Surprise! Justice Scalia Is Biggest Jerk On The Court

" Antonin Scalia 2010 " by Stephen Masker - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia . Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

• A smart-ass law professor decided to do A Serious Study on Supreme Court justices and sarcasm. You'll never guess who wins The Most Sarcastic Justice award:

  Justice Scalia is the most sarcastic Justice on the Supreme Court. He has been for at least the last thirty years, and there is good reason to believe no other Justice in history has come close to his level of sarcasm. Now your first reaction to this claim, if you are a (sarcastic) Supreme Court aficionado, is probably: “Well, duh!” And your second reaction is likely: “Oh really? Well how can you prove that?”

  He's even got a fancy chart and everything to show you just how more-sarcastic-than-every-other-justice Scalia is.

  

  While we wouldneverapprove of sarcasm (yes, dummy, that's sarcasm), Professor Rick Hasen says it's not just that Scalia is more sarcastic than everyone else put together; he's also just kind of a royal a-hole. Yeah, we know. You're shocked and amazed, right?

  His ability (and willingness) to engage in nastiness, particularly directed at other Justices’ opinions, is unparalleled. Third, I opine that Justice Scalia’s sarcasm is a mixed blessing. On the one hand sarcasm makes his opinions punchy and interesting, clarifying where he stands in a case and why and gaining attention for his ideas. On the other hand, such heavy use of sarcasm can demean the Court, and it arguably demonstrates Justice Scalia’s lack of respect for the legal opinions of his colleagues. In the end, his sarcasm may be his most enduring legacy.

  Please make all the jokes now. Sarcasm optional.

•  Pretty talk from one of of New York's "finest":

  A diminutive, white-haired sergeant climbed onto the top of his stool, silenced the bar, and in a booming voice delivered a rhyming toast that ended with the verse, “De Blasio is nothing but a whore’s court jester, sucking the cock of every protester.”

  Think he kisses his mother with that mouth? And hey, you think maybe the NYPD really needs to hire some new public relations advisers? Like, besides this guy? 

• Here is some SCIENCE! about how women make groups of people smarter :

  So, what makes groups smart? Is there any such thing as a "smart" group, or are groups just, well, clumps of smart people? [...]

  Furthermore, the predictable troupe of buzzwords you would expect to correlate with successful groups—"cohesion," "motivation," and "satisfaction"—didn't have much to do with effective teams, either. Instead, the single most important element of smart groups, according to the researchers, was their "average social sensitivity." That is, the best groups were also the best at reading the non-verbal cues of their teammates. And, since women score higher on this metric of emotional intelligence, teams with more women tended to be better teams.

•  Do you like bacon and money? 

  The New Hampshire Lottery has launched its first scratch-and-sniff scratch ticket, the organization announced Monday.

  The "I Heart Bacon Scratch Ticket" costs $1 and offers a grand prize of $1,000.

•  This story about Michelle Esquenazi, owner of one of New York's biggest bail bond agencies, is an AMAZING read. She's a super-successful, super-bad bad-ass lady bounty hunter:

  Wearing high-heeled boots and flanked by two bodyguards, Michelle Esquenazi strode into the classroom and took a seat in front of 30 or so sleepy teenagers. It was a cloudless morning in November, and the owner and president of Empire Bail Bonds was invited to speak at Wellington C. Mepham, a public high school in Bellmore, Long Island. Her subject was supposed to be the criminal justice system, but she seemed more interested in scaring the kids straight.

  “The majority of bail bond consumers are moms and dads and aunts bailing out first-time offenders,” she began. “The faces of the people I bail out today look a lot like yours.”

  But she also kind of has a heart of gold, maybe?

  Esquenazi’s good fortune is not lost on her, and she has a policy of hiring former clients whenever possible. Bail bonding, at least as Esquenazi conceives it, is also a privatized re-entry industry. It’s one of the few careers where a job applicant’s brushes with the law can prove an asset.

  Take Samuel “Pa” Lapooles, whose unsmiling face, sometimes comically photoshopped on top of a Santa Claus outfit, adorns every Empire office. Lapooles met Esquenazi in 1995 when he was charged with felony assault of his daughter’s boyfriend. He worked at Empire until he died in 2008. His daughter, Ivy, is now Esquenazi’s right hand. Anton and JoJo, two of Esquenazi’s bodyguards, were also once her clients. At her office on a recent afternoon, a teenager with the word “SOLDIER” tattooed on his neck in Gothic script was making photocopies and fetching coffee.

  “She gives people an opportunity,” said Ivy. “It’s up to you if you take it or not.”

  Just go read the whole thing. It's very worth it.

• There's always plenty of conservative dumb on Martin Luther King Day, which we already told you about on Monday. But somehow we managed to miss this especially dumb conservative dumb thing and had to share:  

  

  
   Yes, that is the same Rep. Steve Scalise who may or may not have "accidentally" addressed a white supremacist group, but that was years ago, so let's move on, of course. And as Reading Is For Snobs reminds us:

  This tweet by itself would be rather uncontroversial if it wasn't for the fact that said tweeter just happened to vote against making Martin Luther King Day a federal holiday. Twice.

• Looking for the latest bewb tube shenanigans and snarky recaps of your favorite teevee shows? Go show some love to our gone-but-not-forgotten kid sister Happy Nice Time People. And be sure to follow Happy Nice Time People on Twitter.