Brickbats
A French judge has ordered blogger Caroline Doudet to pay 2,500 euros to a restaurant she gave a bad review to and ordered her to change the title of that blog post. The judge said the review showed up too high in Google's search results for the restaurant. The judge also expressed concern that her blog had too many followers.
A passenger from Wayne, New Jersey, has snapped photos that seem to show a New Jersey Transit bus driver reading while driving in sluggish traffic on Route 80 East.
Jeffrey Duck went to a Veterans Administration (V.A.) clinic in Orange City, Florida, one day as a walk-in patient. He was taken to a consultation room and left for three hours. When he finally decided a doctor was not going to see him, he left the consultation room and found everyone had gone and the clinic had closed.
U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte has banned lawyers from using the word Redskins in a lawsuit brought by former New York Giants linebacker Barrett Green against the Washington football team.
Former Independence, Kansas, police chief Kenneth Parker entered Alford pleas to perjury, official misconduct, misuse of public funds, and theft of property valued at more than $25,000. (An Alford plea refuses to admit guilt but acknowledges there is enough evidence for the defendant to be convicted of the crime.) Parker stole ammunition, bottled water, camping equipment, cots, firearms, food, generators, cash, and other property from the city while serving as chief.
Members of the Greene County, Tennessee, Industrial Development Board weren't using microphones. Some of them weren't even facing the audience. So it shouldn't have surprised them when people attending a meeting on a wastewater plant kept asking them to speak up. But board members apparently didn't take well to the requests. County Mayor Alan Broyles kept telling the audience to be quiet. When Eddie Overholt, a member of the audience, asked them again to speak up, Broyles had him arrested for interfering with a public meeting.
The San Diego district attorney's office admits it keeps a list of law enforcement officers that it considers unreliable as witnesses in criminal cases. But it refuses to release that list or even to say how many officers are on it or which agencies they work for. In response to an open records request, the district attorney's office said the public interest in effective law enforcement outweighs any benefits of releasing such information.
Some students enrolled at the University of Central Florida this fall have discovered a tiny problem with their housing assignments: They have been assigned to live in bathrooms and closets. A university spokesman blamed a computer glitch.
Charles Oliver
