08 March 2023

Emotional Support Mice?

One of the best social media ripostes I've seen about anything, let alone about a rat infestation. In Florida. I wonder if the rats swam up the coast from Palm Beach?

  • It appears now that Florida Man will be restricted to doing ridiculous culture-war things instead of, oh, shooting an alligator on his front lawn with a ghost gun six days after getting out of prison with a police cruiser parked across the street. (OK, OK, nine days. Given what they're doing to education down in Florida, that's probably enough time to forget he was a convicted felon.)
  • That's probably less embarassing than the former prosecutor for five counties — largely by heredity — getting convicted of murder as part of an insurance-fraud scheme. Probably. Maybe he needed the emotional support mice.
  • It's certainly less embarassing than PayPal and TicketBastard demanding social security numbers a year early. Key point: This is about transaction reporting; it's not about tax liability. Unless one is in the business of, say, selling too-small children's clothing or one of the few Taylor Swift tickets that actually got delivered to a paying, non-bot customer, those occasional sales are not recognized as income. If you get too many such notice, there might be later questions, but the mere fact of a 1099K does not create tax liability. No doubt there will be shrieking and "your access to this service will be cut off if you don't provide a W-9 immediately" and gnashing and wailing… and continued money-laundering that won't be reported…
  • An accusation of copyright infringement doesn't mean liability for the full measure of statutory damages. Even when later found liable.

    At least so far, it doesn't look like the "adult entertainment" industry has chosen to inundate the Claims Board. Maybe my prediction that would happen will prove incorrect; more likely, I'll just have been too quick off the mark. Perhaps all those "Russian porn sites" are having trouble asserting their claims in the US due to the Ukraine conflict.

  • One wonders, though, whether a violinist's discreetly rubbed trousers are due to the recent scampering of emotional support mice. More likely, it was the rats from the Jaguars' locker room returning to their more-usual haunts.