Having done a fair amount of work in microfinance and closely related areas (development finance involving business clients with larger-than-microfinance loans) in the developing world, I am overall a big fan. As many people are. The question that has long loomed, however, is whether it can or should scale upwards to become a full-fledged part […]
Author Archive | Kenneth Anderson
Is Israel Behind the Stuxnet Cyberattack on Iran?
I’m going to leave it to Co-Conspirator Stewart and other cybersecurity legal experts to discuss the legal issues, but regarding the recent Stuxnet worm that Iran reports infected its computers and, we are told, particularly its nuclear program, the New York Times says … Experts dissecting the computer worm suspected of being aimed at Iran’s […]
China Shows Off Its Drones
China has been moving to catch up with the US and Israel in production of military UAV drones, reports the Wall Street Journal today, in an article by Jeremy Page (Friday, Nov. 19, 2010, A11). The article says that the uptick in drone output has surprised the West: Western defense officials and experts were surprised […]
Lindsey Graham Says All Options on the Table re Iran and Nukes
Tod Lindberg, editor of the Hoover Institution’s Policy Review, reports in the Weekly Standard on a blunt message delivered by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC [corrected]) at a discussion meeting of senior transatlantic policy makers, the Halifax International Security Forum. It’s not a forum that would attract a lot of attention, but the attendees are very […]
Diversification and the Market for College Admissions
Help me out with thinking this through; I’m unsure about what I suggest below and would like to figure it out. (To commenters: I’m particularly interested in how to model the strategic behavior here – I’ve suggested that it could be thought of by reference to stock portfolio diversification theory, but as several have pointed […]
Tod Lindberg Assesses the Presidency at Midterm, and My Query about Academics in Government
Tod Lindberg, editor of the Hoover Institution journal Policy Review, offers in the Weekly Standard an assessment of the President at the mid-term … President McCain, that is. It is incisive, rather than played for laughs, and characteristically shrewd in its implied judgments. But as long Tod is speculating, let me speculate in a different sense. […]
GM Benefits from Tax Law Ruling
In the terrific conference on the Constitution in the Financial Crisis that Co-Conspirator Todd and I were privileged to attend last week at Stanford Law School, one of the panelists (this was a panel looking at the peculiar incentives and disincentives created for corporate governance by having government as a controlling shareholder, as in GM) […]
The NYT’s Room for Debate Blog on Investing/Lending to Finance Lawsuits
The often very interesting Room for Debate blog at the New York Times has a new discussion on the question of whether it is good policy to allow outsiders to invest in someone else’s lawsuit. Here’s the opening to how the question is framed: With litigation costs rising, many plaintiffs and their lawyers do not […]
Winter Blues Update
If you are like me and tend to suffer from winter blues when the daylight fades away (and Brings Out the Inner Aztec Pessimism about the possible disappearance forever of the Fifth Sun), this article by Leslie Tamura in the Washington Post is a good roundup of expert advice on how to combat it – […]
Ben Wittes Attends the Al-Aulaqi Hearing
Probably some readers have seen this over at Lawfare, but Ben Wittes has a very interesting account of the oral argument from a few days ago on the Al-Aulaqi targeted killing lawsuit. A snippet: Judge Bates was deeply engaged with counsel for both sides throughout the argument. At the hearing’s end (shortly after I had […]
Where Jus in Bello and Jus ad Bellum Come Together, or, ‘This Time of Damned Algebra’
By Kenneth Anderson on November 10, 2010 7:24 pm in International Human Rights Law, International Law, War and Armed Conflict
I’m at Penn Station, waiting for the train from New York City back to DC, happy but slightly dazed after the intense three day conference in celebration of the 35th anniversary of Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars that I mentioned in an earlier post. My thanks and congratulations to Gabby Blum, Ian Scobbie, and […]
A Celebration of 35 Years of Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars
I am privileged this week to be in attendance at a marvelous conference at NYU celebrating the 35th anniversary of Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars, with Professor Walzer himself in attendance, and a host of luminaries among moral philosophy, law, and other fields. I don’t really have internet access at the conference, and the […]
Obama Endorses India for Permanent Security Council Seat, and a Note on Disaggregation of the State and the Globalized New Class
By Kenneth Anderson on November 8, 2010 10:44 am in Global Governance/World Government, International Law, New Class
News services report that President Obama, speaking to the Indian Parliament, has endorsed India receiving a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The AP story adds that this was the biggest applause line in the speech, fully consonant with the rise of Indian nationalism within India, and its rapidly increasing sense of importance in […]
A Couple of Unrelated Items … on Speeding Tickets, and Stuff I’m Reading
The post below from Conspirator Ilya on speed traps rang a bell with me because I managed to get my first speeding ticket in fifteen years two weeks ago, driving in Virginia. Madison County, to be exact, at 6:30 am on a weekday, driving on Highway 29 between DC and Charlottesville. I’ll be a visiting […]
The Magazine on the Front Page of the New York Times?
Chief Conspirator Eugene commented on the legal aspects of the four-year old child and tortious negligence a couple of days ago, and linked to a story in the New York Times discussing the court’s holding. I was intrigued by something else linked to this story, but not about the law. Rather, when I opened the […]