Author: Mark of New Jersey

The Choices We Make…and Don’t Make

I found Ryan Bonneville’s post this morning on the horrible events at Penn State to be highly appropriate.  Especially this: I don’t know what the solution is. Taking membership in these institutions with a...

Cheap Wine, Expensive Wine, and Good Wine

At his Forbes digs, Erik mounts what he claims is a defense of cheap wine and dismisses wine snobbery, quoting with approval this passage from Slate’s Brian Palmer: Not long ago, American wine-buying habits...

Friday Jukebox

I am currently surrounded by innumerable and extraordinarily high stacks of case law printouts and briefs, looking forward to a weekend of the same.  But moments ago, my good friend Mr. Jimmy Cliff came...

Freddie DeBoer

The EPL: A Parable of Globalized Capitalism

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of reevaluation of my political views; mostly, I’ve been questioning whether political philosophy and theory mean a whole heck of a lot, even when they’re right.  A big...

The Good German?

It’s midsummer and I haven’t written anything sports related in awhile.  With the NFL going through perhaps the most insanely active week in its history, the MLB trade deadline fast approaching, labor talks finally...

Breivik’s Cold Logic

In the comments to one of the several posts around here on the appalling terrorist attacks in Norway, a number of people have expressed a difficulty in understanding the logic behind what Breivik sought...

Best Summary Judgment Motion Ever

Mark Cuban’s lawyer may be my new hero. This summary judgment motion in a presumably complex, though no doubt frivolous, shareholder suit from Ross Perot, Jr. cannot possibly be topped for its combination of...

Attention League (Board) Gaming Geeks!

I am trying to gauge whether there would be sufficient interest for an online League game of Diplomacy at playdiplomacy.com.  If at least six people respond to this post and express interest, then I’ll...

The Drum Plan

Kevin Drum’s Medicare reform plan strikes me as well worth considering, and most certainly creative.  At first blush, I suspect that its ultimate effect would be essentially the same as most proposals for means-testing...

Facing Demographic Realities in Israel

Jeffrey Goldberg has an excellent and, I hope, important piece today at Bloomberg that explains well the inevitable consequences of Israel failing to return to something approaching its 1967 borders…..and soon.  What makes Goldberg’s...

Quote of the Day

“[S]urely the most obvious point to make is that if we cannot keep illegal drugs out of prison at what point do even prohibitionists recognise that the War on Drugs can’t be won?” -Alex Massie

The Slippery Slope of Justifying Torture

Conor Friedersdorf explains well how the argument that justifying torture under even limited circumstances would morally corrupt and result in justifying torture under almost any conceivable circumstance has been proven correct in the debate...

The America bin Laden Shaped

League alum Jamelle Bouie notes the not-so-surprising-upon-reflection lack of awareness of who Osama bin Laden was amongst American teenagers and reaches this depressing conclusion:

The War on Terror’s Crossroads

The killing of Osama bin Laden is a real crossroads about which I am currently neither optimistic nor pessimistic (ie, I think there’s an equal chance of going either direction).  Many, perhaps most, Americans...

Thankfully, Andrew Sullivan Is Not A Lawyer

Responding to President Obama’s acquisition and release of his “long-form” birth certificate, Andrew Sullivan expresses his disappointment that Obama did not do this sooner, then writes: Here, by the way, courtesy of [Ta-Nahesi Coates], are...