In comp.os.linux.misc Antoon Pardon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> I think you need to look up "extortion" in a dictionary. I can walk up >> to you and say "if you want me to mow your lawn, you must pay me $1 every >> time you smoke a cigarette". So long as you can say "no" and all that >> happens is that I don't mow your lawn (which I have no obligation to do >> anyway), it isn't extortion.
> If you would happen to have a monopoly on the mowing business, which > would make it very hard for me to have my lawn mowed unless I took > your offer, it would be. In this case the extortion is over smoking a cigarette (it doesn't seem to me to necessitate a monopoly on mowing for the threat to have been deemed to have been made, but perhaps for it to be deemed likely for you to believe it to have teeth) - money is being demanded with menaces for your continued smoking of cigarettes. The threatened menace is that your lawn will find itself not mown. I can certainly also envisage circumstances in which that threat would be very real by virtue of an effective monpoloy in the garden market. Peter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
