Archive of entries posted by jfleck

Some fine lawyer language in the Virginia marriage ruling

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Government interests in perpetuating traditions, shielding state matters from federal interference, and favoring one model of parenting over others must yield to this country’s cherished protections that ensure the exercise of the private choices of the individual citizen regarding love and family. Ultimately, this is consistent with our nation’s traditions of freedom. “[T]he history of our Constitution … is …

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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: a critique of the Gila diversion

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From the morning paper, Norm Gaume’s critique of a proposal to divert water from the Gila: New Mexico is overestimating the amount of water available from a proposed Gila River diversion and underestimating the cost and technical difficulty of the project, according to the former head of the state agency involved. The project, as currently …

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Long term drought: just two years since 1999 have been above average on the Rio Grande

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Danger. Journalist doing math. There be dragons: Otowi is the Rio Grande’s gateway to central New Mexico. Located between Santa Fe and Los Alamos, it’s the point where the river has picked up pretty much all the snowmelt it’s going to get, absent some minor contributions from the Jemez Mountains. It’s also a key point …

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It’s not like California hasn’t had the time to get in front of this problem

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California is entering its fourth drought in as many decades. Yet even now, some communities lack water meters to track how much water people are using and to charge them accordingly. Many of those households don’t even receive monthly water bills. They pay for water through yearly assessments attached to their property taxes, which may …

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Parade crowd size watch: Seattle 12th person edition

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So yeah, Seattle won the big pointyball game, and lots of people came out for a parade to celebrate. But are we surprised to learn that parade organizers overestimated the crowd size? “There is civic pride that goes into estimating these numbers. They tend to be overstated wildly,” says Steve Doig, the Knight Chair in …

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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: headed toward ESA litigation on the Rio Grande

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From this morning’s newspaper, we appear to be headed toward Endangered Species Act litigation this year on the Rio Grande: Human water diversions have left the Rio Grande ecosystem with too little water to maintain the minnow and other species that depend on the river’s flow, including the valley’s iconic cottonwoods, said Jen Pelz, Wild …

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