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I’m planning to read a history of the papacy this summer. I already own two: Nicolas Cheetham’s History of the Popes, and Roger Collins’s Keepers of the Keys of Heaven. (I also own a more general (and longer) history of Christianity, Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.) Does anyone have recommendations as between […]

I lived in the Boston area for most of the period between 1980 and 2001, and was therefore especially saddened by today’s terrible bombing there. Fortunately, none of my many relatives and friends in the area were hurt, though obviously many others were not so lucky. The nature of the attack clearly suggests that it […]

The song happens to be about the New Deal WPA, but the lyrics apply more broadly.  (For that matter, academia is hardly exempt from the phenomenon of people with guaranteed employment often slacking off.) Hat tip: Historian David Beito via Facebook, from Cafe Hayek.

In the summer of 2010, while I was teaching in Germany, we ran into a Russian cultural center in Berlin (it was probably the Russisches Haus) and bought some kids’ books at their bookstore. One of them was Russian History, by Natal’ia Maiorova. I’ve finally finished reading it to my kids, so now I know […]

A very good column, at Reason.com. UPDATE: Well, that was an embarrassing typo in my post title (Harass instead of Harris). But it was just a typo, from posting when tired, not some deep comment on my part.

Here’s the scant good news on cybersecurity It’s getting harder for attackers to hide.  The same security weaknesses that bedevil our networks can be found on the systems used by our attackers. A shorter version is something I call Baker’s Law: “Our security sucks.  But so does theirs.” That’s good news because, with a little gumption, […]

I announced last month that I had joined Twitter, using the account @orinkerr. One month and 100 tweets later, I’ve enjoyed the experience so far. I joined Twitter mostly because lots of people in the cyber/privacy world use it, so I figured it was good way to follow and interact with folks in the field. […]

On Wednesday, Judge Pryor handed down a Fourth Amendment decision in Myers v. Bowman that begins: This appeal presents the question whether three officials in a rural county of Georgia are entitled to a summary judgment against a complaint that they violated the civil rights of a father and son who had been involved in […]

My Emory Law students, for their Follies 2013 show (the best I’ve seen in the four years I’ve been at Emory), have their own take on the Volokh Conspiracy.

I blogged below about whether recording the McConnell meeting violated federal law; in this post I’ll offer some thoughts on whether it violated state law. With the caveat that I had never looked at Kentucky’s surveillance statutes until an hour ago, my sense is the answer is pretty unclear from the sparse sources available. Kentucky’s […]

Mother Jones recently released a surreptitiously recorded conversation of a Mitch McConnell campaign meeting. Talking Points Memo reports on some allegations about who recorded the communication and in what circumstances: A local Democratic official in Kentucky said that two leaders of the group Progress Kentucky recorded a behind-closed-doors meeting between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell […]

This is an announcement for George Mason University Law School students only. This summer, I may end up hiring more research assistants than I originally anticipated. As a result, if you are a GMU law student, have strong research skills, and have any interest in constitutional law, property rights, political ignorance, or other topics on […]

ATX Brands LLC, which owns Bikinis Sports Bar and Grill (in Bikinis, TX), has obtained a federal trademark for the mark “Breastaurant” in connection with “restaurants and bars.”  [I was hoping that this Yahoo story got it wrong somehow – but I checked at the Trademark Office site, and indeed, the term has been registered […]

Here’s an interesting case:  Someone posts a video on YouTube showing State Rep.Tarah Toohil (R PA) as a young woman smoking what appears to be a bong and about to kiss a woman sitting nearby.  Rep. Toohil acknowledges that she is the young woman in the video, but in  a video response says “I am […]

Good to see that Derringer v. Derringer (N.M. Ct. App. Mar. 6, 2013) is in large part a Second Amendment case — though the claims were waived, alas.