EyeonthePost.org has some thoughts on the Washington Post’s coverage of what strikes me as, thus far, a major non-story–the allegation, still unproven, that a low-level, non-Jewish, Pentagon official shared a single classified document discussing American policy toward Iran with members of AIPAC. EyeonthePost reports that the Post is now up to nine articles in eight […]
Author Archive | David Bernstein
African American Self-Defense in the Jim Crow Era:
I’ve being doing some academic research on African American history from approximately the 1880s to the 1930s, and occasionally see a reference to an individual or community that responded to mob or other illicit violence with armed resistance. However, I’ve been unable to locate any book or article that discusses the subject in anything resembling […]
Mikis Theodorakis:
I was going to blog this interview with Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis (most famous for “Zorba the Greek”), but Clayton Cramer beat me to it. A short excerpt: So today’s globalized capitalism is controlled very much by the Jews? “Since we speak frankly, I will tell you something else. The Jewish people control most of […]
Subsidies for Everything:
I think the idea of having affordable “flying cars” is very cool, but can anyone give me a plausible reason why the government is spending taxpayer money on researching this, rather than leaving it to the private sector? And how exactly did domestic transportation issues come to be within NASA’s purview? Update:Readers inform me that […]
Janice Brown and “Battered Woman Syndrome”
Justice Brown, whose nomination to the D.C. Circuit has been stalled by Senate Democrats, easily gets the better of her California Supreme Court colleagues in a dissent. The majority’s opinion makes it absurdly easy for a prosecutor to present expert testimony claiming that a woman’s recantation of a prior claim of a single incident of […]
Speech in Chicago:
I will be speaking in Chicago on Monday at noon on behalf of the Chicago Lawyers’ Division of the Federal Society. The topic: “You Can’t Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws.” For details and RSVP contact CROHRBAC at skadden.com.
U T Law School Emerging Scholars Program:
Via Brian Leiter, I learn that University of Texas School of Law has instituted a fellowship program for aspiring law professors. Sounds like a great opportunity: The ESP Fellows will be treated, in many respects, like regular tenure-track faculty, but with reduced teaching loads and without administrative obligations. Each Fellow will teach one course per […]
Junk Science in the Asbestos Litigation:
From Healthfactsandfears.com: A recent study comparing x-ray analyses of asbestos-related lung damage revealed some troublesome results. An alarming discrepancy was found between conclusions drawn by physicians (certified experts called B-readers) hired by the plaintiff’s lawyers and those drawn by unaffiliated physicians who reviewed the same x-rays… The results: the plaintiffs’ B-readers reported that 95.9% of […]
Obfuscatory Defenses of Affirmative Action:
A troubling element of affirmative action as currently practiced is the refusal of many who practice and defend it to acknowledge what that current policies, especially in universities, require significant racial preferences. Instead, they claim that affirmative action serves as a mere “diversity” tiebreaker among essentially equally qualified applicants. A case in point is a […]
Book Reviews:
The latest issue of Engage: The Journal of the Federalist Society Practice Groups, is now online in PDF format. Among much else of interest, it contains reviews of Eugene’s Academic Legal Writing (PDF page 159) and my You Can’t Say That! (PDF page 154).
Cyndi Lauper Live:
Went to see Cyndi Lauper at Wolf Trap last night. I wasn’t exactly eager to go, but my fiancee persuaded me. I thought of Lauper as an odd woman with a nice voice who had a few hits in the mid-80s, and then ruined her career with a series of bad p.r. moves, including getting […]
FDR’s Folly:
Jim Powell’s FDR’s Folly is a good but flawed book. He does a very good job at showing the economic irrationality of a wide range New Deal policies, and of bringing the latest economic research to bear on the effects of those policies. On the other hand, the book is written in a polemical, over-the-top […]
Democrats and Sharpton:
Am I really supposed to take seriously a party that not only gives dangerous loathsome ex(?)-anti-Semitic demagogue (and Tawana Brawley hoaxer) Al Sharpton a prominent forum at its convention, but then rewards him with a standing ovation at the end of his speech? If there was anyone at the Democratic convention whose moral compass led […]
Appalling Aspects of Story on Terrorist Friends:
On Monday, the Washington Post carried this story about a group of seven friends from Jenin who had formed a theater troupe under the direction of an Israeli director in the early post-Oslo days. Only two of them didn’t eventually become terrorists, and most are now dead. The story has two especially galling aspects (beyond […]
Preneymoons:
I’ve coined a new word, “preneymoon.” Nowadays, due to work schedules and other complications, many couples can’t get away for their honeymoon right after their wedding. Some couples opt to delay their honeymoon until a more convenient time. Others take a nice romantic trip together within a month or two of the wedding, either to […]