- Forfeiture-happy customs agents bedevil family flying to Ethiopia [Volokh]
- Lawmakers, ABA ex-bigs back campaign to grant law license to illegal alien [Miami Herald]
- “NYT reports the FDA is stunned democracy requires they answer to elected political leaders as part of enacting laws” [@CraigBruney]
- When did doghouses become a crime? [Alex Ballingall/Maclean’s via @amyalkon]
- Why Tennessee, famous for distilleries, used to have so few of them [Nashville City Paper via @radleybalko]
- ESPN tells only one side of Title IX story [Eric McErlain, Daily Caller; Saving Sports]
- Greece: “At the health department they were told that all the shareholders of the company would have to provide chest X-rays” [Mark Perry]
Archive for 2012
High cost of law schools, cont’d
Walter Russell Mead weighs in [“First, Let’s Indenture All The Lawyers,” The American Interest] Federal student loan program serves as enabler of insane law student debt burdens [Brian Tamanaha, “The Quickly Exploding Law Student Debt Disaster,” Balkinization via Caron] Related: “Judge Tosses Lawsuit against Law School over Employment Stats” [WSJ Law Blog, WLF “Legal Pulse”, earlier] “Remedies for Unreasonably Defective Law Schools” [Frances Zacher, Abnormal Use, more] And: A. Benjamin Spencer (Washington & Lee), “The Law School Critique in Historical Perspective” [SSRN via Caron]
Also, another review of Schools for Misrule is out, this one from Bradley Watson in the Claremont Review.
“Bounty Hunters and the Public Interest – A Study of California Proposition 65”
Obstetrician not liable for trying to save baby’s life
“A woman whose fetus was stillborn cannot sue the doctor who performed an emergency Caesarian section in a futile attempt to save its life, an appeals court ruled.” The unanimous five-judge panel called the plaintiff’s theory “remarkable.” [Reuters via White Coat]
Podcast on “Stand Your Ground” laws
In today’s Cato Daily Podcast, I correct some of the flagrant misconceptions that keep circulating about Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, and in particular discuss why the law makes no difference at all (under current evidence) in assessing George Zimmerman’s legal guilt or innocence in the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Earlier/background here. And Eugene Volokh has a great post here on the nature of the supposed “duty to retreat,” which I mention in the podcast, with more here.
Think tank confidential
Over at Secular Right, I’ve done a lengthy post about think tanks, more specifically about the future of the policy think tank model in light of the controversy over control of my own Cato Institute. It’s also got some memoir-ish material in it in which I recall times over the years in which I felt relatively proud of having an effect on public debate. You can read it here.
P.S. Kind words from Ryan Radia and Pierre Lemieux.
The other variety meat
While on the subject of hamburgers, Adam Ozimek takes on the sentimental sloganeering about “pink slime” and makes the case for getting more food out of each cow, quite aside from the safety advantages of the stuff.
Commenter Jesse Spurway: “I guess head cheese and scrapple are next on the hit list.” More: Andrew Revkin, NYT; Greg Conko, CEI.
Judge tosses Happy Meal lawsuit
April 6 roundup
- “Help, I left my kids to wait in the car for less than five minutes, now I’m on trial for child endangerment” [Skenazy] “N.Y. State Senate Passes Bill Outlawing Kids Under 8 Waiting in Cars” [same]
- “Greek court dismisses charges against German magazine for denigrating national symbol” [AP]
- Pre-clearance for financial innovation, as with drugs and the FDA? Bad idea [Mark Calabria/Cato, The Economist, Thom Lambert]
- NYT, Reuters misreport effect of Stand Your Ground laws [Jacob Sullum, Robert VerBruggen/NRO, earlier here, etc.]
- “Attorney advises against talking to Baltimore Sun in email mistakenly sent to Baltimore Sun” [Andrew Beaujon, Poynter]
- Ken at Popehat knows how to pick his enemies [first, second, third posts, Philly Law Blog]
- “Now Can We Start Talking About the Real Foxconn?” [Tim Culpan, Bloomberg]
Traffic-cams and accident responsibility
A letter to the editor of the Orlando Sentinel defends traffic-cams on grounds unrelated to the tickets they generate:
I was broadsided by a red-light runner four blocks from my house. …
Shaken and confused, I watched the other driver come out of her car and start screaming that I ran the red light. When bystanders started to gather, she dropped to the ground crying in pain.
Four days after the accident, while I was still dealing with injuries and insurance companies, I received a thick envelope in the mail from an attorney the driver had hired to sue me.
Fortunately, that same day, the city of Orlando produced a video of the accident taken by a red-light camera installed at the intersection. It showed the light had been red for several seconds before the driver entered the intersection. ….
It should be noted that much of the critique of cameras — such as the shortened-yellow problem, the incentive they afford for governments to hammer motorists on relatively minor violations such as rolling right turns under safe conditions, the use of presumptions of guilt to get registered owners to “tell on” family members, and their invitation for further expansion of surveillance — involve changes in the relationship of the citizen to the state, to the latter’s advantage. Like other uses of surveillance cameras, traffic-cams undoubtedly do produce some positive externalities, which should hardly settle the ongoing controversy about their use.