For Day 2 of my Volokh Conspiracy guest-bloggery, I wrote about the Guano Islands Act and some other old laws that are still on the books in various jurisdictions, often for no good reason. If you are still 1,100 words short of…
Professor Eugene Volokh (UCLA) kindly asked me if I'd like to guest-blog at The Volokh Conspiracy, which these days is hosted by the Washington Post. I said I would, and so I am. All this week, in fact. Oddly enough, I…
I do love good examples of stupid/unnecessary/baffling local ordinances, so let us examine the set being proposed by the city of Santa Clara, California, to address all eventualities that may arise at Levi's Stadium (a.k.a. the "Field of Jeans"), currently…
I realize that a mere $18.78 (the current price of my book on Amazon.com) is nothing to somebody like you, and that if you had $18.78 in your hand you'd probably just throw it out in the street rather than…
Here are a couple of updates on the saga of Monster-In-Law-video-keeper Kayla Finley. See "Woman Arrested Nine Years After Failing to Return Rented Video," Lowering the Bar (Feb. 17, 2014). First, criminal-defense attorney David Liebow points out that even though South Carolina doesn't have a statute…
Worst of all: the movie was “Monster in Law.”
Well, thanks to the Wisconsin Department of Justice's decision last year to crack down on rubber-duck racing in the village of Mishicot, having concluded said event amounted to illegal gambling, the Wisconsin legislature has had to intervene. The state constitution prohibits…
Thanks to everyone who's bought a copy of The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance since it was published about three weeks ago. It still hasn't technically "launched," because that doesn't happen (according to me) until it gets into wider distribution, which with any…
I am very happy to announce that my project of collecting odd laws, which I creatively referred to as "The Odd Law Project," has now become (or I guess is about to become) my first book: Obviously I changed the…
Hey, there's been an amendment to North Carolina Senate Bill 353 on motorcycle safety. See if you can tell what's changed. Hint: the bill was originally entitled: AN ACT TO INCREASE PENALTIES FOR UNSAFE MOVEMENTS BY DRIVERS THAT THREATEN THE…