Archive | August, 2009

Well, maybe not a tell “all,” but it sounds like he’s planning to say a lot. Via Barton Gellman, on Dick Cheney’s forthcoming book about the Bush Administration: Robert Barnett, who negotiated Cheney’s book contract, passed word to potential publishers that the memoir would be packed with news, and Cheney himself has said, without explanation, […]

Various articles, such as this one, accuse conservatives of “paranoia” for thinking that health care “reform” will lead, for example, to Trig Palin being denied medical care. I agree that it’s a bit paranoid, but not nearly as irrational as the critics suggest. Eugenics enforced by government dictate once had strong support on the Progressive […]

is probably best avoided. From Newman v. Commowealth, 2009 WL 2431289 (Va. Ct. App. Aug. 11): [One of appellant’s “questions presented” was:] 4. Is it a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States when the manufacturer of the equipment used to test breath in driving under […]

From a letter by Nancy Rubin, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, praising President Obama’s controversial decision to award Mary Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom: “As a Jewish American who affirms that defending the human rights of all is a basic tenant of my faith, I wholeheartedly endorse your recognition of […]

Yum. It has nothing to do, though, with Why We Need a Good, Violent Movie About Salamis.

Readers who have read this post chain can probably guess what this term means. Or maybe it’s just this person. (Should I feel bad if this post knocks her off the top of the Google results list?) Or see this.

See yesterday’s Minnesota v. Stockwell (Minn. Ct. App.): MH is a Muslim woman who immigrated to the United States from Somalia in 1994, and wears a headscarf. On September 12, 2006, MH was driving on a four-lane road in Rochester to her place of employment when she noticed a blue van following extremely close. According […]

Yesterday, I ran across this bit of legalese for the first time, so I thought I’d note it — it’s Law French for “next friend,” which is to say (to quote Black’s), someone “who appears in a lawsuit to act for the benefit of an incompetent or minor plaintiff ….” The phrase, I’m pleased to […]

If you want huge law geek bonus points, answer this question, without looking it up or having studied or practiced in New England which is where the phrase seems to be used: What does “PPA” mean in a case caption (when it doesn’t mean “phenylpropanolamine,” the subject of a spate of recent litigation)? I did […]

I’ve blogged before about (1) American courts’ occasional willingness to enforce Sharia law when they enforce foreign law (such as Saudi law) — just as they enforce the law of other countries — and about (2) the general propriety of courts’ enforcing the judgments of Sharia arbitration panels, when the parties had contractually agreed to […]

CBS News has dug up some video of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski being chased down the street by a crowd of angry seniors. This event took place twenty years ago next Monday — August 17, 1989. Here’s Rostenkowski starting at 1:35 in the video: Rostenkowski: I don’t think they understand what the government’s trying to do […]

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a nice short piece juxtaposing the reaction to swine flu and to antibiotic resistance. It begins as follows: In March of this year an epidemic of H1N1 influenza virus, otherwise known as swine flu, began in Mexico. It spread to the United States within weeks and has since affected over […]

I’m writing the foreword for the forthcoming Michigan Law Review Survey of Books Related to the Law, and I decided to write about how the Kindle and similar products (especially in their foreseeable future generations) are likely to change law books — textbooks, treatises, other practitioner books, and academic books. I have a bunch of […]

A commenter on the reference to President’s daughters thread writes: The grammar seems more troublesome than the mention, without name or likeness, of the President’s daughters. I am open to education or correction, but would not “healthful” (instead of “healthy”) lunches for students be the proper usage as well as a worthy goal? Fortunately, a […]

The Orlando Sentinel writes: The girl, who turned 17 on Monday, is at the center of a custody dispute in Orlando, where she sought help from a family she barely knew — a pastor and his wife [the Lorenzes] willing to take in a teen who feared her own [Muslim] family’s retribution because she converted […]