Posts tagged as:

environment

In the latest round in the prolonged controversy over the Nantucket Sound development, Aquinnah Wampanoag Indians who live on the west side of Martha’s Vineyard say that turbines off the east side of the island would spoil their welcome of the morning sun [NYT, WSJ editorial]

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A Bay Area crackdown nets 47 holiday violators of the fireplace ban [Contra Costa Times via David Freddoso, Examiner] Earlier here, here, etc.

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December 7 roundup

by Walter Olson on December 7, 2009

  • Woman jailed for “camcordering” after recording four minutes of sister’s birthday party in movie theater [BoingBoing]
  • Senate hearing airs trial lawyer gripes against Iqbal [Jackson and earlier, PoL, Wajert, Beck & Herrmann (scroll)] Franken and other Senators sidestep substance, browbeat witness re: “study” terminology [Alison Frankel, AmLaw]
  • Still time to cancel? “2009 is also the first year of global governance” — new EU president [Small Dead Animals]
  • Miller-Jenkins battle: judge orders custody switch to law-abiding spouse [Box Turtle Bulletin, background]
  • Speedy by government standards? 17 years ago DoT proposed Southeast high-speed rail on existing rights of way, ruling on environmental impact statement is expected next year [McArdle]
  • “New York’s New DWI Bill: Compounding Stupidity” [Greenfield; felony to drive intoxicated with passenger 15 or younger]
  • “Apple Told To Pay Patent Troll OPTi $21.7 Million” [Business Insider]
  • This year’s ABA Blawg 100 listing left out some legal blogs that aren’t half bad [Turkewitz]

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The fifteen-minute shower

by Walter Olson on November 14, 2009

“Here’s a surprise: people hate federally mandated low-flow shower heads. And the nannies are planning to make them worse.” [For What It's Worth on this WSJ report]

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If you thought Sacramento’s new curbs on big-screen TVs were bad, brace yourself. David Shepardson, Detroit News:

California’s latest requirement for the auto industry — advanced window glazing to keep vehicles cooler — could prevent drivers from making phone calls, listening to satellite radio or using garage door openers.

More: Carter Wood/ShopFloor, Jon Fleischman/Flash Report. And Aaron Renn at Urbanophile has a broader look at California’s decline.

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October 14 roundup

by Walter Olson on October 14, 2009

  • Uh-huh: new report from federal Legal Services program calls for gigantic new allocation of tax money to, well, legal services programs [ABA Journal]
  • “Judge: Man’s a ‘vexatious litigator’” [Cincinnati.com]
  • Wisconsin governor signs bill requiring prescription to buy mercury thermometer [Popehat]
  • “Injured by art?” Woman sues Museum of Fine Arts Houston after fall in artist-designed light tunnel [Mary Flood, Houston Chronicle "Legal Trade"]
  • On Carol Browner and the cry of “environmental racism” (a/k/a “green redlining”) [Coyote]
  • New York: “Lawyers implicated in $9 million mortgage fraud” [Business Insider]
  • In Canada, as in the U.S., medical privacy rules hamper police investigations [Calgary Herald]
  • Stalin’s grandson loses lawsuit in Russia against newspaper that supposedly defamed the dictator [WSJ Law Blog, Lowering the Bar, Volokh]

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September 21 roundup

by Walter Olson on September 21, 2009

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“A federal appeals court has overturned the arson convictions of a Caltech grad student accused of torching and vandalizing 125 SUVs, ruling the trial judge wrongly barred evidence of the defendant’s Asperger’s syndrome.” [ABA Journal, L.A. Times] While we’re at it, also from the ABA Journal: “Law Prof Charged with Tax Evasion, Claims Severe ADD, Prosecutors Say“.

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As lighting “to interview my daughter’s boyfriends”, says an Ann Althouse reader. [more, earlier here, here, etc., as well as Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason "Hit and Run"]

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“…for her role in the apple scare. She told me so.” [Elizabeth Whelan, National Post]

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September 2 roundup

by Walter Olson on September 2, 2009

  • Cops in London borough “remove valuables from unlocked cars to teach the owners about safety” [UPI, Sullum/Reason "Hit and Run", Coyote]
  • “Trial starts for PI lawyer accused of paying bribes (to Texas insurance managers) for settlement” [ABA Journal]
  • Tort reform in Oklahoma takes effect Nov. 1, so law firm advises getting those lawsuits filed quickly [The Oklahoman]
  • Patent assembler Intellectual Ventures says it’s averse to suing. Its close partners, on the other hand… [Recorder, earlier]
  • Bill to assert U.S. control of waters whether “navigable” or not is major federal power grab [Kay Hutchison and Nolan Ryan, Dallas News]
  • California high court rules in Taster’s Choice photo-permission case [Lowering the Bar, WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
  • Civil libertarians, secularists protest as Ireland criminalizes blasphemy [Volokh, Irish Times (Dawkins), MWW and more]
  • He knows about big paychecks: “Obama’s ‘Pay Czar’ Made $5.76M Last Year as a Law Firm Partner” [ABA Journal]

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Whoa, Gristies, that may go a bit too far. [Coyote]

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I’ve got a link roundup on the new charges at Point of Law. Earlier here.

Another round of coverage [BBC] for a health peril we’ve covered a number of times in the past. Gawker: “How many more people must die before Michael Bloomberg does something about candles? Children can buy them and everything! We must sue Big Candle.”

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Environmentalists have filed a lawsuit to block construction. [Santa Barbara Daily Sound via Popehat]

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Doubts about its timing, chaotic implementation and environmental benefits — and that’s aside from the high cost of subsidizing trade-ins many of which would soon have occurred anyway.

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Critics of Obama science czar (and sometime Paul Ehrlich-ite) John Holdren are noting that way back in the 1970s he had favorable words for law professor Christopher Stone’s notion of extending to trees and other natural objects a right to sue, a concept endorsed by none other than Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. This prompts a poetic flight from one of Jonah Goldberg’s readers at National Review Online:

I think that I shall always rue
The day a tree got rights to sue.

A tree whose hungry lawyer’s plea
Is filed on a contingency…

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This fall’s proposed European ban on incandescent bulbs, barbed with $70,000 fines, apparently makes no allowance for the upkeep of “works that take the lightbulb as a primary material, such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Light-Space-Modulator, which uses 140,” among works by Rauschenberg, Olafur Eliasson and a long list of other well-known artists. Another unpleasant effect on the art world will be to constrain the way installations can be lit, even if curators and others believe particular works are best served by incandescent illumination. [ARTINFO.com via Andrew Hazlett]

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