A study by a former skeptic of global warming — and funded in part by the Koch Brothers — has confirmed that human activity is likely causing the Earth to warm. Prof Richard Muller was once a critic of global warming but now says the evidence is clear in establishing the connection to human activity.
Category: Society
The family of Bryan Lee Glenn, 30, is suing IP Casino Resort and Spa in Biloxi Mississippi in a case of over serving. Usually such cases involve dram shop crimes by a third party being injured or killed by a drunk driver. In this case, the family alleges that the casino kept serving Glenn until he returned to his hotel room and collapsed and died.
Continue reading “Mississippi Casino Sued For Over-Serving Man Who Died In Hotel Room”
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
“Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men’s actions.” – Sigmund Freud
“One man’s ‘magic’ is another man’s engineering. ‘Supernatural’ is a null word.” – Robert A. Heinlein
Words are magic . . . or so it seems. Words can make people change their minds. Words can make others take actions even against their own best interests. Words can shape the world, determine the fate of nations and people, create and destroy. However, as Robert Heinlein noted, one man’s magic is another man’s engineering and in the modern world, propaganda is the most engineered form of communication possible.
Magica verba est scientia et ars es.
The magic of words is science and art.
The science is in the methodology and psychology of execution. The art is in making the message appealing. This is the essence of rhetoric. How is this so? Let us first consider the methodologies of propaganda as a form of rhetoric before we look at the psychology behind these tactics. Although the psychology applies to both negative (black), positive (white) and value neutral (grey) uses of propaganda, in the context of this portion of the discussion, the word “propaganda” should be viewed with its maximum possible negative value load, i.e. the kind of bad propaganda designed to get you to act against your best interests or to harm others. Why? Because many of these tactics favored modern political polemicists are rooted in logical fallacies and outright lies. Knowing “snakes” as a category isn’t as useful as knowing “pit vipers” as a sub-category when the survival of the species can be at stake so we’ll consider the dangerous kinds of propaganda first. Why? Because if you treat all snakes like they are dangerous, then you are less likely to get bitten.
Continue reading “Propaganda 104: Magica Verba Est Scientia Et Ars Es”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw) Guest Blogger
I have discussed the Second Amendment and the difficulties I have in allowing citizens to own semi-automatic weapons and large capacity clips of ammunition in the past, but Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a recent Fox News interview, just took my concern over semi-automatic weapons and shot it down.. with a shoulder firing rocket! Continue reading “Rocket Launchers and the Second Amendment”
A lawsuit has been filed against what many consider to be the nation’s top public high school, The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, Virginia. Coalition of The Silence, an advocacy group led by former county School Board member Tina Hone, and the Fairfax chapter of the NAACP have filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that the admissions process at Thomas Jefferson has resulted in too few minority students.
Continue reading “Thomas Jefferson High School Sued Over Minority Admissions”
Various former Scientologists have accused the Church of heavy-handed tactics of harassment and threats after they went public with accusations of cult-like activities or fraudulent practices. The most recent, however, is the great grandson of the church’s founder L. Ron Hubbard. Jamie DeWolf held nothing back recently in accusing the Church of harassing him — describing his great grandfather as a “portly red-headed charismatic lying con-man pseudoscience self-help author.”
The fallout from the controversial interview given by Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy over anti-gay comments continues to build. While most business leaders work hard to keep their political and religious views from affecting customers or their business, Cathy came out swinging with comments saying that he runs the company according to Biblical commands and that he views gay marriage as a sin. The result has been national boycott, store protests, and most recently moves in major cities like Chicago to bar the restaurant. The suggested legislation in Chicago would be in my view unconstitutional. Despite our disagreement with Cathy, civil libertarians should defend his right to do business without harassment or censure from the government for his views. His company is subject to anti-discrimination laws. Those laws protect his employees from “Biblical” harassment.
Greek Triple jumper Voula Papachristou has been expelled from Greece’s Olympic team this week for mocking African immigrants and expressing support on Twitter for the far-right Golden Dawn party. Despite the obnoxious content of these views for many of us, I believe that the move raises serious free speech concerns.
Continue reading “Greek Athlete Expelled From Olympic Team Over Political Views And Racist Joke”
Since prospective law professors are suing law schools on the basis of age discrimination, it did not take long for law students to follow suit. C. Michael Kamps of Rockwall, Texas, is suing Baylor Law School for age discrimination on the grounds that he went to college before the use of grade inflation — resulting in a discriminatory impact based on his age.
Continue reading “Law Student Sues Baylor For Age Discrimination”
I am in Salt Lake City today for the hearing on the government’s second motion to dismiss the challenge to the state’s bigamy law by the Brown family — the cast of TLC’s Sister Wives program. As always in dealing with my own cases, I have to be circumspect in any public comments on the case. [Update: The court has promised a decision soon on whether it will proceed to rule on the constitutionality of the state law]
Continue reading “Sister Wives Case Goes Back To Court Today”
We have previously discussed the role of former General Counsel Cynthia Baldwin in the disastrous handling of the Sandusky scandal by Penn State. Baldwin is cited in the Freeh Report for her alleged failure to fully informed university officials and her opposition to an independent review that might have protected the university from the scandal and recently imposed heavy penalties against the school. Now former Penn State president Graham Spanier is joining in that criticism, saying that Baldwin failed to hire an experienced law firm during the grand jury probe.
Donald S. Dobkin, 59, has taken an unconventional approach to getting on a law faculty. Dobkin has repeatedly sued the University of Iowa and the College of Law after they turned him down for a faculty position — alleging age discrimination. Dobkin has sued Iowa before after he learned that an allegedly younger and less qualified lawyer was hired over him.
Continue reading “Lawyer Sues Iowa Over Refusal To Add Him To Law Faculty . . . Again”
The University of Illinois College of Law has had a tough run in recent years. The school was hammered by an admissions scandal after it allegedly admitted unqualified or less competitive students to secure jobs or to please powerful politicians. Now it has been hit with a public censure and $250,000 fine by the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar for intentionally reporting and publishing false admissions data in six out of the last 10 years.
Continue reading “University of Illinois Censured and Fined By ABA For False Admissions Data”
Indiana University Southeast near Louisville, Kentucky is at the center of a free speech controversy over a school code that bars students from expressing opinions on campus except in designated free speech zones. The code flips the presumption of higher education: students must generally refrain from free speech and even apply for the right to express opinions. The code, first promulgated in 2004, is being challenged as an example of how universities are cracking down on free speech.
Tony Robbins is facing a series of potential lawsuits after at least 21 people were treated for burns after a late-night firewalking event. The fire walking resulted in second- and third-degree burn injuries at the motivational speaker’s event at the San Jose Convention Center. He called the event “Unleash the Power Within” — it was not clear if the burns were caused by the unleashing of the inner power or the superheated coals that they were walking on.
Continue reading “Third Degree Self-Realization: Dozens Injured In Robbins Fire Walking Exercise”