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Tag Archives: Law
Regulation versus markets: outer space edition
Did you know the Federal Communications Commission has jurisdiction over the orbits of communication satellites launched from the United States? Satellites are flying radio antennas, or in the words of space lawyer Payton Alexander: “If you’re putting anything in space–be … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged fcc, Law, low-earth-orbit, policy, regulation-versus-markets, Space, space-junk, spacex
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Why not probabilistic interpretation?
A new article in the Columbia Law Review titled “Reasons for Interpretation” by Francisco J. Urbina (see here) brought to my mind my 2016 paper “Probabilistic Interpretation“. For his part, Professor Urbina presents a “systematic analysis of the different kinds … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged best-choice-secretary-problem, interpretation, Law, Mathematics, Philosophy
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Howard’s tautology: review of Everyday Freedom, part 1 of 4
Although Philip K. Howard’s new book, Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society, is a slim work (for the record, it is just 84 pages long, not including the endnotes and acknowledgments, so it is even shorter than … Continue reading
The use and misuse of history in (constitutional) law: some additional observations
How should history inform the study, practice, and interpretation of law, especially constitutional law? In a previous post I surveyed two radically different approaches to legal history: history as memory and history as evidence. (See here or below.) Today, I … Continue reading
History as memory versus history as evidence
How should history inform the study, practice, and interpretation of law? As I mentioned in my previous post (see below), professors Jack Balkin (Yale) and Randy Barnett (Georgetown) — two influential contemporary constitutional law scholars — presented competing theories of … Continue reading
Homage to Richard Posner
Yesterday, my colleague and friend Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr), a law professor at U.C. Berkeley, posted a series of melancholic tweets in honor of my intellectual mentor Richard Posner. As it happens, yours truly had the honor of meeting Judge Posner, … Continue reading
Litigation is a crapshoot (“Hot Bench” edition)
Meet the “hot” judges of the new syndicated TV show “Hot Bench” (Wikipedia article here). Unlike every other judge show in this well-worn daytime TV genre, “Hot Bench” features a panel of three judges and goes behind the scenes to show … Continue reading
The House always wins …
Here’s a puzzle: Why do people gamble in casinos, especially if (as our old friend Freddie Torres would like to say when talking about lawsuits against the government) “the House always wins”? By way of example, check out this report by Chris Opfer … Continue reading
Posted in Law, Rules
Tagged Blackjack, Casinos, Judicial Review, Law, Rules of the Game
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“Crimes Against Logic”
That is the title of this fun little book by Jamie Whyte. (Thanks to Steven Landsburg for the pointer.) By the way, many of the logical fallacies exposed by Whyte are especially relevant to law and judging, such as his critique of “chaotic verbiage” (page … Continue reading
Are judges like baseball umpires?
(Supreme Court judges, that is.) Neal Katyal, a law professor at Georgetown University, reports in this op-ed that there were no dissenting opinions in more than two-thirds of the cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last term. Here is an excerpt from Katyal’s … Continue reading
prior probability 