Is the forensic science used in the courtroom reliable? The PBS documentary series Frontline makes an attempt at answering this question in an episode entitled: “The Real CSI.” I cannot recommend this episode enough. Watch The Real CSI on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE. Also, the producers of this episode hosted a live chat for [...]

Last Tuesday, a federal judge in the 5th Circuit, Jerry Smith, blasted a DOJ lawyer on an ObamaCare case in the wake of Obama’s comments on judicial activism. The Judge assigned the lawyer a three-page, single spaced homework assignment to draft a position on whether the judiciary has the legitimate right to overturn Unconstitutional legislation. [...]

Reading the point/counterpoint posts on the question of how the supreme court would decide on Obamacares constitutionality, was quite disturbing to me in several ways. On the one hand I was heartened, because clearly both Brad and Doug are sane and rational folks with a reasonably solid background in both law and politics, and a [...]

Some food for thought regarding the TSA. Created by: OnlineCriminalJusticeDegree.com Hat Tip: United Liberty

We’re not going black today, over SOPA or PIPA. In case you by some miracle hadn’t noticed it yet, tens of thousands of web sites around the country and around the world, are “going black” or putting up banners explaining that they are not available or there is no content today etc… In protest against [...]

Are you or someone you know a victim of what Glenn Greenwald calls “the drone mentality”? [Emphasis original] I was predictably deluged with responses justifying Obama’s drone attacks on the ground that they are necessary to kill The Terrorists. Reading the responses, I could clearly discern the mentality driving them: I have never heard of [...]

From Anarchists Against Collectivism

The AP via CNBC reports that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) says that it is illegal for medical marijuana users to purchase firearms or ammunition. Federal law already makes it illegal for someone to possess a gun if he or she is “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” marijuana or [...]

Wow. It’s one thing to carry the necessary delusion that comes with most people in a startup… That self-delusion, the belief that you can’t fail (despite the high proportions of startups that fail), is what is required to overcome the often monumental odds most startups face. But is it merely delusion to submit THIS* to [...]

Is it possible that the G.O.P would nominate and/or the American people would elect for president a man who as governor more likely than not executed an innocent man? An even more disturbing question would be: Could Gov. Rick Perry be elected president despite his efforts to keep investigators from learning the truth about the [...]

…but California is living proof that a supermajority requirement doesn’t “make it virtually impossible to raise revenue,” it only encourages stupid politician tricks.

I was passed this story by a relative, and thought it was absolutely genius: Would you take advantage of a federal loophole that gives you a free first-class flight anywhere on Earth? That’s what hundreds — possibly thousands — of shrewd travel enthusiasts are doing, in light of a 2005 law that unwittingly created a [...]

From Megan McArdle, a list of reasons why the Federal Government is too big to fail (or even pause): The nation’s nuclear arsenal is no longer being watched or maintained The doors of federal prisons have been thrown open, because none of the guards will work without being paid, and the vendors will not deliver [...]

United States Constitution Article 1, Section 7 All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. The issuance of debt is a revenue raising measure. The “debt ceiling” is, in fact, legislation initiated in the House of Representatives, which [...]

We runs out of da booze: Hundreds of bars, restaurants and stores across Minnesota are running out of beer and alcohol and others may soon run out of cigarettes — a subtle and largely unforeseen consequence of a state government shutdown. In the days leading up to the shutdown, thousands of outlets scrambled to renew [...]

Now, I’m not one to regularly bang the feminist drum around here… But this is f’ing ridiculous: Officer Sashay Brown returned to work in May after having her second child. At first, she worked a desk job. Soon after, though, she was forced to patrol the city streets under a new department policy that was [...]

From @iowahawkblog We don’t have a capital problem, we have a capitol problem.

Ezra Klein, on education & health care costs: I’m not going to end this post with some wan paragraph explaining how to transform these two industries into something closer to their potential. My ideas on health-care reform are available elsewhere on the blog and I don’t know enough about education to say anything worthwhile. But [...]

Last Friday, June 17, 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s “War on Drugs.” As Jacob Sullum points out here, the drug war didn’t actually begin with Nixon and it’s not likely to end on Obama’s watch (even though the Obama administration admits that current drug policy over this period has been a failure). [...]

So the big debate is whether the gov’t should sell their post-IPO shares in GM. At current prices, they’d [unsurprisingly] be losing money on the sale, compared to the amount put up in the bailout. So we have to ask — was it worth it? To determine that, we can’t base our entire calculation on [...]