Nathan B. Hannah, attorney
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IT’S A MYSTERY!

6/30/2015

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How could someone who calls himself a “wonk” write this:
"[In Puerto Rico] just 40 percent of the population has a job—or is even looking for one. That figure has plummeted in recent years. In the United States as a whole, it is 62.9 percent."
then write this:
"Why are so few people working or looking for work?  The report cites one surprising problem: the federal minimum wage, which is at the same level in Puerto Rico as in the rest of the country, even though the economy there is so much weaker."
without any hint that the two things (high unemployment and high minimum wage) might be related?  He even suggests that the latter is “surprising” in light of the former! 
Via Coyote Blog.

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IF YOU THINK THE GOVERNMENT CAN BE TRUSTED TO RUN A BANK, YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION

6/30/2015

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I just don’t think that putting the government in the business of owning and operating a consumer bank is a very good idea.  Why not?  Well, there’s its inability to keep its data secure, and its inability to stop its own employees from misusing its constituents’ personal information.   Oh, and how about its propensity to try to collect debts from the wrong people?
But other than those problems, which I’m sure will be fixed in no time, by all means, let’s have the government run a bank.  It does everything else so well, what could go wrong?

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TAKE A LOOK AT MY NEW REAL ESTATE LAW UPDATE FOR IMPORTANT INFORMATION

6/27/2015

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The June installment of my Real Estate Law Update is available, as usual in the publications section of my firm’s web site.  It’s about the Arizona homestead exemption, and contains information you need to know if you’re an Arizona homeowner.
I’m still distributing the Update (and its companion publications, Estate Planning Law Report and Tax Law Special Report) the old fashioned way, via snail mail.  If you want to be added to the mailing list, just send me an email.  You’ll find my email, along with all my contact information, on my home page.

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"OFFICIALS MASKED SEVERITY OF HACK"

6/26/2015

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The above title is a quote of a headline in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.  Here's a quote from the story underneath that headline:
Before the OPM formally announced June 4 that it had been hacked, officials at the agency denied to the Wall Street Journal that security clearance forms were taken, as people familiar with the attack had described.
A day after the public announcement, an OPM spokesman said there was 'no evidence to suggest that information other than what is normally found in a personnel file had been exposed.'  By that time, the FBI already knew - and told OPM - that security-clearance forms had been tapped, officials said.

This is obviously a big problem, but the government seems more interested in minimizing the issue and deflecting blame, than they are in repairing the damage.
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TWITTER ISN’T REPRESENTATIVE OF WIDER PUBLIC OPINION?  SAY IT ISN’T SO!

6/25/2015

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It looks like whoever is making the claim  is talking about Britain, not the U.S., and I didn’t see any immediate source for statistics to back up the claim, but I suspect it’s true:  what you will see on Twitter is a narrow and unrepresentative sample of opinion on any given subject.
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WANT TO BUY A RANCH IN AUSTRALIA THAT’S THE SIZE OF INDIANA?

6/24/2015

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You’re in luck!  Take a look at the satellite photo with the Daily Mail story about an Australian ranch that’s for sale.  It looks like there are five pieces of land, separated by what must be several hundred miles in central Australia, but those five pieces are big.  Altogether, they comprise the largest private land holding in the world, according to the Daily Mail story.  
There are some beautiful photos with the story, including photos of the man who started the ranch and men who worked for him.  I found it interesting that the turn-of-the-century cowboys in Australia looked pretty much like their contemporaries in Arizona.

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WHAT PART OF “CONTENT-NEUTRAL” IS UNCLEAR?

6/19/2015

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Once again on the subject of strange things arising in Arizona, a town’s sign ordinance that treats signs differently based on what the signs are about has been found to be unconstitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court.  
Of course, it’s not at all strange that such an ordinance would be found to be unconstitutional.  No, the strange thing is that three of the justices seem to think that although in this particular case it wasn’t ok, there are some circumstances in which it would be ok for government to treat signs differently (that is, according to the time and place) based on the content of the signs.  

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ARE THERE REALLY GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE CACTI IN THE PHOENIX AREA?

6/18/2015

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A Phoenix-area blogger whose writings I like has photos in a recent post showing what he calls a “government surveillance cactus.”  Really?  I have seen the fake cacti that are cell phone towers, but I had never heard of surveillance cameras disguised as cacti (or anything else) in Arizona.  Can anyone corroborate this?
The blogger’s point, with which I must agree, is that the real reason to fear surveillance is not that it might be used by businesses trying to sell you something.

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HOW TO NOT MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE NEIGHBORS, USING THE LEGAL SYSTEM

6/17/2015

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As I’m writing this I’m already having second thoughts about drawing any more attention to it, so I’ll just say this: if you want to read about a really ugly dispute between neighbors, read this version if you want the gussied up, sanitized story, but read this version if you really want to see the ugly details.
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BEING DRUNK ON YOUR OWN PROPERTY IS NOT PUBLIC INTOXICATION

6/16/2015

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This one seems pretty easy to me.  If a person is drunk on the front steps of her house, is she guilty of public intoxication?  Only if you can define being on your own property but visible from a public place (the street) as being in public.  That’s apparently the interpretation that was advanced by a prosecutor in Iowa.  A  sensible, and unanimous, appellate court rejected that interpretation.
Via Overlawyered.

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