Not to beat upon a dead horse, but let me harp upon the Volokh Conspiracy a little more. Specifically, David Bernstein and Randy Barnett. Firstly, can anyone tell these guys apart? Every third post is pure self-promotion, and the rare post that isn’t some kind of book or appearance plug (or both!) is a one more rehash of how anti-Zionism is the same thing as anti-semitism. How many times do I have to read “allowing its own destruction by endorsing the ‘right of return'”? And how am I supposed to take seriously a link to an article written by, I kid you not, the director of the Vidal Sassoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem?

Most of the stuff that’s left after you filter out these two jokers is great. (Except Sasha’s interminable lyrics posts. We get it! You’re the “hip” one!) Eugene has the solution, which he posted in an entry I’m nominating as the best post to the Volokh Conspiracy ever. In short, just tack “?exclude=davidb,randy” on the end of every volokh.com URL, and you’re golden. Remember, we’re all libertarians here, so it’s not censorship unless you’re a government agency.

Is it just me, or is the Volokh Conspiracy less interesting lately? The last really interesting thing I read there was Eugene’s call for inventions the Romans could have had, and he hasn’t followed up on it yet! Where is the love?

My personal diagnosis is that there’s been a sharp spike in self-promotional posts from various bloggers, of the “Here’s an article I wrote for some liberatarian rag” or “I’m going to be speaking to five pimply and friendless college conservatives on such and such a date”. There’s also been a lot of “doesn’t this {blank} smack of anti-semitism, and isn’t it just awful but also entirely banal?”

Maybe it’s just the political season, but DAMN these guys are off their game.