So here we are almost half way through November, but although in some respects the world has changed dramatically over the past week in other ways things remain as daft as ever!
We’ve often heard of US courts sentencing convicted felons to absurd jail times that they could not possibly serve in a single lifetime.
Incredibly they’re not alone as back in 2004 in a Spanish court imposed jail terms of between 34,000 and 43,000 years to two convicted terrorists.
So I guess if the individuals were re-incarnated, and always assuming that they could be identified, they would have to go directly from the cradle to jail!
Be that as it may, the Russians now seem to have followed suit, not with jail terms, but fines.
Yes according to recent reports, a Russian court has just imposed a fine against GOOGLE, greater than the total of the world’s GDP.
The fine is said to exceed two undecillion rubles, or 2.5 undecillion dollars – that’s a 2 followed by 36 zeros.
To make things a bit clearer, an undecillion is a trillion times a trillion times a trillion – oh and by the way there are 126 rubles to the £.
What’s more the fine is growing by the day and if not settled within 9 months, will double every day, with no upper limit on the amount demanded.
So what you may well ask did Google do to attract such a penalty?
Well 4 years ago, in order to comply with US sanctions, Google blocked the accounts of a TV channel and another Russian media organisation, following which a private lawsuit was filed, resulting in daily fines of US$1028, with the amount doubling each week. But things then escalated further after YouTube blocked accounts belonging to Sputnik and Russia Today, thereby producing claims by Russian authorities that Google were in violation of the country’s ADMINISTRATIVE OFFENCES CODE.
Based on current earnings it would take Google 33.8 quintillion years to settle the present fine, and even if Google paid everything that the world had produced since the universe began, they would have paid just about 3% of the sum now demanded.
I might be wrong, of course, but it seems very unlikely to me that Google will stump up especially given that just last year, the company’s Russian subsidiary was declared bankrupt by a Moscow court.
The company had initially filed for bankruptcy in 2022 after Russian authorities had seized their bank account thereby preventing them from paying their staff or vendors.
Strangely in spite of Moscow pressurising Google over what they consider to be illegal content, Russia has not yet blocked the use of Google to its citizens, although there have been interruptions to the accessibility of YouTube.
A Kremlin spokesman reportedly said that court ruling “might become a reason for Google management to pay attention to what is going on and remedy the situation.”
Moving on from fines to law suits, in the second hour of today’s show we reported on the strange case of a woman suing an airline after she broke her tooth whilst consuming an “ice cream sandwich”!
It seems that on August 20, a lady named, Quinonez traveling with her fiancé on a JetBlue flight between New York and Paris was served a Nightingale brand strawberry shortcake ice cream sandwich.
Unfortunately this “chomp size” snack, as served, was far from the soft creamy treat she was expecting.
In fact it was frozen solid, so when she took a bite, it resulted in a root fracture to one of her teeth, requiring emergency dental work and on-going medical care.
As such JetBlue is facing a lawsuit from the passenger who alleges that when serving the snack, the airline had failed to warn her of the dangerously cold temperature of the product, leading to the necessity of an emergency tooth extraction followed by an implant procedure and on-going expenses for medical care and treatment.
The amount involved is apparently to be determined by a jury at trial.
Three months earlier another passenger filed a $1.5m law suit against the airline, after claiming to have suffered severe burns caused by “dangerously hot” tea being spilt during a flight between Orlando and Hartford, Connecticut.
In that case the passenger involved, Tahjana Lewis alleged that she had suffered injuries to her upper chest, breasts, legs, buttocks, and arm, resulting in “disfigurement and scarring,” citing both both physical and emotional trauma, including anxiety and post-traumatic stress.
It seems that this airline is caught twixt the devil and the deep blue sea!
Perhaps it’s for the best that I’m driving home. Hope to see you once again tomorrow,
Scott
