Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

From the NYT: Leading ice specialists in Europe and the United States for the first time have agreed that a ring of navigable waters has opened all around the fringes of the cap of sea ice drifting on the warming Arctic Ocean. By many expert accounts, this is the first time the Northwest Passage over […]

The Washington Post argues Alan Gura and the other attorneys who successfully challenged the D.C. gun ban are asking for too much money in seeking attorneys’ fees. The fees sought certainly sound high, but I would be curious how they compare with the fees sought by attorneys in equivalent cases filed within the District of […]

The RNC played the Heart song “Barracuda” after John McCain’s acceptance speech on Thursday night, and it seems Heart’s Wilson sisters are none too happy about it. Their lawyers have sent a cease-and-desist order to the campaign to prevent further use of the song. No doubt someone at the RNC chose to play the song […]

What explains the evolution of patent law in the United States? My current and former colleagues, Craig Nard and Andrew Morriss, think that an interest group-based analysis provides the answer, and make the case in “Institutional Choice & Interest Groups in the Development of American Patent Law: 1790-1870.” I don’t know enough about patent law […]

The Department of the Interior is preparing to lease portions of the Outer Continental Shelf for offshore wind farms. The WSJ reports here. The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service expects to finalize its proposed rule governing leasing of offshore acreage for alternative-energy production by the end of the year, clearing the way for development to […]

Columbia University is using the threat of eminent domain to acquire property in West Harlem for a new campus, and some of the local property owners are none to pleased. On Wednesday, Nick Sprayregen took to the WSJ telling the University to keep its hands off his properties. Columbia University, a private institution, officially announced […]

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Yesterday the Environmental Protection Agency finalized new regulations governing emissions from gasoline-powered lawn and marine engines (e.g. lawnmowers, weed trimmers, motorboat engines, etc.). “EPA’s new small engine standards will allow Americans to cut air pollution as well as grass,” said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. According to the Washington Post story: Environmentalists, who noted that […]

In an earlier post, I looked at the relative absence of sarcasm in Sarah Palin

In his acceptance speech, Senator McCain did make a brief reference to judges as a political issue: We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don’t legislate from the bench. We believe in the values of families, […]

A new study failed to find a link between vaccines and autism. This should not be a surprise. As I’ve noted before, there has never been meaningful evidence of such a link, despite lots of media stories and activist claims to the contrary, and the mainstream medical community firmly rejects claims to the contrary. The […]

On Tuesday, Ed Whelan noted that discussion of judicial nominations and the Supreme Court were conspicuously absent from the main speeches at the Democratic Convention. Thus far, however, there has been relatively little about judicial nominations at the Republican Convention either. Unless John McCain makes it a big issue tonight, it will have been an […]

As I noted last Friday, a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held in Creekstone Farms Premium Beef v. USDA that the USDA may prohibit Creekstone Farms from testing its cows for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), aka “mad cow disease” with the so-called “rapid” BSE test. Why, some may wonder, would USDA […]

I am still a bit confused about this whole “experience” issue. Among the responses to my last post on whether experience of some sort or another is necessary for a Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate was the argument that the experience of running a Presidential campaign is itself important experience for the job. So, for […]

The Washington Post reports today that the Justice Department’s Inspector General found that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales failed to take adequate precautions when handling classified documents related to various surveillance programs. At issue are notes that Gonzales took during a March 2004 meeting between President Bush and congressional leaders in the White House Situation Room, […]