Month: October 2005

  • Happy Halloween Everyone!

  • Breaking News

    It’s official. Alito is the nominee. Might the trial lawyers consider him their enemy in light of his previous rulings? I haven’t researched this, but in light of my last post, I hope so. MORE: Alito might be a victory for free speech, which would doom McCain-Feingold: Alito is noted for his fidelity to the…

  • Why I’m a lawyer in name only….

    Every once in a while, I’ll see something which triggers what Leon Kass would probably call my “repugnance” factor. The occasion for my outburst of repugnance is a jury verdict clearing the way for “$1.8 billion for physical and emotional pain and suffering and loss of business and wages” for victims of the 1993 World…

  • Sleepy Fall afternoon

    As it’s just about that time of the year, this afternoon I spent a couple of hours in Philadelphia’s historic Laurel Hill Cemetery. A downhill view of the Schuylkill River: Group of graves: A very creative tomb: And a small gravestone I couldn’t identify:

  • What’s good for me is good for thee?

    In the spirit of Sunday, I thought I’d respond to a thoughtful comment — to this post — left by Enrique Cardova. Here’s the comment: “This is another example of what I said earlier — that “attempts to discourage something can nonetheless glamorize it just as much attempts to encourage it.” True but the opposite…

  • Thrills on the road!

    Exciting visit from out of town guest. Big trip today. Further blogging will probably be late.

  • Encouraging persecution?

    Local officials in Lansdowne, PA were kind enough to censor anti-gay activist Michael Marcavage for preaching at them during an open comment portion of their council meeting. This provided him a major opportunity: The founder of an evangelical Christian group has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Lansdowne Borough over an incident in…

  • Who should be the criminal here?

    As a libertarian, I have an uneasy feeling about this proposed legislation — which would require private businesses to do what the police aren’t allowed to do: City councilman Darrell Clarke says it?s happening all too frequently. Panhandlers at gas stations, he says, intimidate drivers into letting them pump the gas for a handout: “As…

  • It’s official!

    Lewis Libby has just been indicted for “making false statements to grand jury.” (Via CNN and Fox News.) MORE: Glenn’s ahead of the game. So are Tom Maguire (who asks “How Covert Was Valerie Plame?”) and Roger L. Simon. Like me, Roger is “still trying to puzzle out the arcane and not so arcane motivations…

  • Prophecies not to be re-misunderestimated . . .

    On the G. Gordon Liddy Show, I just heard WND founder Joseph Farah predict that 4th Circuit Justice Maureen Mahoney will be President Bush’s next nominee. From his WND article: Mahoney is perhaps most famous for representing the University of Michigan before the Supreme Court defending its indefensible affirmative-action program. She wasn’t just a hired…

  • Long life accessorizing

    A piece on the fashionability of “prophetable” attire caught my attention recently. Cambridge, England If you wish to be a prophet, first you must dress the part. No more silk ties or tasseled loafers. Instead, throw on a wrinkled T-shirt, frayed jeans, and dirty sneakers. You should appear somewhat unkempt, as if combs and showers…

  • Weak test of strength? Or strong test of weakness?

    Dick Polman thinks that George W. Bush weakened himself by nominating Harriet Miers, and, now that the nomination has been killed by the right wing, that will weaken Bush further: it’s likely that he will find a new nominee who will please the base – a jurist with a reliably conservative track record who would…

  • Bloom on the Culture War

    I’ve heard young would-be scholars dismiss Harold Bloom as an old, conservative dinosaur (they call him Brontosaurus in the title of this interview), but that could hardly be the case. Not the conservative part anyway. Resolve this: I have many enemies in the English-speaking world, in and out of universities and the media, because I…

  • BIG NEWS

    Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination. I am not surprised. In fact, I think it’s possible that the suspicions I previously and repeatedly expressed have been confirmed. (Not that I can prove it. But Bush and his team are far too politically savvy not to have been able to anticipate this.) AFTERTHOUGHT: I hope my…

  • Talk about bad taste!

    This is news at its most tasteless: A cab driver in Dallas, Texas, was allegedly caught on surveillance video sprinkling dried fecal matter on cookies and pastries at a grocery store, according to a Local 6 News. Behrouz Nahidmobarekeh, 49, is on trial for allegedly throwing the feces on pastries at a Fiesta grocery store.…

  • Identical politics

    Orin Kerr alerted me to some fascinating language in a Texas initiative purporting to stop same sex marriage. Here’s the applicable text: SECTION 1. Article I, Texas Constitution, is amended by adding Section 32 to read as follows: Sec. 32. (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and…

  • How imminent can threats get?

    I’m sure that by now everyone has heard about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmaninejad’s statement that Israel is a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the map.” What bothers me the most about the phrase “wiped off the map” is that it can’t be seen in a vacuum or dismissed as an aberration or as…

  • Farewell Momma Bear

    I’m so sorry to learn (via Glenn’s links to Laughing Wolf and The Gray Monk) that Momma Bear has passed away. (I’m proud to say her blog was one of my earliest blogroll links.) I feel that I’ve known her — but I’m sorry I never met her. Laughing Wolf observed, “Shades, know that this…

  • Consent negated? Or implied?

    WARNING: Graphic discussion follows. I’ve been struggling with a deceptively simple question: Is drunken sex rape? I don’t mean drunken rape, because I think it is possible to form the requisite malice in that state. What I want to know is whether intoxication does — or should — prevent someone from consenting to sex. Because…

  • The eyes have it!

    As PhotoShoppers go, I’m hardly a professional. (“Self taught hack” pretty well describes my limited skills…) But this apparent photo doctoring of Condoleeza Rice intrigued me: And I found myself even more intrigued by Glenn’s question: Adobe’s “fill flash” can sometimes do surprising things, but I’m not sure it could do this. I’m so backward…