Posts Tagged ‘animal rights’

Free speech roundup

  • Keeping prosecutors busy? Georgia lawmaker files bill that would make Internet defamation a crime [Fulton County Daily Report]
  • Sarkozy calls for law banning visits to pro-terror websites [Ken Paulson, First Amendment Center]
  • “Ron Paul Campaign Drops Effort To Identify Anonymous Videographer” [Paul Alan Levy]
  • Playboy caused how many divorces? Junk science in the service of big-government conservatism [Andrew Stuttaford, NRO] How Santorum’s plans to get porn off internet go beyond GWB’s [Josh Barro] Contra Santorum, “arrival of Internet was associated with reduction in rape incidence” [Steve Chapman]
  • “Brian Deer and the British Medical Journal File An Anti-SLAPP Motion Against Andrew Wakefield” [Popehat]
  • Iowa passes law penalizing animal rightsers who spy on farms [Reuters, earlier] Illinois turns thumbs down on “ag-gag” proposal [Steve Chapman]
  • “What’s happened to free speech in Britain?” [Alex Massie, John O’Sullivan/NRO, earlier here and others]

February 9 roundup

January 6 roundup

By reader acclaim: “PETA Sues SeaWorld for ‘Enslaving’ Killer Whales”

“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is accusing the SeaWorld parks of keeping five star-performer whales in conditions that violate the 13th Amendment ban on slavery. SeaWorld depicted the suit as baseless.” The action may further an “ongoing, intense debate at America’s law schools over expansion of animal rights.” [AP; related on that academic background, including the role of star lawprofs like Cass Sunstein and Larry Tribe, here, here, here, and here]

September 29 roundup

Banning hidden farm videos?

Lawmakers in at least three states have proposed new laws criminalizing the taking of photos on farms without permission of the owner — and sometimes going much further than that, too. The idea is to stop animal-welfare activists from compiling unauthorized footage of allegedly inhumane conditions. I comment on that — and on some related photography and farm issues — at Cato at Liberty.

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.

October 23 roundup

  • Suffolk County, New York’s new animal abuse registry [Scott Greenfield and more vs. Elie Mystal]
  • Examining Dems’ “flood of outside campaign money” claims [Baseball Crank, Sullum]
  • “Reverse bill stuffer” turns tables on firms’ efforts to amend fine print [David Horton, Prawfs]
  • Occupational licensure and economic sclerosis in Greece [NYT]
  • Phoenix cops’ unsettling evidence-plant “joke” [Coyote]
  • Legal Left trying to set up argument for Thomas recusal on Obamacare challenge? [Steele, LEF]
  • “How Fannie and Freddie Became a $363 Billion Liability” [John Hudson, Atlantic Wire]
  • “Lawsuit of the Day: Kid Injured by ‘Deleterious’ Hot Sauce” [Legal Blog Watch]

July 24 roundup

  • San Francisco considers, then tables, ban on pet sales at stores [Amy Alkon]
  • Florida: we’ll pull you into our courts as an online-defamation defendant even if you’ve never set foot here [CBS4.com]
  • Bratz case: “Alex Kozinski gives Barbie a spanking” [AtL]
  • GEICO launches counterattack against crash fraud in New York [PoL]
  • When a lawyer sues the wrong doctor: hey, isn’t everyone entitled to mistakes now and then? [American Medical News, sanctions affirmed in Virginia case]
  • “[Congressman Alan] Grayson’s shakedown lawsuit threatens D.C. business” [LaFetra, PLF/Examiner]
  • Asbestos: Do component makers have a duty to warn about other manufacturers’ hazardous products? [Cal Biz Lit and two followups on California decisions, NAM and Levy Phillips & Konigsberg on a since-settled New York case against Foster Wheeler]
  • Subsidies for durum wheat flowed in happy circle for everyone but taxpayer and consumer [Mark Perry]