An interesting column from Barry Rubin. If this topic interests you at all, it’s worth reading the whole thing.
Archive | 2010
Going Wobbly on Russia’s Cybersecurity Disarmament Proposal?
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the Obama Administration was ready to engage in talks with Russia about on cyberspace disarmament. I finally had a chance to read the remarks, by the new head of Cyber Command, Gen. Keith Alexander, also the head of the National Security Agency. (In a revealing typo, the […]
David Thompson, Guest-Blogging
I’m delighted that my friend David Thompson will be guest-blogging this coming week about his and Michael Fertik’s new book, Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier (for more on the book, see here). I know David from when he clerked for Judge Kozinski; since then he’s […]
Upcoming Talks
I’ll be giving a few talks in the next few weeks that may be of interest to VC readers. June 9 – I’ll be speaking to the Cleveland lawyers chapter of the Federalist Society on “Climate Policy Heats Up: What’s Not Cool About Global Warming Regulations.” June 12 – I’ll be speaking on a plenary […]
The Bad Old Days
We tend to think of the modern era, at least since the 1960s, as uniquely dangerous for political leaders. In fact, though, the most dangerous time for U.S. presidents was the era after the Civil War, as I was reminded recently while reading Wilderness Warrior, a biography of Teddy Roosevelt. Between 1860 and 1900, seven […]
“Lessons From the Financial Crisis”:
I was delighted to be invited to contribute to an important new book that has just appeared: Lessons from the Financial Crisis: Causes, Consequences, and Our Economic Future. It is a collection of 78 short essays on various elements of the financial crisis. The Table of Contents is available on the Wiley Publishing website. I […]
Suing EPA Over Gulf Cleanup
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a notice of intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for authorizing the use of chemical dispersants to faciliate the cleanup of oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico. According to a CBD attorney, “The fact that no one in the federal government ever […]
Prosecuting BP
University of Michigan law professor David Uhlmann, former chief of the environmental crimes section in the Department of Justice, had an op-ed in the NYT discussing the potential prosecution of British Petroleum and its executives for the Deepwater Horizon blowout and spill. He writes: If the spill had resulted from a hurricane or lightning strike, […]
Sunday Song Lyric
If I hear one more song with Auto-Tune I think I’ll foreswear the FM dial for good. Don’t these guys know it makes them sound like Cher? I am not alone in my disdain for the over-use of pitch-correction technology. Jay-Z even wrote an award-winning song about it, “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune).” The lead single […]
More on Israeli Incompetence
As readers know, I am sympathetic to Israel, especially when compared with its vile enemies like Hamas and Hezbollah, and that’s reflected in my blog posts. But it’s frustrating, because the Israeli government has proven to be so incompetent [beyond the general standard of incompetence one can expect from any government]. This is to a […]
Adderall
I bet if I had some Adderall, I would have finished this manuscript revision hours ago, or anyway, would stay up all night in a state of ecstatic concentration and get it done :( Citing the drug’s extensive contributions to almost every field of academia, Harvard conferred an honorary doctoral degree upon a 30-day supply […]
Assessing the Chrysler Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy scholars Mark Roe and David Skeel have a new paper on SSRN “Assessing the Chrysler Bankruptcy.” Their conclusion? Not so good. Here’s the abstract: Chrysler entered and exited bankruptcy in 42 days, making it one of the fastest major industrial bankruptcies in memory. It entered as a company widely thought to be ripe for […]
The Federal Workforce and Our Economic Future
From an op-ed in today’s WSJ by AEI President Arthur Brooks: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in the last year the federal government added 86,000 permanent (non-Census) jobs to the rolls. And high-paying jobs at that: The number of federal salaries over $100,000 per year has increased by nearly 50% since the beginning […]
Interracial Marriage Rates Going Up
CNN has an interesting story on a recent Pew Research Center survey that shows that interracial marriage rates have increased greatly over the last 30 years. Unlike the Associated Press, CNN’s story emphasizes the important positive aspects of this trend: Asian. White. Black. Hispanic. Do race and ethnicity matter when it comes to marriage? Apparently, […]
How to Be a Hegemon
(And thanks Glenn for the Instalanche!) I’ve been very light on the blogging of late, as I have to turn in my short book manuscript on US-UN relations on Sunday. The following probably won’t make the final edit as a footnote, but I thought I’d preserve it here: One of the great ironies of multilateralism […]