NYC Bums and Loiterers Win $15 Million Settlement

HuffPo - New York City will dish out $15 million to the 22,000 people--many of whom were panhandlers-- arrested for loitering by the NYPD who used laws that were deemed unconstitutional decades ago. The class action settlement, according to The New York Times, came after a federal judge in 2010 found the city in contempt for "obstinance and uncooperativeness" for enforcing laws that "banned loitering to panhandle or to search for a sex partner, or while in a bus or train station." In order for people to collect on the settlement, in payouts ranging from $1,000 to $10,000, must file official claims--a task that may be beyond many of those homeless beggars arrested on the city's streets years ago. 

Are you freaking kidding me?  Free handouts, just for loitering? What the fuck. Here I am acting like an idiot, loitering in my own private home, or in my cube, or for years in a classroom so God forbid I'm not a child that gets left behind, and all this time, if I'd just been loitering around a 7-11 or Ray's Pizza in New York I'd be looking at a handsome cash settlement? Jesus H, I think I've been screwed. 

I loiter with the absolute best of them. Do you know what I did yesterday? My alarm went off at 8:00 AM, I reset the alarm for 9:00 and loitered, watching tv in bed, in a slightly vegetative state, from there I got up, got ready, then loitered some more on the internet for an hour or so before going to work. At work, more loitering, so much loitering and general nothingness that I had to take a walk around the building twice before lunch, just to get my blood flowing. Post lunch? More loitering, I read the rest of the non-sports related internet (for obvious, Patriots related reasons), my boss walked by once and I put a few piece of paper in front of me and furrowed my brow...hardest work I did all day. Got home, more loitering, put some sweats on, grabbed my "old man robe" (fiancee's words, not mine) and threw my feet up on the couch and watched my "stories" from 8-11:00 PM. Then I went to bed.  A whole, vegetative day of loitering with no promises of cash payouts, no TV lawyers like Dane Shulman, "getting me what's rightfully mine, and that's that." Kind of feels like a gigantic waste on my part.

And I know some of you are probably arguing, but CW, $1,000-10,000 isn't really that much.  Well yea, to you and me it isn't, because we have bills and rent. But full time loiterers? That's like hitting the lotto. These guys have ZERO overhead. No rent, no grocery shopping, as far as I know they don't pay income taxes or FICA, that 10k is all profit. As far as the street goes, that's retirement money. Probably enough to go catch a bus at Grand Central straight to Tampa Bay or some other southern city for a lifetime of easy street living. Meanwhile I'm still here grinding it out on my somewhat lazy, yet educated and employed ass, like an absolute sucker.

Staten Island Mom Suing City for $900 Trillion...The Defense Rests

HuffPo- A Staten Island mother is suing the city for a staggering $900 trillion for allegedly wrongfully placing her two sons in foster care and claiming she was mentally unstable. 46-year old Fausat Ogunbayo, who is representing herself, says the Administration for Children's Services's decision to place her children in foster care infringed upon her civil rights and ultimately inflicted "over three years of terror, horror, grievous harm, time lost, substantial economic hardship and injuries." The children, then 12 and 10-years old, have been out of their mother's custody since June 2008. In court papers, the ACS references several peculiar incidents where Ogunbayo sought out medical treatment because she believed her children's skin color was becoming darker due to radiation. In a separate episode, the mother allegedly told school officials the FBI was after the boys. While the city is contending Ogunbayo suffered from such hallucinations and in addition was an absent mother , a separate legal case last month ruled in favor of Ogunbayo with the court stating no substantial evidence indicating the children were ever in "imminent danger" while in their mother's care.

Does the City even need a lawyer on this one? The DA doesn't even have to show up, right? You just let the plaintiff make her opening statement, ask for her $900 trillion and then have some intern stand up and be like, "your honor, we think the plaintiff's statement and demands make our case for us, the defense rests." 

That's all it takes, right? I just feel like when you show up to court asking for $900 trillion you're kinda of just telling the judge that you are in fact crazy and out of touch with reality. 

That's not even a real number, is it? Does the world as a whole have that much money? If you're this woman you at least have to do a little research, I mean, you live in New York, you couldn't swing by the Debt Clock (Below) and just use that as a ball-park figure for your demands? 

Unless of course this is just a negotiating ploy, start out real high and make them meet you somewhere in the middle...maybe that's it. This broad might be craftier than I thought.

Lazy New York City Teachers Suspending Kindegardeners at an Alarming Rate

NYC - A number of city public schools suspended kids in kindergarten for misbehaving last year — including three schools that hit the double-digit mark. PS 212 in Brooklyn registered 13 suspensions of kindergarten this past school year, followed by PS 13 in Staten Island with 12 suspensions and PS 115 in Brooklyn with 10. “It’s troubling, because a lot of these kids are being suspended for behaviors that could be dealt with in a more constructive fashion,” said Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children. “We think suspension is very much a last resort because it removes a child from the classroom and it doesn’t teach them appropriate behavior.”

No shit these kids could have been dealt with in a more constructive manner, just how bad of a teacher do you have to be to be suspending 5 year olds on the reg? That's as low as it gets.

When I was in kindegarden (full day by the way, none of this half day crap that some kids do now) we had 6 basic periods a day, and each one of them was a blast, like if you're the teacher and you're fucking this up, you suck at life, because as a five year olds, we ate all this stuff up:

1) Reading - When you're just learning to read this is easily as fun as a Call of Duty session, Thomas the Tank Engine, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Curious George...Those are still my favorite books today.

2) Coloring - Hand the kids some crayons under the guise of teaching them to "color in between the lines" and just leave them be for like 45 minutes. I colored my ass off in kindegarden, had one of those Super 64 packs from Crayola, wore each and everyone of those suckers down to the nub. Red-Orange was my favorite, fyi.

3) Snack/Building Blocks time - Everyone run to your cubbies, get a snack and then go build things with blocks and lincoln logs...No joke, I don't even think my teacher was in the room during this time, think she just went down to the teachers lounge to hang out with some adults. Kids just sword fighting with the bigger blocks, raiding the girls groups that were pretending to play house, and building stately log cabins from the lincoln logs (my specialty).

4) Lunch/Recess - See ya, kids are out of your hands for another half hour...We're half way through the way and you've so far read to the kids for like 30 mins...that's it. That's your entire day of work so far.

5) Nap time - There is no lazier an exercise for teachers than nap time. Tell the kids to find a spot and lay down and you've done your job. True, I never slept during nap time, I always made it my mission to sneakily crawl from one end of the room to the other without being noticed, but as long as you don't have any funny co-ed business going on you've got nothing to worry about (and luckily for you, girls have cooties at that age, so no real chance of funny business here)

6) Gym - See ya, kids gone for 45 more minutes. If it's Friday you can literally take this time to pregame for your night out later, no one will know.

7) Go Home.

If you're a kindergarden teacher that's it, that's your day. One half hour of reading, passing out a few crayons, and the rest of the day is your oyster. Do whatever you please. It's unfathomable that there's a human being out there that can't handle that, so you can see how the public would be puzzled if teachers are just suspending kids to lighten their loads, it just makes no sense.