Author Archive | Sasha Volokh

Hosted a party for my Russian class yesterday; I made chicken liver pate and borshch from my mother’s cookbook, my professor made syrniki (sweet cheese patties), and Hanah, as she describes here, made smetannik, a two-layer sponge cake with a sour cream/whipped cream/walnut frosting (definitely one of the best Russian cakes).

The Federalist Society has always been a coalition between conservative and libertarian lawyers and law students. However, judging from the folks I met at national student conferences when I was in law school (88-91), the libertarians in those days were concentrated at the “elite” law schools. Harvard, Yale, Chicago, all had substantial minorities (or in […]

I just saw The Castle, an Australian movie about a guy who fights the government when it tries to take his home. First, it has a positive social message — Institute for Justice had a screening of this movie in New London, Conn., during its anti-eminent domain battle there. Second, it’s really funny — (1) […]

I had excellent reasons for posting this ad on Saturday, but of course blogs have fewer readers on Saturday, so here goes again, if you’re looking to buy my charming condo in Cambridge, Mass.: Are you moving to Cambridge? I’m looking to sell my apartment and move out by June. Two bedrooms (one of them […]

The Dalek Conspiracy. The Moloch Conspiracy. (See also here.) The Pollock Conspiracy. The Bullock Conspiracy. The Bolick Conspiracy.

Are you moving to Cambridge? I’m looking to sell my apartment and move out by June. Two bedrooms (one of them large, and a study that can work as a third bedroom), two bathrooms, two working fireplaces, building with historic charm, many new fixtures. On Mass. Ave.; two minutes’ walk from Harvard Yard, five minutes […]

Remember my previous post about Latin. Now, Hanah links to a nice Economist article about the modern-day popularity (such as it is) of Latin. Finally, on Latin, remember that the plural of me is us, and that the plural of us is I. So a double plural is a singular, but you go from the […]

The other day, I said, briefly: Another note on defending the USSR: Let me put in a note about another aspect of the fall of Communism. Many people on “my side” have suggested that the fall of Communism tells us something meaningful about the feasibility of American-style leftism or Western European-style social democracy — either […]

Hanah and I also didn’t have a great experience with Giant Van Lines, which picked up Hanah’s stuff from Arlington, Va., on December 30, and didn’t deliver it until over 2 weeks later, when they had predicted 3-5 days. Also, they damaged a bookshelf and a dresser, and didn’t put the bed together properly.

discusses e-mail forwarded rants and anti-spam laws.

Let me put in a note about another aspect of the fall of Communism. Many people on “my side” have suggested that the fall of Communism tells us something meaningful about the feasibility of American-style leftism or Western European-style social democracy — either that it should make liberals revise their predictions of the economic impact […]

Randy’s correspondent wanted some smoking-gun quotes by mainstream liberals. I don’t have such a source handy (though I, too, have encountered mainstream people taking that line). But I did come across this article which collects sources by very well-respected mainstream liberal economists (Samuelson, who defined the profession for a time, and Thurow and Galbraith of […]

whose arts writing I’ve always enjoyed in Commentary, has a quote about someone who tears pages out of the books he’s reading to make them easier to carry around. Teachout could never do such a thing in a million years, nor does he highlight passages in books, “even though I approve in theory of underlining, […]

It’s not widely known that the song Istanbul (Not Constantinople) is not by They Might Be Giants, good as they are, but is in fact quite old. How old? Why, I was listening to it in the late ’70s! The words are by Jimmy Kennedy, the music by Nat Simon, and it apparently dates from, […]

and book review about the Russian (Orwell-like) critic of communism from the far left, Victor Serge. (Link via Arts & Letters Daily.)