Archive | August, 2009

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the infamous agreement in which Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union tried to carve up Eastern Europe between them. Historian Orlando Figes has a good summary of its significance here. History is full of cynical international agreements, many of which led to terrible results. But I […]

My fiancee is considering getting an Apple I-Phone. Would it be worthwhile to buy the more expensive, but faster and more powerful, I-Phone 3Gs, or simply to buy the regular, cheaper I-Phone 3G? I suspect we have exactly the kind of readership that is likely to have expertise on a question like this. I appreciate […]

David Rivkin and Lee Casey argue that a federal mandate requiring all individuals to obtain health insurance would lie beyond the scope of Congress’ enumerated powers. Specifically, they argue that neither the power to “regulate commerce among the several states” nor the taxing and spending power could support such an all-encompassing mandate. Here is a […]

Over at Asymmetrical Information, Megan McArdle posts an email from a reader responding to a series of posts on the causes and solutions of obesity. The email is bracing and provocative, written from my home town of LA; here is a bit of the email to McArdle: As someone who works in the entertainment industry […]

The LA Times reports on a recent rendition to the United States: A Lebanese citizen being held in a detention center [in Alexandria, VA] was hooded, stripped naked for photographs and bundled onto an executive jet by FBI agents in Afghanistan in April, making him the first known target of a rendition during the Obama […]

The economics commentator, Irwin Stelzer, has an excellent, plain-spoken article in the Weekly Standard on the issues of executive compensation in the financial institutions. Pay Day. It is an interesting article in part because Stelzer takes as his audience conservatives who are skeptical of government-established restrictions on compensation in the banks and financial institutions: The […]

McClatchy reports: If you’re planning a garage sale or organizing a church bazaar, you’d best beware: You could be breaking a new federal law. As part of a campaign called Resale Roundup, the federal government is cracking down on the secondhand sales of dangerous and defective products. The initiative, which targets toys and other products […]

A couple of years ago, I blogged about a group of Palestinian Arabs I encountered in the Galilee who were obviously of African descent. I’ve stumbled across an academic article (original source unclear) published since then that discusses the history of some of the Palestinians whose recent ancestors were from Africa: Most contemporary members of […]

Some of the provisions of the the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 are now effective. CEI’s Hans Bader has an excellent summary of some of the unintended consequences of this “consumer protection” measure–well, actually, most of them, such as the return of annual fees, was fully predicted: In response to the […]

Over at at the CBS News blog site, Declan McCullagh has a new article on the constitutionality of gun registration. He has input from Volokh, Kopel (we disagree), and many others. Also in relation to a topic that I blogged about yesterday, my iVoices.org podcast on guns at presidential speeches is now on-line. On the […]

Elizabeth Ann Thrasher is being prosecuted under the Missouri felony harassment statute passed in the wake of the Lori Drew case. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports: Elizabeth A. Thrasher, 40, [was involved in] online [bickering] with the 17-year-old daughter of a woman Thrasher’s ex-husband was dating…. The teen [then] sent a MySpace message to Thrasher, […]

Well put, I thought.

A reader asks, in response to my post defending a person’s right to use the word UCLA in the address of a site that’s critical of UCLA, Should I be able to set up a Web site called againstvolokhconspiracyblog.com without being challenged? Of course you should, at least if the content of the site likewise […]

With horror, I’m beginning to realize that classes (at my law school, anyway, and at many others as well) are actually starting up again this coming week, bringing summer ’09 to an end, alas. Time for my annual plug for my “Writing Guidelines” — if you’re a beginning law student, or a returning law student, […]

A reader passes along this statement from the Wisconsin Attorney General (and news reports seem to confirm that it’s genuine): In November 2006, Wisconsin voters amended our State Constitution to declare that marriage was between one man and one woman. The amendment prohibits our government from recognizing any other legal status substantially similar to marriage. […]