Born on December 27th

"When tulip mania dies down, all that remains are pretty flowers. When bubbles burst, nothing is left but soapy residue. But the Internet revolution, for all its speculative excesses, really is changing the world."

"Vampires are sleek demons for good times. They suavely leech off society - like investment bankers who plunder outsize shares of deals for themselves or rapacious fund managers."

"An election in which people have to wait 10 hours to vote, or in which black voters wait in the rain for hours, while white voters zip through polling places, is unworthy of the world's leading democracy."

"For technology companies, information about what people do online is extremely valuable - it can be used to sell targeted advertising or sold to data clearinghouses."

"The remarkable thing about 'Avatar' is the degree to which the technology is integral to the story. It is important to show Pandora and its Na'Vi natives in 3-D because 'Avatar' is fundamentally about the moral necessity of seeing other beings fully."

"The Senate should refuse to confirm nominees who do not take Congressional power seriously."

"Federal law should hold organizations like the League of Women Voters harmless if they make good-faith mistakes while registering people."

"If the Supreme Court rules that rent control is an unconstitutional taking of property, it would put all sorts of zoning rules in danger."

"One way to reduce the need for layoffs would be to cut back on hours, spreading the available work among more employees."

"In a perfect world, we would have put users in control of their information when the Internet was first created."

"There was a rule, back when I was an education lawyer in Alabama, about visiting public schools: always go on a rainy day so you can see how badly the roofs leak."

"Regency romances end in marriage; zombie stories end in the zombies being vanquished. 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' delivers both."

"Gun violence in the U.S. is an epidemic."

"The worst excesses of the dot-com era are gone."

"Defending Congressional authority should not be a partisan issue."

"There is no way to undo what happened in the Zimmerman-Martin encounter, but some good can still come of it: it could lead states to repeal their misguided 'Stand your ground' laws."

"There is no room on the federal bench for a judge who does not treat all people as equal before the law."

"To be rejected on account of old age may or may not feel the same as being rejected on the basis of race or sex. But it is clearly unjust and dehumanizing, and the law should take it more seriously than it does."

"If you're going to call a book 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History,' readers will expect some serious carrying on about race, and Thomas Woods Jr. does not disappoint."

"The United States may be a religious nation. But it is also a nation with a strong commitment to separation of church and state."

"It is hard to imagine an area in which Congress has more express constitutional authority to act than in protecting the right of minorities to vote."

"After you pay your E-ZPass bill, there is no reason for the government to keep records of your travel."

"Anti-New Deal rhetoric has never disappeared from American political life."

"Lawsuits prod companies to make their products safer."

"It was not until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s that Congress got serious about the assignment laid out in the post-Civil War amendments."

"When locational information is collected, people should be given advance notice and a chance to opt out. Data should be erased as soon as its main purpose is met."

"Even a single Justice can have a profound impact on the country."

"Corporations have enormous treasuries, and there are a lot of things they want from government, many of which clash with the public interest."

"When the government takes video of people in public places, the images should only be kept as long as they may reasonably be needed to investigate a crime. After a few days, if there has not been a report of a crime, they should be destroyed."

"Age discrimination is illegal. But when compared with discrimination against racial minorities and women, it is a second-class civil rights issue."