Archive | June, 2009

There have been a bunch of cases on this over the past couple of decades, and I don’t have a big picture opinion about them. But it does seem to me that this particular opinion is quite unpersuasive. The curfew barred under-17-year-olds who aren’t accompanied by parents from being out in public from 11 pm […]

Apparently (according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term comes from the French “couvre, imper. of couvrir to cover + feu fire.” It was originally “A regulation in force in medi

A colleague asked me: Which is correct, “premier lawyers in the country” or “premiere lawyers in the country”? I was inclined to say “premier” for “foremost,” and save “premiere” for “opening night.” But a quick dictionary check suggested that “premiere” could mean “foremost,” too”; I saw this both in the American Heritage and in the […]

I’ve had previous occasion to blog about “morbidly interesting” anti-Israel blogger Philip Weiss, whose posts I come across occasionally. Morbidly interesting because though of Jewish background, he consistently rails against his own Jewish upbringing and is hostile to most things Jewish (the great exception I’ve noticed being Jewish leftism), has at least one overt anti-Semite […]

to be pared back? As fault lines emerge among private and public players? Two good articles today on the pace and direction of the regulatory reform of financial services and financial markets. I’m light-blogging the next couple of days, as I’m traveling to Palo Alto for a meeting of the Hoover Task Force on National […]

Two last posts from Ed Whelan and one from publius that should end the matter.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor would not have been my first pick to replace Justice David Souter

Stuart Taylor’s article on the public’s opposition to racial preferences and support for the nondiscrimination principle includes an interesting exchange from the New Haven firefighters case: Race: Sotomayor And Obama Versus Voters. It’s clear that Americans want racially preferential affirmative-action programs abolished. . . . [S]enators and others who speak out for nondiscrimination and against […]

Sean Higgins warns us of the failure of Europe’s cap-and-trade regime: The major cap-and-trade bill now working its way through Congress is not without precedent. The European Union has had a cap-and- trade regime in place for years. It just hasn’t worked so far. Begun in 2005, the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme has raised energy […]

If you’re looking for cases or statutes that define a term, rather than all cases that mention the term in any context, search for WP(term), e.g., WP(“DANGEROUS WEAPON”) This only works for those terms that West includes in its “Words and Phrases” books; but that’s a pretty large set of terms. Naturally, searching for all […]

No ruling on the merits, but the USSC has granted the stay to allow more time to consider Indiana pension funds’ claim that the deal illegally prioritizes unsecured creditors over holders of secured debt.

Judge Sotomayor has fractured her ankle. Despite her injury, she will continue to attend meetings with Senators — albiet on crutches.

Jeff Rowes of the Institute for Justice has an important op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal: Judicial ‘Activism’ Isn’t the Issue: Liberals and conservatives both show too much deference to Congress. Here is how it begins: The growing dispute between conservatives and liberals over the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor obscures a more troubling […]

A reader asked whether I could comment on the latest anonymous blogger outing controversy (the Whelan/Publius matter). I might have something on the ethical questions later, but those are questions that I find difficult to answer at any high level of generality (though maybe I’ll have a breakthrough while I’m trying to compose the post). […]

on his article in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine on Shakira and her nonprofit educational mission in Latin America; it occurs to me, however, that this was probably not the most disagreeable assignment in third world journalism that Scott has ever undertaken. Scott is the foreign affairs editor of the Magazine, and the author of […]