Assorted Stupidity #85

  • The meerkat expert found liable for injuring a monkey handler in a llama-keeper dispute (see Meerkat Expert Liable for Injuring Monkey Handler in Llama-Keeper Dispute (Oct. 14, 2015)) has won on appeal. The High Court decided the magistrate had applied the wrong legal test. It seems unlikely the zoo will take her back, but on the other hand the number of meerkat experts out there is probably limited.
  • According to Courthouse News, a Baltimore woman has sued the city alleging she was injured due to work on a sewer line. She was on the commode, she says, when “suddenly and without warning and with great force and violence, the toilet backed up and she was blown off of said commode, knocked to the floor, [and] covered with filth and excretion.” I have questions about the physics of that, but if it happened I think it would indeed cause one to “lose enjoyment of [one’s] usual pursuits and pastimes,” at least temporarily.
  • Question: when they let people out on bail but require them to wear an ankle bracelet, do they tell them the bracelet has GPS built in? Because you’d think if they knew that, they wouldn’t go out and do more crimes while wearing a GPS tracker. It makes eluding capture a little difficult.
  • The answer to that question would determine whether people who do that are dumber than people who steal GPS trackers. Same result either way, of course.
  • A Utah bar owner has apologized for an incident in which a bartender allegedly refused service to two patrons because the bar has a “no Polynesians” policy. The owner said he thought the bartender misunderstood a safety rule he had established. “They are directed by me, any massive groups of people, and granted two is not a group but it is a judgment call, whether it will be Polynesians, jailbirds, or anybody that is shady-looking, do not serve,” the owner said. That statement’s about as Trumpian as it gets but it isn’t likely to help this guy’s cause.