At the Weekly Standard, writer Jonathan Last has much more on the saga of Blair Hornstine of Moorestown, N.J., who sued for the valedictorianship of her graduating class. It isn’t pretty, even aside from the plagiarism scandal (Jonathan V. Last, “First in Her Class”, Weekly Standard, Jul. 7-Jul. 14)(Harvard Crimson coverage). Plus: Joanne Jacobs has more (Jun. 29) including a link to a website by Adam Tow entitled The Blair Hornstine Project, with illuminating reader comments, and commentary by Kimberly Swygert (Jun. 28), with yet more reader comments. Update Jul. 12: Harvard withdraws offer.
Archive for 2003
“Spitzer’s nuisance”
Today’s New York Sun runs an op-ed by our editor discussing last week’s decision by a state appeals court upholding the dismissal of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s ill-conceived lawsuit against the gun industry. (Walter Olson, “Spitzer’s nuisance”, New York Sun, Jun. 30)
Font darkness
Thanks again to readers who wrote in on the question of how to make the font darker. The most elegant solution was the “stylesheet switching” reader option suggested by Plogs.net, but since we aren’t confident of our technical capability to implement that option smoothly, we’re falling back on what everyone else suggested, which is just to darken the font for everyone by adjusting the “blogbody” color value in Cascading Style Sheets.
Speaking of light and darkness, Virginia Postrel has a wonderful article newly online at D Monthly (“Spaces: Technocrats and Glowing Panties”, not dated; via her Dynamist blog) on how Texas regulations prescribing fluorescent rather than incandescent lighting in new commercial buildings, billed as “cost-free” by environmentalist and technocratic advocates, are in fact anything but cost-free as an aesthetic and commercial matter.
Philip Howard reviews The Rule of Lawyers
The author of The Death of Common Sense and The Lost Art of Drawing the Line reviewed our editor’s latest book in the Los Angeles Times this Sunday. (Philip K. Howard, “Tipping the Scales”, L.A. Times, Jun. 29 (alternate link)(another alternate link, at Philip Howard’s Common Good organization)).
U.K. prosecutor: top cops didn’t warn that roofs are dangerous
Workplace health and safety dept.: “A High Court judge criticised the Health and Safety Executive yesterday for wasting public time and money in prosecuting the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and his predecessor for failing to warn officers about the danger of climbing on roofs.” Following separate incidents in which one police officer died and another was injured after falling through roofs while on duty, top police brass faced criminal charges of failure to warn, which ended most recently in acquittal on some charges and a hung jury on others after “?1 million in lawyers’ fees and a further ?2 million in investigations”. “Had the HSE succeeded, the Met had planned to instruct its officers not to climb above head height. ‘It would have been a veritable burglars’ charter, a victory for criminals and would have encouraged suspects to use roofs to escape,’ said one senior officer.” (Sue Clough, “Safety case against Met police chiefs a ‘waste’ of public’s ?3m”, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Jun. 28; “‘We fall off horses. Do they want us to use Shetland ponies?'”. Jun. 28). See also Dec. 22-25, 2000 (“risk aversion” in British armed forces).
“Flood of Fees Draining Enron Funds”
Fees in the Enron bankruptcy, which include accountants’ and advisers’ as well as lawyers’ fees, total $496 million through May, the richest in history (see Dec. 27-29, 2002). “Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose state is a major creditor, complains that attorneys in the case are ‘lining their pockets. There is a lot of money sloshing around, and the participants are taking it away from the people who really deserve it,’ he said in an interview. John W. Toothman, president of the Devil’s Advocate, a Northern Virginia company that scrutinizes legal fees, and co-author of a textbook on fees, calls it a ‘feeding frenzy.’ Enron ‘has turned its pockets inside out, and everybody who can get in line gets a piece. The lawyers have been first in line.'” (Peter Behr, Washington Post, Jun. 28).
FBI probing Jefferson County verdicts
News from the most litigation-famed county in Mississippi (see May 7; May 4-6, 2001): “The FBI is investigating huge jury verdicts in Jefferson County and several of the trial lawyers who have been involved with them, according to sources close to the investigation.” Last year, when a local resident interviewed by CBS Minutes suggested that jurors profit “under the table” from some of the huge verdicts, Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association official David Baria called for a criminal investigation; now that he’s got one, however, he’s not so happy about it, calling the FBI probe “a concerted effort to demonize lawyers and judges” as well as politically motivated. (Jerry Mitchell, “Verdicts, lawyers under FBI scrutiny”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Jun. 22).
Blogging resumes Monday
Thanks to numerous readers who’ve written in with suggestions on the dark-font issue. See you Monday.
“Lawsuit faults hospital for overdose”
Amanda C. Hagan, 29, of Allentown, Pa., is suing Norristown State Hospital “for allowing a visitor to bring into the hospital the illegal drugs she used.” She also “is blaming the hospital and county for not noticing she was high and that her heroin or cocaine needle was broken and still stuck in her arm when she received an antidepressant. The overdose that followed should have been prevented, Hagan’s civil lawsuit states.” (Pamela Lehman, Allentown Morning Call, Jun. 25; “Ridiculous suit is a waste of time” (editorial), Jun. 27).
Judge jails former Texas AG Morales
“Former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales was ordered to remain in jail while awaiting trial on federal fraud charges after a judge determined today that he may have lied on two recent car loan applications and was a risk to commit financial crimes.” Morales, a key figure in the multistate tobacco litigation and long a familiar figure to readers of this site (see Jul. 15, 2002 and links from there; Jan. 10-12, 2003), was indicted in March (see Mar. 8-9) along with his friend Marc Murr and pleaded innocent to charges of having made improper efforts to gain hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for Murr from the state’s tobacco settlement. In the new development, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Blankinship presented U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks “with documents that he said showed Morales had purchased two used cars — a Mercedes and a Lexus — within days of filing a sworn affidavit with the court indicating that he had no income,” entitling him to representation by an appointed public defender. “According to Blankinship, Morales paid about $70,000 for the Mercedes and Lexus, both 2000 models. On loan applications to buy the cars, Morales listed his income as either $20,000 a month or $20,800 a month.” Judge Sparks remanded Morales into custody. (“Judge orders former attorney general to remain in jail”, AP/Houston Chronicle, Jun. 26; “Judge orders ex-AG Morales to remain jailed until October”, AP/Dallas Morning News, Jun. 26; David Pasztor, “Dan Morales jailed”, Austin American-Statesman, Jun. 25.)