Calif. court: Medical pot not OK at work

SAN FRANCISCO - Employers can fire workers who use medical marijuana even if it was legally recommended by a doctor, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday, dealing the state another setback in its standoff with federal law enforcement.

The high court upheld a small Sacramento telecommunications company's firing of a man who flunked a company-ordered drug test. Gary Ross held a medical marijuana card authorizing him to use the drug to treat a back injury sustained while serving in the Air Force.

The company, Ragingwire Inc., argued that it rightfully fired Ross because all marijuana use is illegal under federal law, which does not recognize the medical marijuana laws in California and 11 other states.

The justices upheld that argument in a 5-2 decision.

"No state law could completely legalize marijuana for medical purposes because the drug remains illegal under federal law," Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote for the majority.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared in 2005 that state medicinal marijuana laws don't protect users from prosecution. The Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies have been actively shutting down major medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California over the last two years and charging their operators with felony distribution charges.

Ragingwire said it fired Ross because it feared it could be the target of a federal raid, among other reasons.

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and the Western Electrical Contractors Association Inc. had joined Ragingwire's case, arguing that companies could lose federal contracts and grants if they allowed employees to smoke pot.

The conservative nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation said in a friend-of-the-court filing that employers could also be liable for damage done by high workers.

Ross had argued that medical marijuana users should receive the same workplace protection from discipline that employees with valid painkiller prescriptions do. California voters legalized medicinal marijuana in 1996.

The nonprofit marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, which represents Ross, estimates that 300,000 Americans use medical marijuana. The Oakland-based group said it has received hundreds of employee discrimination complaints in California since it began tracking the issue in 2005.

Safe Access attorney Joe Elford said the group will now focus on urging the Legislature to pass a law protecting workers who use medical marijuana.

"We remain confident that there will be a day when medical marijuana patients are not discriminated against in the workplace," he said.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, a Democrat who represents part of San Francisco, said he will introduce legislation addressing those concerns in the next few weeks.

The ruling "strikes a serious blow to patients' rights," he said.

Eleven states have adopted medical-marijuana laws similar to California's: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

The American Medical Association advocates keeping marijuana classified as a tightly controlled and dangerous drug that should not be legalized until more research is done

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'24' prequel set

Fox's "24" will be returning in the fall, after all.

The producers of the Emmy-winning series are developing a two-hour "prequel" to the upcoming seventh season.

The movie, designed to bridge the two-year gap between Seasons 6 and 7, is targeted to air in the fall, leading to the January return of the real-time drama. On Wednesday, "24" producers began securing the show's core cast members for the film.

"24" was one of the biggest casualties of the writers strike. Three days into the work stoppage, Fox decided against airing a partial season of the serialized drama with the eight episodes produced before and during the first weeks of the strike.

Each season of "24" is a closed arc that takes place in real time over a 24-hour period. The upcoming seventh season is set in Washington and features the first female U.S. president, played by Cherry Jones.

At the end of the writers strike, there were rumblings about a possible split of the seventh season into two parts to air in the fall and in midseason. But Fox was quick to put those rumors to rest, reiterating that the show's scheduling pattern will remain intact with a January launch.

The "24" writing team is back at work, with filming on the remaining episodes of the seventh season slated to begin in April. Missing from the writers room is the series co-creator/executive producer Joel Surnow, who left at the end of the strike. Since the fifth season, "24" has been run by exec producer Howard Gordon.

Fox and 20th Century Fox TV, which produces the series with Imagine TV

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how depressing

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Cheers: Amazon To Enter Wine Business

Amazon is to starting selling wine from its site to US customers.

According to FT.com, Amazon is currently looking to recruit a senior wine buyer who will be responsible for “the acquisition of a massive new product selection.”

Online alcohol sales have been a difficult market in the United States due to the multitude of laws in relation to online alcohol sales in different states. The market though is somewhat easier to enter today than during the first web boom, with the US Supreme Court having ruled that state governments may not prohibit residents from ordering directly from out-of-state wineries in 2005.

Amazon invested $30 million into Wineshopper.com in 1999. The site lasted one year. Sales of wine in the United States totaled $30 billion in 2007.

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Google, Microsoft Said To Be Preparing Bids For Digg

Update: Digg CEO Jay Adelson is calling this post “completely inaccurate.” Lets see how this plays out…My source, which as I said is very, very good, sticks with the story. Digg may have had an angry Microsoft and Google on its hands this morning after this post, leading Jay to comment on this where they usually wouldn’t. Jay certainly wouldn’t say anything untrue in his post, but there’s a lot he isn’t saying in that post, too. See here and here for more thoughts on this.

User-generated news site Digg has been working with influential investment bank Allen & Co. (the ones that recently got Slide a half billion dollar valuation) for a few months now, and pitching big tech and media companies on a sale.

And despite a number of false starts, this time a sale looks like it might actually happen, and soon. We hear from a source very close to the deal that four companies are in heavy due diligence with Digg - two media/news companies, and two big Internet companies - Google and Microsoft. And Google and Microsoft are on the verge of making their bids.

Digg is prepared to take less than the $300 million Allen & Co. were floating late last year. Google, our source says, will likely bid $200-$225 million, which Digg would likely accept.

Microsoft is looking at a somewhat lower price. That makes sense, since most of Digg’s revenue today comes from a three year advertising deal that Digg signed with Microsoft last year. That deal has revenue guarantees - and Microsoft may be hesitant to value Digg based on revenue that they supply.

Any sale is likely to give Microsoft an option to terminate that advertising deal, which means Google isn’t valuing Digg based on revenue, either. But it is a big slap in the face to Microsoft to steal Digg away, and Google can certainly generate revenue on all those page views.

More as this develops, but we may be looking at a bidding war between Microsoft and Google over Digg. Plus any late comers to the table.

Digg was founded in late 2004 and has raised $11.3 million in funding.

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HOW SAD: Report: 6 Out Of 10 Americans Cannot Locate Payless Shoes On A Mall Map | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

WASHINGTON—An alarming new study conducted by the Department of Education has found that 60 percent of all Americans are unable to locate the major retail outlet Payless Shoes when presented with an ordinary shopping-center map.

The study, which surveyed 200 consumers, has raised a number of troubling questions about the public's grasp of basic mall geography, its ability to identify key regional chains, and its awareness of the diverse brands and logos that make up today's world.

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Dr. Howard Saunders decries the nation's lack of basic shopping-center knowledge.

"Not only did a majority of Americans fail to find Payless Shoes on the map, but, more disturbingly, many didn't even know which floor to look on," said Dr. Howard Saunders, a cultural studies professor and the study's lead researcher. "To see countless men and women point to the outline of a parking garage and call it the largest footwear retailer on earth—well, it makes you wonder about our priorities as a society."

Saunders, who stressed that knowing the location of various stores is one of the most relevant real-world skills Americans can possess, said he was deeply discouraged by the study's results. Of the 60 percent of participants who struggled to find Payless Shoes on the map, nearly 30 percent seemed to be guessing at random and 20 percent reportedly confused the shop with the similar-looking Foot Locker. Another 5 percent searched for assistance, but were unable to figure out how to get to a nearby information desk.

Even more shocking, Saunders said, was the inability of many Americans to pinpoint their own location, despite it being accompanied by a bright green star and the words "You Are Here."

"These results are far worse than we could have anticipated," continued Saunders. "It's almost as if these people had never traveled outside of a JCPenney before."

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who personally monitored the study, said that the United States ranked behind 130 other nations when it came to mall-map comprehension—an embarrassment considering one-third of the countries surveyed didn't even have shopping centers.

"In a modern, mall-going society, these important life skills should be second nature to citizens of all ages," Spellings said. "No schoolchild should be allowed to grow up ignorant of the varied chain stores around him."

Despite her frustration, Spellings said she wasn't surprised by the poor test results, and claimed that they signaled a larger cultural illiteracy trend. According to Spellings, over the last decade Americans have fallen off in almost every field of study and endeavor, from mall geography to television history to basic text-message reading and writing.

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"With each passing year, more Americans struggle to identify important national figures, like Survivor winner Richard Hatch, and lose the ability to think critically, such as when ordering from the Taco Bell value menu," Spellings said. "By the time our young people reach adulthood, there may be no one left with the expertise necessary to elect our nation's next American Idol."

The drop, Spellings said, is especially evident in the sciences, with countless men and women lacking the rudimentary math skills needed to follow an episode of Deal Or No Deal. Still others find themselves unable to properly calculate the simplest of fractions, severely hindering their ability to divide a large pizza equally among friends.

Offended by the implication of her claims, many citizens have called Spelling's allegations overly alarmist and extremely pessimistic, and a large number are now asking, "What's a Secretary of Education?"

"Our nation is every bit as educated and well informed today as it was 20 years ago," Michigan resident Dale Henderson said. "If anything, we know more football and hockey trivia now than ever before."

Despite the criticism, Spellings said she's committed to getting the nation back to where it should be academically, and announced that she already has a foolproof, long-term initiative for turning the American education system around.

"Not only will my alterations to our current educational system improve the quality of our schools, but it'll also provide the proper support for both students and teachers," Spellings said. "Trust me, I saw the whole thing on an episode of Boston Public once."

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