Walter Russell Mead notes a reformist initiative on teacher certification with perhaps an unexpected sponsor, the Democratic governor of Connecticut. [The American Interest; CTNewsJunkie.com]
P.S. On the ultimate frontier of teacher reform — the firing of bad teachers — see new reports from Troy Senik [Public Sector Inc.] and Marcus Winters [NY Post].
“This January, the justices stopped [attorney James] Wylder’s argument dead in its tracks once again, concluding that the McLean County Circuit Court should have dismissed his three negligence suits against Illinois Central Railroad. Wylder had argued that Illinois Central was responsible for the alleged asbestos-related injuries of workers at an asbestos plant because the asbestos had arrived there by rail.” [Chamber’s Madison County Record, more; background on “asbestos conspiracy” line of Illinois cases, LNL]
Members of an L.A. group devoted to darts, the bar sport, are among those plunged into litigation by a fellow enthusiast. “Says one well-known bar owner who did not wish to be identified for fear of retribution, ‘I’m weary of being involved with this guy because he’s just been firing off lawsuits. Some of us wanted to fight, but these things can be very expensive.'” [L.A. Weekly]
Is life at the university fairer under the new sex-complaint procedures mandated by the federal Department of Education? Don’t ask the New York Times [Peter Berkowitz via Ann Althouse] More: Kathleen Parker, WaPo; Brisbane/NYT via Romenesko.
Deposed press lord Conrad Black is taking a public stand against the law enforcement and corporate-governance authorities that put him behind bars. [Andrew McCarthy/The New Criterion, earlier]
The case is from West Virginia, and Lowering the Bar and Rob Beschizza/BoingBoing have the details.
At Cato at Liberty, I find that uncannily reminiscent of a famous Bastiat parody (& IEA, Tim Worstall).
More from Coyote: “left unsaid is how they would jack up their prices when at least two other companies (Bing, Mapquest) also provide mapping services online for free.” But note that the French case arose not from Google’s furnishing of its free map service to individual end customers, but from its furnishing of its map API to businesses that typically adapt it for use in their own sites; as commenters at BoingBoing and Reddit as well as news reports point out, Google has indeed introduced fees for its largest business users of this type (which has caused some of them to adapt by switching from Google’s API to OpenStreetMap, a free wiki-based map service).
“In non-Western countries, demons and witchcraft are still sometimes blamed for outbreaks of fainting and fits [PDF]. Pollution, poisoning, chemical weapons, and other environmental concerns are dominant in the West (a fact that makes Brockovich something of a mass hysteria machine). Some bloggers are now claiming that the upstate New York girls fell ill because of the HPV vaccine or fracking.” [Ruth Graham, Slate]
A 17-year-old born without hands is disappointed at being excluded from Sea World’s “Kraken,” but “Katie Champagne’s misery is the result of a litigious society, not heartless theme parks.” [Beth Kassab, Orlando Sentinel; error corrected on name of theme park operator, thanks commenter P. McC.]