2273 Legal Bits

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Ok all you folks with the Swiss bank accounts - get ready for a visit from the IRS. (New York Times article here.)

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"A Florida jury has awarded $8 million in damages to a widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer, The Associated Press reports." The finding is that the company hid the dangers from smokers.

The man was two years older than I, so he must have had pretty much the same knowledge as I. And when I was in high school and college, we called cigarettes "coffin nails". Oh, come on! Everybody knew! Nobody can claim they didn't know! In my opinion, smokers know, and they make their decision. And to claim the companies hid the information is bullshit.** We knew. Everyone did.

Enormous awards are simply punishment, vindictiveness, and since this case opens the door to thousands of similar cases, it's a blatant attempt to put them out of business.

No matter what you personally think of cigarettes, this is a perversion of the justice system, and I don't like it. Like, maybe one day we'll decide we don't like people with blue eyes, and juries will convict blue-eyed people just because their eyes are blue. (Oops, sorry. Bad example. We already do that with skin.)

**That is not a word I often use. In this case, it fits.

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Where is Geronimo? Descendants of the Apache chief Geronimo have sued Yale University and Skull and Bones, asking for the release of Geronimo’s remains. The descendants believe that in 1918, members of Skull and Bones, including Prescott Bush, the father of George H.W Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush, dug up Geronimo’s grave at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, and stole his skull, some bones and other items buried with him." (Story here.)

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Seventeen Chinese Turkic Muslims cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay are still there, in limbo for the past seven years, never having been charged with anything, AND they are not considered enemy combatants, not considered terrorists. Story here.

The men are from Xinjiang, and are part of a military/political group agitating against repression by China. They are afraid to return to the Chinese-controlled territory because they fear torture. China has warned other countries not to accept them. So there they sit.

What I can't figure out is how they ended up in Gitmo in the first place. Another Bush/Cheney mess Obama has to untangle?
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