Paul Johnson is a 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan law school. He is a former reporter for the The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey and the Hartford Courant in Connecticut. He is currently working as an appellate attorney for the state appellate defender’s office in Detroit, Michigan....

The New York Times: A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a sharp blow to the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to set the rules of the road for the Internet, ruling that the agency lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing...

There’s a great deal about the latest West Virginia mining disaster that’s messed up. For one, as Mike Tomasky points out, the mine was not the safest one in the state. Ben Smith also notes that West Virginia politics is a 1920s-style “conflict between labor union and Democrats on...

For a little while now I’ve been puzzled by the conservative effort to boycott the census this year. On a very ignorant level I get what they’re trying to do. The census involves the government and personal information ergo if you’re one of those frothing-at-the-mouth-tea-partiers you’re...

Ever wonder how to train a lizard? Hillary Busis at Slate’s Browbeat explains how you do it: Zookeepers can and do train their scaly charges to move around their cages, to stand still, and to open their mouths on demand. To impart these behaviors, keepers use a method called “target training,”...

Ben Smith: Only 20% of college students consider oral sex “sex,” according to a new study to appear in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. The authors attribute the perception to the fact that the students were young adolescents during the Clinton-Lewinsky affair,...