Posts Tagged ‘WO writings’

Law, fairness, and Wal-Mart v. Dukes

I’ve got an instant analysis up at Cato at Liberty of the retailer’s big Supreme Court win today in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the class action certification case. The Court ruled unanimously that the Ninth Circuit had jumped the gun in certifying the case as a class action, and 5-to-4 (Scalia writing) that plaintiffs had failed to assemble the evidence needed for certification. (& welcome Real Clear Politics “Best of the Blogs”, Atlantic Wire, Nicole Neily/Daily Caller, Jon Hyman, SCOTUSBlog)

More: Josh Blackman (with a comment on the Court’s recognition of the work of the late Richard Nagareda), Hans Bader, Jim Copland, John Steele Gordon. Spot-the-errors dept.: Dahlia Lithwick. Briefs and other resources on the case at SCOTUSBlog.

Filed under: class actions, Ninth Circuit, sex discrimination, Supreme Court, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart v. Dukes, WO writings

“A hospital drug shortage made in Washington”

I’ve got a post at Cato at Liberty getting into more detail about some of the deadly side effects of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation, an issue raised previously in this space.

Filed under: hospitals, pharmaceuticals, WO writings

New Jersey schools: pulling another Abbott from the hat

New at Cato: I blast a weak NYT editorial, and explain how school finance litigation exemplifies the phenomenon some have nicknamed The Permanent Government. More on Abbott v. Burke here.

Filed under: New Jersey, schools, Schools for Misrule, WO writings

Maybe those clunkers were worth keeping around

Soaring prices have lately rocked the used-car market, which — I argue in a new post at Cato at Liberty — should cast even more doubt on the wisdom of some of the federal government’s recent interventions in the auto business.

Filed under: autos, WO writings

Farm animal treatment: letting states and markets sort it out

The New York Times’s “Room for Debate” feature has a round table up on the movement for more humane treatment of farm animals and invited me to participate. I argue that local variation in laws and the emergence of distinct markets for humanely raised meat are preferable to calls for federal government intervention. More: Tom Laskawy, Grist; and see my Cato follow-on post referenced here.

Filed under: agriculture and farming, animal rights, WO writings

Visible taxes and invisible regulations

I’ve got a new post up at Cato at Liberty noting (after Iain Murray) that the lack of an annual “Regulation Day,” along the lines of tax-filing day, makes the cost of regulation even less apparent to the citizenry. I cite examples from the realms of medical devices, credit cards, and power plants (& Ivan Osorio, American Spectator).

Filed under: environment, regulation and its reform, WO writings

ADA: Feds withdraw “service animal” backing for ferrets, snakes

I’ve got an op-ed in today’s New York Post. It begins:

For the service goat, assistance monkey and emotional-support iguana, it could be the end of an era. Under new federal rules taking effect Tuesday, the Americans with Disabilities Act will no longer compel shops, restaurants and other businesses to accommodate a menagerie of supposed service animals brought in by the public. Only dogs and some miniature horses will qualify. Moreover, dogs will qualify as service animals only if they’ve been individually trained to assist with a disabled human’s needs.

“The provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort or companionship do not constitute work or tasks for the purposes of this new definition.” And they’ll need to be on-leash unless their work requires otherwise.

Finally. You’d think the Obama administration had, in a fit of common sense, for once chosen to heed a public outcry about zany regulations-gone-mad.

But as usual, the politics are more complicated than that. …

Read the whole thing here. Relatedly, Kevin at Lowering the Bar has some free advice for persons with service monkeys, namely that their allegations of service-animal status are more likely to win favor if they don’t dress up four of the little guys in pirate costumes on Bourbon St. in New Orleans’ French Quarter. And from Olympia, Wash.’s KPTV: “Man with service snake lobbies against bill.”

Filed under: service animals, WO writings

A Ban On “Walking While Wired”?

[cross-posted from Cato at Liberty]

New York state senator Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) is crusading to ban pedestrians’ use of cellphones and other mobile devices while crossing the street. It’s for your own good, you must understand:

“When people are doing things that are detrimental to their own well being, then government should step in.”

The Daily Caller asked me to write an opinion piece about this proposal so I just did. Excerpt:

Phone use on the street has become near-ubiquitous in recent years, yet over nearly all that time — nationally as in Gotham — pedestrian death rates were falling steadily, just as highway fatalities fell steadily over the years in which “distracted driving” became a big concern.

In the first half of 2010, the national statistics showed a tiny upward blip (0.4 percent), occasioned by a relative handful of fatalities in a few states. Even a spokesman for the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, Jonathan Adkins, seems to agree it’s premature to jump to conclusions: “You don’t want to overreact to six months of data,” he told columnist Steve Chapman.

Like others who seek quasi-parental control over adults, Sen. Kruger tends to infantilize his charges. He told the Times: “We’re taught from knee-high to look in both directions, wait, listen and then cross. You can perform none of those functions if you are engaged in some kind of wired activity.”

This drew proper scorn from columnist Chapman: “Actually, you can perform all those functions and dance an Irish jig, even with text messages or rock music bombarding you.” That some ear bud devotees don’t take due caution is no reason to pretend they can’t.

C.S. Lewis, Lily Tomlin and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood all get walk-on parts as well.

Filed under: cellphones, traffic laws, WO writings

McDonald’s sued over Happy Meals

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, also known as Busybody Central, is filing a would-be class action under California consumer law over the hamburger giant’s marketing of fast food with toys. I have much more to say about that at the New York Daily News online opinion section (& linked at Above the Law, John Hayward/Human Events, Jammie Wearing Fool, Andrew Stuttaford/NRO “Corner”, Chris Robinette/TortsProf, Ira Stoll/Future of Capitalism), and am also quoted in the Reuters coverage. Earlier on Happy Meal law here, including a pointer to this Bruce Nye post from June on why CSPI’s claims are unlikely to prevail.

P.S. Happy to see that as of late Wednesday evening my piece is the most read, most emailed, and most discussed at the Daily News opinion site. Followups and links here.

Filed under: McDonald's, nanny state, obesity, WO writings

Relentless growth of Washington, D.C.

I posted a few data points last week at Cato at Liberty (& welcome Glenn Reynolds, Ira Stoll readers).

Filed under: Washington D.C., WO writings