SF Weekly blogs reports that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency doesn’t allow movie ads with guns in them: While the official poster for [The Other Guys] features a maniacal Ferrell and the menacing Wahlberg sailing through the air, guns drawn, the version on Muni vehicles and in stations features Ferrell brandishing a vial of […]
Archive | 2010
“Entrapment” Arguments, and False Alternatives
In editing People v. Watson, 990 P.2d 1031 (Cal. 2000), for the entrapment unit of my Criminal Law class, I was struck by the elementary yet common flaw in the concurrence. Here is the fact pattern: One March evening in 1997, Bakersfield police officers conducted a vehicle theft “sting” operation. They staged an arrest of […]
James Robinson, Former Head of DOJ’s Criminal Division, Dead at 66
I am very saddened to hear that James Robinson, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division in the late 1990s, has died of cancer at the all-too-young age of 66. Robinson was the head of the Criminal Division when I was a brand-new attorney at DOJ. I remember it was a real […]
A Question for Readers Who Think The Constitution Required States to Recognize Same-Sex Marriage Before 1900
This is a follow-up to my post below on the reader polls about attitudes toward same-sex marriage. In the fourth of the four polls, I asked readers who think that the Constitution requires states to recognize same-sex marriage to say when the Constitution began to require it. Slightly more than half the readers who answered […]
Open Thread on Same-Sex Marriage
This is the open-thread on same-sex marriage promised by the post above.
An Interesting VC Reader Poll Result on Same-Sex Marriage
Among the interesting results of the VC readership polls on same-sex marriage, I was particularly intrigued by the answers to when the Constitution began to require gay marriage. This question was only supposed to be answered by those who believe that the Constitution presently requires state recognition of same-sex marriage. 526 readers responded so far. […]
Ground Zero Mosque (Actually, Two-Blocks-from-Ground-Zero Mosque)
By Eugene Volokh on August 9, 2010 11:47 am in "Hate Speech", Freedom of Speech, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
I don’t have anything helpful to say on the ethical, public relations, or interfaith amity questions raised by the ground zero mosque. Cathy Young takes one view, [UPDATE: Christopher Hitchens in Slate takes a somewhat different one, and this Ottawa Citizen op-ed takes yet another] and I know there are others, but I leave that […]
Josh Wright on the CARE Act:
I briefly mentioned the CARE (“Comprehensive Regulatory Effectiveness”) Act a few weeks back giving the states heightened powers to regulate interstate commerce in alcohol. Josh Wright has an excellent analysis of the law and its implications here.
Reader Polls on Same-Sex Marriage
I wanted to do a few reader opinion polls on matters related to gay marriage. Of course, different readers will have different views of how useful these polls are. But I’m curious, so here goes. (Oh yeah, and sorry for the strange formatting: There’s some sort of incompatibility between our software and Pollhost’s, and right […]
Tony Judt, Ave Atque Vale
I note with sorrow the passing of historian Tony Judt at the far too early age of 62. He was a tremendous writer and historian, shrewd and penetrating. I did not share his social democratic politics, and less still his disdain for American conservatism, or his views on American foreign policy or Israel, sure, but […]
President Obama Is a Bigot
because he opposes same-sex marriage. So are Joe Biden and Hillary Rodham Clinton. And millions of Californians of different races, sexes, and religious views. Nelson Lund puzzles over the logic of Judge Walker’s Proposition 8 ruling.
How Public Worker Pensions are Too Rich for New York’s-and America’s-Blood:
I have a column in today’s New York Daily News with my Mercatus Center colleague Eileen Norcross, “How Public Worker Pensions are Too Rich for New York’s-and America’s-Blood.”
A Coasean Approach to Wind Farms
Wind farms sound like a great idea, until you have to live next to one — wind turbines can make a fair amount of noise. For this reason, some residents of eastern Oregon were not too happy when a wind developer came knocking. In some places, this would lead to a pitched political battle. But […]
The Coming War Over Public Pensions
The NYT‘s “Your Money” columnist, Ron Lieber, had a sobering column this week on the looming conflict over public pension obligations. There’s a class war coming to the world of government pensions. The haves are retirees who were once state or municipal workers. Their seemingly guaranteed and ever-escalating monthly pension benefits are breaking budgets nationwide. […]
Sunday Song Lyric
Ellen has pretty good music tastes for a nine-year-old girl. That’s another way of saying her tastes extend beyond Miley Cyrus, Ke$ha, and the Jonas Brothers. One of her current favorites is Paramore, a band she learned to like even before the “Twilight” soundtrack made them cool. One of their recent singles is “The Only […]