Author Archive | David Bernstein

A terrorist conspiracy to detonate a nuclear device in Manhattan in three hours is revealed. An hour later, an FBI team raids a terrorist hideout on the Upper East Side. No bomb is found, but references to the bomb plot are quickly discovered. The terrorists refuse to talk. The FBI team uses every known measure […]

This seems like a good time to remind readers that, according to Newsweek Donald Rumsfeld argued for stripping Americans suspected of aiding Al Qaeda of their rights and holding them indefinitely as “enemy combatants.” If the man can’t be trusted with the rights of Americans, would you trust him with the rights of Iraqis?

I’ve been away (speaking engagements in the UK). My reaction to the prisoner abuse scandal is that while abusing prisoners is, in general (I make exceptions for “ticking time bombs” and other imaginable scenarios where physical coercion could be the lesser of two evils) not excusable, it’s utterly predictable, given human nature and the arbitrary […]

Parapundit.com, the insightful polymath Randall Parker, cites a friend as offering the following recipe: “I’d partition the country into three areas, Kurd, Sunni, Shia. I’d draw those lines in the middle of nowhere and put my troops there so the troops would be out of the cities. I’d then take the strongest group in each […]

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This Spanish novel has been a sensation on the Continent. The premise? Imagine a satanic figure going around and trying to buy up and destroy all the book copies by an obscure author. The rest of the book unpacks the mystery. Recommended to those who liked […]

Read this article for some speculations. If this post comes up OK, I’ll try something bolder and longer soon. Eugene has picked excellent new software, but I’m a technological idiot beyond belief. I’ve also just set up my Gmail account, so I am feeling very able this morning. Gmail strikes me as a clear improvement […]

There has undoubtedly been a marked change in American Jewish attitudes toward immigration since 9/11, with a much larger percentage of Jews expressing ambivalence or hostility toward liberal immigration policies. The unease Jews feel about immigration these days, with fears that American cities will become more like Paris or even Toronto or Montreal in terms […]

Vieth v. Jubelirer: In one of two decisions issued this morning, the Supreme Court come’s within a hair’s breadth of overturning Davis v. Bandemer. Four Justices — Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist and O’Connor — were ready to hold all claims of partisan gerrymandering to be nonjusticiable. Justice Kennedy, while rejecting the challenge to Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered Congressional […]

With the governor, Senate, and House in Virginia fighting each other over who can take credit for raising taxes, the latest proposal is to do away with former Gov. Gilmore’s plan to completely eliminate the “car tax.” The rationale for this, as well as much of the rest of the tax-raising, is that local governments […]

Lund & McGinnis on Lawrence v. Texas: On his Legal Theory Blog, Larry Solum has an interesting post today on Nelson Lund and John McGinnis’s recent paper on Lawrence v. Texas in which they take issue with my analysis of the case in Justice Kennedy’s Libertarian Revolution. While I have a very high regard for […]

William M. Adler reports on astroturf op-eds in a Washington Post Outlook piece. Adler’s correct that this phenomenon is fairly widespread. Industry groups are always looking for compelling surrogates to advance their message. While one should be able to evaluate an argument without regard to the author, it helps if a spokesperson has academic credentials […]

There are not many new bands I like all that much. Maybe that’s part of getting older; the songs off one’s youth are indelibly written across one’s memories, such that later music fails to have the same effect. Or at least it seems that way sometimes. One new band I like quite a bit is […]

Malaria is on the rise in most of sub-Saharan Africa, despite an international campaign to control its spread. In Africa alone the disease kills approximately 3,000 people per day. Six years into the World Health Organization’s “Roll Back Malaria” campaign, malaria incidence has increased. According to Roger Bate of Africa Fighting Malaria “the main cause […]

In response to David’s question below about whether air quality is worse closer to busy roads, the short answer is: It depends. Certainly for some air pollutants, including ground-level ozone, ambient concentrations near busy roads or intersections can be higher than elsewhere in an urban areas, particularly at certain times of the day. Ozone readings […]

Government Appeals Raich v. Ashcroft: On Tuesday, the Solicitor General petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari in my medical cannabis case of Raich v. Ashcroft. Although I am not surprised, I admit to being disappointed that Ted Olson did not see this case as an opportunity for advancing the limited reading of […]