– When a prank goes very, very, very wrong: They say comedy is tragedy plus time, but I feel bad for even thinking of humor in this. It might be better described as irony but it’s been almost 20 years since I dropped English as my major so I could be wrong. Here’s how the story began: a 19 year-old woman was driving with a group of people, all also 19, on the New York Thruway after a day at the beach. A backseat passenger decided it would be funny (or something) to pull the string on the driver’s bikini top. As the driver tried to get her top back on, the car veered off the highway, collided with a guard rail, and flipped. The prankster died in the crash, and several passengers were injured. An appellate court in Brooklyn found last week that the driver was not civilly liable in a lawsuit filed by another passenger, because the removal of her top was “a sudden and unforeseen emergency not of her own making.”
– Time for a new calendaring system: The town of Wallsburg, Utah did not hold an election on November 5. Because they forgot. Again. Via Kevin at Lowering the Bar:
Wallburg’s city recorder, described by the Salt Lake Tribune as “the employee responsible for oversight of elections,” not only failed to oversee this year’s elections, he or she forgot to have any. The recorder failed to announce the filing period or make any other arrangements for municipal elections on November 5, when everybody else in Utah has them. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late. The mayor and councilmembers will have to be appointed (by who, the report didn’t say) and will serve for two years until the next elections roll around in 2015.
Remember when I said “again”? Oh yes:
Everyone should be familiar with that procedure, at least, because it’s what they had to do in 2011 after the last municipal elections. Which Wallsburg also forgot to hold. An acting mayor and councilmembers were appointed at that time, and those were the seats that were supposed to have been filled this time around.
As Kevin notes, they might consider appointing some new people, or else this could start to look fishy. There may also be an opening for a city recorder soon.
– Here’s a very creepy headline, which I will copy here but not discuss further because seriously, WTF: Sydney Leathers will be selling her excess labia to the highest bidder.
