Canada high court upholds hate speech laws

In a serious blow to speech rights north of the border, the Supreme Court of Canada has upheld so-called hate speech laws as consistent with Canadian constitutional guarantees. The decision partially upheld the legal punishments applied by a Saskatchewan tribunal to a man who distributed anti-gay literature. [The Globe and Mail]

P.S. As has been pointed out, precedent in Canada on this issue was already pretty bad before the latest decision, so “serious blow” may not be the right phrase, except in the sense of hitting someone who’s already down. More: Howard Friedman via Volokh; Jacob Sullum.

Filed under: free speech in Canada

Labor and employment roundup

On minimum wage these days, Krugman lets politics sit in for economics [David Henderson] Minimum wage hikes don’t cost jobs? A notion so ideologically convenient just has to be true [Steve Chapman]
“Is employment a ‘human right'”? [Richard Epstein, Hoover “Defining Ideas”]
Project labor agreements are an unjustified giveaway in New Jersey’s post-Sandy reconstruction [Trey Kovacs, CEI Open Market]
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake proposes public pension reform [Baltimore Sun] Reality check on sunny New York projections [@NYDNHammond]
Peter Kirsanow on EEOC crackdown on criminal background checks [Employee Screen]
Three Missouri Dems favor bill making it felony for lawmakers to propose bills limiting union powers [Robby Soave, Daily Caller]
Meet the brothers who are standing up to union violence in Philadelphia construction [Jillian Melchior, NR, earlier]

Filed under: Baltimore, criminal records and hiring, EEOC, labor unions, minimum wage, Missouri, New Jersey, Paul Krugman, Philadelphia

Better stay home with your parents, kid

Watch out for this soon to be up-and-coming Safety First proposal, as outlined by Vivian Hamilton of William and Mary Law: raising the driving age from 16 to 18. [Concurring Opinions]

Filed under: children's rights, safety, traffic laws

New York Times Magazine versus snack foods

On Sunday the New York Times published a long, breathless screed attacking food company marketing (“Inside the hyper-engineered, savagely marketed, addiction-creating battle for ‘stomach share.'”) The article itself furnishes an example of empty, hype-fueled journalistic calories, or so I suggest in a new op-ed at the Daily Caller.

Filed under: advertising, eat drink and be merry, obesity, salt, WO writings

Judge orders man to take down Facebook comments critical of McDonald’s class action settlement

“Wayne County, Mich. Judge Kathleen MacDonald slapped a Dearborn man with an injunction ordering him to take down his Facebook comments critical of a class-action settlement of a case against McDonald’s for selling non-halal meat.” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes; Paul Alan Levy, Public Citizen; Ted Frank, PoL] More: Blue Dog Thoughts.

Filed under: class action settlements, Facebook, free speech, McDonald's

Koop on the medical-phthalate scare

“He would preach, ‘Try having a colonoscopy or dialysis without soft plastic tubing; or would you like a sigmoidoscopy with a steel tube?'” [ACSH]

Filed under: CPSIA and phthalates

Update: “slain in the Spirit” church suit settles

Following up on last January’s report: the Disciple Fellowship Christian Church of East St. Louis, Ill. has reportedly settled Cheryl Jones’s suit claiming that ushers were not properly provided to catch falling worshipers during a service in which congregants “received the Spirit”. Jones was injured when others fell on her. We have earlier reported on similar cases from Michigan, Oregon, Tennessee, and Australia. [Christina Stueve Hodges, Madison-St. Clair Record; update ($3K)]

Filed under: churches

Watch what you say about Sheldon Adelson, cont’d

The casino magnate and political donor has now sued Wall Street Journal reporter Kate O’Keefe for libel over a December article. [TPM] Earlier on Adelson’s journalist-suing ways here and here.

Filed under: libel slander and defamation, Sheldon Adelson

February 26 roundup

Tel Aviv: “City Workers Paint Handicap Space Around Car, Then Tow It” [Lowering the Bar]
Editorial writer has some generous comments about my work on excessive litigation. Thanks! [Investors Business Daily]
Nuisance payment: Toyota will throw $29 million at state attorneys general who chased bogus sudden acceleration theory [Amanda Bronstad, NLJ]
“Iowa Woman Who Didn’t Break Allergy Pill Limit Law Charged with Crime Anyway” [Shackford]
Cutting outlays on the nonexistent census, and other bogus D.C. spending cuts: in the business world, they’d call it fraud [Coyote, Boaz] Skepticism please on the supposed national crumbling-infrastructure crisis [Jack Shafer]
Tassel therapy: “Lawsuit Claims Dancing in a Topless Bar “Improves the Self Esteem” of the Stripper” [KEGL]
Was there ever an economics textbook to beat Alchian and Allen? R.I.P. extraordinary economist Armen Alchian, whose microeconomics introductory course for grad students I was fortunate to take long ago [Cafe Hayek, David Henderson, more, more, more, Bainbridge]

Filed under: accolades, allergies, attorneys general, strippers and exotic dancers, Toyota, traffic laws

Tales of competition through regulation, cont’d

Brad Smith on how Woodrow Wilson and Henry Ford used early versions of campaign finance law to settle scores with Michigan opponent Truman Newberry [Law and Liberty]

Filed under: campaign regulation, competition through regulation, Michigan