Law & Society Blog

There have been a gross number of critiques of Wikipedia, the encyclopedic source online that anyone can edit. Most of them have been sourly negative, because the Wiki system has certain disadvantages. A common (and correct) complaint is that experts are not given incentives to participate in the process of making great articles, and are […]

There are a couple of different ways to look at power.
Sociology is supposedly divided into two camps: “conflict” theorists and “consensus” theorists. As far as I can tell, this means that some people enjoy describing society at large as an eternal struggle for egoistic benefits, and others enjoy describing it in terms of voluntary […]

Freenigma is an ingenious Firefox plugin that simplifies the social networking aspect of public key cryptography.

Larry Solum takes issue with my previous post on originalism, even though I am not entirely sure why.

Every night, a raccoon goes through our garbage.

Brian Leiter has a Originalism, as the name implies, means that the toady’s meaning of the constitution ought to be determined in light of where the constitution came from. This is similar to the old spy’s wisdom that if you want to know what a piece of information means, look where it has been.

Sex sells alright, but fear is the real deal. It is oamazing how afraid people are.

In The Case Against Smoking Bans, Thom Lambert argues (among other things) that smoking bans, for examplunnecessary and, on the whole, utility-reducingMoreover, customers who do not like the air policy a space-owner has selected will patronize the space only if they are being otherwise compensated by some other positive attribute of the space at issue ñ say, cheap drinks or a particularly attractive clientele…. Workers exercise control by demanding higher pay to compensate them for the risks and unpleasantries they experience because of the smoke in their workplaces.

For all of the reasons outlined above, this court is constrained to grant to Plaintiffs [= ACLU] the Partial Summary Judgment requested, and holds that the TSP violates the APA; the Separation of Powers doctrine; the First and Fourth Amendments of the United States Constitution; and the statutory law…. The irreparable injury conversely sustained by Defendants under this injunction may be rectified by compliance with our Constitution and/or statutory law, as amended if necessary.

This is from the NYT:Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.There you have it!