Friday, July 16, 2010
L.A. judge uses spam blocker on McCourts
Posted by Anna McDonaldSATIRE—Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon has instituted a popular spSpam blocker to help solve issues relating to the payments and settlement of the McCourts' divorce. The judge declared that using the spam blocker was the quickest and best way to get only rational comments from Frank and Jamie.
He stated that typical spam comments in the courtroom overwhelm administrators with irrelevant information. The comments make no sense and slow down an otherwise effective system. This is exactly the type of remarks he hears coming from the McCourts.
Judge Gordon said he sees spam all the time on his own personal blog. "I'm very good at catching it so, when the McCourts started using it on me, I knew what it was right away. On my blog I see comments like, "This is inspirational stuff, I never knew the options could be so many." I know it’s spam because I wrote about sitting in traffic on the way to the All-Star game. That’s not very inspirational. Or, I’ll get comments that say, "Your web site is very helpful. I never knew this before. Can I communicate with you?" That’s an easy one, there’s really nothing helpful about what I post."
The L.A. court reporter has instituted a spam blocker for the rest of the hearings. Here are just a few of the comments from the McCourts that have been caught, and marked as spam, shown below as they appeared on her court dashboard.
AUTHOR Jamie
SPAM COMMENT: "I have only about $4 million in savings and $450,000 in cash. This will quickly run out when I pay the mortgages and expenses related to the seven residences."
A COMMENT THAT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MARKED SPAM: "$225,000 dollars a month is fine. I’ll just get fewer residences, like, only two or three."
AUTHOR Frank
SPAM COMMENT: "I am really strapped for cash. My $5 million salary just isn’t enough."
A COMMENT THAT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MARKED SPAM: "With my $5 million salary I promise to cover my expenses and make sure I do not SPEND MORE THAN I MAKE."
From this point forward, if the McCourts want to avoid the sale of the Dodgers, they’re going to have to decipher this Captcha before they enter any comment in court.
And if they can’t figure that one out, here’s their other option:
That should weed out the ridiculous comments and help the judge get down to business. Having the Captcha block their nonsensical comments will not only allow them to maintain ownership of the Dodgers, but most importantly, it will let the Los Angeles Dodgers get on with the team's pennant hopes.
Anna just opened a Twitter account. You can follow her @Anna__McDonald. She also writes for ESPN.com.
brilliant! thanks for the laugh!