Are consumers as a group better off? [Tony Santaella, WLTX/USA Today via Carpe Diem]
Update Mar. 10: Continental, American announce similar cuts.
Archive for February, 2010
“I Think I Just Got Patented”
“When I look closely at these claims, I am appalled to discover this patent claims, as a novel invention, things that I’ve done regularly, with a mix of my brain and a computer, since at least 1999.” [Bradley M. Kuhn via Pete Warden]
An ice fence for Cadillac, Mich.
Bob Dorigo Jones reports that volunteers won’t build one for fear of liability. He’s got a second post with more on lawsuit fears and Michigan charities.
Through law’s delays, a quarter century on Death Row
The Arizona Supreme Court upheld an inmate’s sentence of death 25 years ago; he’s now died of natural causes at age 94, the sentence having been neither lifted nor put into effect in all those years. John Steele Gordon: “It seems to me this country should either abolish the death penalty or reform the system to make it effective.”
Blogging “Trial Lawyers Inc. — K Street”
Last week my colleagues at the Manhattan Institute put out a report in their Trial Lawyers Inc. series taking a look at the lobbying clout of the plaintiff’s bar in Washington and elsewhere. It’s full of interesting details and vignettes, and now Jim Copland, who presided over the compiling of the report, will be blogging it all week at Point of Law. His first installment is here.
“It’s for – what’s it called?” “Pain and suffering”
A new book on the Paula Jones/Bill Clinton legal mess [Janet Maslin, New York Times; my views back when]
Update: judge dismisses vision-impaired gamer’s suit against Sony
A California federal judge has dismissed Alexander Stern’s case against the Japanese entertainment company, ruling that online multiplayer games such as EverQuest, unlike bricks-and-mortar establishments, are not “places of public accommodation” under the Americans with Disabilities Act [OnPoint News, opinion in PDF courtesy OnPoint, earlier here and here] (& Darleen Click, Protein Wisdom)
Law without precedents or penumbras?
Look before you leap, Iowa Rep. Schultz [Ed Brayton]
New campaign to overturn CPSIA dirtbike ban
The Motorcycle Industry Council feels momentum is now on its side in its effort to re-legalize youth motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles, which flunk CPSIA’s ban on lead-containing alloys. [MotorcycleUSA.com] More background here and here.
“Have you had an accident that wasn’t your fault…?”
The BBC’s “Horrible Histories” kids’ show parodies a certain familiar sort of ad [via MetaFilter]: