Former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork has sued the Yale Club for an amount "in excess of $1,000,000," plus punitive damages, as a result of a trip and fall accident on June 6, 2006. The accident happened while he was climbing to the dais for a speech, and there were no steps or handrail for the 79-year old Bork to hold on to.

A quote from Bork, from Bloomberg news:In a 1995 opinion piece published in the Washington Times, Bork and Theodore Olson, who later became a top Justice Department official, criticized what they called the "expensive, capricious and unpredictable'' civil justice system in the U.S.

"Today's merchant enters the marketplace with trepidation -- anticipating from the civil justice system the treatment that his ancestors experienced with the Barbary pirates,'' they wrote.

In other words, tort law needs to be reformed if you got injured, but its ok if I got injured.

Robert Bork Brings Trip/Fall Suit for Over $1M, Plus Punitive Damages And Legal Fees

Sen. Brownback published an essay in the NYT defending himself for raising his hand as someone who doesn't "believe" in evolution. It seems a genuine attempt to reach people who are more moderate, but in my mind it falls flat on its face. Note the follow passage:

While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

The Senator is missing the point here. This text really is a rejection not just of some aspects of evolution but of the basic process of rational thinking. Essentially what the Senator is saying is that when all of the facts and evidence conflict with his preconclusion or prejudice, he is going to stick with his preconclusion or prejudice. It is deeply problematic, in my opinion, that we have leaders who employ this approach and promote this approach. As a general method of dealing with difficult questions this approach can only reach the right conclusions by accident. I am personally more interested in the idea that our leadership is moving forward by rationally evaluating the information available to them and making the right decisions then I am in the possibility that man's creation was not the result of a similar thought process. I do not have faith in God that you people won't screw this country up!

In response to this essay Edge.org published a rant from biologist Jerry Coyne that many of you will find entertaining.

We don't reject the supernatural merely because we have an overweening philosophical commitment to materialism; we reject it because entertaining the supernatural has never helped us understand the natural world. Alchemy, faith healing, astrology, creationism—none of these perspectives has advanced our understanding of nature by one iota. So Brownback's proposal to bring faith to the table of science is misguided: "As science continues to explore the details of man's origin, faith can do its part as well." What part? Where are faith's testable predictions or falsifiable hypotheses about human origins?

Unfortunately, I think it also misses the mark, unless the mark is preaching to the choir. You aren't going to convince religious people to approach political problems rationally by telling them that religion is stupid. Frankly, you have to show them where it is useful. You have to accept them and their faith and allow them to hold onto their faith without rejecting reason. While Brownback fails in his attempt a... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

Brownback: What I Think About Evolution - New York Times

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This passage is a great example of the inanity of shrink-wrap/click-wrap agreements.

Google bans minors

possibly noteworthy wrote:

A supporter once called out, “Governor Stevenson, all thinking people are for you!” And Adlai Stevenson answered, “That’s not enough. I need a majority.”

The central idea of this book is that voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational—and vote accordingly.

This book has three conjoined themes. The first: Doubts about the rationality of voters are empirically justified. The second: Voter irrationality is precisely what economic theory implies once we adopt introspectively plausible assumptions about human motivation. The third: Voter irrationality is the key to a realistic picture of democracy.

This all sounds really good until he breaks into parroting this boring Milton Friedman crap.

Economists have an undeserved reputation for “religious faith” in markets. No one has done more than economists to dissect the innumerable ways that markets can fail. After all their investigations, though, economists typically conclude that the man in the street— and the intellectual without economic training—underestimates how well markets work.12 I maintain that something quite different holds for democracy: it is widely over-rated not only by the public but by most economists too. Thus, while the general public underestimates how well markets work, even economists underestimate markets’ virtues relative to the democratic alternative.

No, Libertarians have a well earned reputation for "religious faith" in markets. Arguing with libertarians is not the same thing as arguing with economists. Frankly, I fail to see why every criticism made here of Democracy applies differently to most consumer markets. In fact, it is the consumer markets who teach the political system how to manipulate people's emotions and push them toward irrational decisions.

RE: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies

A Cobb County jury is deciding if a mother of three should spend time in prison for lying about where her family lived.

Prosecutors said Jeanine Echols repeatedly lied just so she could place her children in Marietta city schools.

"Ladies and gentlemen, a lie is a lie, and our law says when you lie to the government you have commited a crime," said assistant district attorney Grady Moore.

But Echols defense attorney called the 16 felony charges overkill.

5 years per count = 80 years

For enrolling her kids in the wrong school district.

WTF is the matter with these people?! Fortunately, the jury refused to find her guilty.

Mom Facing Prison Time For Lying - News Story - WSB Atlanta

Here is my selected exerpt, with some content cut and some emphasis added...

How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?

SEN. MCCAIN: The use of torture -- we could never gain as much we would gain from that torture as we lose in world opinion. We do not torture people.

When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us, as we went -- underwent torture ourselves, is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them.

It's not about the terrorists, it's about us. It's about what kind of country we are. And a fact: The more physical pain you inflict on someone, the more they're going to tell you what they think you want to know.

MR. GIULIANI: In the hypothetical that you gave me, which assumes that we know there's going to be another attack and these people know about it, I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. It shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of --

MR. HUME: Water-boarding?

MR. GIULIANI: -- and I would -- and I would -- well, I'd say every method they could think of, and I would support them in doing that because I've seen what -- (interrupted by applause) -- I've seen what can happen when you make a mistake about this, and I don't want to see another 3,000 people dead in New York or any place else.

MR. HUME: Governor Romney, I'd like to draw you out on this.

MR. ROMNEY: Now we're going to -- you said the person's going to be in Guantanamo. I'm glad they're at Guantanamo. I don't want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil. I don't want them in our prisons. I want them there.

Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo. We ought to make sure that the terrorists -- (applause) -- and there's no question but that in a setting like that where you have a ticking bomb that the president of the United States -- not the CIA interrogator, the president of the United States -- has to make the call. And enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used -- not torture but enhanced interrogation techniques, yes.

REP. PAUL: I think it's interesting talking about torture here in that it's become enhanced interrogation technique. It sounds like Newspeak.

REP. TANCREDO: Well, let me just say that it's almost unbelievable to listen to this in a way. We're talking about -- we're talking about it in such a theoretical fashion. You say that -- that nuclear devices have gone off in the United States, more are planned, and we're wondering about whether waterboarding would be a -- a bad thing to do? I'm looking for "Jack Bauer" at that time, let me tell you. (Laughter, applause.)

And -- and there is -- there is nothing -- if you are talking about -- I mean, we are the last best hope of Western civilization. And so all of the theories that go behind our activities subsequent to these nuclear attacks going off in the United States, they go out the window because when -- when we go under, Western civilization goes under. So you better take that into account, and you better do every single thing you can as president of the United States to make sure, number one, it doesn't happen -- that's right -- but number two, you better respond in a way that makes them fearful of you because otherwise you guarantee something like this will happen.

Rep. Tancredo, the reason western civilization looks hopefully upon you is the sort of values that Sen. McCain mentioned. If your perspective triumphs, you've already gone under. Its over.

Republican Presidential Candiates on Torture

After you've read Why I'm Banned in the USA and watched How Rudy Will Make GWB Look Good, complete the trilogy by listening to this show.

The original version of this episode won a Peabody award in 2006.

The right of habeas corpus has been a part of our country's legal tradition longer than we've actually been a country. It means that our government has to explain why it's holding a person in custody. But now, the War on Terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that prisoners should not be covered by habeas—or even by the Geneva Conventions—because they're the most fearsome enemies we have. But is that true? Is it a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of our mistakes?

From the Peabody web site:

This report, about the denial of habeas corpus to terrorism suspects, focuses on the stories of two former Guantanamo Bay prisoners and explains why the right is so fundamental in American law.

You can stream the new episode and download the original one.

Habeas Schmabeas 2007 | This American Life, Episode 331

Well, I've yet to find a candidate in this pack that I support, but there are clearly a few that I don't. Rudy Guiliani just moved from a maybe to an absolutely not under any circumstances. These are direct quotes from him:

Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

We're going to try to cut back on the Patriot Act. We're going to cut back on electronic surveillance. We're going to cut back on interrogation. We're going to cut back, cut back, cut back, and we'll be back in our pre-September 11 mentality of being on defense.

Better yet, check this YouTube video in which Guiliani literally laughs at Ron Paul's defense of Habeus Corpus:

No Straw Men: How Rudy Will Make GWB Look Good

The intelligence of various posters on the Volokh Conspiracy varies, but certainly, you've got to have a better than average number of neurons firing to even read this blog and understand the issues being discussed. You are smart people. And yet, here we have smart people honestly advocating the humanity of putting a gun to the back of someone's head and blasting their brains and blood all over the wall.

Crossposted.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Scientific Studies and Media Coverage of the Death Penalty:

Many people will use this terrible tragedy as an excuse to put through a political agenda other than my own. This tawdry abuse of human suffering for political gain sickens me to the core of my being. Those people who have different political views from me ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking of cheap partisan point-scoring at a time like this. In any case, what this tragedy really shows us is that, so far from putting into practice political views other than my own, it is precisely my political agenda which ought to be advanced.

Why the Shootings Mean That We Must Support My Politics