Below is today’s column (one of two columns today on the Supreme Court) addressing the troubling exclusion of schools other than Harvard and Yale on the Supreme Court — a type of academic cartel that is damaging to both that institution and our educational and legal systems generally. Click here for the other column in USA Today. Time Magazine also ran a long story on the reliance on graduates from Harvard and Yale, here.
Continue reading “Supreme Monopoly: Kagan’s Nomination Confirms The Lack of Educational Diversity on The Court”
Matthew Ray Creel, 21, has a curious legal file. Police in Santa Fe found marijuana stuffed inside papers in his car — his deferred adjudication order for possession of marijuana from March.
Continue reading “Rolling Papers: Texas Man Arrested After Police Find Pot Wrapped In Legal Papers From Prior Drug Arrest”
I found this CBS story to be truly amazing. Dave Hartsock is a skydiving instructor who jumped in tandem with Shirley Dygert of Teague, Texas. When their first chute failed to open and the second chute became tangled, Hartsock positioned himself under Dygert to break her fall. They both survived but Hartsock is paralyzed for life.
Continue reading “Meet Dave Hartsock”
Only a month after the Supreme Court ruled that a 7-foot-tall metal cross could remain as the Mojave Desert War Memorial, it has been stolen. The 75-year-old war memorial disappeared overnight from the National Park Service site.
Continue reading “Thieves Steal Cross That Was The Subject of Recent Supreme Court Ruling”
Below is today’s USA Today column on the confirmation process. This is one of two columns today (the other column ran in the L.A. Times) on the Kagan nomination.
Continue reading “The Confirmation Process: No Way To Select The Judicial MVP”
The District Attorney has cleared Chino police Cpl. Claudia Lisner in killing an innocent man, Daniel Balandran, 23, because he was wearing the same colored shirt as a suspect in a pizzeria robbery.
Russian investigators have concluded that a 23-year-old police officer killed himself when he scratched his nose . . . with a loaded gun. The officer was found under his desk with a fatal head wound.
Continue reading “Itchy Trigger Finger or Simple Suicide? Russian Officer Reportedly Shoots Himself In The Head By Scratching Nose With Loaded Gun”
The Russian government was reportedly unhappy with international legal obligations in their trial of pirates captured off of Somalia — particularly with the possible demand of the pirates to stay in Moscow. Their solution? They let the pirates go . . . 300 miles from shore after removing all of their navigation equipment. They are now presumed dead.
India’s economic boom has resulted in not just tremendous growth in the country but tremendous advances for women. Now, however, Muslim clerics have issued a fatwa to bar women from working or mixing with men in the workplace. The clerics also took time to condemn hair dye as unIslamic.
Continue reading “Indian Fatwa Issued Against Women Working With Men and Hair Dye”
We have been following the lawsuit (now dropped) against a writer in England by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) for his criticism of their profession. Now, Samsung is suing a columnist for making from of its executives, who have been involved in a series of criminal cases and controversies. Michael Breen with the Korea Times is being sued for defamation for a parody by the electronic giant. The company is pursuing both civil and criminal charges against Breen — a move that seems to struggle to confirm the arrogance and heavy-handedness alleged in the column.
President Barack Obama said he wanted to honor the legacy of Associate Justice John Paul Stevens with his nominee. If so, he has chosen to honor it in the breach with a nominee who is likely to dismantle a significant part of Stevens’ legacy. As with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama has decided to nominate someone who is demonstrably more conservative than the person she is replacing on some issues –potentially moving the Court to the right. I discussed on the nomination on this segment of Countdown.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has hired 200 people to help him tweet as part of his account “chavezcandanga,” which has more than 237,000 followers. He has much to tweet about as inflation has now reached 30 percent in the country, which Chavez blames on the “bourgeoisie.”
Continue reading “All A Twitter: Chavez Hires 200 People To Tweet For Him”
Iran hanged on Sunday five militants convicted of bombing government offices and a gas pipeline. What is fascinating is that such militants, including a woman Shirin Alamhouli, are defined by the medieval Iranian system as “enemies of God.”
Continue reading “Iran Hangs Five “Enemies of God””
This is why Mother’s Day should not just be confined to humans.
Continue reading “In Praise of Mothers of All Kind”
Happy Mother’s Day to all! We have always prided ourselves on having the best mothers at this blog. While we have respect for those other mothers, our mothers are demonstrably a cut above your average run-of-the-mill mother.
Continue reading “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY”