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Tuesday, April 23, 2024 | Back issues
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Pssst! Look at This,,,,

Sex, sex, seeeeeexxxx!

Yeah, OK, that was just a cheap way of getting your attention, but we all need a little distraction these days. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of all the gloom and doom in the news day after day after day....

So let's talk sex.

Let's start with phone sex. It's not your grandfather's phone sex any more.

I know this, as I know most things, because of a lawsuit. A company called General Media Communications, Inc. has filed a complaint that begins like this:

"Plaintiff provided defendants with the right to use the 'Penthouse' trademark and related highly sought-after adult entertainment content to distributed and sold to adult consumers using mobile telephone handsets, like the iPhone...."

Imagine the convenience.

I suppose my reaction to this could be a product of advanced age and fading eyesight, but it seems to me that highly sought-after adult entertainment should be seen on the largest screens possible, not a telephone.

Tiny screens have to impair artistic integrity.

But even if you can see what's going on, where exactly are you going to access this content?

Say you're standing in line at the bank. Do you pull out the iPhone and call up Penthouse while there are little old ladies all around you? Would you have to pass it around to share?

Do you call it up while driving?

I'm saying the answer is no if you want to be driving for very long.

So I'm mystified by this. The only use I can see for it is if you're about to have sex and you've forgotten what you're supposed to do. Cell phones are great for emergencies.

MONKEY SEE.... And then there was this in a suit against Playboy Entertainment Group:

"As a master control operator, (plaintiff) would monitor the Playboy channel to ensure that there was a steady feed of video.... During one occasion, (plaintiff) monitored a video which was being played on the Playboy channel that depicted various foods on a person's body, from pineapples to whipped cream. (Plaintiff) in front of (Defendant) stated that the pineapples and the whipped cream looked appetizing.... (Defendant), several months later, comes to (Plaintiff) with a can of ringed pineapples and told (Plaintiff) to lay down, as if he would start to eat food off of her body."

Lunch breaks must be exciting at Playboy. I'm foreseeing an epidemic of heart attacks.

FOX NEWS IS JUST KIDDING. Apparently you can report anything as long you smile and mention that it might not be true.

Really.

Check out a seriously weird (but entertaining) U. S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruling called Levesque v. Doocy in which the court dismissed the defamation claims of a school superintendent even though a pair of Fox News anchors admitted on the air that their report might not be true.

Said the ruling: "In certain contexts, a statement like "I hope we're not being duped" likely would raise a genuine issue of material fact on the question of actual malice.... But in the context of a consistently irreverent (and to many, insensitive) morning television show ... such statements frequently are used as devices to magnify the presentation and grab viewers' attention."

Fox News guys are just bad comics.

But even that wasn't the strangest part of the ruling. This is how the opinion begins:

"Rare is there an opportunity to interrupt today's twenty-four-hour news cycle, fueled by cable television's incessant need for content and the explosion of Internet websites that promptly apprise us of events across the world. This appeal offers such a moment..."

It seems the judge thinks he's making damning the flow of news.

Good thing I'm here to break up the news cycle to report it.

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