Copyright 2012 Jeff Jacoby Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:40:02 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Jeff Jacoby :: Writings http://www.jeffjacoby.com jacoby@globe.com (Jeff Jacoby) webmaster@pundicity.com en-us http://www.jeffjacoby.com/11101/right-to-work-means-freedom-and-choice Wed, 1 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST SOON -- PERHAPS AS EARLY AS TODAY -- Gov. Mitch Daniels will sign legislation making Indiana the nation's 23rd right-to-work state. Labor unions angrily oppose the change, but their opposition has no legitimate or principled basis. State right-to-work... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/11084/why-should-the-state-license-drivers Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST WITH MY DRIVER'S LICENSE expiring in February, I made a trip to the Registry of Motor Vehicles last week to renew it. To my astonishment, I was in and out of the RMV branch at the Watertown Mall in just 15 minutes. From past experience, I had expected... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/11066/shut-up-they-explained Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST FOR SHEER ANTIDEMOCRATIC GALL, it is hard to top the so-called "People's Pledge" signed on Monday by US Senator Scott Brown and Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren. The agreement is designed to keep third-party advertising from playing a role in... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/11051/tom-menino-cable-guy Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST CABLE TV SERVICE can be purchased in Boston for as little as 55 cents a day, a burden the city's top politician regards as so unjust that he is demanding the legal power to override it. Mayor Thomas Menino spends a lot of time seething over cable fees.... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/11034/burning-with-despair Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST NEAR THE KIRTI MONASTERY in a Tibetan area of China's Sichuan province, 21-year-old Lobsang Jamyang publicly set himself on fire last Saturday. It was the fourth time this month that a Tibetan protesting Chinese repression had resorted to self-immolation... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/11006/in-new-hampshire-acceptable-is-pronounced-winner Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST FOR ANYONE gauging the Republican presidential contest, this week's most significant poll results weren't the ones tabulated in New Hampshire last night. They were the ones released by Gallup yesterday morning. To say such a thing is heresy, I realize,... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/10992/a-referendum-on-romney Sat, 7 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST SALEM, N.H. -- Mitt Romney has been thought for months to have the New Hampshire primary in the bag. But one vote he didn't have locked up until Wednesday was that of Steve Rowe, a Vietnam-era veteran who spent much of the 1970s aboard the USS Saratoga,... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/10979/pull-the-parachute Wed, 4 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST A YEAR AGO THIS WEEK, just two days before being shot by a deranged assailant in her district, Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords introduced legislation to cut congressional salaries by 5 percent, from $174,000 to $165,300. Needless to say, the... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/10961/the-supreme-court-judgment-isnt-absolute Sun, 1 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST NEWT GINGRICH'S PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS may be heading for the exits -- opinion polls suggest that the former House speaker's hour has come and gone -- but his critique of judicial supremacy deserves to be taken seriously no matter what happens in Iowa or... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/10959/not-mitt-n Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EST [Boston Globe opinion writers were asked to comment on a notable term from the political and cultural whirlwinds of 2011. My brief thoughts on "not-Mitt" appear below. To read my colleagues' thoughts on "Pippa," "occupy," "frack," "tiger mother," and... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/10944/the-gift-of-giving Wed, 28 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EST OF ALL THE RITUALS that mark this season, none is more misguided than the complaints about how crass and mercenary the holidays have become. The laments begin early in November, when Santa starts showing up in TV commercials. They surge during the... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/10930/dysfunctional-government-is-a-feature-not-a-bug Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EST YOU DON'T NEED ME to tell you that the chattering class is appalled by the partisan gridlock and political bickering that keeps Washington from dealing efficiently with the nation's problems. Last week Gallup measured Congress's job approval at 11... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/10923/the-affirmative-action-myth Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EST Second of two parts (Read Part 1) IF RACIAL PREFERENCES in higher education were good for racial minorities in higher education, we surely would have seen the definitive evidence of it by now. Instead, a widening shelf of empirical research suggests that... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/10880/an-end-point-for-race-based-admissions Sun, 18 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EST First of two columns WHEN THE SUPREME COURT, in the 2003 case of Grutter v. Bollinger, narrowly upheld the use of racial preferences at the University of Michigan Law School, it emphasized that such preferences were barely tolerable under the... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/10843/e-mail-isnt-killing-the-post-office Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EST IT'S GROUNDHOG DAY at the US Postal Service: time once again for the familiar laments about how the agency's financial losses are surging, how demand for its services is plummeting, and how officials have no choice but to close local facilities, raise...