The New York Times: “In Israeli cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa, it is possible now to forget about the conflict, at least for a time. But on this side of the barrier, the conflict suffuses life. In June, Israeli forces regularly raided Jenin by night, arresting or killing young men the Army accused of […]
Author Archive | David Bernstein
Easterbrook on Moore:
Gregg Easterbrook, writing in The New Republic online, states that Fahrenheit 9/11 contains fabrications and “classic propaganda” techniques meant to deceive the audience. OK. But Easterbrook also makes the bizarre claim that the movie “is exactly the kind of political speech the First Amendment was designed to protect.” It seems obvious to me that the […]
“Capturing the Friedmans”:
I saw the documentary “Capturing the Friedmans” last night. The film is about a “normal” family torn apart when the pedophile father and his eighteen year-old son are accused of (and ultimately plead guilty to) violently molesting children who took computer classes in their home. The case arose against a backdrop of hysteria over purported […]
More on Conservatives and Flagburning:
In support of Eugene’s post below, I recount the following story. I was a student at Yale Law School when the flagburning issue was at its apex during the Bush I-Dukakis campaign. The Yale Federalist Society had an dinner, at which the issue was discussed. At the end of the discussion, I asked for a […]
Workplace Harassment Law and Free Speech:
Glenn Reynolds reports today that some of his readers are concerned that looking at an Instapundit Blogad featuring a nude will get them fired for fear of a sexual harassment lawsuit. He notes the massive censorious effects of sexual harassment law, a topic on which Eugene is the world’s leading expert, and on which I […]
Edwards:
When candidate Bush picked Dick Cheney as his V.P. in 2000, I was impressed, as I thought that Bush chose competence and experience over obvious electoral considerations (I’m sure that one could make the case that Cheney was actually the best pick from a political standpoint, but I didn’t think so at the time). I […]
Israeli Successes in the War on Terror:
It hasn’t received much coverage in the American media (but see this Krauthammer column), but Israel has been scoring a series of remarkable successes in killing or capturing leading figures of all the major terrorist groups in the West Bank. Last night, the leader of the Nablus Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and […]
Quote of the day:
From Timothy Noah, arguing that Barbara Ehrenreich should be kept on as a permanent NYT op-ed columnist. If keeping Ehrenreich on the Times op-ed page requires the jettisoning of Maureen Dowd or Bob Herbert, Chatterbox is prepared to make that, ahem, sacrifice.
A Remarkable Admission of “Dirty Tricks”:
From the N.Y. Times: [Nader]said that while representatives of an antitax group encouraged Republicans to attend a meeting last Saturday in Portland, Ore., to help him collect 1,000 signatures, he said Democrats were “infiltrating” the same meeting merely to block other supporters from getting in. Mr. Nader said Democrats crowded into a meeting hall, kept […]
Greenspan:
Alan Greenspan receives a tremendous amount of adulation. I may be wrong but (1) I think that Greenspan, along with other central bankers, caused the great stock market bubble of the late 1990s, by opening the money supply spigots to fend off problems stemming from the collapse of Long Term Capital Management and the Russian […]
Personal Fireworks Show:
Cool.
George Mason’s Service Members’ Clinic:
Today’s Washington Post has a nice piece on my law school’s “Clinic for Legal Assistance to Service Members.” Acting Dean Dan Polsby: It’s not exactly a secret that the culture of higher education in America is anti-military. We’re a little different in the law school. We’re near the Pentagon, with a lot of military and […]
Strange Ninth Circuit Opinion on Expert Witness Perjury:
Via Wally Olson at PointofLaw.com: What does it take to convict an expert witness of perjury? Well, according to the Ninth Circuit (over dissents from O’Scannlain and four others), ruling last week, it’s not enough to catch the expert passing himself off in testimony as a specialist in orthopedic surgery when his actual residency was […]
You Can’t Say That! Review:
Very nice review of my You Can’t Say That! published in the Law and Politics Book Review.
New Civil Justice Reform Blog:
The Manhattan Institute has launched a new civil justice reform blog, PointOfLaw.com. I will be a contributor, posting occasionally on issues such as the admissibility of expert testimony (while I’m on-topic, if your law firm doesn’t have a copy of The New Wigmore: Expert Evidence, now is the time to correct that oversight). My posts […]