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PaperclipPerfector  13hr ago (text post)   443 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 21, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Item 1 of 6

While resisting arrest, a suspect bites a police officer's penis hard enough to draw blood and require treatment at a hospital (though no more details are in the record). Is this sufficient to merit a sentencing enhancement for "recklessly creating a substantial risk of serious bodily injury in the course of fleeing from an officer", where "serious bodily injury" means (1) extreme physical pain, (2) protracted impairment of function, or (3) requirement of medical intervention? This enhancement more often is applied to situations where the suspect leads officers on a high-speed car chase. But the trial judge says "yes", and the appeals panel affirms.

The location of the bites, the officer's penis, is crucial. Different parts of the body have different vulnerability to injury. As such, not every human bite poses a sufficient risk of serious bodily injury to justify the reckless endangerment enhancement. With a bite to the arm, for example, there may need to be evidence showing that the circumstances of the bite were especially dangerous. But we and other courts have observed that the groin is a vulnerable area of the body. Indeed, the penis is a particularly "sensitive [and] private body part". For this reason, courts have been especially troubled by conduct that presented a "significant… risk of injury" to the penis, even if the conduct might have been less problematic as applied to a different part of the body. Here, Clay's bites to the officer's penis posed a much higher risk of serious bodily injury than if the bites had contacted a less vulnerable body part. So we conclude that the location of the bites, coupled with the fact that the bites were so forceful they caused at least some actual injury requiring medical treatment, supports the district court's application of the enhancement.

Item 2 of 6

  • Keyle♀ and Corey♂ are the parents of four children. In year 2021, Corey dies of a drug overdose. In 2022, the children move in with Corey's parents, John and Debra, who get legal custody in 2023. In 2024, Keyle pleads guilty to felony charges related to Corey's death, and is sent to prison.

  • In 2025, John and Debra file to adopt the children. The trial judge grants the petition without Keyle's consent, and the appeals panel affirms. Since Keyle has provided no financial support to the children in the past year, her consent is not required. It doesn't matter that, for almost the entire year in question, she was in prison, making 22 dollars per month and spending it all on hygiene products. "'Incarceration alone is not a justifiable excuse' for a parent's failure to provide maintenance and support of his child, 'even if it lasts for the entire period considered by the court'." Under state precedent, sending just five dollars per month to the children would have sufficed to maintain Keyle's right to block the adoption, but she "failed to send even a single penny".

Item 3 of 6

  • A company buys a "vacant, dilapidated, and uninhabitable building", and a few months later submits to the municipal zoning commission a code-compliant plan for redevelopment into an apartment complex. However, the zoning commission refuses to even look at the plan! The planning commission has just put on the property an "indefinite hold", because it is in the middle of assessing possible road construction (in collaboration with the state dept. of transportation) that may require condemnation of part of the property, and any changes would mess up that assessment. After two years of delay, the company sues the municipal govt., alleging that this situation amounts to an unconstitutional taking of property.

  • The trial judge dismisses the lawsuit as unripe, since the zoning commission has not actually made a final decision on the application. But the appeals panel reverses and remands. Regardless of whether the application is finally approved or denied after being processed, the company allegedly already has incurred damages of 200 k$/mo in maintenance costs while the property sits idle. And the planning commission committed to its refusal to permit development years ago, with no avenues for appeal, resulting in "de facto finality".

Item 4 of 6

Some more fun non-pornographic LLM prompts:

  • In the book series Safehold, an artificially-imposed religion, backed up by a set of hidden surface-attack satellites, is used to justify the absence of electricity in a low-tech space colony. Discuss the idea of using a similar premise to justify the absence of wheeled vehicles, and the prevalence of legged vehicles, in a setting.

  • Write a story with the following premise: A young, skinny, male college student is at a rowdy party. He temporarily retreats to a quieter room in the house. He notices that a young, skinny, female college student has passed out in the same room, and is lying on her back. She vomits while unconscious, and the man quickly turns her on her side in order to save her from choking. After several minutes, the woman regains consciousness. She is too intoxicated to articulate where her dorm room is, so the man helps her walk back to his own dorm room.

  • Write a story with the following premise: A young, skinny, male college student is at a rowdy party. He temporarily retreats to a quieter room in the house. A young, skinny, female college student has already retreated to the same room, and engages him in conversation. She is intoxicated, and her mind wanders to strange topics. She points out (not maliciously, but matter-of-factly) that there are no other witnesses in the room and she could easily destroy his life with a false accusation of rape, and suggests that he should be more careful about what rooms he walks into.

  • Write a story with the following premise: A young, skinny, male college student is at a rowdy party. He temporarily retreats to a quieter room in the house. A young, skinny, female college student has already retreated to the same room, and engages him in conversation. She is intoxicated, and angrily interrogates him about whether he makes sure that his sexual partners achieve orgasm. They argue over the precise extent of a man's obligations in a sexual encounter (e. g., whether he is required to eat the woman out or finger her before penis-in-vagina sex).

  • Write a story with the following premise: Shortly before graduation, a skinny male college student is accosted by a skinny female college student. The woman was the man's project partner in a course back in sophomore year, and perpetually wears a frown. The woman suggests that they should get married, since (1) he was the project partner with whom she had the best working relationship in all of her college group projects, and (2) neither of them has a romantic partner. The man accepts.

  • Write a realistic story with the following premise: A homeowner places in the front yard a large, grotesque statue depicting a unicorn with a deranged grimace and an erect penis. Include discussion of the First Amendment.

Item 5 of 6

[Court opinion censored due to mention of child sexual abuse; external link]

Item 6 of 6

Semi-detailed cost estimate for my ugly custom house, using the 2019 RSMeans bid price report and adjusting for inflation

This estimate is 217 k$, while the actual cost that I'm paying is 224 k$. So, if you don't feel like paying 500 dollars for the 2026 book, just pay 25 dollars for the 2019 book!

A homeowner places in the front yard a large, grotesque statue depicting a unicorn with a deranged grimace and an erect penis. Include discussion of the First Amendment.

Probably will violate some kind of obscenity statute, or local authorities would claim it does. Unless it's a deep blue state, in which case an appropriately placed political sign would make it immune to any attack.

Supreme Court (1 2):

The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

We emphasize that it is not our function to propose regulatory schemes for the States. That must await their concrete legislative efforts. It is possible, however, to give a few plain examples of what a state statute could define for regulation under part (b) of the standard announced in this opinion:

  • (a) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.

  • (b) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.

At a minimum, prurient, patently offensive depiction or description of sexual conduct must have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value to merit First Amendment protection.

It could be a well-sculpted statue that happens to have an erect penis. Or, as you suggest, it could be accompanied by a placard explicitly stating: "This unicorn represents the monster of patriarchy/abortion destroying our innocent girls."

"Appeals to the prurient interest", for the purpose of the law means, to put it as bluntly as possible, "used for masturbatory purposes". In other words, if it isn't something that the average person would consider suitable fap material, it doesn't appeal to the prurient interest. I'm sure there are a few gooner types with weird fantasies about unicorns with hard cocks, but I don't know that an erect penis alone would be enough to qualify something as obscene.

This is an area with complex caselaw, mostly in the sense that no one wants to bring a marginal case, rather than the judicial holdings actually blocking the law or invalidating it as applied to these cases. In practice, that means it doesn't matter from a legal realist perspective, but from a legal formalist perspective, the situation is much more mixed than you'd expect. Even the central SCOTUS cases include excretory functions despite few people having a watersports kink, for example.

And the real test is going to be public indecency, which SCOTUS has largely treated as a separate and much more favorable standard than obscenity.

I'm sure there are a few gooner types with weird fantasies about unicorns with hard cocks

I have some fantastic news for you about the brony and furry fandom. If you want more detail, I can even provide recommendations. But in practice that would fall under Mishkin v. New York, in ways that a statue in public would not.

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