Linkfest: "Sunday" Updates (Give or Take a Day)
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Time, finally, to clean out the aggregator —
ITEM: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has denied relief to a high school student who was stripped of her elected student class office after calling two school administrators "douchebags." The remarks were made on the student's blog, from home, on private equipment, and not during school hours. As I noted in the inaugural Stitch in Haste Podcast, this case is the latest to emasculate the famous doctrine that "students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate." Indeed, they now appear to shed them even before they get to the schoolhouse gate. Doninger v. Neihof, No. 07-3885 (2nd Cir., May 29, 2008) (PDF - 21 pages)
ITEM: Speaking of shedding constitutional rights, the hack bureaucrats of Black Jack, Missouri, have yet again unconstitutionally defined "family" in a way intended to block an unmarried couple from exercising their natural right to live together in a single home. I chronicled here (third item) the first such incident in Black Jack, in 2006 — and explained here why such "family-defining" restrictions are unconstitutional — in this post. (Via Liberty Papers.)
ITEM: High courts in two different states have overturned or drastically reduced judgments against Merck regarding product liability claims over the painkiller Vioxx. I have been long skeptical of the propriety of most of the Vioxx lawsuits.
ITEM: The New York Times ran an article detailing a bizarre policy reversal by the SEC, which is now requiring corporate directors to allow activist shareholders to place proposals on proxies calling for universal health coverage (not universal health coverage for employees, but universal health coverage, period — i.e., socialized medicine). Often, the activist shareholders (typically labor unions or religious foundations) extort a corporate endorsement of public policy platforms in exchange for withdrawing the shareholder proposal. I noted a similar phenomenon in the context of anti-gay bigots being allowed, despite clear SEC rules to the contrary, to introduce shareholder proposals opposing the extension of non-discrimination policies to include sexual orientation. (Via Dealbreaker.)
ITEM: The South Carolina legislature, trying to theocratically game the Supreme Court's holding in Van Orden v. Perry, has passed a bill, awaiting the governor's signature, authorizing public schools and local government buildings to display the "Lord's Prayer." The theocrats disingenuously insist that the inclusion of the prayer (which is both overtly sectarian and disparaging of other faiths and non-faiths) will "merely" be part of a comprehensive historical display including items such as the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta and King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Most recent post here. (Via Religion Clause.)
ITEM: Speaking of the Carolinas, I once wrote:
ITEM: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has denied relief to a high school student who was stripped of her elected student class office after calling two school administrators "douchebags." The remarks were made on the student's blog, from home, on private equipment, and not during school hours. As I noted in the inaugural Stitch in Haste Podcast, this case is the latest to emasculate the famous doctrine that "students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate." Indeed, they now appear to shed them even before they get to the schoolhouse gate. Doninger v. Neihof, No. 07-3885 (2nd Cir., May 29, 2008) (PDF - 21 pages)
ITEM: Speaking of shedding constitutional rights, the hack bureaucrats of Black Jack, Missouri, have yet again unconstitutionally defined "family" in a way intended to block an unmarried couple from exercising their natural right to live together in a single home. I chronicled here (third item) the first such incident in Black Jack, in 2006 — and explained here why such "family-defining" restrictions are unconstitutional — in this post. (Via Liberty Papers.)
ITEM: High courts in two different states have overturned or drastically reduced judgments against Merck regarding product liability claims over the painkiller Vioxx. I have been long skeptical of the propriety of most of the Vioxx lawsuits.
ITEM: The New York Times ran an article detailing a bizarre policy reversal by the SEC, which is now requiring corporate directors to allow activist shareholders to place proposals on proxies calling for universal health coverage (not universal health coverage for employees, but universal health coverage, period — i.e., socialized medicine). Often, the activist shareholders (typically labor unions or religious foundations) extort a corporate endorsement of public policy platforms in exchange for withdrawing the shareholder proposal. I noted a similar phenomenon in the context of anti-gay bigots being allowed, despite clear SEC rules to the contrary, to introduce shareholder proposals opposing the extension of non-discrimination policies to include sexual orientation. (Via Dealbreaker.)
ITEM: The South Carolina legislature, trying to theocratically game the Supreme Court's holding in Van Orden v. Perry, has passed a bill, awaiting the governor's signature, authorizing public schools and local government buildings to display the "Lord's Prayer." The theocrats disingenuously insist that the inclusion of the prayer (which is both overtly sectarian and disparaging of other faiths and non-faiths) will "merely" be part of a comprehensive historical display including items such as the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta and King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Most recent post here. (Via Religion Clause.)
ITEM: Speaking of the Carolinas, I once wrote:
One wonders what goes through the minds of hillbilly legislators when they proclaim their idiocy to the world in this manner. One wonders how such people figure out which shoe goes on which foot. (Do they even wear shoes in Kentucky?)It turns out I had the right derogatory stereotype, but the wrong hillbilly state. I regret the mix-up. (Via InterstateQ.)
Posted by Kip on
2 June 2008
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