Guy Clings To Free Housing At Parents House; Alex Jones Gets Him Out, DIscusses Nose Jobs

Michael Rotondo is being evicted from his parents' house, but
he is getting some help from some highly unlikely sources.

Talk about having no sense of personal pride!

As we learned in incessant news coverage this week, a 30-year-old guy in New York State really made a splash by refusing to leave his parents' house.

Mostly because it's free lodging and he really doesn't want to give up the great deal.  For the record, I moved out of my parents' house late - when I was 23 - but I did so with no prodding form my parents. I decided on my own.

Not like most adults who, you know, go out and get a job, find an apartment, pay the rent and otherwise support themselves like normal people.

I don't oppose people living with their parents if they do so for the right reasons.  Some adults live with their parents for years or decades. But most people who live with their parents assist them with health issues, or pay the bills, or generally stay helpful and productive. That's what normal people do.

Apparently, though, Michael Rotondo is not normal people.

Still,the great lengths he went to in attempts to prevent his parents from evicting him show a commitment to hard work. It just would have been easier, and more effective for him, to put that energy into finding an independent place to live.

Speaking of hard work, Rotondo's parents went through a lot of efforts get this bozo out of their house. It started in earnest in February, when Rodondo's parents wrote him this missive. (I guess face to face conversations weren't working.)

"After a discussion with your Mother, we have decided you must leave this house immediately. You have 14 days to vacate You will not be allowed to return. We will take whatever actions are necessary to enforce this decision."

First of all, when your parents write such a strongly worded note, it's past the time to move out.

However, the parents' note didn't work. So they gave their son another note on March 15, demanding he move out. No movement.

On March 20, the parents tried another tack: They offered him $1,100 to help with moving expenses, and also offered advice. The advice was sensible enough, in my opinion. It's what normal people would think of in this situation, but as I said, Rotondo doesn't seem very normal to me.

The advice included:

--- Organize the things you need for work and to manage an apartment.
--- A reminder that "there are jobs available for those with a poor work history like you Get one - you have to work!"
---  Also: "Sell the other things you have that have any significant value (e.g. stereo, some tools, etc.) This is especially true for any weapons you may have. You need the money and will have no place for the stuff."

Wait, what? Weapons? Yikes! I know little of this guy, but what little I know makes me a little nervous about him having weapons. But I guess that's another story.

It turns out the judge quickly decided with the parents, and Rotondo needs to move out, pronto. But our ever persistent protagonist says he will appeal the judge's decision.

On the bright side, the online cam site  CamSoda offered Rotondo a paying gig in its "LifeStream" program, TMZ reports.

As TMZ points out, CamSoda is apparently a site where porn stars to online camming, but to our great relief, Rotondo will remain clothed if he takes the gig. The job pays $1,000 a month for six months.

The whole thing got even more bizarre if you can believe it on Thursday, when Rotondo appeared on wacko conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' InfoWars show. Jones gave Rotondo a check for $3,000 to move out of his parents' house.

A high point in the Jones/Rotondo conversation is when Jones asks if he's going to use the $3,000 to get a nose job.

"I don't think so," Rotondo said. "I like my nose the way it is."

As Vice continues this story, Jones, obsessed with noses, apparently, tells Rotondo he like his "noble nose" and that his wife's nose is so big she gets mistaken for a Jew, but he he also likes her nose a lot, so much so that he'd divorce her if she ever got a nose job.

Jones apparently meant the $3,000 check and the interview as a pep talk to encouage Rotondo's independence, but the interview, as we would expect from Jones, stayed weird.

Jones worried that Rotondo came off as "autistic" in other TV interviews, and warned him that he should move out of his parents' house immediately or risk being taken control of by "globalists."

In the end, I have to agree with Vice that Jones, for once in his life, actually sounded sensible at times.

Jones told Rotondo: "I think you should go back, no matter what your parents have done to you, and say, 'Thank you for life and I appreciate you and I'm going to figure out how to make money and be a part of society.'....From then, if you can do those basics, the big ideas will come.'"

How about that? Decent fatherly advice from one of the world's biggest wackos!  Black is white  and day is night now, I guess.

Lawyer, Lawyer, Pants On Fire!

Attotrney Steven Guitierrez'a pants caught on
fire when he was litigating a Florida
arson case.

The sometimes unfair stereotype of lawyers is that they're liars, that "lawyer" is just another way of saying "liar."

And we've all heard the chant directed at the dishonest: "Liar, liar, pants on fire!"

Well, in Florida,  (where else would something like this occur?) while a defense attorney was litigating an arson case of all things, his pants caught on fire.

Literally.

According to the Miami Herald:

"Stephen Gutierrez, who was arguing that his client's car spontaneously combusted and was not intentionally set on fire, had been fiddling in his pocket as he was about to address jurors when smoke began billowing out his right pocket."

As you might expect, Gutierrez rushed out of the courtroom. Jurors were ushered out out, and soon, Gutierrez returned, without injury but definitely with singed pants. '

This was not an elaborate defense demonstration, the Miami Herald said. It was a faulty battery in an e-cigarette in Gutierrez's pocket.

The Miami Herald tried to contact Gutierrez, but he didn't return the calls.

Whatever happened, it didn't help Gutierrez'a client, Claudy Charles. He was convicted of second degree arson.

Gutierrez could be held in contempt of court because of the incident, the Miami Herald says, but this isn't the first time e-cigarettes have caused trouble.

As I noted back in November, e-cigarette batteries do seem to have a nasty habit of exploding and/or catching fire, which isn't a good thing for e-cigarette enthusiasts.

I guess that's one habit I won't take up, then.

 Repeated calls to Gutierrez’s cellphone went unanswered. Miami-Dade police and prosecutors are now investigating the episode. Officers seized several frayed e-cigarette batteries as evidence.

“A lot of people could have been hurt,” another observer in court told the Miami Herald.Gutierrez was representing Claudy Charles, 48, who is accused of intentionally setting his car on fire in South Miami-Dade. He had just started his closing arguments when the fire broke out. Jurors convicted Charles anyway of second-degree arson.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman, in the coming days, could decide to hold Gutierrez in contempt of court.

The 28-year-old lawyer graduated from Florida International University’s law school in 2015.

With millions of users across the country, e-cigarettes deliver vaporized nicotine through a heated liquid solution. But questions about the health and fire risks of the products have mounted, with the U.S. Department of Transportation recently banning e-cigarettes from checked bags on airplanes.

Last year, a Naples man filed suit in Miami-Dade after an e-cigarette exploded in his mouth, leaving him in a coma.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article137317553.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article137317553.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article137317553.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article137317553.html#storylink=cpy

Bundy Clowns In Oregon Need Their Cowboy Boots In Court, Dammit!

Ammon Bundy, one of the ringleaders in that
Oregon wildlife refuge standoff last winter,
says the courts are being the fashion police
and won't let him dress up like a cowboy for his trial.

Let's check in with the guys who took over that wildlife refuge in Oregon last winter again, shall we?

When last we looked, back in May, some of them wanted to have their guns with them in jail while they awaited trial.

One of the ringleaders, Ryan Bundy, said not allowing him his guns in jail violated his Second Amendment rights.

The jail, and a judge didn't buy the argument, and the poor guy had to languish without his guns. I'm crying so hard for Bundy and his suffering that my office is now flooded with tears.

Now Ryan's trial is coming up, along with brother Ammon Bundy is upset that he will not be allowed to wear his cowboy boots in the courtroom during the proceedings.

According to OregonLive:

"Ammon Bundy's lawyer J. Morgan Philpot argued that his client is innocent until proven guilty and should be allowed to wear the civilian clothes that he chooses.

'We would prefer our clients not look like disheveled slackers in front of the jury,' Philpot told the judge during Tuesday's pretrial conference hearing. 

Philpot added later in the day in a written motion, 'These men are cowboys and given that the jury will be assessing their authenticity and credibility, they should be able to present themselves to the jury in that manner.'"

What, is this a costume contest and not a trial? They expect Ammon to show up in his cowboy boots, and the jury will swoon, "OOOHH!! A real cowboy!" That means we need to let him go. Yippee Ki-Yay!

The reason there is a dress code in court for defendents - no ties, belts, steel-toed boots, etc - is nobody wants the accused to weaponize his or her fashion accessories to launch an escape attempt. Or assault somebody.

The problem with Bundy's cowboy boots is that leg shackles used when he's led into court won't work. (The shackles are removed once he's in the courtroom.)

There's already photos of what the Bundys might wear in court, because their pictures were taken for the jurors' books.

OregonLive says both Bundys are in suit jackets but no ties in the photos, and the judge said the two look perfectly presentable for court appearances in those photos.

OregonLive had another fun tidbit about Ryan Bundy in its court fashion article about the bumbling brothers.

Ryan Bundy challenged prosecutors' assertion that he aided and abetted in the theft of government property, specifically the theft of cameras during the standoff last winter.

Buddy cited "basic Biblical principle" saying, "A man will be accountable for his own sins and not that of another. "

In other words, Bundy is saying he can't be prosecuted for helping somebody steal something. He's only accountable with God.

No, he's also accountable to the law here on Earth. "The Biblical standards don't apply, says the judge.

Should You Be Paid While You're At Work? Court Says No, But....

The U.S Supreme Court said last month
you don't have to pay these warehouse workers
for some of their time on the job.
Unfair, yes, but we wouldn't want to dent
a billionaire CEO's salary, would we?  

I was annoyed by a U.S. Supreme Court decision recently that said companies don't have to pay employees for all the time they are at work.   

Yes, you still have to pay people, but some companies now have these security checkpoints where people end up waiting in line for a half hour or more daily to be checked to make sure they're not stealing stuff.

Amazon warehouses in particular are famous for this.

The court decided that companies don't have to pay employees for the time they wait in line to prove they aren't a criminal stealing from the company.

In the Supreme Court case, two employees of Amazon Distribution Centers in Nevada said the half hour wait for the security screening took a half hour each day when they left work, so they should be paid for that time.

The Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling and said while the screenings are for the benefit of the company, the security screening ws not part of their job duties.

Which confuses me, since their bosses are making them stand in line for the security screening, but what to I know?   How is it not a job duty if the boss says you HAVE to stand in these lines or be fired?

As Slate pointed out, this also means that companies like Amazon have no incentive to limit the time employees wait in security lines. The attitude might become, "If it takes an hour, who cares if we're wasting our employees' time We don't have to pay for it."

As if these employees' burning desire is to spend their time away from work standing in security lines at the place they work.

I'm sure this unpaid security line stuff is just super for morale. But what do the companies care? To them, employees are just a mindless herd, like in a cow barn, and shouldn't demand niceties like being paid for being at work.

Consumerist tells us, however, that some states have laws saying that you have to pay workers who are, well, at work. There are lawsuits by business trying to overturn these state laws, but other states are considering enacting laws that make employers pay people who are at work.

Look for some court decisions over these state laws in the coming months.

Retailers say paying employees to go through security screenings, i.e. making them work, will be awfully expensive for them. But I dunno. I bet if they raise prices by a penny for some of their products, they'll recoup things nicely.

Or do they prefer that employees spend their entire day working for them, and not get paid at all for anything?

Geez, maybe we could take this one step further and not pay employees at all for working. Slavery would be great for the bottom line, not to mention the CEO's pay, wouldn't it?

I'm Greatly Relieved That Raju The Elephant Won't Have To Go Back To The Awful Guy Who Tortured Her

Raju the rescued elephant recovering at a wildlife refuge this
summer. An Indian court ruled he won't have to go back
to his abusive former "owner."  

I've never met him, but I've been terribly worried about Raju over the past several months.

Raju is an elephant living in India who was treated with terrible cruelty by his "owner" over the course of nearly five decades.

Back in July, an animal protection group called Wildlife SOS rescued Raju from his owner.

He'd been captured as a baby and spent about five decades in spiked shackles, being forced to work as a begging elephant, says the Huffington Post.

I don't know how a human being could do this for so long to a beautiful and intelligent animal like Raju, but it happened.

When Wildlife SOS rescued him earlier this year, a video of the rescue went viral because Raju could be seen crying with relief as the rescuers brought him what was probably the first act of kindness she'd seen in his entire life.

"'The vet and our team came with fruits and just started speaking softly to him, and to reassure him that we were there to help, and it was at that time that tears flooed down his face,' Nikki Sharp, the executive director of Wildlife SOS-USA told The Huffington Post, adding, 'They've done a lot of elephant rescues and the fact the tears were just coming down...he was weeping. It was an emotional moment and everyone was more motivated to get him on the truck and to safety.'

 The reason why I was worried is because, according to the Huffington Post,  it looked as if Raju's rescue would be short-lived. Her former "owner" sued to get her back, so Raju would live out her days in those shackles, begging and making that creepy guy money.

The previous owner was only named as a "Mr. Shahid," and he said the elephant was his. But the group that rescued Raju says Shadid was unspeakably cruel to the elephant, and besides, he had no papers proving he is the rightful owner.

But last week, an Indian court ruled that Shadid has no right to the elephant, and is charged with illegally obtaining him, says the Telegraph UK. 

So Raju will stay at the refuge where Wildlife SOS brought him.

In August, Wildlife SOS reported that Raju has been doing wonderfully at the refuge. He loves to play in the water, he is spoiled with buckets of foods, and he has even made some female friends.

Below, is a video, partly filmed the night Raju was rescued.

My favorite part of the video is when the gentle but determined man cutting the rusty, sharp chains off of Raju tells him, with conviction, "You'll never have to wear these again."

I'm so glad that promise came true.

Watch:

French Blogger Found Guilty By Judge Of Being Too Popular

A French judge who really doesn't understand how Google searches work at all, has fined a French blogger, essentially for the crime of being too popular.

A French judge ruled against a blogger, essentially
because she was ranked too high in Google searches for his taste. 

The problem, according to the BBC, is blogger Caroline Doudet wrote a scathing, negative review of a restaurant in her blog. The restauranteur said the review was hurting his business.

The judge said that since a Google search brings up Doudet's blog fourth from the top, and that her blog has 3,000 or so followers, she is popular and has influence.

Therefore, she should be fined for the negative review, said the judge.

I doubt Doudet had much influence on how Google ranked the blog for searches, but that apparently is beside the point, if I'm reading the judge's "reasoning" right.

Doudet was fined about $2,000.

Doudet said that basically, the judge made it a crime to be ranked too high on a search engine. "What is perverse, is that we look for bloggers who are influential, but only if they are nice about people," she said.

The restaurant review has since been deleted, since Doudet said the whole thing has been too much of  hassle.

It sounds like in the judge's mind, you can be nasty to someone on line if nobody reads your stuff, but you can't if people actually do read what you write.

The restauranteur never denied the service at his restaurant fell short when Doudet visited, the problem was too many people were finding the negative review.

Yes, people write a whole lot of unfair things on line. Or they write things that are fair but negative.  And it's a problem for business owners.

But getting "help" for the problem by complaining somebody is too popular on line seems like it would backfire.

I kind of hope in this case it does.

Maybe We Can Get Our Beer and Other Supplies By Drones After All

Awhile back, toward the end of January, I bemoaned the fact that the Federal Aviation Administration put the stop to a brewery who was trying to deliver beer to ice fishing enthusiasts out on a Wisconsin lake.  

Flower deliveries via drone? So far, it looks
like it might be legal.  

Well, now, there's a glimmer of hope.

In a move similar to the beer drone enforcement, the FAA in February ordered FlowerDeliveryExpress.com, part of Wesley Berry Flowers, in Michigan to stop its experiment of delivery blooms via drone, CBS Detroit reported.

However, a federal administrative law judge, Patrick Geraghty, ruled that he could not accep the FAA's argument for regulating drones, which applies to flights below 400 feet.

Had he agreed with the FAA, the judge said, "a flight in the air of a paper airplane or a toy balsa wood glider could subject the operator" to FAA penalties.

The judge's ruling applies to fights under the ceiling of 400 feet. Drone flights above that are still definitely iffy in the legal department.

Geraghty wasn't ruling on the flower deliveries, but instead another guy who was fined $10,000 for reckless flying when he used a drone to film a 2011 University of Virginia promotional film, CBS Detroit said.

Official FAA rules about drones are due late this autumn, but those rules have already been delayed over and over again.

Judge Geraghty's ruling in favor of the Virginia photographer basically means there are currently no rules for drone flights that don't go above 400 feet. The Detroit florist said that means he'll resume testing his drone flower delivery system.

And presumably, beer can go out via drone to those Wisconsin ice fishing enthusiasts.

You know what would get really interesting is now that pot is legal in Colorado, will drones deliver that, too?

DOMA Supreme Court Plaintiff Is Inspiring

In big huge Supreme Court cases, people who are hoping for some sort of landmark decision try to get a very sympathetic, smart and approachable plaintiff to be the Everyperson face behind the issue. Think Rosa Parks and civil rights.

Edith Windsor address the press and supporters on
the day of the big U.S. Supreme Court case on the
constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.  

That was true yesterday, as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the Defense of Marriage Act is constitutional.

The plaintiff in this case is Edith Windsor, 83, whose wife Thea Spyer died in 2009. Windsor had to pay $363,000 more in estate taxes than she would have had she been married to a guy.

Buzzfeed  had a very nice, quick photo essay on Windsor's back story, and Spyer, who was the love of her life,  That is centerpiece of what is at issue before the Court.

The couple were together for 42 years. Shortly before Spyer's death, the pair finally got the chance to marry.

Here's the text of what Windsor had to say to the press, public and supporters on the steps on the Supreme Court as her big case, United States vs. Windsor, had its day in court::


"Somebody wrote me a large speech which I'm not going to make but there are a couple of things I wanted to say. I wanted to tell you what marriage meant to me.

"When my beautiful sparkling Thea died four years ago I was overcome with grief. Within a month I was hospitalized with a heart attack, and that's kind of common, it's usually looked at as broken heart syndrome.

"In the midst of my grief I realized that the federal government was treating us as strangers and it meant paying a humongous estate tax. And it meant selling a lot of stuff to do it and it wasn't easy, I live on a fixed income and it wasn't easy.

"Many people ask me why get married. I was 77, Thea was 75, and maybe we were older than that at that point, but the fact is that everybody treated it as different. It turns out marriage is different.

"I've asked a number of long-range couples, gay couples who they've got married, I've asked them: 'Was it different the next morning and the answer is always: 'Yes'.' It's a huge difference.

"When our marriage appeared in the New York Times we heard from literally hundreds of people, all congratulating us and sending love because we were married. It's a magic word. For anybody who doesn't understand why we want it, and why we need it, it is magic.

"We did win in the lower courts. Today is like a spectacular event for me, a lifetime kind of event and I know that the spirit of my late spouse Thea Spyer is right here watching and listening and would be very proud and happy of what we've come to."


The most poignant part of the Buzzfeed profile of Windsor is the part where we find out out she has a life size photo of Spyer in her house. Windsor leans up against the photo and the two women  "talk" about what's going with their court case.

I know from experience what Windsor was talking about in her statement yesterday. I got same sex married in August. On one hand, everything stayed the same. Jeff and I kept living in the same house, kept to our same routines, kept loving each other.

But the fact that we were now married was a Big Deal. You wouldn't think a word would change a relationship, or at least my view of the one I'm in.

However, being married makes me feel special, and also gives me a sense of responsibility. It somehow makes our relationship that much more important. It shows the world that Jeff, and our union, is the most important thing in my life now.

And that every marriage, at least every successful one, is a precious pairing that has to be cherished. The glow of our happy marriage can only make the world just a bit better of a place for everyone. That's what I like to think anyway.

So yes, I agree with Edith Windsor. When I woke up the next day after Jeff and I got married, the world was completely different. My world, at least, had become a much more glorious place. Everyone should be so lucky.