Author Archive | David Post

I’ve spent much of the past several months reading through the extraordinary Essays of Michel de Montaigne (in the terrific Donald Frame translation — very, very highly recommended), and I recently stumbled across this, at the beginning of #35 [“On Administration”] My late father, a man of a decidedly clear judgement, based though it was […]

A couple of days after the now-fairly-infamous Freeh Report was released with the results of the investigation into the Penn State child abuse scandal, I wrote the following here on the VC (in “NCAA To the Taxpayers of Pennsylvania:  Drop Dead“): So let me get this straight: The NCAA is ordering the taxpayers of Pennsylvania, […]

Like I said (see “Republicans Going Copyleft”), things are getting pretty interesting now that  the political “right” has discovered that there might be some mileage to be gained by seizing the initiative on copyright reform, an issue  (a) that is appealing to young voters, and one that (b) the Democrats, dependent on Hollywood dough, have […]

[Early last week the folks who run the blog at the American Constitution Society asked me to contribute a posting on the World Conference on International Telecommunications, taking place in Dubai.  The original posting is here; I’ve also reprinted it in full below.  I decided against just giving the link and sending you all over […]

We seem to have once again entered a  period in which we will be subject to more Jefferson-the-Perpetuator-of-Slavery bashing – witness the rather appalling Op-Ed piece in today’s NYT by Paul Finkelman on “The Monster of Monticello.”   The founding generation, Finkelman writes, helped perpetuate a “treason against the hopes of the world,” by “fail[ing] to place […]

Courtesy of Larry Downes and the (indispensable) WCITLeaks.org document repository, some evidence that the UN is gearing up for a public relations push in support of what Downes is (rightly) calling the “Anti-Internet Treaty” — viz., various proposals on the table  at the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications which would give the UN’s  International […]

Following on what I posted earlier about the Republican Study Commission’s now-retracted Report on Copyright reform and what it might mean for a developing new consensus on the right about the failure(s) of current copyright policy.  I should have noted there that the Mercatus Center is about to publish a book on this very topic […]

The Republican Study Committee  in the House of Representatives has issued an extremely interesting (though rather clumsily written and clumsily titled) Report on “Three Myths About Copyright Law, and Where to Start to Fix it.”  The Report is posted here Actually, it’s not posted there anymore, having been removed by the RSC itself  . . […]

Without much fanfare, Philip Roth has declared that he is retiring.  There’s a very nice appreciation by Panio Gianopoulos here on Slate, with others, surely, to follow.  The best American novelist since Faulkner?  Here’s my idiosyncratic list of his true masterpieces: Portnoy’s Complaint, American Pastoral, The Ghost Writer, The Human Stain, The Plot Against America, Everyman, and Sabbath’s Theater.   Who else […]

Eugene’s post does raise one of the truly “unforeseen consequences” of this election:  the world of polling, and statistical analysis, will never be the same.  Not to take anything at all away from Silver — who has proven himself to be a very, very smart guy — but the point is: it’s not that he’s some […]

Every four years I submit myself to the slings and arrows of outraged VC readers and declare my personal views on the Presidential race.  Once again, the choice seems rather astonishingly clear, and once again the Dems have the better man. Here’s how things look to me.  I’d give Obama maybe a B or B+  […]

Yesterday, a group of 34 law professors filed an amicus brief that I drafted in the 2d Circuit’s WNET  et al v Aereo case.  The case is a really interesting one — techdirt has a good write-up here about it.  Aereo is in the business of allowing consumers, in effect, to rent a little teeny […]

Yesterday, the federal district court in Nebraska issued its decision declaring most of Nebraska’s Sex Offender Registry statute unconstitutional as an abridgement of the freedom of speech protected by the 1st Amendment.  I was the Plaintiffs’ Expert in the case, so I was delighted with the outcome (and I will oh-so-discreetly point you to footnote […]

This weekend is “international qualifying” weekend in the world of international soccer, when the players leave their club teams and return home to play in qualifying matches for their countries for the next World Cup.  In Europe, as elsewhere, you’re entitled to participate in this pre-World Cup qualifying tournament if (a) you’re a country, and […]

. . . in DC, for those of us who call ourselves Nationals fans.  The Nats’ collapse was excruciating, and epic; 6-0 lead with your ace on the mound?  Sigh.  And coming, as it did, 24 hours after the exhilaration of one of the great postseason moments in history – Jayson Werth’s walk-off homerun on […]