Bring back the MJ
I miss him.
It’s unfortunate the man is still the target of lawsuits. One can’t help but feel sorry Jacko.
I miss him.
It’s unfortunate the man is still the target of lawsuits. One can’t help but feel sorry Jacko.
If you thought the recent ban on trans fats in certain cities was indicative of too much government interference in our lives, wait till you hear about the idiotic bill that California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has introduced recently. Lieber, a Democrat from the city I live in (Mountain View), is proposing to ban spanking of children under the age of 4. She wants to make this a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $1000. California would be the first state in the nation to ban parents from spanking their children. This is government interference taken to a whole new level.
I don’t have children (neither does Lieber from what I can gather); so I won’t comment on the ways of disciplining young children. But do we really want the cops to come in to our houses and supervise how we bring up our children? Shouldn’t they be out there solving real crimes?
Fortunately, the press seems to be almost unanimous in condemning this bill and I hope that will influence the decision makers at the State Assembly. Check out the op-eds on the San Francisco Chronicle, The Contra Costa Times and The Wall Street Journal (subscription).
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Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations. The title says it all. I haven’t finished reading the book. I have very little free time these days and the book is not exactly an easy read. But I can already tell you that it is a most excellent book. The kind of book that I will come back to in years to come.
The book is a reprinting of an earlier edition with some new updates. The author Michael Walzer among other things is a moral philosopher. He is particularly concerned with practical philosophizing and avoids the metaphysical. For example he presupposes the existence of a moral world about which rational people can reason about using a shared vocabulary. He does in the beginning expound a little bit about this, but moves on to the main topic of the book.
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Google is getting touchy about how people are using “google” as a verb. It’s okay to say that you googled for something if you actually used Google but they don’t want you googling for information elsewhere.
From the way the post liberally uses the word “lawyer” it looks like they are quite serious about not letting the brand go the Xerox way.
Wake up lawyers, is there anything you can really do to stop this?
In 1992, Stella Liebeck, a 79 year old woman, spilled a cup of McDonald’s coffee on her lap and was well on her way to a cause célèbre. The resulting trial ended with her being awarded $2.9 million. Since then, any similar outrageous lawsuit has been eligible for winning a Stella award (just like the Darwin awards are for the unevolved). The 2005 list is now available. A sample [source: stellaawards.com]:
- Rhonda Nichols. She says a wild bird “attacked” her outside a home improvement store in Fairview Heights, Ill., causing head injuries. That’s right: outside the store. Yet Nichols still held the Lowe’s store responsible for “allowing” wild birds to fly around free in the air. She never reported the incident to the store, but still sued for “at least” $100,000 in damages. In January 2006, the case was thrown out of court.
- Christopher Roller of Burnsville, Minn. Roller is mystified by professional magicians, so he sued David Blaine and David Copperfield to demand they reveal their secrets to him — or else pay him 10 percent of their lifelong earnings, which he figures amounts to $50 million for Copperfield and $2 million for Blaine. The basis for his suit: Roller claims that the magicians defy the laws of physics, and thus must be using “godly powers” — and since Roller is god (according to him), they’re “somehow” stealing that power from him.
And then you wonder why insurance premiums are so high here.
One of the headline stories in the NY Times this morning related to the Supreme Court decision on the right of police to enter a person’s home without knocking (if they possess a search warrant.) The Times had this to say (italics mine):
Alito Vote Loosens Limits on Evidence
By DAVID STOUT
Published: June 15, 2006WASHINGTON, June 15— The Supreme Court today affirmed the power of police officers backed by a search warrant to enter a home without knocking, and in so doing signaled the more conservative tilt of the tribunal in recent months.
…
That’s funny! Apparently, the decision represents a conservative tilt in the court. Setting aside the merits of this individual case, I always thought conservatives in general stood for strong individual rights, property rights, the right to bear arms and be secure in your own home etc. etc. Looks like the meaning of the word conservative is rapidly being redefined, like so many other words in these confusing times.
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A recent episode of the shingles exposed me to a level of pain that I had never suffered before. As you probably know shingles attacks the nerves of one side of the body, but mercifully I was lucky to have it diagnosed early and rid of it without any long term damage.
During the few weeks I was in pain, my research revealed that more than 20% of people who get the shingles, suffer from the long term pain, termed PHN and recovery can be a prolonged struggle. Perhaps I was one of the lucky ones. While preparing to understand and manage the pain, I researched the pain management options available to me and I was shocked to find that pain management in the USA is as much a political issue as it is medical one. (Read more…)
Couple of weeks back, a judge ruled that fetuses do not count as passengers for carpool. According to the judge allowing otherwise “would require officers to carry guns, radios and pregnancy testers, and I don’t think we want to go there.“.
The judge applied a common sense definition in which an individual is someone who occupies a separate and distinct space in a vehicle. So the question is can that individual be a pet?
It also brings the next question as to who counts as a legal carpool passenger. Since the main objective of the carpool lane is to reduce traffic, does someone not eligible to drive (like kids or those without driver’s license) count as that passenger?
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