Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Stuart Buck offers up a tort law poem.

There’s a little scandal brewing in South Carolina over the state Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the results from one question, allowing several people to pass who would otherwise have failed, including the daughter of a influential local pol. Louisville Dean Jim Chen has been on the case. He provides background and links here, and […]

Timbaland has an impressive record as a producer. Now he’s impressively successful as an artist two. This past week he had two singles in the top five on American Top 40: “The Way I Are” at number five, and “Apologize” at number one. The former is what one would expect from Timbaland: a well-produced hip-hop […]

Emory University’s Math & Science Center is a LEED-certified, environmentally sound building. Yet portions of the $40 million building are now draped with black mesh netting because the building is allegedly responsible for killing birds — as many as two per day — that fly into the glass. UPDATE: See also Jim Chen’s post here.

In yesterday’s WSJ, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox argues the Supreme Court should embrace an individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment. The significance of this article is less its contents — the article summarizes some of the standard constitutional arguments in favor of the individual rights view — than its author: Michigan’s chief law […]

In Saudi Arabia, a 19-year-old woman is sentenced to 200 lashes. Her crime? She had been sitting alone in a car with a man who was not her husband when the two were abducted and raped by a gang of seven men. Had she not been raped, her “crime” would not have been prosecuted. Were […]

Is Social Security in trouble? If you’re talking to Paul Krugman, it would depend on when you asked him, as Ruth Marcus documents in this column. It’s almost enough to make one think Krugman’s become a crude partisan. UPDATE: Krugman responds to Marcus here. Mark Thoma thinks Krugman has a good defense. Ramesh Ponnuru less […]

Yesterday, Senator Fred Thompson issued a statement on the Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari in the District of Columbia gun ban case. It reads, in part: I’ve always understood the Second Amendment to mean what it says – it guarantees a citizen the right to “keep and bear” firearms, and that’s why I’ve been […]

The morning plenary panel at the Federalist Society’s annual lawyers’ convention concerns “he Constitution & American Exceptionalism: Citation of Foreign Law.” First up is Georgetown University law professor Nicholas Rosenkranz who lays out the basic case against relying upon foreign or international law in constitutional interpretation. Rosenkranz makes several points (and my summary us unlikely […]

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is concerned about the influence of interest groups on state judicial elections. Voters generally don’t express much interest in the election of judges. This year, as in years past, voter turnout in elections for judges was very low. But judicial elections, which occur in some form in 39 […]

The W$J reports on measures the Bush Administration has announced or proposed to ease holiday air travel woes. The White House fact sheet on the reforms is here. As a frequent traveler, I sure hope these measures are effective.

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sent the Bush Administration’s revised automotive fuel economy standards back to the Department of Transportation for reconsideration. Under the Bush Administration, the DoT modestly tightened the fuel economy standards governing light trucks, but also increased the flexibility afforded automakers by basing future light-truck fuel economy […]

The Legal Times covers Justice Thomas’ speech to the Federalist Society’s annual lawyers’ conference in Washington, D.C. During a brief question and answer session following his speech, Thomas was asked about one of the Court’s enduring mysteries: Why do his colleagues ask so many questions at oral argument? The Washington Post covers the conference here, […]

No international agreement to control greenhouse gas emissions will have a meaningful effect on future projections of global climate change without the active participation of the United States and China. Yet as University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein argues in his paper, “The Complex Climate Change Incentives of China and the United States,” neither […]

Glenn Reynolds examines the question here.