- Leading California conservative blogger explains why he’s voting no on 8 [Patterico] #
- A text message arrives on your cellphone while you’re at a polling place. Illegal “electioneering”? [Doherty, Reason “Hit and Run”] #
- Humorless academic denounces bawdy un-PC hit comedy Little Britain [Feral Child] #
- Agree or disagree, it’s hard to find a more eloquent McCain endorsement than David Frum’s [NRO] #
- Audio of Ted’s talk at U. Chicago [Federalist Society chapter]
Author Archive
Microblog 2008-11-01
- Australia joins Axis of Internet Censorship [The Australian h/t Mike Elgan; Volokh] #
- Circa-1900 neighborhoods with porches are my favorite for trick-or-treating. #
- “Our companies have been spending 100s of 1000s of dollars per case fighting off patent trolls” [A VC, h/t Pete Warden] #
“Pub-goers to be tested for drugs”
The spirit of liberty seems to have been numbed in Scotland: “Pub-goers in Aberdeen are facing a drugs test before entering bars as part of a crackdown by Grampian Police. … The test is voluntary, but customers will be refused entry if they do not take part.” The tests will be conducted using a new technology that takes swabs of hands and analyzes them instantly for drug residues, which will be grounds for search or arrest. (BBC, Oct. 31, via Massie (“ghastly”)).
More: Per commenter Mike Blackburn, “As I understand it, the campaign was run by clubowners who wanted to find a way of keeping drugs out of their clubs. The police were only really involved as administrators.”
Microblog 2008-10-31
- Beck & Herrmann skewer Waxman report on drug tort pre-emption [Drug & Device Law h/t Ted; much more at PoL] #
- Good news, Fed Circuit in Bilski case limits business method patents [AP, Patently-O, Parloff] #
- “Silicon Valley Stands United Against Prop. 8” [TechCrunch] # Not too late to donate against the proposition whether or not you live in California [before you forget] #
- Crash-faking ring in Queens targeted Asian drivers [NY Times] #
- Community Reinvestment Act: bogeyman in housing mess, or unrelated red herring? Truth somewhere in between [Husock, City Journal] #
- “Dopeler Effect” = tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly [@legalblogger] #
- Going to go as Wall Street and terrify everyone: Happy Hallowe’en. #
Mark your calendars: Nov. 12, Chapel Hill
I’ll be giving a noontime talk at the University of North Carolina chapter of the Federalist Society.
Docs vs. lawyers
On the campaign contributions front. (Dr. Wes, Oct. 29).
“Extraordinary leverage over the national economy”
Did we imagine that it was not going to occur to anyone to have the government start using its big new stakes in banks and other commanding heights of the economy to, as it were, command? (David Frum, Oct. 30).
What happened to the slavery reparations movement?
I’ve got an op-ed in today’s L.A. Times (Walter Olson, “Slavery reparations: what happened?”, Oct. 31) based on a longer article forthcoming in City Journal. (The short answer to what happened: 9/11, public opinion, and the courts.)
The City Journal article is in turn a much condensed version of a draft chapter in my book-in-progress about the influence of the law schools. As I show in that chapter, there were few places where reparations enthusiasm burned hotter than in legal academia, with conferences and law review articles galore devoted to advancing the cause. The most prominent law school advocate of the reparations cause back then, Harvard’s Charles Ogletree, is back in the news these days because of his role as mentor (and, reportedly, chief advisor on racial issues) to Democratic candidate Barack Obama; he’s being mentioned as a possible civil rights chief in the next administration. Not surprisingly, Ogletree has had much less to say about the reparations cause this year than he did eight or nine years ago; I have a feeling that in an Obama administration he’d be under strict orders not to get near the issue, but of course I could be wrong.
We’ve covered reparations litigation extensively at Overlawyered.
When jurors tell lawyer jokes
Had the jokes been funnier, maybe the judge would have granted the motion for a mistrial. (Anne Reed, Deliberations, Oct. 29).
“Beware Tarzan, togas, and naughty nurses”
Hallowe’en party advice from employment lawyers. (Tresa Baldas, National Law Journal, Oct. 31).