If you’ve never read any of the Rumpole books, then you still have the chance to read one for the first time. I don’t know what I expected when I read my first one. I think I was waiting for some sort of Jeeves story, but with barristers and wigs. I love Wodehouse and Jeeves, […]
Archive | Law
Lisa Simpson: Child Porn Star
I’ve posted before about the ethical questions surrounding “virtual” pornography, (especially virtual child pornography). That is, artificial representations of people (or animals) having sex. No real person was having sex, or in any way abused or humiliated. I can see arguments on both sides, and I don’t know what the shrinks say (if they say […]
Bloody Stupid
Back in 1914, Shaw’s Pygmalion opened in England. There was an uproar, even before the opening, because the press knew that a certain word would be used by the main female character. I recently bought (for a dollar, thank you very much) the Cambridge Encyclopedia of English, which reprinted an article from an outraged newspaper […]
Jug Confusion
The “Got Milk” ads are cute, and because milk is considered wholesome stuff, lots of big names are onboard to promote them. But watch out, ’cause the “Got Milk” people are no less evil than any other major conglomeration. In at least two cases of people printing “Got Breast milk?” on shirts, onesies, and such, […]
Race and the Law
There’s a long-ish article at the City Journal about race and the criminal justice system. It seems to be commonly accepted (and frequently claimed) that the system is racist. This article argues that common knowledge is wrong. Why are proportionately more black people in jail than white people? Because they commit proportionately more crimes. The […]
Democracy
I always just assumed that the United States has an electoral college (rather than direct election of a president) because the founders were nervous about direct democracy. That is, they believed in representation of the people, but stopped a little shy of a simple show of hands for anything as important as putting Bush in […]
Congress
Maybe everyone knows this. After Bono said, “This is fucking brilliant” on live TV, the P.I.C. (“People in Charge”) decided that the network couldn’t be punished because the word “fucking” in that sentence wasn’t actually talking about sex, so broke none of the current rules. So a resolution was introduced to the House, explicitly (and […]
Hot off the Presses: The South was Wrong!
I’ve always thought that the American South had every legal right to withdraw from the Union. There was nothing in the existing Constitution saying that those states who joined couldn’t leave whenever they wanted. After all, it had only been about three score and twelve years between the ratification of the Constitution and the election […]
Marrying Your Own Sister
I read recently that some MP or Lord in England claimed to know of a couple of twins, separated at birth, who married each other without knowing their relationship. The MP (or Lord) was trying to prove some point or other, and probably made the whole thing up. But it got me thinking. It seems […]
Comity
Ok, if two same-sex people get married in one state, do other states recognize that marriage? Well, that’s old news and an old discussion. The new question is: If two same-sex people get married in one state, and want to get divorced in another state, does the other state allow that? Law is interesting.