Via FuturePundit, who observes that this is really much more broadly about lie detection than counterterrorism as such, note this press release from Northwestern University: For the first time, the Northwestern researchers used the P300 testing in a mock terrorism scenario in which the subjects are planning, rather than perpetrating, a crime. The P300 brain […]
Archive | 2010
Keith Hennessey Explains the White House Policy Process
As a law professor who lives and works in DC, and frequently interacts with folks in various parts of the federal government, I should probably know the bureaucratic structure and process for executive-branch policy making than I do. But I’ve never actually worked in the federal government, and I found this discussion by Keith Hennessey […]
Lowering the Bar: Is Law School Becoming a Fool’s Errand?
A new InstaVision video, with Profs. Richard Epstein, John Yoo, and Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit). UPDATE (posted 6:14 pm Eastern): The comments to this post so far have proven to be a textbook example of what no-one — other than the small set of active commenters — would like a post’s comments section to be. (There […]
No “Intrusion Upon Seclusion” Tort When Person is Videotaped at a Publicly Visible Religious Service
From Tagouma v. Investigative Consultant Servs., Inc.: On April 8, 2004, [Appellant, Ahmed, Tagouma] fell at work while employed at Arnold Industries. He suffered an acute fracture of his right hand. [Appellant] was later diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome (RSD). [Appellant] sought workers’ compensation benefits and Arnold Logistics contested his claim. While the claim […]
Internet “Censorship,” part 2 — Google, Verizon, and Net Neutrality
[Update: AARGH. Mea culpa — I had been working on some documents regarding the VIACOM -Google lawsuit, and then I started work on this posting about the VERIZON-Google announcement about “net neutrality,” and so my initial posting erroneously talked all about the “Google-Viacom announcement,” as many of the commenters pointed out … My apologies for […]
Internet “Censorship,” part 1:
No, this is not about the Verizon-Google deal — I’ll be posting about that momentarily. This is a somewhat more mundane illustration of a different phenomenon (though one that is related, perhaps obliquely, to the issue of “net neutrality” at the heart of the Viacom-Google kerfuffle). It turns out — at least if this story […]
“Buy and Bail”:
This is an interesting new twist on the housing situation that I hadn’t heard of–but which makes perfect sense. It is the “buy and bail”: you decide you want to walk away from your old underwater home and buy a new home using the extremely low mortgage rates we have today and greatly depreciated home […]
Don’t Go to That Law School — It’s Too High-Ranked!
My colleagues Prof. Rick Sander and Prof. Jane Yakowitz have a fascinating new article called The Secret of My Success: How Status, Prestige and School Performance Shape Legal Careers (click on the link to read the entire draft), and they kindly agreed to let me post a quick summary of some of their most interesting […]
Ric Burns’s Goldman Sachs Documentary
A few years ago documentary filmmaker Ric Burns was hired by Goldman Sachs to make a documentary on the firm, with Goldman retaining editorial control. Funny or Die has an excerpt from the upcoming film (after a particularly loud and annoying ad from Minyanville): Ric Burns Presents Goldman Sachs Documentary – watch more funny videos
“New York MTA Accepts Controversial Anti-Mosque Ad After Lawsuit Is Filed”
So reports Prof. Howard Friedman (Religion Clause). Here’s the ad: The Complaint quotes an e-mail from the representative of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority giving this ground for initially rejecting the ad: The problem with this ad still is the direct connection that is being associated with the Twin Towers attack and the new Mosque that […]
Relativity Is a Liberal Plot
The Theory of Relativity is actually a liberal plot to encourage moral relativism and distort how people view the world. (See FN1) Who knew? Does this mean gravity is a conspiracy to keep us down?
“Creating a New Job Carries a Punishing Price”
Michael P. Fleischer, President of Bogen Communications, offers a business owner’s perspective on the costs of hiring new employees in the current economic environment. He walks through the costs of hiring a hypothetical employee (Sally), explaining why it costs his business $74,000 to pay someone a $59,000 salary, of which they will only keep $44,000, […]
Do Our Students Still Study?
Professors often lament that today’s students do not work as hard or are not as well prepared as in the past. Others claim the good old days really weren’t that good, that professors idealize the past have a distorted view of how much work the average student put in when we were in school. Then again, […]
Explaining the Wide Range of Answers on When the Right to Same-Sex Marriage Was Created
In an earlier reader poll, I asked readers who believe that the Constitution requires states to recognize same-sex marriage to indicate when the Constitution began to require it. The results were fascinating: Readers disagreed widely as to the answer, with responses spread pretty evenly among the different centuries and periods of U.S. constitutional history. What, […]
Interesting Similarity Between Two VC Reader Polls
I had a sense of deja vu reading over the results of the VC reader poll on same-sex marriage. Here are the key results. First, as a matter of policy: Favor same-sex marrriage: 61% Oppose same-sex marriage: 33% Don’t know: 6% Second, as a matter of constitutional law: Laws banning same-sex marriage are constitutional: 54% […]