…break and enter into the house of your client’s husband to retrieve her possessions [Albuquerque lawyer Raymond Van Arnam, fined, sentenced to weekend jail time and ordered to pay restitution, but not deprived of his law license, on charges of misdemeanor criminal trespass and misdemeanor larceny; Above the Law]
iPhone’s hellish Chinese workplace: the sequel
“This American Life” has retracted a much-discussed news segment about the horrors of Apple’s Shenzhen, China workplace after discovering it was faked; Mike Daisey’s report contained “numerous fabrications,” it says. For more on how readiness to believe the worst about big business can leave media open to being fooled by manipulative packagers of news, see the GM trucks episode, Food Lion, and a great many others. [Ira Glass, Jack Shafer, Edward Champion]
More from David Henderson. And Coyote: “The problem with the media is not outright bias, but an intellectual mono-culture that fails to exercise the most basic skepticism when stories fit their narrative.”
Restricting helium sales to prevent squeaky-voice foolery?
A group called the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, with support from federal agencies SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) and NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse), held a press conference yesterday to promote wider restrictions on the sale and use of helium, the familiar balloon-filling gas that as most people know will make one’s voice squeaky if inhaled. Although helium has low toxicity, it can pose dangers to the user, especially when inhaled directly from a pressurized container, the dangers “mostly related to the mechanical damage of introducing a highly compressed gas into your lungs,” as a doctor put it in a 1997 publication from NIPC (“Helium: Not a Laughing Matter”). The Washington Times reports on the coalition’s demands and quotes me for balance: “Small risk is worth knowing about, but it’s not worth rearranging our whole lives around.” It’s one thing to make sure kids know it’s unacceptably dangerous to breathe gases from pressurized containers, and another to make it unlawful for responsible 17-year-olds to pick up the balloon supplies for the family wedding.
P.S. Several readers wrote to say that because of current federal policy helium winds up artificially underpriced, encouraging its use for frivolous purposes; more on that here.
March 16 roundup
- “A new target for tech patent trolls: cash-strapped American cities” [Joe Mullin, Ars Technica] Crowdsourcing troll control [Farhad Manjoo, Slate] “Why patent trolls don’t need valid patents” [Felix Salmon] “Why Hayek Would Have Hated Software Patents” [Timothy Lee, Cato] Et tu, Shoah Foundation? [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- Cory King case: “Not Everything Can Be a Federal Crime” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- “Ban on smoking in cars with young children clears Md. Senate” [WaPo]
- On religious exemption to birth control mandate, NYT wrestles with unwelcome poll numbers [Mickey Kaus]
- “Undocumented Law Grad Can’t Get Driver’s License, But Hopes for Fla. Supreme Court OK of Law License” [ABA Journal]
- Department of Justice launches campaign against racial disparities in school discipline [Jason Riley, WSJ via Amy Alkon]
- James Gattuso and Diane Katz, “Red Tape Rising: Obama-Era Regulation at the Three-Year Mark” [Heritage]
Lawyer: ER “simply not permitted to discharge” without ruling out life-threatening conditions
That’s what Connecticut plaintiff’s lawyer Craig Yankwitt said on filing a lawsuit against Stamford Hospital’s Tully immediate-care unit for allegedly missing pulmonary embolisms in a Greenwich man who came in complaining of flank pain. [Connecticut Post] White Coat analyzes what it would mean for emergency departments to hold on to patients until any possible life-threatening conditions had been ruled out.
Hotel pools and the ADA: a 60-day deadline extension
Following a substantial outcry (see Mar. 14), the Department of Justice has announced a 60-day stay of its new regulations requiring costly lifts and other fixes at hotel pools. It will also consider a six-month extension to address what it insufferably describes as “misunderstandings regarding compliance with these ADA requirements.” Translation: “opponents were persuading the public that the mandate was unreasonable.” Hotel and insurance officials had confirmed that many operators were considering closing pools or smaller water features such as whirlpools, which must often be given their own separate permanent lift installations under the rules. [Barbara De Lollis, USA Today] On the notion that it doesn’t pay lawyers to sue over uncompliant hotel pools, see this 2007 coverage of what was even then a busy litigation docket in California and elsewhere.
Marc Randazza
Marc Randazza is a prominent First Amendment lawyer who has been a friend to this site and many others. Popehat, Eric Turkewitz, Amy Alkon and back-in-commission Scott Greenfield are all posting well-merited appreciations.
Finally! Overlawyered on Facebook
Great news: thanks to Zach Graves and Cato’s new media department, Overlawyered finally has a working Facebook page with post updates and everything. Please take a moment to Like it now (& Tom Freeland (“Overlawyered celebrates discovery of world’s dumbest Facebook user by joining Facebook”)).
Using federal bucks to lobby for food nannyism
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].
Jacket toggles that could get caught on doorways
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) stands guard against them. [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids]