Category: Society

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Politics, Society

Health Care and Federalism: A Response to Professor Charles Fried

I have received a significant number of emails after my earlier stated views on the national health care legislation were raised in the hearings this week before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Unfortunately, I am plowed under this week in litigation, but I wanted to offer a brief response to Harvard Law Professor and former Reagan Solicitor General Charles Fried who disagreed with my views on the danger to federalism.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Lawyering, Politics, Society

Redskins Owner Threatens Newspaper With Libel Suit After Unflattering Article

Dan Snyder is reportedly planning a defamation action against Washington’s City Paper for a scathing story about his controversial time as owner of the Washington Redskins. The case could prove an interesting battle over first amendment rights and defamation law.

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Lawyering, Politics, Religion, Society, Supreme Court

The Ford Pinto Act: Is The White House Claim of “Activism” Fair?

Here is my column in USA Today (which was posted yesterday but will run in print on Monday) on the charge that Judge Vinson is an activist after his striking down of the entire health care plan. While I did not view the opinion as particularly strong in its substantive analysis and did not like the rhetoric flourishes (as discussed with Lawrence O’Donnell this week), I find the charge of activism to be a bit forced over the issue of severability.
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Academia, Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Politics, Society

Where Do You Find Gender Discrimination? Professor Says It Is The National Geographic Bee

Minot State University professor emeritus Eric Clausen has filed his second federal complaint alleging that he was retaliated against by the National Geographic Society after he complained that the contest discriminated against girls because virtually no girls have won the national title.

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Academia, Bizarre, Politics, Society

High School Student is Expelled and Criminally Charged For Spitballing

Spotsylvania High School student Andrew Mikel II, 14, is the latest kid to be swept up in the zero tolerance/zero logic campaign against toy guns in school. (For earlier stories, click here and here and here). Mikel was expelled and criminally charged after he used a pen casing (the tube of preference for spitballers) to spit plastic pellets at other students at lunch. He was charged with use of a “weapon” in school. The Spotsylvania Knights may carry a lance

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Bizarre, Politics, Society

Chicago Candidates Debate Whether One is a Crack Head or The Other is a Carpetbagger

Sometimes I really miss Chicago. While other cities have mayoral debates over taxes and teachers, Chicago’s debate at the Trinity United Church of Christ recently turned on whether one candidate is a crackhead. The video below shows an exchange between Mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun and Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins where Watkins accuses Braun of disappearing for the last few years while Braun accuses her of being in a narcotic haze.
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Bizarre, Society, Torts

Illinois Court Rules Man Can Sue Over Deceptive Use of Sperm By Girlfriend To Impregnate Herself

We have been following a series of paternity cases (here and here and here and here) where courts have rejected claims of lack of consent or knowledge by a parent in forcing child support payments. I just ran over a case that, while now a bit dated, is remarkable. The case involves a Chicago doctor who was forced to pay child support after his girlfriend, without his knowledge, saved sperm from oral sex and arranged to be impregnated with it. The case came to public attention after an appellate court ruled that Dr. Richard O. Phillips could sue Dr. Sharon Irons for emotional distress in the case.

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Animals, Environment, International, Society

Canadian Company Kills 100 Sled Dogs Due To Dip in Business

Officials are investigating a Canadian man’s claim of post-traumatic stress disorder after he was awarded compensation for stress from his job with Outdoor Adventures Whistler near Vancouver. The man says that he was ordered to kill 100 healthy sled dogs by his employer due to the dip in business after the Olympics.
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Academia, Bizarre, Politics, Society

Live Free (Elsewhere): New Hampshire Moves To Strip Voter Rolls of College Students

New Hampshire Rep. Gregory Sorg (R- Grafton County) is being accused of trying to prune the voter rolls of presumed liberal voters by barring college students from voting. His “Voters Attending Institutions of Learning” would tell students to vote back home.

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Science, Society

Walmart Pitches Woo

-Submitted by David Durmm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Woo, a term used by scientific skeptics for pseudoscience, alternative medicine and New Age beliefs, or a person who holds such beliefs.

Walmart, through their website, is selling Oscillococcinum, manufactured by Boiron, to be used “for flu-like symptoms.” Their image of the package shows that the product “Reduces [the] Duration and Severity of Flu Symptoms,” including “Fever, Chills, Body Aches and Pains.”

It does no such thing.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Justice, Lawyering, Society, Torts

Playing It Straight: LPGA’s “Female By Birth” Rule Challenged

Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

California professional golfer (and former police officer) Lana Lawless is challenging the LPGA’s rule requiring tournament participants to be “female by birth.”  The LPGA has ruled, according to Lawless, that as a transgender woman, she is ineligible to compete. The rule seems to fly directly in the face of California’s Unruh Law which holds that all people in the state are “free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, marital status, or sexual orientation are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.”

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Media, Science, Society

Star Angers Astrologers

-Submitted by David Durmm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Professor Brian Cox, a particle physicist at the University of Manchester and host of Wonders of the Solar System on the Science Channel, has brought the wrath of the Astrological Association of Great Britain upon himself. Professor Cox, on BBC2’s “Stargazing Live” show, said that “astrology is nonsense” and the Association wants the BBC to commit to “making a fair and balanced representation of astrology in the future.”

There’s a lot of money at stake.

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