Assorted Stupidity #127
- The Germans might want to tweak their law that allows a defendant to have a "last word" after a conviction. Nothing wrong with the law itself, really, they just might want to put a time limit on it, since a defendant used it last week to talk for five days. "Defendants generally use the time to show remorse, or say nothing," according to the report, but convicted bank robber Michael Jauernik didn't do either of those things. The filibuster attempt did not prevent him from being sentenced to 12 years in prison.
- Also talking more than he should: Michael Rotondo, who became temporarily semi-famous for refusing to move out of his parents' home for so long (he was 30 at the time) that they finally had him evicted. Rotondo, who had at one point been employed, got fired from that job and then sued his former employer for allegedly discriminating against him as "a man and a father." How'd that turn out? "[B]aseless and unsupported allegations" that did "not come close" to meeting the requirements for a discrimination case, a federal judge held last week, so, not great.
- Speaking of brilliant ideas, you may recall the recent report that President (and Stable Genius) Trump was interested in adding a moat to his big beautiful border wall, said moat to be stocked with alligators and snakes. Or maybe you don't, because that was something like 87 bizarre Trump-related stories ago. Well, he did, and was sufficiently serious about it that staff members reportedly did some sort of cost assessment. That memo, if any, is still secret-though I assume someone is feverishly trying to get it-but the Defense One website has run some of the numbers. Pretty pricey, it turns out.
- According to AFP, a Russian man has sued Apple for one million rubles (about $15,500), alleging that an iPhone app made him gay. The plaintiff reportedly alleges that he was trying to order Bitcoin but received "GayCoin" instead, and that it was accompanied by a note saying, "Don't judge until you try." This convinced him to try same-sex relationships, he alleges. Apparently they were to his liking, yet he is still complaining. "Now I have a boyfriend and I do not know how to explain this to my parents," the complaint alleges.
- I am skeptical of this report, though not of course because humans are too smart to file such a lawsuit. Many reputable organizations have run the story- which is why I'm repeating it-all of them citing AFP, which is said to have seen a copy of the complaint. But no one else seems to have a copy, and the story doesn't appear on AFP's own website, so far as I can tell. Also, while humans are dumb, it seems unlikely that someone who doesn't "know how to explain this" to his parents would decide to just announce it in a lawsuit. GayCoin appears to be a real thing, at least, to the extent any kind of cryptocurrency can be considered "real."
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