Oh Be Careful What You Tweet

Now this is scary, mostly because it means that Lawyers are getting their heads around twitter and that has got to be a bad thing, right. This woman had a few followers on her twitter account and rather simply insinuated that the managing agent of her property let thought that it was OK to let her sleep in damp and mold. Rather than reply back and set the record straight, they get in touch with their lawyer (probably by twitter) and get him to dust off the "Sue You" file, cut and paste a few relevant word documents and wham - slap her with a $50k law suit. Now granted, in the US a $50k law suit is probably small beer, but hang on its still $50k.


The story was broken by the Chicago Sun Times, have a look there are some great quotes from

the company about sue first and ask questions later, is that the modern day equivalent of the old holywood westerns where it was shoot first.........ask questions later.




Anyway, what I really want to understand is this. If the original tweet was sent and she had 20 followers, then in reality how many people saw the message and of those who did, how many actually took any notice? OK, armed with that number in your head, how many people do you think now know about this around the world, as a result of the law suit? Certainly a significantly larger number than before.

Maybe its me who is being stupid here, but haven't the letting company shot themselves in the foot (or should that be sued themselves in the foot) because if their real reason for taking action was to contain the story that one of their properties was allegedly moldy then they have failed miserably, right?


Of course as ever the most un-stupid party in the whole arrangement is the cut and paste guy, as his fee will probably be paid whatever happens.


As I said, the scary thing is that the lawyers are catching on to fast, we need to pick up the pace.

Top 10 Stupid British Laws

Here's what we mean this is form Lorla's blog ..##

Top 10 British Stupid Laws - Thou Shalt Not Die

It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament (27 percent)

It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down (seven percent)

In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish store (six percent)

Mince pies cannot be eaten on Christmas Day (five percent)

In Scotland, if someone knocks on your door and requires the use of your toilet, you must let them enter (four percent)

A pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a
policeman’s helmet (four percent)

The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the king, and the tail of the queen (3.5 percent)

It is illegal to avoid telling the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing (three percent)

It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour (three percent)

In the city of York it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow (two percent)

Hey, hang on, I live in Scotland, so how come I have to let every scumbag that passes by come in and use my loo?!! Is this what we get from the current Scottish Parliament or was it from the last one?

Anyway thanks for that Lorla - just what we are looking for in the ongoing study of stupidity

Monology - The study of Stupidity

Alright so it doesn't really mean that, its just become commonly referred to in some circles. Have a look here to get a good idea of what it really means.

What we are going to do though is have a laugh at some of the daft and stupid things that are out there.

Here's a nice one to get started from strange places

A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!

Or

A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."

And from rinkworks

Lawyer: "Do you know how far pregnant you are now?"
Witness: "I'll be three months on November 8."
Lawyer: "Apparently, then, the date of conception was August 8?"
Witness: "Yes."
Lawyer: "What were you doing at that time?"

OK so these are just for starters, we want to build upon the theme and get to the heart of real stupidity and have a laugh along the way. We need to get some themes going and its not any surprise from me that lawyers are in there right from the start.