The AP has an interesting article about a little-known government operation under which the federal government grows marijuana, tests it, rolls it into cigarettes and mails these marijuana cigarettes (in tins of 300) out to a very select group of citizens. How select? Four people in the entire country! The program began in 1976, when [...]

Via the Abnormal Use blog I see that a company called Qualitest Pharmaceuticals is urgently recalling certain lots of its birth control pills, but not because anything is wrong with the pills themselves. Rather, the pills were distributed in a package in which the blister packaging was rotated 180 degrees within the card. Qualitest announced [...]

It seemed like something had to have been lost in translation when I first read this, but no — in Italy, the trial of seven scientists is now underway on criminal manslaughter charges because they allegedly failed to predict and warn citizens of the possibility of a significant earthquake that hit the Italian city of [...]

Via The Volokh Conspiracy, I learned of an interesting Fourth Amendment decision by a federal court in United States v. Musgrove (E.D.Wis. 2011) that looks like a law school exam question. As stated by VC’s Orin Kerr, the question before the court was: When a computer is in screensaver mode, does a police officer’s touching [...]

For some time now, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has used nudity to grab people’s attention for its cause. The organization has had celebrities such as Pamela Anderson, Eva Mendes, Elisabetta Canalis, Khloe Kardashian, Amanda Beard and Chad Ochocinco serve as nude models for its "I’d Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur" and [...]

Earlier this month the Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled (via Deliberations) in an interesting case that involved a jury deciding that a plaintiff should be awarded $336,300 in damages, but failing to adequately communicate that to the court because of confusion about how the verdict form worked. As a result, the plaintiff ended up [...]

This is the story of how an airbag led to attorney Eric Forstrom’s law license being suspended in two states, according to a Supreme Court of Wisconsin opinion (via the Legal Profession Blog) that lays out Forstrom’s account of what happened: The opinion states that on March 23, 2008, Forstrom, an attorney admitted to practice [...]

In Graves County, Ky., six men belonging to an Amish sect called the Old Order Swartzentruber are currently serving time in jail after they refused to place bright orange safety triangles on the backs of their horse-drawn buggies. Two other Amish men in the sect just completed jail sentences resulting from this same dispute. The [...]

Here are today’s three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: I am completely, 100 percent exhausted. However, I have been planning a burglary that I intend to carry out tonight. Should I suck it up and go through with the burglary? Answer: Skip it. If you fall asleep [...]

Here are today’s three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: My friend says she saw SpongeBob Squarepants getting taken away by police after being in an actual fistfight with two women on Hollywood Blvd. today. I say she didn’t see that because (a) SpongeBob lives in a pineapple [...]

In an opinion issued this week (via How Appealing), the 9th Circuit set out to answer a question that seems better suited for the television show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" The question presented on appeal was: How many days are in a year? The obvious answer is, of course, 365 days. But [...]

I have heard through the years that police sometimes ticket motorists who flash their lights to alert other motorists that a speed trap is ahead and, frankly, I never understood how that was justified. To me, the motorist flashing his or her lights is saying "slow down if you are speeding," which is a good [...]

Last month I posted here about Abercrombie & Fitch’s effort to bribe Michael "The Situation" Sorrentino and other members of the cast of MTV’s "The Jersey Shore" program to stop wearing its clothing. In a press release on Aug. 12, A&F stated that it was: deeply concerned that Mr. Sorrentino’s association with our brand could [...]

Here are today’s three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: I’m an octogenarian. I just went out and got a "Do Not Resuscitate" tattoo on my chest. Is that legally sufficient? Answer: Sorry, but it is probably not. Get a living will in place, too. (The Mirror, Gran [...]

"For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man's home is his safest refuge]." Sir Edward Coke, The Institutes of the Laws of England (1628). "The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail - its [...]

Here are today’s three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: My co-workers and I have have pooled our money each week for about a decade to buy lottery tickets. The deal was we’d share the money if we won. One of the guys in our pool got sick [...]

Here are today’s three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: I am a prostitute in Bonn, Germany. Someone who looks like a meter maid just walked up to me and demanded to see my "tax ticket" for today. This was not covered in the prostitute training. What is [...]

Last week on the Estrin Report, which is aimed at professional paralegals, Chere Estrin wrote about the topic of stress and how to deal with it. Estrin says she was feeling stressed out herself, and decided to do some research to see if she could uncover any useful mechanisms to deal with this. Finding only [...]