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Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (Incerto)
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A bold work from the author of The Black Swan that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to accept one&’s own risks is an essential attribute of heroes, saints, and flourishing people in all walks of life. As always both accessible and iconoclastic, Taleb challenges long-held beliefs about the values of those who spearhead military interventions, make financial investments, and propagate religious faiths. Among his insights: • For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do. You cannot get rich without owning your own risk and paying for your own losses. Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations. • Ethical rules aren&’t universal. You&’re part of a group larger than you, but it&’s still smaller than humanity in general. • Minorities, not majorities, run the world. The world is not run by consensus but by stubborn minorities imposing their tastes and ethics on others. • You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. &“Educated philistines&” have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets. • Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). A simple barbell can build muscle better than expensive new machines. • True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you&’re willing to risk for it.The phrase &“skin in the game&” is one we have often heard but rarely stopped to truly dissect. It is the backbone of risk management, but it&’s also an astonishingly rich worldview that, as Taleb shows in this book, applies to all aspects of our lives. As Taleb says, &“The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that&’s necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster,&” and &“Never trust anyone who doesn&’t have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them.&”
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed
by Leo Janos Ben R. RichThe former head of Lockheed's SKUNK WORKS reveals the amazing story of the secret aircraft that changed the course of history - from the U-2 to the Stealth Fighter. A must-read for anyone interested in aviation, advanced technologies, Cold War history, and thrilling true stories.SKUNK WORKS is the true story, told for the first time, of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the story of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a high-stakes drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds.SKUNK WORKS is dramatic and immediate. Direct from the cockpits of these astonishing aircraft - U-2 spy-plane, SR-71 Blackbird and F-117 Stealth Fighter. It is a tribute to genius in the unrelenting contest for mastery of the skies.
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed
by Leo Janos Ben R. RichThe former head of Lockheed's SKUNK WORKS reveals the amazing story of the secret aircraft that changed the course of history - from the U-2 to the Stealth Fighter. A must-read for anyone interested in aviation, advanced technologies, Cold War history, and thrilling true stories.SKUNK WORKS is the true story, told for the first time, of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the story of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a high-stakes drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds.SKUNK WORKS is dramatic and immediate. Direct from the cockpits of these astonishing aircraft - U-2 spy-plane, SR-71 Blackbird and F-117 Stealth Fighter. It is a tribute to genius in the unrelenting contest for mastery of the skies.
Skywalks: Robert Gordon's Untold Story of Hallmark's Kansas City Disaster
by R. Eli PaulIn 1981 the suspended walkways—or &“skywalks&”—in Kansas City&’s Hyatt Regency hotel fell and killed 114 people. It was the deadliest building collapse in the United States until the fall of New York&’s Twin Towers on 9/11. In Skywalks R. Eli Paul follows the actions of attorney Robert Gordon, an insider to the bitter litigation that followed. Representing the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against those who designed, built, inspected, owned, and managed the hotel, Gordon was tenacious in uncovering damaging facts. He wanted his findings presented before a jury, where his legal team would assign blame from underlings to corporate higher-ups, while securing a massive judgment in his clients&’ favor. But when the case was settled out from under Gordon, he turned to another medium to get the truth out: a quixotic book project that consumed the rest of his life. For a decade the irascible attorney-turned-writer churned through a succession of high-powered literary agents, talented ghost writers, and New York trade publishers. Gordon&’s resistance to collaboration and compromise resulted in a controversial but unpublishable manuscript, &“House of Cards,&” finished long after the public&’s interest had waned. His conclusions, still explosive but never receiving their proper attention, laid the blame for the disaster largely at the feet of the hotel&’s owner and Kansas City&’s most visible and powerful corporation, Hallmark Cards Inc. Gordon gave up his lucrative law practice and lived the rest of his life as a virtual recluse in his mansion in Mission Hills, Kansas. David had fought Goliath, and to his despair, Goliath had won. Gordon died in 2008 without ever seeing his book published or the full truth told. Skywalks is a long-overdue corrective, built on a foundation of untapped historical materials Gordon compiled, as well as his own unpublished writings.
Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism
by Sharyl AttkissonUSA TODAY BESTSELLER!New York Times bestselling author Sharyl Attkisson takes on the media’s misreporting on Black Lives Matter, coronavirus, Joe Biden, Silicon Valley censorship, and more.When the facts don’t fit their Narrative, the media abandons the facts, not the Narrative. Virtually every piece of information you get through the media has been massaged, shaped, curated, and manipulated before it reaches you. Some of it is censored entirely. The news can no longer be counted on to reflect all the facts. Instead of telling us what happened yesterday, they tell us what’s new in the prepackaged soap opera they’ve been calling the news.For the past four years, five-time Emmy Award–winning investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Sharyl Attkisson has been collecting and dissecting alarming incidents tracing the shocking devolution of what used to be the most respected news organizations on the planet. For the first time, top news executives and reporters representing every major national television news outlet—from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN to FOX and MSNBC—speak frankly, confiding in Attkisson about the death of the news as they once knew it. Their concern transcends partisan divides.Most frightening of all, a broad campaign in the media has convinced many Americans not only to accept but to demand censorship over journalism. It is a stroke of genius on the part of those seeking to influence public opinion: undermine public confidence in the news, then insist upon “curating” information and divining the “truth.” The thinking is done for you. They’ll decide which pesky facts shouldn’t cross your desk by declaring them false, irrelevant, debunked, unsafe, or out-of-bounds.We have reached a state of utter absurdity, where journalism schools teach students that their own, personal truth or chosen narratives matter more than reality. In Slanted, Attkisson digs into the language of propagandists, the persistence of false media narratives, the driving forces behind today's dangerous blend of facts and opinion, the abandonment of journalism ethics, and the new, Orwellian definition of what it means to report the news.
Slapper and Kelly's The English Legal System
by David KellySlapper and Kelly’s The English Legal System explains and critically assesses how our law is made and applied. Trusted by generations of academics and students, this authoritative textbook clearly describes the legal rules of England and Wales and their collective influence as a sociocultural institution. This latest edition has been extensively restructured and updated, providing up-to-date and reliable analysis of recent developments that have an impact on the legal system in England and Wales. Key learning features include: useful chapter summaries which act as a good check point for students; ‘food for thought’ questions at the end of each chapter to prompt critical thinking and reflection; sources for further reading and suggested websites at the end of each chapter to point students towards further learning pathways; and an online skills network including how tos, practical examples, tips, advice and interactive examples of English law in action. Relied upon by generations of students, this book is a permanent fixture in this ever-evolving subject.
Slapper and Kelly's The English Legal System
by David KellySlapper and Kelly’s The English Legal System explains and critically assesses what law is, how it is made and applied, and how it affects the general public.This latest edition has not only been restructured and updated, but extensively refocused, to provide a reliable analysis of the contemporary legal system in the sociopolitical uncertainty of a post-Brexit, post-Covid UK.It retains the key learning features of: useful chapter summaries which act as a good checkpoint for students; ‘food for thought’ questions at the end of each chapter to prompt critical thinking and reflection; sources for further reading and suggested websites at the end of each chapter to point students towards further learning pathways; and a fully updated online resource for students and instructors. Trusted by generations of academics and students, this authoritative textbook is a permanent fixture in this ever-evolving subject.
The Slave in Legal and Political Philosophy: Agamben and His Interlocutors
by Tom FrostThis book explores how the figure of the slave has been used to construct ideas of freedom in Western political and legal philosophy.The figure of the slave has supported philosophical and legal defences of colonialism, coloniality and the supremacy of the white subject. Yet for Giorgio Agamben, the slave stands (almost counterintuitively) as an exemplar of a potential form of future positive political existence. Developing this line of thought, the book reads key thinkers Agamben engages with in his thought and writings – including Aristotle, Saint Paul and G W F Hegel – and draws on decolonial theory to argue that the lives of people who were enslaved and unfree, and their actions and gestures, can point towards a paradigmatic form of political belonging. By reading Agamben in a decolonial direction, we can imagine alternative forms of agency, recognition and subjectivity, which can challenge the necropolitical world of racial capitalism in which we live. This study will appeal to scholars, researchers and graduate students with an interest in the thought of Giorgio Agamben, radical politics, legal and political philosophy and decolonial theory.
Slave Law and the Politics of Resistance in the Early Atlantic World
by Edward B. RugemerEdward Rugemer’s comparative history, spanning 200 years, reveals the political dynamic between slaves’ resistance and slaveholders’ power in two prosperous slave economies: Jamaica and South Carolina. This struggle led to the abolition of slavery through a law of British Parliament in one case and through violent civil war in the other.
The Slave Trade, Abolition and the Long History of International Criminal Law: The Recaptive and the Victim
by Emily HaslamModern international criminal law typically traces its origins to the twentieth-century Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, excluding the slave trade and abolition. Yet, as this book shows, the slave trade and abolition resound in international criminal law in multiple ways. Its central focus lies in a close examination of the often-controversial litigation, in the first part of the nineteenth century, arising from British efforts to capture slave ships, much of it before Mixed Commissions. With archival-based research into this litigation, it explores the legal construction of so-called ‘recaptives’ (slaves found on board captured slave ships). The book argues that, notwithstanding its promise of freedom, the law actually constructed recaptives restrictively. In particular, it focused on questions of intervention rather than recaptives’ rights. At the same time it shows how a critical reading of the archive reveals that recaptives contributed to litigation in important, but hitherto largely unrecognized, ways. The book is, however, not simply a contribution to the history of international law. Efforts to deliver justice through international criminal law continue to face considerable challenges and raise testing questions about the construction – and alternative construction – of victims. By inscribing the recaptive in international criminal legal history, the book offers an original contribution to these contentious issues and a reflection on critical international criminal legal history writing and its accompanying methodological and political choices.
Slavery, Abortion, and the Politics of Constitutional Meaning
by Justin Buckley DyerFor the past forty years, prominent pro-life activists, judges, and politicians have invoked the history and legacy of American slavery to elucidate aspects of contemporary abortion politics. As is often the case, many of these popular analogies have been imprecise, underdeveloped, and historically simplistic. In Slavery, Abortion, and the Politics of Constitutional Meaning, Justin Buckley Dyer provides the first book-length scholarly treatment of the parallels between slavery and abortion in American constitutional development. In this fascinating and wide-ranging study, Dyer demonstrates that slavery and abortion really are historically, philosophically, and legally intertwined in America. The nexus, however, is subtler and more nuanced than is often suggested, and the parallels involve deep principles of constitutionalism.
Slavery and Islam
by Jonathan A.C. BrownWhat happens when authorities you venerate condone something you know is wrong? Every major religion and philosophy once condoned or approved of slavery, but in modern times nothing is seen as more evil. Americans confront this crisis of authority when they erect statues of Founding Fathers who slept with their slaves. And Muslims faced it when ISIS revived sex-slavery, justifying it with verses from the Quran and the practice of Muhammad. Exploring the moral and ultimately theological problem of slavery, Jonathan A.C. Brown traces how the Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions have tried to reconcile modern moral certainties with the infallibility of God&’s message. He lays out how Islam viewed slavery in theory, and the reality of how it was practiced across Islamic civilization. Finally, Brown carefully examines arguments put forward by Muslims for the abolition of slavery. CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments Notes on transliteration, dates and citationIntroduction: Can We Talk About Slavery? What I Argue in this Book Apology for Slavery? Power and the Study of Slavery Blackness, Whiteness and Slavery 1. Does &‘Slavery&’ Exist? The Problem of Definition The Main Argument Definition: A Creative Process Definition to Discourse: A Political Process Defining \ˈslā-v(ə-)rē\: We Know It When We See It Defining Slavery as Status or a Condition Slavery as Unfreedom Slavery as Human Property Patterson & Natal Alienation Slavery as Distinction: The Lowest Rung & Marginality Slavery as Coercion & Exploitation under the Threat of Violence The Problem with Modern-Day Slavery Slavery & Islam – A Very Political Question Conclusion: Of Course, Slavery Exists The Proper Terms for Speaking about &‘Slavery&’ 2. Slavery in the Shariah What Islam Says about Slavery – Ideals and Reality Slavery in the Quran & Sunna Inheriting the Near East – Roman, Jewish and Near Eastern Laws versus Islam Islam&’s Reform of Slavery Basic Principles of Riqq in the Shariah The Ambiguities of Slavery in the Shariah Riqq & Rights in the Shariah Religious Practice Freedom of Movement Social and Political Roles Marriage and Family Life Right to Property Rights to Life and Physical Protection Summary: Law and Ethics 3. Slavery in Islamic Civilization What is Islamic Civilization? Is there &‘Islamic Slavery&’? The Shariah & Islamic Slavery Muslims Enslaving Muslims The Classic Slavery Zone Consuming People & &‘Ascending Miscegenation&’ Slave Populations Routes of the Muslim Slave Trade Blackness and Slavery in Islamic Civilization The Roles and Experiences of Slaves in Islamic Civilization The Slave as Uprooted Person and Commodity The Slave as Domestic Labor . . . Even Trusted Member of a Household Slave as Sexual Partner Slave as Saint, Scholar or Poet Slave as Elite Administrator & Courtesan Slave as Soldier – When Soldiers often Ruled Slave as Rebel 4. The Slavery Conundrum No Squaring the Circle: The American/Islamic Slavery Conundrum Slavery is Evil The Intrinsic Wrongs of Slavery Religions and Slavery Minimizing the Unminimizable or Historicizing the Unhistoricizable Slavery is Slavery: The Problem of Labeling &‘Slavery&’ with One Moral Judgment The Moral Wrongness of Slavery as Unfreedom The Moral Wrongness of Slavery as Owning Human Property<
Slavery and the Death Penalty: A Study in Abolition (Law, Justice and Power)
by Bharat MalkaniIt has long been acknowledged that the death penalty in the United States of America has been shaped by the country’s history of slavery and racial violence, but this book considers the lesser-explored relationship between the two practices’ respective abolitionist movements. The book explains how the historical and conceptual links between slavery and capital punishment have both helped and hindered efforts to end capital punishment. The comparative study also sheds light on the nature of such efforts, and offers lessons for how death penalty abolitionism should proceed in future. Using the history of slavery and abolition, it is argued that anti-death penalty efforts should be premised on the ideologies of the radical slavery abolitionists.
Slavery and the Forensic Theatricality of Human Rights in the Spanish Empire (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Culture and Human Rights)
by Karen-Margrethe SimonsenThis book is a study of the forensic theatricality of human rights claims in literary texts about slavery in the sixteenth and the nineteenth century in the Spanish Empire. The book centers on the question: how do literary texts use theatrical, multisensorial strategies to denunciate the violence against enslaved people and make a claim for their rights? The Spanish context is particularly interesting because of its early tradition of human rights thinking in the Salamanca School (especially Bartolomé de Las Casas), developed in relation to slavery and colonialism. Taking its point of departure in forensic aesthetics, the book analyzes five forms of non-narrative theatricality: allegorical, carnivalesque, tragicomic, melodramatic and tragic.
Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson
by Paul FinkelmanIn Slavery and the Founders, Paul Finkelman addresses a central issue of the American founding: how the first generation of leaders of the United States dealt with the profoundly important question of human bondage. The book explores the tension between the professed idea of America as stated in the Declaration of Independence, and the reality of the early American republic, reminding us of the profound and disturbing ways that slavery affected the U.S. Constitution and early American politics. It also offers the most important and detailed short critique of Thomas Jefferson's relationship to slavery available, while at the same time contrasting his relationship to slavery with that of other founders. This third edition of Slavery and the Founders incorporates a new chapter on the regulation and eventual (1808) banning of the African slave trade.
Slavery, Indenture and the Law: Assembling a Nation in Colonial Mauritius (Routledge Research in Legal History)
by Nandini S. Boodia-CanooThis book addresses historical issues of colonialism and race, which influenced the formation of multicultural society in Mauritius. During the 19th century, Mauritius was Britain’s prime sugar-producing colony, yet, unlike the West Indies, its history has remained significantly under-researched. The modern demographic of multi-ethnic Mauritius is unusual as, in the absence of an indigenous people, descendants of colonists, slaves and indentured labourers constitute the majority of the island’s population today. Thus, it may be said that the Mauritian nation was "assembled" during the period in question. This work draws on an in-depth examination of the two labour systems through which the island came to be populated: slavery and indenture. In studying the relevant laws, four legal events of historical importance within the context of these two labour systems are identified: the abolition of the slave trade, the abolition of slavery, private indentured labour migration and state-regulated indenture. This book is notable in that it presents a legal analysis of core historical events, thus straddling the line between two disciplines, and covers both slavery and indentured labour in Mauritian history. Mauritius, as an originally uninhabited island, presents a rare case study for inquiries into colonial legacies, multiculturalism and race consciousness. The book will be a valuable resource to scholars worldwide in the fields of slavery, indenture and the legal apparatus of forced labour.
Slavery on Trial
by Jeannine Marie DelombardAmerica's legal consciousness was high during the era that saw the imprisonment of abolitionist editor William Lloyd Garrison, the execution of slave revolutionary Nat Turner, and the hangings of John Brown and his Harpers Ferry co-conspirators. Jeannine Marie DeLombard examines how debates over slavery in the three decades before the Civil War employed legal language to "try" the case for slavery in the court of public opinion via popular print media. Discussing autobiographies by Frederick Douglass, a scandal narrative about Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist speech by Henry David Thoreau, sentimental fiction by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and a proslavery novel by William MacCreary Burwell, DeLombard argues that American literature of the era cannot be fully understood without an appreciation for the slavery debate in the courts and in print. Combining legal, literary, and book history approaches, Slavery on Trial provides a refreshing alternative to the official perspectives offered by the nation's founding documents, legal treatises, statutes, and judicial decisions. DeLombard invites us to view the intersection of slavery and law as so many antebellum Americans did--through the lens of popular print culture.
Slavery Today: A Groundwork Guide (Groundwork Guides)
by Becky Cornell Kevin BalesAn introduction to slavery in the world today, in rich and developing nations alike. Clearly and concisely written for young adult readers.Twenty-seven million people — young and old, men and women — are locked in bondage worldwide. Slavery Today traces the products created by this inhuman system from the jungle and farm through the global markets and into our lives and homes.Co-authored by the world's leading experts on modern slavery, it unpacks the controversies over prostitution and the buying back of slaves while setting out solutions and demonstrating how readers can get involved in the global anti-slavery movement."[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." — Globe and Mail
Slavish Shore: The Odyssey of Richard Henry Dana Jr.
by Jeffrey L. AmestoyIn 1834 Harvard dropout Richard Henry Dana Jr. became a common seaman, and soon his Two Years Before the Mast became a classic. Literary acclaim did not erase the young lawyer's memory of floggings he witnessed aboard ship or undermine his vow to combat injustice. Jeffrey Amestoy tells the story of Dana's determination to keep that vow.
Slaying in South St. Louis: Justice Denied for Nancy Zanone (True Crime)
by Vicki Berger Erwin Bryan ErwinA loving mother. A teenage killer. &“Plenty of lurid details and twists and turns . . . A story about the consequences of an overwhelmed justice system&” (West End Word). On a crisp December day in 1963, Nancy Zanone left her young son and daughter playing in the backyard while she went inside to check the laundry. She never came back. A troubled teen prowling for unlocked doors along Chippewa in South St. Louis surprised her in the kitchen and stabbed her to death. Despite Joseph Arbeiter&’s confession and hard evidence, he was freed on a technicality. In response, Zanone&’s family fought to change how juvenile murderers are tried in the state of Missouri. Local authors Vicki Berger Erwin and Bryan Erwin investigate the senseless tragedy and the family&’s quest for justice. Includes photos
The Sleep of Reason (The Strangers and Brothers Novels)
by C.P. SnowWith England on the brink of disruptive social change, a man revisits his past—and confronts a monstrous crime—in this novel of &“clarity and perceptiveness&” (The Atlantic). In his late middle age, semi-retired Lewis Eliot, accompanied by his teenage son, journeys to the provincial town where he spent his poverty-stricken boyhood—and where his father is now dying. The London of the 1960s is changing, and this visit is a reminder of the passage of time and the world left behind. But Eliot&’s reflections are disrupted when he reunites with his now-elderly mentor, George Passant, and becomes involved in a horrifying child-murder case in which Passant&’s niece stands accused. And as Eliot sees his old friend through the trial, troubling questions arise about responsibility, the root causes of evil, and how, as the painter Goya once observed, the sleep of reason produces monsters. &“[The Strangers and Brothers series] invites comparison not only with Proust but with the other notable multi‐volume novel about modern Britain, Anthony Powell&’s The Music of Time.&” —The New York Times &“Lewis Eliot throughout the series has been a most engaging person. . . . Snow is at his best when writing about people under pressure: he makes the struggle for power of engrossing interest.&” —The Atlantic &“[Snow] looks at the social condition so that he can see better the human condition.&” —Queen&’s Quarterly
Sleeping Giants: A Novel
by Rene Denfeld“Rene Denfeld reminds us that storytelling remains one of the most powerful means we have of confronting our darkest human impulses, and sometimes overcoming them.”—Washington PostFrom the bestselling author of The Child Finder and The Enchanted, a compelling and poignant story of sibling bonds, monsters masquerading as caretakers, terrifying secrets, and the power of love to right even the most egregious wrongs.Twenty years ago, a nine-year-old boy was swept away by powerful waves on a remote Oregon beach, his body lost to the sea. Only a stone memorial remains to mark his tragic death.For most of her life, Amanda Dufresne had no idea she had an older brother named Dennis Owens, or that he had died. Adopted as a baby, she learned about him while looking into her late birth mother, and is curious to know more about this lost sibling. A solitary young woman, Amanda has always felt distanced from the world around her. Her brain works differently from others, leaving her feeling set apart. Her one true companion is the orphaned polar bear she cares for working at the zoo. By getting to know her birth family, she hopes to understand more about herself. Retired police officer Larry Palmer is a widower with nothing but time and in need of a purpose. He offers to help Amanda find answers. The search leads to shocking and heartbreaking discoveries. Dennis Owen had been a forgotten foster child abandoned to a home for disturbed boys off the coast. As Amanda and Larry dig deeper into the past, the two stumble upon decades of cruelty and hidden crimes—including a barbaric treatment still used today.Told in Rene Denfeld’s inimitable style, Sleeping Giants is an enthralling and heartbreaking novel that burrows deep in the heart and will leave no reader untouched.
Slices & Lumps: Division and Aggregation in Law and Life
by Lee Anne FennellHow things are divided up or pieced together matters. Half a bridge is of no use at all. Conversely, many things would do more good if they could be divided up differently: Perhaps you would prefer a job that involves a third less work and a third less pay or a car that materializes only when needed and is priced accordingly? Difficulties in “slicing” and “lumping” shape nearly every facet of how we live and work—and a great deal of law and policy as well. Lee Anne Fennell explores how both types of challenges—carving out useful slices and assembling useful lumps—surface in myriad contexts, from hot button issues like conservation and eminent domain to developments in the sharing economy to personal struggles over work, money, time, diet, and exercise. Yet the significance of configuration is often overlooked, leading to missed opportunities for improving our lives. With a technology-fueled entrepreneurial explosion underway that is dividing goods, services, and jobs in novel ways, and as urbanization and environmental threats raise the stakes for assembling resources and cooperation, this is an especially exciting and crucial time to confront questions of slicing and lumping. The future of the city, the workplace, the marketplace, and the environment all turn on matters of configuration, as do the prospects for more effective legal doctrines, for better management of finances and health, and more. This book reveals configuration’s power and potential—as a unifying concept and as a focus of public and private innovation.
Slick Water
by Andrew NikiforukThe fossil fuel industry and many environmental groups tout hydraulic fracturing - "fracking" - as a panacea, with slick promises of energy independence, greenhouse gas reductions, and benefits to local economies. Yet the controversial technology, which blasts massive volumes of fluids, sand, and chemicals into rock and coal formations, has sparked huge public protests. Slick Water tells the shocking, inspiring story of one woman's stand to hold government and industry accountable for the damage fracking leaves in its wake.After energy giant Encana secretly fracked hundreds of gas wells around her home and her well water turned to a flammable broth, Jessica Ernst started asking questions. When she put forward evidence that Encana had violated laws by fracturing the community's drinking water aquifer, Ernst was falsely tagged as a bomb-making terrorist and visited by the government's anti-terrorism squad. Frightened but undaunted, she uncovered a startling history of liability, fraud, and intimidation, along with a willful denial of widespread groundwater contamination. Jessica Ernst's remarkable story raises dramatic questions about the role of Big Oil in government, society's obsession with rapidly depleting supplies of unconventional oil and gas, and the future of civil society.
Slip & Fall Practice
by Charles TurnbowPlaintiffs' attorneys lose 40% of their slip and fall cases. Failure to prove a causative link between the hazard and a negligent act of the defendant is the number one reason for these high losses. Charles Turnbow, attorney-engineering consultant on over 9,500 slip and fall cases, shows you how to prove causation (and how to efficiently screen out cases lacking it) in his highly-respected toolbook, Slip & Fall Practice: * Analyzing the mechanics of the fall to identify the cause * The most common cases and what they must have to win * Documenting the dangerous condition and the negligence that caused it * Establishing the duty of care * Proving control of the premises * Establishing actual or constructive notice * Showing that the hazard caused the injury Slip & Fall Practice is loaded with case evaluation strategies, illustrative fact patterns (with photos), discovery forms, expert witness checklists, case authorities, building code citations, model pleadings, trial preparation aids, and most important, timesaving and case-winning practice tips.