“Any errors are the fault of no-one in particular; rather, society itself is to blame.” And: “All errors are the authors’ sole responsibility, but persons aggrieved by any such errors are encouraged to sue the companies which manufactured our computers.” [Kopel/Volokh]
How California’s legal-business climate is different
Bruce Nye (Cal Biz Lit) and Michael Pappas (at Law.com Corporate Counsel) count the ways: “Why do I have to tell everyone that my grilled chicken, which is made the same way as my grandmother used to make it, may cause cancer?” (The answer being California-specific Proposition 65.)
“Toyota’s acceleration problem could be customer-based”
The Washington Post — unlike some other newspapers we might think of — doesn’t mind letting its editorial stance catch up with the facts on the ground as they appear to NHTSA staff. We’ve been on the story for quite a while.
My new Cato podcast: human rights redefined
The other day the Obama administration came out with the first official U.S. response to the United Nations’ “periodic review” critique of human rights practices within the United States. To the surprise of many — though not of those who’ve been following this area carefully — it presented as human rights imperatives worthy of international attention a wide range of initiatives that would earlier have been seen as domestic policy matters, from ObamaCare (whose passage — including a penalty on individuals for failing to buy health insurance — it depicted as a human rights advance) to labor law (where it suggested that Congress might be putting the U.S. human rights record at risk if it declines to expand the organizing rights of labor unions).
One of the major themes of my forthcoming book Schools for Misrule is the role of thinkers in the law schools in preparing the way for new and transformed (and gravely mistaken) conceptions of international human rights. Today on the Cato Institute’s daily podcast series, Caleb Brown interviews me about the ongoing redefinition of international human rights and how we got to this point. The interview audio is available here.
My Cato Institute colleague Roger Pilon, who directs the Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies and served under Reagan as policy director for the State Department’s office on human rights, has been active in recent days in advancing a critique of the Obama administration’s approach in a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed as well as at Cato at Liberty.
And coincidentally: today’s NYT reports that George Soros is giving $100 million to Human Rights Watch, a group in the forefront of advancing novel human rights claims.
September 7 roundup
- “If someone wants to sue you, they can. Easily, too.” Amy Wallace on being sued over her vaccine story [Reporting on Health, earlier]
- Jury tells Ford to pay $131 million after minor league ballplayer crashes Explorer at 80 mph+ [WaPo]
- Winnipeg judge scandal has sex, race, coercion and most riveting of all a legal ethics angle [Alice Woolley, LEF]
- “$667M Nursing Home Verdict Surprised Even the Plaintiffs’ Lawyers” [ABA Journal, earlier]
- “Maryland Woman Sues After Being Banned by Facebook” [Kashmir Hill/Forbes, MSNBC “Technolog”]
- The trouble with (some) defense-side trial lawyers [Ted Frank, CCAF] And: defense bar briefing prosecutorial agencies on ins and outs of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Ethics/loyalty problem in that, or no? [Koehler]
- Bow-tied troll? Patent-marking suits hit the big time [WSJ Law Blog and more, ABA Journal, Glenn Lammi/Forbes]
- “A girl named Sue who sues and sues and sues” [SE Tex Record]
Blawg Review #280
This week the traveling carnival of law-related posts is hosted by Ron Coleman at Likelihood of Confusion.
Antitrust experts ponder NFL exemption
Is it imperiled by a recent Supreme Court decision? A paper to be presented at the Cato Institute’s Sept. 16 Constitution Day conference looks into the question. [Josh Wright, Truth on the Market; date now fixed]
“Emma Thompson on Making Kids Brave”
Famed for playing (among others) the tough Nanny McPhee, the actress has this to say (BabyCenter interview via FreeRangeKids):
I think it’s good to be brave because then you’re also slightly more able to cope with failure and failure of course is your best friend in every regard really. Children are brave and they’re more likely to take risks and they’re more likely to learn really important lessons.
That’s really what I mean by being brave, you know. That we take care of our children very carefully and that’s absolutely right, but in certainly my culture children are being so, I think, stifled by sort of health and safety so that they’re not climbing trees anymore, they’re not taking risks, physical risks anymore.
Ireland: Annals of non sequiturs
“Ahern may look at higher ATM fees after €300,000 robbery and kidnap” [Irish Times]
Citizenry as suckers
Should the North Carolina tax department really behave as if it regards them as that? [Patrick at Popehat]