Who will be making the official "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Willrow!" T-shirts?

Having never really been a fan of the Superman comics, I'm unacquainted with Superman's bad guys.  The ones I know--aside from Lex Luthor--seem lame, like Solomon Grundy, Braniac, Bizarro, and Mr. Maalox or whatever.

Batman schools every other comic hero when it comes to bad guys, with maybe Spider-Man a close second, which might be why those characters lend themselves to such great movies.

What could be in store for Superman?

And wasn't General Zod a creation of the movies?  I mean, he wasn't in the comics prior to Superman II, was he?

Anyway, I really liked SR a lot, and hope there's more, but I just don't know what they'd do as far as bad guys.  I'm starting to see why the first movie franchise ended up with Richard Pryor and Nuclear Man.

I hate Rob.

As a liberal, and therefore a supporter of all things evil, it is my duty, Dressel, to point out that banning the night is unfair to vampires.

Still, what do these tort cases have to do with judicial, or political for that matter, philosophy?

I'm a liberal, Democrat, ambulance chasing trial lawyer, and I say MySpace has no liability.  What's your point?

What a boner  

Who was behind the Smith & Wesson lawsuits?  Oh, that's right: Republican[/b] James Brady.  You know, Assistant and Press Secretary to Ronald Reagan?  He's the "lib er, left leaning politician."  Significantly, it was only after the settlement of the primary case (which involved multiple governmental and municipal entities--not private parties--as plaintiffs)  that individual plaintiffs began utilizing the cause of action as a private right of relief.  Additionally, the case settled between the parties, it wasn't a judicial verdict.  The trial judge's political persuasion--who cares?  He or she had nothing to do with the outcome of that case.

Columbine...uh...okay.  Michael Moore's a judge?  Hm.  News to me.  Was Wal-Mart sued over Columbine?  Yeah...didn't think so.  What was your point again?

Maybe you got your anecdotes confused.  Were you thinking of the North Carolina case where police responded to a scene of domestic abuse?  The one where the husband had fled, saying he was going to go buy bullets to kill himself?  The police contacted the two Wal-Marts and told them not to sell the guy bullets.  The managers said okay (thereby undertaking a legal duty; see above), but forgot to tell their gun department clerks.  The guy showed up, bought bullets, and killed himself.  Wal-Mart settled that case for $130,000 based on its exposure under a well known theory of liability called "negligent undertaking."  Again, it was a settlement between the parties; no judge involved.

I don't know anything about that Rhode Island case, other than that Rhode Island is one of several states that have a strict statutory scheme imposing liability on rental car companies for torts caused by their drivers.  Thus, regardless of whether a judge is a Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, he applies the laws as enacted by the state legislature.  That has nothing to do with the judge's political persuasion.  Indeed, I believe that if a judge were to act in opposition to majoritarian legislation, your ilk would call him or her an "activist."

So am I missing something, or are you just talking out of your ass?

This is the dumbest thing I think I have ever read:

America is divided 50-50 along the 2 major party lines, and that judges assigned to positions have either an "R" or a "D" after their name.  One of those is going to blame Myspace.com, the other is going to blame the moron who actually committed the rape.

Dressel, despite what you've been programmed to believe and regurgitate, cases like this have little, if anything, to do with political persuasion or idealogical bents.  Tort cases are, by and large, decided upon the factual and legal merits of the case (there are some exceptions pertaining to peripheral issues, like damage caps and statutory immunity, etc., but this case is so far from those peripheral issues that discussing them in the same context would be premature).  So I wasn't just baiting you, I was genuinely curious as to why you think "judicial philosophy" has anything to do with a case like this?

To come back with the suggestion that Democrats would make an inane decision and Republicans would make a good one is absurd for several reasons, but I'll list just a couple:  1) it presumes a connection between "judicial philosophy" and declared political allegiance.  Despite the conservatives' best efforts, the judiciary is an apolitical branch of government.  With some notable exceptions impertinent to this discussion, liberalism and conservatism are vastly different notions in the courts than on the beltway; 2) it completely ignores the procedural and substantive aspects of the law that have far more influence on the outcome of cases like this than the political persuasions, or judicial philosophies, for that matter, of trial court judges.

There's a procedural mechanism in place that provides for dismissal of cases that fail to state a claim for which relief can be granted.  Depending on the parties' various arguments on the nature of the plaintiffs' claims, this case will likely be decided (and my prediction, disposed of) at that juncture.  Whether the trial court judge is a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Socialist will have no bearing on the procedural posture and disposition of the case.

The plaintiffs' tort claims do not invoke any constitutional rights, therefore the various judicial approaches to constitutional interpretation won't become an issue.  It's not like this is a habeas corpus petition challenging Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, or a civil rights claim raising issues about the nature of fundamental rights.  It's simply a question of whether MySpace owed a legal duty to protect its users from offline encounters, and if so, whether that duty was breached--all in all, a fairly objective inquiry that has nothing to do with the trial judge's "judicial philosophy."

So what does it have to do with this case, other than your kneejerk tendency to blame everything you don't like or think is stupid on liberals and/or Democrats?