings. (source) That’s a no-brainer violation of the First Amendment.

But principal Davis has a way around that. In his newsletter announcing the meetings, he wrote:

“Pastor Steven Andrew states: ‘Our children need God back in schools,’ and he is calling Christians nationwide to bring back the Holy Bible and Christian prayer to schools … The First Amendment was for Christianity, not other religions.” (source)

Davis told the Florida Times-Union that, despite the passage in his newsletter, he doesn’t feel that the First Amendment only applies to Christians. Seems like an ineffective backpedal to me. Read the passage for yourself.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the school superintendent informing him of the fact that Davis’ conduct violates the First Amendment. The Superintendent said that Davis went too far, and asked Pastor Baker to stop holding the prayer meetings at the elementary school.

Like any good christian, Baker refused. “I think if I were to stop, it somehow sends the message that I think it must be wrong,” he said. Because whether it is insisting that the Earth is the center of the universe, or that there is an almighty space being who gets mad if two guys cocks touch each other, if there is one thing that christianity teaches us, it is “never, ever, ever, ever admit you are wrong, no matter how fucking retarded your views are proven to be.”

Nazi-named Kids Taken From Parents

Heath and Deborah Campbell named their kids Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie. They drew national attention when they asked a New Jersey ShopRite to prepare a swastika birthday cake. This, naturally, prompted the state to consider whether the Campbells were fit parents. An appeals court today held that they should not regain custody of their children. (source)

No love for nazis around here, and I certainly do not think that reproduction should be a right. The Campbells, pretty clearly by my standards, would be good candidates for forced sterilization. Not because of their political views, but just because the world population has now hit 7 billion, and the vast majority of them are incredibly stupid and causing the devolution of the species into a feces-slinging, filth wallowing sack of protoplasm — Homo Walmartus. The Campbells are a good example of this, and in a perfect world they would not have been permitted to spawn.

But, I am still deeply troubled that an existing family can be dismantled by the state at all — let alone because the parents have deeply unpopular political views. The article on the Campbells states that the court found “sufficient evidence of abuse or neglect existed because of domestic violence in the home.” (source) It seems, from reports about the family, that the home is completely screwed up beyond all recognition, but it certainly seems that they were targeted for their views. Good people may say “good, nazis suck.” But, when we make exceptions to general principles because we hate nazis, we’ve opened the door to the second exception, and from there the third, and so on.

Marco Rubio, the Birthers, Batista, Castro, and a little Cuban History

At least we now know that the “birthers” are non-partisan. They are descending upon Marco Rubio. (source)

Of course, the birthers are as stupid as ever. Rubio was clearly born in Flori-duh, and we still have “birthright citizenship.” End of that story.

On the other hand, it seems that Marco Rubio has been a little less than forthcoming about when the Rubios got to the United States. (source)

During his rise to political prominence, Sen. Marco Rubio frequently repeated a compelling version of his family’s history that had special resonance in South Florida. He was the “son of exiles,” he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after “a thug,” Fidel Castro, took power.

But a review of documents — including naturalization papers and other official records — reveals that the Florida Republican’s account embellishes the facts. The documents show that Rubio’s parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than two-and-a-half years before Castro’s forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year’s Day 1959. (source)

But if the Rubios left Cuba at that time, rather then when he lied about them leaving, well that would make me respect the Rubio family more. At that time, Cuba was ruled by Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar. Batista was by all measures, a fascist. He suspended the Cuban Constitution, civil liberties were nonexistent. Further, like Rubio today, he decided to cozy up to the big landowners and rich guys in Cuba to help them get richer at the expense of the average Cuban, who simply descended into deeper and deeper misery. Rather than give a shit about his own people, and not content to simply align himself with the upper 1% in Cuba, he made sure to also bring American organized crime into his circle of cronies. When the Cuban people got pissy about it, he decided to react by censoring the media and having his secret police force torture and kill “disloyal” Cubans, murdering approximately 20,000 of his fellow countrymen.

Nice guy, huh?

So the Rubio family left a Cuba ruled by this asshole? Good for them. In fact, if Rubio were telling the truth, about fleeing once Castro came to power, I would have a lot less trust in him. In 1959, Castro was seen as the leader of a popular uprising, and a revolution of necessity and national liberation. Chances are, if you fled Cuba in 1959, you were one of Batista’s cronies. You know, the murdering, torturing, organized-crime aligned fascists. Sure, Castro wound up being pretty much same as the old boss, and of course, many Cubans fled once that became apparent. Those Cubans could properly be described as fleeing tyranny. But in this case, Rubio could earn a lot more of my respect by acknowledging that his family fled from the Batista regime.

But then, his political base wouldn’t think too much of him. There is a damn good reason why Jeb Bush put Batista’s grandson on the Florida Supreme Court. Batista would have been very much at home in today’s Republican party.

Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum

By Jay Wolman

As the newest Satyriconista, with a practice of civil litigation and employment law in Boston, I thought I’d begin my first post with something high-brow.  Everything sounds better in Latin.  This was St. Augustine’s way of saying “Hate the player, not the game”.  Fast forward 1500 years and the message remains relevant.

David Madden, the now former mayor of Weymouth, Massachusetts, a small town about a half hour south of Boston, is the player.  The public sector pension system is the game.  He is getting a lot of flack for manipulating the system to his benefit.  Unlike most private sector pensions (union pensions excluded), public sector pension benefits in many jurisdictions, including Massachusetts, are not determined solely by how much the worker contributes to the system (defined contribution), but rather include benefits based on status or job classification (defined benefit).  [Yes, pensions are far more complicated than that, but nuance does not matter for this discussion.]  It seems that Mayor Madden would make an extra $30k per year by retiring as Fire Chief rather than Mayor.  So, Mayor Madden did some nifty maneuvering with the help of his pals:  He takes leave from the position of Mayor at the end of his second term, appointing his buddy, the Town Solicitor (i.e. the top lawyer) as interim Mayor.  The incumbent Fire Chief takes a voluntary demotion and the Solicitor (now Mayor) appoints Mayor Madden as Fire Chief.  Two days later, without showing up to work, Fire Chief Madden retires and puts in for the higher pension.  And the Town approves it (the State is fighting it, but has lost in Court so far).

Now, not every Mayor can get away with this–Mr. Madden actually was the Fire Chief before becoming Mayor.  He technically took a leave of absence, meaning he had this in the works for eight years.  And his buddies go along with it.  Sure, it looks bad, but this is the system that was set up and no laws appear to have been broken.  I actually feel bad for Mayor Madden; he has to pay legal fees to defend what the law allowed him to do (although I am a lawyer, it is a personal pet peeve that “loser pays” is not the American Rule.)  If my fellow Massachusetts residents don’t like what he did, they shouldn’t take it out against Mayor Madden, they should change the rules.  Hard to do when the legislators also game the system, but not impossible.

Here’s a thought for my first post as a Satyriconista:  eliminate pensions.  I’m not saying we renege on current promises, but I’ve wondered why we even have this complicated mess. (I know, they are the result of WWII wage freezes.)  As we are no longer at war with the Axis powers, I don’t know anyone who really thinks “Hey, boss, I know I’m doing all this hard work for you now, but I don’t want you to pay me for all of it now.  I think it would be great if you held on to a portion so you could give it to me in thirty years.  I trust you to handle it more than I trust myself.  And I know you’ll pay every penny.“