Here are today’s opinion and the earlier opinion holding that plaintiffs had standing to sue. I find this hard to reconcile with the logic of Marsh v. Chambers (1983), which upheld legislative prayers on the grounds that they go back to the founding of the nation; official proclamations of days of prayer, thanksgiving, and even […]
Archive | 2010
End of an era?
A high-ranking NSA official has been indicted for leaking classified information and lying about it to investigators. The reported beneficiary of the leaks was Siobhan Gorman, then of the Baltimore Sun and now of the Wall Street Journal. This is a big deal. It’s been years since officials saw any real risk in leaking classified […]
When Good News Isn’t Good News
Yesterday, the New York Times reported on a sharp global decline in maternal deaths. This is good news, right? Not to some. The Times also reported that some activists sought to pressure the Lancet into delaying or downplaying the findings. some advocates for women’s health tried to pressure The Lancet into delaying publication of the […]
National Survey of Tea Party Supporters, Done by the New York Times and CBS News
Here are the details. Some unsurprising data, but some noteworthy; among other things, tea party supporters are more conservative than the public on social issues, but not vastly so — 40% think Roe v. Wade “was a good thing” (compared to 58% of the public), and their support for allowing same-sex marriage or civil unions […]
Nonrecognition of Foreign Libel Judgments
A California legal development from last year that I missed, in Cal. Code Civil Proc. §§ 1716-1717, amending California’s version of the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act: 1716. … (c) A court of this state is not required to recognize a foreign-country judgment if … (9) The judgment includes recovery for a claim of […]
Judge Suing Newspaper for Breach of Web Privacy Agreement Over Being Outed as Author of Anonymous Comments
[UPDATE: Note the change in the legal analysis below.] The Complaint is available here; it claims that the newspaper’s identifying Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold as the supposed author of items posted under the “lawmiss” account breached the newspaper’s Privacy Policy. A bit of background, from a WKYC story: A comment by an Internet poster identified […]
2010 U.S. News and World Report Law School Rankings Released
The 2010 U.S. News and Word Report law school rankings have just been released, and can be found here. As has been discussed elsewhere, these rankings are flawed … but, at the same, are an influential fact of life.
Eyjafjallajoekull
A funny post from Geoffrey Pullum (Language Log).
UK Advertising Standards Authority Censoring Supposedly Incorrect International Law Claims in Advertisements
From ASA Adjudication on Israeli Government Tourist Office: A press ad, for holidays in Israel, stated “YOU CAN TRAVEL THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF ISRAEL IN 6 HOURS Imagine what you can experience in 4 days … DAY 1 TEL AVIV & JAFFA DAY 2 JERUSALEM … VISIT … NOW FOR MORE ITINERARIES IN ISRAEL”. Each […]
Major legal win for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus v. Regents of the University of Colorado. Decided this morning by the Colorado Court of Appeals (a three-judge panel of Colorado’s intermediate appellate court). In brief: Colorado’s licensing statute for carrying a concealed handgun for lawful protection is explicitly preemptive. The University of Colorado bans concealed carry anyway, arguing […]
Time-Wasting Puzzle of the Day
What is the smallest positive integer that, when written out in standard English, does not yield any Google searches? Do not use “and”s, and do not use the format in which hundreds are counted using numbers greater than ten (e.g., “forty two hundred eighty two” — that’s acceptable standard English, but I just want to […]
The Second Amendment and the Reverse Ninth Amendment
I was just rereading the D.C. v. Heller footnote that says, ““We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive,” and the thought came to my mind — this is a reverse Ninth Amendment (at least if you focus on the Ninth Amendment’s text). The Court […]
The Double Standard of Libertarian Paternalism
By Ilya Somin on April 15, 2010 12:35 am in Libertarian Paternalism, Libertarianism, Paternalism, Political Ignorance
Cato Unbound has an excellent symposium on “libertarian paternalism,” the theory that argues that government should intervene to protect people against cognitive biases that lead them to make decisions that ultimately reduce their ability to achieve their own objectives. Advocates of libertarian paternalism argue that their approach is different from and superior to traditional paternalism, […]
Ed DuMont Nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
I’m delighted to report that my friend Ed DuMont has been nominated to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. I’ve known Ed since 1993, and think very highly of him: He’s extremely smart, thoughtful, calm, and fair-minded. He’s also a very experienced appellate lawyer, at the highest levels; besides being […]
What if the Palestinians Don’t Want a State?
With the Obama Administration apparently prepared to ramp up the pressure on Israel to arrive at a settlement with the Palestinians, including the possibility of the Administration presenting its own peace plan as a more or less done deal, I hope someone in the Administration pauses to ask the question “what if the Palestinians don’t […]