Declarations

Shell Suit

“Shell probably would not have filed this case if they did not have real fear about whether the spill plan would survive legal scrutiny.”

—Attorney Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity said a pre-emptive lawsuit by Shell Oil Co. against environmental groups that have put legal roadblocks in the company’s path to offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean is unlikely to succeed.

Su Seeks Serial Violators

“We will enforce all of the laws that are on the books to protect the honest employers who are really struggling to compete against the underground economy and to protect working people and to make sure they are paid the wages they earned.”

—California Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su said in speaking about the creation of the Department of Industrial Relations Criminal Investigative Unit, which will be focusing on serial violators, a large number of which tend to be workers’ comp violators.

Memory Like a Hurricane

“The biggest challenge is to crack the denial. If you haven’t cracked the ‘it won’t happen to me thought process’ you can do everything else right and they are going to say it won’t happen to me and not do it. If you can get past the denial, the rest of it is not as difficult as you think.”

—National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read, who said that science will improve to the point where forecasters can reliably issue forecasts showing where a hurricane will be a week ahead of time. But, he said, better forecasts won’t help the public if they ignore them.

iPhone Throttling

“I need the money, but for me, this case is not about money at all. You don’t tell somebody ‘you have unlimited’ and then cut them off.”

—Matt Spaccarelli, an unemployed truck driver and student, took AT&T to small claims court and won $850 for purposely slowing down, or throttling back, his iPhone.