Radio station sued after listeners tattoo logo on their foreheads
From Aranova: "Two men are suing a US radio station for not giving them money when they tattooed its logo on their foreheads. Richard Goddard Jr and David Winkleman are seeking damages for breach of contract, fraud and negligence."
Tom Wolfe said after he wrote Bonfire of the Vanities that it was getting to the point where it was too hard to write fiction. Real life long ago overtook fiction in the its-too-weird-to-be-true department. This news flash is a testament to Wolfe's observation.
10:46:59 PM
From CTV News: "A compensation deal for the families of the 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, could be near. Libya is offering the families $2.7 billion in compensation, a law firm representing the 118 families said Tuesday. If the deal is accepted, that would mean each family would get $10 million. via [MyFreePress.com]
10:26:19 PM
The Louisiana Hayride Goes to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals . . .
From Rich: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the federal appeals court in New Orleans, today announced the three judge panel that will hear arguments on Monday, June 3, 2002, in the case of former Louisiana Governor Edwin W. Edwards. The high profile corruption trial involving the Louisiana Riverboat Casino industry will ... [feature] a battle between Edwards' lead attorney, the well-known Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz (a one-time clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and a former Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal), and the government's lead attorney, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Higginson (a one-time clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Byron White and a former Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal) via [Gideon's Promise]
The trials of the Louisiana's erstwhile govenor, Edwin Edwards have spanned my legal career. I was clerking in the Eastern District when his first trial (for a different offense) ended in a mistrial. Edward's interviewed immediately after the verdict was asked by one reporter "what do you say to all those people who say you are guilty as sin, but the prosecution was just to incompetent to prove its case?"
Without missing a beat Edwards replied "they're half right." I guess political corruption is a full-contact sport down here in Louisiana...
8:20:33 PM
From The Onion: —"Calling the current U.S. Capitol "inadequate and obsolete," Congress will relocate to Charlotte or Memphis if its demands for a new, state-of-the-art facility are not met, leaders announced Monday."
Well, why should politics be any different? It is, after all, mostly entertainment...
6:46:12 PM
And this from a state with a musical called "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"
Via [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]: "Apparently it's illegal to sell dildos in the state of Texas. Worse yet, having more than six dildos constitutes the intent to distribute them, so zealous dong ownership alone is against the law."
Caramba! Well, apparently, Tennessee is not so narrow-minded. SeeInstapundit.
5:31:12 PM
From [GigaLaw]: "An elusive Internet scam artist has been ordered to pay almost $1.9 million back to victims and stop a scheme that used thousands of misspelled Web addresses to trick Internet users into seeing adult advertisements, federal regulators announced. Federal Trade Commission lawyers sued John Zuccarini of Andalusia, Pa., last October to stop the scheme. Zuccarini set up Web sites that contained misspellings of popular names like the Backstreet Boys, Victoria's Secret, Bank of America and The Wall Street Journal.
Now if the FTC could start suing the spammers. "Here come the Men in Black..."
5:24:29 PM
I agree with this article, and it is consistent with my last inartfully worded post. And since I'm on a roll about the virtues of blogging over journalism, I assume that some of you have noticed that Rich is blogging about the Enron trial. As a lawyer I care about the Enron trial, but I don't care enough to try to parse through the mainstream media accounts to ferret out the real interesting legal questions. But now that Rich has a blog I don't have to. I can read his account, where he distills the one or two key points that are covered by the media in a sort of "near miss" fashion. Rich's analysis is quick and to the point, and I'll bet it appeals to a lot of non-lawyers as well...
2:49:32 PM
Blogging as journalism...
I read Robert Scoble's discussion of why his blog is not journalism (he doesn't fact check etc.) and I understand where he is coming from, but I think he's defining journalism in a narrow way and so I disagree. The mainstream definition of journalism obviously includes the basic newspaper reporting where the beat reporter figures out the background, develops sources for information, and then verifies those sources. That's all fine and good, but what about non-mainstream journalism? I mean does everyone that writes for a print publication always do fact-checking? I doubt it. And what about publications in specialty areas, like law?
Okay, fine, so only lawyers read those, you might say. Well that's true, but what if they could be read by anyone and what if they were written in a way that the inquisitive, and well-informed person could follow?
I don't want to start a definition-war, but here's a flesh and bones example from my life. I am interested in law and I am interested in explaining (if I ever come to understand) how the legal system works in a way that people who frequent the blogosphere can appreciate. But I'm interested in what other bloggers have to say too. Are those other bloggers journalists? Maybe. Because of my blogging I now have a news aggregator that told me that Pim Fortyn was killed within an hour of it happening, and I was treated to an accurate description of what Fortyn believed (Adam Curry's description was more accurate than the mainstream press). My aggregator brings me loads of other news tidbits everyday. In fact, I now rarely check a mainstream news source unless I am pointed to it by a blogger, which has an added benefit because I ususally have some context for the article as I approach it, and the context is supplied by someone with interest and knowledge about that subject).
Lastly, I have found blogs that relate to my profession. Everyday I find more law blogs that I add to my list (cursing silently the ones that don't have RSS feeds). As Exhibit A, I point my fellow lawyers to Howard's site ("How Appealing"). Howard Bashman is writing about appellate issues in a clever and engaging style. His posts are updated frequently. If he talks about the implications of a case then I care and I'll read it. And if I think that it might affect the average person, and I feel like his post is too technical for the average person, then I'll try to translate it into everyday concepts that people can relate to. If I don't know enough about the topic then I'll learn it. Fact checking? That's for amatuers. The "pros" (as I define them) know most of the facts and don't have to waste time teaching themselves a subject just so they can write in facile prose that is digestable by someone with an eighth grade education.
1:15:42 PM
