Fun_People Archive
2 Jan
Weirdness [409] - 8Dec95

Date: Tue, 2 Jan 96 18:03:48 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [409] - 8Dec95

Precedence: list

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.409 (News of the Weird, December 8, 1995)
by Chuck Shepherd

* In 1992, a federal court jury in Montgomery, Ala., found that the fuel
retailers in Dothan, Ala., had conspired to fix prices but decided that the
plaintiffs had been damaged only to the tune of $1.00 (tripled in antitrust
law, to $3.00).  Nonetheless, finishing up the case in November 1995,
Federal Judge Myron Thompson ordered the losers to pay the 19 victorious
lawyers fees totaling $2,035,658. [Journal of Commerce, 11-9-95]

* The Louisiana legislature this year closed a ten-year-old loophole in its
drinking law.  From 1985 until June 1995, the legal age for buying or
drinking liquor has been 21, but it was illegal to sell liquor only to those
under 18. [New Orleans Times-Picayune, 8-25-95]

* Saying he had "no choice" in the matter, Secretary of the Interior Bruce
Babbitt in September signed over the title to more than 100 acres of federal
land in Idaho to a Danish firm for $275, though the mining rights to the
land are worth around $1 billion.  Babbitt said he was required to make the
sale under the Mining Act of 1872, which is still on the books.  In 1994,
under the same law, Babbitt signed over land containing about $10 billion
in gold to a Canadian company for about $10,000. [St.  Petersburg
Times-Washington Post, 9-7-95]
[It's tempting to imagine that, if Congress wasn't spending quite so much time  
on important issues like Constitutional amendments criminalizing flag-burning,  
they might have the time to remedy such oversights...  Nah!  -psl]  


* In August, police in Bari, Italy, arrested a man and charged him with
theft.  He was turned in by his own mother, who identified him as a
purse-snatcher only after he inadvertently swiped her handbag during a
downtown heist. [San Jose Mercury News, 8-11-95]

Copyright 1995, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved. 

Released for the entertainment of readers.  No commercial use
may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.

© 1996 Peter Langston