I'm prepared to posit that the UM Police are wonderful folk, but even so I do find this University of Miami Police Store a bit weird.
Who. for example is the target market for a garish UM Police coin?
Stamped 1.75 inch hard enamel brass coin; 4 colors on the front, 5 colors on the back, gold plated, sandblasted, comes with individual soft plastic pouch.
Cost: $12.00 each [Plus $4.95 shipping]
A real stocking-stuffer.
I need to read Poul F. Kjaer's Systems in Context: On the Outcome of the Habermas/Luhmann-Debate (Ancilla Iuris, Vol. 66, 2006) which bears this abstract:
Usually regarded as a 1970s phenomenon, this article demonstrates that the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann continued until Luhmann’s death in 1998, and that the development of the two theorists’ positions during the 1980s and 1990s was characterised by convergence rather than by divergence. In the realm of legal theory, the article suggests, convergence advanced to the extent that Habermas’ discourse theory may be characterised as a normative superstructure to Luhmann’s descriptive theory of society. It is further shown that the debate’s result was an almost complete absorption of Habermas’ theory by Luhmann’s systems theoretical complex – an outcome facilitated by Luhmann’s deliberate translation of central Habermasian concepts into systems theoretical concepts. The article argues that both the debate and Habermas’ conversion were made possible because not only Habermas’ but also Luhmann’s work can be considered a further development of the German idealist tradition. What Luhmann did not acknowledge was that this manoeuvre permitted the achievement of Habermas’ normative objectives; nor did he notice that it could eradicate a central flaw in the system theoretical construction, by allowing the context within which distinctions are drawn to be mapped – an issue of pivotal importance for grasping relationships between different social systems, and coordinating them, via the deployment of legal instruments.
My colleague Rick Bascuas has scored a picture of the proposed new Business/Law building and also a site location on a UM map (see my earlier post, UM Law May Have a New Building Much Sooner than You'd Think). Here's the artist's rendering:
Rick has his doubts about the endgame:
Also, I’m wondering whether this doesn’t mean that the newly schismatic Powers That Be harbor secret doubts about reuniting the Law School into one new “state-of-the-art” facility. To be sure, they insist that they will. But I can’t help wondering. Not that I have any opinion one way or the other. I don’t.
Whether we get a new building turns on whether we can raise the $100 million or so it will cost to build it. We have a start on that with the trade-in value of our current building (unspecified AFAIK), and the trade-in value of the new building (which will be specified in the financing deal). But even so, it will require more money than we've ever raised in such a short period of years. Ordinarily I'd say it's hopeless, but for the fact that Donna Shalala has pledged to push hard to help us do it, and she's awfully good at this. That doesn't mean it will be easy. But we not only have naming rights on the new building to sell, there's the right to name the entire law school too. I'm sure you could buy that for way less than $100 million.
Having two buildings a five minute walk apart wouldn't be ideal for the school's long-term cohesion, and I wouldn't like it as a long-term solution. I very much hope it doesn't come to that. But even so, it would still be better than just having this one. And there's not much room to expand contiguously.
Maybe due to my sick sense of humor, but I think this is one of the funniest political videos I've seen in a long time—Open Up: Stately Home.
The back story, for those who don't follow British politics, has to do with MPs claiming all sorts of things on their housing allowances — including, famously, a Tory MP claiming for a duck house. More here and here and here
(via Boing Boing)
I wish I had time to read How The Federal Reserve Bailed Out The World and decide if it makes sense.
But there's lots cooking this week, so for now I don't.
Maybe I need a “read later” category for the blog?
Update: And how did I miss this?
Jotwell Blenderlaw