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I heard on the radio a story about how a good deal of illness — and absenteeism — is caused by “presenteeism”: People coming to work sick. If people stayed home when they were sick, it would often be better for them, for coworkers, and for their employers. At the same time, there are obvious […]

has apparently been withdrawn — there was supposed to be a committee hearing on it tomorrow, but the backers concluded that they didn’t have the votes. I had written an op-ed (at the behest of ACLU people with whom I’ve been working on this) opposing the VRA, and the Orange County Register had agreed to […]

That is the title of a book manuscript by my colleague Richard Ippolito. I’ve yet to read it, but I feel confident recommending its treatment of microeconomics. Thanks to Newmark’s Door for the pointer.

(much less work than actually having to think through and compose a whole bunch of responses), to Matt Rustler’s thoughts on the matter.

I’ve gotten lots of interesting messages about the Guantanamo issue, but I’m afraid I have to regretfully leave them unreplied to — my apologies, but between a trip tomorrow, family stuff today, and real articles (and an exam) to write this week and for the next several, I’m afraid I’m swamped.

A while ago, when our esteemed colleagues over at Crooked Timber added the learned and witty John Holbo and Belle Waring to their ranks, I noted that this gave CT 15 members, as against 14 Conspirators. I now realize that the count of 14 was based on the roll to in the left-hand sidebar– a […]

The Eagle, the American University student newspaper, reports: AU’s Muslim Chaplain Fadel Soliman, who is also the director of World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) International, which has published and distributed a handful of anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and anti-Shi’a Muslim books, said he made at least one of the books available to students curious about other […]

Jacob Levy asks me this. My tentative answer is that I don’t think this should matter that much — to me, the important questions are whether the detainees are U.S. citizens, and whether they were detained in military operations in a theatre of combat. If both are satisfied, then I think there’s a strong case […]

A question for Eugene: It looks to me as if your (persuasive) argument about unlawful combatant detainees doesn’t turn at any point on the status of Guantanamo Bay as a place. That is, if I’ve read your argument correctly it would be legal (or, which might be different, unreviewable by U.S. civilian courts) to hold […]

There has been intermittent commentary in the blogosphere about how much we political scientists envied the availability of online resources like SSRN for pre-prints, working papers, and so on. A group of political science associations have launched www.politicalscience.org, which is starting off as a searchable database of conference papers but which is supposed to expand […]

My friend and colleague Stuart Banner just came out with an excellent short article called The Myth of the Neutral Amicus: American Courts and Their Friends, 1790-1890, 20 Constitutional Commentary 111 (2003). I found it quite enlightening and asked him for permission to post his Introduction; he kindly said yes, so here it is: An […]

Some people ask — but what if we were doing something really, really bad to the Guantanamo detainees, or for that matter to Nazi or Japanese soldiers taken prisoner in World War II? Or, which is what the question amounts to, what if there were charges that we were doing something really, really bad: Torturing […]

My colleague Kal Raustiala writes: Saw your blog query: [W]hat if every criminal defendant in the US refused to plead out and demanded a trial[?] Is there a constitutional difference between this scenario and your “many prisoners in a war situation” scenario? Both would wildly overload the system. Is there a reason you see for […]

from Ann Althouse.

My post about Guantanamo brought several messages about this perennial issue. Some complained that the Administration is trying to have it both ways by coming up with some novel category of non-POW detainees. Others didn’t complain about the Administration’s actions as such, but simply suggested that the courts could come up with a dividing line […]