(H/t to Paul O’Malley for flagging this one). The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about the Greensburg Honda plant entitled Honda and UAW Clash Over New Factory Jobs. The article discusses the Honda plant’s restriction of applicants to those who live within the 20 counties near Greensburg. The UAW says that the restriction is designed to exclude most of the state’s thousands of laid-off unionized workers. Honda says it’s merely designed to make sure workers live close to the plant and can get to work on time.

According to the WSJ article:

Of the 33 auto, engine and transmission plants in the U.S. that are wholly owned by foreign companies, none have been organized by the UAW, despite repeated attempts. Mainly, foreign auto makers have located plants in Southern states where the UAW has little presence and where right-to-work laws limit union power. When they have ventured into Northern states such as Indiana and Ohio, they have mostly chosen rural locations far from any unionized plants and UAW halls. The moves now are helping the foreign-owned plants begin to lower wage scales.

It used to be that the presence of UAW jobs kept the foreign automakers’ salaries and benefits up, even if the foreign shops weren’t unionized. But now, apparently, with the UAW in decline, foreign manufacturers are decreasing what they offer to workers.

Again, I go to a more generalized question — productivity is way up over the past 30 years. Wages are stagnant. Where is the money going?

The title pretty much says it all — Civil Liberties versus National Security (Ben Franklin, I believe, recommended the former), but for a little light reading you might enjoy the American Civil Liberties Union petition for certiorari (pdf) against the National Security Agency.

Questions presented:

1. Whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that plaintiffs who have been injured because of government surveillance are precluded from challenging the lawfulness of that surveillance if the government refuses to disclose whether plaintiffs communications have been intercepted.

2. Whether the President possess the authority under Article II of the Constitution to engage in intelligence surveillance within the United States that Congress has expressly prohibited.

A project to reroute US 231 to go west of West Lafayette is on hold because the State doesn’t have enough money for the project. The State budgeted $75 million. The cost is now estimated at $98 million. Locals will have to come up with the $23 million for the project to go forward.

The original Major Moves plan was for the project to begin in 2007 and be completed by 2009. Now it won’t get started until at least 2009 and finish in 2011.

The delay in building the road is largely a result of the state’s underestimating how much it will cost to have utilities near the Purdue Airport moved out of the way of the proposed bypass, she said.

The project is also expensive because the state plans to have the road go under Airport Road and the nearby K.B.&S. railroad. To do that, the highway will have to be sunk between 30 and 35 feet below the ground at those two points, Calder said.

Fahey said one way to reduce the cost would be to alter the designs. That could be done by abandoning the plan to build the road below ground, but there is little inclination to make that change, she said.

“You don’t want to build a four-lane highway with at-grade crossings with railroads,” Fahey said.

I guess the Toll Road is out of our hands for the next 73 years. I suppose it would make a certain amount of sense to drag these projects out that long.

I’m working on a new view of government program analysis:

Anything that costs less than $2 or $3 billion per week but is more useful to the average U.S. citizen than the War in Iraq is automatically o.k. What do you think?

The State Department has apparently threatened investigators with retaliation if they cooperate with a Congressional investigation into the Blackwater scandal.

WASHINGTON — Aides to State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard threatened two investigators with retaliation this week if they cooperate with a congressional probe into Krongard’s office, the chairman of a House of Representatives panel and other U.S. officials said Friday.

The allegations are the latest in a growing uproar surrounding Krongard. Current and former officials in his office charge that he impeded investigations into alleged arms smuggling by employees of the private security firm Blackwater and into faulty construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad .

. . .

Blackwater, which has received roughly $835 million in State Department contracts, mostly to guard U.S. civilians in Iraq , is under intense scrutiny after a series of violent incidents involving its contractors. In the most recent, Blackwater teams were involved in a shooting at a busy Baghdad traffic circle Sept.16 that killed 11 Iraqis.

According to an e-mail obtained by Waxman’s committee, Krongard intervened when federal prosecutors asked for help from his office in investigating the Blackwater arms-smuggling allegations.

The investigations division of the inspector general’s office “is directed to stop IMMEDIATELY any work on these contracts until I receive a briefing from the (assistant U.S. attorney) regarding the details of this investigation. SA Militana, ASAIC Rubendall and any others involved are to be directed by you not to proceed in any manner until the briefing takes place,” Krongard wrote to a subordinate July 11 .

Update Henry Waxman is not amused.

Unsecured creditor had some reclamation rights – they don’t get paid, they send notice, and are entitled to return of goods. However, lenders often have floating security rights. Bankruptcy comes along, who has priority? Under BAPCPA (new bankruptcy law), apparently secured creditors get priority. Reclaiming creditors are SOL.

A garnishee defendant (usually an employer) can be required to withhold earnings of a debtor even if the debtor is an independent contractor if the contractor’s earnings are subject to periodic payments. (This defeats the position that the garnishee defendant has no responsibilities and the creditor has to get at the money some other way.)

Supreme Court decided to allow post-petition attorney’s fees involving issues of bankruptcy where creditor had a pre-petition contract with debtor allowing for attorney’s fees.

The bankruptcy code is there to give a fresh start to an honest but unfortunate debtor (not to mention the “crooked but lucky debtor” — per our lecturer). A debtor lies on his schedules and neglects to disclose that the real estate he transferred to a trust for no consideration was worth a lot of money. The Chapter 7 Trustee catches it and sees red and is going to hang this guy out to dry. Debtor decides to exercise what’s characterized as an absolute right to convert to a Chapter 13. He gets a new trustee this way. The Supreme Court held 5-4 that the right was not absolute.

A special place in hell is reserved for whoever is responsible for burning a 4-month old puppy.

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — The Humane Society is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever set a 4-month-old puppy on fire, leaving it with fatal burns.
. . .
A Michigan City resident spotted the dog on fire early Wednesday called police, who found the smoldering pit bull near some bushes. Police said an accelerant was used.

The dog’s owner, Andrea Davis, 22, said the puppy named Snoopy must have been taken off its leash in her fenced backyard.

When an independent contractor is called into remediate a particular situation and an employee of that contractor is injured by that situation, the general contractor is not going to be liable for that injury.

Admissibility of Plaintiff’s prior medical history for impeachment purposes. Admissible if you can show a possibility that the prior injuries are the real cause of the symptoms. (Unfair to allow Plaintiff to be painted as a hail and healthy individual when, in fact, she’d had prior neck injuries.)

The Supreme Court overrode a Court of Appeals decision with the Supreme Court going with a more liberal reading of the immunity provided to governmental entities that offer enhanced emergency communication systems.

Lots of medical malpractice cases.

Transitory symptoms are insufficient to constitute a physical impact sufficient to support a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim in a case where passengers sued an airline after it allegedly took insufficient measures to rein in a nutjob fellow passenger that was making everybody nervous.

Fiancee can’t sue for negligent infliction of emotional distress as a bystander the same way a spouse can.

Requirement that the Plaintiff pay up to $1,000 of Defendant’s attorney’s fees after rejected Qualified Settlement Offer and lesser verdict than offer is still valid even where an insurer pays the attorney’s fees.