Like a cartoon doodle the exact outline of England's post-Ashes whitewash shakedown continues to take shape a single sketch stroke at a time, with a hint here, a nudge there, and a general sense of blanks very slowly being filled.
WHO runs the world's most lucrative shakedown operation?
Two years ago, when the America Invents Act sought (unsuccessfully) to put a stop to such shenanigans, Babbage labelled the trolls' shakedown tactics a "Tony Soprano" protection racket (see "Programmed nonsense", October 7th 2011).
But the victory of Proposition 64 delights many businessmen, who saw the law as an open invitation for "shakedown lawsuits" in a state with some 197,000 lawyers.Will Proposition 64 really improve California's business climate?
The betting, however, is that the proposition, which is supported by Democrats, will pass.Mr Schwarzenegger may also get beaten on another "pro-business" proposition, 64, which tries to stop "shakedown lawsuits", but which has annoyed consumer watchdogs and environmentalists.
Before the rapacious Mr Spitzer extends his shakedown to the rest of Wall Street, the SEC should take over the case.This is not to excuse Merrill Lynch's analysts, and especially not the cloddish e-mails that they sent, employing scatological language to abuse companies whose merits they were touting so ardently to investors.
Watch a live feed here.11 20am: Thus far in today's hearings, Joe Barton, a Republican representative from Texas, has apologised to BP for the "shakedown" that occurred at the White House yesterday.
Even for large businesses, "the exposure can be enormous"; for small ones, the shakedown can be fatal.
Troops sent to the north-east to fight Boko Haram run checkpoints as shakedown spots.
General Motors is shoring up its troubled, former, subprime lending unit to the tune of $1 billion.The shakedown is hardly unexpected.
On the contrary, it is fiercely contesting the verdict and hopes to persuade courts in New York and The Hague that it is the innocent victim of an attempted shakedown based on a spectacular fraud by the plaintiffs' lawyers and members of the Ecuadorean judiciary.In this section Bigger abroad Monster or victim?
