BLADAM - Topic

Welcome! You're reading entries in the Law topic.

[ If you prefer, you can see the most recent entries from all topics, or browse/search for your favorite topics with the menu above! ]

DISCLAIMER: This is my personal blog. The blatherings here aren't (necessarily) the views of the current company I work for, companies I've previously blessed with my presence, my loving parents, the Illuminati, or anyone other than me, me, me!

Cell phone ban, schmell phone ban… I have BETTER ideas!

Last week, the New York City Council took the brave and apparently necessary step of legislating common courtesy by passing a resolution to ban cell phone conversations in public places such as theatres and restaurants.

Surely we've all wanted to throttle clueless morons blathering stuff like "Hey, you wouldn't believe what quiet and tender romantic scene is on the screen now, honey!" and since we're incapable of actually asking the clueless twit to shut up ourselves, it's so nice that we have the force of law to help!

However, I feel that the New York City Council didn't go far enough. If *I* were in charge, I'd tackle the following more pressing problems:

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, February 17, 2003 at 17:18 Permalink
- Filed under Grab bag • Wackiness • Society • Law • People and relationships
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

I can breathe clearly now, the smoke is gone

In a shock to smokers and anti-smoking advocates alike, Ireland's government has announced a ban on smoking in pubs, effective January 2004.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Friday, January 31, 2003 at 1:07 Permalink
- Filed under Happy body • Society • Law • People and relationships • Travel
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

Pink, Plastic, and Pissed off

Barbie's not happy. Or at least her 'parent' company, Mattel, has not taken kindly to Aqua -- the singing group that penned the infectious and goofy "Barbie Girl" parody song.

Mattel's lawsuit against Aqua recently made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and the judge there had some sage wisdom to offer:

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, January 27, 2003 at 17:40 Permalink
- Filed under Society • Law
- Commented on by one person so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Short People Got… No Reason to Live

So this afternoon, against my better judgement, I got drawn into an online discussion about racism. I added my two cents (bringing up the McWhorter Interview I mentioned in my blog here), and then also added my concerns about and frustrations with heightism.

As shown on this Web site, short folks are not only the butt of jokes in songs, movies, and general conversation, but are also systematically discriminated against at work (hired and also promoted less often than taller people), as well as in the social and dating spheres. Not just anecdotally (though I have plenty of personal experience in this area), but statistically and scientifically.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Thursday, January 16, 2003 at 17:52 Permalink
- Filed under Personal • Society • Law • People and relationships • Workplace
- Commented on by 68 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Lawyers, 938; Personal Responsibility, 0

For example, an employee crossing the street might be typing so vigorously into a two-way pager that he would never notice an approaching bus. Would that employee be covered by workers' compensation?

Probably, unless a company policy forbade wandering around typing into pagers, said Lawrence Lorber, a partner at Proskauer Rose in Washington.

- from a New York Times article which suggests to me that soon employee handbooks will also warn against typing on a laptop while biking to work

- Blathered by Adam on Tuesday, December 3, 2002 at 12:52 Permalink
- Filed under Society • Law
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

When your lawyer won’t let you say “I’m Sorry”

As I read more about the sorry state of affairs with regards to the "Catholic priest scandals" it occurs to me that what most of the victims would have liked -- and probably still would appreciate -- is a simple, heartfelt apology.

Imagine if folks in the Catholic leadership would have said early on:

"You have been wronged and we are horrified at what has happened. Here is what we will do to prevent this from happening again..."

This same approach would be similarly the 'right thing' to do in many other circumstances as well, I believe.

"We found that two of our regional banks were overcharging approximately 4000 of our customers on their checking account monthly fees. We screwed up, plain and simple, and would like to offer our humble apologies... a credit for the overcharge... and additionally three months of waived fees for the inconvenience."

But the problem is, many organizations are damned if they do and damned if they don't come clean.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Saturday, November 30, 2002 at 20:48 Permalink
- Filed under Society • Law
- Commented on by one person so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Lawsuits—Greed or Need?

In an earlier entry, I called attention to "yet another example" of an American legal system run absurdly amuck. In this example, a lawyer had sent a cease and desist letter insisting that a journalist stop using his own name in his byline, due to theoretical confusion over the lawyer's similarly named (famous) client.

Of course, it's easy, perhaps too easy to poke fun of ridiculous lawyer-speak and lawsuits, and for much of this, we have only the lawyers (and their misguided / greedy clients) to blame.

Or is it really that simple? An article in the New York Times instead insists that lawsuits are a logical and not-all-that-improper response to a decentralized government.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Thursday, November 21, 2002 at 14:13 Permalink
- Filed under Law
- Commented on by one person so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

You're reading page 2 of 2.
<< See more recent entries |

The magic number for the moment is 22. Neato.

FEEDS:	Full-text, all categories: (See a complete list of category-specific and other BLADAM feeds!)
CREDITS:	Site powered by ExpressionEngine. Cool menus by the Ultimate Dropdown Menu. Thoughtful advice and assistance from Ingmar, LisaJill, other awesome EE forum volunteers, and nice friends.
COPYRIGHT:	My sites are the result of many hours of hard work. Kindly ask before using my content. Thanks! :)
[ Return to the top of the page]