We thought that Happy Meal toy looked familiar . . .

BoingBoing has an item about the "New Wave Nigel" toy Mcdonald's is distributing as part of its American Idol promotion. The doll seems like a clear reference to Devo's signature look, down to the red tiered "energy dome" hat.

The likeness did not escape the band, who are now suing McDonald's for, we estimate, several gazillion dollars. Crack that whip!

According to the front page of today's New York Times, the Supreme Court has decided in a 5-4 split that it is unconstitutional to put someone to death for child rape. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy drew a distinction between "intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and non-homicide crimes against individual persons," even such "devastating" crimes as the rape of a child, on the other.

Both McCain and Obama have come out against the Supreme Court's decision, according to the Times piece.

We're not 100% sold on capital punishment, but wouldn't most parents agree that the violent rape of children (or of women, for that matter) can in some circumstances be as worthy of the ultimate punishment as homicide or treason?

Anyone who followed the recent torture-rape of a college student here in New York will recall that she begged her assailant to kill her and even tried to kill herself during the ordeal. It's hard to argue that murder would have been much worse than what happened to her.

The million-dollar trial of two alleged drug conspirators was aborted when the judge realized almost half of the jurors were playing Sudoku while testimony was being given. What gave them away? "Taking notes" vertically.

We've been on long stretches of jury duty, so we sympathize with these jurors, who had been serving for 65 days already. But this was a serious breach of ethics. How were they going to make an informed decision about these mens' fate if they had tuned out half of the evidence? And now the $1 million the government spent on the trial is down the drain.

It is said that justice is equality, and so it is, but not for all persons, only those who are equal.

--Aristotle

In overturning the California voters' ban on gay marriage, the state's high court argued that homosexuals are a special class, somewhat similar to blacks and women, and deserve special judicial scrutiny for the protection of their rights. At the same time the court insisted that gay marriage must be allowed because gays deserve, no less than anyone else, the equal protection of the laws.

This argument is dubious on two counts. First, blackness and femininity are outwardly identifiable characteristics. Homosexuality generally is not. True, some homosexuals adopt exhibitionistic ways of walking and talking which perhaps serve as a kind of signal to others similarly inclined. But gays can "pass" for straight in a way that blacks can't typically pass for white or women for men. Moreover, blacks were slaves and suffered historical oppression in a way that neither women or gays can match. So the idea that these groups are the "new blacks" is an insult to blacks. Finally whether there is an innate disposition to homosexuality or not, it's hard to deny that homosexuality constitutes a choice and a lifestyle. Whatever the orientation, one still has to choose to act on it. By contrast, blacks and women don't have any choice because race and gender are not a lifestyle.

Now let's turn to the issue of equal protection. Clearly this means that people who are similarly situated should be treated in the same way. So men and women, blacks and whites, straight people and gays, all have the right to vote, the right to speak their mind, and the right to marry. But gays already have the right to marry, just like the others. They have the right to marry adult members of the opposite sex. What they want, however, is the right to marry members of the same sex. This, however, is not a right enjoyed by anyone else. In other words, gays are not asking to be treated the same as everyone else. They want special rights that no one else claims or enjoys. They want to rewrite the definition of marriage.

Put the matter another way. States, acting through their representatives and reflecting the values of the voters, have the constitutional authority to define what marriage is. Traditionally marriage requires: a) two persons b) both of them adults of legal age c) unrelated to each other and d) one male and the other female. Now here are some interesting possibilities. A 10 year old demands the right to marry, charging that the age requirement discriminates against him. Or a fellow wants to marry his sister, contending that the incest prohibition violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Or a Muslim seeks four wives, asking why polygamy among multiple "consenting adults" should not be allowed the same legal status as the traditional two-person arrangement. In more imaginative scenarios, a fellow might want to know why the marriage definition is so species-specific. This guy wants to marry his dog on the grounds that "I love my dog and my dog loves me." Why don't all these people have valid equal protection claims under the constitution?

The point here isn't that gay marriage is indistinguishable from polygamy or child-marriage. Rather, it is that gay activists want to dislodge one of the definitions of marriage but retain all the others. They want to move one of the goal posts but not the rest. But how can one part of the marriage definition be discriminatory under the laws while the other parts are not? If the male-female requirement violates the equal protection clause, so must the other requirements which also exclude classes of people. If gays are a special category, why aren't Muslims and Mormons also a special category? It seems that gay activists want a form of "equal protection" for themselves but not for other groups.

Neither equal protection nor antidiscrimination is a real issue here. Judicial tyranny is the issue. Isn't it interesting how even the most naked imposition of power must make the pretense of having justice on its side?

The Smoking Gun has all the icky details of a sexual harassment suit against The Weather Channel.

A former anchorwoman, Hillary Andrews, claims her co-anchor, Bob Stokes, repeatedly propositioned her with classy lines like, "Will you lick my swizzle stick?"

Then, says TSG: When she rebuffed his advances, Andrews charged, Stokes's "hostility and volatility became a constant" and he sought to "sabotage" her on-air performance and even resorted to insulting her during live shows.

Star Jones (who famously got corporate sponsors to pay for her wedding in exchange for plugs on The View), is getting a divorce from husband Al Reynolds after just three years of marriage, reports ET Online.

In a statement, she said:

"Several years ago I made an error in judgment by inviting the media into the most intimate area of my life. A month ago I filed for divorce. The dissolution of a marriage is a difficult time in anyone's life that requires privacy with one's thoughts.

The Telegraph reports that J.K. Rowling is testifying today in New York against a fan named Steve Vander Ark over his book The Harry Potter Lexicon.

The unofficial reference book, based on the author's fan site (which she's on record as loving), was scheduled to be published by RDR Books, a little publisher whose catalog includes As Good As New: A Consumer's Guide to Dental Implants.

On its website, RDR explains its fair-use defense. An excerpt: "J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. are asserting a startling claim," said Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project and counsel on the case. "The right to create literary reference guides like the Lexicon has remained nearly unquestioned for hundreds of years. The Lexicon is a valuable resource that helps people better understand and enjoy the Harry Potter books. It's exactly what copyright law should encourage, not suppress."

Rob Lowe, claiming he was threatened with blackmail by a former babysitter to his two sons, went on the offensive, publishing a screed against her yesterday on the Huffington Post. He even posts emails sent from the sitter's Blackberry. Here's some of what he says:

A former employee is demanding my wife Sheryl and I pay her $1.5 million by the end of the week or she will accuse us both of a vicious laundry list of false terribles. It is an attempt to damage and humiliate not only my wife and me, but our two young sons as well. My family is devastated at this betrayal; this woman worked in our home and traveled with us off and on for seven years, without complaint.

A Vermont divorce has turned into a free speech debate, reports The New York Times:

The husband, William Krasnansky, posted what he calls a fictionalized account of the marriage on his blog late last year. His wife, Maria Garrido, complained to the judge overseeing their divorce, who ordered Mr. Krasnansky to take down "any and all Internet postings" about his wife and their marriage pending a hearing next month.

Mr Krasansky claims that this amounts to censorship before publication, a rare violation of the First Amendment. The case is stirring up a major discussion about just what level of online disclosure is permissible under the law.

We believe he should have the right to say whatever he wants and his ex-wife should have the right to sue him for defamation if he says anything on there that is clearly damaging and clearly about her. The judge was out of order in demanding he take down the blog without a hearing.

But have you seen the blog? Omigod. First of all, it's called "LookAtMyPugs's Jurnull." That title should be illegal.

A Hurricane Katrina victim has filed the world's biggest lawsuit (to my knowledge, and I can't really see how it could be any bigger unless he asked for an infinite amount of money). By biggest lawsuit, I mean the suit where the plaintiff has asked for the most amount of money. You won't believe how much he's asking for. Find out here:




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It all started with two women - one mega-rich, one not so much - trying to get kids to eat healthier. What could go wrong? But now Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld are being sued for plagiarism (her) and slander (him).

Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook, Deceptively Delicious, bears something of a similarity to Missy Chase Lapine's cookbook, The Sneaky Chef. But it's not like hiding spinach in brownies or otherwise increasing the vitamin content of meals is the most original idea in the world. It hardly seems like you could patent it.

And both books seemed pretty alright: here's a compare and contrast. So we were kind of not feeling the Jessica Seinfeld bashing. She sounded pretty nice in interviews. We felt kind of bad for her.

But then Jessica and husband Jerry started fighting back, and things got ugly.

Julie Jensen died in 1998 and shortly before she did, she told police, a neighbor and her son's teacher that she thought her husband was trying to poison her so he could be with his girlfriend (now his wife). She even gave the neighbor a letter saying her husband should be the first suspect if she died, and it's now being reported on AOL News that this letter will be used in his trial for the murder.

This kind of evidence hasn't been allowed in the past, but a new U.S. Supreme Court decision made it possible to admit the letter, which reads: "I pray I'm wrong + nothing happens ... but I am suspicious of Mark's suspicious behaviors + fear for my demise."

The neighbor's preliminary testimony makes the Jensens' home life sound awfully creepy in the weeks leading up to Mrs. Jensen's death:

As some of you may know, in New York there have been attempts to constrain photo- and video-taking in the subways, on the sidewalks, and in other public places -- hypothetically as a means of thwarting terrorism or enforcing permit requirements on professional cameramen. Picture NY has the latest restrictions by the Mayor's office of Film and what's being done to preserve the right to shoot footage and photographs freely around the city.

And now for those afraid of how far such regulations could go, here's a cautionary tale out of England: The Manchester Evening News says that recently in a British park, a couple was told by a park warden that they weren't allowed to take pictures of their own eleven-month-old baby in a swing.

Todd Philips, a Nevada lawyer who looks like he just stepped off the set of Mythbusters, is suing a Las Vegas gym for giving his wife preferential treatment when they went to sign up for memberships, according to the New York Times.

Phillips' argument is this: "Imagine a whites-only country club or whites-get-in-free deal or something like that," said Mr. Phillips, 45, who has homes in Nevada and California. "When things are based on race, we have kind of a knee-jerk reaction because we've had poor race relations in America for 400 years now. But when it comes to treating people the same based on sex, that's much more recent in our memory."

This is just absurd. There are two different criminal justice systems in this country. One that applies to the Lindsay Lohans of the world (I actually think her wealth has more to do with it than her celebrity status) and another that applies to the rest of us.

Check out how comical her stay in jail was for two DUI and cocaine possession charges:



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