SUING AUTOADMIT: “So this is the 21st century? Where courts award punitive damages for offensive words and pictures? Isn’t ‘the scummiest kind of sexually offensive tripe’ exactly what we always used to say people had to put up with in a free country? Man, that was so 20th century!”

Stuff that offends dumb hicks in the heartland is constitutionally protected. Stuff that offends Yale Law Students must be stamped out! More here.

And on Internet libel generally, read this.

UPDATE: Further thoughts from Eugene Volokh — also here — and there’s more discussion here.

Patterico, meanwhile, thinks I’m wrong to be dismissive of the plaintiff’s claims. Well, I’m pretty thick-skinned about Internet trash-talk — when I teach libel I give my students a few choice search terms and let them see what people have said about me. They’re usually appalled, but I’ve never sued anyone, and the list of things about which I might actually sue is awfully short. Besides, once you get past the puppy-blending stuff, who’s going to believe much of anything they read?