U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Loren Smith was a maverick smoker. He became a legend at a certain out-of-town meeting on election law:

The other participants in the elegant, white-carpeted conference room in which the meeting was held, watched in disbelief as Smith repeatedly declined an ashtray for use with his eight-inch cigar -- which he calmly smoked until seven inches of perfect ash bedecked its end.

"I was testing something Clarence Darrow used to do," he later explained. "I had inserted a straightened-out paper clip before I lit up..."

[In December 2003, a British firm won a contract to supply a German brothel with a carpet featuring a naked woman surrounded by erect penises.]