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A law professor I know told me that before he bought his house, he took the Georgia Real Estate licensing exam, passed it, and collected the 3% buyer’s broker’s commission when he bought the house. I’m thinking about buying a house, and was wondering whether I can do the same thing in Virginia. It seems […]

I haven’t followed Russian life much, since the revolution. Still, some things I’ve been hearing recently reminded me of this poem by my favorite Russian singer-songwriter, the late Bulat Okudzhava, written in 1989 — much has surely changed, and for the better, since then, but from what I’ve heard much hasn’t. I give a quick […]

Philosopher Eric Mack defended Coppage v. Kansas, one of the leading Lochnerian Supreme Court decisions in “In Defense of ‘Unbridled’ Freedom of Contract” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (January l980), pp. l-l5. It’s interesting that there were virtually no defenses of Lochner for over forty years, but that right around 1980 the case […]

Aaron Kendal points out that “In a nice confluence of legal and numismatic news, next year, a silver dollar honoring the 250th anniversary of the birth of Chief Justice John Marshall will be struck by the US Mint.” Cool.

The AP reports: Seven cadavers donated to Tulane University’s medical school were sold to the Army and blown up in land mine experiments, officials said Wednesday. . . . Tulane receives up to 150 cadavers a year from donors but needs only between 40 and 45 for classes, said Mary Bitner Anderson, co-director of the […]

Seen on an academic discussion list: One professor notes uncertainty over precisely what is or is not permissible regarding affirmative action after the Michigan cases, and suggests that such uncertainty is unhealthy for a legal system, and provides support for Justice Scalia’s oft-quoted dictum [see correction below], “Liberty finds no refuge in the jurisprudence of […]

I like the libertarian quiz David linked below. It’s much better than most general-purpose political quizzes, because it does a better job of expressing the questions in a form that libertarians would find valid (i.e., policy-oriented, not result-oriented), and better tracks actual divisions among libertarians. I’m also medium-core, with a score of 70. Hanah got […]

I need some numbers on workers’ compensation in different states. Most of my numbers come from a publication called Analysis of Workers’ Compensation Laws put out annually since 1976 by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Its predecessor publication, Analysis of Workmen’s Compensation Laws, was put out annually from the 1950s to 1975. My period of […]

Patterico writes: On the one hand, I have to hand it to the Los Angeles Times. They have run a front-page story about Justice Ginsburg’s speech to the NOW Legal Defense Fund. On the other hand, why did I have to be the one to tell them about it? . . . I suspect that […]

Israeli kibbutzim, once the pride and joy of socialists around the world, are dying a slow death, at least as far as socialism is concerned. As an economic experiment, kibbutzim were never very successful, relying for years on heavy subsidies from Labor-dominated Israeli governments to thrive. When Labor lost power in the late seventies, the […]

Here is a short essay I wrote on economics blogging for The Freeman. It offers a general introduction to what blogging is all about. The print version (but not the on-line version) offers a box which surveys some of my favorite economics blogs, including Lynne Kiesling, Arnold Kling, and others, also see the blog roll […]

Is it possible for Kuwait to assign to a third party an award made to Kuwait by the United Nations Compensation Commission? I am talking about Iraqi reparations here. We know that Iraqi debtors are under pressure to forgive, how does this apply legally to those who hold reparations claims, namely Kuwait? As I understand […]

Just took Bryan Caplan’s Libertarian Purity Test for the first time in a long time. I scored a 79, which makes me a medium-core libertarian. I seem to recall getting a significantly higher score many years ago, but my views have definitely mellowed over time. For other bloggers’ results, click here. Some of the questions […]

A disgusting smear job by Israeli leftist Yossi Sarid, who manages not simply to repeat the well-worn lie that all evangelical Christian supporters of Israel are motivated by implicitly anti-Jewish apocalyptic concerns, but also to virtually accuse any American Christian who goes to “The Passion” of being an anti-Semite. All, of course, in the name […]

Thanks to Philippe Lourier of blogrunner, we now have an RSS feed again, here; and see also this page for more. Much appreciate the help!