As every child knows, playing dress-up can be a lot of fun. As a least one Circuit judge in Illinois doesn’t, it can also be serious violation of judicial ethics.
Laurel and Hardy. Aykroyd and Belushi. Nixon and Haldeman. Soon these names will be joined by “Fuckman and Donkey Dick,” better known as Judge Bryant Durham and alleged killer Denver Allen, whose performance in a Georgia courtroom last week easily ranks them among America’s most legendary comedy teams.
Salvatore Perrone, a 65-year-old garment salesman from Staten Island, stands accused of executing three Brooklyn shopkeepers in 2012. In a trial tentatively scheduled for the fall, the defendant will represent himself. Perrone launches his defense just a month after medical experts declared him mentally fit for prosecution, barely, despite his repeated outbursts to declare that he murdered on behalf of a "Palestinian section of the CIA."
In 2007, a Missouri teenager named Jimmy Winkelmann Jr. came up with an idea to spoof lax-bro brand the North Face: an online apparel shop named the South Butt. Other smart alecks had conceived of this name before, but once the North Face sent cease-and-desists, the little jokers quickly cowered before the corporate Goliath's demands. Winkelmann was not like that. With the support of his dad, Jimmy Sr., the future biomedical engineering student forged ahead with a logo that inverted the North Face's half-dome insignia into a bum and a small inventory of hoodies, fleece jackets, and knit caps.
Due to some mystifying computer error, the computer programmer who told police that a comically evil Casey Anthony googled "chloroform" 84 times now says she only googled it once. John Bradley also says he alerted the authorities to the staggering error, but they went ahead and pretended Casey (or whoever was using her computer) was obsessed with chloroform, anyway.
As we speak, Lindsay Lohan's preliminary evidentiary hearing for the felony theft of a necklace has adjourned for lunch. LiLo arrived at court with her hair in a sloppy bun and wide blue sailor pants billowing above a pair of patent leather peep-toe pumps. Long-suffering assistant Elinore tagged along, Louis Vuitton tote (laptop case?) in hand.
Thirty-two Facebook users signed onto a class-action suit against Facebook and several of its Beacon partners, including Blockbuster, Fandango and Overstock, Hotwire, STA Travel, Zappos.com and Gamefly. Facebook Beacon was the service that reported to a Facebook user's friends that user's activity on partnered sites elsewhere on the Internet. The suit alleges that between November 7, 2007 and December 5, 2007, Facebook did all this without asking first. Technically Facebook did ask, with little pop-up dialogue boxes on partner sites, but apparently they were hard to spot. Still, Beacon did spoil the surprise of a fair number of Christmas gifts, which, as we understand the tradition, are supposed to remain a secret until opened.The users want Facebook and its partners to delete all stored information, the return of any "ill-gotten gains" — of which we understand there to be none — and for the court to "award restitution." If the plaintiffs win the case it'll at least be interesting to see how much our justice system values a good Christmas surprise in monetary terms. Meanwhile, the technology behind Facebook Beacon is back, but now its called Facebook Connect and now its entirely opt-in.
