Here’s an interesting abstract I just saw (go here to download the paper): JOHN MCMILLAN, Stanford University – Graduate School of Business; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research) PABLO ZOIDO, Stanford University – Graduate School of Business April 2004 CESifo Working Paper Series No. 1173 Which of the democratic checks […]
Archive | August, 2004
“The Faggot Family”:
The Doody family from Wolverhampton has been crowned The Faggot Family in a national competition, and to kick off their reign they will launch National Faggot Week. . . . The competition was organised by . . . Mr Brain’s Faggots. . . . OK, I admit it, the ellipses end up concealing the real […]
Sexual orientation discrimination and race discrimination:
(I’ve blogged about this a year or two ago, but it seems worth returning to.) Lots of people have argued that sexual orientation discrimination should be treated just like race discrimination. Sexual orientation and race, the argument goes, are both characteristics that are almost entirely irrelevant to a person’s ability to do certain things, and […]
Antidiscrimination laws as restraints on liberty:
Some people, responding to my post yesterday on gay rights legislation, questioned whether antidiscrimination laws restrain others’ liberty. Well, of course they do. Your right to choose whom to associate with, whom to do business with, whom to select to speak for you, and so on is an important part of your freedom of action, […]
WINE WARS, PART 2–21ST AMENDMENT TEXT:
As noted in Wine Wars, Part 1 there is no persuasive policy goal to justify discriminatory bans that permit direct shipment by in-state wineries but prohibit out-of-state wineries. New York, for instance, has 200 farm wineries shipping directly to consumers and has not proffered any evidence that consumers can only get drunk on California wines […]
Will judges be barred from participating in the Boy Scouts?
As blog readers know, I strongly oppose anti-sodomy laws; I tentatively support gay marriage; I think same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt; and I’m generally quite skeptical of government discrimination against homosexuals. At the same time, I think the anti-gay-rights forces have a very good point when they worry about gay rights interfering with […]
Bogus Privacy Scandal Reported in The New York Times?
A week ago, The New York Times ran a story about the Census Bureau discosing information about Arab Americans to the Department of Homeland Security. The story creates the impression that this was a serious violation of privacy rights by overzealous government officials. Reuters ran a piece on the Times report, and the news spread […]
Flamingo or Ostrich?
The AP reports: A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department obtained video surveillance tapes suggesting terrorists were targeting Las Vegas casinos but authorities never alerted the public as they discussed whether a warning might hurt tourism or increase the casinos’ legal liability, internal memos show. The mayor of Las Vegas said Monday […]
Drink Up (Moderately):
I know it’s fashionable to be anti-French these days, but I think they might be onto something. According to this report, the French government wants to classify wine as nourishment. In one sense, they’re right. After all, moderate wine consumption is good for you. On that note, I think I’m off to my local wine […]
Corporate Admission Against Interest:
The New York Times reports on how the Bush Administration has sought to make various policies more “coal-friendly.” In my mind, some of these policy changes are desirable (e.g. making it easier to modernize coal-fired power plants), while others are not (e.g. more subsidies to coal producers). The discussion of one particular policy change caught […]
Todd Zywicki:
We’re delighted to welcome Todd Zywicki, one of our earliest coconspirators, back to the blog. Todd is a lawprof at George Mason, and he spent the last year-plus as Policy Planning Director at the Federal Trade Commission (which is why he had to leave us). Here’s what Todd has been up to while at the […]
“What I Did Over Summer Vacation”:
De Novo is collecting submissions for an interesting feature: Law students do all sorts of things over the summer, ranging from positions at top-ranked law firms to . . . positions at slightly lower-ranked law firms. Oh, and some other stuff too. We want to hear about your summer experiences, wherever you were — the […]
FREE TRADE UNDER FIRE:
Douglas Irwin, Professor at my alma mater Dartmouth, has a brilliant dissection of modern-day protectionists in today’s Wall Street Journal. His concluding paragraph is a home run, “As it stands now, free trade-critics bring nothing to the table. They do not have a constructive agenda to remedy the problems they see. Free-trade critics are long […]
LISTEN MA, I’M ON CATO AUDIO!
I was honored to make the cut for the July Cato Audio program for my speech on the folly of proposed bans on advertising food products to children in order to combat obesity in children. Children’s obesity is a serious and growing problem, but fad policies like advertising bans are going to be no more […]
People prosecuted for pro-terrorist speech on New York streets shortly after 9/11:
Someone e-mailed me about these two cases, and I found that I’d mislaid the citations. To keep that from happening again, and to help others who are interested in the subject, I thought I’d blog them: They are People v. Upshaw, 190 Misc. 2d 704, 741 N.Y.S.2d 664, 2002 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 203, and People […]