Acton Institute PowerBlog - Entries tagged as lawsuits

Criminalizing Thought

Thursday, December 6, 2007

For those of us who cherish liberty and the freedom we enjoy in the west to engage in spirited debate, stories like this are very disturbing:

Up north, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced the other day that at least two of Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” – one federal, one provincial – had agreed to hear their complaints that their “human rights” had been breached by this “flagrantly Islamophobic” excerpt from my book, as published in the country’s bestselling news magazine, Maclean’s.

Here’s hoping that this one gets tossed out of court quickly. And remember - eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Posted by Marc Vander Maas in News and Events at 12:39 | Comments (2) | Trackback (1)

Defined tags for this entry:
freedom of speech, lawsuits, western civilization

On the same theme as a couple of recent posts (on the inanity of warning labels and signature file disclosure messages), Fast Company links to what they are calling the “Egregiously Legalistic Sig File of the Month.”

It’s pretty egregious. Just think of all the wasted electrons.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Business and Society at 11:30 | Leave a comment | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
lawsuits, legalese

'DO NOT put any person in this washer'

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, started a contest to find the wackiest warning labels on consumer products ten years ago, and they’ve just released this year’s list of winners (HT: Slashdot).

Topping the charts is the warning attached to a front-loading washing machine: “Do not put any person in this washer.” Other hits include:

“Never use a lit match or open flame to check fuel level.”
“Don’t try to dry your phone in a microwave oven.”

The contest is part of the group’s efforts to "give us a chance to tell the inside story of how our nation’s legal system has become so erratic that these types of labels are necessary,” said Bob Dorigo Jones, president of M-LAW.

In his book Give Me a Break, journalist John Stossel includes a chapter titled, “The Trouble with Lawyers,” and writes that these wacky labels are a form of “verbal pollution.” He says, “Lawsuits also disrupt the information flow that helps us protect ourselves. We ought to read labels.” But when we are overrun with inane labels of this kind, “people respond to it by ignoring labels we should read.”

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Business and Society at 07:04 | Leave a comment | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
john stossel, labels, lawsuits, m-law, tort reform