Author Archive | David Bernstein

The N.Y. Times takes a look at Domino’s new “Brooklyn-style” pizza, which not surprisingly only faintly resembles actual Brooklyn pizza. One thing the article doesn’t mention, and which, as a native of Queens (right on the Brooklyn border) astounds me, is the proliferation of Domino’s and (worse yet)Pizza Hut outlets throughout New York City, including […]

The Nov. 3 Fortune has a gripping account of the fall of leading plaintiffs’ class action firm Milberg Weiss. My Yale classmate and current colleague (as a visiting professor) Tony Sebok comments at Findlaw.

The Michigan Civil Right Initiative, banning race and sex preferences in higher education and government contracting, passed easily, with 58% of the vote: Mary Sue Coleman, president of the university [of Michigan]issued the following statement Tuesday night — before final results were in: “We defended affirmative action all the way to the Supreme Court because […]

The Point of Law blog (to which I occasionally contribute) has been having an election roundtable discussion, focusing on how the election will effect legal reform.

Saad Saadi, who has become notorious for dressing up as a suicide bomber for a Halloween Party at the university president’s house, has issued the following statement: My friend, Jason, and I express our condolences and sympathy to all offended by our costumes. We wish to make it clear that we do not support terrorism, […]

in the London Review of Books, translated and summarized by David Bernstein: “American liberal intellectuals should always agree with me on foreign policy. They don’t; some of them even supported the Iraq War. How could we explain the fact that even though I’m so obviously right, and that American liberals claim to share the same […]

A brilliant analysis: Even as much of the bickering is about terminology, the refusal to acknowledge a return of anti-Jewish prejudice in mainstream European society is about substance as well. Presuming that anti-Jewish prejudice can only manifest itself under the guise of a racially driven hatred that always and invariably leads to Auschwitz prevents European […]

Palm Beach County has an amazing forty-nine months worth of housing inventory for sale. In August, WCI Communities, a luxury builder with much of its business in South Florida, reported that net condo sales were down 88% from a year earlier. (I think there’s been an even worse report since then, but I can’t find […]

American Jews are thought by many to be overwhelmingly liberal, but they apparently don’t perceive of themselves that way. According to a recent poll, here is how American Jews characterize their political views: Extremely liberal 4%; Liberal 26%; Slightly liberal 12%; Moderate 32%; Slightly conservative 10%; Conservative 12%; Extremely conservative 3%; Not sure 2% So, […]

This is a very interesting book, written by a man of the Left (Professor Walter Benn Michaels) arguing that the current focus on “identity” and “diversity” has stripped the Left of its willingness and ability to fight economic inequality. He certainly has a point; the book brought to mind recollections of my days at Yale […]

I don’t blog about partisan politics that much, mostly because it doesn’t interest me that much. I must say, however, that I’m not sorry the Republicans are poised to lose the House to the Democrats. The Republicans came in under a reformist platform in ’94, and gradually lost their zeal for anything but reelection. By […]

From an official description of a University of New Mexico Law School class, Environmental Global Warming: “Global climate change is the major environmental threat of our era. Its effects are felt by all species, but especially on those who are poor…” I didn’t realize that interspecies distribution of wealth is such a hot (no pun […]

Readers may recall that (my alma mater) Brandeis University embarrassed itself a bit last Spring by hamhandedly taking down a previously-approved library exhibit created by a student of anti-Israel paintings by Palestinian children. A faculty committee has gently criticized the university for this action, while praising the university for more generally promoting an open dialogue […]

The Boston Globe has a piece on Harvard Law’s new first-year curriculum, which is going to include some unspecified emphasis on international and comparative law. The article quotes Prof. Martha Minow: “So we are making a strong statement that legal education ought to reflect the problem-solving, prospective, constructive, legislative, comparative, and international work that is […]

A reader passed along a citation to a very interesting article, Peter C. Austin, at al., Testing Multiple Statistical Hypotheses Resulted in Spurious Associations: A Study of Astrological Signs and Health, 59 J. Clinical Epidemiology 964 (2006). The basic point of the article is that, as an accompanying editorial (59 J. Clinical Epidemiology 871) notes […]