Last week I wrote this post about a prank gone awry involving an apparent prize of a new car that turned out to be a mere toy. I mentioned a similar "100 Grand" cash/candy bar prank, as well as the infamous "toy Yoda" incident.

Clearly, I'm endlessly fascinated by these kinds of cases. So I was delighted when I saw this post from Prof. Miriam Cherry at Prawfsblawg about a furniture company offering free furniture depending on the result of a football game. Prof. Cherry cited a law review article, Keith Rowley, You Asked For It, You Got It...Toy Yoda: Practical Jokes, Prizes, and Contract Law, 3 Nev. L. J. 526 (2005). It's available here if you want to read it.

The article is a quick read and has lots of examples of these kind of odd factual scenarios. Many of them deal with issues of offer and acceptance and advertisements. You probably recall the Pepsi Points Harrier jet case; it's discussed at length. For purposes of the prank cases, I'm also interested in issues of consideration and promissory estoppel, and Prof. Rowley gets to those as well. I think my favorite case involves a radio dj who promised listeners $30,000 per year for five years if they got the radio station's logo tattooed on their foreheads. Two fans "accepted" the "offer," but amazingly, their lives seemed to get worse instead of better after getting inked.

After reading the article, I'm even more sure about my prediction in the Catman/toy car prize matter that he would have had a very difficult time bringing a breach of contract claim. Even assuming the "offer" was something a reasonable person would believe to be a genuine promise of a new human-sized vehicle (under the circumstances, I'd say it's debatable), there was no consideration or detrimental reliance on Catman's part. So, had Fox Sports not come through with a real car, his best case would probably have sounded in tort. It's all moot now, but it's another example of how risky it is for putative offerors to dangle tempting bait they never intend to give to putative offerees -- many of the cases in the article end with people forced to live up to a bad deal.

Anyway, this article is so full of great examples of crossed-fingers promises that I'm sure it will be my reference point the next time I see one of these crazy capers go wrong. (And wiseacres never seem to get tired of them, so I'm sure there will be more.) So thanks to Prof. Cherry for pointing me to it, and thanks to Prof. Rowley for collecting all those cases and succinctly addressing the applicable legal issues.

I can't for the life of me remember where I got this link, so I don't know whom to give the credit to, but I watched this interesting "debate" between two leading 9/11 conspiracy mythmakers and two editors from Popular Mechanics responsible for its new myth-debunking book. The "debate" was on the public radio program "Democracy Now."

I use the scare quotes on "debate" because the conspiracy theories completely lack any rational basis in fact. Defending them in a debate is like defending the green-cheesiness of the moon while also arguing that humans haven't trod on its surface. I'll stop there before get off on a huge rant about these fools. But I still think the forty-minute video is worth watching for at least a couple of reasons.

First, it's worth observing what kind of rhetorical tricks the mythmakers use. My favorite line from the video comes when one of the PM guys points out that, to the fantasists, everyone who disagrees with them is "in on it" or a liar. The response: "I'm not calling anyone a liar! I'm calling you a liar!" To me, that kind of says it all. But their film is well-made and it's easy to see how they have snowed so many people who don't assess it critically. Second, as flimsy as their conjectures are, it's important for rational people to blow over their house of cards, instead of refusing to deign to counter it. That tactic hasn't worked well for evolutionary biologists, who have let the creationists go unanswered too often.

That's why I think this showdown is a worthy effort (and there's some satisfaction in seeing how reasonable the PM guys look and sound next to the huffing and headshaking fictionalists) and the PM book Debunking 9/11 Myths is so sadly necessary.

The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparancy Act has passed in the Senate, much to the happiness of everyone but Ted Stevens. While I am in general agreement that this is a good thing, I don't think it is the windfall for better government that some are making it out to be. With everything the government spends money on, anyone looking for wasteful spending is going to be buried with information overload. Lots of groups are going to trot out examples of waste, and it will quickly become old news. You can only expect the public to maintain its outrage on something as boring as accounting for so long. After that only the most egregious items will be newsworthy. My guess is that once the database is operational, most senators will lay low for a while, and once the news storm has blown over, will get back to business as usual.

Not to mention that once things are transparent, debates on most items are going to fall back into the realm of partisan politics. Both sides are thinking this will be a benifit for them, because they believe the other side of the isle is the one doing the wasteful spending. The idea of transparency is probably the only part everyone agrees on.

I don't have much to post about. I thought about posting something concerning the terrorist attacks five years ago today. But no one really wants to hear where I was and what I was doing that morning. And the other idea I had sounded amusing to me but would probably just come out all wrong in the execution. On top of that, I've had some things keeping me from writing here. For one, I'm working on some movie- and book-review posts, but I have to watch the movies and read the books first. And I've been working on my other blog, sort of. Plus, I just don't think there's much going on that I want to write about.

So, once again, I'll ask for your help. Yes, it's another ALL-REQUEST WEEK. I have a vague memory of skipping a couple of requests the last time I did this, but I promise not to do that this time, no matter what you folks come up with. Thanks.