“After investing tens of thousands in education and training costs, Germany is losing its best qualified professionals to better paid positions elsewhere, economists complain. . . Every seventh person with a doctorate in science leaves Germany for the United States, The Scientist magazine has reported. Three of the four German Nobel Prize winners work in […]
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Town T-shirts barred in town schools:
AP reports: Showing town spirit in Climax is cause for punishment in this Minnesota town. Shirley Moberg, superintendent of Climax-Shelly schools, said T-shirts bearing the town’s slogan “Climax — More than just a feeling,” are inappropriate because of the sexual innuendo. About a dozen students wore centennial T-shirts to school this week in protest, and […]
Slate on the Massachusetts constitutional convention: Dana Mulhauser has a smart and readable piece on this in today’s Jurisprudence — a column that, while I often criticize, I also often very much enjoy reading.
The truth about the law:
One of the advantages of a legal education — at least American legal education, based on the case method — is that there’s a story behind every case, with real people behind it. (My Civil Procedure professor, David Shapiro, said this on the first day of law school — and qualified it with the observation […]
Commemoration:
Chris Bertram notes that today is the 200th anniversary of Kant’s death.
Why deterrence doesn’t fully reassure me:
“A complacent Saddam Hussein was so convinced that war would be averted or that America would mount only a limited bombing campaign that he deployed the Iraqi military to crush domestic uprisings rather than defend against a ground invasion, according to a classified log of interrogations of captured Iraqi leaders and former officers. Mr. Hussein […]
Cathy Seipp on blogging: As usual with Cathy’s work, a very readable and interesting piece, this time with thoughts on the media, children, education, and politics. He’s the first paragraph: My 14-year-old blogger daughter got Instalanched last week, after she wrote about how her English teacher had ridiculed her in front of the class for […]
Stupidity, conservativism, and math:
Several readers objected to the logic of Prof. Brandon’s argument, and not just to its factual underpinnings or the accuracy of its paraphase of John Stuart Mill. Even if “stupid people are generally conservative,” the readers argue, this doesn’t mean that conservative people are especially likely to be stupid — and, they say, that’s a […]
The Dangers of Being the Foregone Conclusion:
Drudge is reporting a potential recent infidelity by John Kerry. I’m not endorsing this as truth, or as necessarily relevant, but the story is going to hit the stands so I’m bringing you the pain or the glory (your call) early.
Which citizenry is under the most video camera surveillance?
The answer surprised me. In Great Britain there is one surveillance-dedicated video camera for every fourteen people. Commentator Randall Parker discusses the implications for crime prevention (see the link). I wonder if another factor is not operating as well: the British trust their government not to misuse the taped material. It is harder to imagine […]
Legislating Morality:
Having spoken on my book yesterday at University of Houston and South Texas College of Law, I am in San Antonio today to speak at St. Mary’s. And speaking of Texas, on Mirror of Justice, Rick Garnett offers this criticism of a claim I make in Justice Kennedy’s Libertarian Revolution: Lawrence v. Texas in the […]
Party affiliation and political knowledge:
Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, writes: Apropos the conservatism and “stupidity” issue, you may find interesting the attached data from my analysis of the 2000 National Election Study (the NES is the most comprehensive US survey of political attitudes and knowledge, which breaks down political knowledge by strength of party affiliation. […]
Those brilliant professors, those accurate literary references:
Prof. Robert Brandon, chair of the philosophy department at Duke, is quoted as saying (thanks to InstaPundit and Andrew Sullivan for the pointer): “We try to hire the best, smartest people available,” Brandon said of his philosophy hires. “If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives […]
Venting:
A reader writes, apropos the “How not to argue” post: You are absolutely right; letters like that are a disaster. And I’ve written enough of them myself (no, not quite so lame as that). I just don’t send them. Venting accomplished, nobody hurt. I admit that I am nursing one venting letter now that I […]
Seventh Circuit judges’ letter opposing Rule 32.1 (the rule that would require courts of appeal to allow citation of their unpublished opinions). It’s signed by 9 of the 12 Seventh Circuit judges.