Per Chevron, Kerry Kennedy getting undisclosed percentage of the take, potentially in millions, to side with plaintiffs in Ecuador suit [NY Post] Long New Yorker take-out on case [Patrick Radden Keefe]
Freetail Brewing fields a nastygram: “How to Comply With a Cease-and-Desist Letter But Still Win” [Lowering the Bar]
I.e. boycotts illegal? Odd Minnesota law bans economic “reprisals” based on “political activity.” [Volokh]
“Chris McGrath v. Vaughan Jones: An Unpleasant Peek Into U.K. Libel Law” [Popehat; suit over science-and-theology book review] Related: “You Can’t Read This Book: why libel tourists love London” [Nick Cohen, Guardian, on his new book]
Business experience isn’t be-all or end-all for presidential qualifications, but might avert some policy howlers [Kling]
“Arbitration Is Here to Stay and One Lawyer Says That Is Good for Consumers” [Alan Kaplinsky interview, Mickey Meese/Forbes, PoL]
Off-topic random thought: “Iranian nuclear scientist who moonlights in Broadway Spider-Man cast” must be world’s most uninsurable job description;
“D.C. Lawmakers Propose Requiring Students to Apply to College” [Fox]
Peter Schweizer: “To RFK, Jr: I’m No Sock Puppet, But You Sir Are a Bootlegger” [Huffington Post; some background on America's Most Irresponsible Public Figure®]
Nice work if you can get it: key figure in dubious Chevron-Ecuador expert report slated for National Academy of Sciences reappointment [WizBang, earlier]
Spare that tree? Environmentalists battle Montana underbrush clearance aimed at preventing catastrophic fires [William Perry Pendley, MSLF] More on trees and power outages in Connecticut [WSJ, related earlier]
Six years late, the online publication is throwing in the towel on a notorious venture into antiscientific claptrap by America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure®, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Meanwhile, Carter at Point of Law reports that the newly civility-aware celebrity environmentalist will be headlining a “Progressive Voices Cruise” of the Caribbean that by total coincidence will also feature attorney Michael Papantonio, with whose Levin Papantonio injury-law firm the hothead scion has longbeenassociated, a connection curiously absent from his current Wikipedia page and most other coverage (& welcomeJonathan Adler readers).
When naming a new law, please, no acronyms, no victim names, and no assumptions about what it will accomplish [WSJ Law Blog on Brian Christopher Jones's recommendations] More: Wood.
America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® — that would be RFK Jr. — sounds off on Tucson massacre [Hemingway, Examiner]
Must protect the children! “Parents banned from British school sports event” [Common Room] After-school pickup procedures can get a little crazy too [Free-Range Kids, Florida]
Once again, America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® (that’d be RFK Jr.) sounds off on an environmental dispute to which he turns out to have personal financial ties [Greenwire via Eco-Pragmatism]
Allegations in ugly Florida law firm breakup include misallocation of Hillary Clinton campaign money [DBR]
When in court, try to avoid following the example of “Girls Gone Wild” impresario Joe Francis [Lowering the Bar and more, earlier]
“Judge Allowed to Sue N.Y. Daily News, But Not a Lawyer Thought to Be a Source” [ABA Journal, NYLJ]
New Hampshire judge rules for divorced father who disapproves of homeschooling [Volokh]
ABA Journal is taking nominations for its annual best-of “Blawg 100″ list [hint, nudge]
Over the years we’ve traced some of the shifting theories by which it’s been argued that once-prominent attorney Paul Minor was railroaded and didn’t really deserve conviction in that seedy Mississippi cash-for-judges scandal. Now America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure®, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has started banging his bowl in Minor’s cause, prompting Alan Lange to do what Kennedy does not do, namely provide supporting documents and links by which the interested reader can check out the actual details of the Minor-Whitfield-Teel scandals rather than taking someone’s word for it.
“I don’t know if that [quotation] is accurate, but I believe it and I support it,” said Mr. Kennedy, who has been involved in a vigorous legal effort against the meat industry for some years, arguing that manure and other products associated with large livestock producers emit toxic wastes that threaten the environment.
Mr. Kennedy also has said that a single hog consignment can put out more pollution than a city of a million people.
He has also said that every public official in North Carolina has been corrupted by the pork industry. He cited as evidence an editorial in a Raleigh newspaper, although he also said there may be some exceptions. …
Mr. Kennedy has said that he plans to go after all large farms in the country, not just pork producers. He has also said that the “right” lawsuit against livestock producers could bring damage awards of up to $13 billion.
Pajamas TV interviews me on Obama cabinet prospects (RFK Jr., Caroline Kennedy, Schwarzenegger, Gorelick, etc.) (Nov. 13, subscription-only)
Federal court in New Orleans hits attorney with five-year practice suspension after “intentionally contemptuous” filing and other misconduct [Times-Picayune, Ashton O'Dwyer]
Lawyer sues his straying wife for giving him herpes, but her lawyer says a test proves she doesn’t have the malady in the first place [Above the Law]
Doctors (e.g.) being put through hostile depositions are often tempted to talk back sharply to the lawyer. Bad move, says Ronald Miller [Maryland Injury]
It’s a shame most of the press remains incurious about that episode a fewdaysago in which talk of compulsory national service appeared, then vanished from the Obama site [K. Ryan James]
Batting cage pitching machine without prompting hits customer in most sensitive part of male anatomy, he collects $1.2 million [The Big Lead]
ACLU will defend preacher sent to prison on parole violation charge after writing “God will smite this judge” newspaper article (having earlier been convicted of election misconduct)[AP/FoxNews, western Michigan]
On appeal, Long Island attorney beats charges of coaching clients to fake injury and using “steerers” to gain business [NYLJ]
More: Orac advises writing letters to the Obama transition team urging them to consider the harm to their credibility should a figure such as RFK Jr. get the nod. His comments section includes many good examples of such letters, and Kathleen Seidel, autism blogger extraordinaire, contributes one at her site as well. See also this perhaps unintentionally ironic dispatch by MSNBC’s Alan Boyle on Thursday listing as among president-elect Obama’s “top tasks” “taking the ideology out of scientific issues” and quoting Chris Mooney, author of “The Republican War on Science,” to the effect that “the war has ended, and science has won”. The Center for American Progress’s ScienceProgress site, to which Mooney contributes, doesn’t seem to have weighed in on the RFK Jr. matter.
And: tons of mostly helpful blog reactions. At ScienceBlogs, besides Orac, there are the influential P.Z. Myers/Pharyngula (”another irrational purveyor of woo and fluffy substanceless hysteria”), Chad Orzel, Uncertain Principles (”his highest-profile activity in recent years has been the promotion of nutbar conspiracy theories”), Mike the Mad Biologist (”every bit as ridiculous as creationism”), Around the Clock (”He is the typical paranoid, conspiracy-theorist, hyperbolic quack. A kind of person shunned, ignored and marginalized by the Democratic Party for decades now for two good reasons: such people’s judgment cannot be trusted, and such people give the party a bad name”), James Hrynyshyn (”More worrisome is the fact that Obama on at least one campaign occasion, pandered to the anti-vaccine crowd by describing the science on the subject as “inconclusive” despite loads of studies that show no link”, PalMD, ERV, Science Woman, Effect Measure, SunClipse, and Mark Hoofnagle. Plus: Skepchick, DarkSyde @ DailyKos, Rondi Adamson (”gives me the creeps…The guy’s a complete wingnut”), Wendy Williams, Steven Novella, Neurologica (”This would be an unmitigated disaster for science in government … Putting a known antiscientific crank in this position is inexcusable”), The Amateur Scientist (”an absolutely terrible idea … the guy’s bad news”), Brandon Keim, WiredScience (”America doesn’t need more political officials who skew science to fit personal beliefs.”), Thinking Outside, Science Avenger, Colossus of Rhodey, Politico. Liz Ditz has a great roundup of critical opinions.
Further: Edward John Craig at NRO “Planet Gore” here and here.
The buzz about a possible seat in the Cabinet for hothead scion and anti-vaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. continues with a second article in Politico, this time shifting the speculation to the Environmental Protection Agency and citing “Democratic officials” who claim Obama is “strongly considering” RFK, Jr. for that post (Mike Allen, “Obama considers stars for Cabinet”, Nov. 5; earlier). Tim Noah at Slate shouts a timely “don’t”:
Environmental Protection Agency or Interior Department. Do not hire Robert Kennedy Jr. He’s too partisan and kind of a nut when it comes to policy. Check out this dangerously alarmist 2005 Rolling Stone piece about the purported link between autism and childhood vaccines. (To learn why Kennedy’s piece was alarmist, see “Sticking Up for Thimerosal” by Arthur Allen in Slate, August 2005.) Throw in Kennedy’s 1983 heroin bust, and you’ve got yourself an unconfirmable nominee.
More: Orac returns with a lengthy, devastating and link-rich second post; Mike Dunford/Questionable Authority (”The politicization of science is bad no matter who does it. It wasn’t just bad when the Republicans were involved. It will be just as bad if it’s a Democrat doing it.”); Eric Berlin (”hope it’s someone’s idea of a bad joke”). And Michael Moynihan, Reason “Hit and Run” (”nutty” pro-Hugo-Chavez rants).
While privacy laws ratchet ever tighter on private actors, publicly available court documents blare out Social Security numbers and other sensitive data [Ambrogi]
Which is the worse deal, using your own bank’s ATM or patronizing one of those awful payday-loan outfits? No peeking [Coyote]
“DMCA: Ten Years of Unintended Consequences” [EFF]
Contriving to give Sheldon Silver the moral high ground: NY judges steamed at lack of raises are retaliating against Albany lawmakers’ law firms [NY Post and editorial. More: Turkewitz.]
When strong laws prove weak: Britain’s many layers of land use control seem futile against determined builders of gypsy encampments [Telegraph]
Plenty of willing takers for those 4,703 new cars that survived the listing-ship near-disaster, but Mazda destroyed them instead [WSJ]
“Prof. Dohrn [for] Attorney General and Rev. Wright [for] Secretary of State”? So hard to tell when left-leaning lawprof Brian Leiter is kidding and when he’s not [Leiter Reports]
Just what the budget-strapped state needs: NY lawmakers earmark funds for three (3) new law schools [NY Post editorial; PoL first, second posts, Greenfield]
In Indiana, IUPUI administrators back off: it wasn’t racial harassment after all for student-employee to read a historical book on fight against Klan [FIRE; earlier]
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