The Court has granted preliminary approval of the settlement. A hearing on final approval is scheduled for August 31, 2007.
To receive benefits, you must complete and return a Claim Form which will be available on this website beginning April 25, 2007. The deadline for mailing your Claim Form or submitting your Claim Form online is December 14, 2007 or 30 days after the Court grants Final Approval of the Settlement, whichever comes later.
Check back for additional information and updates.
Jacob Sullum eviscerates an embarrassingly bad op-ed that the New York Times chose to run yesterday (Rosemary Ellis, "The Secondhand Smoking Gun", Oct. 15) on the issue of smoking in public places, based on the supposed "Helena miracle" -- heart attacks in the Montana capital (population 26,000) are said to have dropped suddenly by 58 percent when smoking in public buildings was banned. The claim, he says, is based on a single unpublished study "involving tiny, highly volatile numbers". Had the Times been interested in whether the asserted result would hold up as a matter of epidemiology, it could easily have checked out the experience of other jurisdictions which could offer much, much larger sample sizes than wee Helena: "why have we not heard about a dramatic drop in heart attacks [in New York City itself] since the city's smoking ban took effect in April"? A few phone calls to Columbia-Presbyterian, St. Lukes-Roosevelt and the city's other big hospitals should suffice to establish whether there had been any massive effect of this sort on New Yorkers' proneness to cardiac arrest. (Reason Hit & Run, Oct. 16; Jacob Sullum, "Heartstopping Discovery", Reason, Apr. 4). More: Cato's Steven Milloy weighs in ("Secondhand smoke scam", FoxNews.com, Oct. 17).
Even more (posted May 29, 2004): Sally Satel, "Where There's Smoke", Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2004; Michael Fumento, "Debate Rages Over Second-Hand Smoke", Heartland Institute Health Care News, Jun. 1, 2004; Jacob Sullum, Reason "Hit and Run", Apr. 9, 2004.
The real issue is that the Feds simply do not understand exactly WHAT Kevin did and and HOW Kevin did it.
If they really understood what Kevin did and how he did it, he would not be barred from owning a television set or wireless phone.
The onerous and ridiculous restrictions placed on Kevin's behavior simply emphasize the fact that this trial is a "show case" and not an attempt to implement justice. Kevin's case is of such high profile that the prosecutors simply can't resist using his case to "send a message" to other "would be super-hackers".
The problem is that such over-reaction and asinine behavior on the part of prosecutors in the long run does not promote respect for the law. It erodes respect for the law, because the law is shown to be completely ignorant of, and detached from, reality.
The whole deal reminds me of an old movie I watched where a POW was busted by the evil Stalinist prison guards for having some wire in his possession.... obviously he was building a radio so he could listen to the BBC!!!
Slashdot Mirror
From: http://www.iowasoftwaresuit.com/
The Court has granted preliminary approval of the settlement. A hearing on final approval is scheduled for August 31, 2007.
To receive benefits, you must complete and return a Claim Form which will be available on this website beginning April 25, 2007. The deadline for mailing your Claim Form or submitting your Claim Form online is December 14, 2007 or 30 days after the Court grants Final Approval of the Settlement, whichever comes later.
Check back for additional information and updates.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit...
http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/000421.html
First-rate bilge on secondhand smoke
Jacob Sullum eviscerates an embarrassingly bad op-ed that the New York Times chose to run yesterday (Rosemary Ellis, "The Secondhand Smoking Gun", Oct. 15) on the issue of smoking in public places, based on the supposed "Helena miracle" -- heart attacks in the Montana capital (population 26,000) are said to have dropped suddenly by 58 percent when smoking in public buildings was banned. The claim, he says, is based on a single unpublished study "involving tiny, highly volatile numbers". Had the Times been interested in whether the asserted result would hold up as a matter of epidemiology, it could easily have checked out the experience of other jurisdictions which could offer much, much larger sample sizes than wee Helena: "why have we not heard about a dramatic drop in heart attacks [in New York City itself] since the city's smoking ban took effect in April"? A few phone calls to Columbia-Presbyterian, St. Lukes-Roosevelt and the city's other big hospitals should suffice to establish whether there had been any massive effect of this sort on New Yorkers' proneness to cardiac arrest. (Reason Hit & Run, Oct. 16; Jacob Sullum, "Heartstopping Discovery", Reason, Apr. 4). More: Cato's Steven Milloy weighs in ("Secondhand smoke scam", FoxNews.com, Oct. 17).
Even more (posted May 29, 2004): Sally Satel, "Where There's Smoke", Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2004; Michael Fumento, "Debate Rages Over Second-Hand Smoke", Heartland Institute Health Care News, Jun. 1, 2004; Jacob Sullum, Reason "Hit and Run", Apr. 9, 2004.
If they really understood what Kevin did and how he did it, he would not be barred from owning a television set or wireless phone.
The onerous and ridiculous restrictions placed on Kevin's behavior simply emphasize the fact that this trial is a "show case" and not an attempt to implement justice. Kevin's case is of such high profile that the prosecutors simply can't resist using his case to "send a message" to other "would be super-hackers".
The problem is that such over-reaction and asinine behavior on the part of prosecutors in the long run does not promote respect for the law. It erodes respect for the law, because the law is shown to be completely ignorant of, and detached from, reality.
The whole deal reminds me of an old movie I watched where a POW was busted by the evil Stalinist prison guards for having some wire in his possession.... obviously he was building a radio so he could listen to the BBC!!!
mtoal