Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Today’s Washington Post profiles Justice Anthony Kennedy, and his early emergence (as predicted) as the swing vote on the Supreme Court. Most of the court’s decisions are not ideological — there are more unanimous decisions than ones settled by a single vote. And not all of the 5 to 4 decisions pit the ideological conservatives […]

Bruce Bartlett, author of Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, has launched a new blog, Bartlett’s Notations. Bruce is a principled and well-respected supply-sider who calls things as he sees them, even when it causes a stir, as his book did (see also here). He is worth reading whether […]

I have not listened to much Five for Fighting other than what gets played on the radio, but I found this profile of John Ondrasik, who is Five for Fighting, by John Miller on NRO to be quite interesting. I doubt there are many contemporary songwriters who have written lyrics based upon a lunch with […]

The Law Professor Blogs Network now includes the Administrative Law Prof Blog.

Brian Tamanaha has just posted a really terrific article, The Realism of the “Formalist” Age. The article very persuasively makes a point that I’ve pondered here before, namely that the basic insights of legal realism were nothing new when the realists claimed to “discover” them. As Tamanaha shows, many perspectives on law that today are […]

DOJ’s letter is here. Gonzales and McNulty had recused themselves, so the letter was written by the Inspector General and OPR.

Eric Dolphy isn’t for everyone. He was a fiercely original musician who helped lead jazz’s avant-garde in the early 1960s before his premature death in 1964. The first time you hear Dolphy, you’ll probably think, “um, that’s just weird.” But Dolphy is an acquired taste that is very much worth acquiring, as he was one […]

in today’s Washington Post. He sounds like the perfect attorney to hire if you’re charged with running a high-class prostitution service; the evidence against you is overwhelming; and your primary goal at this stage is to make sure your case becomes a memorable news story so you can sell your book and movie rights for […]

According to the Associated Press, Chief Justice Roberts delivered remarks at the Alaska Bar Association annual convention that included an interesting theory for what has contributed to the decline in the Supreme Court’s docket in recent years: thanks to on-line resources, lawyers and lower courts can find existing lower court precedents more easily, resulting in […]

Yes. In fact, yes, they do. Today is my last day as a guest blogger, and I wanted to start by thanking my hosts and also you, the VC reader. This is an amazing place to workshop a paper having to do with computer security. Last Monday, immediately after posting for the first time to […]

Recently, Chris Sprigman published an article called the 99 Cent Question in the Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law. He asked a simple question: Why are almost all major-label songs sold online for exactly 99 cents? More to the point, why don’t music labels price discriminate? They can probably sell higher quality songs at […]

Today, I will switch from the Superuser article to describe a short article I have co-authored entitled The Analog Hole and the Price of Music: An Empirical Study, which will be published imminently in the Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law. The citation will be 5 J. on Telecomm. & High Tech. L. 573 […]

Over the past two days of discussion about my article, I have essentially been saying that we (policymakers, lawyers, law professors, computer security experts) do a lousy job calculating the risks posed by Superusers. This sounds a lot like what is said elsewhere, for example involving the risks of global warming, the safety of nuclear […]

One-time Gitmo detainee David Hicks is back home in Australia, where he had hoped to sell his story about meeting Osama bin Laden and his eventual capture and detention by the U.S. military. No dice. Although the provision in his plea deal not to sell his story is unenforceable in Australia, the Australian Attorney General […]

Listening to Arcade Fire, I can’t help being reminded of Echo and the Bunnymen. Arcade Fire utilizes a broader range of instruments, and are more engaging on stage, but if I close my eyes I can imagine Ian McCulloch singing many of their songs. One of the many good songs on their new album, Neon […]