The WSJ reports: Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. David Paterson have asked the federal government to bar New York City food-stamp recipients from using the benefit to buy sugary drinks, an effort to determine if the move would decrease obesity and diabetes problems. The request, sent late Wednesday to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, could […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Congratulations to Mario Vargas Llosa
The 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa. Here is the announcement. I think it’s a good choice, but not for the best of reasons. This is a literature Nobelist whose work I’ve actually read! This is only the third time that’s happened in the past fifteen years.
DeLong Doubles Down
Brad DeLong responds to my post. As illustrated below the jump, he engages in selective editing and continues to misrepresent the players in this saga. (He also omits links to most of those to whom he’s responding.) Larry Ribstein also comments here.
West Virginia Sues EPA
Waste Virginia Governor (and Senate hopeful) Joe Manchin has announced a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for tightening federal regulation of so-called “mountaintop mining.” According to the NYT, Manchin claims “the regulations were unlawful, usurped state rights, were based in inadequate science and harmed the state by preventing […]
Suppressing Oil Spill Science
The AP and NYT report on draft reports from National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling critical of the federal government’s response to the spill. Among other things, the reports accuse Administration officials of suppressing and misrepresenting scientific assessments of the spill and its potential consequences. From the AP: The […]
Why Oh Why Can’t We Have Better EconProf Bloggers?
Would you consider it sound for one academic to attack a paper written by another, calling it (among other things) “obviously erroneous” and “simply stupid,” based upon a third-party representation of what it says? And would you consider it responsible to use the third-party representation of said paper as Exhibit A for questioning why the […]
Ninth Circuit Smackdown Watch
Lawrence Hurley of the Daily Journal reports that fully one-third of the cases on the Court’s docket thus far this term — 18 of 54 — are from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. (Hat tip: How Appealing) Given that the Supreme Court is a bit more likely to reverse than to affirm, […]
Justice Kagan’s “Very Good Day”
Jan Crawford reports on Justice Elena Kagan’s first day on the Court: In her first case as a sitting justice this morning, Kagan came off like a seasoned, savvy pro. She hit lawyers with precise questions that weren’t unduly aggressive, and she made her points. What’s more, she showed why many people think she’ll be […]
Previewing the Supreme Court Term
October Term 2010 begins today, the first Monday in October, so it’s time for Supreme Court previews. Here are previews from the NYT, Washington Post (here too), and National Law Journal. My own term preview is up on NRO here.
On Catch Shares and Jane Lubchenco
Ron Arnold attacked Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for seeking to impose industry-killing restrictions on fishing off the New England coast. Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute rose to Lubchenco and the Obama Administration’s defense, arguing out that the industry’s woes are a legacy of fishery mismanagement and […]
The Sorry Green Giant
This morning I had an essay on NRO discussing the state of the environmentalist movement in light of the failure to enact significant climate legislation. I’m currently in Emigrant, Montana, attending a conference co-sponsored by Liberty Fund and PERC on “Liberty and the Progress of the Human Condition,” so I may not be able to respond much […]
14 New Grants, Four More Recusals
The Supreme Court added fourteen more cases to the docket for October Term 2010 yesterday. Lyle Denniston rounds up the cases here. (More here.) As BLT notes, Justice Elena Kagan has recused herself from four of these cases. For those keeping track, this brings her total number of recusals up to twenty-five. This represents a […]
“You Can’t ‘Fact-Check’ a Fever Dream of Paranoia and Irrationality”
Forbes has “fact-checked” its infamous and inflammatory cover story by Dinesh D’Souza, “How Obama Thinks.” Heather MacDonald is not impressed. Such a “fact-checking” feint is irrelevant to this travesty of an article; you can’t “fact-check” a fever dream of paranoia and irrationality. Sickeningly, while “How Obama Thinks” is useless as a guide to the Obama presidency, […]
SCOTUS to Release Oral Argument Audio
The AP reports that the Supreme Court will start releasing the audio of all oral arguments from the previous week each Friday beginning this term. This is a great decision. I know I’ll appreciate having these audio files for my morning commutes. It may also represent an adequate compromise between those support and oppose televising […]
This Bud’s Not for You
The California Beer and Beverage Distributors is opposing a California ballot proposition that would legalize marijuana within the state. No surprise there. Some of the CBBD’s members may fear legal marijuana would compete with beer. Interestingly, the CBBD claims it is not opposed to legalization in principle, just the poor wording of this specific proposal. Josh […]