The etymology of “the whole nine yards” is a total mystery. Anybody who tells you that they know its origin is either lying or unknowingly parroting an urban legend. The number of feet of fabric required to make a suit? Number of cubic yards of soil removed to dig a grave? Number of cubic yards …
Monthly Archives: December 2012
“Opening Up State Legal Data.”
For those of you not quite clear on what it is that I do, you might be interested in an article that I wrote for the Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute, explaining The State Decoded and its application to laws and regulations. The project is more than halfway done, and I’m pleased with its …
Neither Cuccinelli nor McAuliffe can win. And yet one of them must.
When a candidate is described as “divisive,” generally it’s intended to mean that while his own party loves him, the other party can’t stand him. In what’s shaping up to be a race between Terry McAuliffe and Ken Cuccinelli for the Virginia governorship, there are two wildly divisive candidates who are perhaps more divisive within …
Continue reading “Neither Cuccinelli nor McAuliffe can win. And yet one of them must.”
Michigan’s filmmaker tax break boondoggle.
In a long piece, the New York Times looks at Michigan’s efforts to persuade Hollywood to make films there through enormous subsidies. It didn’t fail—worse, it succeeded. The state lost money hand over fist in the process. Paying businesses to relocate to your state or city is a huge waste, 99% of the time. →