So we’re down to the final question: Who to root for on Sunday? [And who will win? See below] It’s a pretty complicated tangle. If it were a simple question (as it usually is, for me) of “Who’s playing the most beautiful and creative football?,” it would be easy to get behind Spain, who were […]
Author Archive | David Post
Crimes and Punishments (World Cup Edition):
Uruguay’s loss to the Netherlands in yesterday’s World Cup semifinal may perhaps have been foreordained, given how deeply they had offended against the gods of soccer. For those of you who missed it, at the very end of the previous game, the Uruguay-Ghana quarterfinal, a tense back-and-forth affair which was tied 1-1 in the closing […]
McDonald, and the Voting Paradox:
Many years ago — 1992 to be precise — Steve Salop and I wrote a quirky little piece on something we called the “voting paradox.” It’s a minor, but very strange, little phenomenon in the law. The basic idea is quite simple. Suppose a 3-judge panel is hearing an appeal. In the appeal, the defendant […]
Cup Musings, Cont’d:
Having just returned from 10 days bicycling in France, away from my computer and therefore unable to share with you my thoughts on the developments in South Africa, it’s time to catch up. France was an unfortunate place to be, as it turned out, for the second round of the Cup; while it was pretty […]
Marty Ginsburg, R.I.P.
As assiduous readers of the VC have no doubt been aware, I’ve been away (and away from my computer) for the last 10 days or so — what else could have kept me from bombarding you with more World Cup musings?? — but the news did reach me of Marty Ginsburg’s passing last week, and […]
And a Final Word on USA-Algeria:
Here’s the goal, if, like me, you want to watch it over (and over) again … In reference to some of the comments on my earlier posting about the game , I’ll just say this: If you come to soccer with the mindset that the goal of sports is to create a playing field in […]
Youtube wins Viacom Lawsuit:
Judge Stanton in the SDNY has granted Youtube’s motion for summary judgment in in the long-running copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Viacom (and, in a nice soccer-related twist, The English Football Association’s Premier League was another (losing) plaintiff). [The full text of the decision is here] The case was/is enormously important — Youtube was asserting […]
If You Haven’t Watched the US-Algeria Match Yet . . .
. . . stop reading immediately, go to ESPN3.com, and watch. Do not read further – you’ll thank me later. If you watched it . . . that was not only the greatest moment in US soccer history (without question), but I’m thinking it may well have been the greatest moment in US sports history […]
We Wuz Robbed!
We really wuz – er, were. A truly stirring US comeback from a 2-0 deficit in its game against Slovenia was spoiled by an indefensible and inexplicable call by the Malian referee, disallowing what would have been the Americans’ third goal. Replays from every conceivable angle confirmed what most viewers thought at the time — […]
The Newspaper Crisis, Cont’d:
“Internet Is Set to Overtake Newspapers in Ad Revenue.” PriceWaterhouseCoopers gives the most recent ad revenue numbers as: online ads: $24.2 billion in 2009, print advertising $24.82 billion. Given the different directions of the two trajectories, it’s not exactly going on a limb to project that online ad revenue will exceed print revenue soon (if […]
Soccer Rules:
Richard Epstein — whom I believe, if memory serves me, is quite persuasive when it comes to articulating the reasons why the common law has evolved towards greater and greater efficiency over time — is apparently unwilling to extend that line of reasoning to the rules of soccer. He’s got some suggestions for changing the […]
A Musical Interlude:
Loyal readers of the VC know that my son Sam is a very accomplished young pianist — “brilliant” and “magnificent,” I’d say, but then again I’m his dad and, though it’s true (!), you’d probably discount it pretty heavily. Sam’s studying with James Giles at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern Univ., and last […]
The Iceland of the Internet, Cont’d
Several months ago I posted an item about efforts underway (organized by some of the folks at wikileaks.org) to “put together what sounds like a reasonably serious proposal to prepare a jurisdictional “safe haven” for information on the global network, a set of highly-protective laws for anonymity protection, free expression, immunities for information providers, and […]
World Cup, Round 1:
First, a word about co-blogger Ilya Somin’s interesting post “An Underappreciated Advantage of American Professional Sports Over International Soccer”“. Ilya describes an “important advantage of US pro sports over international soccer: soccer often promotes nationalist and ethnic violence and provides propaganda fodder for repressive or corrupt governments, while US pro sports (with extremely rare exceptions) […]
But First, Our National Anthem:
I am, I admit, a total national anthem junkie, and one of the things I love about the World Cup is the way the anthems are featured. The Olympic award ceremony has a certain charm, with the flag being raised while the anthem of the winner is played. But for me, the Cup has more […]