Smoking

Next From The Nanny State: Bloomberg Tries To Make You Not Think About Cigarettes

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Mr. Burns: Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun. I shall do the next best thing: block it out.
Mr. Bloomberg: Yes. The people must be protected from the sun’s harmful UV radiation!
Mr. Burns: Umm, sure, whatever. [Activates Sun Blocker]
Mr. Bloomberg: Excellent.

I fully believe that Bloomberg would ration sun time if he could — or at the very least force everybody to wear sunscreen. Like your mother, he simply thinks that he knows what is better for you and what you should be allowed to do. And he’s willing to use any means necessary, fair or unfair, legal or illegal, to make you do what he thinks you should be doing.

The latest: since he can’t force stores to display horrific images with the purchase of cigarettes, he now wants to prohibit stores from displaying cigarettes at all.

Will the courts smack him down again?

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Morning Docket: 11.28.12

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* Chief Justice John Roberts gave a Solicitor General’s Office attorney a vicious tongue-lashing for failure to be upfront about policy changes between presidents. Now that’s what we’d call a verbal benchslap! [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* When asked if they’d be following Cravath’s bonuses, a dozen Am Law 100 firms didn’t even care to respond or discuss the matter. It seems the partners would rather keep their associates squirming with suspense a while longer. [Am Law Daily]

* Watch out, world, because Catholic University of America just hired a Biglaw senior partner to lead its law school. Say hello to Dean Daniel Attridge, formerly managing partner at the D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. [National Law Journal]

* A federal judge ordered tobacco companies to disclose in product warnings that they chemically induce smoking addictions to turn a profit, but those fools will keep puffing their cancer sticks anyway. [WSJ Law Blog]

* This just in from Flori-duh: you know you’re probably going to have a bad day in court when the judge won’t declare a mistrial even though the prosecutor technically wasn’t a member of the state Bar. [Miami Herald]

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Morning Docket: 03.20.12

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Nicollette Sheridan

* It’s time for the Supreme Court to sound off on the battle over women’s wombs, and you know it’s bad when even a sitting justice calls it “a mess.” Can a child conceived after a parent’s death receive survivor benefits? [CNN]

* Disgusting health warning pictures on cigarette packaging and advertising: now constitutional according to the Sixth Circuit. Maybe this will inspire people to quit a habit that’s almost equally as disgusting. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* When Biglaw is involved, so is big money. Say “aloha” to the largest personal injury settlement in Hawaii’s history. The state will pay $15.4M over the hiking death of Gibson Dunn partner Elizabeth Brem. [Am Law Daily]

* A lawsuit filed against fashionista Alexander Wang over his alleged “sweatshop” has been discontinued, and not because there isn’t a case, but because the lawyers on either side have major beef. [New York Magazine]

* The Better Business Bureau has moved to dismiss a Florida law firm’s suit over its “F” grade. Because sometimes the truth hurts, but that doesn’t mean you can sue over it if you don’t like it. [Orlando Sentinel]

* The biggest bimbo from Wisteria Lane gets screwed again, but this time in court. A mistrial has been declared in Nicollette Sheridan’s lawsuit against the producers of “Desperate Housewives.” [Reuters]

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Quote of the Day: Dangerous Addictions

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When you stop smoking, the cigarettes don’t get together to figure out how to kill you anyway.

– Benjamin Wittes, on a panel at the National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society, responding to the observation that smoking and traffic accidents cause more deaths in a year than 9/11.

(Julian Sanchez discusses what the web is for, after the jump.)

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Morning Docket: 03.21.11

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* Sammy Alito and the roots of a compassionate constitutional conservatism. By Emily Bazelon. Foreblurb by Juggalo Law. [New York Times]

* A U.S. vulture fund is having problems collecting a certain debt from the Democratic Republic of Congo via certain chinamen. Yes, I know that’s not the preferred nomenclature. But these men actually do build railroads. [Bloomberg]

* This business professor thinks law firms should start acting like real businesses. Somewhere, a theater professor thinks law firms should just start acting. [Washington Post]

* This fascinating story’s many intimations about State Senator Carl Kruger make it difficult to discern who is doinking who. Sorry, doinking whom. Whom is doinking whom. [New York Times]

* It is spring, which means the New York Mets are feisty. Silly Mets. [New York Post]

* The FDA is weighing whether to ban menthol cigarettes. Good thing Elie already quit. What’s that? You didn’t smoke menthols, Elie? Wow, this is awkward… [Chicago Tribune]

* The Barry Bonds trial is going to be a heavyweight fight. However, most of that weight will be located in Bonds’s head. [San Francisco Chronicle]

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Elie’s Vacation Memo: Time To Turn Over a New Leaf (And Try Not To Smoke It)

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As regular readers know, this is usually the time of year I go to Vegas, blow my bonus, and come back to work a week later angrier than ever.

Well, this year, it’s going to be different. Oh, don’t worry, when I return to Above the Law’s pages on March 14th, I’m sure I’ll be all kinds of pissed off. It just won’t be because a security guard prevented me from committing suicide by MGM lion enclosure.

No, for my vacation — which begins now and ends a week from this coming Monday, in case you’re wondering — I am going to start the process of quitting smoking….

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Morning Docket: 02.23.11

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* If I had a nickel for every federal judge who dismissed a challenge to Obamacare, I’d have fifteen cents. Come to think of it, phrasing it that way doesn’t illustrate a whole lot. Oh well. [New York Times]

* Tennessee seeks to outdumb every other state with a proposal that would make it a felony for any person to follow sharia law. Your move, Mississippi. [The Tennessean]

* Albany Law School of Union University is downsizing, but will likely still keep all three T’s. [National Law Journal]

* The Supreme Court ruled that a 1986 law precluded plaintiffs from suing vaccine-makers in state courts. In your face, Jenny McCarthy. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “Top SEC lawyer and his bros inherited $1.5M in Madoff profits.” [New York Post]

* The FBI is being sued for sending an informant to infiltrate a California mosque. Instead of War on Poverty, they got a War on Terrorism so the police can bother me. [Washington Post]

* New York City parks are the newest places to go smoke-free. If we smoke, do we not bleed? [CNN]

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Morning Docket: 02.11.11

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* If the Muslim Brotherhood gains power in Egypt, they will impose sharia law. Just like Oklahoma! [ABC Online]

* Lindsay Lohan took to Twitter to announce that she “was not raised to lie, cheat, or steal.” Well, nature it is. [msnbc.com]

* Arizona is suing the federal government over the porous border. Mr. Obama, build us a wall! [Reuters]

* Barry Bonds, he of the enormous dome piece, had the number of felony charges against him dropped to five. Hauling that gargantuan cranium about. I’m not kidding, that boy’s head is like Sputnik. [ESPN]

* Mario will mediate the Madoff / Mets mess. [New York Post]

* How to fix the criminal justice system? I say gulags. Mostly because I like the word gulags. [The BLT via WSJ Law Blog]

* Hospitals have begun turning away job applicants who smoke. This guy thinks hospitals are acting like a bunch of weiners. [New York Times]

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Lawyer of the Day: What Are You Going To Do, Arrest Me for Smoking?

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Smokers are not crazy. I know it seems like we’re crazy. I know what non-smokers think: “Why would you put something in your body that you know will give you cancer?” It’s not like the explanation is particularly complicated: 1) it’s a narcotic and people get addicted, and 2) some people aren’t terribly worried about dying.

Is that really so hard to understand? Not everybody wants to live “healthily.” Not everybody is desperate to live to 100. And some are prone to get addicted to drugs. That’s not crazy.

But don’t try telling that to the New York police. They arrested a man and threw him in a psychiatric ward for smoking on his window ledge. They claim they were worried that he was going to jump from the window ledge he was smoking on. The window was two stories off the ground.

Now the NYPD is getting sued, because this smoker is also a lawyer…

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