A generally very good discussion, I think, from a State Department online press conference on Sept. 27. One can debate whether or not some of the condemnation of certain kinds of speech might go a bit far (though it doesn’t go as far, I think, as the general condemnation of “denigration of religion” that I […]
Archive | October, 2012
Say an American Offered a $100,000 Bounty to Anyone Who Killed These Two Pakistanis for Their Offensive Speech
Here’s the story, from the AP: Ikramullah Shahid, a former Pakistani legislator, has offered a $200,000 (£123,800) bounty for anyone who kills the maker of an anti-Islam film that has angered Muslims around the world. He made the offer at a rally on Monday in the northwestern city of Peshawar, before a crowd of about […]
Why We Choose Presidents Based on the Wrong Issues
By Ilya Somin on October 1, 2012 9:38 pm in Democracy, Political Ignorance, Presidency, Public Opinion
In a recent Slate column, John Dickerson points out that presidential elections typically focus too much on issues the president has little control over and too little on those that he has more effect on: Nothing tests a president’s temperament like foreign affairs. Though this presidential campaign has only recently touched on the topic, the […]
Comments Seem To Be Working Again
Don’t know why they weren’t working earlier, but they seem to be up now.
Organization of Islamic Conference Head “Call[s] for a Global Ban on Offending the Character of the Prophet Muhammad”
So reports the AP: Ihsanoglu, whose organization represents 57 Muslim-majority countries, said they respect the right of freedom of expression, but believed a line had to be drawn at incitement. “We are not saying stop free speech. We are staying stop hate speech,” Ihsanoglu said. This further illustrates how vague and potentially broad the term […]
Statistical Question
The four most recent likely voter polls at RealClearPolitics.com are as follows: CNN/Opinion Research 9/28 – 9/30 783 LV 3.5 50 47 Obama +3 ABC News/Wash Post 9/26 – 9/29 813 LV 4.0 49 47 Obama +2 Politico/GWU/BattleG 9/24 – 9/27 1000 LV 3.1 49 47 Obama +2 Rasmussen Tracking 9/28 – 9/30 1500 LV […]
New Draft Paper, “The Curious History of Fourth Amendment Searches”
I have just posted a new draft paper, The Curious History of Fourth Amendment Searches, which is forthcoming in the 2013 issue of the Supreme Court Review. Here’s the abstract: In United States v. Jones, 132 S.Ct. 945 (2012), the Supreme Court restored the trespass test of Fourth Amendment law: Any government conduct that is […]
Noel Sharkey on Autonomous Weapons Systems (Podcast)
Noel Sharkey is a long-time scientist and researcher in AI who has more recently turned his attention to autonomous weapons systems. He is sharply critical of them and is a leading member of a campaign based in Britain to ban them from the get-go. He discusses these issues in a very interesting podcast on “SuchThatCast […]
The Libertarian Personality
This recent Wall Street Journal article summarizes an important study of libertarians by famed political psychologist Jonathan Haidt and several other scholars: An individual’s personality shapes his or her political ideology at least as much as circumstances, background and influences. That is the gist of a recent strand of psychological research identified especially with the […]
Kiobel Alien Tort Statute Reargument in SCOTUS Today
Last term the Supreme Court heard arguments in Kiobel, an Alien Tort Statute case that presented, among other things, the question of whether the ATS includes corporate liability – with, of course, large implications for corporations both domestic and foreign. To everyone’s surprise, at oral argument the questions ran far more to the question of […]