ADA needs to be repealed.

Bottom fucking line.

OMAHA, Neb. — A hearing-impaired woman has filed a federal lawsuit against a local McDonald’s, saying workers there refused to let her order food at the drive-thru window.
Karen Tumeh of Lincoln says they insisted she either order at the electronic speaker along the drive-thru lane or come inside to order.
Tumeh wears a hearing aid but still cannot hear while using the drive-thru ordering box at fast-food restaurants, according to the lawsuit.
At least three times since September 2007 workers at a Lincoln McDonald’s refused to let her place her order at the drive-thru window, Tumeh said.
In denying her service, McDonald’s violated the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, she said. Tumeh’s lawsuit seeks to force McDonald’s to make accommodations for hearing-impaired people to order food in restaurant drive-thrus.

Sorry, but this is bullshit. Get out of the fucking car and go inside. People used to deal with their disabilities, you know, back before Papa Bush signed that abortion of a bill known as the ADA.
I know plenty of folks with disabilities more severe than hearing loss who managed to get by without the government forcing businesses to make special accommodations for them.
You don’t realize it, Ms. Tumeh, but you’re one of the reasons this country is in the fucking mess it’s in.

Other McDonald’s restaurants in Lincoln have accommodated Tumeh, Mora James said.
“We have attempted to resolve this on many occasions and have unfortunately been unable to resolve this,” [her attorney, Shirley Ann] Mora James said. “So we were forced into litigation.”

No, you weren’t. Instead of taking your business elsewhere, you decided to throw a tantrum and sue. That is NOT the American way, and I question your patriotism, Ms. Tumeh and Ms. Mora James — as well as your motives, which I imagine are all about redistributing a bit of McDonalds’ wealth into your own pockets.
Fuck a bunch of people like you who capitalize on their disabilities to line their pockets.

Here is why we don’t want Big Brother government.

It’s too cheesy.

The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that only the tasty, crumbly cheese that has been made for some 800 years near the Italian city of Parma can legally be called Parmesan.
In a case dating back to 2003, the court criticized Germany for allowing sales of imitation Parmesan in violation of European Union food origin rules that reserve the name Parmesan for Italian cheese only.
The case was brought by the European Commission. There was no punishment for Germany, but German producers will now have to change the name of their cheese.
Over the years, the EU has become more active in legally protecting dozens of brand names of foods and drink peculiar to European regions — from Champagne to feta cheese.
In 2005, in a setback for Danish producers, the EU high court said feta can only come from Greece, and imitations cannot use that name.
Germany argued in court that Parmesan was a generic term for a type of hard, crumbly cheese that is often grated over food and cannot claim an Italian uniqueness.
The court disagreed, saying Parmesan was “clearly a translation of ‘Parmigiano Reggiano.'”
It added Germany had provided some “quotations from dictionaries and specialist literature” about Parmesan but these shed no light on how “the word Parmesan is perceived by consumers.”

Er…as crumbly, stinky cheese that you put on Italian-style food? (Or, as a friend of mine once put it, “Please pass me the ground-up sweat socks.”)
This is the kind of stupid shit that makes Americans laugh at Europe…if they even think about Europe at all.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a fairly large contingent of Americans that would like us to be just like Europeans…at least in the health insurance department. And that is frightening.
(Via The Corner.)

Tort reform, we hardly knew ye.

Why can’t legislators turn from stupidity and fix our tort system?

Starburst Fruit Chews are exactly as their name would indicate: chewy. But one Boston-area woman says the candies are so chewy, they should come with a warning label.
Victoria McArthur, of Romero, Mich., is suing Starbursts’ parent company, Mars Inc., for more than $25,000 for “permanent personal injuries” she claims she sustained after biting into one of their yellow candy in 2005.

I hope the judge throws this out of court. I doubt that will happen, of course.

And I certainly hope Mars fights it instead of going limp like so many of these corporations do. With a few notable exceptions, of course.

Bacardi fights back

In July, I noted the idiotic lawsuit filed against Bacardi by a woman who claimed she was burned by rum from a Barcardi bottle that had become like a torch when some idiot stuck a flaming menu in the stream of liquor being poured.
At the time I said I did not see how Bacardi could be found liable for something so far outside of its control.

Comes now Bacardi asking for dismissal — pretty much for that exact reason. But note that the the facts of the case are somewhat different than those alleged by plaintiffs.

MIAMI – Bacardi says its 151-proof rum was not the cause of burns suffered by three women who sued the spirits company and alleged that their injuries were caused when a bottle used to pour shots turned into a “flame thrower.”

Bacardi, in a motion to dismiss the lawsuits, said their injuries sustained by the women were caused after a bartender poured rubbing alcohol on the bar of the “Secrets” adult club and ignited it as part of a promotion for flaming drinks in 2002.

Quoting from Miami-Dade County police and fire reports, the company said another drunken patron placed a paper menu in the fire and then “pulled it up in the air,” causing the fire to spread and injure the women.
“Indeed, rubbing alcohol is the sole named source of the fire,” Miami-based Bacardi USA Inc. said in the motion filed last week in federal court. “Bacardi had nothing to do with this misfortune.”

Hmm! Isn’t that interesting.

“This same defect in the bottle has been injuring people around the country for years and they have done nothing to make this bottle safe when they know of the dangers,” Robert Dickman Jr., attorney for the women, said Monday. “Justice will have its day.”

Yeah, when you lose. Ambulance chaser.

Bacardi, however, said the women are improperly seeking a financial “windfall” by suing the company after already receiving payouts from others blamed for their roles in the Aug. 8, 2002, incident.

Huh. Truth is a funny thing, no?

“It was not Bacardi that staged a fire show at Secrets … It was not Bacardi that poured rubbing alcohol on the bar and set it on fire,” the company said in its motion.

Bacardi also said its 151 rum contains warning labels about its flammability – one says “Do not use this product for flaming dishes or drinks” – and features a “flame arrester” to prevent it from accidentally igniting.

The lawsuit and motions are pending before senior U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler, who has not issued a ruling on Bacardi’s dismissal request.

Hopefully Bacardi will continue to fight their version of the McDonalds lap coffee case a lot harder than McDonalds did.

When they came for McDonald’s, I was silent

(Well, actually, I wasn’t; I’m just taking poetic license.)

Then they came for Bacardi.

MIAMI – A woman who was allegedly severely burned by flaming rum during a Bacardi promotion sued the wine and spirits producer, claiming the product was defective and dangerous.

Danielle Alleyne, of Miami, suffered horrific burns after she was hit by the flaming rum at a Miami night club in August 2002, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court.

(…)

A bartender, who was not identified in the lawsuit, was pouring shots when a customer lit a menu on fire and placed it in the stream of alcohol. A bottle of Bacardi 151 that was being used to pour the shots turned into a flame thrower and sent flaming rum all over Alleyne, the lawsuit said.

WTF?

You don’t file a product lawsuit for stupidity. You sue either the server who spilled it on you, or the fucking moron who thought it would be cute to stick a flaming menu in the stream of booze. But you probably won’t get jack from the server or the moron, and Bacardi has deep pockets, so let’s sue Bacardi and claim their product is defective and dangerous!

Look. I’m sorry the lady got burned and all (it does not sound like it was her fault at all; she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time), but bottom line, I hope the judge throws this case out of court, with prejudice. I’m not sanguine about that outcome, though. After all, McDonald’s got nailed for something that was even farther beyond their control — the server in that case wasn’t even involved, the idiot drive-up customer squeezed the cup between her thighs and popped the lid off. That would have been her own damn fault, but she found a good (read, “unscrupulous”) lawyer and a receptive (read, “moronic”) court who found otherwise.

Tort reform — faster, please.