So, Paris decided to get in on the action. Why not? If Tyra can do it so can Paris. And where Tyra’s attempt is grotesque, Paris approaches it in a well timed comedic fashion!
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Funny but real:
Meet Dr. Herman I. Libshitz, a retired radiologist and potential Verizon customer who would like DSL. Sadly, Dr. Libshitz was informed that he could not use his name in his email address or as his user name because it has “shit” in it.He tried his best to escalate the complaint with Verizon, but had little luck. First, he called the help line:
“We called their help line, and got a wonderful young man in the Philippines who told us:
” ‘We can’t install it because your name has - in it.’ “
I asked the doctor how I was going to print that. He said, “Just say it’s a word contained in Libshitz.”
He had no luck with a supervisor, so he called the billing disputes number and reached another supervisor who promised to investigate and have someone contact him because ” the only person who could help was in Tampa, and that man would have to call India to get them to change the computer code.” No one called back.
Finally, he got a letter informing him that he could not use his name as a username because it didn’t comply with Verizon’s policy.
It took calls from the Philadelphia Inquirer to get Verizon to deal with Dr. Libshitz and his “questionable” name, and that’s what bothers him. He told the Inquirer that what he wants “is for these people at least to stand at attention to explain themselves. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get to Verizon. . . . You cannot get to them. They are insulated from things like this.” Unless you work for a newspaper, that is.
Here’s Verizon’s official response:
“As a general rule (since 2005) Verizon doesn’t allow questionable language in e-mail addresses, but we can, and do, make exceptions based on reasonable requests. The one from Dr. and Mrs. Libshitz certainly is reasonable and we regret the inconvenience and frustration they’ve been caused.”
Daniel Rubin: When your name gets turned against you [Philadelphia Inquirer] (Thanks, Will!)
From: Consumerist
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Two US judges convicted of racketeering are the latest chapter in a long history of justice being bought
Gary Slapper
“Finally we are at a point where I think that justice is back on an even keel in Caddo Parish,” declared US Attorney Donald Washington recently after a couple of convicts had been jailed.
His sigh of relief came at the end of a racketeering case in Louisiana. Prior to sentencing two convicted men, District Judge Maurice Hicks had remanded them in custody because they were seen as otherwise likely to abscond. Unusually, however, for men facing sentences of up to 20 years for racketeering, both convicts were judges.
District Judge Michael Walker of the state court and Judge Vernon Claville of the Caddo Parish juvenile court were convicted on one count each of racketeering after taking bribes in return for setting low bail bonds or removing court restrictions on defendants. In just three sample months in 2007, 24 instances of pay-as-you-go justice were exposed.
Judges have been removed from office for corruption in Britain but not in modern times. In the 13th-century, six judges were sacked for taking bribes. In 1350, Sir William De Thorpe, the Chief Justice, was thrown off the bench for taking bribes.
In the 16th-century, Bishop Hugh Latimer, referring to the judiciary, said: “They all love bribes. Bribery is a princely kind of thieving.” Then, in 1620, Francis Bacon, the Lord Chancellor, pleaded guilty to 21 charges of bribery and corruption. He had accepted large bribes from litigants to get him to rule in their favour. He was fined £40,000 and sent to the Tower.
The known and reviled practice of bribing a judge can, though, be used to the advantage of a clever lawyer. This is an account I once heard some years ago from a Chief Justice of an African country. A client, whom I’ll Mr Crook, was a notorious character in that murky social territory between legitimate business and crime. The authorities eventually caught him in flagrante delicto. His lawyer was faced with a pretty much impossible task.
At the end of the trial but before the verdict, the defence lawyer confided to his crooked client: “This doesn’t look good I’m afraid, I think we’ll have to just accept the verdict and appeal.”
“Don’t be a defeatist,” said the client. “We’ll just have to see what price we can get the judge for.”
“No,” the lawyer said. “There is no way that this judge can be bought.”
“You think so?”
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
The next day, the judge came into court and said he was throwing out the case against Mr Crook.
The prosecution lawyers sat wide-eyed and slack-jawed in disbelief.
The defendant beamed, winked at his lawyer, said “I told you I’d fix it”, and got up to go.
“I cannot believe it,” the lawyer said. “How did you do it?”
“Well,” the client said, “last night I had delivered to the judge’s front door six crates of the world’s finest whisky.”
“But this guy’s completely incorruptible, I don’t get it,” the lawyer said.
“Yes, that’s right, he is incorruptible,” said the client, “but I had it delivered to the judge in the name of the prosecutor.”
Professor Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University. His recent book How the Law Works is published by HarperCollins
Source: TIMESONLINE
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So, Lindsay Lohan’s mother was awarded some type of award by a society of mothers in the USA… as best Hollywood mum!This immidiately reminded me of the skit by Tracy Ullman on this very topic! Watch it…it will set you in the mood for the weekend! Though I don’t really care about this woman(Dina) the sketch is pure Ullman!
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Stumble it!