Author Archive | Eugene Volokh

A blogger complains that my friend and coblogger David Bernstein’s posts “about judaism” are “getting on [his] nerves,” and says that if David doesn’t “shut up about judaism (or at least post about something else every once in a while),” or else the blogger will “chang[e] the permalink” (“or maybe not”). I’m actually delighted that […]

We all know about the common “silent e,” but which letters in English are silent at least in some words? “Silent” is, I realize, not a fully well-defined term, but I mean a letter that is not pronounced (rather than just pronounced in a distorted way, as the first “l” in “colonel”). I exclude situations […]

Since this blog is now your source for Brazilian immigrant fingerprinting news, we bring you this other tidbit, again from our correspondent David M. Rosenberg: A flight crew from American Airlines (originating in Miami) refused to submit to the fingerprinting process in São Paulo this morning. The captain allegedly made an obscene gesture to the […]

I’m not sure that “completely bann[ing] all talking [in an elementary school] before and between classes and at lunch time” is a First Amendment violation, as Tim Sandefur suggests. But it seems to me to be a mighty silly and unworkable rule, likely only to teach students to have contempt for rules, and for school.

Dahlia Lithwhick’s opinion piece in Slate on today’s Supreme Court oral arguments in a disability accommodation case has a pretty striking item: You’d have to look long and hard to find a civil rights plaintiff more deserving of empathy than George Lane. But then you’d also have to look long and hard to find five […]

Check out the 2003 Year-End Google Zeitgeist. Thanks to Jim Herd for the pointer.

ESPN reports: The Chicago Cubs and owners of the famous building-top seats have come to a 20-year agreement that would require the owners to pay the team millions of dollars each year, the Chicago Tribune reported in Monday’s editions. The owners of 11 buildings will pay the Cubs 17 percent of their gross revenue, which, […]

Deception scandal at USA Today, involving foreign correspondent and Pulitzer Prize finalist Jack Kelley. Howard Kurtz reports in the Washington Post; here’s the USA Today story about this; and The Zionist Conspiracy argues that a Kelley story that painted a highly unflattering picture of Israeli settlers was fabricated (USA Today says that “confirming the Jewish […]

Volkswagen Phaeton drivers beware: Here is the scoop on the original Phaeton: The son of the sun-god Helios. When Phaeton (“the shining one”) finally learned who his father was, he went east to meet him. He induced his father to allow him to drive the chariot of the sun across the heavens for one day. […]

Reader David M. Rosenberg reports: A judge in Rio de Janeiro has accepted the petition of the city to suspend the registration of photos and fingerprints of US tourists. For the time being, the decision only has effect in Rio (I’m not sure if it refers to the entire state of Rio de Janeiro, or […]

From the Toronto Star: Copies of a B.C. Muslim newspaper have been turned over to the province’s hate crimes unit after it published an article accusing “the Jews” of everything from starting both world wars to staging the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Canadian Jewish Congress made a complaint seeking a criminal investigation into what […]

Well, the Supreme Court refused to hear the McFarlane v. Twist case (in which I wrote the amicus brief). Too bad, but not unexpected: The Supreme Court agrees to hear only about 1% of the cases that it’s asked to hear each year; the odds were always against us, even though I do think the […]

Best of the Web writes, linking to this article: “Israeli officials have drafted a copyright bill that would halt compensation to American artists and their record companies when their songs are played on Israeli radio stations and in Israeli clubs,” the Jerusalem Post reports: Other artists, Israeli and foreign, would continue to receive payment under […]

Just finished grading my exams from last semester. What a load off my back.

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