Year: 2008
ECONOMICS DEPT.
Congratulations to Paul Krugman
Economist and New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman just won the Nobel Prize for economics. Despite his controversial opinions in the Times, he really does deserve this award. I was going to explain why, but Arnold Kling does a much better job of it. His theories on international trade tend to recommend more government… Read more
FREE SPEECH DEPT.
Scumbags and Prurient Interests
In response to my admittedly harsh missive about the conviction of Paul “Max Hardcore” Little, commenter “jt” writes: I couldn’t help but notice you mentioned you’ve never seen a Max Hardcore video. Perhaps you should. Once you have, you may understand how a jury could find his work obscene, based on the old Miller three… Read more
LEGAL DEPT.
The Truth About Hiring a Criminal Defense Lawyer
The latest buzz in the legal blogosphere is Brian Tannebaum’s e-book The Truth About Hiring a Criminal Defense Lawyer. Both Mark Bennett and Scott Greenfield like it, which tells me it’s pretty good advice. I’m not a lawyer, nor an expert at hiring one, but I took a quick look at this 28-page pamphlet myself, and… Read more
FREE SPEECH DEPT.
F**k the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force
A Florida court recently convicted Paul “Max Hardcore” Little for distributing pornography—adult pornography, I should point out. No children were involved. I expect this sort of thing from the kind of backwards Islamic countries that punish men for shaving their beards and women for for driving cars, but I hoped our country had more of a… Read more
POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPT.
The Palin-Obama Paradox
When John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his runningmate, one of the first things everybody noticed was that after all the talk about how inexperienced Barack Obama was, McCain’s pick for Vice President—that is, his choice for President if he can’t do the job—had even less experience. It seemed an odd choice, and it undercut… Read more