Okay, it’s not exactly on-topic here, but Heather Mac Donald’s piece is the one people are talking about. (American Conservative, Aug. 28).
Author Archive
Guestblogger thanks, welcome, etc.
Our thanks to Peter Morin, who’s been pitching in as guestblogger over the last week to supplement Ted’s efforts. Peter’s writing can be found at his blog Wave Maker. And welcome to Chris Tozzo of KipEsquire, who joins today in the same role. I’ll be posting occasionally, but probably less often than usual.
Also, over at Point of Law, check out the contributions of guestbloggers Gail Heriot (San Diego lawprof associated with The Right Coast) and Al Adomite (Illinois Civil Justice League). In particular, Gail’s post on the contrasting liability treatment accorded to “doers” and “talkers” deserves a wide audience.
De-villainizing Dr Pepper
Commentary on soda-tax proposals that’s equally applicable to the obesity litigation wars:
…soda, by itself, isn’t making us fat. According to numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, regular soda consumption has been falling every year since 1998, but at the same time obesity has skyrocketed. In 2004, we actually drank less soda per person than in 1995, long before obesity was making headlines.
(Sara Cseresnyes and Andrew Chamberlain, “Soda Tax the Wrong Way to Help Curb Obesity”, Denver Post, Jul. 21, reprinted at Tax Foundation site) (via Radley Balko, who adds, “Yep. In fact, the beverage that has by far seen the largest increase in consumption since about 1980 is bottled water. Diet soda is second.”) Related: Lorraine Heller, “The Obesity Blame Game”, Beverage Daily, Aug. 7, and reader feedback at that publication.
Gone for a while (but stay tuned)
I expect to be away for the next ten days or so. Aside from Ted’s contributions, one of our most popular past guestbloggers will be dropping by starting Monday to keep things interesting. Later in August, look for a second guestblogger, well known in the blogosphere but new to this site, to join us as well.
More summer reading: “A Nation of Wimps”
From Psychology Today, by Hara Estroff Marano: “Parents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the bumps out of life for their children. However, parental hyperconcern has the net effect of making kids more fragile; that may be why they’re breaking down in record numbers.”
Summer reading: “Lawsuits and Liberty”
Recommended reading: a year ago Common Good, National Constitution Center and the AEI-Brookings Joint Center on Regulatory Studies co-sponsored a conference in Philadelphia on “Lawsuits and Liberty” which I was fortunate to attend. Many of the papers were eventually published at the Common Good site and I can vouch for their being an interesting bunch. Read them by following the links here.
Lawsuit board game
It seems someone has patented one. Per its description:
This game unabashedly introduces kids to the realities of being a legal eagle, including:
* crippling law school debt;
* outrageous hourly fees;
* filling your office with expensive and intimidating leather bound books;
* product-liability cash cows;
* and the hazy definition of “emotional distress.”
(Patently Silly, Oct. 19, 2004) More: LawsuitGame.com.
There oughta be a law!
A recent, much-talked-about New York Times article about middle-aged men who have been out of work for long periods and are not looking very hard for jobs (Louis Uchitelle and David Leonhardt, “Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job”, Jul. 31) elicited the following, priceless letter to the editor (Aug. 2):
To the Editor:
The surest way to help these men (and women) is to pass anti-age job discrimination legislation.
There is nothing more repugnant than reading the phrase “but the publisher did not seem to want someone my age.”
This type of discrimination is widely accepted.
If a worker is capable of doing the job well, his age should not count against him.
If we do not address this problem soon, with increasing longevity among our citizens, we will become a nation of the underemployed, something our society can ill afford.
Bonnie Schultz
Princeton, N.J.
To which our correspondent appends the comment:
Wow. Pass some legislation outlawing discrimination against older workers? Now that’s brilliant! Why didn’t anyone do that yet? Oh, wait.
Why do they publish such a letter? Is someone at the NYT angry with Ms. Schultz and happy to put her in the worst light?
More on those Alltel ads
Wall Street Journal reporter Andrew Lavallee takes a thorough look at those buzz-creating “join the class action against Alltel” ads that have been running here (see right column) and on about 400 other weblogs (see Jul. 6). He quotes me and mentions this site at both the beginning and end of the article, and the graphic that runs with the article is none other than a screen capture of Overlawyered’s front page with a blowup of the ad. It’s in a section ordinarily available to WSJ subscribers only (“Alltel Spoofs Itself in Online Ads, But Not Everyone Gets the Joke”, Aug. 3) but seems to be temporarily available to non-subscribers here. (& WSJ law blog)
Update: Michael Jordan lookalike drops suit
Updating our Jul. 8 item:
The Northeast Portland man who sought more than $800 million from Michael Jordan and Nike founder Phil Knight because he said he was tired of being mistaken for the famous basketball player is giving up his defamation lawsuit….
Vada Manager, Nike spokesman, said no payment was made to [Allen Ray] Heckard to get him to drop the lawsuit.
“It’s fairly simple,” Manager said Monday. “He finally realized he would end up paying our court costs if the lawsuit went to trial.”
(Holly Danks, “Man throws in towel on Jordan lawsuit”, The Oregonian, Aug. 1). For more on the principle that costs should follow the event — and not just in cases as wacky as this one — see our loser-pays page.