The Missouri Supreme Court has just held that it violated the "right of publicity" for a comic book to name an obviously fictional character after "Tony Twist," a noted hockey player. The Court rejected the First Amendment defense -- which I think should have prevailed here, for reasons that I
Reader Shannon Maders points to the following sentences by Ronald Brownstein in the L.A. Times:Yet Dean is as much target as model. Kerry recently attacked him from the left, complaining that Dean's call for repealing all of Bush's 2001 tax cut (which Dean wants to apply to a new drive to cover
I haven't investigated this myself, but Rick Hasen -- a top election law specialist at Loyola Law School here in L.A. -- has, and I trust him on this. Here's his original post on the subject:Elections Code section 11302 states that "If a vacany occurs in an office after a recall petition is
writes Dan Gifford, pointing to this New Scientist article:A dietary supplement used by many athletes to boost muscle power can also increase brain power, at least in vegetarians. New research shows that non-meat eaters taking the supplement, called creatine, perform better in various memory
InstaPundit points out that "The Volokh Conspiracy has become Slate-watch," and in a sense that's true: I've often posted criticisms of Slate pieces. But that's largely true because I read Slate so often, probably more often than any other non-blog news and commentary source. I do often find
Apparently so, according to Michael Tomasky, as reported by Slate. An alternative interpretation is that everyone is dogmatic, but that Democratic administrations waffle more on the content of policy, and thus receive a more mixed reaction from their journalistic allies. --Posted by Tyler Cowen
In July Russia arrested Platon Lebedev, the business partner of the country's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and placed this whole business empire under legal siege (one asset, the oil company, is called Yukos, which you may have seen in the newspapers). The word is that while this guy is no
Matt Rustler points out that[O]n August 8, 1942, six of the petitioners in the famous case of Ex parte Quirin [the Nazi saboteurs] were executed. . . .
[T]he first group of the men landed on June 13, 1942 near Amagansett, New York. The last of them were arrested on June 27. At some intervenining
The central question of the hour, of course, is the size and composition of the giant mound of tabloidy scandal material that's about to be dumped on his head, and whether A.S. gets caught in a tangle of lying trying to respond. . . . --Posted by Eugene Volokh to The Volokh Conspiracy at 8/7/2003
Reader Avi Klein recommends this book for containing key essays on nuclear proliferation.
I continue to think about the problem. At some point, victims of tyrants could deter the tyrants, Kuwait with a nuclear weapon could have deterred Saddam, though the thought of hundreds of nuclear powers
My departmental, New Republic, and sometimes-here-at-the-Conspiracy colleague Dan Drezner has moved to one a'them there fancy Movable Type sites: http://www.danieldrezner.com/blog/. --Posted by Jacob Levy to The Volokh Conspiracy at 8/6/2003 11:05:17 AMPowered by Blogger Pro
Lawrence Keeley's War Before Civilization will make you feel better about nuclear proliferation. He argues that participation in primitive warfare, in proportional terms, is often deadlier than participation in modern warfare. Plus primitive warfare can be more ruthless, arbitrary, and
I should be on KTSA-AM, 550, San Antonio this evening at 7:35 Central, talking about Web cameras in classrooms.
--Posted by Eugene Volokh to The Volokh Conspiracy at 8/11/2003 02:21:44 PMPowered by Blogger Pro
"In the first Gulf War, one in 50 US personnel on the ground was a contractor. In the recent war in Iraq, that figure was 1 in 10."
From the 11 August Financial Times. To read more, see P.W.Singer's new book from Cornell University Press. I will leave it to the lawyers amongst us to figure out
(see several posts down), from The Daily Cal:An Arabic-language student accused a UC Berkeley graduate student instructor Wednesday of teaching anti-Semitism.
UC Extension student Susanna Klein alleged that Near Eastern Studies graduate student instructor, Abbas Kadhim, said "The Protocols of
I have not read it yet but there has appeared a new round in the exchange between Laurence Tribe and Nelson Lund over the decision in Bush v. Gore.
Lund's original reply to Tribe's Harvard Law Review article, "eroG v. hsuB" (to which I do not have a link--if anyone does, send it to me and I will
according to The Drudge Report. Supposedly that's what Schwarzenegger will say on the Tonight Show tonight. Don't know how reliable the story is, but it's juicy enough to pass along. (There's a Russian phrase, "Çà ÷òî êóïèë, çà òî è ïðîäàë" -- literally, "For what I bought it, I sold it," but
I received the following e-mail from a reader in Ontario, describing some of the features of the Canadian civil justice system that discourage speculative and abusive lawsuits:
The ... major reason for the dichotomy between the US, on the one hand, and Canada/England/Australia/New Zealand on
Exact Quote: ANOTHER 5000 "UNIQUE VISITOR" DAY, just like yesterday, thanks chiefly to more InstaPundit links. It won't last at this level -- it never does -- but it's still pleasant to see. (end of quote, my Russian keyboard has no apparent quotation mark signs.)
Eugene is rarely wrong in my
I'm on balanced pleased with the OCR's letter, which says (among other things) thatOCR has recognized that the offensiveness of a particular _expression_, standing alone, is not a legally sufficient basis to establish a hostile environment under the [antidiscrimination] statutes enforced by OCR.
Paul Krugman posts on his Web site the Stars & Stripes letters and Financial Times article that support his claims about supposedly huge logistical gaffes by the military in Iraq, and closes with "Critics, do your homework!" Phil Carter responds, pointing out that "Quotation does not necessarily
Phil Carter responds to Paul Krugman. I don't know who's right and who's wrong on this, but it seems like an interesting debate.
--Posted by Eugene Volokh to The Volokh Conspiracy at 8/12/2003 09:16:17 AMPowered by Blogger Pro
I think it is a tongue-in-cheek prank, but a new web site, www.americanactionmarket.org gives you the chance to bet on the policies of the American government, and not just on the terrorists. For instance, you can bet on "the first White House staffer to resign in disgrace, and when." I don't
From FoxNews:"Who Wants to Be Governor of California? The Debating Game" will include a political debate produced in the style of a game show, [the Game Show Network] announced Monday. . . .
The channel said it is lining up five candidates to take part in the Oct. 1 program. The show will
I received the following e-mail from a reader in Ontario, describing some of the features of the Canadian civil justice system that discourage speculative and abusive lawsuits:
The ... major reason for the dichotomy between the US, on the one hand, and Canada/England/Australia/New Zealand on the
Several email correspondents were outraged that I suggested (Blogger link not working, see post from yesterday) that pro-Israel activists could eventually be the targets of hate speech rules used to silence anti-Semites. Yet consider the following incident from Australia (source: You Can't Say
An eighteen year old boy dives into shallow water in a lake at a public beach, and sues the local government for his severe injuries. The defendant notes that swimming in the lake was strictly prohibited. The plaintiff responds that this prohibition was widely ignored, and that this fact shows
I'm extremely skeptical about the claims in this story:Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore stood firm Thursday, saying he has no intention of removing a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state judicial building, and will file papers taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. . . .
A few days ago I predicted that Arnie would prove a conservative populist, if elected, given his desire to maintain the value of his fame and entertainment career. Picking Warren Buffett as his main economic advisor is consistent with this view. If you don't already know Buffett's views, read
...according to a forthcoming Charles Murray book. Murray measures Western achievement and concludes that Western dominance through world history is simply stunning. As he presents a summary of his basic argument (see the link), I think he overstates his case for music and the arts.
--Posted by Eugene Volokh to The Volokh Conspiracy at 8/13/2003 10:37:06 AMPowered by Blogger Pro
Here is some not so serious mock voting on the economics Nobel Prize from the argmax.com website (a good source of economic information, I might add).
Some opinions on listed candidates, following up on my earlier blog post on this topic:
Eugene Fama - Definitely deserving, and very likely to
asks a reader, responding to an earlier post. The answer, as is often the case with such linguistic issues, is that both are acceptable, as dictionaries make clear. A google search suggests that "amok" is more common, though "amuck" is common enough; a NEXIS search is unhelpful, because it
Thanks to reader Michael Newman for the pointer.
--Posted by Eugene Volokh to The Volokh Conspiracy at 8/14/2003 03:14:11 PMPowered by Blogger Pro
What incentives to corporate managers of environmentally-sensitive industries have to act in ways that protect human health? In particular, I am wondering about chemical and nuclear companies and the like. We know that corporate managers are very much tempted to achieve short-term profit goals,
Walking around central Belfast today, I was struck at how few signs of conflict I saw (some of the gutted buildings may have been bombed but you see similar architectural wrecks in the States). In fact the whole dispute seems to have receded to a remarkable degree. To make sense of this I read
The FoxNews error about Justice Moore's remarks below, and its debunking, offers what I think this is a good example of how blogs can be quite efficient at fact-checking:Blog reader alerts blogger to possible problem.
Blogger posts about it, with some tentative speculation.
Another blog reader
The FoxNews error about Justice Moore's remarks below, and its debunking, offers what I think this is a good example of how blogs can be quite efficient at fact-checking:Blog reader alerts blogger to possible problem.
Blogger posts about it, with some tentative speculation.
Another blog reader
Slate recycles an old Explainer that focused on "Let's Roll," and that has a fair and balanced -- even accurate -- explanation of this general issue. Note, though, that the explanation is necessarily pretty general; a lot depends on the details. In particular, even if the term is protected by
John Holbo recently rented Daredevil, and was, shall we say, not pleased. I'm in roughly the same ex ante position that he is:One of the burdens of being a comics nerd - or former comics nerd, whatever - is an obscure compulsion to bear witness to witless, loveless, artless, over-budget
We don't want your money. (Well, if we thought you could give us lots of money, we would want it, but since we're likely to get only a little bit, it's not worth the hassle of asking, and of splitting the spoils.) But we do want eyeballs! So if you like this blog, and think some friends of
Several people have e-mailed me about People v. Castillo, a case in which a comic book store clerk was convicted of distributing obscenity -- a comic book called Demon Beast Invasion: The Fallen No. 2. Apparently, at trial the prosecutor argued to the jury that even though this particular comic
Christopher Hitchens takes part in a CAIR-dominated smear campaign against Middle East scholar and activist Daniel Pipe's nomination to the United States Institute of Peace (following criticism by Democrats influenced by CAIR's campaign against Pipes, President Bush has decided to install Pipes
John Holbo has an interesting response to my discussion of the multiple meanings of traitor; and I agree with him that "traitor," even when used to mean "someone who violates what I think is an obligation of loyalty," often contains an allusion to the crime of treason, and is generally intended
You can read the press release from the Electronic Frontier Foundation here. Here is an excerpt:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation today applauded a lawsuit brought by Pacific Bell Internet Services against three organizations that are manipulating copyright laws to violate the privacy of ISP
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