Archive | October, 2004

Those who read the posts below will note that I criticize Cal State Long Beach Prof. Clifton Snider; in that, I agree with Prof. Mike Adams, and appreciate his having brought up Prof. Snider’s conduct. And yet this argument by Prof. Adams strikes me as mistaken: You have a serious problem on your hands, Clifton. […]

an organization whose work in fighting campus speech codes I have long admired, writes: “Thanks to a profoundly generous $100,000 challenge grant from the John Templeton Foundation, your gift will be matched in our campaign to restore the core American value of freedom of speech to our nation’s colleges and universities.” If you’d like to […]

Written in red on an envelope I found in my Gags file, sent by Leonard Davis at the Davis Insurance Agency: “WARNING” If you throw this in your waste- basket unopened, a capsule of water inside will break, spilling onto a dehydrated gorilla. He will then jump out of the envelope and hug you to […]

quoting law school casebooks. Matt Rudary reports that p. 59 of the November 2004 issue of Playboy quotes (or, to be precise, paraphrases, but using quotation marks) a problem from the 2004 Supplement to my First Amendment textbook. I had blogged about it here, and I think the magazine picked it up from the blog. […]

Cal State Long Beach Professor Snider, the subject of the posts below, also makes the following claim on the page that describes the papers he wants his students to write. Recall that the papers are supposed to contain well-reasoned argument supported by the evidence: Dr. Clifton Snider English 100 California State University, Long Beach Notice […]

Apropos the post below about Snider vs. Adams, check out Prof. Snider’s guidelines for student papers in his Cal State Long Beach class (Adams also points out other problems with Snider’s guidelines, but I want to stick to this): Argument I. Purpose: to persuade or at least to create tolerance for your point of view […]

Duncan Frissell points to an interesting controversy: Your reposting of the Law of Fisking coincided with an actual threat to sue for copyright infringement in a Fisking situation involving one of your fellow California profs from CSU Long Beach. Mike Adams — a criminal justice prof from North Carolina and a conservative columnist — has […]

I’ll be giving a talk about my Crime-Facilitating Speech article at Stanford Law School this coming Monday (the 25th), 12:30 to 1:30 pm, in room 180. It’s open to the public, and they’ll even be serving lunch. UPDATE: Just to be clear, it’s a (Crime-Facilitating Speech) talk, not a crime-facilitating (speech talk).

The paperback edition of my You Can’t Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws—the Cato Institute’s all-time best-seller* —will officially be released on Monday, but you can already get it from Amazon for a mere $10.36, or from one of Amazon’s Marketplace dealers for under nine bucks. If you already have […]

It’s a bit late, but I thought I’d pass along the always amusing Supreme Court summary, from Mark Stancil at Baker Botts. It’s funny and actually pretty informative: Hoping to put the “win” back in Erwin, Professor Erwin Chemerinsky (formerly of USC, now slinging fed. courts and con. law at Duke) scored his second grant […]

Little-known fact — Indiana Code sec. 33-43-1-3 (and similar laws or professional oaths in Alabama, George, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Washington) states that An attorney shall . . . [a]bstain from all offensive personality . . . . Some of them even require lawyers to abstain from all […]

A fascinating short piece by James Gleick, the author of a recent Newton biography. (Naturally, especially fascinating for those who have just read Neal Stephenson’s trilogy.)

Slate‘s Election Scorecard projects — and, yes, who knows how it will come out on November 2? — Bush 271, Kerry 267. Close electoral vote + likely close popular votes in many states + the experience of 2000 = likely major nastiness come November 3. Yes, I know this has always appeared possible, but polls […]

Stephen Bainbridge has some thoughts on why we can’t expect complete coherence from Supreme Court decisions, responding to Charles Fried’s op-ed criticizing the Court for incoherence in recent cases, and also citing Jack Balkin’s response to Fried’s op-ed. (For citations to Fried and Balkin, go to Bainbridge’s site.)

My friend Steve Kurtz had an odd idea: Photograph various amusing businesses named Steve’s, and put the photos, together with various anecdotes, in a book. Sounds like a fun gift for people named Steve (though we Eugenes are still waiting for our volume).