Will Big Business Pacify the Clash of Cultures?

Here's an interesting article from the London Times about the world situation.

One theory about the clash of cultures such as Islam and The West is that religeous and ethnic ties are so strong that they drive groups of people apart. This articles factors in economic issues.

This kind of reminds me of the border states in the US Civil War. In the pre-war years, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were strongly pro-south and pro-slavery. Yet, when the war came and the chips were down, they sided with the Union.

Kentucky was especially interesting. A Confederate invasion in 1862 gave it every opportunity to side with the South. But for them, with the Ohio River to the north and the Mississippi River to the west, the economic ties to the northern states neutralized the pro-southern leanings. Other states further south didn't have that geographical proximity.

Now days, geographical proximity isn't as important to economic inter-dependence. So that's the direction policy should go: create more economic inter-dependence. The article doesn't mention that this was Kissinger's general strategy in the 1970's.

One byproduct of this thesis, is that free trade policies would be more desirable than protectionism.

Another Nutty Lawsuit

And this one's even worse than the last one. (The Cheeseburger Guy.)

This time a guy is suing his florist. He bought some flowers and the florist sent a thank you note to his home thanking him for his business. The wife called and asked the florist to fax over the receipt and the details of the transaction. The florist's employee did. Big deal?

The note accompanying the flowers said, "Just wanted to say that I love you and you mean the world to me! Leroy." Well, it turns out that the flowers went to old Leroy's girlfriend instead of his wife. Big deal now!

Leroy is suing for $1 million dollars for mental anguish and for the additional amount he expects he will have to pay his wife in the divorce* - because she found out he was cheating on her. He believes that this is the florist's fault, not his.

The florist's spoksman offered this lame defense: "We are not responsible for our customer's conduct." Clearly, the poor spokesman it totally out of touch with the world of modern litigation.

More details about the case here.

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* Did I mention that his wife is divorcing him? His wife is divorcing him.

Yet ANOTHER Big Bucks Lawsuit

In this litigation happy society, these kind of lawsuits come up all the time. Lawsuits where someone does something stupid and gets hurt. Rather than just chalking it up to one of life’s lessons, they find someone else to blame. Someone who has deep pockets, for choice.

Remember the lady who spilled some hot coffee on herself? Even though the cup plainly was marked “Extra Hot”? She sued McDonalds and got millions.

Yesterday, another guy sued McDonalds for giving him a cheeseburger. Turns out he is allergic to cheese. He wants $10 million.

According to the lawsuit he ordered his quarter-pounder without cheese and then, “From this point forward, Mr. Jackson repeatedly asked as to the status of his food and whether it had no cheese, and took multiple preventive steps to assure his food did not contain cheese." When he got the burger, he bit into it, tasted cheese, and had to make an emergency run to the hospital where he almost died.

Too bad that the “multiple preventive steps” he took did not include LIFTING THE BUN OFF THE HAMBURGER TO CHECK IT BEFORE BITING INTO IT!!

While we all sympathize with people with severe food allergies, we wonder why the whole rest of the world is responsible except for the actual person himself?

Anyway, McDonalds probably doesn’t have to worry about this one because anybody who behaves the way this plaintiff claims he behaved in this affair and faced the consequences he claimed he faced, probably won’t live long enough to get to trial.

More details here.