Truth in Googling: Is Unfair Competition the Answer?

In my freshman year of college, a long-time friend of mine and I decided to drive down to Chicago.  Shortly before heading to the Cadillac Palace to claim our seats for a comedy act performing there that night, my companion, being an Asian-food connoisseur, steered our walk downtown towards a Japanese restaurant in River North.   The interior design was stunning: dark, vaulting ceilings; a vibrantly colored fish tank as a focal point in the back; and an elliptical-shaped sushi bar in the center emanating the colors of the ocean.   I can also picture the black and red sign outlining the specials at the establishment’s door.  More vague, however, is my memory of one crucial detail about the restaurant: it’s name.

My inability to recall the name of that restaurant has prompted a flurry of Google searches on River North Japanese restaurants.   In the process, I have found many other places with likewise appealing aesthetics and succulent sushi, but my searches have returned no hits that appear to be the restaurant I was looking for.  The interior design of the River North establishment I found myself at distinguished it from every other restaurant Google has returned to me.  But those searches no less have provided me with other possible establishments awaiting my next trip to Chicago.

Now for a counterfactual.  How would my searches have turned out if I did remember the name of the restaurant? 

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Adoption and Age Discrimination

In recent years, we’ve heard a lot of discussion of interracial adoptions and adoptions by same-sex couples.  But it is possible that the most pervasive form of discrimination in adoption is discrimination against older prospective parents.  3L Sara Mills explores this topic in a new paper on SSRN entitled “Perpetuating Ageism Via Adoption Standards and Practices.”  She argues that age discrimination in adoption may be unconstitutional and proposes a new statute to address the problem.  Here is the abstract:

More than a quarter of Americans consider adoption at some point in their lives. During the adoption process, courts strive to promote and foster the children’s best interests, but this often involves discriminatory decisions that deprive older adoptive parents of the same opportunities as younger adoptive parents. Discrimination in adoption proceedings is nothing new, and legislators, courts, and scholars have explored how it affects minorities, same-sex couples, single parents, and divorcees. However, age discrimination in adoption also exists, and courts condone it by approving placements that are dictated by private agencies’ discriminatory ideologies. This article thus provides the first systematic examination of the issue of age discrimination in adoption and proposes both constitutional and statutory remedies to counter the problem.  The justifications for age discrimination in adoption are no longer supported by empirical evidence or societal realities.  Ultimately, when an older petitioner is denied the right to adopt, the agency, the court, and, fundamentally, society are implicitly rejecting the worth and dignity of older individuals and impermissibly discriminating based on ageist stereotypes.

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You Have the Right to Remain Silent

This morning I spent an hour debating David Cole of Georgetown on Wisconsin Public Radio. The question was whether we should read Miranda rights to suspected terrorists. Not a lot of sparks. I tend to believe that the public safety exception to Miranda should be broad enough to include (in some way that requires further definition) questioning undertaken to protect the public from an ongoing terrorist operation or to determine that there is no such ongoing operation. I don’t agree that Miranda is completely off the table just because the suspected charge is terrorism. While Professor Cole wants a more immediate geographically bound exception that I’d draft, the devil is in the details.

On more fundamental level, it doesn’t seem that deferring Miranda rights is among the most difficult legal trade-offs in the war on terror. Both its value to national security and its imposition on the rights of suspects is limited.

I would have preferred to discuss  Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, a case currently pending before the Supreme Court in which Professor Cole represents the plaintiffs.

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