Author Archive | David Bernstein

How is that, pray tell? Here’s the argument: Perhaps because the poster is ultimately a racially charged image. By using the “urban” makeup of the Heath Ledger Joker, instead of the urbane makeup of the Jack Nicholson character, the poster connects Obama to something many of his detractors fear but can’t openly discuss. He is […]

Why are you guys trying to stuff a health care bill down our throat in three or four weeks when the President took six months to pick out a dog for his kids? — Unidentified tea partier to Steny Hoyer. (H/T Hot Air via Instapundit).

From the Las Vegas Sun article that I quoted below: He said he was not aware that any of the companies were already engaged in illegal activity at the time that he helped to set up them. My guess: The author or the copyeditor was enforcing some (entirely spurious) rule against splitting an idiom such […]

S.C. Stats. §§ 63-19-2440 and -2450 generally ban under-21-year-olds from possessing or consuming alcoholic beverages. (There are some exceptions, including for consumption in religious ceremonies and in the minor’s parent’s home.) But South Carolina Constitution, art. XVII, § 14 provides, Every citizen who is eighteen years of age or older, not laboring under disabilities prescribed […]

A Zogby press release reports 83% support for laws that let pretty much all law-abiding adults, at least ones age 21 and above, get licenses to carry concealed weapons. (These are generally “shall-issue” laws, because they provide that a license “shall issue,” rather than just may be issued, if certain largely objective requirements for licensing […]

A reader passed along the “all your computer are belong to us” story that first broke on the Glenn Beck show; here’s PolitiFact’s summary, with the government response: [On his show, Beck quoted the following statement from cars.gov]: “This application provides access to the DOT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your […]

This book, reviewed in the New York Times on Sunday, and written by an eminent historian presidential biographer, is a history and critique of the Supreme Court. I’ve read it. The only thing I learned is that there is still at least one historian who is stuck in a 1930s time warp, in which the […]

The raging controversy over Human Rights Watch’s anti-Israel bias, which was sparked with a blog post here at the VC that was republished by the Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal.com, just won’t die. Readers will recall that the piece focused on a talk Sarah Leah Whitson gave in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in which she tried to […]

I just noticed this piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal by Noah Pollak, discussing HRW’s bias against Israel. Pollak is actually too soft on HRW. He focuses on one aspect of the problem, that HRW gives wildly disproportionate attention to what it considers Israeli violations of human rights. (In addition to the examples Pollack provides, […]

Via Instapundit, Megan McArdle asks(and answers) “why marry,” especially when the tax consequences can be awful. She gives reasonable answers, but doesn’t consider a more subtle question: assuming you’re religious, why not marry within your religious tradition, in a public ceremony, but not have an official, government-recognized marriage? You’re still married in the eyes of […]

For obscure reasons, the Bernstein family, including the little ones, is considering spending 3 or 4 days in San Salavador, El Salvador next month. Encouragement, discouragement, etc. is solicited.

In a previous post, I criticized Human Rights Watch Director Ken Roth’s characterization of the criticism HRW receives regarding its coverage of Israel. Roth wrote, in an email to Jeffrey Goldberg, “We report on Israel. Its supporters fight back with lies and deception.” I’ve also noted that (at least according to NGO Watch, and to […]

In her ongoing attempt to defend Human Rights Watch’s indefensible, Israel-bashing, fundraising dinner with Saudi elites, with government officials in attendance, Sarah Leah Whitson has now played the racism card. Oh, she hinted at it before, when she responded to my Wall Street Journal piece by snidely writing, “believe it or not, some Arabs believe […]

I’m glad cooler heads have prevailed: Joint Press Release from City of Cambridge, Cambridge PD, Middlesex County D.A., and Prof. Gates The City of Cambridge and the Cambridge Police Department have recommended to the Middlesex County District Attorney that the criminal charge against Professor Gates not proceed. Therefore, in the interests of justice, the Middlesex […]

You can read it here. Levy writes: The apparent trigger for this assault on a group that represents the global gold standard in human rights monitoring, analysis, and advocacy, was a visit by HRW’s Middle East-North Africa director, Sarah Lee Whitson, to the Saudi kingdom. I happened to find myself on a panel at The […]