I’m just a broke down old cop. It seems to me that the level of incompetence displayed by the modern media is without precedent. Opinions masquerading as facts, outright lies sworn to as true, evasions denied and just the shear number of times they got it wrong.  The fact that this story is from a British tabloid ought to tell you something. 

If a doctor has a problem telling his right from his left there are solutions available, up to and including the doctor asking the patient,’What am I doing here?” If that isn’t enough the block letters on my legs “NOT THIS ONE” and  an X on the leg to be operated on are actually reassuring. But despite all that if the doctor operates on the wrong leg there are still additional corrective measures. We can sue the dogshit out of him.

I think that there are alternatives in dealing with the press, but the problem is finding a lawyer to take the case. With the advent of the word processor being an attorney is a breeze. Original thoughts are frowned upon in the law. It makes judges think and that hurts. It hurts even more when they pick wrong. That’s why lawyers use “go bys”.

Take a past pleading that was successful, change some names, dates, places and you are good to go. Don’t even have to change the fact situation because in most cases the facts are so broadly stated so as to be meaningless. Allege heat exhaustion in January and walk out with a judgment for frostbite in July.

Let me give you a for instance where I think it would be entirely reasonable to sue the media under a theory of product liability. The scenario goes like this: George and Joe discuss going golfing at their local golf course. The weather seems a little iffy, but the weather bimbo on Channel 12 assures them a devastating cold front bringing high winds and snow will not hit town until later tonight.  Thus reassured they book a tee time and are out of the course as a twosome by 11:10 am.

At 2:15 pm while they are at the fifteenth hole of the back nine, and the front, “a Blue Norther” blows in, causing a 59 degree temperature drop with snow squalls. In an attempt to race back to the clubhouse and safety George tries a maintenance path rather than a cart path, misses a turn and rolls the golf cart off the side of the hill. The cart lands next to a pot bunker on the sixteenth fairway. George is killed in the collision.

Realizing that he must find immediate shelter, heat and food or he will not survive this event, Joe decides to hunker down in place. A devoted follower of Bear Grylls, he uses the roof and windshield from the golf cart to construct a rudimentary roof over a portion of the sand trap. He supplements his building efforts with the shit house door off a Port-A-Potty and a canvas tarp that blew by. He is able to gather firewood and soon has a fire going. Joe brought George along, intending to use him for body heat. He discovers dead people do not generate heat.

From the combined golf bags Joe salvages two rain suits, a windshirt, a three pairs of socks. Food consists of three Oreo cookies crushed to bits and a Hershey’s bar melted into an anonymous blob and four beers. Joe decides to make hot chocolate with these ingredients. He finds a spigot nearby and fills a hubcap with water and puts on the fire to boil. Joe has lost sight of the fact that all irrigation water is recycled sewage water.

While Joe is waiting for the water to boil, he slams down the beers, purely for the carbohydrates. Once the water boils, Joe pours everything into an empty beer can. It approximates the color, if not the taste of hot chocolate.

The wind continues to howl, the snow continues to accumulate and the temperature continues to drop. Joe has decided that since George isn’t a source of warmth, he’s taking too much space in the shelter. George becomes a windbreak.

It’s coming on six thirty the time Joe normally has dinner. He sure is hungry. He remembers Grylls talking about keeping one’s energy up and non traditional food sources in an emergency. Joe starts thinking about funerals he has attended. Try as he might he can’t think of a single occasion where the calves of the deceased came into play. He makes his decision.

This explains why the course superintendent found Joe gnawing on a stringy piece of meat while wearing George’s testicle sack as ear muffs. Joe survived but not without consequences. He was not allowed to attend George’s funeral. This meant he couldn’t work the widow for a sweet deal on George’s clubs.

The golf course is suing Joe for the cost repairing the golf cart, the fairway bunker and the shithouse door.He can’t get any of his golfing buddies to play with him and has to travel fifty miles out of town just to get a tee time.

Meanwhile the weather girl at Channel 12 continues to present the weather. In her spare time she tries to suck a golf ball through a foot of garden hose. Her seventy year old boy friend promised to take her to Cabo for spring break if she got it down.

From where I sit that one errant forecast set this whole chain of events into motion. If the weather bimbo got the forecast right, then Joe and George would not have played golf. No golf, no accident where George would be killed. The golf course wouldn’t have lost a golf cart, fairway bunker and shithouse door off of a Port-a-Potty. George wouldn’t be in his grave minus a calf and a nutsack.

We tune into the news to get accurate information. Sometimes the information is important and sometimes it is trivial. The MSM spend a great deal of time and money assuring the public that the MSM can be relied upon to provide that information. Think of some successful product liability lawsuits. How about the family that sued the wetsuit manufacturer because the wetsuit their son was wearing interfered wish ability to control his hang glider? Suddenly my idea is sounding reasonable, isn’t it?