Tuesday
Confusion on principles of identity
First off, I apologize for the ugly formatting of these posts, I'm just starting to learn how blogger works.
Second: It's interesting (to me at least) that two great bloggers with eponymous blogs, Eugene Volokh and Matt Yglesias, made similar typos in the same night.
Matt writes: There is simply the fact that the US softwood lumber producing industry has evidently paid the President of the United States more money than has the US softwood lumber producing industry.
I just don’t see how the US softwood lumber producing industry can pay more than itself. In a world where that was possible, saying 20 > 20 might make sense. Which is funny, because Volokh writes: Now I see some sense in "Romeo and Juliet" statutes that legalize (for instance) sex between 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds, or even 16-year-olds and 20-year-olds, but bar sex between 16-year-olds and 20-year-olds.
I'm not sure which appearance of the number twenty is the error there, but I am fairly certain Prof. Volokh does not see any sense in laws which simultaneously legalize and bar the same act.
Update: Matt fixed his error, which pretty much ruins the point of this post.
Update 2: In response to my e-mail, Volokh also fixes his error. You'll have to trust me that both of them made the mistakes I say they did.
