Copycat of Arizona's immigration status bill has passed the Mississippi Senate by a vote of 34-15. The difference here is that there is a precondition with the immigration status check. Though selection cannot be based on race, color, or country of origin but ability to English can cast enough suspicion to warrant a check on immigration status.
posted by azileretsis
on Jan 20, 2011 -
73 comments
American Lawbreaking. "This series explores the black spots in American law: areas in which our laws are routinely and regularly broken and where the law enforcement response is … nothing. These are the areas where, for one reason or another, we've decided to tolerate lawbreaking and let a law—duly enacted and still on the books—lay fallow or near dead." The first two entries are
prescription drug abuse and
internet pornography.
posted by ND¢
on Oct 15, 2007 -
84 comments
An Indonesian TV crew was invited to Malaysia for their Visit Malaysia Year 2007 campaign but encountered many problems.
They write up about it - and start a flurry of comments and controversy across the Malaysian government about blogging. [more inside]
posted by divabat
on Apr 6, 2007 -
14 comments
The folks at
DownsizeDC have this crazy idea that the members of Congress should have to
read the bills that they vote on.
Here is their plan to make it happen.
posted by Who_Am_I
on Mar 22, 2007 -
48 comments
91 pounds of LSD? ...at that dosage level, Pickard and Apperson possessed 2 billion hits of acid—enough to give every person in the Western Hemisphere two doses and still have 250 million hits left over.
Ryan Grim is writing about acid again at Slate.
posted by Gankmore
on Mar 15, 2005 -
98 comments
Britain - Stamping Out Terrorism. One Peaceful Protestor At A Time. "The Home Office proposes "to make it an offence to protest outside homes in such a way that causes harassment, alarm or distress to residents" [
PDF &
HTML] This sounds reasonable enough, until you realise that the police can define "harassment, alarm or distress" however they wish. All protest in residential areas, in other words, could now be treated as a criminal offence. The government will also seek to "suggest remedies" for websites which "include material deemed to cause concern or needless anxiety to others"."
posted by Blue Stone
on Aug 3, 2004 -
29 comments
It's the equivalent of "You can play the CD on three designated CD players that support the DRM. Like,
it will play ONLY on xyz brand cd player and only three of those that you pick. Yes, you have to stick to that brand of cd player (the iTunes player, the supported OS of iTunes, no unix support in sight) and too bad if you have a fourth one in the bedroom. It's not gonna play in your second car's player either. Nor in the kitchen. Nor on your neighbor's player. Nor can you trade it on the used market when you're tired of listening to it. "
"They finally found a way to sell you some wind. Even better, they will restrict the direction and force in wich the wind will blow, how often and where it will happen..."
As "DVD-Jon" Johansen goes to
retrial, a
backlash is rising in the media & community towards Apple's DRM (digital rights management), a week after this same kid created an open-source
program that lets users copy the songs that they bought onto other sources.
posted by omidius
on Dec 2, 2003 -
28 comments
Caribou Coffee is smacked with a lawsuit for doing nothing when four employees complained of
same-sex harassment from their boss. Among the allegations, one claims that the woman "[invited] one of the plaintiffs to her house to engage in some type of sexual activity with her dogs." You've gotta love the local tv news treatment of any given situation. Streaming video also available.
posted by Hammerikaner
on Sep 24, 2003 -
6 comments
U.S. warns Canada against easing pot laws "David Murray, right-hand man to U.S. "drug czar" John Walters, says he doesn't want to tread on another country's sovereignty, but warned there would be consequences if Canada proceeds with a plan to decriminalize the possession of marijuana."
WTF?
posted by ZenMasterThis
on May 2, 2003 -
95 comments
The Code of Hammurabi is generally recognized as the first laws ever written. Hammurabi was the ruler who chiefly established the greatness of Babylon (present day Iraq), the world's first metropolis.
posted by stbalbach
on Mar 31, 2003 -
14 comments
Last Call to fire up a smoke in NYC has now chimed. As of today, it is now illegal to smoke in any public indoor space, including bars. The
New York City Indoor Smoke-Free Air Act of 2002 gives further detail as to what defines a public indoor space. That, not including your residential lease that may prohibit as well. As Andrew Jacobs writes,
Walk a Mile for a Camel? Not Far Enough Anymore.
posted by bluedaniel
on Mar 30, 2003 -
162 comments
E-mail is trespass? A disgruntled employee's emails to his former co-workers are a legally actionable form of 'trespass to chattels', says Intel. Have you ever trespassed to chattels? Should you fined or even jailed for it? 3 lower courts in Claifornia have said 'yes' to all or part of that last question. (linked to in a thread today, but it deserves it's own).
posted by Jos Bleau
on Aug 14, 2002 -
12 comments
Britain to Relax Laws for Millions of Dope Smokers. The theory is that this move will free up officers and money to deal with more serious drug problems. As far as the classification goes, cannabis will now be grouped with anabolic steroids and growth hormones, two substances that I think are more dangerous than pot. What was it grouped with before?
posted by Miss Beth
on Jul 9, 2002 -
18 comments
When stupid laws attack:
this article points out that
the widely syndicated article about thwarting the copy protection of sony's CDs is a direct violation of the
DMCA. Will news directors at Reuters, Yahoo, and CNN be seeing fines and jail time soon? How many times does it have to be pointed out that the DMCA restricts free speech as it attempts to thwart piracy at any cost? (via
k5)
posted by mathowie
on May 24, 2002 -
10 comments
