At Watts Up With That, David M. Hoffer has an odd essay on peer review: [I]s the notion of climate science today as easily falsified by simple observation? I submit that it is. We have the climate models themselves to upon which to rely. For what are the climate models other than the embodiment of […]
Archive | January, 2014
My New Class, Originalism and its Critics
My new colleague Eric Posner has a post on his new blog about a class that we will be teaching together this quarter, Originalism and its Critics: I have long been skeptical of originalism, and my interest in it is more sociological than intellectual. I hope to learn from this seminar why originalism is appealing […]
The Oregon Medicaid Experiment and New Possibilities for Quasi-Experiments
Jonathan Adler has already noted the new article in Science using data from Oregon’s Medicaid experiment. It found that expanding Medicaid led to a 41% increase in visits to the emergency room, including increases in visits for conditions that would be better treated in a primary care setting. Here is the abstract: In 2008, Oregon […]
Why Write a Book About a Seemingly Intractable Problem like Political Ignorance?
By Ilya Somin on January 3, 2014 10:45 am in Democracy, Democracy and Political Ignorance, Political Ignorance
Some VC commenters and readers of my recent book and other work on political ignorance, wonder whether there is any point to writing about this subject if my argument is correct. If most voters are ignorant about politics because such ignorance is rational, and that problem is unlikely to be overcome by information shortcuts, education, […]
Exposing the Nefarious Plot to Make Me a Federal Judge
Perhaps the strangest reaction to George Will’s Washington Post op ed about my book Democracy and Political Ignorance is this post at the Democratic Daily blog, which claims it is all part of an effort to “groom” me to become a GOP-appointed federal judge: OK: Smart. Then “guided.” (GOPs recruit out of Yale and Harvard […]
Will the Supreme Court Review the NSA’s Telephony Metadata Program?
In the wake of the dueling opinions by Judges Leon and Pauley about the NSA’s Section 215 telephony metadata program, a lot of commentators are assuming that the issue is heading to the Supreme Court. If a federal circuit court rules that the program is unconstitutional and survives en banc review, then I agree that […]
“Snowden’s Jig”
Though hesitant to interrupt serious discussion with something so frivolous, in light of today’s New York Times’ editorial describing Edward Snowden as a whistleblower and calling for clemency, I offer you … “Snowden’s Jig.” (Otherwise known as “Genuine Negro Jig,” and composed by the Snowden Family Band, a 19th century African-American musical group based […]
Medicaid Expansion Increases Emergency Room Visits
One of the arguments made in favor of measures to expand health insurance coverage, including the Medicaid expansion, was that the lack of insurance coverage leads many individuals to seek medical treatment in emergency rooms, and that this results both in higher health care costs and in cost-shifting, as the uninsured may be unable to […]
Wonkblog’s “Policy Lie of the Year”
Wonkblog has published it’s third annual “Wonky” awards, which “outstanding achievements — and spectacular disasters — in policy wonkery.” Some of the awards may surprise, but the “Wonky” for “policy lie of the year” was somewhat predictable: “Obama’s “If you like your plan, you can keep it” line. Here’s the explanation: President Obama […]
New Florida Self-Defense Case
It’s the Gabriel Mobley case, State v. Mobley (Fla. Ct. App. Jan. 2, 2014) (2-1 vote). Here’s the summary from the end of the majority opinion: The record — as corroborated by a video of the events — is that (1) Mobley found himself in the middle of a violent, unprovoked attack on a companion […]
Rational Behavior is Not the Same Thing as Morally Praiseworthy Behavior
In this recent post commenting on George Will’s column about my book Democracy and Political Ignorance, Bill Quick of the Daily Pundit blog commits the understandable and common mistake of conflating rational behavior with good behavior. He claims that my argument that voter ignorance is rational must be wrong, because voter ignorance has harmful consequences: […]
John McGinnis on the Case for Allowing Cell Phone Use on Planes
Few issues arouse as many strong emotional reactions as the possibility of permitting cell phone usage on planes. At the Law and Liberty blog, Northwestern University law professor John McGinnis has an excellent post making the case for legalization: Cell phones on airplanes frighten a lot of people and not for safety reasons. Few people […]
Welcome to 2014
I’ve made a New Year’s resolution to blog more, and I guess one way to begin is with an article from the Washington Post by Julie Zaumer, dating back to July 2013, and the remarkable escape a young woman made when her car went off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, into the river 27 feet below: “How […]
Illegal Aliens May Get License to Practice Law in California
So holds this morning’s In re Garcia (Cal. Jan. 2, 2014), interpreting the relevant federal and state statutes. I’m not an expert in this field, but the court’s analysis of the statutes seems sound to me (whether or not one thinks that the statutes themselves are sound).
Wrongful Convictions and Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
Montgomery v. Commonwealth (Va. Ct. App. Dec. 20, 2013) sets aside a man’s rape conviction, because the supposed victim had come forward (several years after the conviction) to say she made up the story and her admission led her to be convicted of perjury. An excerpt: In October of 2007, Elizabeth P. Coast, then seventeen, […]