Author Archives: olneyce

When is a tax not a tax?

Today I was reading Scalia’s dissent in Clinton v. City of New York (the case that ruled the line-item veto unconstitutional) and was struck by one of his argument, and its applicability to the ACA case: The short of the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

Engine – Neutral Milk Hotel It’s going to be hard to discuss my experience seeing Jeff Mangum last night without treading a bit into the Messianic.  To start with, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is basically a sacred text. It’s … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

On constitutional interpretation

Kevin Drum has an argument that I agree with in part, but strongly disagree with in another part.  He argues that if there needs to be a limiting test on Congressional power, this is obviously something that the Court can … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Health care in the Court

Consensus seems to be that the oral arguments on the constitutionality of the health care law did not go well today.  Couple things: 1. Beware groupthink.  I only skimmed some of the transcript and comments.  But it didn’t sound THAT … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Adventures in analogies: Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen

Loose Ends – Bruce Springsteen (from Tracks) Keeping Me Alive – Tom Petty (from Playback – the Petty box set) (Tracks chosen to represent Petty doing his best Springsteen and Springsteen doing his best Petty. And to give you something … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Bruce Springsteen and the power of earnestness

Youngstown (live) – from the wonderful Live in New York City I’ve got a an actual review of the new Springsteen record coming up (short version: it’s quite good!), but I wanted to make a separate comment today about the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I’ll be your Emmylou

Emmylou – First-Aid Kit King of the World – First-Aid Kit A pretty large chunk of my 2012 musical consumption has come from the far north Atlantic. The best song I’ve heard so far this year was from Iceland, and … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Retrograde motion – on Derrick Bell and Sandra Fluke

I’m hesitant to even waste my time mentioning this, but I do have a slightly larger point to make. So here it goes. The new big ‘scandal’ is that Barack Obama while a law student at Harvard said some nice … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Sunshine in Chicago makes me think about my dad

Sunshine in Chicago – Sun Kil Moon This has got to be the best song out of Mark Kozelek in a decade.  He’s always most enjoyable doing pretty, world-weary songs but often has a tendency to let them run away … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

We’re half awake in a fake empire

New Hope – Blink-182 Fake Empire – The National There’s a good debate going on between some political bloggers about Star Wars. I say ‘good debate’ with reservations, though, because it implies that there are legitimately contestable opinions here. Which … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments