Matthew Yglesias is skeptical of people who think e-commerce giant Amazon has a creepy, monopolistic plan to take over the world of retail. He quotes Jay Goltz, ‘proprietor of a small retail store’ as saying it is ‘impossible to make money competing with Amazon…because Amazon itself isn’t making money’: Why would a company choose toContinue reading “Matthew Yglesias Does Not Seem to Understand E-Commerce”
Category Archives: Law and Legal Theory
Orin Kerr Thinks Executive Branch Searches of The Press Are a ‘Non-Story’
Orin Kerr suggests the story of the US Department of Justice seizing AP phone records isn’t one, wraps up with a flourish, hands out a few pokes at anti-government paranoia, and then asks a series of what he undoubtedly takes to be particularly incisive and penetrating questions: Based on what we know so far, then, IContinue reading “Orin Kerr Thinks Executive Branch Searches of The Press Are a ‘Non-Story’”
Big Business and its Friends on the US Supreme Court
An academic study conducted by Lee Epstein, William Landes and Richard Posner confirms something many of us have only intuited till now: [T]he business docket reflects something truly distinctive about the court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. While the current court’s decisions, over all, are only slightly more conservative than those from the courtsContinue reading “Big Business and its Friends on the US Supreme Court”
Samuel Chase and Judicial Supremacy
In the history of the US Supreme Court, Samuel Chase holds a singular, if dubious honor: he is, to date, the only Supreme Justice to be impeached (he was, however, ultimately acquitted by the US Senate). The background to his impeachment is indicative of the political ferment so common in the early days of theContinue reading “Samuel Chase and Judicial Supremacy”
The Closing of the NYPD’s Mind
Today, Brooklyn College hosted a panel titled ‘Are We Safer? Costs, Benefits, and Alternatives to 20 Years of Aggressive Street Policing” (organized by the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties, Professor Anna Law.) The panel’s discussants were: John DeCarlo, Michael Powell (New York Times), Alex S. Vitale, and Franklin E. Zimring. The rangeContinue reading “The Closing of the NYPD’s Mind”
Land, Ownership, Property, and Nationalism
A few days ago, a dinner-time conversation with some friends turned to the matter of property disputes within families. Both my wife and I spoke with some feeling about the fierce passions they evoked, their seeming intractability, and of course, in the context of modern real estate pressures, their ever-increasing ferocity. It reminded me, yetContinue reading “Land, Ownership, Property, and Nationalism”
The 1944 Mayor’s Committee on Marihuana Report
Today’s post continues a theme initiated yesterday: sensible views on drugs, expressed many, many years ago. Yesterday’s post referenced the New York Academy of Medicine’s 1955 report on opiate addiction. Today’s post goes back even further, to 1944. Then, as reefer madness swept the nation (WWII notwithstanding), New York City became the focus of aContinue reading “The 1944 Mayor’s Committee on Marihuana Report”
Should Free Software Go Into the Public Domain?
I’ve just finished an interesting Twitter conversation with Glyn Moody (author of Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, still one of the best books on the free and open source software phenomenon). Moody has written a very interesting article over at TechDirt, which wonders whether the time has come to put free andContinue reading “Should Free Software Go Into the Public Domain?”
BDS, Brooklyn College, and Dismissing Dershowitz (For the Last Time)
Some more direct consideration of comments on my BDS at Brooklyn College and Dershowitz posts (here; here; and here). These are now settling into a familiar pattern of repetition of the same claims again and again and again, so rather than responding to each one of the comments directly, I will address them en masseContinue reading “BDS, Brooklyn College, and Dismissing Dershowitz (For the Last Time)”
BDS at Brooklyn College, Academic Freedom, and Dershowitz’s Censorship
Yesterday’s post on Alan Dershowitz‘s attempt to intimidate the Brooklyn College Political Science department into withdrawing its sponsorship of an event on the BDS movement, featuring Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti, generated some interesting comments. I will offer some brief responses here. Jared Michaelson worries about departments sponsoring ‘polarizing’ debate: The concern is this: aContinue reading “BDS at Brooklyn College, Academic Freedom, and Dershowitz’s Censorship”
Samir Chopra 