November 20, 2006

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I Can Link You Under The Table

• A couple is suing Starbucks, claiming that their child was severely burned when she spilled a hot chocolate on herself. Apparently, the parents gave this scalding hot drink to their child, while she was strapped into a car seat, in a moving car, and they did so without first testing the drink to see how hot it was. If you give a kid (age unknown, but young enough to be strapped into a car seat) a drink in anything but a sippy cup and put her in a moving car, the chances of that drink spilling all over her are on the latter side of a scale from 1 to idiot. The fact that you do so with a beverage whose name includes the word "hot" means that your child's genetics are so unfortunate that she is probably better off dying by being boiled alive in her beverage than growing up and finding out that she's doomed to be as dumb as her parents.



• Someone's Wiimote has already snapped off of its strap and gone flying, apparently smashing into and cracking a 60-inch television. The most innovative aspect of the Wii engineering was how its tech team convinced its legal department to greenlight the thing. Why not let the advertising department in on the secret, so that they can include a free lollipop-shaped cigar in every Wii box, and run commercials featuring busty sixteen year-olds using the Wiimote to pleasure themselves? I hereby predict a class-action lawsuit seeking damages for an entire generation having arthritic rotator cuffs.
• Several European cities have done away with traffic signs, signals, painted lines, and sidewalks. Entirely. The idea is that the unregulated, uncertain situation will cause drivers naturally to be wary and therefore cautious and safe. Right. Because it works so well in India, Mexico, and China. Actually, I think this really could work, but only in low-traffic situations. The road on which I live has no traffic signs or lines, and things work out fine. But can you imagine K Street on a weekday morning without "WALK" and "DON'T WALK" signs? Oh wait, someone already has.
• I don't even like Dilbert, but here I am linking to its creator's blog for the second time in as many weeks. Scott Adams post, "Atheists: The New Gays," points out (favorably) that public atheism seems to be on the rise, and ties it into what small-minded Christians see as the rise of Islamic extremism.

  I think the hidden benefit of Islamic extremism is that it freed the atheists from their closets. The old mindset in the United States was that almost any religion was good, and atheism was bad. But since 9/11, atheism has moved above Islam in the rankings, at least in the minds of Christians and Jews in the United States... Ask a deeply religious Christian if he’d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don’t seem so bad lately.

  I outed myself years ago. I am flamboyantly, fabulously atheistic. I'm the atheistic equivalent of assless leather pants-wearing, rainbow flag-waving, PRIDE parade float-riding homosexual. I am promiscuous, seeking to share my freedom from religion with as many others as possible. I don't understand why everyone isn't.

• A district court dismissed a Fair Housing Act suit against Craigslist, brought by the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. They claimed Craigslist was in violation of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 because they didn't actively filter out discriminatory housing ads. Craigslist claimed protection under the Communications Decency Act, which shields web forums from liability for postings by their users. Personally, as one who has found housing on Craigslist multiple times, I can confirm that discriminatory ads (as defined in the act) are rampant on there. I've often wondered whether anyone had ever tried to sue them for it. And even though Craigslist has (rightfully) escaped liability, the individuals who post those ads are still liable. I wonder what Craigslist's data retention policies are. Anyway, the sort of discrimination on Craigslist ads are usually not the sort that I find particularly reprehensible. I've never seen any ads that overtly racially discriminate. Thankfully, people are smart enough to save that for when things aren't in writing.



• A couple of old nudists apparently think that the key to ending war is orgasms. From the activists who brought you Baring Witness. "The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it," said Reffell, 55. "Your mind is like a blank. It's like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change." Yeaaaaahhhh... I'm all for it, but I don't think it's gonna do anything about the war. Oh, wait. They have a helpful Flash demo of how the whole thing will work. Now I understand.
• Is a counterclaim for attorneys' fees in a copyright case a valid cause of action, independent from any other counterclaims? The RIAA doesn't think so. Perhaps we need an expansion of Copyright Misuse doctrine to cover these situations. I'm sure Congress will get to that right after Howard Berman gets done repealing the DMCA. I'll hold my breath.

Posted at November 20, 2006 10:55 PM | Comments (7)

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