In today’s Washington Post, my former classmate Mohsin Hamid has an interesting essay on Pakistani attitudes about the United States. Mohsin will be doing an online Q&A about the essay tomorrow.
Archive | July, 2007
Sunday Song Lyric:
We spent the weekend visiting my Dad and his wife in Vermont. Over the years, they have become huge Mary Chapin Carpenter fans — going to concerts and everything. (My Dad at a concert — now there’s an image.) I have never been much of a Carpenter fan myself, but it’s hard not to respect […]
May Congress Order the Justice Department To Prosecute People Who the Justice Department Firmly Believes are Innocent?
I’m not a separation-of-powers maven, but my sense is that the Reagan Administration — and, more recently, the current Administration — have been right to say no. The issue has of course come up in the executive privilege context: Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over […]
Lord Voldemort and the Evil Overlord List:
NOTE: This post has possible indirect spoilers for the Harry Potter series, including one that relates to Book 7. Many fictional Dark Lords have met an untimely demise because they failed to follow the common sense rules of the Evil Overlord List. Now that the Harry Potter series has reached its end, we can determine […]
Done with the Deathly Hallows:
I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows earlier today. I won’t comment on the details of the story in this post, except to say that it’s an engrossing read, and had many clever plot twists. In a later post, I may note some reservations about the Potter series. For now, however, I will […]
What is happening to the pay of law partners?
This new and important paper (scroll to p.29) has lots of useful information: …the average profits per partner in the top 50, top 100, and top 200 U.S. law firms in 2004, respectively, were $1.26, $1.01 and $0.83 million. These averages are the averages of the average profit per partner for each firm. The medians […]
More Good Summer TV:
I just finished watching the new series Mad Men on AMC — a show about advertising executives on Madison Avenue in 1960. It is well worth trying. Well written, gorgeously photographed, paced and scored in the style of cinema rather than TV. No doubt, the American Movie Channel required this for their first network series. […]
Race for Presidency of Red Sox Nation Heats Up:
A variety of celebrity candidates have thrown their hats into the ring in the race to become the first President of Red Sox Nation. I was thinking of endorsing the candidacy of one of my favorite ESPN columnists, Bill “the Sports Guy” Simmons. However, I fear that the Sports Guy’s candidacy has been irreparably damaged […]
Are You in a Subjunctive Mood?
In response to my “She Says That as If It’s a Bad Thing” post (the “that” referring to calling something the “Boston Tea Party”), a commenter writes: How can someone say, “She Says That as If It’s a Bad Thing”? In English, we say, “She says that as if it were a bad thing.” “As […]
U.S. Expected To Invade Iran Tomorrow:
Details available here.
She Says That as If It’s a Bad Thing:
From a Reuters article about the Harry Potter publisher’s reaction to book reviews published before the book officially went on sale: A Bloomsbury spokeswoman called the New York Times review “very sad”, adding that there was only one day to wait until the official release in book stores around the world. Twelve million copies of […]
Religion and the Norms of Political Discourse:
Northwestern University Law Professor Andrew Koppelman has an insightful post on the role of religion in political discourse. To avoid confusion, it is important to emphasize that neither Andy nor I are proposing government censorship of speech that violates the norm we advocate. The principles we embrace should be promoted through social norms, not government […]
Content-Based Speech Restrictions vs. Content-Neutral Speech Restrictions:
Content-based speech restrictions imposed by the government as sovereign are almost always unconstitutional, unless the speech fits within one of the First Amendment exceptions. Content-neutral restrictions are often constitutional. I have argued in earlier posts that the Court has been right to treat generally applicable laws that are content-based as applied much like it treats […]
Insulting the SAT
can apparently get you criminally prosecuted in Turkey.
Movingscam.com:
If you are thinking about moving in the foreseeable future, I urge you to bookmark Movingscam.com. Founded by the victim of a moving scam, the site warns readers away from known scammers, provides tips regarding how to find a reliable mover, has a list of reliable movers based on reader feedback, and has a discussion […]