. We hope that you enjoy the Orbiter and will visit often.
Inspired by PlanetPlanet's feed reader and aggregator and by Six Apart's Project Comet initiative, the Jurisdynamics Network presents the Law Blog Central Orbiter. The Orbiter aggregates the latest posts from the blogs digested on Law Blog Central. The posts are presented in reverse chronological order. The Law Blog Central Orbiter even has its own RSS feed, which you are invited to download by clicking here:
July 4, 2:55 AM / Legal Theory Blog /
July 4, 1:16 AM / Neuroethics & Law Blog / UCL's Law and Neuroscience ColloquiumI'm pleased to be participating in University College London's Law and Neuroscience Colloquium that runs from July 6-7, 2009. As always, Neuroethics & Law Blog readers in attendance are encouraged to introduce themselves. Here is a link to the event and here is the program: DAY ONE: 6 July 2009 9..
July 4, 0:41 AM / The Situationist / Independence Day: Celebrating Courage to Challenge the SituationWith the U.S. celebrating Independence Day -- carnivals, fireworks, BBQs, parades and other customs that have, at best, only a tangential connection to our "independence," -- we thought it an opportune moment to return to its source in search of some situationism. No doubt, the Declaration of Indep..
July 4, 0:16 AM / Conglomerate / The One-Year Law SchoolAs soon as our new Dean announced my appointment as Associate Dean for Faculty and Curriculum, my email inbox started to fill with various messages relating to law school administration. Among these messages was one that linked approvingly to Paul Lippe's " Welcome to the Future: Time for Law Schoo..
July 4, 0:00 AM / Discourse.net / Happy 4th of JulyI’m out today. via SFDB Ecard Of The Day by South Florida Daily Blog...
July 3, 11:03 PM / Adjunct Law Prof Blog / Alumni Sponsors At HarvardI'm Going To Harvard. Will You Sponsor Me is an interesting June 12, 2009 article. It is about a new service which matches alumni sponsors with students who can not afford college. As the article states: Unithrive, which made its...
July 3, 10:57 PM / Althouse / The NYT aims its "36 hours in" analysis at Madison, Wisconsin.I've been here for 25 years, but I'm interested to see what's picked out for the 2 day visitor. And also what's left out.
July 3, 10:24 PM / The Yin Blog / Sarah Palin and "Prison Break"For some reason, when I first saw that Sarah Palin was quitting as Governor of Alaska, I wondered if it was an instance of life imitating art -- specifically, "Prison Break"'s season 2, episode 19 ("Sweet Caroline"), in which President...
July 3, 10:09 PM / Althouse / Love, love, love...It's all about love.
July 3, 9:44 PM / Legal Theory Blog / Legal Theory BookwormThe Legal Theory Bookworm recommends A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression by Richard A. Posner. Here is a description: Posner (How Judges Think) is uncharacteristically dry in this dense book that states flatly that we are in a recession only because we ..
July 3, 9:31 PM / Workplace Prof Blog / Texas Center for Women in Law Seeks Executive DirectorThe Center for Women in Law at The University of Texas School of Law is asking for your help in our search for a new Executive Director. Founded in 2007 by thirty women attorneys, the Center is dedicated to advancing...
July 3, 9:30 PM / Legal Theory Blog / Download of the WeekCatherine Fisk and Deborah C. Malamud (University of California, Irvine Law School and New York University - School of Law) have posted The NLRB in Administrative Law Exile: Problems with its Structure and Function and Suggestions for Reform (Duke Law Journal, Vol. 58, p. 2013, 2009) on SSRN. Here ..
July 3, 9:10 PM / Feminist Law Professors / Judge Kozinski Will Not Be Sanctioned For Hosting Web Site Featuring Racist, Degrading PornThe SF Chron reported (in part): … In a decision that it labeled an admonishment, the panel told Kozinski that his conduct “created a public controversy that can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the institution of the federal judiciary.” But the panel said..
July 3, 8:42 PM / Althouse / Mickey Kaus counts 10 theories about Sarah Palin.I thought it was obvious that there was only one, but Mickey has all these : 1) She's running for president; 2) She's undergoing fame withdrawal and plans to get more attention in the lower 48; 3) She wants to cash in ($); 4) There's another shoe about to drop ; 5) She'll now run against Murkowski f..
July 3, 8:35 PM / Underbelly / Sem-Appreciation: The Myth of the Rational MarketJustin Fox says his new book, "The Myth of the Rational Market" "is a work of journalism." He's right on that, and in this case, it is nothing to brag about. He's put together a highly entertaining collage of anecdote and apt quotation (there, thought ought to make a nice jacket blurb). But if you a..
July 3, 7:49 PM / Discourse.net / Good Advice for Edgy Demos in Talks: Be PatientThis guest posting ex-cypherpunk mordaxus at Emergent Chaos gets how judges think. And uses the word “gedanken” properly. Must be someone I know. The “gedanken” limits the filed some too. Emergent Chaos: The Punch Line Goes at the End Last year, the big cancellation was the t..
July 3, 7:40 PM / TaxProf Blog / Southern Illinois President Reverses Dean's Detenuring of Law ProfIn a remarkable sequence of events, Southern Illinois President Glenn Poshard has reversed the decision by Dean Peter Alexander, who detenured Law Prof Jill Adams for "not meet(ing) the expectations of the School of Law." From The Daily Egyptian: Chancellor Sam Goldman’s decision to go against a Fac..
July 3, 5:31 PM / Voir Dire / Which states have the best (and worst) high courts?Want to know? You'll have to check it out in a paper by the same name authored by Stephen Choi, G. Mitu Gulati, and Eric Posner. It's available on SSRN here . I tell you what, I'll give you the top five contenders for (best overall) state high courts and the abstract below the fold. Top 5 State Hig..
July 3, 5:07 PM / Feminist Law Professors / Missing GirlsGot back from China yesterday, and one thing my colleagues and I noticed was the (completely anecdotal) vast majority of the children anywhere we looked were male. We were told that the Chinese governmnet is considering modifying its “one child” policy such that couples who give birth..
July 3, 5:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Was the Declaration of Independence an Example of Secession, Revolution, or Both?Patri Friedman of seasteading fame, has an interesting post reopening an old debate: whether the Declaration of Independence launched a revolution or a secession movement. This was a hotly...
July 3, 5:02 PM / Legal Theory Blog / Linton on Judges, Transitional Justice, & the Rule of LawSuzannah Linton (University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law) has posted The Role of Judges in Dealing with the Legacies of the Past (The Global Community YILJ, Vol. 9, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper examines the role that judges can play in dealing with legacies of the past in countr..
July 3, 4:11 PM / Underbelly / Designated KickeeFor a blog that doesn't really like to think of itself as all that political, Underbelly has devoted an inordinate amount of ink over the last 10 months to the soon-to-be ex governor of Alaska. And before anybody reminds me, I was quick off the mark with the suggestion that she wouldn't make it to e..
July 3, 4:08 PM / Discourse.net / An Idea That is Growing on MeAs I prepare next year’s lecture notes, this idea keeps growing on me. But if it failed, it would fail horribly…. One of my favorite professors in college was a self-confessed liar. I guess that statement requires a bit of explanation. The topic of Corporate Finance/Capital Markets is, e..
July 3, 4:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Obama to Meet with Russian Opposition Leaders:Like Cathy Young, I worry that President Obama might be overly solicitous of the interests of Russia's authoritarian regime. In this respect, he could potentially repeat the mistakes of President...
July 3, 3:13 PM / Althouse / Sarah Palin resigns as Governor of Alaska!Well, that can only mean one thing, right?
July 3, 3:12 PM / Brian Leiter's Law School Reports / More Fun with SSRN DownloadsHere, covering schools ranked by US News in the low 20s to 100. Since it's the boring dog days of summer, and Inspired by Professor Crawford, here's how the US News "top 15" ranks according to gross SSRN downloads. The...
July 3, 2:50 PM / Althouse / Crack Emcee has a few more things he'd like to tell you about France...... and New Age and Oprah and "is it any surprise that France — this country with no black politicians but a backwards language — believes a kinda black, kinda American with no real qualifications... will, somehow, be capable of 'healing' the worlds problems by doing nothing - or the wrong thing - ..
July 3, 2:20 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / Immigration docket all tied up in knots"In its ruling, the 9th Circuit expressed concern about blaming a petitioner for delays caused by administrative agencies. Similar issues were raised in recent rulings by the 2d and 7th circuits, both of which sided with petitioners. "Here, the [judge] abused her discretion by failing to provide any..
July 3, 2:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / The limits of global legalism.The African Union has decided not to cooperate with the International Criminal Court, which has indicted Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity. The African Union has 53 members,...
July 3, 2:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Zero Money Down, Not Subprime Status, Leads Foreclosuresaccording to Stan Liebowitz, reporting in the WSJ today (Friday, July 3, 2009 not sure if publicly available) on a regression analysis he conducted of home mortgage foreclosures. I wonder...
July 3, 1:58 PM / Legal Theory Blog / Macklem on Recent Books on Cultural RightsPatrick Macklem (University of Toronto - Faculty of Law) has posted The Law and Politics of International Cultural Rights: A Review Essay of Elsa Stamatopoulou, Cultural Rights in International Law and Francesco Francioni and Martin Scheinin (eds.), Cultural Human Rights (International Journal on M..
July 3, 1:44 PM / Workplace Prof Blog / Targeting Employers Instead of EmployeesThe Obama administration has begun moving away from the well-publicized Bush administration criminal raids of undocumented workers. The enforcement emphasis is shifting instead to going after the employers who hire these workers--through civil sanctions, not criminal charges--in an acknowledgment th..
July 3, 1:40 PM / PrawfsBlawg / Constitutional BorrowingMany thanks to Dan and the rest of the Prawfs community for inviting me to join the conversation once more. Lately, I’ve been thinking about constitutional borrowing, which is the practice of lifting legal frameworks, standards, mechanisms, and the like from one area of constitutional law for use in..
July 3, 1:27 PM / How Appealing / "Flag Burning and Free Speech: The Founding Fathers agreed that the First Amendment protected 'symbolic expression.'""Flag Burning and Free Speech: The Founding Fathers agreed that the First Amendment protected 'symbolic expression.'" Law professor Eugene Volokh has this op-ed today in The Wall Street Journal.
July 3, 1:22 PM / PrawfsBlawg / Haberman et al on MadoffClyde Haberman, who writes the NYC column for the NYTimes, has a reaction piece in today's Times about the 150 year sentence for Madoff. He surveys views from a bunch of prawfs, including me. Needless to say, most of my reactions were unprintable and not consistent with family-friendly content, so t..
July 3, 1:10 PM / Althouse / "The salient thing about Franken isn’t that he used to be a satirist.""It's that he used to be a satirist who was so interested in politics that he transitioned to becoming a political satirist and then a candidate for office. All because he was really interested in the issues and wanted to make a difference. Most comedians probably aren’t very well-informed about po..
July 3, 1:04 PM / Althouse / Is bicycling bad for your bones?"Some of the racers, young men in their 20s, had osteopenia in their spines, a medical condition only one step below full-blown osteoporosis... [M]ost recreational cyclists probably don’t need to worry too much about their bones.... [Elite racers] train for hours at a very high intensity. They swea..
July 3, 1:00 PM / TaxProf Blog / Like-Kind Exchanges and Qualified IntermediariesBradley T. Borden (Washburn), Paul L.B. McKenney (Varnum, Novi, MI) & David Shechtman (Drinker Biddle & Reath, Philadelphia) have posted Like-Kind Exchanges and Qualified Intermediaries, 123 Tax Notes ___ (July 6, 2009), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The economic downturn has depressed the real est..
July 3, 12:54 PM / Althouse / Café Café.The way things look from Madison, Wisconsin...
July 3, 12:09 PM / Essentially Contested America / Shouldn't Judges Use the Same Interpretive Methodology?Isn't there something peculiar about judges using different interpretive methodologies in constitutional adjudication? If constitutional judgments are objective, inter-subjective, or in some other way reliable across judges, shouldn't the form of reasoning and interpretation generating the judgments..
July 3, 12:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Second-guessing the Second AmendmentThat's the title of this week's Independence Day cover story in the Boulder Weekly. Among the articles which you can read on-line are a pair of pro/con essays on Second...
July 3, 12:05 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / Aircraft repair jobs sold to foreign workers, resumes not important"A News 8 investigation found that hundreds of aircraft mechanics have been brought into the United States to work at aircraft repair facilities. Insiders say the companies that are importing the mechanics are so eager to save money, theyâre overstating their qualifications. The result may be a th..
July 3, 12:05 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / As American as apple pie"Immigration authorities have postponed for one year the deportation of Walter Lara, an immigrant from Argentina who said he had come to the United States illegally with his parents when he was 3, officials said. Mr. Lara, an honors graduate of high school and community college in Miami, was the foc..
July 3, 12:05 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / Border agency cracking down on fake documents at crossings"Foreign nationals caught using fraudulent documents to enter the country through the San Luis port of entry are now being prosecuted for identity theft. Since January, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has initiated a zero-tolerance policy targeting those who use false identification to cross ..
July 3, 12:05 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / Defying Conventional Wisdom in DC, GOP Voters Support Comprehensive Immigration Reform"Republican voters ... overwhelmingly support comprehensive immigration reform, reject enforcement-only approaches and believe that comprehensive reform will help the economy." America's Voice, July 2, 2009.
July 3, 12:05 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / ICE audits 32 Arizona companies over hiring"[L]andscaping businesses, a construction company, and a retail company - were given three business days to turn over the employment-eligibility forms, known as I-9s, for all present and past employees, Pace said. The businesses were also told to turn over other employment records." Arizona Republic..
July 3, 12:05 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / Passport fix near for US border midwife deliveries"Citizens delivered by midwives along the U.S.-Mexico border will get to reapply for passports for free under a tentative settlement with the State Department over stalled applications. U.S. District Judge Randy Crane gave preliminary agreement Wednesday to the settlement. He also gave the lawsuit b..
July 3, 12:05 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / Poll: Majority of Republicans support 'amnesty'"A new national survey confirms our most recent polls that the majority of Americans support comprehensive immigration reform. But what's most interesting about this polling data from the Benenson Strategy Group is that 62 percent of Republicans polled say that illegal immigrants should be allowed t..
July 3, 12:00 PM / TaxProf Blog / Ayers: The Undertraining of Lawyers and its Effect on the Advancement of Women and MinoritiesIrene Segal Ayers (NYU) has posted The Undertraining of Lawyers and its Effect on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in the Legal Profession, 3 Duke Forum L. & Soc. Change ___ (2009), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The undertraining of law students documented in a century’s worth of...
July 3, 11:15 AM / Underbelly / Arnold the Populist?I certainly agree with Politico in saying that California is a mess, but where, exactly, do they come off saying that Arnold "swept into office on a wave of populist fervor"? Arnold was in fact a perfectly credible candidate and by any reasonable standard, a centrist. Stuck between sclerotic Democra..
July 3, 11:13 AM / Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog / Integration and Competition between Transport and Logistics BusinessesPosted by D. Daniel Sokol The OECD has released Integration and Competition between Transport and Logistics Businesses. ABSTRACT: The Round Table, chaired by Russell Pittman of the US Department of Justice, reviewed trends in horizontal and vertical integration in logistics...
July 3, 11:09 AM / Nancy Rapoport's Blogspot / A fresh take on rankingsBridget Crawford has a fascinating post at Feminist Law Professors regarding ranking law schools using SSRN downloads ( here ). Hat tip to Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog for this one. Thanks, Paul! Another ranking system that I'm eagerly anticipating is Green Bag's Deadwood Report ( here ). Frankly, I'..
July 3, 10:58 AM / Althouse / At the Green Pond Café...Be cool. Reflect.
July 3, 10:44 AM / How Appealing / "Obama uneasy over indefinite Gitmo detentions""Obama uneasy over indefinite Gitmo detentions": The Associated Press has this report .
July 3, 10:42 AM / How Appealing / "Tennessee Wins Ruling on Execution""Tennessee Wins Ruling on Execution": JohN Schwartz has this article today in The New York Times. And The Associated Press reports that " 6th Circuit backs up lethal injections; Death row inmate Harbison plans to appeal new ruling ." My earlier coverage of yesterday's Sixth Circuit ruling appears a..
July 3, 10:38 AM / How Appealing / "For Hispanic Firefighter in Bias Suit, Awkward Position but Firm Resolve""For Hispanic Firefighter in Bias Suit, Awkward Position but Firm Resolve": This article appears today in The New York Times.
July 3, 10:28 AM / Underbelly / Quote of the Day Week WhateverGod killed Michael Jackson to save your ass -- and you gave another interview?!? --Jon Stewart to Mark Sanford HT TPM (with cute headline).
July 3, 10:25 AM / How Appealing / "Alex Kozinski admonished for raunchy Internet files; The 9th Circuit's chief judge showed 'poor judgment,' panel finds""Alex Kozinski admonished for raunchy Internet files; The 9th Circuit's chief judge showed 'poor judgment,' panel finds": Scott Glover has this article today in The Los Angeles Times. Today in The San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Egelko reports that " Judge Alex Kozinski rebuked for explicit postings ...
July 3, 10:24 AM / SCOTUSblog / The President, on long-term detentionPresident Obama, in a press interview on Thursday, said it would give him “huge pause” to create a new system of long-term detention without trial of terrorism suspects. After a flurry of news accounts, floating unattributed reports that the President would set up such a system by Exec..
July 3, 10:20 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Mantouvalou on the N. v. United KingdomVirginia Mantouvalou (University of Leicester - Faculty of Law) has posted N v UK: No Duty to Rescue the Nearby Needy? on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article discusses the deportation of a seriously ill foreign national to her country of origin, where she would face a high risk of extreme dete..
July 3, 10:13 AM / Althouse / "The real story has as much to do with journalistic irrelevance as journalistic integrity."Roger Kimball on WaPo's Pimpsalongate. I made up "Pimpsalongate." It's just a placeholder coinage. Help me out here! IN THE COMMENTS: Curtiss has "All the President's Pimps."
July 3, 9:58 AM / Out of the Jungle / typetextI am still catching up on my reading after being on vacation. Last night, I read an article in the May 25 issue of New York magazine by Sam Anderson entitled "In Defense of Distraction." Anderson launches the article with a discussion of multitasking and its effects on attention. As a teacher, I hav..
July 3, 9:50 AM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / New ICE Audit Targets 652 BusinessesAnn Allott of Allott Immigration Firm, author of the first employer guide on the new Form I-9 published this year by LexisNexis Matthew Bender, said the increased focus on employers is proof that the Obama administration is delivering on the presidentâs promise to hold businesses accountable for t..
July 3, 9:50 AM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / The addictive, improbable rush of hope"It is a milestone in any nationâs life when leaving becomes a choice, not a necessity." Anand Giridharadas, July 2, 2009.
July 3, 9:31 AM / Althouse / Krauthammer on Ricci v. DeStefano." Ricci raised the bar considerably on overt discrimination against one racial group simply to undo the unintentionally racially skewed results of otherwise fair and objective employment procedures (in this case, examinations). It's not enough for a city to say, as did New Haven, that it was afraid..
July 3, 9:24 AM / Althouse / "For Once, Cynthia McKinney's Problems Really Are Caused by the J-E-W-S."A headline.
July 3, 9:22 AM / Althouse / Cabaret Recessionista.A just-noted style.
July 3, 9:11 AM / Prettier Than Napoleon / Money can't buy me loveWhat are the ten most expensive things you have paid for? What are the ten things you have bought that made you happiest? Is there overlap ? On both my lists: International travel : Belize, Western Europe, and Japan especially. Designer clothes : Because I am vain and it gives me great pleasure to l..
July 3, 9:07 AM / The Volokh Conspiracy / The Freedom of Speech and Symbolic Expression:I have an op-ed on the subject in the Wall Street Journal this morning, based on my Georgetown Law Journal article....
July 3, 8:53 AM / Althouse / "What exactly is wrong with making a movie accurate?""And since when does an authentic film translate as an 'art' film?" What really happened to Soderbergh's "Moneyball"?
July 3, 8:38 AM / Food Law Prof Blog / FDA to study consumer reactions to front-of-package nutrition labelsThis came from Food Label News: FDA is proposing to conduct an experimental study to assess quantitative consumer reactions to front-of-package nutrition symbols. The proposed study is described in the June 1, 2009, Federal Register. In part the study design...
July 3, 8:34 AM / Food Law Prof Blog / Shipping wine across state lines -- but not to New YorkThis one is from Wine Spectator: Federal Court Tells Out-of-State Wine Stores to Stay Out of New York . . . A three-judge panel on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that New York's law permitting in-state retailers...
July 3, 8:31 AM / Althouse / The 23-year-old wife of the actor Gary Coleman was arrested for domestic violence, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.Coleman is 41. I'll do the math for you: (21 ÷ 2) + 7 = 27.5. Nevertheless, crimes are crimes, and we are all responsible for our own behavior.
July 3, 8:30 AM / Food Law Prof Blog / Changing definitions of organicFrom the Washington Post: Purity of Federal 'Organic' Label Is Questioned Three years ago, U.S. Department of Agriculture employees determined that synthetic additives in organic baby formula violated federal standards and should be banned from a product carrying the federal...
July 3, 8:24 AM / Althouse / "J.D. Salinger invented blogs, according to a federal judge...""... who granted a temporary injunction yesterday against John David California's planned 'parody' of Catcher in the Rye." That's Gawker's take on the judicial opinion that said: Both narratives are told from the first-person point of view of a sarcastic, often uncouth protagonist who relies heavily..
July 3, 8:20 AM / Althouse / I don't know what you watch on TV...... but I watched "I Was Bitten."
July 3, 8:18 AM / Althouse / "Widespread violence broke out... after somebody threw a dead pig..."... in Mysore Thursday.
July 3, 8:13 AM / Althouse / "I was still attached to a whole row of seats. It was rotating much like the helicopter and that might have slowed the fall.""... I landed [on] very thick foliage and that might have lessened the impact.... I didn't wake up until nine o'clock the next morning. I know this because my watch was still working. So I must have been unconscious the whole afternoon and the night. When I came to I was alone, just me ... and my r..
July 3, 8:09 AM / Althouse / Is this honeymoon wearing you out?At this point, it hurts and there's a worrisome burning sensation.
July 3, 8:05 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Albert on the Nonwithstanding Clause in the Canadian ConstitutionRichard Albert (Boston College - Law School) has posted Advisory Review: The Reincarnation of the Notwithstanding Clause (Alberta Law Review, Vol. 45, No. 4, 2008) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Notwithstanding Clause is the cornerstone of our Canadian constitutional architecture. It merges par..
July 3, 8:03 AM / Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog / Measuring Market Power in the French Comté Cheese MarketPosted by D. Daniel Sokol In a delicious analysis, Pierre R. Mérel, University of California, Davis - Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics undertakes Measuring Market Power in the French Comté Cheese Market. ABSTRACT: A new empirical industrial organisation approach...
July 3, 8:00 AM / Althouse / Remember...... Grunge ?
July 3, 7:51 AM / Althouse / I started a meme...... which started the whole world pinking. *** I wish I could get my tag "pink" not to always want to auto-complete into "Code Pink," like an unwanted and lamely inarticulate protest.
July 3, 7:48 AM / TaxProf Blog / SSRN Faculty Rankings (Law Schools Ranked 22-100 in U.S. News)Tax Prof Bridget Crawford (Pace) has prepared a faculty scholarship rankingby recent SSRN downloads (following Brian Leiter's methodology) of the law schools ranked 23-100 in U.S. News by recent SSRN downloads, along with the Top 3 faculty by this measure at each of these schools. The Top 10 schools..
July 3, 7:48 AM / PrawfsBlawg / Limiting Online Provider ImmunityMy last post argued that Section 230 should be reinterpreted to immunize only content that comes from third parties via the interactive service offered by providers. This would clear up many of the conflicts in the law, though providers would still be immune from some reprehensible conduct of its us..
July 3, 7:47 AM / Law & Humanities Blog / Themes of Justice and Ethics in Langston HughesRobert L. Tsai, American University College of Law, has published "Langston Hughes: The Ethics of Melancholy Citizenship." Here is the abstract. As a body of work, the poetry of Langston Hughes presents a vision of how members of a political community ought to comport themselves, particularly when p..
July 3, 7:37 AM / PrawfsBlawg / Thinking Like an Entrepreneur or a Lawyer?If you are interested in the intersection of entrepreneurship and the law, the Kauffman Foundation, the leading sponsor of entrepreneurship development in the country, has funded an Entrepreneurship Law resource on its website, www.entrepreneurship.org. This includes teaching materials. (I think I c..
July 3, 7:37 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Lister on Reciprocity & Justice as FairnessAndrew D. Lister (Queen's University) has posted Justice and Reciprocity on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper addresses the question of when and why duties are conditional on compliance on the part of others, by examining the role of reciprocity in Rawls's theory of justice. In particular, it ..
July 3, 7:28 AM / Out of the Jungle / New Delhi High Court Decriminalizes Gay SexualityThe New York Times reported yesterday that New Delhi's High Court overturned a colonial law from 1861 criminalizing homosexual behavior. Before that time, Indian law did not apparently address same sex behavior. “The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspe..
July 3, 7:26 AM / Legal History Blog / McAffee on Treanor on Amar on the 9th AmendmentTaking History Seriously: Reflections on a Critique of Amar's Treatment of the Ninth Amendment in His Work on the Bill of Rights is a new paper by Thomas McAffee, William S. Boyd School of Law, UNLV. Here's the abstract:Dean William Treanor critiques constitutional textualism, contending that it pay..
July 3, 7:24 AM / Out of the Jungle / Rare New Copy of the Declaration of IndependenceJust in time for Independence Day, British researchers say they have found and verified a rare original copy of the American Declaration of Independence. It appears to be from the first printing, the Dunlap printing, which may only have numbered 200 or so, to be distributed to the leaders of the tim..
July 3, 7:22 AM / The Faculty Lounge / Luckiest ManReaders may recall this post during my stint in March as a guest blogger, when I discussed Michael Goldsmith (one of my BYU law profs, and pictured), his battle with ALS, and his Newsweek editorial that prompted (at least in part) Major League Baseball to use the upcoming 70th anniversary of Lou Ge..
July 3, 7:20 AM / Feminist Law Professors / Susan Williams on “Feminist Theory and Freedom of Speech”Susan W illiams , the William W. Foskett Professor of Law at Indiana Maurer School of Law has published her article, Feminist Theory and Freedom of Speech , 84 Ind. L.J. 999 (2009). The article was previously published in French as Theorie feministe et liberte d'expression , in La Liberte D'Express..
July 3, 7:00 AM / proSOXblog - Headline News / Commissioner Paredes and His Anti-Governance Stance: Opposition Rather than CooperationWe are discussing the recent speech given by Commissioner Paredes before the conference sponsored by the Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness at the Chamber of Commerce. The speech is conveniently posted on the Harvard Corporate Governance site. We will leave aside his contention that s..
July 3, 4:55 AM / Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog / Google Under Inquiry by DOJPosted by D. Daniel Sokol Today's NY Times reports that the DOJ was reviewing the Google book settlement. The Wall Street Journal has a similar article.
July 3, 4:37 AM / Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog / Finance, Competition and Governance: Priorities for Reform and Strategies to Phase-Out Emergency MeasuresPosted by D. Daniel Sokol The OECD has published Finance, Competition and Governance: Priorities for Reform and Strategies to Phase-Out Emergency Measures. ABSTRACT: This report describes issues that must be addressed to restore public confidence in financial markets and to...
July 3, 3:26 AM / Crooked Timber / Rousseau podcastA couple of weeks ago, I gave a public lecture in Bristol on the subject of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his continued relevance to modern society and political philosophy. Undoubtedly mileages will vary on that question, but anyone who wants to hear my take on it can listen to a podcast . (The lectur..
July 3, 3:22 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Frieden on Net Neutrality & Freedom of SpeechRob Frieden (Pennsylvania State University - College of Communications) has posted Invoking and Avoiding the First Amendment: How Internet Service Providers Leverage Their Status as Both Content Creators and Neutral Conduits on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Much of the policy debate and scholarly lit..
July 3, 3:00 AM / TaxProf Blog / Camp: Protecting Trust Assets from the Federal Tax LienBryan Camp (Texas Tech) has published Protecting Trust Assets from the Federal Tax Lien, 1 Est. Plan. & Community Prop. L.J. 295 (2009). Here is the abstract: One common issue facing those who create trusts is how to protect beneficiaries from creditors. One of the biggest, baddest creditors out the..
July 3, 2:01 AM / Dorf on Law / Sabbatical in Ithaca (mostly)One of the most important features of academic life is the research sabbatical. For any professor, being able to set aside teaching temporarily to focus exclusively on one's scholarship is an opportunity to be cherished. Doing so in a new locale (or locales), interacting with scholars at different u..