Continuing on the American theme from Helen’s conference post below, I thought I might mention this amusing First Amendment case, Purtell v Mason. I’ll let Sykes J from the Seventh Circuit of the United State Court of Appeals introduce the story: Read more »
Apparently a New York man is suing an airline for US$2mill because the pilot forced him to sit on a toilet during part of the flight. He was given a last minute seat on a plane, but then a flight attendant complained her jump seat was uncomfortable, so the pilot moved him to the toilet so she could use his seat. Read more »
Tyler Cowen gave last night’s keynote address at the Institute for Human Studies Fellows’ Research Colloquium, and in it he revealed a selection of five ‘libertarian heresies’. Three of them particularly struck me. Read more »
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I’ve been puzzling about international humanitarian interventions lately, in part because my daughter Bec is in the middle of a uni assignment on the subject, but mostly because as I write this Robert Mugabe continues to terrorise and impoverish his own people in Zimbabwe while the equally odious military junta in Burma sits on its collective hands while its people starve and die of rampant but readily preventable diseases in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. Read more »
Another reason why I have been a bit distracted lately… after two years of my own little blog, I am moving my blogging services elsewhere.
I have decided to accept an offer to team up with Skepticlawyer (Helen Dale) from Catallaxy, and we are setting up a joint blog, Skepticlawyer. It goes live today! We are both lawyers (obviously) but we have quite different political slants - it just makes for more fun, really - the main thing is that we enjoy each other’s posts. Read more »
What a crazy situation:
In late 2006, Darrell Roberson came home from a late-night card game to find his scantily clad wife with another man in a pickup in the driveway. Tracy Roberson was with her lover but cried rape, and her husband fired four shots into the truck as Devin LaSalle drove off, killing him.
Darrell Roberson was arrested, but a murder charge was dropped, and a grand jury indicted Tracy Roberson instead.
The wife has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and faces between 2 and 20 years in gaol. Read more »
2,370 warrant requests granted in 2007, up 9% from 2006, to search or eavesdrop on suspected terrorists and spies in the U.S.
9,254 national security letters issued in 2005; 12,583 in 2006 (data for 2007 is not yet available). Such letters request information like your bank account details and telephone usage, but do not rely on a court order and are issued without informing the person spied upon. Read more »
While I’m quite a fan of allohistory, I rarely engage in it because (a) I’m not very good at it and (b) it’s rather self-indulgent. But like most indulgences, it’s a bit of harmless fun and it won’t make you go blind. Read more »
… to establish a new star in the Ozblogging firmament.
Helen Dale aka skepticlawyer and Legal Eagle have teamed up to start a new blog - skepticlawyer by name. Read more »
This piece had its origins in a pair of posts written by Don Arthur over at Club Troppo, and followed up by Andrew Norton, Andrew Leigh, Will Wi Read more »
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