Author Archive | Dale Carpenter

The federal and state governments have spent some $58 million in an effort to conserve oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, to little avail. Since 1994, state and federal authorities have poured these millions into rejuvenating the famous bivalves and the centuries-old industry that relies on them. They have succeeded at neither. Instead, official estimates show […]

Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute and co-founder of Africa Fighting Malaria responds to an attack from Tim Lambert and John Quiggin seeking to paint DDT defenders as stooges of the tobacco industry. John Quiggin and Tim Lambert purport to restore Rachel Carson’s reputation, trashing me and an organisation I helped found, Africa Fighting […]

Apparently criticizing prison conditions is enough to get a Saudi academic arrested. (Link via Henry Farrell)

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit handed down an interesting divided opinion in a search-and-seizure case in United States v. Purcell. Here’s the summary from Judge Karen Moore’s majority opinion. In this case we are asked whether the discovery of men’s clothing in a bag that a female claimed to own […]

That’s what gay marriage in California will imminently produce, according to a brief filed yesterday by the folks asking the California Supreme Court to stay its gay-marriage decision. They note without intended irony that Alexander the Great himself “would be unable to unbind” the resulting tangles. And all that’s just from the first paragraph of […]

New York is next. State agency heads in New York have been instructed by Gov. David Paterson’s legal counsel to begin recognizing same-sex marriages validly performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, Canada, and beginning June 17, California. The memo (available here) relies on the decision of an intermediate appellate court and several lower courts in […]

The London Telegraph reports that Guardian columnist George Monbiot tried, and failed, to make a “citizen’s arrest” of former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, at a literary festival in England. “This was a serious attempt to bring one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war to justice, for what is described under the […]

Last week, the Senate Environment Committee approved legislation to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s denial of California’s request for a waiver of preemption of the Golden State’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles sold in the state. As I have discussed before, under the language of the Clean Air Act, the EPA’s […]

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland has named Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Dean Nancy Hardin Rogers as the interim Attorney General for Ohio. Rogers will serve from now through November’s election, but will not run for election. Rogers replaces the scandal-ridden Marc Dann, who resigned in disgrace on May 14.

The Cato Institute’s David Boaz thinks Barrack Obama is a collectivist. But Republicans should take note: He thinks John McCain is a collectivist too. In their campaign speeches, Boaz notes, both candidates discourage the individual pursuit of happiness, particularly if it has anything to do with money. They disparage success in business or economic pursuits, […]

Comment of the day from the Independent Gay Forum: Here’s the problem with gay marriage: It used to be that if you were over 40 and unmarried, people thought you were gay. If gay marriage becomes acceptable, now, if you’re over 40 and unmarried, people will think it’s because you’re unattractive! :(

The military would like to send several dozen foreign detainees held at Guantanamo Bayback to their home countries. The problem is these nations won’t take their people back. As a consequence, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says, “we are stuck” with Guantanamo.

The Memorial Day Blawg Review is here. For prior editions see here.

According to the Birmingham News, the mayor has rejected a request for a gay pride parade in the city: Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford won’t sign a proclamation for an annual gay pride celebration or allow banners on city property, and said he will not grant the sponsoring group a parade permit. Langford said he turned […]

While the politics are complicated and uncertain five months out, a thrilling but narrow win for gay marriage in the California Supreme Court last week could become a narrow and heartbreaking loss at the polls in November. But the court’s equal protection holding will outlast a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and will have […]