Mín Englisc Blog

From the Wikipedia article on Jonathan Lee Riches:

Jonathan Lee Riches is a prisoner known for the many lawsuits he has filed in various United States district courts. Riches is incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Williamsburg in Salters, South Carolina, for wire fraud under the terms of a plea bargain. His projected release date is 23 March 2012.

Since 8 January 2006, Riches has filed over one thousand lawsuits in federal district courts across the country, some of which have received considerable press attention. Among the more famous defendants of his lawsuits are New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, U.S. President George W. Bush, entrepreneur Martha Stewart, NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, entrepreneur Steve Jobs, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, Somali pirates, and pop star Britney Spears. He also sued the late Benazir Bhutto, Pervez Musharraf, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service on 7 November 2007, to prevent him from being deported to Pakistan upon his release from prison in March 2012 so that he will not be tortured.

On 9 April 2006, Riches filed a request for a temporary restraining order in a US District Court against Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two, developer Rockstar Games, FCI Williamsburg, and Grand Theft Auto itself, claiming that the defendants "put me in prison." The inmate stated, "Defendants contributed to Plaintiff committing identity theft. Defendant's games show sex, drugs and violence which offends me." Riches continued, "Defendants put me in prison. I face imminent danger from violent inmates who played Grand Theft Auto who will knock me out and take my gold Jesus cross."

Some of Riches' defendants are not even people or potentially suable. These include "Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party" and the "13 tribes of Israel". One lawsuit, which includes George Bush, also includes another 783 defendants that cover 56 pages. They include Plato, Nostradamus, Che Guevara, James Hoffa, "Various Buddhist Monks", the Lincoln Memorial, the Eiffel Tower, the USS Cole, the book Mein Kampf, the Garden of Eden, the Roman Empire, the Appalachian Trail, and the entire Three Mile Island.

A number of Riches's lawsuits have been dismissed as being "frivolous, malicious" or failing "to state a claim upon which any relief could be granted". Willis Hunt, the U.S. District Court Judge who dismissed Riches' suit against Vick as "farcical," opined that his lawsuits were clearly self-promotional.

Other entities sued in the aforementioned long 784-defendent lawsuit include Louis XV, the Ming Dynasty, Napoleon, Pope Benedict, Queen Rania of Jordan, the Queen of England, and the heir to the throne of Luxembourg; Nadi (a city in Fiji) and Crawford, Texas; Iran, Oman, Russia, and the Vatican City; the WTO, the G8, and NAFTA; the Coptic Church, First Presbyterian Church (of where not stated), the Greek Orthodox Church, the Holy Grail, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the King James Bible, the Mennonite Church, the Methodist Church, Nordic Gods, the Virgin Mary, the Talmud, Zeus, and both the Koran and the Holy Quran; and even the Planet of Pluto! Here is a link to the full list of defendents.

Sorry for no updates: the GRE went really well :-D and I had a good time afterward. Because the test is computerised, it tells the score immediately upon my finishing, not making me wait until the results arrive in the mail. Such results will arrive, of course, but I can know before then :-) The writing section, as it must be judged by humans, was not yet scored, but I'm also optimistic about that. I was surprised to see the question, as I'd paid attention it earlier in the day: although all questions are posted online by the company that runs the GRE, there are perhaps 200 of them, and there's no way to tell which one you'll get. I was quite pleasantly surprised, therefore, to discover that the one question on which I'd probably do best was the one I had :-) My time afterward went well: I'd not seen either the Weirs or Dr. Robson in a long time (I can't remember seeing him since Micah's ordination), so I was highly thankful to have a time to sit down and discuss recent news.
On a totally different subject: we had fifty people at worship today, down from sixty-five last week, but this was because last week included a visiting family (the visiting minister), and because we had several people missing today due to illness, transportation difficulties, a retreat, and more. It's encouraging to think that a week when lots of people are missing is still one when we have many more people than a typical week in my freshman year, especially as some of these people were, to my knowledge, not previously churchgoers.
Among the people today were eleven students; as I was talking with some of the other ten today, I was thinking: how joyful it is to compare what we typically have now with just two years ago, when (after visiting friends at the two Beaver Falls churches) I wrote "It's hard — very hard — being the only student at Eastvale, but yesterday only reinforced my feelings." I can think of several milestones: having a second student coming at the beginning of last year, seeing some of her friends appear sometimes throughout the year, finding a few more (including one whom I knew previously) begin to come regularly at the end of the year, and most recently seeing one couple join the church a few weeks ago.

As I prepare for the end of my college time, today is a significant day: beginning at 5 PM tonight, I take the GRE in Pittsburgh. I'm thankful that I'm not too worried, and that there's not a ton of information I don't know; but of course that doesn't mean that I'm not studying :-) I'll not finish the test until 9PM, but thankfully lodging won't be a problem: Bill and Rose Weir of North Hills RPC offered to let me stay with them. Transportation, too, won't be a problem: our session clerk's wife, Mrs Schaefer, is driving me there, and Dr Ed Robson, who preached for us almost every week for most of my first two years of school, will be driving me back to campus tomorrow.

It's interesting reading back years' minutes of Synod, especially when I find rather odd things. 1964 was a momentous year, in which it was outright declared that voting and running for office were, under certain circumstances, permissible for RPs. This was the position taken by the report of the Judicial Committee as adopted by Synod. An item stricken from the report, however, was a much less well-known and rather unusual one: a paper from the session of Kansas City congregation on the issue of Santa Claus! It's a pity that absolutely nothing was said about what the paper contended or asked for...I'm rather curious, but I suppose we'll never know.

Interesting quote:

"I'm good; I just made a horrible mistake!"

Bill, my roommate, on the phone. Thankfully, a few seconds after this, he found that nothing was wrong :-)

Tonight is online registration night for graduating seniors: beginning at 10PM, we can choose our classes online. Because I'm not taking any senior-level classes (my major and core credits are completed after this semester), I knew I'd not have a hard time getting in, so I waited for a while after the earliest possible time. I ended up getting in immediately :-) and, as I expected, was not able to register for all five classes. Only three could I add online, with the others having prerequisite problems: I'll have to get the professor's permission. One of them, admittedly, was expected: I've never taken ENG112, the prerequisite for the "The Novel" class I want to take in the English Department. However, my evangelism class was totally different: because I've never taken BIB112 or BIB113, the basic Bible classes, I doubly failed the requirements. Apparently the system isn't set up to make Honors Bible equivalent :-) At least I know I'll not having trouble getting the permission of Dr Smith: aside from being the evangelism professor, he's the department chair, and anyway he taught my Honors Bible classes.
Perhaps more important: tonight I registered for the GRE, the Graduate Record Exam, to be taken on Thursday of next week.

And thus we are become an Obamination. Let us hope that he lives longer than the last senator elected president, and that he does no better in reëlection than the last inexperienced Democratic president.