On a recent episode of 60 Minutes Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that his company has plans to have drone “octocopters” deliver products to customers within 30-minutes of ordering. If you haven’t seen the promotional Amazon video for the service to be called Amazon Prime Air,…
Currently before the Missouri Supreme Court is a case destined for inclusion in torts casebooks for years to come. The facts, courtesy of Slate, are as follows: On Sept. 8, 2009, Robert Coomer, 50, was sitting in the stands with his dad watching the Royals…
There’s a biblical proverb that comes to mind: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.” Here the dog is Congress and the vomit is a revival of the draconian strictures of the 1983 version of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure…
They are called smart meters. In essence, a smart meter is an electronic utility meter which sends wireless (RF) data transmissions in order to save utility companies the costs of using human meter readers. While cost effective for power, water, and natural gas providers, there…
Ever notice that there is very little news about Monsanto in the press even though the company is doing things that are very worthy of coverage, like promoting corporate immunity with the Monsanto Protection Act. Thanks in large part to U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., the…
The old story goes it was Harry Truman who said “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog?” For dog-lovers there is no substitute for the quality of companionship a canine buddy brings. But what happens when the unthinkable happens and someone or something…
It’s called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). It’s a been heralded as the “the most important trade agreement in a generation” and yet you probably have never heard of it. That is because negotiations “have been conducted in extreme secrecy.” While it is styled a…
Building rapport with your jury is essential for any litigator. Many of us rely on the professional expertise of jury consultants and expert studies to help make than connection. Other of us may have, or think we have, our legal fingers firmly on the pulse…
We live in a brave new world where our technology has outstripped our traditional attitudes and expectations. The law has struggled to keep up. Two recent news items encapsulate the current struggle. One concerns an individual’s legal rights to protect his beliefs against technology and…
There is a famous story, perhaps apocryphal, concerning what happened in the cigar-filled back rooms of the 1920 Republican National Convention which produced the surprise nominee Warren G. Harding. As the story goes, certain factions allegedly pushed for Harding because he “looked like a President.
I still remember my first exposure to the nutty idea. I was reading an anthology of humorist P.J. O’Rourke’s early work from his National Lampoon days. There is was, dripping with satire, a flow chart about how fluoridated water was turning America’s kids into communists. I laughed…
While you have already guessed that your phone calls and e-mails are not free from the NSA’s prying eyes, it doesn’t stop there. The German newspaper Der Spiegel has broken a story that many other features on your iPhones, BlackBerry and Android devices are not…
