Archive | June, 2004

Slate’s increasingly surreal Kerryisms column has this entry today: Question: What kind of Democrat are you? [This is the edited version, Slate‘s view of what Kerry presumably should have said:] Kerry: A thinking Democrat. You can call me an old-fashioned New Deal Democrat. I’m not going to break faith on Social Security. I’m not going […]

This piece (thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer) strikes me as very persuasive. I don’t know the facts well enough to vouch for the accuracy of her remarks, but they seem accurate based on what little I do know — and if they are accurate, then they’re a powerful indictment of the U.N.’s double standards […]

The ever-insightful Randall Parker suggests that this may be the case. It is one of his “research projects” to think through what kind of children we will seek to genetically engineer, and what kind of world will then result.

(another in my series of posts today on the Court’s Hiibel decision): The most interesting debate in Hiibel has to do with the privilege against self-incrimination. Though the text of the Fifth Amendment only bars “compell[ing] [any person] in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” the Court has applied this to pretrial […]

(another in my series of posts today on the Court’s Hiibel decision). The Court held that forcing someone to reveal his name doesn’t make the stop an unreasonable seizure. The proper test, the Court said (correctly, given the Court’s precedents), is that “The reasonableness of a seizure under the Fourth Amendment is determined ‘by balancing […]

The Curmudgeonly Clerk points this out, and it seems to me that he’s right. Here’s what the New York Sun reports about Judge Calabresi’s comments to the American Constitution Society (the liberal counterpart to the Federalist Society): The 71-year-old judge declared that members of the public should, without regard to their political views, expel Mr. […]

I’m pleased to say that Michael H. Schill, a law professor at NYU (where he specializes in housing law and policy), has been named dean here at UCLA Law School. I don’t know him much, but all I’ve heard about him suggests that he’ll do an excellent job.

The question in today’s Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court decision from the Supreme Court is: Once the police stop a person based on reasonable suspicion that he may be involved in criminal activity, may the police demand that he identify himself (backed by the threat of legal punishment should he refuse, or should he […]

Judge Guido Calabresi was appointed by a President who was eventually involved in a scandal that nearly led to the President’s removal from office by the Senate. I am not suggesting for a moment that this person is John Mitchell, or is a felon who helped obstruct justice. I want to be clear on that, […]

at least if they had reasonable suspicion to stop him. That’s what I infer from SCOTUSBlog’s report that the Supreme Court affirmed the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision in the Hiibel case. Will read it as soon as it’s available, and blog more about it. UPDATE: Looks like the 5 conservative / 4 liberal split; Justice […]

This essay, attributed to Israeli scientist Haim Harari, is well worth reading. For example, Harari writes: Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we mean free elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial system, civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel, exposure to international media and ideas, laws […]

The more I travel, the more I am amazed at how little hotel design seems to take into account the obvious goal of helping guests get a good night’s sleep by keeping noise levels down. Forget soundproof windows; how about just designing room doors so they don’t slam shut so loudly as to wake guests […]

In response to my post yesterday about software that can easily edit movies (including porn movies) to include images of celebrities or the editor’s acquaintances, several people argued that what people do in their own bedrooms should be none of the government’s business. Whether this is still so when it uses others’ images, in a […]

We saw Control Room last night, overall I was underwhelmed. If you read the better blogs, you won’t learn much from this film. I did feel that the movie presented the so-called “American point of view” with relative fairness. The American communications officer spoke frequently, was portrayed sympathetically, and made many of the better points […]

Matt Yglesias figures it out for us: Eugene Volokh wonders why men are so ugly. Andrew Sullivan responds: Much of this is true — but only for straight men. And that reveals the real source of male slovenliness: women. If women weren’t so damn forgiving of slobbiness, if they weren’t prepared to look for the […]