Tag: lawsuit

Fox News apology mashup

Here’s a funny (to me) video about current political events. If you want to skip this post, I understand. Also, there’s a serious intro to give it context (since a certain news site is ignoring it).

If you haven’t heard, Fox News just settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million. That’s a lot of money! It’s because Fox News intentionally misled their viewers, claiming there was voting fraud in the 2020 election and that Dominion’s machines were corrupt. There’s no proof of fraud, but there’s plenty of proof from inside recordings that Fox News knew the election fraud story was fraudulent, yet they pushed it anyway*. Fox News didn’t want the court case to proceed, with their top TV entertainers** possibly having to testify, so they settled.

An unfortunate part of this settlement is that Fox News didn’t have to admit to its viewers that they misled them. So no official apology, and thus people that only watch Fox News may continue to be misled by propaganda. In response to this, Stephen Colbert made a compilation of Fox News TV personalities admitting to what they did. This is funny (FYI, this clip starts right before the mashup):

For the record, I’m not necessarily against Fox News — just against lying and propaganda. They’re doing much harm to the country by continuing to promote the big lie of voter fraud when there’s been no evidence. I realize Donald Trump still says there is “massive evidence”, but it’s way beyond time to put up or shut up. He had 60+ court cases where no actual evidence was presented. (Some of those were actually humorous, if you read the pre-trial discussions between the judges and lawyers. Should I write on those?)

* Apparently “Fair & Balanced” means “We’re all for Trump, and everything bad is Biden’s fault”.

** In a previous defamation lawsuit, Fox News said their TV news hosts are entertainers, not to be taken seriously. The actual wording, from Fox News lawyers about Tucker Carlson: “cannot be understood to have been stating facts, but instead that he was delivering an opinion using hyperbole for effect”, and the judge agreed, saying, “Given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.” There’s a previous defamation lawsuit where the Fox News laywers claimed that the TV hosts are entertainers and thus not to be held to the standard of speaking truth. That’s a lame cop-out, and I’m surprised it worked, because “Fox News” is the name of the channel, and it’s displayed on the screen most of the time, so they are marketing themselves as news. Can they just adopt a new identity as it suits them, regardless of who they are? I figured they were against such things…

Sorry about all the seriousness here — I know some of you come here for randomness. I wasn’t going to write on the lawsuit, but found that video clip funny.

If I may close with a quick public service announcement: Get your news from multiple sources, and not all that are only conservative or liberal. Actual news is facts. Any news source that tells you who is to blame or who to be mad at is pushing an agenda.

Now I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled randomness…

suing Michael Jordan for his looks

It might get old if you look like a celebrity or famous athlete.  Just sharing their name might be tiring.  It would probably be like that commercial of the middle-aged white guy named Michael Jordan — anytime he makes a reservation or his name goes before him, people are excited, then when he shows up, they look disappointed and say, “Oh.”  But if you look like someone famous, you might get stopped all the time in public for autographs, then people are disappointed when they realize you aren’t that person.

Allen Heckard knows how that feels.  People mistake him for Michael Jordan because of his looks, even though he’s 4 inches shorter.  He says this happens two or three times a day, and eventually he got to the point where he said, “Enough is enough.  I can’t take it anymore.”

So what would you do?  He says he’s changed his appearance some, but it didn’t work.  So he filed a lawsuit against Michael Jordan and Nike, claiming he is owed $832 million for 15 years of harassment by the public.  I wonder how he came up with that figure.  Needless to say, he didn’t win.

Heckard afterward said, “It’s not about the money.  A man has to have principles to stand on.”  That’s some principles if they’re worth $832 million!  If he’s just wanting to retire and stay home most of the time, he could’ve asked for a lot less money and still accomplished that.

Sometimes you have to wonder what people were thinking…

stupid lawsuit over a comet

Do you remember when NASA fired a space probe at a comet and hit it?  This was a $333 million mission called “Deep Impact”.  It was very impressive that they were able to hit the comet because it was moving at 23,000 mph.  NASA plans to study the debris generated to hopefully learn how the solar system was formed.

This was a few years ago, so it’s not exactly news, but I just found out something else about it.  A woman named Marina Bai sued the U.S. Space Agency over the mission, claiming it “ruins the natural balance of forces in the universe” and thus would “deform her horoscope”.  She sued for $300 million, for her “moral sufferings”.  (I wonder how bad $300,000,000 worth of “moral sufferings” would feel; I can’t say I’ve ever felt that bad.)

By now, you’ve probably already realized this is a stupid lawsuit.  But it gets even better — the comet in reference, 9P / Tempel, doesn’t actually appear on the horoscope!

So obviously this woman was just making all this up to get rich, but these frivolous lawsuits clog up the justice system (which is already inconceivably slow) and waste taxpayers’ money as well as time and money from the people being sued for no reason.  So can someone sue that woman for being stupid?  Although, on second thought, the ability to sue people for being stupid would overwhelm the court system even more, so perhaps some limits would need to be put in place…

breaking news: Thomas Wayne sues Mango-Man

I just received a breaking news release from local news affiliate GP News.  Apparently regular reader Thomas Wayne has filed a lawsuit against regular reader Mango-Man.  This isn’t a normal lawsuit, either.  Wait ’til you hear what it’s about…  Here’s an excerpt from the release:

Apr 1 (GP)

International man of mystery Thomas Wayne has filed a lawsuit against the indiscriminate Mango-Man.  But this is no ordinary case.  For one side of the story, here are the accusations, from the document filed by Thomas Wayne.

“Mango-Man owes me a lot of money for my troubles.  Let me explain.   A while back he was riding with me around town in my trusty El Camino.  He started complaining of hunger, saying he needed a fourth meal.  So we stopped at Taco Bell, and he ordered several of those cheesy double beef burritos.  I cautioned him against it, but he refused to heed my advice.  This is where our story begins.

The problems started almost immediately.  And by problems, I mean flatulence.  The air in the car quickly became unsuitable for life.  It wasn’t just must’ — it was stank terribleness.  We rolled the windows down, and figured that would take care of the problem.

But for the next several days, the smell refused to leave.  I tried spraying industrial-strength Febreeze all over the car interior, but it could not defeat the smell.  So then I took the seat cushions to the dry cleaners, but they banned me from ever going there again because the stench broke they equipment.  Then I tried boiling the seat cushions, but they still be stank.

I don’t know what else to do, other than having the HAZMAT team haul them away.  I reckon I’ll have to replace all the interior.  But that ain’t cheap, because this car is a classic antique.   That’s why I contacted the reputable law firm of Mann, Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe, and I’m suing Mango-Man for $5011, to cover the cost of new carpet, seats, and headliner, along with the exorbitant bill from the cleaners, and emotional distress.  I no longer look forward to riding in my awesome car because of the stank terribleness.   My regular life has been damaged, and it’s all Mango-Man’s fault!”

Mango-Man could not be reached for comment.

I can see this one being controversial…  Stay tuned for breaking developments in this unusual case!