The 4 Most Childish Ways Powerful People Settled Arguments

4 Corporate Infringement Case Ends in Arm Wrestling

When Stevens Aviation realized that rival company Southwest Airlines had inadvertently infringed on their slogan, they could have easily taken them to court. But Stevens Aviation CEO Kurt Herwald had the same thought so many of us do every single day: "Why involve lawyers in this when we could just as easily arm wrestle?"

A hilarious series of letters to rival CEO Herb Kelleher later, the match between the two unlikely bicep fight participants was set. The winner would get the slogan; the loser would pay $5,000 to the charity of the winner's choosing.

If you want a great example of the sometimes wacky ways the CEOs of America blow their employees' pension funds, you can see a six-goddamn-part video about the event starting here. Let us know how it ends.

Joking, of course. We don't care how it ends.

3 Sotheby's and Christie's Play Rock Paper Scissors for Millions

Takashi Hashiyama was a Japanese (surprise!) businessman with an incredibly expensive and space-consuming art collection he'd decided to unload. Unable to decide between Sotheby's and Christie's as the lucky auction house that got to hock his wares, Hashiyama asked them to settle it between themselves. When they were unable to come to an agreement, he suggested a plan of his own: an old-fashioned game of Rock Paper Scissors.

Sotheby's left the results to chance, but Christie's sought advice on the matter (from kids within the company) and were told to choose scissors, because "Everybody expects you to choose rock." We'd make a joke about these kids not knowing shit, but we can't, because they were dead right. Christie's won the game and the rights to sell Takashi Hashiyama's art collection.

2 British MPs Draw Straws

Here's a fun thing about British law: If an election ends in a tie, they have the option to bypass all of the "Florida in 2000" shenanigans and just draw straws instead. Think it never happens? It does, and it's sometimes caught on video.

We guess that makes sense -- it's a relatively fair way to settle things. What doesn't make sense, though, is why the act of someone drawing a straw would make an entire crowd of people go apeshit like they do in that video.

While the winner meekly holds the winning straw in the air, the crowd goes mental, like they won by a landslide instead of a complete fluke and technicality.

Still, though, they kicked the others guy's ass, and at the end of the day, isn't that what politics is really about?

1 Portland, Oregon, Was Named by Coin Flip

According to a "citation needed" statement on Wikipedia, Portland was initially known as "the clearing," which, like anything else that sounds too awesome to be true, wasn't meant to last. When it came time to give the future hipster haven a proper name, Frances Pettygrove and Asa Lovejoy both wanted to name the land after their hometowns. Pettygrove was from Portland, Maine. Lovejoy was from Boston.

With neither man willing to budge, they came to a shockingly logical conclusion, considering the fact that settling things by way of a gun duel was still totally in vogue at the time. They flipped a coin.

If for some reason you think that's a less than thorough way to make such a big decision, we should probably add that they flipped the coin three times. Obviously, Frances Pettygrove was the winner, and the residents of the clearing narrowly avoided becoming the Boston of the West Coast.

At the time of writing this, Karl's sister was in the hospital. You can wish her well by clicking this link.