The U.S. government won huge lawsuit against the tobacco industry five years ago, based on the fact that the tobacco industry has been unconscionably killing Americans with blatant lies for 50 years. And the tobacco companies were like, "you got us! Okay, haha, you got us. We'll stop that."

Worried about the ever-encroaching menace of Muslims practicing their religion? You may want to move to Tennessee, where State Sen. Bill Ketron (pictured) and state Rep. Judd Matheny are introducing a bill that would "make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail." Nashville-based Imam Mohamed Ahmed wonders:

The NYPD stopped (and often frisked) 600,000 New Yorkers last year, an all-time high since recordkeeping began in 2002. What percentage of those stops led to an arrest? Seven. Seven percent. The other 93% of the time, the people were not arrested. Because they were not committing any crime. Although they were stopped by the police.

Hey smokers: think you got it bad in America just because you can't get a job, due to smoking? Your ingratitude is just one of your many flaws. Here's a new reason to be happy you don't live in Honduras:

It's a well-known fact that someday, all of New York will be reduced to a smoldering, hellish wasteland, a post-apocalyptic desert so bad it will make The Road look like Sex and the City, a badland consisting of the ashes of a once-mighty city felled by war, disease, terror, or Zu'ul. Luckily, we've got an official legal manual!

We've long known that the gap in wealth and earnings between the haves and the have-nots has the potential to undermine the very foundation of American society. We're referring, of course, exclusively to attorneys. The young bottom-of-the-food-chain document reviewers toiling for a meager pittance can scarcely behold the salaries of their superiors. And it's getting worse; the WSJ reports that "traditional notions of pay equity are falling by the wayside."

Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer, was indicted today for leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen. The indictment shows that the federal government had access to their e-mail and phone contacts going back several years.

Tonight, The Daily Show returned from hiatus with an opening segment about President Obama's recent legislative victories under fire. During it, Jon Stewart compared Obama to Star Wars' Luke Skywalker, before many subsequent—and equally awesome—trilogy-related references. Watch inside.

Did Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge, John Bolton, and a bunch of other neocons really attend a rally in support of a communist Saddam Hussein-loving terrorist organization last month? Yes! Is that really a crime? Yes!

How "jailhouse lawyer" Jabbar Collins secured his own release after 15 years in prison for a wrongful conviction. [via]

Prosecutors have struck a deal that will bring in $7 billion to compensate victims of Bernie Madoff's scam.

A British judge has just granted bail to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, on the condition that he surrender his passport, put up $315,000 bond, obey a curfew, and wear an electronic monitor.

Henry E. Hudson, the federal judge in Virginia who just ruled health care reform unconstitutional, owns between $15,000 and $50,000 in a GOP political consulting firm that worked against health care reform. You don't say!

A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit over the government's targeting of American imam Anwar al-Awlaki for assassination because al-Awlaki's father, and not al-Awlaki himself, filed the suit. Courthouse is open 8 to 5, Anwar, so come on down!

The Supreme Court will decide the largest employment class action suit in U.S. history: women vs. Wal-Mart.

An Irish court has overturned the punishment that a college professor received—mandatory counseling and two years of monitoring—for showing a female colleague a scientific paper entitled "Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time." And rightly so. [Irish Times]

Former Bush administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, that crony everyone hated several years ago, has enlisted 23 former Cabinet colleagues to help raise money for his endless legal bills. Read their joint letter and contribute here! Or do something else.

Attorney General Eric Holder says the criminal investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is more than just "saber-rattling," and Justice Department officials are claiming he violated the Espionage Act. If that's true, isn't the New York Times guilty as well?

Getting punched in the jaw now automatically constitutes a "bias crime." (In Williamsburg.)

We all knew Harvey Levin's TMZ pays people to leak information to them, as recently fired L.A. County Superior Court spokesman has been accused of doing. But their real secret? Just plant a staffer on the courthouse payroll. [Update below]