I somehow missed this toy when shopping for my girls this holiday season. (HT: Veronique de Rugy)
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Court Reverses in Smith v. Spisak
By Jonathan H. Adler on January 12, 2010 10:58 am in Criminal Procedure, Habeas, Sixth Circuit, Supreme Court
The Supreme Court released one opinion today — and it was not the eagerly anticipated Citizens United. The Court released another habeas decision instead. In Smith v. Spisak, a unanimous Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s grant of death-row inmate Frank Spisak’s habeas petition. Justice Breyer wrote the opinion, and […]
Ted Olson’s Case for Gay Marriage
Ted Olson explains why he supports gay marriage and has joined with David Boies to file suit to support it. Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of […]
Proposition 8’s Defenders Seek Stay of YouTube Order
Ed Whelan reports that counsel for the sponsors of California’s Proposition 8 — the ballot proposition that overturned gay marriage in the state — have filed an application for a stay of district court Judge Vaughn Walker’s order to have video of the the trial challenging Prop 8 posted on YouTube. While I have some […]
Another Biomass Blunder
The federal government’s love affair with ethanol subsidies drove up food prices, depleted plains state aquifers and subsidized the destruction of water fowl habitat. Today’s Washington Post reports that that Biomass Crop Assistance Program is having similarly untoward and unintended consequences. In a matter of months, the Biomass Crop Assistance Program — a small provision […]
Sunday Song Lyric
It’s cold and gray in northeast Ohio. The snow’s stopped, but everything’s still blanketed in white. Still, it’s not such a bad place to be. I’m reminded of the opening line of “Winter Passing” by The Academy Is . . . (Yes, their name includes the elipsis.) “Winter Passing” was released as a single in […]
D.C. Circuit Upholds Broad Detention Authority
Earlier today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit released its opinion in Al Bihani v. Obama, its first substantive post-Boumediene Guantanamo detainee habeas decision. In an opinion by Judge Janice Rogers Brown, the court rejected Al Bihani’s habeas claims, affirmed the district court’s denial of his habeas petition and embraced a fairly […]
Ford Sales Surge
Ford Motor Company’s December 2009 sales were up 33 percent from December 2008. By comparison, Chrysler’s sales were down 4 percent. GM has yet to report. One factor is almost certainly the quality of Ford’s product — my wife certainly loves her Ford Edge and hopes we’ll get another when the lease runs out — […]
Will the Health Care “Conference” Be on C-Span?
Congressional leaders may dispense with the traditional House-Senate conference to reconcile the two chambers’ competing health care bills in favor of less formal negotiations. Whatever form the process takes, C-Span would like to be there. On December 30, C-Span CEO Brian Lamb sent a letter to Congressional leaders requesting that his network be able to […]
Getting Serious about Airline Security
The Reason Foundation’s Robert Poole argues that if we are serious about airline security, we need to alter our focus. He argues we spend too much time and effort “keeping bad things—as opposed to bad people—off of airplanes.” A risk-based approach would invert these priorities and concentrate efforts on identifying higher risk passengers for greater […]
Recovery or “Reform”?
University of Chicago economists Gary S. Becker, Steven J. Davis, and Kevin M. Murphy argue that continuing legal and regulatory uncertainty have inhibited efforts to get the economy back on track. Among other things, uncertainty about the rules of the game discourages investment and economic risk-taking. After surveying some evidence to support their argument, they […]
Blogs – New and Improved
Some developments in blogosphere. The Business Law Prof Blog has re-opened for business, and it’s something of an Ohio enterprise. The four contributors are Stefan J. Padfield (Akron), Eric Chaffee (Dayton), Michael Borden (Cleveland-Marshall), and J. Scott Colesanti (Hofstra). The University of Pennsylvania Program on Regulation has launched a new regulatory blog called, appropriately enough, […]
Congratulations David Post!
The Green Bag has announced its “Exemplary Legal Writing 2009” honorees. Among those selected is our own David Post for his book, In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace. An excerpt from David’s book will be reprinted in the Green Bag Almanac & Reader 2010, along with excerpts from the other […]
Sunday Song Lyric
What was the best album of 2009? The best song? Spin gives top honors to “Zero” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and ranks their album It’s Blitz! second (behind Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion). NME also ranks “Zero” as the best track of 2009 and ranks It’s Blitz! third. (By comparison, Rolling Stone puts “Zero” […]
Security or Silliness
Screenwriter (and recovering attorney) David H. Steinberg writes about his recent TSA experience flying home to the U.S. from Aruba. Among other things, his family was frisked by a baggage handler and a flight attendant snatched the pillow from under his 2-year-old daughter one hour before descent. A lunatic tries to blow up an airplane, […]