Search for: "Mike Rappaport"
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7 Sep 2010, 9:11 pm
The complete series is on sale for $72 today only. Hat tip: Instapundit. This is my favorite sit com, and I am tempted to buy it, but I just don't think I would watch it. Highly recommended for someone who would. [read post]
19 Jul 2010, 8:31 am
Bryan Caplan, a hard core libertarian, has a good post making out the case for conservatism in favor of libertarianism. As a fusionist -- who believes in a mixture of libertarianism and conservatism -- I found his points in favor conservatism strong, but overstated. That is, exactly the place where I would expect myself to be. Here are some excerpts of his post in blue with my comments: 1. "Liberty and these other values sometimes conflict, and there's no reason why liberty should always… [read post]
2 Jul 2010, 2:53 pm
I am intrigued to see that I am not the only one who is down on Dell. I think over the years I bought, maybe, 6 Dell computers, not counting the several others that my school put on my desk at work. The last one I bought, which was not a cheap machine, never worked right from the beginning. Now, it won't even play a DVD. They tried to fix it, but it really needed a new motherboard and they were not going to do that. I am done with Dell. When a company loses a customer who has bought 6 computers… [read post]
14 May 2010, 5:40 pm
According to the New York Times: Lester K. Spence, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on theroot.com, a Web site devoted to black issues, that Ms. Kagan appeared to be more concerned with ideological diversity than with diversity of race or gender. "President Obama wants us to support his choice not because she's got a strong record, not even because she has a particularly visible record, but because he knows her," Mr. Spence wrote. "I'm not buying… [read post]
10 Apr 2010, 2:29 pm
The past year has seen the retirement of two Supreme Court Justices, David Souter and now John Paul Stevens. I have not seen any discussion of the relationship between these two retirees, but it deserves attention. There is much that was similar about Souter and Stevens. Both were appointed by Republican Presidents, were initially moderate conservatives, but then quickly moved to the center-left and then eventually to the solid left. With their retirements, the long line of Republican self inflicted… [read post]
5 Apr 2010, 12:34 am
Recently, I saw Up in the Air and thought it should win the Oscar. People then recommended another Jason Reitman film, Thank You for Smoking. Well, TYFS is even better than Up in the Air. Really, an hilarious, sarcastic, and thoroughly enjoyable movie. Reitman also directed (but did not do the screenplay for) Juno, which I liked but didn't love. This guy is incredible. An individual version of Pixar. If you haven't seen TYFS, it is a must see. I definitely plan to see it again. [read post]
30 Mar 2010, 1:04 am
A few days ago, I linked to a Bryan Caplan post which defended a fully voluntary health care system. Now, Bryan has a complementary post which argues, that if one does not want to protect those who cannot purchase health care because of no fault of their own, there is a way to do so without ruining health insurance markets. I also agree with 90 percent of this. [read post]
29 Mar 2010, 12:04 am
Famously or infamously, James Madison was a "nationalist" during the debate on the Constitution, favoring a strong national government. But in the 1790 and thereafter, he was a leading member of the Jeffersonian Republicans who took a strong states rights position. How does one account for these differing positions? Most people argue that Madison changed his mind. But in a really quite interesting paper, Gordon Wood argues that this is not the best way to explain what happened with… [read post]
18 Dec 2009, 3:10 pm
Pat Michaels, one of the leading skeptics, helps explain the context of the climategate e mails. This is essential reading for understanding those e mails. [read post]
25 Nov 2009, 11:35 am
If there is a consensus and the science has been completed, then what is going on with this e mail?The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.If you don't like the results, question the instruments, even though you have relied on those instruments… [read post]
26 Dec 2008, 12:01 am
Over at Econlog, economist Bryan Caplan writes: At risk of offending my many friends in the legal academy, I think that law is a shockingly phony discipline. Virtually everyone - liberal, conservative, Marxist, libertarian, or whatever - imagines that the law conveniently agrees with what they favor on non-legal grounds. Almost no one admits that many, if not most, laws are so vague that there is no "fact of the matter" about what they mean. Once in a while, I… [read post]
13 Dec 2008, 4:52 pm
If that is possible! Now that the Senate Republicans have blocked the auto bailout, Bush is going to use the TARP funds for this purpose. This is outrageous. These funds were not intended to be used for manufacturing companies. What doesn't Bush get? The Senate Republicans were willing to provide a reorganization type bailout of the auto companies, which would have involved the same wages for Detroit auto workers as other auto workers in the… [read post]
2 May 2008, 3:10 pm
According to the New York Sun: It's hard to recall a decision that is more outrageous. Judge Lippman, whom Governor Spitzer appointed to the First Department, upheld the notion that the Port Authority was 68% liable for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, while the terrorists were only 32% liable.I am certainly willing to believe that a court reached this decision in order to promote loss spreading or placing damages on deep pockets or some other notion, but is that actually what happened in… [read post]
14 Mar 2008, 12:01 am
Alan Dershowitz makes a pretty strong point: Even if Mr. Spitzer's derelictions were serendipitously discovered as a result of routine, computerized examination of bank transactions, the dangers inherent in selective use of overbroad criminal statutes remain. Money laundering, structuring and related financial crimes are designed to ferret out organized crime, drug dealing, terrorism and large-scale financial manipulation. They were not enacted to give the federal government the power to… [read post]
25 Jan 2008, 12:13 am
On the Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin and Orin Kerr have been debating the relative roles of the judiciary and the legislature in promoting legitimate government. Both Kerry and Somin make some good points. Without agreeing with either of them, I want to comment on one point that Somin makes. Somin argues that the Supreme Court has very high approval ratings and that this is some evidence that it behaves legitimately. Perhaps, but there is a basic problem with this argument. It is not… [read post]
28 Jun 2007, 12:01 am
A fascinating podcast interview with the CEO of a company that runs on Ayn Rand's philosophy. [read post]
18 Jan 2007, 12:45 am
One aspect of my paper with John McGinnis on supermajority rules and originalism bears emphasis: the paper attempts to explain why the Constitution is great. The paper argues that the original constitutional provisions and its amendments are desirable because they had to pass through a supermajority rule. Here is a brief excerpt from the paper: While most Americans believe that the amended Constitution is an exemplary document, there are few explanations for its excellence. Rather than… [read post]
21 Nov 2006, 10:43 am
A new argument for the Bush Doctrine: However, I support the Bush Doctrine on two grounds -- first, for "utopian" reasons: If the Middle East becomes a region of free states, it will have been the right thing to do and the option most consistent with American values (unlike the stability fetishists' preference for sticking with Mubarak, the House of Saud and the other thugs and autocrats). But, second, it also makes sense from a cynical realpolitik perspective: Promoting liberty and… [read post]
15 Nov 2006, 5:00 pm
Our colleague, David McGowan, discusses some of the problems with the war crimes petition made in German courts against then DOJ lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee. [read post]
12 Nov 2006, 12:40 am
Last night, I saw the movie, The Queen, which purports to tell the story of the British Royal Family's response to the death of Princess Diana and the public's reaction to it. I really liked the movie quite a bit -- much more than I thought I would. For one, Helen Mirren does a marvelous job in the title role, and no doubt will be nominated for an Oscar. While it is impossible to know how accurate the movie is, it seemed entirely believeable and showed in an… [read post]
