Daily Dose - 030524 - pint of Less, Stella Awards, Matchmaker, DDL, Rotten News

"Good afternoon, Landlord, a pint of Less if you please," said the old man.

"Less? Never heard of it," replied the barman.

"Oh, come now surely you have," he persisted.

"No sorry, we certainly don't stock it. What is it anyway? Some foreign beer?"

"Well I'm not sure," admitted the man. "It was the doctor who mentioned it. He said I should drink less."

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Stella Awards..... (true lawsuits)

AMERICA'S PASTIME
by Randy Cassingham

The Chicago Cubs baseball team is upset with the owners of bars around Wrigley Field, the park where the team plays home games. They say the several businesses surrounding the stadium "unjustly enrich themselves" by letting people sit on their private property.

Ummmm... huh? Team management says by letting people watch the games over the stadium walls from private buildings surrounding the park, the bars are stealing the team's "product" by violating its copyright on the games.

"You have [something] that has evolved from Weber grills and lawn chairs into a multimillion dollar business by pirating our product," claims Cubs President Andy MacPhail. The team has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against a group of bars after talks with the bar owners broke down. "They do nothing to contribute to our efforts to put a winning team on the field," he said. "The free ride is over."

The suit says the bars, which charge as much as $100-200 to watch a game from their rooftops, represent themselves as "small-time friends of the common fan ... [but] are in fact free-riders who profiteer on plaintiff's enormous annual expenditures on, and historical investment in, the Chicago Cubs baseball team and Wrigley Field."

What do "enormous annual expenditures" have to do with anything? "During the 2002 season, the Cubs spent nearly $80 million on the salaries of the players on its major league roster," the suit says. "The Cubs pay millions of additional dollars annually to operate and maintain Wrigley Field, incur the team's travel and road trip costs and pay all of the other expenses of operating a team in Major League Baseball." Thus, the team contends, it has a right to control the view. To bolster the copyright claim, the club contends the rooftop seating areas illegally provide TV sets so the far-away viewers can look at game broadcasts.

The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages and a court order prohibiting anyone with a private view of Wrigley Field from charging admission to view games at the park. The lawsuit came after the team rejected an offer from the bars to pay the Cubs $14 per patron, but only if it was called a "marketing fee" and not a license to watch the games.

In the old days, baseball was known as "America's Pastime". How fitting it's so intimately involved with America's new Pastime: dragging every silly argument into court.

*********

STELLA SHORT

Cases of suicide can be tragic, especially when there is a juvenile involved. But must a suicide be a time to find someone to blame?

Marissa Imrie, 14, of Santa Rosa, Calif., hired a cab for a $150 ride to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. She had the cabbie let her off at the south end of the bridge, a popular tourist spot at the end of a sidewalk where people can stroll across the span. The last time the cabbie saw Imrie, she was heading up the sidewalk. The Coast Guard pulled her body from the water later the same day.

Imrie's mother, Renee Milligan, has sued the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District and its board of directors, saying the bridge authority should have built an "effective" suicide barrier on the bridge, the world's most popular suicide spot. She bases her claim on California's wrongful death statutes, and says the bridge creates a "dangerous condition on public property". The suit claims the lack of a suicide barrier is a violation the dead girl's constitutional right not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and Milligan's "constitutional right of familial association".

It asks for a court order for a suicide barrier, plus various unspecified actual and punitive financial damages. If anyone has a "right to life" -- and the corresponding right to end it -- it's the person living it. Suing only takes that right away.

____________________________

The Matchmaker goes to see Mr Cohen, a confirmed bachelor for many years. "Mr Cohen, don't leave it too late. I have exactly the one you need. You only have to say the word and you'll meet and be married in no time!" says the Matchmaker.

"Don't bother," replies Mr Cohen, "I've two sisters at home, who look after all my needs."

"That's all well and good, but all the sisters in the world cannot fill the role of a wife."

"I said 'two sisters'. I didn't say they were mine!"

____________________________

DDL

There was a young man from Angora
Who married for richer or poorer.
He'd not been long wed,
When he fell out of bed,
And said, "Damn, I have married a snorer!"

____________________________

Rotten News.... (true)

Four nuns on the run after Italian car crash
Wed Apr 9, 4:03 PM ET

ROME (AFP) - Four Catholic nuns from northern Italy gathered up their skirts and fled after they were involved in a minor

car crash at the weekend, local police said.

Police raided several convents in the northern town of Bergame after a witness claimed four nuns aboard a small Citroen car

had careened into the side of another vehicle before fleeing the scene.

The elderly shopkeeper behind the other wheel escaped unharmed.

As of Tuesday, the investigation had drawn a blank, police said, although they hoped broken fragments from the car's bumper

could help them to identify the fugitive four.

********

Breast-feeding in a time of war

LISA FITTERMAN

Monday, April 21, 2003

What did the American male passenger think they were - weapons of mass distraction?

Apparently, yes.

Deborah Wolfe, a Canadian citizen who was just breast-feeding her son and changing his diaper while en route between

Houston and Vancouver, says her "subversive" actions led to her being threatened with detainment, RCMP involvement and

legal charges for terrorist action against a U.S. citizen in international airspace while on an American flight during a

time of war.

Her story strains credulity, save that it's so outrageous, it's hard to imagine she could make this stuff up. It's

Python-esque farce; funny, pathetic and much scarier than the experience of a woman who earlier this month was awarded

$1,000 by the Quebec Human Rights Commission after a security guard kicked her out of a Montreal municipal courtroom for

nursing her infant.

In an e-mail, Wolfe says it started during the finalleg of a trip back to Vancouver from Florida, when a man seated near

her on the Continental Airlines flight took offence to her nursing her 4-month-old son and complained.

Continental Airlines spokesman Rahsaan Johnson told me that the airline does not have a policy that prohibits

breast-feeding on board. But Wolfe says a flight attendant told her that if someone - anyone - complains, the mothers are

supposed to change diapers in the bathroom and nurse at the back of the plane. This has its own unpleasant connotations,

never mind the fact that passengers must stay in their seats during takeoff, landing and turbulence.

Wolfe says she refused a flight attendant's offer of an airline blanket to hide herself because it hadn't been sealed and,

given the SARS scare, she'd rather use her own things. Thus, unbeknownst to her, a "Level 1" crew complaint was filed.

When an announcement then came over the public address system stating that all mothers should change diapers in the plane's

bathrooms, she decided to ignore it because she found the change table too high, right above the toilet and with nary a

restraint to stop an infant from falling.

She says she explained all this to the flight attendant who came over for a second time, but the complaint, of which she

was still unaware, was upgraded to Level 2.

Wolfe began to nurse the baby again, using her own bib and blanket. She says the man got out of his seat, walked over to

hers and stood staring at her. She says she approached him afterward and twice asked if he had a problem with her feeding

her son.

"He marched past me and to the very back of the cabin to talk to the flight attendant," she wrote. "He told her, 'This

woman just assaulted me.' ... He then explained that the asking of two questions by a 'foreign national' in international

airspace made him feel the victim of terror and as such he wanted to file an assault charge."

She says the flight attendants also began to call her and her travelling party "foreign nationals in international airspace

on an international flight during a time of war." And she was informed both of the complaint and that it could be upgraded

to a Level 3, which meant possible mandatory detainment by U.S. authorities for 24 hours, RCMP involvement and criminal

charges for an act of war upon an American.

Give me a flipping break.

Johnson told me that Wolfe's version of the story is a lot different than that of the flight attendants and the man. He

confirmed that she was issued a Level 1 complaint and threatened with Level 2 after she became "verbally aggressive with

another customer on board while in the airplane's aisle." He says that a Level 2 complaint was never issued.

But know what? I don't care if Wolfe had a super-hissy, foot-stomping diva fit. She was only trying to care for her baby.

As noted by Elisabeth Sterken, director of the Canadian division of the Infant Feeding Action Coalition, that is her

inalienable right under both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of

the Child, to which Canada is a signatory.

("Holy cow," Sterken said. "Doesn't this just fry you?")

In the end, Wolfe says things were resolved when she signed a document promising that she would neither break Continental's

rules about such things, nor speak to American passengers. To echo Sterken: Holy cow. After all, the U.S. is the same

country that brought us the cheesy search for America's hottest person, made the semi-pornographic Maxim magazine a runaway

success and recently became home to the niche airline Hooters. Named for the (in)famous restaurant chain, each flight

features two well-endowed girls in tight T-shirts who give a whole new meaning to the concept of twin-engine props - and

empty calories.

*******

Wife-subduing air raid siren confiscated
Sat Apr 19, 6:38 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 73-year-old man who used an air raid siren to stun his wife into submission has had it confiscated by

German police.

"My wife never lets me get a word in edgeways," the man identified as Vladimir R. told Mannheim police. "So I crank up the

siren and let it rip for a few minutes. It works every time. Afterwards, it's real quiet again."

A police spokesman said neighbours had complained at the noise from the 220-volt rooftop device, believed to be an

old-fashioned air raid siren.

Rosina, Vladimir's wife of 32 years, said she sometimes had to yell to get his attention. "My husband is a stubborn mule so

I have to get loud."