prior probability

I will resume my series on “natural law affirmative defenses” in the next day or two; in the meantime, click on the cartoon below to enlarge.

Following up on my previous post, below is a laundry list (in alphabetical order) of affirmative defenses; source: Rule 8(c)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure:

• accord and satisfaction

• arbitration and award

• assumption of risk

• contributory negligence

• duress

• estoppel

• failure of consideration

• fraud

• illegality

• injury by fellow servant

• laches

• license

• payment

• release

• res judicata

• statute of frauds

• statute of limitations

• waiver

Hmm. Aside from necessity and mistake (again, see my previous post), what other legal defenses are missing from this list?

According to Wikipedia (links in the original), “An affirmative defense to a civil lawsuit or criminal charge is a fact or set of facts other than those alleged by the plaintiff or prosecutor which, if proven by the defendant, defeats or mitigates the legal consequences of the defendant’s otherwise unlawful conduct.” By way of example, Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (see here) contains a laundry list of 18 affirmative defenses, including laches, duress, and estoppel, just to name a few. (Oddly, two important legal defenses, those of mistake and necessity, are not included.)

What neither Wikipedia nor Rule 8 tell us, however, is, Where do these defenses come from? As it happens, one of my sabbatical projects this fall is to write up an essay with attorney Derrick M. Valkenburg exploring the natural law origins of Anglo-American common law affirmative defenses in law cases, so stay tuned!

A = Ten Great Papers to Expand Your Econ Frameworks (or see below the fold);

B = Ludwig von Mises and the Six Lessons of the Austrian Economic School (ditto)

This post is for Star Trek fans: click here or on the image below for a set of four navigational charts of the five-year voyage of the Starship Enterprise as well as a copy of the book Introduction to Navigation: Star Fleet Command. PS: It took 11 years, but my quirky little blog generated its 500,000th hit over the weekend!

I heard this song for the first time a few days ago on a Spanish-language TV show (Primer Impacto) and immediately loved it! PS: I will post the full song when I can find it.

Below are some college courses that have caught my attention:

1. English 183ts. Taylor Swift and Her World (Harvard)

2. Forbidden Courses (Austin)

3. Jurisprudence (Chicago)

In honor of Gary Larson‘s 74th birthday, which was two days ago (14 August), see below:

I will be taking the day off, for today (the 15th of August) Catholics around the world celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (see here or here), and in Mexico, our Lady Mary or the “Virgen of Guadalupe” is also celebrated every December 12.

In addition to reading Peter L. Bernstein’s Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (the cover of which is pictured below), now that I’m back home I am preparing a book proposal for Palgrave Macmillan and writing up a new paper on a possible connection between an anonymous pamphlet from 1763 titled Richesses de l’etat and Adam Smith’s magnum opus–specifically, his maxims of taxation in Book 5, chapter 2 of The Wealth of Nations. But this is just a small sample of my scholarly sabbatical activities, I will post further updates soon.