Academic

Literary Warrant [34]

Posted on August 06, 2008
Another grey image: Hurricane, MiamiCenter for Public Integrity, Perils of the New Pesticides (July 30, 2008)"Pyrethrins, extracted from the chrysanthemum plant, and their synthetic relatives, pyrethroids, have exploded in popularity over the last decade...

Literary Warrant [33]

Posted on July 31, 2008
Grey Sky, Sea and Speedboat, Dominic's pics, Brighton, EnglandKeith Collins, Kraft Foods Global, Inc., The Role of Biofuels and Other Factors in Increasing Farm and Food Prices: A Review of Recent Developments with a Focus on Feed Grain Markets and Market Prospects (June 2008)"This paper reviews various studies that have examined the relationship between corn used in ethanol production and corn prices...

Engineered beauty

Posted on July 23, 2008
Each year Microsoft invites students and staff at the University of Cambridge's engineering department to submit photos that are "beautiful, fascinating, intriguing, amusing, or possibly all of these things." Here are nine images, including the three winners, from the 2008 Microsoft Photography Competition...

Access to knowledge: further building blocks

Posted on July 21, 2008
As promised in my first post on access to knowledge (A2K), I am pleased to provide links to Lea Shaver's forthcoming paper, Defining and Measuring A2K: A Blueprint for an Index of Access to Knowledge, and to the PowerPoint presentation that Lea made at this year's American Association of Law Libraries meeting in Portland.

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Literary Warrant [32]

Posted on July 21, 2008
Marino Pliakas, Michael Wertmüller & Peter BrötzmannRobert Bamberger, Specialist in Energy Policy, Resources, Sciences, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service (CRS), The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: History, Perspectives, and Issues (Order Code RL33341) (Updated May 15, 2008)"Congress authorized the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA, P...

Annabelle

Posted on July 19, 2008
Within the expressive idiom of American folk music, is there a more compelling example of literary naturalism than Gillian Welch's 1996 ballad, Annabelle  (on Revival)?In previous blog posts, in this forum and on MoneyLaw, I've come close to answering the question...

Quantifying access to knowledge

Posted on July 17, 2008
A2KHerewith Access to Knowledge: Defining and Measuring Economic, Legal, and Human Capital , my contribution to a July 13, 2008, program called International Law and the Evolving Knowledge Society at the 2008 meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries...

Classroom 2.0

Posted on July 09, 2008
By way of Red Lion Reports and TaxProf, I've learned about, and am now pleased to rebroadcast, the following lecture:Professor Michael WeschA Portal to Media LiteracyUniversity of Manitoba, June 17, 2008Dubbed ?the explainer? by popular geek publication Wired because of his viral YouTube video that summarizes Web 2...

Truth and beauty: A legal translation

Posted on July 08, 2008
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of NightHas flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caughtThe Sultán?s Turret in a Noose of Light.— Edward FitzGerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)Truth and Beauty: A Legal Translationhttp://ssrn...

Lowering the costs of switching between Windows and Mac

Posted on July 07, 2008
For years I've resisted switching from the world of Microsoft-powered computers to that of Apple, the Mac, and Leopard OS. Not out of any belief in Microsoft's technological superiority, mind you — I am firmly convinced of Microsoft's inferiority — but rather out of fear that the switching costs would be prohibitive...

New Mexico bans cockfighting

Posted on July 05, 2008
New Mexico bans cockfighting. When a ban takes effect in Louisiana in August, cockfighting will be illegal in all 50 states.Fuller details available on Agricultural Law.

I reaffirm my allegiance

Posted on July 04, 2008
Editor's note: The following letter, I Reaffirm My Allegiance, was originally published in the Washington Post on July 4, 1976:What am I?I am a free man — a good and decent man — a man of compassion, generosity, and understanding — a true friend, a steadfast ally, and a bitter foe...

I wish it would rain

Posted on July 02, 2008
Nanci Griffith, I Wish It Would Rain, on Little Love Affairs (1988)Chorus:Oh, I wish it would rainAnd wash my face cleanI want to find some dark cloud to hide in hereLove in a memorySparkled like diamondsWhen the diamonds fall . . . they burn like tearsWhen the diamonds fall ...

Rock 'n' roll federal courts

Posted on June 30, 2008
Bedrock(er)s of American lawThis multimedia post serves as a sequel to Rock 'n' Roll Law School — the SSRN download as well as the Jurisdynamics entry. Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice and Adam Liptak of the New York Times have extracted maximum musical value out of one passage in Chief Justice John Roberts's dissent in Sprint Communications Co...

Amazing grace, in the key of black

Posted on June 29, 2008
» Cross-posted at Danzig U.S.A. «Negro Spiritual Singers, from the Works Progress Administration's Federal Music Project, entertained King George VI and Queen Mary at the White House, June 8, 1939.addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart— Ephesians 5:19, RSVThe Negro spiritual is a powerful and influential art form...

Poverty and natural disasters

Posted on June 27, 2008
Herewith the RealPlayer video of my February 16, 2007, presentation (alongside Daniel A. Farber) on Poverty and Natural Disasters, during the Law & Inequality Symposium: The Next 25 Years. I have summarized these thoughts in an essay called Law Among the Ruins (previously discussed on Jurisdynamics)...

Mountain of sorrow

Posted on June 27, 2008
One wistful Nanci Griffith cover on MoneyLaw merits a musical response in the form of a wistful Nanci Griffith tune on Jurisdynamics: Nanci Griffith Mountain of Sorrow Hearts in Mind (2005) Easy come, easy go Anything but easy . . . though You were here, now you?re gone That?s the only thing I know And it?s just one more sorrow To throw upon the heap Mountain of sorrow ...

AIDS as a global disaster

Posted on June 26, 2008
  IFRC, Our world, together against HIV  ?The link between vulnerability to HIV and humanitarian disaster has long been recognized; yet we have been slow as a global community in proactively involving organizations in the humanitarian world in the fight against HIV and AIDS...

Le Bassin aux Nymphéas

Posted on June 25, 2008
Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.— Claude Monet (1840-1926)Carol Vogel, Le Bassin aux Nymphéas is sold for a record $80.4 million , New York Times (June 25, 2008)An important work by Claude Monet has set a record price at auction...

Homage to Lampyridae

Posted on June 24, 2008
As with the photographer who snapped the shot above, this too is my favorite part of summer. The season with the least amount of dark offsets that deficit by allowing the meekest lights among us to rule the night. Hail Lampyridae; long may you glow.

George Carlin

Posted on June 23, 2008
George Carlin has died. A Prawfsblawg post by Howard Wasserman featured this video of Carlin's Seven Dirty Words routine:Howard Wasserman's broader point regarding Carlin's legal legacy is squarely on target. There simply is no way to reconcile FCC v...

Rock 'n' roll law school

Posted on June 20, 2008
Joan Jett loves rock 'n' roll. So do I. And so should the Supreme Court. Herewith Rock 'n' Roll Law School, 12 Constitutional Commentary 315 (315), plus part of its accompanying soundtrack:

Banana twilight

Posted on June 19, 2008
A widely read and frantically e-mailed New York Times story has opened many new eyes to a horticultural disaster anticipated for many years: the commercial extinction of the Cavendish banana. Dan Koeppel's warning is right on target:By sticking to [a] single variety, the banana industry ensures that all the bananas in a shipment ripen at the same rate, creating huge economies of scale...

Euro 2008: Take it to the next level

Posted on June 16, 2008
By way of Red Lion Reports, I've learned of Nike Soccer's video celebrating Euro 2008. Click the Euro 2008 logo accompanying this post or this link to watch Take It to the Next Level.

What it's like: Everlasting empathy

Posted on June 12, 2008
It has been ten years since Everlast issued What It's Like, but the song still resonates. Even more so in a hotly contested political season that coincides with some of the toughest economic times in recent American history.Everlast, What It's Like , Whitey Ford Sings the Blues (1998)We've all seen the man at the liquor store begging for your changeThe hair on his face is dirty, dreadlocked, and full of mangeHe asks the man for what he can spare with shame in his eyesGet a job you fucking slob is all he replied...

Primary colors

Posted on June 10, 2008
The Census Bureau has already divided America into regions and divisions. Might these boundaries help the parties organize — and rotate — regional primaries?Now that primary season is over, it's time to draw and quarter the political rules that make a mockery of America's system for selecting each major party's presidential nominee...

Telecommunications mergers

Posted on June 10, 2008
Herewith my latest SSRN download:Telecommunications Mergers, in Competition Policy and Merger Analysis in Deregulated and Newly Competitive Industries, at pp. 52-83 (Peter Carstensen & Susan Beth Farmer eds., Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming 2008):Telecommunications mergers are at once a historical mirror and a harbinger of the legal future...

The $4 barrier and rural America

Posted on June 09, 2008
As reported in the New York Times, the breaking of the $4/gallon barrier for gasoline is taking an extraordinary toll on rural America:Tchula, Miss. — Gasoline prices reached a national average of $4 a gallon for the first time over the weekend, adding more strain to motorists across the country...

A Hillary Clinton campaign montage

Posted on June 08, 2008
Primary season is over, and Hillary Clinton didn't win. Even though she didn't win (enough) delegates or the Democratic nomination, she did make history and win the grudging admiration of many friends and foes, especially down the stretch. Herewith a gallery of images drawn from two New York Times slide shows, Clinton Cross-Country and Clinton's Bid Comes to a Close...

The greatest story ever told

Posted on June 06, 2008
Hear the rhapsody in cyan that cyanobacteria composed in bridging the Archaean and Proterozoic eons of geologic history. By "poisoning" the ancient earth's atmosphere through photosynthesis, cyanobacteria converted the reducing atmosphere of the Archaean into the aerobic atmosphere that has prevailed ever since and has supported a wide range of oxygen-loving (or at least oxygen-tolerant) organisms...

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