Daily Archives: January 5, 2010

Global Warming Policy Foundation

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Global Warming Policy Foundation is a UK based climate change site (more Bjorn Lomborg than Al Gore)

From the Web Site’s Information Page

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is an all-party and non-party think tank and a registered educational charity

Our main purpose is to bring reason, integrity and balance to a debate that has become seriously unbalanced, irrationally alarmist, and all too often depressingly intolerant.

The GWPF’s primary purpose is to help restore balance and trust in the climate debate that is frequently distorted by prejudice and exaggeration 

Our main focus is to analyse global warming policies and its economic and other implications. Our aim is to provide the most robust and reliable economic analysis and advice.

We intend to develop alternative policy options and to foster a proper debate (which at present scarcely exists) on the likely cost and consequences of current policies.

We are funded entirely by voluntary donations from a number of private individuals and charitable trusts. In order to make clear its complete independence, it does not accept gifts from either energy companies or anyone with a significant interest in an energy company.

Global Warming Policy Foundation http://www.thegwpf.org/

Annual Federal Judiciary Report at Year-End

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On 31 December 2009, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts issued its annual year-end report on the federal judiciary.

See “2009 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary.”

Cross-posted in Law Library Blog.

“Statutory Interpretation in the Age of Grammatical Permissiveness: An Object Lesson for Teaching Why Grammar Matters”

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“Statutory Interpretation in the Age of Grammatical Permissiveness: An Object Lesson for Teaching Why Grammar Matters”

Perspectives, Vol. 18, No. 2, Winter 2010
University of Maryland Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2009-52

SUSAN J. HANKIN, University of Maryland – School of Law

This article uses an unpublished case interpreting New York’s animal cruelty law as an object lesson to teach why grammar matters. In People v. Walsh, 2008 WL 724724 (N.Y. Crim. Ct. Jan. 3, 2008), the court’s interpretation of the statute turned, in part, on the serial comma rule (sometimes called the “Oxford comma” rule). The court followed a mandatory approach to interpret the statute’s meaning, even though most contemporary grammar and style books make such use of a comma optional. One of the many benefits of using a case example to teach why grammar matters is that it focuses students on the expectations of an important legal reader: the judge who may be using her own understanding of grammar rules to interpret language in a statute. The article explores what can happen when the legislators drafting statutes and the courts interpreting them may be operating on different sets of rules –  in this case, rules of grammar. It then uses this exploration to recommend ways of using the case and statute as a teaching tool to impress upon students, among other lessons, the importance of avoiding ambiguity in legal writing.

 

Source:  LSN Law & Rhetoric Vol. 3 No. 1,  01/04/2010