Judge Blocks California Law Limiting Publication of Actor's Ages (politico.com)
mi writes: IMDb has a reason to rejoice. Politico reports: "A federal judge has barred the State of California from enforcing a new law limiting online publication of actors' ages. Acting in a case brought by online movie information website IMDb, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria ruled Wednesday that the California law likely violates the First Amendment and appears poorly tailored to proponents' stated goal of preventing age discrimination in Hollywood. The judge expressed deep skepticism that the law, which he said appeared to apply only to IMDb, would have any effect on discrimination. The judge rejected the state's arguments that the law was a regulation of commercial speech, finding that IMDb was acting as a publisher in posting the birthday and age information online." "It's not clear how preventing one mere website from publishing age information could meaningfully combat discrimination at all. And even if restricting publication on this one website could confer some marginal anti-discrimination benefit, there are likely more direct, more effective, and less speech-restrictive ways of achieving the same end," Chhabria wrote in a three-page order.
Welcome to the darkness you've embraced. It will have consequences.
I'm actually an independent, not a conservative.
There's planks in the conservative platform that I don't agree with; for example, I think women should be able to choose abortion and we're probably wrecking the climate. A couple of other positions as well.
The problem is, coming out in favor of either of these puts me in the company of Liberals: People who leak classified information for political assassination, people who call for a military coup, people who riot to suppress free speech... I don't want to be associated with any of that.
I used to be a global warming believer, but I'm now having second thoughts. That "97 percent of scientists" figure people keep throwing around? It's fake. This whole thing about the left has caused me to reexamine my beliefs about global warming, and how I came by them. 'Turns out most of it was passively accepted without a critical thought, because I kept seeing it in the news.
This is troubling, and not in the false sense of the word that Liberals use. Global warming is conceivably the most important decision we'll face, and we need to get it right the first time.
And yet, debate on the issue is stifled by insult and threats. Scientists fear losing their livelihood if they question the dogma. Policies are "our way and nothing else", and always require reducing our standard of living while increasing economic disparity.
No where do I see proposals that would actually help the problem, such as calls to modernize our electrical grid, calls to change tax code to encourage telecommuting (section 1706), tax rebates for rooftop solar, or increased funding in helpful technology.
I'm having a tough time keeping my position about global warming, simply because it's the clarion call of the left.
There's an old saying among geeks: it's not enough to be right, you also have to be effective.
The left is so ineffective that it's tough to agree with them.
Even when they're right.