Ron Coleman wonders about a well-known cancer charity’s designs on phrases like “For a Cure” and the color pink. [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
Archive for January, 2011
Salon yanks discredited RFK Jr. vaccine piece
Six years late, the online publication is throwing in the towel on a notorious venture into antiscientific claptrap by America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure®, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Meanwhile, Carter at Point of Law reports that the newly civility-aware celebrity environmentalist will be headlining a “Progressive Voices Cruise” of the Caribbean that by total coincidence will also feature attorney Michael Papantonio, with whose Levin Papantonio injury-law firm the hothead scion has long been associated, a connection curiously absent from his current Wikipedia page and most other coverage (& welcome Jonathan Adler readers).
Update: adult clubs to settle EEOC age-bias suit
“Two Houston adult entertainment clubs this week agreed to settle a federal age discrimination case with a former waitress who alleged younger, male managers called her ‘old’ and said she showed symptoms of memory loss. The owners of Centerfolds and Cover Girls agreed to pay $60,000 to Mary Bassi. She was 56 when she was fired in 2006 ‘without provocation or explanation,’ according to a lawsuit the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed on Bassi’s behalf.” [Houston Chronicle; earlier]
License plate and tax on bicycles?
A New Jersey proposal is shelved.
Taking anti-hacking law too far?
Arguing for a temporary restraining order in a civil dispute, lawyers for Sony argue that the federal “anti-hacking” law prohibits unauthorized access to one’s own computer. (As commenters point out, the company may also have less controversial arguments based on other areas of law, such as intellectual property and contract.) [Orin Kerr]
Obama administration’s Title IX activism
The quota pressure in sports has been around for a while, but the idea of an enforcement push in hard academic disciplines may be getting extra encouragement from the very top:
Obama himself seems to have latched onto the idea. While praising Title IX’s impact on increasing women’s participation in athletics, he said, “If pursued with the necessary attention and enforcement, Title IX has the potential to make similar, striking advances in the opportunities that girls have in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (“STEM”) disciplines.” The nation’s university science, engineering, and mathematics departments may thus soon find themselves faced with the task of complying with a regulatory regime similar to the intercollegiate athletics three part test.
[Alison Somin, Federalist Society “Engage”, PDF]
More: a John Stossel segment, and cutbacks in men’s sports at Delaware.
Appeals court upholds dismissal of CSPI salt case against Denny’s
Amid much hoopla, the Center for Science in the Public Interest had filed a suit on behalf of a New Jersey man claiming Denny’s hadn’t adequately warned its meals were salty. Now an appeals court has upheld the dismissal of the suit’s consumer-fraud theory, meaning that the complainant would be able to proceed only by proving actual personal injury [Abnormal Use, Home News Tribune via NJLRA; earlier here, here, etc.]
What it takes to get disbarred in Vermont
Misleading investigators about the circumstances of your hit-run won’t do it, apparently. The lawyer in question has served as a traffic court judge. [Legal Profession Blog, ABA Journal, Randazza]
Annals of litigation science
“The amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon rig blowout will be determined by protracted court proceedings rather than purely scientific calculations, the nation’s top environmental enforcement officer said Thursday.” [Houston Chronicle]
January 14 roundup
- When naming a new law, please, no acronyms, no victim names, and no assumptions about what it will accomplish [WSJ Law Blog on Brian Christopher Jones’s recommendations] More: Wood.
- America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® — that would be RFK Jr. — sounds off on Tucson massacre [Hemingway, Examiner]
- More press attention for CPSC’s dubious consumer complaint database [Washington Post; my take last month]
- An appellate win for Internet anonymity in Pennsylvania [Levy, CL&P]
- Santa Clara lead paint case: Supreme Court won’t review government misuse of contingency lawyers [Wood, ShopFloor]
- DC cops’ “post and forfeit” policy deserves scrutiny [Greenfield]
- “Philosophy Explains How Legal Ethics Turn Lawyers Into Liars” [Kennerly]
- “Marshall, Texas: Patent Central” [six years ago on Overlawyered]