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November 10, 2017

Amy Cuddy explained too well

the breadth of the accusations -- how diffuse they are -- could easily be mistaken for the depth of her scientific missteps, which at the outset were no different from those of so many of her peers.

"We were all being trained to simplify, to get our message out there -- there were conferences and panels on how to do it. One of the ironies is that Amy Cuddy just did it more successfully."

-- Richard Petty, a social psychologist at Ohio State.

March 22, 2015

Federal Crimes

When America was founded, there were only three specified federal crimes--treason, counterfeiting and piracy.

November 20, 2011

"Why Nonexistent People Do Not Have Zero Well-Being but Rather No Well-Being".


At this year's conference, in October, nearly 500 aspiring law professors turned up for interviews with 165 law schools. Like the draft of every professional sport, there are superstars here and for two days they were hotly pursued. At the top of the pile were former Supreme Court clerks. Just under them were candidates with both a J.D. and a Ph.D. in another discipline. Law schools, especially those in the upper echelons, have been smitten by Ph.D.-J.D.'s for more than a decade.

Ori J. Herstein, who studied philosophy in grad school and is a doctor in the science of law, says that "an economics Ph.D. is the most valuable," and that "the further away you get from the humanities the better."

Mr. Herstein was sitting in the Marriott lobby between interviews. Israeli-born and cheerful in a boyishly wonky way, he has a résumé that seems custom-built to tantalize law school recruiters. He has two degrees from Columbia, which, along with a handful of other elite schools -- most notably Yale -- has become a farm team for the credential-obsessed legal academy. He has already published a handful of law review articles with promisingly esoteric titles ("Historic Injustice and the Non-Identity Problem: The Limitations of the Subsequent-Wrong Solution and Towards a New Solution") and has submitted another that sounds perfectly inscrutable ("Why Nonexistent People Do Not Have Zero Well-Being but Rather No Well-Being").

Continue reading ""Why Nonexistent People Do Not Have Zero Well-Being but Rather No Well-Being"." »

December 14, 2009

Just friends: Privacy in closed social network ?


Privacy law was largely created in the pre-Internet age, and new rules are needed to keep up with the ways people communicate today. Much of what occurs online, like blog posting, is intended to be an open declaration to the world, and law enforcement is within its rights to read and act on what is written. Other kinds of communication, particularly in a closed network, may come with an expectation of privacy. If government agents are joining social networks under false pretenses to spy without a court order, for example, that might be crossing a line.

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November 2, 2009

Trafficking, not trade

In every part of the world, countless individuals are callously exploited for profit,'' Pillay said. ''While trafficking may be a problem related to migration and to transnational crime, it is also -- and fundamentally -- an attack on the dignity and integrity of the individual. Trafficking involves practices prohibited in every country including slavery, debt, bondage, forced labor and sexual exploitation.''

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August 15, 2008

Background checks

"This is the lexis nexis search string that I use for AG appointments."
The string reads as follows:

[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a
candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or
charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra
or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or
controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or
layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict!
or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired
or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or
controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or
firearm!

Jan Williams, with Monica Goodling,at page 21.

August 1, 2008

The Obamas love, but question, America

A favorite theme, said Salil Mehra, now a law professor at Temple University, were the values and cultural touchstones that Americans share. Mr. Obama's case in point: his wife, Michelle, a black woman, loved "The Brady Bunch" so much that she could identify every episode by its opening shots.

After the fluff, the meat:

In the national level, bipartisanship usually means Democrats ignore the needs of the poor and abandon the idea that government can play a role in issues of poverty, race discrimination, sex discrimination or environmental protection.

The Long Run: Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Apart
By JODI KANTOR
Published: July 30, 2008
In his 12 years as a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, Barack Obama was popular and enigmatic.


April 22, 2007

The best American understands America

The best American is not the American who has been here
the longest or the one who just arrived, it is the one who
understands the principles of America the best because
we are a country held together by ideas.

Rudolph W. Giuliani