Oh, you might have heard that O.J. Simpson croaked, which he did on Wednesday at the age of 76. Simpson was an outstanding running back and an adequate actor who, as the Washington Post put it, “saw his legacy spiral after the murder of his ex-wife and her friend.” Yes. That would be “the murder[s]” of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, murders of which Simpson himself was accused, largely due to the huge amount of evidence suggesting he was guilty, and yet was acquitted after an eight-month trial. He was later found liable for the same actions in a wrongful-death case brought by the families. So ..read more

To begin with, I should apologize for the unfinished nature of my most recent post, the second part of which was finished here on my computer but somehow vanished during the publication process. See “Dwarf Planet, Giant Slug” (Apr. 5, 2024). It was even more fragmentary before I cleaned it up a little, but the original draft, which of course was even funnier and probably award-winning as far as you know, could not be recovered. Could this have been caused by a conspiracy, such as the one responsible for secretly adding toxic chemicals to the atmosphere for unclear but probably sinister reason ..read more

Look, I remain committed to reviewing the official crap of all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the five permanently inhabited U.S. territories, even if that project is taking much longer than I originally thought it would. But it isn’t helping that some of the jurisdictions I’ve already covered insist on continuing to adopt new official things before I’ve even finished my initial review. Could you guys hold off for one more decade, please? Evidently not. Last week, the governor of Arizona signed House Bill 2477 into law, thus designating the roughly spherical object generally kn ..read more

Tennessee Senate Bill 2691 apparently began life in January as a simple and probably uncontroversial measure that would have shaved 30 days off the time that a seat on the state’s Air Pollution Control Board could remain vacant before that fact had to be reported to the Legislature: One could quibble with the conclusion that the public welfare requires early implementation of this change as an emergency measure, which is what section 2 provides. But it probably seemed important at the time. But at some point between January 31 and last week, it appears that the sponsors of SB 2691 and a comp ..read more

As you can tell by the number of hyphens I had to deploy in the headline, this one was hard to classify. But it wasn’t hard to dismiss. According to Wikipedia, “hotpot” is “a dish whereby a heat source placed on the dining table keeps a pot of soup stock simmering, and a variety of … foodstuffs and ingredients are served beside the pot for the diners to put into the hot stock.” (The article says it’s “also known as steamboat,” and I find that term strangely appealing but the court’s opinion uses “hotpot,” and I will too.) An example can be seen above. The idea is straightforward, but hotpot i ..read more

This is the question posed and extensively discussed in a forthcoming law-review article that I saw announced the other day on Twitter. See Michael L. Smith, “Is Originalism Bullshit?” 28 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025). Have I read all of it? By no means. But I have read more than enough to commend it to you. This is not the first time I’ve commended Smith’s writing, and this should be no surprise, given that he clearly enjoys writing about ridiculous subjects. See “Is It Legal to Shoot Fish With a Gun?” (Apr. 14, 2021) (discussing Smith’s 2020 article, “Shooting Fish”). At that ..read more

In reverse chronological order: East Brunswick, NJ (Feb. 21): Police pursued and captured two men suspected of breaking into parked cars. Neither man escaped. One surrendered and stayed warm; the other jumped into an “icy cold pond” and didn’t. Auckland, New Zealand (Feb. 16): A high-speed pursuit near Ōrewa Beach, north of Auckland, ended in a low-speed pursuit offshore after a suspect leapt from his car and into Whangaparāoa Bay. He reportedly swam “quite a distance offshore” before officers in a boat collected him. Where he was headed is unclear. Depending on what course he set, he migh ..read more

Good news, Virginians—the category of dead animals you can pick up off the side of the road and take home for dinner is about to expand by two. As you should all know by now, about half of U.S. states have laws that allow citizens, under certain circumstances, to harvest for personal use any supplies that may suddenly become available after a driver-involved animal-termination event. See, e.g., “California’s Roadkill Bill Becomes Law” (Oct. 30, 2019). Virginia is already one of those states, but it appears that the current statute has been deemed insufficient. On February 6, the state’s House ..read more

Federal law makes it a felony to “willfully or maliciously injure[ ] or destroy[ ] any of the works, property, or material of any radio, … or other means of communication, operated or controlled by the United States, or used or intended to be used for military or civil defense functions ….” I’m not sure I agree with the locals that this would apply to WJLX’s 200-foot-tall radio tower in Jasper, Alabama, but either way, whoever stole it is gonna be in big trouble. The theft was reported by a “bush hog” crew sent to mow the area on February 2. It’s unclear how long WJLX kept transmitting befor ..read more

Florida House member Jason Shoaf told a committee meeting that his House Bill 87, which would make it almost impossible to punish someone for the unauthorized killing of a bear, isn’t motivated by a dislike of bears in general. “We love bears,” he said, though it wasn’t clear whether he meant his family, his staff, or the Florida Republican caucus in general. “Bears are cute and cuddly and … amazing creature[s].” No, it’s only some bears that need to die. Which bears? The crack bears. “We’re talking about the ones that are on crack, and they break your door down, and they’re standing in your ..read more