The court has already ruled that a state (Indiana) can require photo ID, which, in most states, requires proof of citizenship to get.  Maybe that's the way to get the same result through the back door now that the court has ruled against Arizona.

Thomas was right, but too bad that he writes at the level of an 8th grader, or so says Harry Reid.  Remember this from a couple of years ago?

In that case [Hillsdale] you had a dissent written by Scalia and a dissent written by Thomas. There–it’s like looking at an eighth-grade dissertation compared to somebody who just graduated from Harvard.

Scalia’s is well reasoned. He doesn’t want to turn stare decisis precedent on its head. That’s what Thomas wants to do. So yes, I think he has written a very poor opinion there and he’s written other opinions that are not very good.”

"Insane City" by Dave Barry is full of laughs and excitement, in that order.

The central point about the "you didn't build that" claim was that the government was the essential partner in the entrepreneur's success.  This is false.  

But it is true that the entrepreneur's employees are essential partners (not in the legal sense) in his success, and it is both good politics and honorable to mention it when trying to convince people to vote for you.

I enjoyed "Jews, God, and History" by Max I. Dimont.

There's no way I can read all the comments, so forgive me if this is a rehash.

It is possible to have a market for people to sell their organs prospectively, in the way that they sign an organ donor card. It could work like this:  

• You can "sell" your organs today to a market clearinghouse for the market price.  There could be many competing clearinghouses.
• If you die in such a way that your organs are harvestable, they now belong to the clearinghouse, and are immediately resold to those who need them.  
• If you die and your organs are not harvestable, that's too bad for the clearinghouse.  They take the risk that this could happen and price the organs (both in buying and reselling) accordingly.
• Those who choose not to sell will be buried (or cremated) intact, or can give their organs away through the normal organ donor process.

In this way, the price will be set by the market so that the supply of organs should come close to equalling the demand.  There are no ethical difficulties that I can see.

Regarding conversion to Islam, this quote from Theodore Dalyrymple is apropos:

"What these cases [the English soldier killing] show is that it is not Islam that makes young converts violent; it is the violence within them that causes them to convert to Islam. The religion, in its most bloodthirsty form, supplies all their psychological needs and channels their anger into a supposedly higher purpose. It gives them moral license to act upon their rage; for, like many in our society, they do not realize that anger is not self-justifying, that one is not necessarily right because one is angry, and that in any case even justified anger does not entail a license to act violently. The hacking to death of Lee Rigby on a street in Woolwich tells us as much about the society that we have created, or allowed to develop, as it does about radical Islam preached by fat, middle-aged clerics."

Phil Hartman was a comedy genius. As the father of a poorly behaved boy in "Greedy" he had one of my favorite movie moments, when the kid goes too far at the dinner table, and thinks his parents won't be able to do anything to him in front of the rest of the family. Priceless.

I really liked "The Lords of Discipline," by Pat Conroy, about  cadets at the Citadel.  Powerful and gripping.

I wonder if law students would benefit from some required pre-law study (while undergrads) in the philosophy of justice, microeconomics, and an introduction to business.  My impression of too many lawyers, and the politicians they often become, is that they don't understand what it takes to make a profit, they don't understand the difference between consequentialist and deontological notions of justice, and they don't understand how incentives motivate behavior at the margins. 

Thank you for sharing The Sentinel's Creed.  It is beautiful and profound.

As Andrew Stuttaford and James Lileks have said, I don't have a God in this fight.

Two great police dramas, with great acting and great writing.  Both are riveting. 

Intelligence
"Smartly plotted and smoothly acted, this cops-and-criminals drama is set in Vancouver, where Mary Spalding (Klea Scott) is the regional director of the government's Organized Crime Unit, and cocky Jimmy Spalding (Ian Tracey) heads a successful pot-smuggling ring. When unforeseen events result in unexpected circumstances, the two supposed enemies become unlikely bedfellows to save their distinct but closely linked franchises."

Luther

"In this innovative police drama, dedicated detective John Luther is trying to keep from losing a grip on his personal life as he contends with the psychological factors underyling the crimes he's been assigned to solve."  (It's in English, but be sure to use the subtitles.)

Bring on the impeachment.  I am looking forward to the Biden presidency with great hopefulness.

This is getting closer to the truth.  Free markets are not the alpha and omega of morality, because much of moral decision-making lies outside of the economic arena of satisfying material needs and wants.

But insofar as an economic system can operate in a moral way, free markets dominate for reasons given in #15.

I disagree.  There is support by at least 3 Supreme Court justices for treaties being "self-executing."  I worry that a future "Obama appointed" court could decide that a treaty, e.g., one denying the right to bear arms (there is one floating around at the UN) is self-executing, and thus beyond the power of the states to object. The influence the liberal justices allow to international norms and laws makes such an outcome plausible, the language of our constitution notwithstanding.

Suppose you were starting an economic system from scratch, and you wanted to make it the most moral system possible. I imagine the following points would be crucial:

• Each participant should be allowed to own himself, and thus own the fruits of his own labor. The alternative is slavery.
• He should be free to exchange his labor for wages unless it will create harm to others.
• It would be immoral to use force to prohibit the worker from trading things he produces for other things that he would value more highly, unless the transaction will somehow cause harm to others.
• Because it would be immoral for others to steal the fruits of the worker’s labor, and it would be inefficient for him to stand guard over his possessions all day and night, it would be moral for the government to provide a reasonable level of security for his person and property

You could set up institutions that threaten violence to transfer the fruits of one’s labor to others who are in political favor. You could compel transactions that the parties don’t want, or prohibit those that they do want. How is any of that moral?