Jack Thompson: DISBARRED!

Update: Here is a time line of the events leading up to the disbarrment.

Dennis at GamePolitics was supposed to update me on this -- but I guess he got too busy with trying to get his site back up after posting the news.

Gamers and free speech advocates rejoice -- it has happened.

Florida lawyer and wanker Jack Thompson can no longer practice law. Ever. Never ever.

In a four-page written order (download here), the Florida Supreme Court today affirmed a referee's recommendation to permanently disbar controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson.

The action, which takes effect in 30 days, means that Thompson will no longer be licensed to practice law and may not apply for reinstatement. Ever.

In citing a litany of offenses, the Court noted Thompson's extensive pattern of misconduct and cited a "complete lack of remorse."

...

Noting that "The Court concludes that the facts, as even more extensively detailed in the referee's report, support the referee's numerous recommendations as to guilt," the justices of the Florida Supreme Court affirmed Thompson's offenses as delineated by Judge Tunis.

Whee!

I guess I can just call him "wanker" now.

So what did they find him guilty of?

• [Thompson] made false statements of material fact to courts and repeatedly violated a court order
• [Thompson] communicated the subject of representation directly with clients of opposing counsel
• [Thompson] engaged in prohibited ex parte communications
• [Thompson] publicized and sent hundreds of pages of vitriolic and disparaging missives, letters, faxes, and press releases, to the affected individuals
• [Thompson] targeted an individual who was not involved with respondent in any way, merely due to "the position [the individual] holds in state and national politics"
• [Thompson]falsely, recklessly, and publicly accused a judge as being amenable to the "fixing" of cases
• [Thompson] sent courts inappropriate and offensive sexual materials
• [Thompson] falsely and publicly accused various attorneys and their clients of engaging in a
  conspiracy/enterprise involving "the criminal distribution of sexual materials to minors" and attempted to get prosecuting authorities to charge these attorneys and their clients for racketeering and extortion
• [Thompson] harassed the former client of an attorney in an effort to get the client to use its influence to persuade the attorney to withdraw a defamation suit filed by the attorney against respondent
• [Thompson] retaliated against attorneys who filed Bar complaints against him for his unethical conduct by asserting to their clients, government officials, politicians, the media, female lawyers in their law firm, employees, personal friends, acquaintances, and their wives, that the attorneys were criminal pornographers who objectify women.

Of course, gamers in particular are celebrating in their own ways.

But don't think for a minute it's going to put an end to Thompson's activism. It just means that he won't be taken as seriously as he has been in the past. But as Dennis noted, this all could have been avoided if Thompson had simply said that he was sorry for what he had done.

It's Out Of Florida, Of Course

A lesson on why you should choose your nickname carefully.

There were some tense moments on the Florida State University campus at lunch Thursday afternoon.

The bomb squad was called out after a maintenance worker walked by a car in a parking garage and saw a briefcase with the word “a-bomb” scrawled across it.

F-S-U used its campus wide alerting system. Text messages had the students and employees on alert for a brief period until police gave the all clear.

Lt. Jason Trumbower of the F-S-U Police Department says no explosives were found. They later determined the briefcase belonged to a student.

"It belonged to a 17 year old student here locally. The brief case just a few minutes ago was found to be empty, nothing inside. Apparently the kids name, nickname was A-bomb and that was found on the suitcase."

Anywhere else I would have been, "Yeah, right." But since it happened in Florida...what else is new?

This Couldn't Wait Until Monday

A typical story out of Florida, which seems to corner the market on strange stories. But this one would have upset me, too, if I had seen it.

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- It looked harmless enough, but the words on a billboard un-nerved so many people that a popular restaurant nearby actually lost business.

The billboard was on Colonial Drive near the Old Cheney Highway. Although the popular Straub's Seafood restaurant often advertises on it, this wasn't their billboard. The sign was taken down after Channel 9 started asking questions.

The billboard came down around 4:00 Friday afternoon and nearby business owners are relieved. Straub's restaurant can replace the sign with the night's specials.

At first glance the sign looked like a children's cartoon, but the message next to the fairy princess stirred emotions.

"When you condemn all religions and say they are a fairytale that is wrong," said Rich Stormes, a nearby business owner.

The billboard went up a week before Easter and business at the restaurant went down.

"Easter Sunday is usually a busy good day," said John Russel, an employee at Straub's. "Easter Sunday business was down by two thirds."

I can't believe someone would be this insensitive to other people. Most people in this country believe in some kind of religion -- only a really small percentage are truly atheist. I honestly think that it was someone who might have had a beef with the restaurant and wanted them to lose business.

But this...well, it would have gotten me upset if I saw it.

Wrestlemania 24 and the Case Of The Missing Nipples

I tried to enlarge the picture as much as I could without distorting it too much, but according to the Orlando Sentinel, there is something missing from this billboard.

All the men have no nipples.

You would think that prurient interests were at play here, but the city busses have the same poster, except that the men all have nipples intact.

So, what happened?

Mayor Buddy Dyer claimed to have the, um, skinny.

"Apparently there's an ordinance that prohibits them from being displayed," he said.

"For men's nipples?" I replied, immediately becoming uncomfortable about discussing such a thing with Buddy.

He shrugged, saying, "It does seem a little overboard."

It turns out, it was.

There is, in fact, no city law that bans the display of male chests. In fact, the exact same image can be spotted -- with nipples aplenty -- on Lynx buses.

...What happened, said a similarly uncomfortable city spokesman, Carson Chandler, was that city staffers asked the WWE and folks to create banners that weren't too provocative. And somewhere along the way, the nipples were airbrushed out before the giant sign reached Orlando.

Yes, airbrushed . . . which at least means they didn't involve hubcap-sized pasties.

The reporter called the effect "Ken-like." I call it "going overboard in interpretation."

Maybe they should call a detective to find the wrestlers some nipples, stat!