Overlawyered » eat drink and be merry

Senate votes to continue gun-toting FDA raids

Walter Olson — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:37:21 +0000

Amish raw-milk farmers beware: as Mike Riggs reports at Reason, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky introduced an amendment that would have curtailed the power of Food and Drug Administration agents to carry firearms and make warrantless arrests — the agency would still have retained many other legal weapons with which to secure compliance with its will — but the amendment failed by a 78-15 vote. The 15 are listed here.

Tags: eat drink and be merry, FDA, police

Senate votes to continue gun-toting FDA raids is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Your right to food choice

Walter Olson — Fri, 04 May 2012 04:35:02 +0000

The Washington City Paper profiles Baylen Linnekin of Keep Food Legal and mentions his blogging for this site, which can be read here.

Tags: eat drink and be merry, nanny state

Your right to food choice is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

April 25 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:15:01 +0000

Eugene Volokh on civil liberties problems with the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization [first, second posts]
More coverage of the “N.C. vs. diet advice blogger” story we noted in February [Sara Burrows/Carolina Journal, Brian Doherty/Reason]
A case for an administrative alternative to asbestos litigation [Michael Hiltzik, L.A. Times] More on administered compensation funds [Adam Zimmerman, Prawfs]
Scuttle-the-boat insurance fraud scheme goes amusingly wrong [Lowering the Bar]
“To lower prices at the pump, abolish the boutique fuel regime” [Steven Hayward, Weekly Standard]
Supreme Court denies certiorari in NYC rent control case [Trevor Burrus, Cato; earlier here and here] But it does grant cert in Cato-backed property rights action [Ark. Fish & Game v. U.S.; Shapiro]
New Zealand’s innovative public policies: left, right or something else? [Eric Crampton] Let’s be more like the Scandinavian countries [Tim Worstall, UK] Don’t forget loser-pays…

Tags: asbestos, bloggers and the law, domestic violence, eat drink and be merry, insurance fraud, loser pays, New Zealand, North Carolina, oil industry, Supreme Court, Sweden, Victim Compensation Fund

April 25 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Ethnic foodways vs. state regulation

Walter Olson — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:14:01 +0000

The sale of live seafood, common in Chinese food markets, can collide with blanket state regulation of wildlife sales. Virginia, for example, classifies as wildlife any animals not appearing on a list of domestic animals, even if they are raised on farms and have never lived in the wild. While the Virginia suburbs of D.C. have won fame as a hot spot for admirers of Asian food, the selection got somewhat narrower last year with the confiscation of eels, crayfish, bullfrogs and other critters from the Great Wall supermarket. Two store managers were hit with felony charges. [NY Times, Washington Post ]

Tags: animals, eat drink and be merry, food safety, Virginia

Ethnic foodways vs. state regulation is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Debunking the “food desert” myth

Walter Olson — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 04:05:30 +0000

No, this isn’t the first time the fashionable, First-Lady-approved theory has been debunked — see posts here, here, and here — but it’s gratifying to see the NYT’s formidable Gina Kolata get front-page space for a thorough treatment. One study found poor neighborhoods “had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile” as wealthier ones; another “found no relationship between what type of food students said they ate, what they weighed, and the type of food within a mile and a half of their homes.” [Tyler Cowen, Jacob Sullum] And Katherine Mangu-Ward notes the juxtaposition of Kolata’s piece with an opinion piece in the paper the very same day: “Food Deserts Are Not Real. Also, We Can Fix Them.”

Tags: eat drink and be merry, New York Times, obesity

Debunking the “food desert” myth is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The other variety meat

Walter Olson — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:17:03 +0000

While on the subject of hamburgers, Adam Ozimek takes on the sentimental sloganeering about “pink slime” and makes the case for getting more food out of each cow, quite aside from the safety advantages of the stuff.

Commenter Jesse Spurway: “I guess head cheese and scrapple are next on the hit list.” More: Andrew Revkin, NYT; Greg Conko, CEI.

Tags: eat drink and be merry, food safety

The other variety meat is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“It’s just bad public policy to allow unfettered access to all kinds of food.”

Walter Olson — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:42:17 +0000

Meet the meddlers: officials from California to Gotham to London who believe that so long as we remain free to smoke, drink and consume potato chips in the privacy of our home, “government isn’t doing its job.” [Gene Healy, Examiner]

P.S. As readers rightly point out, the post should have noted that the speaker quoted in the headline was referring to the subsidized food stamp program, not the same thing as restricting consumer access to foods generally (though some “food policy” buffs certainly do favor the latter.)

Tags: eat drink and be merry, nanny state, public health

“It’s just bad public policy to allow unfettered access to all kinds of food.” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 23 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 04:05:34 +0000

Tips for those facing vexatious-litigant proceedings [Lowering the Bar; U.K.]
Credit card arbitration: “Plaintiffs’ lawyers protect their cartel by bringing antitrust suit” [Ted Frank, PoL]
Just what European business needs: gender quotas for corporate boards [Bader, CEI]
“Food sovereignty” movement: next, rediscovering freedom of contract? [Alex Beam, Ira Stoll]
Much-assailed group for state legislators: “ALEC Enjoys A New Wave of Influence and Criticism” [Alan Greenblatt, Governing]
Symposium on David Bernstein’s Rehabilitating Lochner [Law and Liberty, earlier here and here]
Because rent control is all about fairness [Damon Root]

Tags: arbitration, eat drink and be merry, Europe, freedom of contract, NYC, serial litigants

March 23 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Using federal bucks to lobby for food nannyism

Walter Olson — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:25:09 +0000

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offers no apologies for what might seem a disturbing breach of the principle that taxpayer funds should not go to lobbying [Caroline May, Daily Caller] Earlier on the oughta-be-controversial federal food-policy grant program here, here, etc. More: Abby Schachter on CDC’s Thomas Frieden [NY Post].

Tags: eat drink and be merry, Kathleen Sebelius, lobbyists, obesity

Using federal bucks to lobby for food nannyism is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Sugar: the moral equivalent of war

Walter Olson — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:32:07 +0000

At the New York Times, Mark Bittman has proved a durable source of entertainment twice over, first as a purveyor of recipes with a high hit rate of being worth trying, and more recently with a laughably paternalistic opinion column. [David Boaz/Cato, Damon Root/Reason, earlier]

Tags: eat drink and be merry, nanny state, New York Times, obesity

Sugar: the moral equivalent of war is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system