Buckley’s Mix

Great Bookstores

Everyone has a list of favorite bookstores. But my list is of the best bookstores.
What are those, you say? Let’s start with a theory. We always need a theory. Mine is that, in the age of Amazon, there is no reason to visit a bookstore unless the bookseller can pick out interesting books one might [...]

Hog-butcher of the world

The reaction to the decision to award the Olympic Games to Rio is vastly amusing, in what it says about American provincialism.
In what universe does one live, if one thinks Chicago more attractive than Rio? Imagine a IOC delegate from Prague or Mumbai asking himself “where would I rather visit–Chicago or Rio.” The Loop [...]

Manichean Nation

In idle moments I am reading Henry Cecil, roughly Jane Austen for English barristers. Cecil is not very well known here, but I enjoy him. Nothing deep, simply a deeply honest and not unwitty fellow. No villains either, but rather the run-of-the mill larceny of one’s clients and the laziness of opposing counsel. The most [...]

Speculators

I am delighted that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is taking aim at speculation.  We have criminalized many forms of economic misbehavior, but there is still a lacuna for speculation, which needs to be closed.
A helpful start is provided by Article 154 of the Criminal Code of the U.S.S.R. which defined speculation as the buying [...]

Nanobots

A friend writes about his interest in nanotechnology, and as he is an expert in the law of war wonders whether nanotech weapons might contravene treaties concerning poison gas and the like. An interesting question.
From a scientific perspective, there is little difference in kind between bacteriological warfare and the microscopic nanobots of science fiction that swarm about [...]

The WaPo’s investigative journalists hit a home run

The Washington Post nailed Gerald Walpin this morning, a bumbling bureacrat who was fired by the President for his incompetence at a 2009 meeting, and who sought to cover up his tracks by investigating an Obama supporter in 2008.
This sort of thing ought to be criminal. Probably won’t happen, but we may take some comfort [...]

Let’s not get excited about nuclear attacks

So North Korea threatens to lob a fast one over Hawaii on July 4. I trust we won’t overreact. Prudence dictates a mesured response, one expressing disapproval, to be sure. However, we should be careful not to provoke North Korea and jeopardize the all-important peace process.
It is true that the President lived in Hawaii for [...]