“Novelty pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office — in case they offend Muslim staff. Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.” (“Muslims win toy pigs ban”, The Sun, recent undated; Mark Steyn, “Making a pig’s ear of defending democracy”, DailyTelegraph, Oct. 4; Bookworm Room, Oct. 4). And: “Prison staff have been told to stop wearing Cross of St George tiepins because they could be ‘misinterpreted” as a racist symbol. Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, was ‘concerned” to see a number of officers at Wakefield jail in Yorkshire wearing the tiepins, apparently in support of a cancer charity.” The Cross of St. George is the English national flag. (Philip Johnston, “Prison bans Cross of St George tiepins”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 4).
Archive for October, 2005
Free Market Project & Katrina insurance lawsuits
The Free Market Project covers anti-business media bias, and has been issuing weekly exposes of media coverage of the various lawsuits over insurance companies’ flood exclusions: Oct. 5, Sep. 28, Sep. 14. Our coverage: Sep. 15, Sep. 12; POL Sep. 28, Sep. 26, Sep. 25, Sep. 23, Sep. 22, Sep. 9. I spoke about the issue at an AEI panel I moderated on October 3 that was broadcast on C-SPAN2. Transcripts will be posted in the next couple of weeks on the AEI site.
“Man Sues Online Dating Service After Being Rejected”
“Soheil Davood claims his paid subscription to JDate.com, billed as ‘the world’s largest Jewish singles community,’ guaranteed that he would find ‘high-quality, successful Jewish personals without wasting precious time.'” However, he claims that “SuperFriendlyGal” didn’t turn out to live up to her name, and (he alleges) after some initially enticing chat dumped him harshly. “Davood, who is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, claims the Web site is ‘defective’ because it was poorly designed and monitored, which exposed him to ‘serious psychological injury.'” (NBC4.TV, Sept. 20)(via Jeff Lewis).
Errin’ on the airwaves
Tom Bray of the Detroit News weighs in on the controversy over the Harvard School of Public Health’s decision to give an award to Erin Brockovich (earlier: Sept. 30) and points out that the glamourpuss toxic-tort-chaser is making a push into TV:
She is listed as the executive producer of an upcoming NBC series titled “Class Action,” which will lionize a team of fictional plaintiff’s attorneys who specialize in class-action lawsuits.
(“Radical parody threatens environmental movement”, Oct. 2)(via Toxic Tort News).
“I am not a puppy. Don’t try to train me”
California’s new law requiring all supervisors to experience sensitivity training to prevent sexual harassment (see Oct. 22, 2004) draws an eloquently annoyed response from Mark Kleiman (Sept. 30)(via Cathy Young, who has her own blog now). His follow-up post (Oct. 3) is equally worth reading, and includes a rude acronym for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
Rehosted (and on MT 3.2)
You can probably tell by the slightly altered style that this is the new version of Overlawyered rehosted on Hosting Matters and powered by the new Movable Type 3.2. A few points:
* I expect to be tinkering further with the style. In particular, I’d like to reduce the wasted space, widen the right sidebar, and give readers a way to increase font size, especially on the sidebar. (Update: I’ve done some of these things in the course of the day, and will be checking out some further suggestions from readers.) Suggestions are welcome, especially from readers who are familiar with Movable Type and stylesheets, I myself being an amateur.
* The new version of MT stores archives using a different filename format. This will result in some broken links for archives and older topical pages, at least temporarily, although I expect to install redirects that will help. All of the archives remain accessible through date-based browsing (see sidebar on front page) as well as through site search (more than one search may be necessary, though).
* I’ve cross-posted a few items I posted over the past two weeks at Point of Law. I trust all of you have bookmarked that site by now, and you should go on visiting it even after regular posting at this site resumes.
P.S. Well, at least we’ve got the serifs back now.
Home stretch on rehosting
I’ve got a prototype of the new Overlawyered (powered by Movable Type 3.2) up and running at Hosting Matters and it shouldn’t be long before we’re ready to switch over, once I can transfer miscellaneous files and resolve some archiving issues. Thanks for readers’ patience during this transition.
Radio shows
I was a guest on Kirby Wilbur’s nationally syndicated radio show last Friday, based at Seattle’s KVI, to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy. Yesterday I appeared on Danny Fontana’s Charlotte-based show and Ron Smith’s popular show on Baltimore’s WBAL to discuss President Bush’s selection of Harriet Miers and other legal issues.
Canada high court OKs tobacco-recoupment suits
The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously upheld a law enacted by the province of British Columbia which announces a retroactive right to recoup from tobacco companies money spent on illnesses due to smoking. (commentary: Edmonton Sun, Ezra Levant). Canada thus becomes the first country to emulate the principle announced by state attorneys general in the U.S., which culminated in the notorious $246 billion state-tobacco settlement. As parents used to say: if you saw your friend jump off a cliff, would you do that too? (cross-posted from Point of Law)