Today’s Rutti v. Lojack Corp. has the following passage: Mike Rutti sought to bring a class action on behalf of all technicians employed by Lojack, Inc. (“Lojack”) to install alarms in customers’ cars. He sought compensation for the time they spent commuting to worksites in Lojack’s vehicles and for time spent on preliminary and postliminary[1] […]
Archive | August, 2009
Americathon:
For some reason, watching the video of the Corvette that Jim links to below makes me think that America doesn’t need Cash for Clunkers to get out of this economic malaise. What America needs is a telethon. No, wait, an Americathon! (For more on this 1979 movie, see here).
UCLA Drops Demand That Online Critic Stop Using “UCLA” in His Web Site:
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education reports: The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has withdrawn its unconstitutional demand that a former student take down a website criticizing the university. UCLA had demanded that Tom Wilde shut down his private, non-commercial website, ucla-weeding101.info, by last Monday…. [Y]esterday, only a few hours after FIRE publicized […]
The Death Throes of a Corvette.—
In the Great Depression, the government paid to destroy crops in order to prop up farm prices — about as dumb a policy as can be imagined. Today the government pays to destroy cars in order to … frankly, I don’t know why. “Cash for Clunkers” appears to be a bizarre combination of the “broken […]
Obama’s Ailing Popularity:
I have a piece of political commentary on President Obama and health care reform on Forbes.com today, “Obama’s Ailing Popularity: The health care debate is tarnishing the president’s reputation.”
Looking Forward
[Starting again with some brief responses to my engaged and engaging audience. Many thanks to the reader who said, correctly, I did not mean to imply race played no part in voter preferences in the South — or anywhere else. But, again, I would urge readers to take care in charging racism. Obama ran eleven […]
Judge Posner Asks Where Are the Law Professors
in helping to find our way through the economic crisis? The economists are evident, even if in some kind of professional and ideological disarray and angst. But where are the law professors? And what expertise do they – should we – bring to the table of policy, law, action, and reform? As Judge Posner says, […]
Does the Automobile Exception Permit a Search of Computers Found in a Vehicle?:
Under the so-called “automobile exception” to the warrant requirement, the police can search a car for evidence without a warrant — including any containers in the car — if they have probable cause to believe that evidence is in the car and that evidence could be located in the place they search. But does this […]
The Voice of Oliver Wendell Homes:
A commenter points out that a short audio of Justice Holmes was recorded in 1931 for his 90th birthday, and it’s available online: Listen here.
Clunkers without Cash:
Dealers in various states, including New York and New Mexico, have decided to withdraw from the “cash for clunkers” program due to delays in government reimbursements — and perhaps not a moment too soon, as the Department of Transportation announced the program would end Monday (two months early) because it’s again out of cash.
Obama Mixes Religion and Politics:
President Obama gave advice via conference call to one thousand liberal rabbis regarding how to push for his health care reform efforts at high holiday services (which have by far the largest synagogue attendance of the Jewish year) without seeming partisan: “I am going to need your help,” the president told a telephone audience of […]
How to Read A Case:
The 1Ls have arrived for orientation here at GW Law, and a colleague of mine asked if I would repost my essay on how to read a legal opinion. Here it is: How to Read a Legal Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students.
Wessel on Frank on Economists:
A quick post script to my previous post on David Wessel’s economics column in today’s WSJ concerning the stimulus. Wessel quotes Barney Frank in passing: Not for the first time, as an elected official, I envy economists. Economists have available to them, in an analytical approach, the counterfactual. Economists can explain that a given decision […]
The Perils of High Public Office: II
National Review Online just posted a piece that I did on the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act, and its implications for our latest efforts at health (insurance) reform. Here’s the conclusion of the piece: No one can predict whether the latest effort at health-care reform will meet a similar ignominious defeat. But this story does hold […]
David Wessel on the Stimulus:
Economics editor of the WSJ, David Wessel, has a fine column today on p.2 talking about why the stimulus has been growing in unpopularity. I raised the policy issue of the stimulus earlier in the summer in a post asking whether we should simply cancel the rest of it – a discussion, it seems, that […]