Robert Ambrogi analyzes a U.S. Court of Appeals decision said a Staples salesman could continue his libel suit against the company even though he agreed the company had been truthful in a public statement explaining it had fired him for embezzlement.

The court ruled on Friday that you can successfully sue for libel over a true statement if the statement is made with malicious intent - in this case, after Staples fired the guy, a vice president sent e-mail to 1,500 employees letting them know why. Ambrogi is aghast at the implications of the ruling, especially since the court cited a 1902 Massachusetts law that the state Supreme Judicial Court had earlier ruled unconstitutional in a similar case:

... This is far from the end of this case. The 1st Circuit's decision sends it back to the lower court for a trial to determine how the case should be decided. Most likely, Staples will ask the full panel of 1st Circuit judges to review this case en banc. It could even make its way to the Supreme Court. For the time being, however, be afraid -- be very, very afraid -- of this precedent. If ill will is all that is needed to turn a truthful statement into libel, then everyone is a potential defendant.

Cleary Squared goes to the new Staples in Roslindale Square, reports that if it wants to retain any customers on the weekends, it's going to have to instill some pride in the sullen, put-upon teens apparently running the place on Saturdays and Sundays.

Dan Miller reports he only goes to the School Street Starbucks because he needs his morning coffee, not because he enjoys "being held hostage by the designated drink maker, who thinks he's Tom Cruise in 'Cocktail.'"

Susan Senator discovers another circle of hell:

We think of the traditional Hell, of Christian fame, as being a place of orange and red flames. Well, was it? Dante saw it differently. His version of the very lowest point, the worst place in Hell, was pure ice, a place where one became frozen, where all movement and growth ceased to exist.

Hell is neither orange flames, nor frozen ice. Hell is going to Staples at the beginning of September ...