- Who doesn’t love a good swindler or grifter story? Well, other than those being swindled or grifted, the answer is no one – at least it should be. So I found it riveting to hear about Bernard Madoff, the man arrested by the feds this week and suspected of stealing $50 billion from clients, a group that included Sterling Equities, the real estate company of New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon. Yes, you read that right, billion with a “b”. Dude was taken down by the FBI, leaving people like Jeff Wilpon, son of the Mets’ owner, to wonder what the hell just happened. "Completely blind-sided," Jeff Wilpon said. "Mainly disbelief, I think. You know, somebody you trusted for this long." He actually attended high school with with Mark Madoff, son of the alleged scam artist. Fortunately for the Wilpon family, their investments are diversified enough to their losses won’t affect operations of the Mets, but not everyone swindled by Madoff will be so fortunate.It is the single biggest fraud case in U.S. history, and it involves one of my favorite standbys in the swindling business: the Ponzi scheme. There aren’t enough god Ponzi schemes nowadays, and it often takes an old-timer like Madoff to bring it back. The Securities and Exchange Commission and FBI have labeled his investment business as “one big lie,” which stealing $50 billion would definitely qualify a person for. Part of me is amazed, part of me wonders where the heck all of that money is and part of me wonders how so many rich, successful people could have been suckered by one man. Now you have Donald Trump taking aim at Madoff with a good “scumbag” blast and lots of very angry people who will never get their investment money back. See, a nice Ponzi scheme means fun and entertainment for all – well, nearly all – of us……
- Lil Wayne may be one of the biggest rappers in the game right now, but that doesn’t mean he’s above the same sort of sampling and copyright issues that have faced hip hop artists for years. Vanilla Ice blatantly ripped off David Bowie’s Pressure for Ice’s hit Ice, Ice Baby and didn’t credit Bowie, but Lil Wayne either didn’t hear about that case or he just didn’t learn from Ice or the dozens of other rappers who have faced problbmes because of sampling and not crediting their sources. Thus, he now faces a federal lawsuit claiming that he didn't have permission to sample Karma Ann Swanepoel's song "Once" in one of his own songs, "I Feel Like Dying." Lil Wayne’s attorneys are trying the patented stall tactic of litigation, asking a judge more time to turn over documents for the lawsuit, which accuses the artist of copyright infringement.
According to the suit, Lil Wayne's record label, Cash Money Records, tried but failed to negotiate a license to use Swanepoel's song before millions of people downloaded "I Feel Like Dying." Swanepoel clearly feels that Lil Wayne went ahead and sampled the tune anyhow, thus the lawsuit. And while I can understand wanting to sample a song by a legendary artist like Karma Ann Swanepoel at any cost, if there is any truth to these allegations, Lil Wayne should have just paid up at the start and avoided all of this. It’s not like dude doesn’t have the scratch to afford whatever Swanepoel was asking, so this is either a case of stupidity or excessive arrogance. Either way, a court filing yesterday by Lil Wayne's attorneys asks a judge in New Orleans to extend a Friday deadline for turning over documents and other material requested by lawyers for Urband & Lazar Music Publishing, which represents Swanepoel. The fact that I have never heard a second of either of these songs dampens my enthusiasm for discussing it a bit, so let’s move on before I lose all interest……
- I’m amazed, flat-out amazed, that fourteen city workers and one retired city worker in the western Ohio town of Piqua claimed a $207 million 12-state lottery prize Wednesday. No, I’m not amazed that someone won such a large jackpot, that stuff happens all the time. You hear the stories of people scoring huge lottery payouts so much no one really takes notice or cares. However, I am stunned to know that any city worker anywhere had time to purchase a lottery ticket. Seriously, aren’t city workers renowned for being the hardest-working, most dedicated employees on the face of the planet? Don’t they show up on time, work every secnd they are on the clock, never take lunches or breaks longer than allowed and never leave early? Aren’t they so fatigued at the end of every exhausting day of work that they don’t have the energy to do anything but go straight home and collapse into bed? So how then did this fine citizens from Piqua have the time and every to stop in t a Kroger supermarket last week and buy a ticket? People like Loyal Davis, who bought the lottery ticket, just don’t have the time or energy for anything but poruing themselves into their jobs, right? Either that or he was probably taking one of his three morning coffee breaks, driving a city vehicle and making a trip a couple of miles out of the way to buy the ticket and a bag of Funjuns. Regardless, he and his co-workers are now much, much wealthier and I just don’t know where they are going to find the motivation to continue getting up late, driving to work, clocking in late and giving a solid 45-percent effort day in, day out. Winning the Mega Millions drawing can have that sort of effect on people. The plans for spending their new loot include everything from buying a new truck to quitting a job and traveling. How one quits a job they never really worked at to begin with, I don’t know…..but I digress. I do appreciate the fact that several of the winners plan to use their newfound wealth to buy houses for or otherwise help family members. Interestingly enough, the winnings will not be divided evenly, as one of the winners paid for two tickets. That being said, the productivity in the city of Piqua could be taking a sizeable hit here with this new wealth bestowed upon what has to be some of its hardest….screw it, I can’t keep this up, not with a straight face. Enjoy your winnings, all, even though gambling remains a tax on the stupid……
- Another day, more bad news for my dream of the Detroit Lions running the table in reverse to finish off an 0-16 NFL season. Already, there was the horrifying fact that the Lions are actually trying, that they believe they can win and that Dan Orlovsky appears to be the 2008 version of Mike McMahon, the hate-worthy backup quarterback who pulled plays out of his ass just enough to wreck Detroit’s last look at 0-16 in 2001, when they began 0-12. Now comes new that Reggie Bush, star running back for the Lions’ opponent this week, the New Orleans Saints, is out for Sunday’s game. Actually, Bush is out for the rest of the season, but I don’t give a damn about the Saints’ Week 17 game, I care about this one. The Lions are getting too feisty for their own good, playing and acting like a team that expects to win and believes they have the talent to make it happen. So a dynamic, athletic playmaker like Bush is something I – I mean, the Saints – cannot afford to lose. They head into this game with no real incentive to win, as they have been mathematically eliminated from the playoff race with a loss last week to Chicago. Coming off of a tough blow like that could leave a team down in the dumps, but Saints players, there is no time for that. You need to shake off that loss, because this week is your biggest game – of your lives. Some of you have played in playoff games and even Super Bowls before, but this is bigger. You are a vital cog in a potentially historical season. The Lions can make it to 0-16, but they need your help. They cannot do it on their own; left to their own devices, they have shown themselves to be far too competitive. They need you to come in, guns a blazin’, and jump out to a big, early lead. Get up by four or five touchdowns by halftime and crush their will. Beat them badly enough to give them a losing hangover that will linger into their Week 17 matchup with Green Bay. Injure their bodies and crush their spirits, Saints. You may be without Reggie Bush and any shot at the playoffs, but you do not want to be the first team to lose to an 0-14 squad and more importantly, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of my wrath if you do, so step your game up, fellas….
- How is this for irony: a ridiculously frivolous $54 million lawsuit over a missing pair of pants filed by by a former administrative law judge. The suit, being pursued by a tool named Roy Pearson, has been making it way through the court system since 2005, when Pearson took several pairs of pants to Custom Cleaners for alteration as he prepared to start his new job as an administrative law judge. He claims that among the pants he took to be altered was a pair from a blue and maroon suit, which judging by his actions since that fateful day, was his favorite suit and possibly a member of his immediate family. I say that because after going back collect his clothing, he claims that the Chung family, which runs Custom Cleaners, tried to give him a pair of charcoal gray pants that were not his and Pearson didn’t react well. He sued the Chungs for his lost pants and during the resulting two-day trial, he acted as his own attorney and argued that when he took the pants to the cleaners, he was in dire financial straits, just been ordered to pay $12,000 in attorney's fees to his ex-wife, and with maxed-out credit cards. Somehow in Pearson’s insane, non-reality based reasoning, losing those pants entitled him to millions of dollars in attorney fees and and millions more in punitive damages for what he called fraudulent advertising under the law. In so doing, he claimed that a sign in the store's window promising "satisfaction guaranteed" was an unconditional warranty that required the defendants to honor any claim by any customer without limitation. In other words, by saying “satisfaction guaranteed” on a simple, modest sign, they are obligated to fulfill any request made by a customer. So if they shrunk my favorite shirt and I demanded they find a way to make it possible for me to travel back in time to 1970 and put a stop to disco before it happened, they would have to do so? When Pearson failed with this type of fool-proof logic and didn’t get the result he wanted, he did what any indignant, idiotic a-hole in his position would do: kept pressing the issue. Pearson initially sought $67 million from the Chungs, calculating the amount by estimating years of legal violations, adding nearly $2 million in common law claims for fraud. Every time his case was turned down, he would appeal to the next level of the judicial system, which brings us to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals this week, where District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff "ruled resoundingly in favor of and denied Pearson’s appeal of the case completely.” The court decided that Pearson’s claims had no merit whatsoever, which seems logical, I suppose. All of this would be bizarre and surprising – if not for the fact that Roy Pearson seems to be the type of tool who sues every time he feels remotely wronged and seemingly refuses to accept the fact that he just might be to blame for some of the things that go wrong in his life. This is evidence by the fact that after being taken off the bench in May 2007 while the lawsuit was pending, he filed a federal lawsuit in May 2008 to get his government job back, accusing city government and others of an "unlawful demotion and subsequent termination." That suit remains pending, but what isn’t pending is the verdict on whether or not this guy is a Grade-A ass clown. Verdict returned, guilty on all counts. He has run the Chung family ragged, causing them to lose lost two of their dry cleaning stores and thousands of dollars in legal fees, all over one stupid pair of pants. Here’s hoping life has several swift kicks to the junk to even the score for you, Roy Pearson………
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