I’ve blogged before about how the other side of debates is corrupt and deceitful. Indeed, I’ve even established this fact empirically. Over at Reason.com, A. Barton Hinkle explores what it means for the upcoming political election. (Hat tip: Dan Greenberg)
Archive | August, 2012
If Politicians Listened to Economists
National Public Radio put together a list of “consensus” policy proposals supported by economists from across the political spectrum. It’s a good list, and one I’d support as well, but don’t expect endorsements from major party candidates. One: Eliminate the mortgage tax deduction, which lets homeowners deduct the interest they pay on their mortgages. Gone. […]
New (Academic) Year, New Writing Guidelines
My annual revision of my “Writing Guidelines” – mostly for law students (mine and others’), but (so I’ve been told) helpful for more experience writers as well. [And, notwithstanding my tireless efforts, every year a typo or two seems to creep into the text unbidden and undiscovered (by me) – a particularly embarrassing development […]
$60,000 Verdict for Blogging the Truth About A Person Intending to Get Him Fired — Reversed
I’ve blogged before about Moore v. Hoff, a Minnesota case in which a jury ordered a blogger (John Hoff, who blogs as Johnny Northside) to pay $60,000 to a university official because the blogger blogged the truth about the official, intending to get him fired. Today, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the verdict, in […]
Symposium on Alexander Bickel and The Least Dangerous Branch
SCOTUSBlog has been hosting a terrific symposium on Alexander Bickel and his classic book The Least Dangerous Branch, which was published 50 years ago. Contributors include Richard Epstein, Roger Pilon, Floyd Abrams, Erwin Chemerinsky, Ron Collins, Adam White, Kathryn Watts, and Sanford Rosen.
Privacy’s Memory Lane: From Furor to Fail in Eight Years
Privacy groups put much of their effort into attacking new technologies for a reason. They’re afraid that, once we see a technology in action, we won’t be scared by its hypothetical risks, while its benefits will be easier to assess. Once that happens, imposing new privacy laws gets a lot harder. To see just how […]
Moscow City Court Upholds Ban on Gay Pride Parades
According to Interfax: The Moscow City Court has again upheld a ban on gay pride parades in Moscow for the next 100 years…. According to earlier reports, the organizers of the Moscow gay pride parade on August 23 submitted to the Moscow government and the Moscow Main Interior Affairs Department notices of their intention to […]
“Beer + Pizza = Success.” The key formula for law students.
During Constitutional Law I at Denver University last Spring, I diagrammed for the students one of the most important study tips for law students: “Beer + Pizza = Success”. No matter how relentlessly a student raises his hand during class, the maximum amount of speaking practice that can come from classroom participation is a few […]
New Mexico Supreme Court Will Hear the Elane Photography Case
I’m pleased to say that the New Mexico Supreme Court will hear the Willock v. Elane Photography case, which I’ve blogged about extensively. The court will now decide whether (1) holding a wedding photographer liable for refusing to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony violates New Mexico’s statutory ban on sexual orientation discrimination, and (2) even […]
A True Heroine
From the Times of Israel comes the inspiring story of Judy Feld Carr: “For nearly three decades, Feld Carr [a musicologist and mother of six] single-handedly arranged the smuggling of more than 3,000 Jews out of Damascus, Aleppo and Qamishli to safety in Israel and America.” UPDATE: I wonder if this article might be exaggerating […]
Discrimination in Public Accommodations
The L.A. Times reports: Santa Monica’s Hotel Shangri-La and its owner discriminated against members of a Jewish organization two years ago when staff and security guards ordered the group to halt a poolside event, a jury determined Wednesday…. Members of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces had gathered at the Art Deco hotel on […]
The Trespass Fallacy in Patent Law
An interesting essay by my colleague Adam Mossoff. The PatentlyO blog discusses it here.
Two-Year Sentences for Punk Rockers’ Unauthorized Anti-Putin Performance in Russian Cathedral
The Washington Post reports: Russian authorities sentenced three feminist punk rockers to two years in prison Friday [on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred] …. [T]he women [had] dashed into Moscow’s main cathedral to sing a song directed against Vladimir Putin ….. The video includes a brief clip of the performance. Press accounts suggest […]
German Court Refuses to Block Demonstration Displaying Caricatures of Mohammed
So report the AP and Agence France Press. The demonstration is being organized by (according to the AP) “the far-right ‘Citizens Movement — Pro Germany,” “under the slogan ‘Islam does not belong in Germany — stop Islamization.’” According to the AFP, the court reasoned that “the cartoons were protected as ‘artistic freedom’ and could not […]
More on GM
Forbes has posted a reply by Joann Muller to the column I linked yesterday which asked whether GM was headed for bankruptcy again arguing that there are signs of hope. With respect to her observations about GM’s growth in China, it appears that most of those cars will be manufactured in China as well. I don’t […]