Washington is electric this morning. It is morning in America as literally billions around the world celebrate the Inauguration of our 44th President.
Continue reading “OUR 44TH PRESIDENT”
Category: Academia
U.S. News and World Report has long been the dominant ranking of law schools. However, there is competition from groups that disagree with the factors weighed by the magazine. One such competing ranking is done each year at Cooley Law School, which released the annual results this week below.
Continue reading “New Law School Rankings Released By Cooley”
Students at Tioga High School in Groveland, California should receive extra credit for civics. The Big Oak Flat-Groveland School Board fired Math teacher Ryan Dutton for alleged plagiarism while a student teacher at Cal State Fresno. The University says the allegations were unfounded but the school board refused to reconsider its decision, so the students organized a recall campaign and tossed out the entire school board.
Continue reading “School Board Fires Popular Math Teacher; Students Fire School Board”
A Billing. Montana bus driver took her kids on an unscheduled field trip when she stopped at a liquor school to load up and then asked a student to help hide a bottle when the cops stopped the bus.
Richard Sharpe was once one of the most accomplishment medical academics, holding a seat on the Harvard Medical School and earning millions from business enterprises as a dermatologist. However, the cross-dressing doctor killed his wife in 2000 in front of witnesses and was sentenced to life in prison. This week, he succeeded in committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell in Norfolk, Massachusetts.
Continue reading “Former Harvard Medical School Professor Hangs Himself in Jail Cell”
The California Supreme Court has ruled that probationers must disclose any pets — great or small — in their possession or risk going back to prison. In a 5-2 ruling, Chief Justice Ronald George held that
“[p]ets residing with probationers have the potential to distract, impede and endanger probation officers.” The ruling includes anything from a goldfish to a hamster to a Rottweiler. Even Angelfish and Lovebirds must register. The wheels of justice have caught up to hamsters.
Continue reading “Collie Contraband: California Supreme Court Upholds Mandatory Disclosure of All Pets of Probationers — Great and Small”
Wal-Mart Corporation already has a dark reputation for its treatment of employees, wiping out of small local businesses, and thuggish litigation practices. Now, it has decided to go to war with historians in trying to force through a huge store in the middle of one of the most important historical areas from the Civil War — the Wilderness Battlefield. As in other such cases, it has convinced local businesses to accept a Faustian bargain of the promise of taxes and jobs in return for destroying the unique character of the area.
Continue reading “Discounting History: Wal-Mart Declares War on U.S. History”
In an impressive verdict, Alissa Zwick a former dental student at the University of Michigan has won a $1.72 million verdict with punitive damages from four faculty members (Dr. Marilyn Lantz, an associate dean, and Drs. Bill Piskorowski, Mark Snyder and Fred Burgett) for her dismissal for alleged academic deficiencies. It is a rare verdict in an area generally left to the discretion of faculty.
Well, the results are in and weeks of defamatory attacks on our opposing bloggers and the unrestrained use of the politics of personal destruction have paid off: the Turley blog was voted the Number One law professor blog and legal theory blog in the annual survey of the American Bar Association’s survey. Earlier, it was selected as one of the top 100 legal blogs overall. That is not bad for a blog that is only roughly a year old and it is entirely due to our regulars at the cyber bar we called the Turley blog. Your overindulgence, obsessive compulsiveness, and general lack of restraint have made us what we are today, a group of dysfunctional miscreants. But we are now the Number One dysfunctional miscreants in our category. Well done Team Turley (if I may be so bold). Not to overplay the victory, but this is the first key step to total blogosphere domination and eventual control of the time space continuum.
Continue reading “TURLEY BLOG WINS TOP SPOT IN ABA JOURNAL SURVEY”
Happy New Year to everyone on the Turley blog. This has been an extraordinary first year of the blog which is approaching two million hits annually. The success of the blog is due largely to our regulars who continue to make this one of the smartest and most fun blogs on the web. Even with the invasion by trolls and a few uncivil moments, the blog has remained a special forum for intelligent, civil, and often witty discourse. Our impressive monthly growth (and the obvious irritation of trolls) is a testament to the fact that there remains many people who want to engage in such dialogue. 2008 was our first full year in operation and I am very grateful for the contributions of all of the regulars on this blog.
My recent interview on Legal Times on prosecuting Bush Administration officials for crimes committed in the torture program and unlawful surveillance program has attracted the ire of some conservative law faculty. My colleague Orin Kerr has raised this question on the conservative legal website Volokh Conspiracy. It is not without a good faith basis for such academic debate but, in my view, it should not be a barrier to prosecution.
The voting continues on the top blogs. The Turley blog was selected as one of the 100 top legal blogs by the good people at the ABA Journal. It currently holds the number one spot for law professor and legal theory blogs. The tally shows the Turley blog with 387 votes with Mirror of Justice with 234 votes. The voting ends on January 2nd. You have done well Turley bloggers.
Continue reading “The Turley Blog Leads in Vote on Best Law Professor and Legal Theory Blogs”
An Egyptian court has sentenced math teacher Haitham Nabeel Abdelhamid, 23, to six years after he beat Islam Amr Badr, 11, for not completing his homework. The boy died.
Continue reading “Teacher Beats 11-Year-Old Boy to Death for Not Doing Homework — Get Six years”
Best wishes to everyone celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah. Our kids get to double dip on both holidays in a play to spread our bets between the two religions of the parents. We have just finished placing the last present under the tree in Chicago. We can now look forward to three hours of sleep before the C-Day invasion. As my gift to you, I have linked a truly inspirational holiday video: Jingle Bells played on microwave ovens below.
Continue reading “Happy Holidays!”
There are objections being raised on how school officials have responded to the discovery of a young boy and girl having sex in a stairwell at Francis Pastorius Elementary School in Philadelphia before Thanksgiving: the boy, Walter Goss (13), was expelled but the girl was allowed to continue at the school.
Continue reading “Pastorius Elementary: Boy and Girl Caught Having Sex in Stairwell So School Suspends the Boy”