Assorted Stupidity #165
So! My power was out this week. Did anything important happen? No? Great, let's do this then.
- And let's start with a good old-fashioned crook-shot-himself-in-the-butt-with-the-gun-hidden-in-his-pants story, namely this one from Kent, Washington. Police quickly determined that this was, in fact, linked to the case of a man who had arrived at a nearby hospital that afternoon with a buttocks-involved gunshot wound. Police said the gun was stolen and the suspect was a convicted felon, which might or might not be a problem for him. I mean, it used to be that convicted felons weren't allowed access to weapons but that may not be the law anymore.
- That was one of the best-selling pizzas," a police spokesman in Dusseldorf told reporters, referring to item number 40 on a restaurant's menu. That's because item number 40" meant the pizza would come with a side of cocaine. Suspicious food inspectors reportedly tipped off police, who had little trouble discovering why Number 40 was so popular.
- An ambulance-chasing attorney in Oregon has filed a $2 million lawsuit on behalf of the victim, The Oregonian reports. Well, in this case he's chasing the ambulance company because its ambulance allegedly ran over his client, so that seems acceptable. One could argue that if you must be hit by a vehicle, an ambulance is the one to be hit by, because at least they will probably go ahead and rush you to the hospital. That happened here, so that's good, but according to the attorney the ambulance company then charged his client $1,862 for the ride its drivers made necessary in the first place, so that's ... good in a very different sense.
- Is it wrong for a lawyer to gamble (literally) with client money and then lie to ethics investigators about having cancer? Yes! Yes it is. Former California lawyer Sergio Valdovinos learned this recently upon being disbarred. He claimed the hearing judge was biased, saying she embarrassed" him by asking whether he would assert gambling addiction as a mitigating factor. The review board decided the question was not unreasonable" since he had gambled away $885,535 in just two years. Valdovinos also lied about the most easily verifiable facts," such as whether he had actually received extensive chemotherapy at a hospital where he didn't.
- People are just overwhelmed," said a traffic-school participant quoted in this article suggesting road-rage incidents are on the rise. Maybe. But the article cited no data showing overwhelmedness is getting worse or even that road-rage incidents are increasing in general. It did cite data that the number of people injured or killed by guns in such incidents has doubled since 2018, but that might mean only that more drivers are carrying guns. Other evidence was anecdotal, including the teacher's claim that he has personally dealt with road-rage cases in Texas involving guns, knives, icepicks, 2-by-4s, tire tools, PVC pipe, plumbing pipe, bats, hammers, shovels, hatchets, ball bearings, marbles, frozen water bottles, bricks, stones and, in at least one instance, a spear."
- Okay, but did any of those incidents involve a trident? Cause this one did, and that was 16 years ago now and it happened in normally calm New Zealand. Let me know when Texan drivers start routinely using tridents and I'll start to believe things are getting worse.
- Seriously, let me know, because I expect that will happen sometime next week.
- The ABA Journal reported this month on the constitutional sheriff" movement, a subject of Jessica Pishko's new book, The Highest Law in the Land. As the title suggests, supporters say sheriffs are answerable only to voters directly, that state and federal governments have no power over them, and that only sheriffs have the power to determine how the Constitution will be interpreted in their counties. As the book explains, this is all bullshit. Or at least it was at the time.
- Finally, should you turn to Instagram to recruit people to help with a bank robbery? No, although if you insisted on doing that it would apparently work at least for a while. You could do it by, for example, posting a video of yourself holding large amounts of cash," saying it was another Money Makin' Monday" and announcing that you got one spot left in a car, tap in." On July 15, the indictment states, one suspect sent a direct message to a recruit that read Banks hittin! Let's work." The recruit responded, Come on, boo," which apparently translates to I am willing to join your conspiracy to commit robbery and am simply waiting for you to provide the opportunity for me to commit an overt act in furtherance of the same."
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