- “Farm Free Or Die! Maine Towns Rebel Against Food Rules” [NPR on “food sovereignty” ordinances]
- “How much sense does it make for Detroit to be worrying people will open restaurants without enough parking?” [@mattyglesias]
- Report: undercover cop co-wrote anti-McDonald’s leaflet that resulted in famous UK libel suit [Guardian]
- Quizzed on food policy, post-Bloomberg NYC mayoral hopefuls offer many bad ideas; Republican John Catsimatidis, grocer, proposes regs “that would require new buildings to rent to grocery stores.” [Edible Geography]
- Spontaneous consumer discontent over labeling? No, lawyer-driven: consortium of law firms has sued more than 30 food cos. in single federal court [WLF]
- Private GMO labeling a wave of the future? [Baylen Linnekin]
- “Eight toxic foods: a little chemical education” [Derek Lowe, Corante “Pipeline”, schooling BuzzFeed]
- Obamacare calorie-count display mandate likely to curb menu variety [Liz Thatcher, RCP, earlier]
Posts Tagged ‘Detroit’
Detroit’s decline, and Krugman’s explanation
Having to watch what bad government has done to my home city of Detroit is a bit like Princess Leia having to watch her home planet destroyed. The fate of the Motor City, writes John Steele Gordon, is America’s “greatest urban disaster that didn’t involve nature or war.” But wait: here’s distinguished New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to inform us that it’s not “fundamentally a tale of fiscal irresponsibility … For the most part, it’s just one of those things that happens now and then in an ever-changing economy.” Just one of those things! I reply — with a hat tip to Cole Porter — at Cato at Liberty. (& George Leef (“A tornado is ‘just one of those things’ because is has no human cause. When a city goes bankrupt, it has many human causes”), Ed Driscoll)
P.S. On the role of long-serving mayor Coleman Young, see pp. 12-13 of this Ed Glaeser/Andrei Shleifer paper (PDF). And here’s a HuffPo tag on Detroit corruption.
Banking and finance roundup
- After bank trespass, Occupy Philadelphia benefits from jury nullification and a cordial judge [Kevin Funnell]
- Cato commentaries on Cyprus crisis [Steve Hanke and more, Dan Mitchell, Richard Rahn podcast]
- “NY Court Reinstates Foreclosure, Chides Judge For `Robosigning’ Sanctions” [Daniel Fisher] “Impeding Foreclosure Hurts Homeowners As Well As Lenders” [Funnell]
- SEC charging Illinois with pension misrepresentation? Call it a stunt [Prof. Bainbridge]
- “Plaintiff Lawyers Seek Their Cut On Virtually All Big Mergers, Study Shows” [Fisher] As mergers draw suits, D&O underwriting scrutiny escalates [Funnell] “Courts beginning to reject M&A strike suits” [Ted Frank]
- Will Dodd-Frank conflict minerals rules actually help folks in places like Congo? [Marcia Narine, Regent U. L. Rev. via Bainbridge, earlier here]
- “Securities Lawyers Gave To Detroit Mayor’s Slush Fund”; city served as plaintiff for Bernstein Litowitz [Fisher]
Annals of tasteful lawyer promotion
Michigan: “Lawyer Offers Free Valentine’s Day Divorce” [Newser, Walter Bentley site, Legal News]
Prosecution and police roundup
- “The Cash Machine: How the Philly D.A. seizes millions in alleged crime money — whether there’s been a crime or not.” [Isaiah Thompson, Philadelphia City Paper via Alkon] Jacob Sullum on the Motel Caswell forfeiture case [syndicated, earlier]
- Online symposium on Brandon Garrett’s Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong [Co-Op]
- Victims of Detroit police raid on art gallery nightclub get some justice [Ferndale 115]
- John Baker on mens rea and “strict liability” crimes [Fed Soc, PDF]
- Radley Balko has moved his Agitator blog to Huffington Post. And (via @normative) Cato’s Police Misconduct project is tweeting at @NPMRP.
- Want to cross-examine someone on that traffic-camera ticket? Be prepared to pay travel costs for the camera company person [Scott Greenfield] “The mission creep of rape shield law” [same]
- “Does the Criminalization of Tort Inhibit Safety Investigation?” [Beth Haas, Faculty Lounge]
NLRB and labor law roundup
- Union at City of Detroit water department (of “horseshoer” fame) strikes, defying court order [MLive, more]
- Furor over administration’s “don’t WARN of sequestration layoffs” message to defense employers [Charles Cooke, NRO]
- “Now the NLRB says employers can’t regulate threatening or offensive speech (this is getting ridiculous)” [Jon Hyman] Contrasting (yet somehow consistent!): “workplace bullying” docket on the rise [Corporate Counsel]
- More on NLRB, social media and employers [Tim Eavenson, Todd Sarver]
- John Stossel on government job centers [Coyote]
- “The Worst May Be Yet To Come From Obama’s Labor Board” [Fred Wszolek, Workforce Fairness Institute]
- “Should We Unionize the Grad Students?” [George Leef, Minding the Campus; Brown Daily Herald]
October 18 roundup
- In Motor City of “Detropia,” sole remaining industrial-scale activity is the grinding of axes [Asron Renn, Urbanophile]
- Challenge to independent-contractor status: “Strippers Win $13 Million Class Settlement” [Courthouse News Service]
- “Homeowners Who Spent $220K in Legal Fees to Fight $2K HOA Lawn Bill Win Court Case After 11 Years” [ABA Journal]
- Logical skills no prerequisite for brief-drafting job with Florida attorney general’s office [Volokh]
- Death of officer in high-speed chase leads to notice of tort claim against NJ town [South Jersey Times]
- “Man Who Made Fake Dead Cat Insurance Claim to Be Sentenced; May Have Tried Same Stunt with Fake Dead Parrot” [Seattle Weekly]
- Dallas lawyer who sued TV station over not passing along referral calls is now in another spot of bother [SE Texas Record]
“Obama *did* ‘let Detroit go bankrupt'”
Good Tim Carney column on the Dems’ absurd posturing in Charlotte on the auto rescue. “Here’s the truth: what Romney proposed for Detroit was more or less what Obama did.” (For extra credit, observe the parallel with some GOPers’ insistence that RomneyCare was utterly dissimilar to ObamaCare in every respect.) More: National Review; Reuters on the Chevy Volt.
Related: Romney’s ridiculous “jobs I’ll create” commercials [Ira Stoll]
Detroit water and sewer dept. employs “horseshoer” but keeps no horses
And the union chief says there’s no room for cuts, even though the department employs far more workers per customer and per gallon handled than do many other cities. [Jarrett Skorup, Michigan Capitol Confidential]
Ken White adds: “But hey, if the Detroit Water Department ever BUYS horses, they will have a horseshoer on staff already. That sort of foresight is why Detroit is so successful.”
P.S. Mark Bennett: “The game of horseshoes does not play itself, you know.”
From IowaHawk’s Clint Eastwood parody
….what’s true about Detroit is true about all of us. This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get back up, slip again, and send the video to our personal injury lawyer. And when we do – the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.