That's the view of the City of South Miami, at least, or to be more specific it's the view of three of its five commissioners. By a 3-2 vote, the city commission has, for the second time, passed a resolution…
Here's an update to yesterday's item on the Idaho legislator who asked whether a swallowed camera could be used for a gynecological exam. This clip from a local news report (thanks, J) includes some video from the hearing in question,…
This has stunned me into a near-silence so I'm going to rely mostly on the Associated Press (thanks, Adam): BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho lawmaker received a brief lesson on female anatomy after asking if a woman can swallow a…
This is a couple of weeks old, so avert your eyes if you object to that. Also avert them if you are a male lawyer with a really deep masculine-sounding voice, because this may make you cry like a little…
A statement in a judicial opinion that isn't necessary to the holding is called a dictum (pl. dicta), and isn't technically binding (though it may or may not be persuasive). Here's a good example of that from a 1976 federal case (thanks,…
The credibility of Italy's entire scientific community has been restored. —Stefano Gresta, President of the NationalInstitute of Geophysics (Nov. 11, 2014) Well, we never doubted its scientific community. <checks blog to confirm that he never mocked Italy's scientific community> Just the legal one….
As long as I'm on the topic of Nobel-Prize-Related Comedy With at Best a Tenuous Connection to Legal Humor (see "Did You Pack This Nobel Prize Yourself?" (Oct. 16)), I should mention this year's Ig Nobel Prize winners, which were announced not…
Brian Schmidt (along with two others) won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating, which implies the existence of a huge amount of "dark" energy and matter that we can't…
Folks, I am sticking by my conclusion that the medical profession really does not need a billing code to indicate a second office visit by a patient whose complaint is that he was sucked into a jet engine. See “Injury Code V97.33XD:…
According to this report, a doctors’ group in Alabama is protesting the not-yet-implemented ICD-10 medical-coding system by ridiculing it, an approach that I certainly endorse. See, e.g., “Injury Code W59.22XA: Struck by Turtle,” Lowering the Bar (Sept. 13, 2011) (citing the WSJ). Given that…