Archive | December, 2004

Stuart Buck reports that Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) has caught lots of folks flip-flopping on the use of filibusters.

Is the new academic group blog Left2Right turning into a liberal Volokh Conspiracy? Majikthise thinks so. I won’t believe it until I see multiple links to You Can’t Say That! or its L2R equivalent. If it happens, though, I say we merge — it seems the conspiratorial thing to do.

I love it when columnists or other pundits tell me what I think. Here’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. Michael Wilbon and Mike Wise are two sports columnists at the Washington Post (and darn good ones, too – the Washington Post has many flaws, but it also boasts an extraordinary array of fine […]

I occasionally get email from readers suggesting that Israel is unworthy of support, or even existence, because it is an ethnic/religion-based state. So what about Poland? After World War II, Poland expelled its Germans and Ukrainians, absorbed Poles tossed out of Russia, and tolerated pogroms against the remaining Jewish population (for one source on all […]

FoxNews reports: U.S. officials have said they plan to turn Saddam over to an Iraqi court for trial. The United States says Saddam’s government killed at least 300,000 Iraqis, including thousands of Iraqi Kurds in a poison gas attack in 1988. But the Geneva Conventions say POWs can be tried only for crimes against humanity […]

The Creators Syndicate felt that a Sam Francis column complaining that recent episodes in popular culture celebrate interracial relationships was acceptable, according to this report; “Did I disagree with the column? Yes,” responded Anthony Zurcher, a Creators editor who saw the Francis piece before it was syndicated. “Did I feel it was so reprehensible that […]

Larry Solum (Legal Theory Blog), Eugene Volokh (Volokh Conspiracy) and Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) have been nominated for the Top 20 Legal Thinkers in America by Legal Affairs. Larry and Eugene are nominated in the “Academics” category, while Glenn is nominated in the “Writers/Commentators” category. According to Legal Affairs: “Your job is to vote for your […]

A lot has now appeared in the press concerning oral argument in Ashcroft v. Raich, including favorable editorials in both The New York Times and Boston Globe. Two particularly insightful analyses appeared today that I thought merited a link. The first, Feds v. Meds, from the Los Angeles City Beat explores the following theme: The […]

Judge Charles Pickering, recess appointee to the Fifth Circuit, has taken the announcement of his retirement as an opportunity to run down the list of talking points used by his supporters and launch some zingers against the opponents of his nomination. Pickering got a raw deal; in classic Washington fashion, he became a convenient political […]

If you have the slightest interest in the history, current state, or future of Israel, you must read this interview with Prof. Morris. In short, he argues that even though he is still at heart a left-winger, given the barbarian state of Arab/Palestinian/Muslim culture, it will come down to “them or us,” and he chooses […]

While many librarians are worried about the Patriot Act, they should be worried more about a much more serious threat: The Internet.

Another interesting article by one of my colleagues is a forthcoming article by my colleague Kathy Zeiler, co-authored with the legendary Charlie Plott, in the American Economic Review on the so-called “endowment effect.” The “endowment effect” has emerged as a staple of behavioral economics, especially in critiques of the real-world validity of the Coase Theorem. […]

I readily admit to being a sucker for anything that combines my two passions in life–law and sports. Thus, I commend to you, a recent paper by my colleage Steve Goldberg commenting on the criteria for choosing Supreme Court Justices. Just as winning the Heisman Trophy does not seem to predict which college football players […]

Legal Affairs is having a contest to see how many people will visit their website to help out friends, former professors, favorite bloggers, and ideological compadres — er, rather, to determine who are the Top 20 Legal Thinkers in America.   Specifically, the poll asks you to vote for “the country’s most influential and important legal […]

Democracy Project writes: Before last spring, Miller planned on retiring to his home town of Young Harris to teach at the eponymous junior college there. He’s a YHC graduate and former professor at the small Methodist school, which was founded in 1886 by a circuit-riding minister. But in May, David Franklin, a history professor there […]