The Book is a new online venture founded by Leon Wieseltier, the longtime editor of the literary section of the New Republic. The New Republic has always been the top place for book reviews in my opinion—less ideologically predictable than the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, less eccentric than TLS, and […]
Archive | 2010
North Korea: Communist Oppression Even Worse than the USSR
Barbara Demick’s recent book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, is an excellent account of daily life in for ordinary people in one of the world’s two remaining unreformed communist states. It’s based on extensive interviews with North Koreans who were fortunate enough to escape to South Korea through China. As described by […]
Truth-in-Photographs Requirement Imposed by Dating Services State Election Laws
That’s so at least in Alaska and Washington, and perhaps elsewhere. From Alaska Statutes § 15.58.030: (c) Each candidate for [President, Vice-President, Senator, Representative, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, State Senator, or State Representative] is allowed one page of space in the [ballot] pamphlet for a photograph and statement…. (f) A candidate’s photograph must be 5″ x […]
Overall Hispanic Matriculation to American Law Schools is Increasing
Somewhat surprisingly the Society of American Law Teachers study on minority matriculation to law school didn’t give data for all Hispanics. Instead, it focused on Mexican-Americans alone, concluding that their “representation” has “trended downward since 1993.” Most law schools target Hispanics as a group for affirmative action admissions, not Mexican-Americans alone. It could be that […]
Declining African American/Mexican American Matriculations to Law School?
A few days back, while I was away at the Federalist Society Faculty Division conference in New Orleans, Orin linked to a study out of Columbia’s “SALT” that reported declines in the percentage of African Americans and Mexican Americans matriculating in American law schools since 1993. Orin tentatively attributed this decline to law schools becoming […]
Biden
It’s kind of amusing to go back and read Obama partisans’ defenses of Biden in August 2008 (e.g., “The comparisons between Biden and Quayle seem way off. Biden has always been more outspoken, articulate, coherent, and respected than Quayle ever was”), and then read what Obama had to say (privately) about Biden a month later: […]
A Few Thoughts on the Olson-Boies Same-Sex Marriage Case
Like a lot of our readers, and my co-bloggers Dale and Jonathan, I’ve been following the Olson-Boies same-sex marriage case with great interest. I wanted to weigh in with three comments and a question. 1) I’m not so sure the Supreme Court will eventually take this case. A lot of people seem to think this […]
Mitchell’s Loan Guarantee Threat
I suspect that U.S. envoy George Mitchell’s threat that the U.S. may withhold loan guarantees from Israel if Israel fails to adhere to U.S. policy re the West Bank would have more “bite” if Israel’s fiscal house wasn’t currently in much better order than the U.S.’s.
The Impact of Litigation on Prospects for Gay Marriage
Like co-bloggers Dale Carpenter and Jonathan Adler, I highly doubt that Ted Olson and David Boies will succeed in their case urging the Supreme Court to declare a federal constitutional right to gay marriage. At the same time, I differ with them somewhat in believing that gay marriage litigation has been a huge net plus […]
Normblog’s Interviews with Prominent Political Bloggers
Some of our readers are probably already aware of it, but I only recently found out about Norman Geras’ interesting archive of interviews with prominent political bloggers. Among many others, there is a recent interview with the VC’s own David Bernstein, and earlier ones with Jonathan Adler and Eugene Volokh. In reading the interviews with […]
Olson’s Conservative Case for Gay Marriage
On the eve of a federal Prop 8 trial in a San Francisco district court, Ted Olson is channeling Andrew Sullivan and Jon Rauch. I agree with almost all of the essay, which is nicely and powerfully argued, except the idea that it isn’t “too soon” to pursue this in federal court. An ultimate loss in […]
“Disconcerting Customers”
“Egbert’s, a custom car shop at this location since 1992, specializes in restoring and building unique cars to disconcerting customers.” Thanks to Prof. Geoffrey K. Pullum (Language Log) for the pointer. UPDATE: Mark Eckenwiler points to this term from a Continental Airlines bonus miles plan (emphasis added): Once subscribed, members must be suppressed for 60 […]
Saturdays with Stendhal 2
Notional Saturday. Saturday in my heart. This, from On Love: I crave leave to slander France a little more. Actually, not. I am great lover of France. (Recall that the poet Blaise Cendrars, on the outbreak of the First World War, distributed a manifesto proclaiming that all true poets would fight for France. Cendrars joined […]
Court Proceedings To Be Conducted in a Foreign Language?
From The Local: The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung paper reported at the weekend that justice ministers of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg, Roswitha Müller-Piepenkötter and Till Steffen respectively, aimed to change the law governing the German courts so that cases could be conducted in English. The paper says many internationally-active businesses were used to negotiating and closing […]
The DC 5-Cent Bag Tax
A new law recently went into effect in the District of Columbia, the “Anacostia River Clean Up and Protection Act of 2009”. The law does two things. First, it prohibits the sale or distribution of non-recyclable plastic bags in the District of Columbia at either the retail or wholesale level. Second, and more recognizably to […]