Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

Rounds up commentary on Kelo at The Truth Laid Bear.

I’ve been trying all day to craft a post that could capture my astonishment–ok, outrage–towards this ruling. But I keep getting so wound up that I have to scrap it. I’ll just give you a few snapshots of my false starts as Subject Lines for posts since mid-day today: 1. Government by the “Honor System”: […]

For those who are interested, I have collected links to many of the articles and blog materials related to the recently-completed Dartmouth trustee election on my personal website here.

I’m now a Dartmouth Trustee. The final meeting of the outgoing board was this past weekend and I am now officially a member of the board.

Ellen Goodman writes today: The climate is equally apparent in the struggle over what the Bush administration calls “climate change” — and everyone else calls global warming. The only way to justify doing nothing about global warming now is to deliberately muddle the science. It’s not an accident that Philip Cooney, the White House official […]

I noted the other day that I had heard some rumors of criticisms of home-state backlash against some of the architects of the filibuster deal fall-out. Some have raised the fair point that some of the criticisms that I linked to in that post may actually be more about ideological views on votes on judges […]

I am reading increasing reports about home state, grass roots fall-out from the filibuster deal. This column criticizing Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado and this one about Sen. Lidsey Graham are illustrative. Especially interesting is the difference in perception of the deal back home versus inside the beltway. Consider this passage from The State newspaper […]

My friend Brad Smith has announced that he is stepping down from the FEC to return to teaching. The Press Release is here. While a loss for the country, it is certainly a gain for those of us who look forward to having Brad back as an academic colleague. Brad’s tenure at the FEC exemplifies […]

Peter Huber and Mark Mills, authors of The Bottomless Well, weigh in today on the question of drilling for oil in ANWR: What We Could Gain in Alaska Wednesday, June 15, 2005; Page A24 People who love nature, as Jonathan Waterman clearly does [“What We Would Lose in Alaska,” op-ed, June 6], harm their cause […]

Having spent yesterday engaged in an agonzing day of a round-trip flight to New York and back, Anne Applebaum’s column today calling for the most minimal assessment of cost-benefit analysis in airport security seems right on target. From Airport Security’s Grand Illusion: If you happen to be reading this while standing in one of those […]

I just came across this paper by Gruber and Hungerman on crowding out of private sector charity by government spending. (Its an NBER paper, so not everyone may be able to get it). I always thought that Putnam’s response in Bowling Alone to the “crowding out” effect of government services displacing civil society institutions was […]

New libertarian/conservative blog looks pretty interesting–here.

Putting the debate over judicial nominees in perspective, an important Federalist Society white paper says “No“. The addition of strict constructionist or “conservative” justices to the Supreme Court will not undermine the basic tenets of the new Deal and will not sound a clarion call for the renewal of pre-New Deal jurisprudence…. Even if certain […]

Must reading, as always, here. The abstract: Liberal academics and newspapers have proclaimed that the Rehnquist Court and conservative intellectuals are attempting to resurrect a pre-New Deal “Constitution in Exile.” This absurd campaign illustrates the intellectual impoverishment of what now passes for “progressive” constitutional thought. Still, liberals are right in suggesting that conservatives may not […]

The irony: Environmentalists are suing wind power generators because their windmills kill birds. Update: May apologies, apparently the link is only available to subscribers (and since I subscribe, I was able to link through on my computer). Sorry–that’s the first time I tried to link to that source. The nonfunctioning link did generate this amusing […]