2013

UPDATE: Justice Thomas’s Full Joke Revealed

Speaking of the Supreme Court, before the debut of the Hat the big news was that Justice Thomas had astounded the legal world by actually speaking during oral argument. As it was his first utterance in nearly seven years, pundits…


Fighters Intercept Airliner After Report of Sleepy Terrorist

In the most recent example of this expensive and potentially deadly practice, on January 17 two F-15s were scrambled to intercept an Alaska Airlines flight on its way to Seattle. Apparently someone called the FBI that day, anonymously, and named…


Bad Disguise #7: Bucket on Head

The first problem here is that while a bucket will indeed conceal your face, and quite effectively, that's also where your eyes are. (In both senses: in your face and inside the bucket.) That is, the bucket cannot perform the…


Bad News for Dog-Flinging Mascots

The case against the Kansas City Royals for negligence based on the acts of "Sluggerrr," the team's strange crown-headed lion-like mascot, has been reinstated by the Missouri Court of Appeals. If you've been following this story as I have, and…




U.S. Pat. No. 430,388: The Crooked Baseball Bat

The inventor continued: The object of my invention is to provide a ball-bat which shall produce a rotary or spinning motion of the ball in its flight to a higher degree than is possible with any present known form of…


Lawyer Offers Dream Job: You Pay to Watch Him Work

The legal job market is tough right now, and a lot of new lawyers are doing unpaid internships in order to get experience until things improve. But I wasn't aware that the profession had sunk low enough that we would…



Scooby Doo, Where Are You? More Importantly, Where Are Your Pants?

From the police blotter, Fremont, California, January 8, 2013: IH # 13002139 Suspicious Circumstance  At approximately 4:25 a.m., witnesses called to report a suspicious male running through the parking lot of Lucky's on the 38400 block of Mowry Ave. They…