Lawn Boy Murdered
"I can do that [if I want to]," Keith Walendowski told police after he shot his lawn mower to death. "It’s my lawn mower and my yard," he said, "so I can shoot it if I want." The mower’s fatal…
Constitutional Law
City of Flint, Michigan, Joins Crusade Against Saggy Pants
Claiming that he was acting on a "significant" number of citizen complaints, the police chief for Flint, Michigan, said on June 25 that he had directed officers to start arresting people seen wearing pants and/or shorts that sag "too low."…
Use of F-Bomb Before Supreme Court Discussed
In a June 5 post, Marty Lederman of SCOTUSblog discussed the FCC v. Fox Television case, which involves "whether fleeting expletives are so inherently shocking as to justify a virtual ban on their broadcast between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m." …
Fourth Circuit Reinstates Dirty-Dancing Lawsuit (Again)
On April 30, the 4th Circuit reinstated a seven-year-old lawsuit against the city of Marshall, North Carolina, by a woman who was banned from the town dance hall for allegedly dancing in a "sexually provocative manner." The court ruled that…
Arizona Considering Bill That Would Punish “Dissent” in Public Schools
I’m starting to think it is the purpose of a house of representatives (using lower-case there to mean, generically, that half of a bicameral legislature, not a specific house that happens to be full of representatives) to pass utterly stupid…
UPDATE: Fired Butt Artist Settles Wrongful-Termination Lawsuit
I have just learned that, last month, the parties reached a settlement in Stan Murmer’s wrongful-termination lawsuit against his former employer. As you may recall from prior reports on his firing and on the denial of the school district’s motion…
Butt Artist’s Case Against Former Employer Will Proceed
Note: the artist’s website, buttprintart.com, is no longer active.
UPDATE: Monkey Denied Person Status
As I reported last October, an Austrian court refused to grant Matthew H. Pan legal standing on the grounds that he is a chimpanzee, and it appears that the Supreme Court of Austria has now affirmed that decision. An animal-rights…
Missouri City Council to Consider Ban on Swearing, Bar Dancing
Saying that legislation is necessary because the historic downtown area "gets a little too lively on some nights," City Councilman Richard Veit of St. Charles, Missouri (a St. Louis suburb) has proposed a measure that would ban swearing and other…
Proposed Law Would Require Thai Drivers to Stop for National Anthem
Apparently believing that citizens (or at least motorists) are not sufficiently patriotic, a group of lawmakers in Thailand have proposed a new law that would require drivers to stop whenever the national anthem is played, which in Thailand happens every…