February 6 roundup

  • Calling it “oppressive”, committee chair in Mississippi legislature vows to defeat proposal to ban restaurants from serving obese patrons [AP/Picayune-Item; earlier]
  • Latest in whales vs. sub sonar: judge deep-sixes Bush’s attempt to exempt Navy from rules against bothering marine mammals [CNN; earlier]
  • Much-criticized opener of ABC’s new series Eli Stone aired last Thursday, and Orac takes a scalpel to the vaccine-scare script [Respectful Insolence, which also covers new autism studies]
  • Scary proposal approved by California assembly would strong-arm larger private foundations — and businesses that deal with them — into “diversity” numbers game [Lehrer/Hicks @ L.A. Times]
  • New Dutch study finds thin people and nonsmokers cost health system more in long run than obese and smokers — theories behind Medicaid-recoupment litigation are looking more fraudulent every day, aren’t they? [AP]
  • Late, but worth noting: blogger nails John Edwards’s demagoguery on Nataline Sarkisyan case [Matthew Holt @ Spot-On, via KevinMD; more here, here, and from Ted here]
  • Puff piece on food-poisoning lawyer William Marler [AP/KOMO]
  • Ready, set, all take offense: Sen. McCain likes to tell lawyer jokes [WSJ law blog]
  • In suit charging UFCW with “racketeering”, Smithfield cites as an underlying offense union’s having lobbied city councils to pass resolutions condemning the meatpacker; company has hired Prof. G. Robert Blakey, who denies the RICO law he drafted is a menace to liberty [Liptak, NYT; some earlier parallels in federal tobacco suit]
  • Golden age of comic books was 1930s-1950s, but golden age of comic book litigation is now [NLJ]
  • New at Point of Law: Hillary’s “disastrous” mortgage scheme; Qualcomm sanctions ruling could curb discovery abuse; if Mel Weiss has been kind to you, why drop him down memory hole?; new academic theory on uniformity of contingency fees; the trouble with patenting tax avoidance strategies; and much more [visit][bumped Wed. a.m.]

4 Comments

  • Speaking of seismic testing and whales, go and watch this video:

    No matter your political bent you have to admit this is funny.

  • “Dutch study finds thin people and nonsmokers cost health system more in long run than obese and smokers”
    But this only looks at one half of the equation. By not dying it is possible that they use more health services. But by not becoming disabled or dying during their work years, they will probably contribute more to society in the form of productivity and taxes.
    The study really needs to look at the sum of both ‘premiums’ and cost.
    In the US, where insurers have to look at both dollars in and dollars out, they have clearly concluded that obesity is expensive, and where they can charge risk adjusted rates, do so.

  • Puff-really?

  • […] sector: under pressure from Sacramento legislators (Feb. 6, PoL May 30), California foundations pledge to redirect millions toward minority causes […]