March 9, 2016

Wondering, on Wednesday (v49)

We've got trials, and we've got crazy politicians, and of course we have your crazy primary results. Let the wondering begin!

Erin Andrews, sports and entertainment commentator, was awarded $55 million by a jury, after suing a hotel chain and a stalking, peephole-modifying scumbag for $75 million.  The dirtball who filmed her naked after calling around and finding out which hotel Andrews would be staying at on a trip to Nashville, then requesting and being placed in the room next door to her, making it convenient for him to rig the peephole tube to allow him to film inside her room, was sent to jail for 30 months. Notably, the guy did this not only in Nashville, but also in Columbus.

Andrews has to live a whole lot more than 30 months knowing that the video is out there in the cloud somewhere, for anyone to watch, whenever they want.

Including, we're told, by a witness in her trial. As in, when a hotel executive allegedly said something along the lines of "I might as well get my money's worth" and, mere hours after testifying, watched the video with dinner companions in a restaurant. His story differs - he asked his friends to stop watching it, and they did - but still. This is why she sued, and why the jury awarded her tens of millions of dollars. An IT guy said the video was viewed at least 16 million times, although he admitted that was a conservative estimate. Based on that, the jury's award is less than $3.50 per view.

Is that fair? I really have no idea. I wonder if there's any amount of money that would adequately compensate a person for something like this, but at the same time wonder how the penalty against the hotel chain could be used to have them actually make changes to protect others in the future. For example, how easy is it really to remove the peephole parts and modify them? Without being caught on a security camera? I just wonder.

Movin on, I'm also wondering why it is that poor Bibi Netanyahu (R-Israel) is so worried about causing a stir in our presidential politics, such that he doesn't think it's right to visit with President Obama this month, and why, if it was so important that he not be perceived as interfering in our primary elections, he couldn't tell the White House directly, instead leaving them to find out from media reports? It's funny how he wasn't worried about having the US perceived as meddling in the Israeli election, which Netanyahu was on the verge of losing just before he came and exhorted Congress to reject the Iran nuclear deal but I guess that's different?  And I wonder, who is he going to endorse, when the time comes? I mean, we'll be looking for endorsement from all of our senators, foreign and domestic alike.

And finally, I'm wondering, if size matters, how did Small Hands crush Big Ears in the Republican primaries yesterday?

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