How \u3cem\u3eQui Tam\u3c/em\u3e Actions Could Fight Public Corruption

This Note argues that public corruption at the state and local levels is a serious problem throughout the United States. Because public corruption decreases confidence in the democratic system at all levels of government, a strong response is necessary. Due to difficulties inherent in the deterrence, detection, and prosecution of state and local corruption, innovative methods to respond to this problem are needed. The author argues that amending the federal criminal statutes most commonly used to prosecute state and local public corruption, to allow a private citizen to bring a qui tam civil action against the public official for violations of those criminal statutes, would contribute substantially to the deterrence, detection, and prosecution of public corruption

The Concept of Religion in the Supreme Court of Israel

Fifteen years ago, Joseph Dan reminded us that there is no \u27neutral\u27 linguistic expression, one which does not reflect various layers of cultural and conceptual meanings. \u27 Legal discourse is no exception. The cultural study of law shows that legal controversies and legal reasoning often reflect underlying cultural perceptions. And how law accounts for, responds to, and is imbued with cultural phenomena is far more important than mere abstract intellectual exercises \u27 that the lack of neutral expression may cause in other disciplines. In law, cultural conceptions and common understandings are embedded in passionate social disputes on which the law of the state pronounces. \u27 So where the language of law is imbued with common terms and concepts, and neutrality is assumed rather than demonstrated, it is not . . . a harmless affair. \u2

Savanna responses to feral buffalo in Kakadu National Park, Australia

Savannas are the major biome of tropical regions, spanning 30% of the Earth\u27s land surface. Tree: grass ratios of savannas are inherently unstable and can be shifted easily by changes in fire, grazing, or climate. We synthesize the history and ecological impacts of the rapid expansion and eradication of an exotic large herbivore, the Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalus), on the mesic savannas of Kakadu National Park (KNP), a World Heritage Park located within the Alligator Rivers Region (ARR) of monsoonal north Australia. The study inverts the experience of the Serengeti savannas where grazing herds rapidly declined due to a rinderpest epidemic and then recovered upon disease control. Buffalo entered the ARR by the 1880s, but densities were low until the late 1950s when populations rapidly grew to carrying capacity within a decade. In the 1980s, numbers declined precipitously due to an eradication program. We show evidence that the rapid population expansion and Sudden removal of this exotic herbivore created two ecological cascades by altering around cover abundance and composition, which in turn affected competitive regimes and fuel loads with possible further, long-term effects due to changes in fire regimes. Overall, ecological impacts varied across a north-south gradient in KNP that corresponded to the interacting factors of precipitation, landform, and vegetation type but was also contingent upon the history of buffalo harvest. Floodplains showed the greatest degree of impact during the period of rapid buffalo expansion, but after buffalo removal, they largely reverted to their prior state. Conversely, the woodlands experienced less visible impact during the first cascade. However, in areas of low buffalo harvest and severe impact, there was little recruitment of juvenile trees into the canopy due to the indirect effects of grazing and high frequency of prescribed fires once buffalo were removed. Rain forests were clearly heavily impacted during the first cascade, but the long term consequences of buffalo increase and removal remain unclear. Due to hysteresis effects, the simple removal of an exotic herbivore was not sufficient to return savanna systems to their previous state