Archive | Uncategorized

I’m owed $100 rebates by both Dell and Sprint PCS. In both cases, I sent in my receipts, the form, etc., and heard nothing. In both cases, I followed up with emails, and heard nothing. I then called Dell, which offered to process the rebate for me while I waited on the phone, and gave […]

In Howard Bashman’s absence, I thought it worth noting the D.C. Circuit’s decision today in Glascoe v. United States. Judge Randolph’s opinion for the three-judge panel begins: Precisely how long is an individual’s life span minus, say, five years and 10 days? One cannot give a firm answer if the person is still alive. No […]

Reader David Zasloff sent the following excellent letter to the Wooster Voice:I have noted on The Volokh Conspiracy the flurry of incidents regarding Mr. Makhlouf’s appearance at Wooster, and I find Mr. George’s response to the criticisms of Mr. Makhlouf’s presentation to be an odd combination of historical ignorance and adolescent wishful thinking. Rather sweet, […]

Josh Chafetz is reporting that enough Senators have committed to opposing the FMA that it cannot pass (if they all stick to their positions).

Just how many bisexuals are there out there? Some people I’ve talked to doubt that there are many, and suspect that there are many more homosexuals than bisexuals. Here’s some data on this, though, from Laumann et al., The Social Organization of Sexuality 311 (1994). Of course, even though this was a big and seemingly […]

Crime Severity and Constitutional Line-Drawing: I’ve just finished a very rough draft of this 15-page essay, and I’d love to get feedback from people who know a lot about criminal procedure — a field that I discuss here, though I’m not as expert in it as I am in free speech law. The piece is […]

seems to have some problems. “More than 170 gay men and women filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the Florida law prohibiting them from obtaining marriage licenses,” the news reports say. But my friend Michael Froomkin, who I believe supports gay marriage, points out that apparently (1) some of the litigants may not have realized they […]

I’ve argued before that the FMA might end up being interpreted even to ban legislatively or popularly enacted state civil union statutes. (I also have some other objections, but the democratically created civil unions point is the one that seems to have interested the most people.) Someone asked what I would think of a modified […]

The opinion is here. The law’s opinion argued that when the Missouri Constitution says That the right of every citizen to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or when lawfully summoned in aid of the civil power, shall not be questioned; but this shall not justify the wearing of […]

Law review article citing blog posts: This isn’t an entirely new phenomenon, but it’s relatively new, and still interesting: 19. As initial commentary indicated, the Eldred opinion itself offered surprisingly little discussion of how it fit into either the First Amendment or the Article I federalism case law. See Jack Balkin, Is the Digital Millennium […]

Via Dhimmi Watch, I see that the Presbyterian Church has apologized for the anti-Semitic tirade delivered by an anti-Israel speaker, Samir Makhlouf, sponsored by the “Presbyterian Peacemakers” at Wooster and reported in this blog recently. The president of the college has also apologized. Meanwhile, a student, Danny George, the “chief staff writer” of the school […]

About Eugene’s post below, whether a statute can deprive the Supreme Court of jurisdiction is actually not clear. Cribbing from Hart & Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System (5th ed. 2003), by Fallon, Meltzer & Shapiro, I find that: First, there’s Ex parte McCardle, 17 U.S. (7 Wall.) 506 (1869), which basically says […]

John Holbo, guesting at CrookedTimber.org, writes: “I don’t think the blogosphere has thrown up nearly enough stylists of true distinction, incidentally. Do you?” I concur with his basic point, though I have been wondering what it means to be a stylist of distinction in the blogosphere. Lileks is one example cited by Holbo and surely […]

Still a Free Speech Clause violation, even after Locke v. Davey: According to Foxnews.com, The Hispanic Club, the Chess Club and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance are just some of the clubs that have displays in the hallways of Portland schools. But after the Bible Club at Marshall High School put a Bible and some […]

My latest academic paper, Daubert in the States, discussing the current standards for the admissibility of expert testimony in state courts, is available for downloading on SSRN.