A suggestion to commenters: Using normal upper- and lowercase — rather than all-uppercase (which is rare in our comments) or all-lowercase (which is more common) — makes your comments easier to read. This in turn makes it more likely that people will carefully read your comments, and potentially be persuaded by them.
Archive | May, 2010
The Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause and Life Without Parole for Under-18 (Nonhomicide) Offenders
Justice Thomas’s dissent in yesterday’s Graham v. Florida — which argues against the Court’s conclusion that such punishments are unconstitutional — strikes me as quite correct. As it happens, I think the sentence in this particular case was too high, whether one looks at this as a matter of retribution, incapacitation, or deterrence. The defendant’s […]
Program on Interchange Fees:
On June 9 the Mercatus Center and the International Center for Law and Economics will be holding a conference on the regulation of interchange fees. Info and registration is here. I’ll be presenting a new paper that I’ve just been finishing up on the topic. Readers may be aware that new regulations related to interchange […]
Louisiana Parish Government’s Lawsuit Dropped
This is the lawsuit I blogged about last week; now nola.com, affiliated with the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that both the Parish and its President (Steve Theriot) have dropped the lawsuit. Thanks to Charles Stiegler for the pointer.
Venezuela
An NPR story this morning about the Venezuelan economic crisis reminded me of this table of per capita GDP in 1950 (in current dollars): # 1 United States: $9,573.00 # 2 Switzerland: $8,939.00 # 3 New Zealand: $8,495.00 # 4 Venezuela: $7,424.00 # 5 Australia: $7,218.00 # 6 Canada: $7,047.00 # 7 Sweden: $6,738.00 # […]
Another Call for Governmental Suppression of Speech Offensive to Religious Sensibilities
By Eugene Volokh on May 18, 2010 11:56 am in Freedom of Speech, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
The Georgian Times (fortunately, that’s not our Georgia) reports that the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate is calling for a law that would protect “religious feelings,” and arguing that “[f]reedom of speech doesn’t mean right to provoke discord and confrontation, abuse church, religious feelings and belittle state symbols.” The call seems to have been prompted by a […]
Obama Accused of Attempted Murder?
Rev. Jeremiah Wright: “When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!” In fairness to Rev. Wright, lots of people use “literally” for emphasis, instead of to mean, well, “literally.” But it’s one of my pet peeves.
Freedom is not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America’s Struggle over Black Family Life–from LBJ to Obama
I interviewed Brown University history professor James T. Patterson about his book examining the tragic rise of illegitimacy rates, and the American political elite’s refusal to address the problem for decades. MP3, 50 minutes. During the course of our discussion, I mentioned my own writing about successful early intervention programs for at-risk children; that writing is […]
The Really Important Political Battle of the Year
In addition to the recent election in Britain and the November mid-term elections in the United States, this year features an all-out political fight for the presidency of International Chess Federation: [T]he politics of chess has taken a curious climb to the headlines. Anatoly Karpov, former world champion and one of the greatest players in […]
NRA Convention report
The NRA’s annual members meeting was held last weekend, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since I’ve been going to these events for the last two decades, I’d like to offer a report on how the Convention has changed over the years, and some thoughts about the NRA’s past and present.
Criminal Charges Against Anti-Homosexuality Street Preacher Dropped in England
The Daily Mail reports: The street preacher charged with public-order offences for saying homosexuality is a sin has had his case dropped … Dale Mcalpine was arrested by police who claimed his comments to passers-by had caused offence. But the Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to pursue the charges as there is insufficient evidence…. […]
Attempts to Defeat the Kagan Nomination, and Political Hardball
My post quoting the Miguel Estrada letter in support of the Elena Kagan nomination led some commenters to disagree: Conservatives should play hardball against the Kagan nomination, they argued, and not be duped by misguided appeals to deference to Presidential choices, or by praise for Kagan’s intellect or temperament or other nonideological credentials. (Jim Prevor, […]
If You’re a High School Civics or American History Teacher,
please feel free to print and copy for your students my The Numbers of the Constitution puzzle, if you think they’ll have fun trying to solve it. Actually, you should feel free to distribute the puzzle to students, friends, and others regardless of whether you’re a high school teacher — but I wanted to especially […]
“When Numbers Get Serious, You See Their Shape Everywhere”
The Green Bag 2d has just published my The Numbers of the Constitution, a puzzle that begins: To what do the following numbers refer in the United States Constitution? … 1/5: 1/3: 3/5: … 5: … 12: … Three numbers greater than 1000: … Check out the whole item. Thanks to Larry Arnold, Linus Richard […]
Bad News for Federalism? Some Preliminary Reflections on Comstock
I tend to agree with Eugene that today’s Supreme Court decision in United States v. Comstock is very bad news for constitutional federalism. However, the ultimate import of the decision is hard to gauge because the majority opinion is ambiguous on at least one crucial point: whether Necessary Proper Clause cases are governed exclusively by […]