BRICKBATS.

• Author: Oliver, Charles
• Position: Lorne Grabher's vanity plate case, San Francisco, California's garbage cans and alcohol control for residents under lockdown in New South Wales, Australia

The Court of Appeal for Nova Scotia ruled in August that Lorne Grabher's last name could be interpreted as a call for violence against women and so he has no free speech right to a vanity license plate with his last name.

The city of San Francisco has spent three years and half a million dollars so far designing and deploying the perfect garbage can. The board of supervisors has voted to spend $427,500 to build five prototypes each of three models designed by a firm hired in 2018. In the meantime, the estimated cost to mass produce whichever model city officials ultimately choose has risen from $1,000 apiece to at least $2,000 and possibly as much as $5,000.

A British court sentenced Simon Silwood to eight weeks in jail in September for racially abusing a West Bromwich Albion soccer player over the internet. Silwood was upset after the team lost a match. He posted on a Facebook group that midfielder Romaine Sawyers, who is black, should receive the "Baboon d'Or" award, a reference to the Ballon d'Or trophy awarded annually to the best soccer player. Silwood claimed he meant to post buffoon but misspelled it bafoon, which autocorrect then changed to baboon.

Officials at Bigelow High School in Arkansas ripped out two pages from the 2020-21 yearbook before delivering copies to the students who paid for them. The pages had a timeline of major events from the school year, including the first U.S. death from COVID-19, riots following the police killing of George Floyd, the death of Alex Trebek, Apple's market valuation topping $2 trillion, and NASA flying a drone on Mars. East End School District Superintendent Heidi Wilson justified the move by citing "community backlash."

But in response to an open records request by the Arkansas Times, the school system said there were no emails or other records related to complaints about...