Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Here’s an excerpt from yesterday’s article, discussing tomorrow’s primary: Fiercely opinionated — his critics brand him anti-Semitic for praising the late Yasser Arafat and calling for a Palestinian homeland since the early 1970s — McCloskey can also gleefully poke fun at himself…. The Chronicle had earlier endorsed Rep. McCloskey. Is the newspaper being quite candid […]

(the one that included “having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers”). Here’s my earlier post about this definition on the Seattle school district’s “Definitions of Racism” Web page. Here’s the new version […]

L.A. County is out of jail space. The sheriff is therefore releasing some inmates though they’ve served less than 10% of their sentences. Other inmates, presumably ones whose release would, in the sheriff’s view, be especially harmful, aren’t being given this break. There’s generally no constitutional problem with that, even when this has unintended disparate […]

is the name of a chemical, discussed by Real Scientists, And Everything. Thanks to Slate‘s Explainer for the pointer.

Sam Bagenstos, who’s a lawprof at Washington University (St. Louis), an expert on (among other things) disabilities law, and in my experience a thoughtful and careful scholar — though one with whom I’d likely often disagree — has a forthcoming paper that takes this perspective. Here’s the abstract (some paragraph breaks added); the paper is […]

Today’s story in the New York Times says: Under the Senate bill, approved without objection by the House with no recorded vote, the “Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act” would bar demonstrations within 300 feet of the entrance of a cemetery and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery from 60 minutes before […]

Matthew Yglesias challenged those academics who signed the economists’ open-letter on immigration to endorse scrapping the H1B visa system “and instead allow unrestricted immigration of foreign college professors.” “If there’s really no difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ economists should be leading the charge to disassemble the system of employment protections they enjoy,” writes Yglesias. No […]

In a recent interview about the movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Dave Roberts of Grist magazine, asked former Vice President Al Gore: “There’s a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What’s the right mix?” Gore answered […]

Pete Townshend offers his thoughts on National Review‘s John Miller naming “Won’t Get Fooled Again” as the greatest conservative rock song (after coverage in The Independent). Of course the song has no party-allied political message at all. It is not precisely a song that decries revolution – it suggests that we will indeed fight in […]

Back in 2003, the Dixie Chicks alienated a good portion of their fan base when lead singer Natalie Maines told a London concert audience that she was embarrassed to be from the same state as President George W. Bush. Many country music stations responded by refusing to play Dixie Chick songs, and record sales suffered. […]

The Washington Post reports on a recent study that unexpectedly failed to find a link between smoking marijuana and lung cancer. Dan Filler wonders how federal agencies will respond.

Some conservatives seem eager for the Justice Department to prosecute the press for reporting on leaked classified information. Former Reagan Administration official Bill Bennett said on his radio show such reports were not worthy of prizes but “worthy of jail.” This past weekend, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fueled the fire when he suggests on ABC […]

The Manhattan Institute’s Walter Olson has a subscription-only op-ed on the Milberg Weiss indictment in today’s WSJ. Olson writes: Milberg Weiss lawyers have been in the forefront of efforts to define kickbacks broadly and punish them with rigor. The firm’s Web site boasts that it “has sued major providers of private mortgage insurance for kickback […]

Speaking to the Georgetown University Law Center’s graduating class yesterday, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that he seeks greater consensus and more restraint on the High Court. According to the New York Times report: He said the nation would benefit if the justices could avoid 5-to-4 decisions in cases with sweeping impact, noting that many […]

For years, school textbooks in Saudi Arabia preached intolerance and hatred against non-Muslims. After September 11, Saudi officials promised this would change. More recently, they proclaimed they had “removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths.” Nina Shea, writing in the Washington Post, shows otherwise. A review of a sample of […]