Well, some lawsuits may be completely out of line, but others are, if anything, understated.

If this had happened to one of my kids, I think I'd be demanding a bit more than $4.2m .... like, oh, say, the responsible party's head on a platter!

[from CBS]

Wed, 02 Jul 2003 00:00 /Home | 0 writebacks | permanent link

Gotta love the Stella Awards. Here's an excerpt:

Hazel Norton of Rolling Fork, Miss., read there was a class action

suit against the drug Propulsid, which her doctor had prescribed to

her for a digestive disorder. Despite admitting that "I didn't get

hurt by Propulsid," Norton thought "I might get a couple of thousand

dollars" by joining the lawsuit. When her doctor was named in the

suit, he quit his Mississippi practice -- where he was serving the

poor. He left with his wife, a pediatrician and internist. That left

only two doctors practicing at the local hospital. So while Norton

wasn't harmed by the drug, all her neighbors now get to suffer from

drastically reduced access to medical care because of her greed.

Go subscribe to this: it's great! They also offer other nifty email lists, all for free, and their ironclad privacy policy is one that should be emulated by other Internet mailing lists, merchants, well, everybody!

Wed, 02 Jul 2003 00:00 /Politics | 0 writebacks | permanent link

Well, it's a pretty clear cut case of infringement, all right - but by an Amazon merchant, not Amazon itself. Methinks that Mr. Gate's & Company are going to run headlong in the DMCA here - a bill they pushed hard for in 1998. And so it goes ...

Corbis Sues Amazon for Copyright Infringement [Slashdot]

Wed, 02 Jul 2003 00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 writebacks | permanent link

Well, this made my day! I realize that this (the ban on GMO's) probably couldn't be maintained, and that, as it stands, there's still some strident labelling requirements. But I can't help feeling that folks do not understand the issues with GMO's, or even with biotechnology in general. We're playing at being gods here: I only hope we understand the rules of the game ...

Euro vote ends GM food ban. The European parliament passes controversial laws that in effect lift a ban on genetically modified foods. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition]

Wed, 02 Jul 2003 00:00 /Agriculture | 0 writebacks | permanent link