Cigarette cases up in new Supreme Court term By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 57 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court opens its new term Monday with arguments over limits on lawsuits against tobacco companies.

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The court will consider whether federal regulation of cigarettes prevents smokers from suing tobacco companies under state law for allegedly deceptive advertising of "light" cigarettes.

The case grew out of a lawsuit by three Maine residents against Altria Group Inc. and its Philip Morris USA Inc. subsidiary under the state's law against unfair marketing practices.

The company says a federal law on cigarette labeling and advertising rules out such lawsuits because it forbids states from imposing any requirements on the advertising or promotion of cigarettes.

The key to the case is whether the high court views the suit as being about false advertising, which would tend to favor the smokers, or smoking and health, which could lead to a ruling for Altria.

The justices also are expected to issue orders formally refusing to hear arguments in hundreds of cases that were appealed to the court over the past three months.

The court's term begins by law on the first Monday in October.

Antis believe smoking is a conspiracy against their healthy lives,those people that become sick want to believe that sickness is more than just bad luck or the way life goes!

Antis are neurotic twits!!
See below for an explanation of their lack of rationality. Excerpts from the original.
Gary K.

http://www.physorg.com/news142174136.html

When seeing IS believing
Medicine & Health / Psychology
New research published in the journal Science explains why individuals seek to find and impose order on an unruly world through superstition, rituals and conspiratorial explanations by linking a loss of control to individual perceptions.

The research finds that a quest for structure or understanding leads people to trick themselves into seeing and believing connections that simply don't exist.

Through a series of six experiments, the researchers showed that individuals who lacked control were more likely to see images that did not exist, perceive conspiracies, and develop superstitions.

"The less control people have over their lives, the more likely they are to try and regain control through mental gymnastics," said Galinsky. "Feelings of control are so important to people that a lack of control is inherently threatening. While some misperceptions can be bad or lead one astray, they're extremely common and most likely satisfy a deep and enduring psychological need."

The Need for Control

According to Whitson, that psychological need is for control, and the ability to minimize uncertainty and predict beneficial courses of action. In situations where one has little control, the researchers proposed that an individual may believe that mysterious, unseen mechanisms are secretly at work.

"People see false patterns in all types of data, imagining trends in stock markets, seeing faces in static, and detecting conspiracies between acquaintances. This suggests that lacking control leads to a visceral need for order – even imaginary order," said Whitson.

The results were clear: participants who didn't have an opportunity to regain feelings of control were more likely to perceive visual images that didn't exist and to perceive conspiracies in innocent situations, while participants who regained feelings of control by focusing on important personal values were no different from people who never lost their feelings of self-control in the first place.