I’m pleased to note that Glenn Reynolds and I have a new short opinion piece up at Forbes.com,”Bombing the Moon.” It takes the hook of the LCROSS mission last week to shift gears from explosions on the Moon to … orbital war on satellites. We applaud an Obama administration initiative to try and get ahead […]
Archive | October, 2009
When Did Sex Offenders Have to Register?
This morning, in United States v. Cain, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit split over whether a sex offender convicted prior to the enactment of the federal Sexual Offenders Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) was required to update his sex offender registration before the Attorney General adopted regulations implementing the law’s registration […]
Good Luck, Mike
This morning, at the U.S. Supreme Court, my colleague Michael Benza will argue on behalf of the respondent in Smith v. Spisak. He will argue that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit correctly granted a writ of habeas corpus to death row inmate Frank Spisak due to constitutionally defective jury instructions and […]
Regulation on the Rise
The Washington Post reports on how the Obama Administration is increasing regulatory efforts on many fronts. There’s no question Obama appointees are more enthusiastic regulators than their Bush counterparts (with the possible exception of those at Homeland Security), but it would be a mistake to place all the credit/blame for increased regulation on the Obama […]
Clean Air, Dirty Water
The NYT reports on how efforts to reduce air pollution have sometimes led to an increase in water pollution. Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution. Power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of […]
A Prize for New Institutional Economics
More on the economics Nobels from Paul Krugman, Vernon Smith, David Henderson, and Tyler Cowen (1, 2). UPDATE: Like my co-bloggers, I am very pleased with the selection of Ostrom and Williamson. They are both very important figures who are well deserving. On a personal note, they have also both been influential on my own […]
Elinor Ostrom and the Tragedy of the Commons
By Ilya Somin on October 12, 2009 11:08 pm in Collective Action Problems, Economy, Environment, Libertarianism, Property Rights, Regulation
I was very happy to hear about Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize in Economics. Her work focuses on the tragedy of the commons and collective action problems, which overlaps several of my own research interests. When Ostrom began writing in this field in the 1960s, the conventional wisdom in economics and political science was that the […]
More Discrimination in Child Custody Cases Against the Less Religiously Practicing Parent:
By Eugene Volokh on October 12, 2009 7:55 pm in Child Custody and Constitutional Law, Religion and the Law, Uncategorized
From Stavig v. Stavig, No. 05-0464 (S.D. Cir. Ct. Aug. 28, 2008), recently affirmed by the South Dakota Supreme Court: [Father] is a little more able to [provide for the 6-year-old son’s “temporal, mental and moral welfare”] than [mother]…. Both have the ability to give [son] love, affection, guidance, education and to impart the family’s […]
Bernhard on Prizes
Thanks to bouilhet for finding the passage I mentioned in my earlier post (from Wittgenstein’s Nephew): If one disregards the money that goes with them, there is nothing in the world more intolerable than award ceremonies. I had already discovered this in Germany. They do nothing to enhance one’s own standing, as I had believed […]
Crime-Facilitating Speech and Reporting Police Movements
Several readers have pointed me to this New York Times article: Elliot Madison, 41, a social worker who has described himself as an anarchist, [was] arrested in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments of crime. The Pennsylvania State Police said […]
“The United States Are,” “The United States Is,” and the Civil War
Mark Liberman (Language Log) comments on the assertion that Before the war, it was said “the United States are.” Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war, it was always “the United States is,” as we say today without being self-conscious at all. And […]
Christopher Columbus — Hero or Villain?
Maybe it’s neither. Columbus was brave and daring, and did things that were important to world history. But he wasn’t heroic in the sense of displaying great moral qualities. Courage, while generally a good character trait, isn’t necessarily heroic or even highly honorable and praiseworthy unless it’s deployed in certain kinds of actions or causes. […]
Bainbridge, Tabarrok, and Levitt on Williamson
Professor Bainbridge responds to the economics Nobels and digs out some old reviews of Oliver Williamson’s work, while Alex Tabarrok discusses Williamson and the pin factory and Steven Levitt notes there was a time when the Williamson choice might have been less surprising (at least to him).
A Transaction Tax on Financial Transactions?
The Wall Street Journal has a new story from over the weekend on Democratic proposals, in Congress and the administration and from outside groups, to impose a tax on financial transactions (John D. McKinnon, Democrats Weigh Tax on Financial Transactions, WSJ, October 10, 2009): Taxing financial transactions on Wall Street is gathering support in high places. […]
Ostrom and Williamson:
I am really pleased–elated really–about the naming of Ostrom and Williamson for the Nobel Prize in Economics. The two of them are real leaders in the development of the New Institutional Economics. Both have already had important and profound impacts on the study of law and economics and I hope that this will raise interest […]