I’ve got a new post up at Cato at Liberty about a snafu “embarrassing even by the standards of federal government foul-ups”: federal regulations intended to prevent “money laundering” are leading to dozens of mini-diplomatic crises as U.S. banks refuse to do business with smaller countries’ embassies for fear of tripping up under the regulations.
Author Archive
New Heartland Institute podcast on Schools for Misrule
Arin Greenwood interviewed me about my forthcoming book for this week’s installment of the Heartland Institute’s weekly FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) podcast. You can hear the results here.
Obama signs school nutrition bill
I joined host Garland Robinette today on New Orleans’ WWL to discuss the background to yesterday’s signing and the considerable shift from local to federal control that will result. As I pointed out, schools’ safety-driven fear of fresh ingredients (meat, poultry, eggs, greens, and so forth all pose some bacterial risk) has long been among the factors driving them toward bland and repetitive menus based on precooked, frozen or canned ingredients.
“Have you been denied a job based on your Criminal History?”
Class action lawyers are waiting by the phone. [Michael Fox]
Relentless growth of Washington, D.C.
I posted a few data points last week at Cato at Liberty (& welcome Glenn Reynolds, Ira Stoll readers).
Below-average cancer rates found in town of Brockovich fame
After alarmist coverage about how the water supply of rural Hinkley, Calif. is laced with carcinogenic chromium 6, it may have surprised some L.A. Times readers to learn that the town’s cancer rate is actually a bit below average. One interviewed local family blames the pollution for a variety of ills ranging from stroke to cognitive deficits to miscarriage to tumors in a pet dog. When the movie “Erin Brockovich” came out, it was pointed out that workers at the utility plant where the contamination originated had a life expectancy exceeding the California average.
P.S. I see that Tim Cavanaugh of Reason is on the case too.
“One nation, under too many laws”
Philip K. Howard’s latest, for the Washington Post:
Once enacted, most laws are ignored for generations, allowed to take on a life of their own without meaningful review. Decade after decade, they pile up like sediment in a harbor, bogging the country down – in dense regulation, unaffordable health care, and higher taxes and public debt.
Time, he says, to revisit the “sunset law” idea, under which laws would expire unless affirmatively reenacted, and radical simplification as well.
AgSec Vilsack: no intention of banning bake sales
As the Associated Press reported recently, the school nutrition bill to be signed by President Obama today includes provisions giving the federal government authority to regulate (among much else) the frequency of school bake sales. Following a public furor, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack now says he has no intention of using the authority to do that — which may or may not signify much over the long term, since cabinet secretaries depart regularly and his successors will be free to revisit the issue. [ABC/KBOI, Kyle Wingfield/Atlanta Journal-Constitution] Local governments in places like New York City and even Iowa have lately been regulating or abolishing bake sales on nutritionist grounds. I joined Ray Dunaway on Hartford’s WTIC NewsTalk 1080 this morning to discuss the update.
“The Case Against the U.N. Women’s Treaty”
Contrary to mythmaking in some quarters, CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) does push participating governments to regulate family life and private conduct, it goes far beyond the current state of U.S. law, it is no mere hortatory exercise unlikely to affect future decisions by judges and others, it is not merely a way of pressuring countries whose record on women’s rights is inferior to that of the United States, and its force will not be rendered meaningless by the inevitable Senate declarations, reservations and understandings. [Christina Hoff Sommers, NRO; Julian Ku/Opinio Juris (“[Sommers] is certainly right that most international law scholars think the reservations have no effect and that there will be a push after ratification to get courts to recognize CEDAW and ignore the reservations.”)] More: Rachel Ryan, FrumForum.
December 13 roundup
- Minneapolis police arrest author-blogger-gun rights activist Joel Rosenberg [Popehat, Mark Bennett, Scott Greenfield]
- In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, Justice Ginsburg’s instincts as a proceduralist might come in tension with her instincts as a feminist [Alexandra Lahav, Mass Tort Lit]
- “Cease this shouting!” cried Grinch, “From all Yule din desist!” But he’d Moved To The Nuisance and so, case dismissed [Art Carden, Forbes]
- “San Francisco Sues to Close Down Immigration Law Firm, Claims ‘Exorbitant’ Fees” [ABA Journal]
- New ATRA report blasts overly cozy state attorneys general cooperation with plaintiff’s bar [“Beyond Reproach? Fostering Integrity and Public Trust in the Offices of State Attorneys General,” PDF]
- Nathan Myrhvold’s patent aggregator Intellectual Ventures, which said it was disinclined to sue, begins suing [The Recorder, Salmon]
- Privacy = when I choose to conceal my life data, secrecy = when you conceal yours [Kelly Young via Dave Boaz, Cato at Liberty]
- One doc’s memoir: litigation crisis as morality crisis [seven years ago on Overlawyered]