Belgian Soldiers' Tobacco Fund

collected in response to this urgent appeal by King Albert of Belgium during the First World War:

There are nearly 200,000 Belgian soldiers defending the last few miles of their country. They want tobacco, and they want it badly. Unprovided for by their Government and unable to receive tobacco from family and friends, these heroes (always great smokers) have asked repeatedly and appealingly for ‘smokes.’

(via On Wisconsin)

Appellate opinions released November 30

Wisconsin Supreme Court opinions and dispositional orders,
Brown County v. Shannon R. 2005 WI 160

Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinions; none for publication

Different views but equal passion

Stacy Forster reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on yesterday's legistlative hearing on the pending state constitutional amendment defining marriage.

The hearing began in the morning and ended in the evening, after about 675 people registered their position on the amendment.

Testimony excerpted in a sidebar included that of Christopher Wolfe, a professor of political science at Marquette University (and an advisor to our Federalist Society chapter).

Beyond Venus and Mars

Gerard Alexander in the Claremont Review of Books reviews Beyond Paradise and Power: Europe, America, and the Future of a Troubled Partnership edited by Tod Lindberg.

World Weary

John B. Judis at TNR Online distinguishes the foreign policies of
- Liberal internationalism
- Neoconservatism
- Business isolationism
- Populist isolationism

Parking Ramp Attendant Knows All The Best Spaces

The Onion interviews Milwaukee's Brian Haemker at his Water Street parking ramp.

Haemker said drivers ofter overlook the ramp's basement level.

Even as a patron, I see that at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

Personalizing the Equal Marriage Message

Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz, Lesbian Rights Field Organizer, in National NOW Times explains strategy.

The committee decided that one of the best ways to move the country on the issue of equal marriage would be to collect stories from LGBT people and allies throughout the country on their personal experiences as committed couples, as well as the stories of friends and families who are affected by the inability to enjoy the recognition and the benefits of civil marriage. These stories will be included in future NOW publications and on the web site. Equal Marriage feminist products have also been developed and incorporated in the NOW products catalog, to expand the campaign's visibility.

Bioethics, stem cell debate held at Law school

Allison Herre reports in The Warrior on this November 8th event, sponsors of which included the Federalist Society chapter at the Marquette Law School.

AWL In Motion December 2005

This issue of the Association for Women Lawyers newsletter includes a profile (p. 2) of Joe Kearney, Dean of the Marquette University Law School and an advisor to our Federalist Society chapter.
(via State Bar of Wisconsin)

Feingold: U.S. Due for 'Cheesehead' Prez

Via the Washington Post, the Associated Press reports the latest views of Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) on the next presidential campaign.

He put his chances of seeking for the nomination in 2008 at "probably higher" than one in 100 while saying it was too early to commit to the race.

"But I do think one thing we can all agree on is that this country is overdue for a cheesehead president. We've never had one," he told ABC's "This Week."

The AP helpfully explains.

A cheesehead is a native or resident of Wisconsin, a leading dairy state.

The Real McCain

Ari Berman in The Nation on a town hall meeting Senator John McCain (R-AZ) organized in Mesa, Arizona.

Before the event he had endorsed teaching "intelligent design" alongside evolution in public schools, and he had expressed support for a rigid state ban on gay marriage that denies government benefits to any unmarried couple. After brief opening remarks, McCain took questions for more than two hours, referring to Reagan as "my hero," invoking the support of other conservatives on issues such as stem-cell research and immigration, and strenuously defending President Bush's Iraq policy.

Why we cannot rely on firearm forensics

Robin Mejia writes

Now, a New Scientist investigation has found that someone who has never fired a gun could be contaminated by someone who has, and that different criminal investigators use contradictory standards. What's more, particles that are supposedly unique to GSR [gunshot residue] can be produced in other ways.

Former Canadian Minister Of Defence Asks Canadian Parliament Asked To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "ET" Civilizations

The issue was raised by Mr. Paul Hellyer, a former Defence Minister of Canada, on September 25, 2005 in a speech at the University of Toronto. Three non-governmental organizations subsequently asked that hearings be conducted by the Canadian Parliament.

Hellyer is convinced that extraterrestrials routinely visit the Earth. In his speech,

Hellyer warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, "The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."

Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo

During World War II, personal relations between Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese Nationalist leader, and General Joseph Stilwell, America's top military adviser to China, grew famously acrimonious. The strained relationship, some have argued, may have had dire consequences for the Nationalists, who lost the Chinese civil war to the Communists in 1949.

Newly opened documents in the Hoover Institution Archives of T. V. Soong, one of Chiang's closest aides, shed new light on the matter. Chiang, the documents show, considered firing Stilwell as early as 1942--and had the blessing of top American officials to do so--but ultimately chose not to. Had Stilwell been replaced, might history have been different? Tai-chun Kuo, Hsiao-ting Lin, and Ramon H. Myers in Hoover Digest consider one of history's most intriguing "what-ifs."

2005 Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture

Judge A. Raymond Randolph of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit delivered this year's Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture on November 11, 2005 at the Federalist Society's National Convention.

It is well-known that Henry J. Friendly was one of the greatest judges in our nation's history. Along with Holmes and Brandeis and Learned Hand, he was certainly one of the most brilliant. What is not known is that in 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade, Judge Friendly wrote an opinion in the first abortion-rights case ever filed in a federal court. No one knows this because his opinion was never published. I have a copy of the opinion and his papers are now at the Harvard Law School, awaiting indexing.

Tonight I want to make this opinion public for the first time. ...

Kent Greenfield and Gerald Walpin on the Solomon Amendment

Mike Heidler at Originalisms has posted links to audio [.mp3] and video [.mpg] of this Yale Federalist Society event.

Part of Supreme Court Facade Collapses

The Associated Press reports from Washington, DC,

Part of the marble facade on the front of the Supreme Court collapsed Monday morning, falling onto the steps leading into the venerable building. No injuries were reported.

No metaphors have been reported, but some might be expected.

(via Drudge Report)

Prelude to Armageddon

Michael J. Gerhardt introduces this look back at the symposium Advice and Consent On Supreme Court Nominations, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, November 21, 1975 [10 mb PDF], 8 Green Bag 2d 399 (2005).

Stranger in a Strange Land: A Historian among Political Scientists

Timothy R. Furnish at History News Network on chairing a Middle East panel at a political science conference.

Everyone's Entitled

Doug Bandow in November 21, 2005 says Rising spending and an aging population combine to create a fiscal crisis.

Europe Learns the Wrong Lessons

Karl Zinsmeister in The American Enterprise says In economics and other areas, Europeans have drawn all the wrong lessons.

Behind the Blacklist

Mark Falcoff in Commentary reviews Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance with the Left by Ronald Radosh and Allis Radosh.

A world becoming more peaceful?

Paul Rogers at Open Democracy writes The first annual Human Security Report finds -- despite evidence from Afghanistan to Iraq, Chechnya to Congo -- that violent conflict around the world is declining. Can this be true?
(via Arts & Letters Daily)

The Capitalist Manifesto

Gregg Easterbrook in The New York Times reviews The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin M. Friedman.

Old School

Joseph Rago reports in Opinion Journal as William F. Buckley explains why he thinks conservatism has become "a little bit slothful."
(via Arts & Letters Daily)

The Bottom Line

Corporate Legal Times reports on its survey seeking An inside look at what CEOs want in an legal department and their General Counsel.

Science versus scientism

John Silber in The New Criterion On the proven and unproven claims of science and faith

The Wit and Wisdom of Justice Scalia

Ralph A. Rossum in the Claremont Review of Books reviews Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice by Kevin A. Ring; and The Opinions of Justice Antonin Scalia: The Caustic Conservative by Paul I. Weizer.

The Truths about Charter Schools

Caroline M. Hoxby and Jonah E. Rockoff on Findings from the City of Big Shoulders, and Robert Bifulco and Helen F. Ladd on 60 Results from the Tar Heel State, in Education Next

Keep your enemy closer

Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists say The best way to know the full extent of Iran's nuclear doings is to offer it help.

Turning academia into a cafeteria

Russell Jacoby in the Los Angeles Times says Offering students a buffet of bogus 'choices' only undermines intellectual integrity and corrodes academic freedom.
(via Arts & Letters Daily)

Old Slickery

William L. O'Neill in The New York Times Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times by H. W. Brands.

He accomplished three big things: preventing South Carolina from disobeying Congressional acts; forcing Indians into exile; and destroying the Bank of the United States.

The End of News?

Michael Massing in The New York Review of Books updates its reader on the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

But the campaign against the press is only partly a result of a hostile White House. The administration's efforts have been amplified by a disciplined and well-organized news and opinion campaign directed by conservatives and the Christian right. This well-funded network includes newsletters, think tanks, and talk radio as well as cable television news and the Internet.

Ben Franklin's Politically Incorrect Thanksgiving

From Human Events, "The Real Story of the First Thanksgiving" by Benjamin Franklin (1785)

Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving

David Gelernter in The Weekly Standard writes Of Puritans, prayer, and the Capitol dome.

Gun-Toting Journalists

Sherry Ricchiardi in American Journalism Review

"We just don't pack" guns, says Jim Cox, senior assignment editor for world news at USA Today. "If one of our reporters felt he or she was in such jeopardy that a personal weapon was required, we'd basically say, 'It's time to leave the [war] zone.'"

But what if "the zone" is the journalist's own backyard?

First Thanksgiving 1621

At Pilgrim Hall, Edward Winslow's account in Mourt's Relation and William Bradford's in Of Plymouth Plantation

School's anti-war assignment canceled

Sandy Cullen reports in the Wisconsin State Journal that school district officials canceled a letter-writing assignment given third-graders at Allis Elementary School. Students had been assigned to write a letter a day for twelve days.

Letters were to go to other students, the state's U.S. senators and representatives, President Bush, and the secretary of the United Nations urging them to "join our press for peace." If the war were not over in 12 days, the sequence would be repeated.

A ten teacher team developed the project.

The letter sent home to parents last Friday said third-graders at Allis Elementary School would be "writing letters to encourage an end to the war in Iraq. The letter writing will teach civic responsibility, a social studies standard, while providing an authentic opportunity to improve composition skills and handwriting."

Wisconsin's Civil Justice System: A State of Crisis

The Wisconsin Coalition for Civil Justice commissioned this white paper in response to some recent decisions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

It drew a response by Lynn Laufenberg on behalf of our State Bar's Litigation Section. Section members can read it in the online edition of the latest section newsletter. It's also available at his office web site.

School taxes fall -- or rise

Patrick Marley and Amy Hetzner report in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that taxes by school districts will be down slightly statewide, though there will be increases and larger decreases in individual districts.

Gov. Jim Doyle's plan to keep property taxes down by giving schools additional state aid is working as billed because overall school taxes will go down, even though some parts of the state will see increases, Berry [Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance] said.

Insurance Consumer's Hurricane Checklist

The Mississippi Insurance Department issued this brochure in August 1998.

Update: What's Your Flood Risk?

State Bar announces candidates for 2006 elections

Our State Bar's Nominating Committee has had its nominations accepted:
- for 2006 State Bar president-elect: Thomas J. Basting Sr., Madison, and Kent I. Carnell, Madison
- for secretary: Micabil Diaz Martinez, Madison, and Gretchen G. Viney, Baraboo
- for Judicial Council: Jason J. Hanson, Madison, and Robert L. McCracken, Manitowoc

Members interested in running for one of these offices can run by filing a petition signed by 100 active Bar members. Petitions must be filed at the State Bar by Feb. 1.

Medical pot bill will get hearing

Phil Brinkman in the Wisconsin State Journal reports on AB 740.

A Political Court

Foreward by Judge Richard A. Posner to "The Supreme Court 2004 Term" in Harvard Law Review[72 pp PDF]
(via Michael DeBow at Southern Appeal)

Congressman Obey honored: Long-time friend of civil legal services for the poor

Inside the Bar on our State Bar's particular meaning of friend in this context.

"We recognized Congressman Obey's efforts to stabilize federal funding for programs that meet the legal needs of disadvantaged Wisconsin citizens at a time when those programs were facing potentially severe funding cuts tied to changes in the 2000 federal census," notes State Bar President D. Michael Guerin, who presented a resolution adopted by the State Bar's Board of Governors to recognize Obey's efforts.

Inside the Bar also reports Committee studies unmet civil legal needs; focuses on increasing access to justice for all in Wisconsin

What Abortion Debate?

Michael Kinsley at Slate on Why there is no honesty about Roe.

In the Virginia governor's race this year, both candidates said they were personally morally opposed to abortion, and both accused the other candidate of falsely accusing him of intending to act on this moral belief, which both of them denied.

(via Open Book)

The People's Cube: Guaranteed Results

Finally - by popular demand of toiling masses:
The most politically correct game ever is now in People's Dry Goods Store!
Flying off the shelves like Sputnik! Get them while they're RED hot! Limited 5 year plan!

(via Dad29)

The Overpraised American

Christine Rosen in Policy Review on Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism revisited

Karl Rove's Godmother

Frederic D. Schwarz in American Heritage says

As Donald T. Critchlow explains in impressive detail in the recently published Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade (Princeton University Press, 422 pages, $29.95), two decades of experience in Republican politics, including a pair of unsuccessful congressional campaigns, taught her how to craft arguments that would stir a wide audience, how to focus on hot-button issues and talking points, how to choose appealing representatives to make a case, and the importance of organizing at a local level and working tirelessly to fire up the troops.

Freedom and philanthropy

The New Criterion takes A look back at the Olin Foundation's contributions to America.

Democracy, Governance, and Economic Performance

Seth Norton in The Independent Review reviews Democracy, Governance, and Economic Performance by Yi Feng.

Partying was different in 1970

Bill Kraus on the effects of the post-Watergate restrictions on campaign finance.

What the reforms also did was eliminate what had been the parties' franchise to fund campaigns and slate candidates.

This was certainly the most unexpected result of the reforms; some think it was also the worst.

Filing deadlines near for State Bar officer, district governor, and division officer candidates

Our State Bar's newsletter, Inside the Bar, provides the details.

CRG Announces Recall Against Mayor McCheese

Dennis York reports,

In a stunning announcement, Citizens for Responsible Government has announced that they will be filing recall papers against the Mayor of McDonaldland, Mayor McCheese.

Reactions compiled at McBride's Media Matters include:

Mark Belling called McCheese a pervert and a moron and hung up on McCheese when he called into the show to offer his side. And then he blamed Paul for letting McCheese get through and started talking about horse racing. ...

Russ Feingold stated that he had considered holding a press conference to support Mayor McCheese, but decided there was no point because McDonaldLand is not in the South. ...

The state Republican Party called a news conference in front of a home in McDonaldLand and accused the homeowners of voting illegally for McCheese in the 2004 elections. ...

Spivak and Bice wrote that McCheese had once been spotted holding a Bible class in his basement in a column entitled, McCheese Exhibits Signs of Quirkiness. ...

Update: CRG Network has the inside story.

In a highly contentious executive board vote, CRG vice-president and well-known vegetarian Orville Seymer cast the deciding ballot in a surprise verdict.

Group backs repeal of city housing law

Dean Mosiman reports in the Wisconsin State Journal that Smart Growth Madison, a group of real estate companies that had supported Madison's inclusionary zoning law, now favors repeal.

The law requires that developers put 15 percent lower-cost units in most projects and set them aside for those making less than 80 percent of the Dane County median income, about $52,000 for a family of three.

Delora Newton, the executive director of Smart Growth Madison, explains the problem.

But no one's stepping forward to buy the lower-cost units because owners can't get full equity and face hassles to make improvements or refinance, she said.

The six units that have been sold were bought by a nonprofit entity, not regular buyers, she said.

Developers "can't find anyone who's interested in buying them," she said.

Tax freeze is just a chill

Alex Hummel reports in The Northwestern

Wisconsin's local property tax freeze won't be taking a frostbite out of every Oshkosh homeowner's next tax bill.

As an example, he interviewed Esther Neyhard and her husband.

"Can we fight it? There's not much we can do about it," Neyhard said. " … We're just waiting to see what (the tax bill total) is, and we'll have to do what we can, just like with the price of gas. We'll have to cut something short somewhere else."

Sen. Reynolds: Introduces Death Penalty Bill

A press release from his office says

Reynolds’ bill authorizes the death penalty for committing first or second-degree sexual assault, first-degree homicide, and disfigurement, dismemberment, or mutilation against the same victim.

Federalist Society chapter weblogs

While the Federalist Society's national web site lists all the Lawyers Chapters and Student Chapters, it does not yet indicate which have weblogs. Here are all I have been able to locate, so far. A few have current postings. Some are static, serving as an alternative to a conventional web site. Others look like abandoned experiments; (I've read that a substantial percentage of all weblogs fall into this category). Almost all are student chapters.

Chapter weblogs with active posting are:
MULS Federalistas at Marquette University;
The Well FED Society at the University of Baltimore;
Ex Post at Columbia University;
Georgetown Federalist Society Blog;
Hastings Federalists in San Francisco;
Ex parte at Harvard University; and
Originalisms at Yale University.

Weblogs with recent but infrequent postings are:
University of Florida Levin College of Law;
New England School of Law; and
USD Federalist Society at the University of South Dakota.

Most people find weblogs easier to set up and maintain that web sites. Chapters with static weblogs for this purpose are:
NYU Federalist Society at New York University; and
UNC Law Federalist Society Blog at the University of North Carolina.

Besides ours, the only Lawyers Chapter with a weblog is Michigan (Detroit). It looks like it's still an experimental alternative to the chapter's web site, and there is not active posting.

Finally, chapter weblogs with old posts indicating they might have been experimental are:
CUA Federalist Society at Catholic University of America (Feb 2003, Sept 2003);
The Chapman Federalist at Chapman University (Aug-Dec 2004);
Dubyanell Feds at Washington & Lee University (Feb-Apr 2004); and
The Florida Coastal Blog in Jacksonville, Florida (Sept 2004).

Network Error

Jonathan Alter in The New York Times reviews The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power by Mary Mapes.

Mapes writes that she knew other reporters had found Burkett to be an anti-Bush zealot back in February, but she doesn't seem to have taken their work seriously. When Burkett gave her "new" documents in early September, she staked her career and those of several colleagues at CBS News, including Dan Rather, not to mention control of the White House and the precarious status of the American news media, on the word of a man who had long since been discredited. Oh, well.

Update: How Did Buckhead Know? by "Buckhead" (Harry MacDougald)
(via Scott Johnson at Power Line)

The Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf

Hayden B. Peake in Studies in Intelligence reviews his compilation of recent books of interest to both the intelligence professional and the student of intelligence.

Kenya Constitutional Referendum Goes to Polls

Joseph Ojwang in Change Links on the November 21 vote. He continues in Part II.

Colorblind Justice

John C. Eastman in the Claremont Review of Books reviews Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence Thomas by Ken Foskett.

Democratic Storytelling

Alan Taylor in The American Prospect reviews The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln by Sean Wilentz and concludes There's only so much rehabilitation Jefferson and Jackson can take.

Alito '72 joined conservative alumni group

Chanakya Sethi, with Aditi Eleswarapu, report in the Daily Princetonian on Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), a group to which Judge Samuel Alito once belonged.

Improvement Was His Big Aim

Sean Higgins in Investors Business Daily on the career and legacy of John M. Olin.

His experience in private business and working with the government made him an ardent foe of socialism, which in the 1970s appeared to be gaining ground. In 1973 he redirected a small foundation he'd founded more than two decades before to fund a battle of ideas with socialism. Rather than give to political campaigns or causes, the John M. Olin Foundation became a major supporter of think tanks and nonprofit groups.

Olin Foundation grants provided key early support for groups such as the Hoover Institution, Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society, major factors in Washington policymaking today.

When in Paris . . .

. . . What Should the Algerians and Moroccans Do?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran this Washington Post column by Frances Stead Sellers.

"Sharing and solidarity can conflict with diversity," writes David Goodhart, founding editor of the monthly magazine Prospect, which bills itself as "Britain's intelligent conversation." Many Europeans are left reflecting upon the irony of multiculturalism: It protects and preserves every culture, except one -- the host culture.

Seven Questions: Battling for Control of the Internet

Should the United States give up control of the Internet? That's the subject of a heated debate taking place this week at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. The European Union is pressing for a U.N. role in governing the Internet, which is currently in the hands of a U.S. nonprofit. Lawrence Lessig in Foreign Policy breaks down the debate and argues the Internet is already in good hands.

Family sues birth control maker over death of daughter, 14

Kate Schott, and Ryan J. Foley of The Associated Press, in today's La Crosse Tribune report,

[Lorie] Brown thought she was helping when she asked [her daughter] Alycia to go on birth control. A note from one of Alycia's girlfriends suggested the 14-year-old might be sexually active, and Brown didn't want her daughter to become pregnant. Alycia chose the patch over pills or a contraceptive shot, Brown said.

Now Brown and her husband, Michael, are suing the makers of Ortho Evra, a popular birth control patch, for failing to warn people sooner about serious side effects.

Their daughter, an eighth-grader at Logan Middle School, died of five blood clots on May 7, 2004, after using the patch for about six weeks, according to the lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Madison.

(via The Wheeler Report)

Supreme Court accepts four new cases

Suppression of police officer's identification on illegally entered premises;
Choice of law between Iowa policy's subrogation provision and Wisconsin's "made whole" rule;
Burden of persuasion to reopen default judgment for insufficient service on a "managing agent";
Returning real estate after foreclosure for unpaid taxes where owner has exposure for environmental cleanup.

Kelly v. Warpinski 04-2999

A year ago the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on the filing of this case. The petitioners asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take original jurisdiction and declare that indigent parties to certain types of civil cases are entitled to an attorney at government expense.

The petitioners are two single mothers defending child custody cases against fathers who are represented by attorneys. The named respondents are the circuit judge hearing the cases in Brown and Milwaukee counties.

You can check this case's status at WSCCA.

Walter Olson at