Here’s what ought to be a very simple question, inspired by Katherine Jean Lopez: If some scumbag is peddling the body of an exploited 14-year-old girl on the street, does he become more or less difficult to catch and punish in a world where prohibition has created a black market in prostitution. Think about it… […]

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I already Quick-Hits linked it in the sidebar, but this is easily the best thing I’ve read on all the Spitzer-inspired chin-stroking about prostitution, and I’d hate to deny those of you reading via RSS.

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Ryan Singel has the “compromise” draft legislation produced by House Democrats; I haven’t had time to slog through the 119-page monster just yet, but on a quick scan of the summary, it looks pretty good at first glance. The EFF’s Kevin Bankston is reportedly pleased, which is an excellent sign. Update: I’ve just looked at […]

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The Spitzer scandal has prompted a lot of discussion of the legal status of prostitution. Andrew Sullivan quotes a commenter who asks: Why is it illegal to sell, what it is perfectly legal to give away? Indeed. But I always preferred George Carlin’s formulation:

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Noun. The fear of whipping out your shiny new Apple device on the street—at times and places where you’d previously have used your old phone without a second thought—because you suddenly feel like an attractive target for muggers. I’m guessing I may not be the only one out there who’s experienced this phenomenon recently?

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I see we have yet another FISA article from Matt Continetti in the new Weekly Standard. I won’t bore readers rehashing the factual problems I’ve already pointed out, many of which recur here. But let me pick on a couple novel ones: And yet: No sooner had the ink dried on Ellen Nakashima and Paul […]

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…goes to Cliff May for trying to convince us that there’s something Orwellian about the opponents of massive and unaccountable government surveillance of Americans.

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It’s a sign of the amount of raw misinformation floating around the FISA debate that even fundamentally smart and conscientious conservative writers often get the story badly wrong. And by this, I really don’t just mean “come to a normative conclusion I disagree with” or “weigh competing policy values in a non-libertarian way.” I mean […]

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OK, any putative friends of mine who were aware aware of the existence of the band Enon and  neglected to inform me… well, what this kid said.

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I always used to consider it a rule of thumb that once any person, band, trend, or other phenomenon was written up in the New York Times Style section, it was over—or at least seriously moribund. I’m hoping that’s only approximately true, since roomie Dave Weigel and I make a cameo in this NYT profile […]

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