Late last month, I blogged (emphasis added): Julian Sanchez at Reason‘s Hit & Run reports: The American Family Association is running a meaningless online poll on attitudes about gay marriage which, they say, they’ll be sending to Congress. Presumably, they thought selection bias (who goes to the AFA website, after all?) would yield a huge […]
Author Archive | Eugene Volokh
States’ rights approach to proposed Federal Marriage Amendment may be working:
An ABC News/Washington Post poll reports, to my pleasant surprise (see here for my fears to the contrary), that the question “Would you support amending the U.S. Constitution to make it illegal for homosexual couples to get married anywhere in the U.S., or should each state make its own laws on homosexual marriage?” yields 38% […]
Presidential candidate embraces author of book called “Stupid Black Men”:
Oh, sorry — my mistake; it’s actually called Stupid White Men. Funny how an author who wrote a book Stupid Black Men (not as an ironic title) would be rightly reviled, while when he writes Stupid White Men, we hear barely a peep? In any case, the author’s documentary also apparently includes fiction mixed in […]
Law clinic for legal assistance to servicemembers:
Michael Krauss, a law professor at George Mason University, reports: I am proud and pleased to announce that the Clinic for Legal Assistance to Servicemembers (CLAS) has now been organized and is operating. The executive director, Joseph Zengerle, is a West Point grad and Viet Nam vet, as well as being a tremendous guy (and, […]
Centrally control, regulate, and clean up the Internet:
Here’s part of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reaction to the notorious bonsaikitten.com hoax site: Unfortunately, the worldwide web is not controlled or regulated centrally. There is not, therefore, any central authority to which we can complain about this, and other such sites. The RSPCA has written to the Internet […]
Be good to insects:
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is apparently complaining about cruelty to insects (“maggots, cockroaches, . . . and ants”) on a TV show, the Times (London) reports, as well as cruelty to rats. The Daily Ablution has more on this. The RSPCA is a private charity, but as best I […]
Samuel Beckett?
Slate‘s Chatterbox reprints a transcript of a conversation between reporters and President Bush at a ribs diner in Roswell, N.M.. Chatterbox’s reaction: “Today’s lunchtime press ‘pool’ transcript from the Nothin’ Fancy Caf? in Roswell, N.M., was scripted by Samuel Beckett.” My reaction: This is a savvy politician (1) having some fun with the journalists (and […]
Blogger and lawyer Pejman Yousefzadeh should be on the radio in Southern California this afternoon (AM 600, around 4 pm), talking about the Do Not Call list.
Congress enacts school choice program for D.C.:
The Institute for Justice, a leading defender of school choice programs reports that “[t]oday, the U.S. Congress passed an omnibus spending bill including authorization for a school choice program for low-income students in the District of Columbia.” According to the details that the IJ put up, The “D.C. School Choice Incentive Act of 2003” creates […]
Letter from man who defended himself and his family:
Dan Gifford points to this Chicago Sun-Times item: [In late December,] someone broke into the DeMar family home in Wilmette through a dog door, stealing a television, an SUV and the keys to the home. The next night, Hale DeMar was prepared for a return visit. With his children upstairs, DeMar, 54, shot burglar Morio […]
Slam Scalia:
As I’ve mentioned before, Dahlia Lithwick’s “Supreme Court Dispatches” are generally a delight to read, and are often quite insightful. She’s a very good writer, and a colorful one; and I realize that part of that color is the injection of her own viewpoints. Her piece yesterday on the latest Supreme Court advising-defendants-of-the-right-to-counsel case was […]
Carol Moseley Braun supports right to bear arms:
Edward Boyd reports, quoting OpinionJournal’s Political Dairy (it’s subscription only, so I haven’t checked it myself): . . . Before she withdrew from the presidential race, Carol Moseley Braun shocked a D.C. debate audience when she said she would sign a bill to repeal the District’s gun ban. “I think under the Constitution people have […]
“Black” and “white”:
An amusing and insightful story from InstaPundit: My brother — who doesn’t look any blacker than I do — is sometimes asked by Nigerians (in Nigeria) whether he is black. At first he thought this was odd, but one explained “We have Americans coming here all the time who say they are black, but they […]
Likely First Amendment violation:
According to the Omaha World-Herald, A small group of Westside High School students plastered the school Monday with posters advocating that a white student from South Africa receive the “Distinguished African American Student Award” next year. The students’ actions on Martin Luther King Jr. Day upset several students and have led administrators to discipline four […]
Statistics and the SAT:
The the L.A. Times anti-SAT op-ed, which I criticize in the post below, has one especially noteworthy statistical claim: “[W]hite students score 206 points higher on average than nonwhites” on the SAT, “according to Psychology Today.” To begin with, this seems to be a misquote of the Psychology Today article, which says “Whites outscore African […]