Author Archive | David Bernstein

[UPDATE Tuesday evening: As I noted in the comments below, I agree with other commentators that the AALS, as a scholarly organization representing institutions and individuals with diverse viewpoints, should not participate in any boycott based on someone’s political views. And, to the extent the boycotters are acting through purported scholarly organizations such as the […]

I was reading a very interesting profile of Obama from the January 2005 Columbia College Today, and came across this: As for speculation that he could be the country’s first black president, Obama says that he will not run for anything in 2008. He is quick to temper high expectations and scrying [sic] about his […]

I appear a couple of times toward the end of the latest episode of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit!, the theme of which is sensitivity training. The episode will be repeated a few times this week, and will be available on “On Demand” through November. Surprisingly, a friend informs me that one can also find it, […]

The McCippah is outselling the Obamica, 56% to 44%. (Of course, McCippah buyers probably thought they were going to get kosher fries, a drink, and a toy with purchase).

Using Brian Leiter’s methodology, counting those who post at least semi-regularly (me, Eugene, Paul, Orin, Randy, Dale, Todd, Jonathan, and Jim), and excluding, as Leiter does, the untenured (Sasha and Ilya), and David Kopel, who is not an academic by profession (though he still has an impressive citation count), we would have a mean “scholarly […]

Soon after [he lost his Congressional race in 2000], the faculty saw an opening and made him its best offer yet: Tenure upon hiring. A handsome salary, more than the $60,000 he was making in the State Senate or the $60,000 he earned teaching part time. A job for Michelle Obama directing the legal clinic. […]

Not from The Onion: Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue. It’s now an issue of race, according to global warming activists and policy makers. “It is critical our community be an integral and active part of the debate because African-Americans are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change economically, socially and […]

Sughrue said a 15-year-old was stabbed during the incident. He was taken to WakeMed and treated for non-life-threatening injuries. A police officer was also injured with a “significant” cut to his knee that he suffered during a chase. He was taken to Duke Raleigh Hospital for treatment and is expected to recover, Sughrue said.

Joe Klein’s outburst about the “Jewish neocons” allegedly pulling John McCain’s strings on behalf of Israel reminded me that I’ve been meaning to blog about the fact that liberals, including (and sometimes especially) Jewish liberals increasingly use the charge of “dual loyalty” to try to discredit, and thus silence, Jewish conservatives. This is especially clear […]

Tim Leonard of Princeton has posted a very interesting and important paper on Hofstader’s influential book, and what he calls the “myth of Social Darwinism”. Leonard points out, among other things, that the association of Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner with “Social Darwinism” is almost entirely a product of Hofstader’s work, and that Hofstader […]

As regular readers know, I’m not the biggest Obama fan, but I am enjoying thinking about how pictures like this one are playing in “white nationalist” circles. Oh, and kudos to the member of the Obama advance team who supplied him with a nice-looking kippah, instead of the typical cardboard or black “funeral” ones visitors […]

In May, Obama gave a talk at Temple B’nai Torah in Boca Raton. According to this (adulatory) account, he told the congregants: “I don’t want to get in to the ‘some of my best friends are Jewish’ trap, because it’s terribly demeaning. But I will tell you this: when I first ran [unsuccessfully] for Congress […]

The farce plays itself out over and over. Israel captures terrorists, some of whom are guilty of horrific mass murders. Capturing the terrorists often requires the sacrifice of great human, financial, and intelligence resources. The terrorists’ allies respond by planning various operations to obtain human “bargaining chips,” dead or alive, to use in exchange for […]

One reads quite often that Reagan successfully captured the southern Wallace/anti-civil rights/racist vote, thus forever tainting his victory with the stench of racism. So I was surprised to read that white voters over sixty in the eleven ex-Confederate states gave Carter a small plurality of their votes, a greater percentage for Carter than he received […]

The standard line of many liberal bloggers on any issue that in any way involves regulation or deregulation is that the evil Bush Administration, in league with free market ideologues, has thwarted very efforts at sensible regulation of large corporations. In the specific case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, however, it appears that, among […]