Christopher Buccafusco and Christopher Sprigman have a very interesting article, Valuing Intellectual Property: An Experiment, in the latest Cornell Law Review. From the introduction: In this Article, we present an experiment that demonstrates a substantial valuation asymmetry between authors of poems and potential purchasers of them. As we explain, we created a market for poems […]
Archive | 2010
Closed End Funds Regress to the Mean
Back in October 2008, I wrote my first of several posts on closed-end funds: Closed-end mutual funds, which have a fixed number of shares and are traded on stock markets, have been absolutely clobbered by the turmoil in the financial markets. Not only have their underlying net asset values gone done, but many of them […]
Now That’s a Concise Article
From the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, with thanks to GeekPress. But this article strikes me as derivative.
Is the Microbe Half Empty or Half Full of Arsenic?
After reading the front page accounts in three leading newspapers of the microbe that started out as a critter in Mono Lake and then got force-fed, like a goose for its liver, on arsenic replacing phosphorous, I remain unclear as to whether we have evidence of a parallel evolutionary tree or simply a highly selected […]
Drudge Doubles Down on PrisonPlanet
Apropos of my earlier post on this topic, Matt Drudge is once again featuring a headline (“CNN Reporter Put On ‘Watch List’ After Criticizing T&A…“) with a link to dubious reporting from the truther-friendly site PrisonPlanet. That’s the second Drudge link to PrisonPlanet just this week, so it’s officially a trend. And not a good one […]
Stopping A Stopped School Bus, Part 2
Reader subpatre chimes in with an interesting update about Wednesday’s post on the Virginia traffic law making it a reckless driving offense to fail to “stop . . . . a stopped school bus.” In the initial post, I had googled the statute and had copied the version from Justia.com. Here was the first sentence […]
Calling All Music Lovers, ChicagoLand Dep’t:
In case any of you is looking for something interesting to do tomorrow (Saturday), my son Sam is giving his Master’s Recital up at Northwestern (Lutkin Hall, 330 PM) performing the complete Bach Goldberg Variations. It should be terrific — Sam’s really a wonderful pianist, he’s always had a tremendous affinity for the music of […]
Reflections on the Repeal Amendment
Co-blogger Randy Barnett’s proposed Repeal Amendment has generated a great deal of controversy. The amendment would give a two thirds majority of the states the power to repeal any federal law or regulation. The idea has now been endorsed by a number of congressional Republicans, including soon-to-be House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Randy argues that […]
To Keep the Latest Ilya-Orin Exchange ….
…from being stuck in an infinite loop of main posts, I’ll respond to Ilya’s latest post in the comment thread to his post immediately below and close comments here.
Limits, “Significant” Limits, and the Commerce Clause
By Ilya Somin on December 3, 2010 2:48 am in Commerce Clause, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate
In his most recent post in our exchange about the individual mandate and the Commerce Clause, Orin distinguishes between a conception under which Congress’ commerce power is “not unlimited” and one where it is “significantly limited.” He argues that the Court’s jurisprudence endorses the former, but not the latter. In my view, however, concluding that […]
An Odd Locution
“Funchess was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of death.” Or, if you prefer, “Appellant was also sentenced to one to two years imprisonment for abuse of corpse, a concurrent term of one month to two years for tampering, and one to two years for criminal conspiracy, to run consecutive to his death sentence.” For sentences […]
You Can’t Force People to Say the Pledge of Allegiance, Part II
A couple of months ago, I blogged this item: You Can’t Force People to Say the Pledge of Allegiance[:] That’s what the Court held 67 years ago even as to schoolchildren, and the rationale of the case would squarely apply to others, such as lawyers. But news travels slowly to one Mississippi courtroom, where Chancery […]
“Not Unlimited” Is Not the Same As “Significantly Limited”: A Reply To Ilya
Just a quick reply to Ilya’s response on the scope of the Commerce Clause. In my view, the basic problem with Ilya’s argument is that it mixes up two different claims: (1) Congress does not have unlimited power, and (2) Congress has significantly limited power. The Supreme Court has said (1). But it has not […]
Assumptions and “Activities” in Commerce Clause Jurisprudence
By Ilya Somin on December 2, 2010 11:29 pm in Commerce Clause, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate
In his response to my post on why going without health insurance doesn’t qualify as an “activity” that Congress can regulate under the Commerce Clause, Orin Kerr claims that my reasoning “begins with an assumption as to how much power Congress has, and he then reasons backwards to infer the meaning of ‘activity’ in order […]
“Three Strikes” Challenger Charged With Four Murders
The Los Angeles Times reports: To hear him tell his story, John Wesley Ewell was the victim of an overly harsh criminal justice system. The South Los Angeles hairstylist complained to journalists over the last decade about the unfairness of the state’s tough three-strikes law, saying he lived in fear that even a small offense […]