Great moments in the courtroom

Everyone once in a while, you read a story that pulls the mask off -- well, a better image would be "pulls the robe off" -- a judge. And no, I'm not thinking of that story, either.

Judges serve an important function in society. They adjudicate disputes; they stand between the citizen and the state; they wear black robes. So we tend to think of judges as serious and dignified human beings, even though we all know what Ruth Bader Ginsburg does in her spare time. (She talks about the tax code with her husband.)

Then, what do we make of this story? A judge in LaGrange, New York, a town located around 80 miles north of New York City, violated the first canon of judicial ethics: "A judge may not, even jokingly, remark that a female public defender has a 'nice butt.'" (via Fark)

I mean, you really can understand this judge's behavior, can't you? A guy sitting under a black robe all day sees numerous lawyers who have fat butts, and he can't resist mentioning a nice one. Right?

Wrong. It didn't happen that way at all. According to the AP version:

After the defendant told [Justice] Caplicki that he thought his attorney was "cute and had a nice butt" -- the judge noted the comments on the arraignment sheet and repeated them to the attorney 10 days later in a sidebar conference in the courtroom.

The judge later repeated them in open court, asking the defendant and three other male defendants if they agreed with them. He repeated them again when the attorney appeared before him the next day.

I mean, once is a compliment. Twice is creepy. Three times is stalking. And four times is a "misguided attempt at humor."

Actually, Pillage Idiot is a misguided attempt at humor. Asking the defendant and three other male defendants if they agreed the lawyer had a nice butt is nothing short of repulsive.

Justice Capicki "agreed that he should be censured," and the state's Commission on Judicial Conduct "decided Caplicki's behavior amounted to 'an aberration' and limited his punishment to a public censure."

Although the Commission has the power to defrock -- er, disrobe -- er, "strip judges of their robes," it apparently was concerned that the butt that the judge would then expose was not "nice."

Click here to read more . . .

That elephant

A few days ago, Bruce Godfrey of Crablaw emailed me with the new Republican National Convention logo asking rhetorically to itemize the reasons it was a crappy logo: "The most G-rated one is that the elephant should be red, not blue. PG-13 ones would include the elephant's 'wide stance' and the angle of the poor beast's rear end." (According to a correspondent to Best of the Web Today: "In heraldry the position of the elephant in the logo is called 'rampant.' It is one of a number of standard poses, and the most active one.")

For the record, here is the logo:



Well, Bruce, I want you to know that the current state of the Republican Party just isn't funny!

I thought of doing a photoshop, really I did, but when something isn't funny, it isn't funny. Here's the only thing that seemed appropriate to me, but it's way too close to the truth.



The only thing that would have been more accurate is a laughing Hillary sitting atop the deceased elephant's belly.

You won't be surprised to learn that other bloggers -- mostly self-styled "progressives," which is a term that means they've "progressed" from anger to pure hatred -- have taken up the photoshop cudgel. Here's one such site. Here's another that, sans photoshop, does itemize the reasons the logo is awful. (Bad language warning.)

Oh, well, if I can laugh at Bill and Hillary, I guess it's only fair for them to laugh at the Republican morons who came up with this thing.

UPDATE (10/11): The people at Fark do the photoshop much better. One even stole my idea. (Well, technically, he didn't steal it because he put it up a few days before, but at least great minds think alike.)

Click here to read more . . .