Pay especially close attention to Congressional District #12. (Click on the map above for a larger version.) In addition, check out this damning map of “Gerrymander index scores” across the U.S. (Hat tip to rhiever for the pointer.) Why do people still vote when voting districts are so blatantly manipulated by legislators to rig the outcome of elections ahead of time? How does Congress get away with this?
Today (11.11) is Singles’ Day (光棍节), an anti-Valentine’s Day holiday celebrated in China in honor of all bachelors and bachelorettes. Moreover, according to this report by Hayley Peterson, China’s Singles’ Day is also the world’s biggest online shopping day of the year! In the words of Ms Peterson, “Sales on Singles’ Day last year for Alibaba totaled $5.8 billion, up from $3.1 billion the previous year. By comparison, American consumers spent a total of $2.9 billion last year on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, the largest online sales days in the U.S.” So, why don’t capitalist Americans (North and South) celebrate our own version of Singles’ Day?
Buy something!
This semester (Fall 2014), we have been teaching two graduate sections of “Law & Ethics.” This is a broad survey course, and in addition to the close relation between law and ethics and the poker-like decision of whether one should settle or go to trial, my students and I have spent considerable time studying several sources of legal liability, including torts, contracts, intellectual property, agency, and antitrust. Given the broad nature of “Law & Ethics,” what would an ideal final exam look like in terms of format, design, etc.?
Click on the map above for a better look. Hat tip to Tarene for finding this beautiful map.
To be more precise, is Google a coercive or innocent monopoly under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. (Click on the image above for a better look of search engine market shares. Also, for what it’s worth, the folks at Google say no, since “competition is a click away.”) Section 2 of the Sherman Act requires monopoly power in the relevant market and a willful act. So, in Google’s case, what is the relevant market? The entire world? And what willful acts, if any, has Google committed to achieve its global dominance in the market for search engines? Is this evidence of a willful act? What about this? Addendum (Nov. 22): The European Parliament appears to think so.
That is the subtitle of this excellent paper by our friend William Adler, a professor of American politics at Northeastern University. His short paper is about war-making and the presidency in the early republic, and it’s one of our favorite papers from this year’s Constitutional Law Colloquium at Loyola Law School in Chicago. Here is an excerpt from the paper (footnotes omitted):
In early America there were numerous small wars involving Indian tribes, pirates, and some European nations, in addition to larger, more protracted wars such as the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War. Both of the larger conflicts were clearly authorized by congressional declarations of war … The small wars, however, numbered in the dozens; even if individually relatively small (though some led to the use of thousands of troops), the cumulative effect meant protracted battles over land, resources, and trading opportunities for much of the nation’s early existence.
![German Wikipedia Article [Linear]](https://i0.wp.com/i.imgur.com/9sDeG1Z.png)
You can compare various visualizations of Wikipedia articles by language here (imgur). Hat tip to krikienoid for sharing this beautiful data visualization of Wikipedia articles with us.
Is a legal trial a search for truth, like the activities of science or philosophy, or is it a combined game of skill and luck, like poker? Although we have modeled the process of litigation in our previous work as a Prisoner’s Dilemma, as a War of Attrition, as a Game of Chicken, and even as a simple coin toss, no one to our knowledge has formally modeled litigation as a game of poker. Our working paper “The Poker-Litigation Game” is the first to do so. Specifically, we present a simple poker/litigation game and find the optimal strategy for playing this game. Enjoy.
Welcome to the online home of the IASS
Hopefully It’s Interesting.
In Conversation with Legal and Moral Philosophers
dr hab. prof. UJ, Jagiellonian University
Books, papers, and other jurisprudential things
Ramblings of a retiree in France
BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH
Natalia's space
hoping we know we're living the dream
Lover of math. Bad at drawing.
We hike, bike, and discover Central Florida and beyond
Making it big in business after age 40
Reasoning about reasoning, mathematically.
I don't mean to sound critical, but I am; so that's how it comes across
remember the good old days...
"Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences." - Sylvia Plath
a personal view of the theory of computation
Logic at Columbia University
Just like the Thesis Whisperer - but with more money
the sky is no longer the limit
Technology, Culture, and Ethics
Just like the horse whisperer - but with more pages
Poetry, Other Words, and Cats
