Cool — I just learned that the name of one of my favorite games is apparently derived from Russian. What is it? (Answer here.) Bridge (see definition 2). (hide)
Archive | July, 2004
English words borrowed from Russian:
A recent post reminds me of this question — which English words have been borrowed from Russian? Exclude words that are still used to refer only to Russian things, such as borscht, ruble, or samovar. Wikipedia has what looks like a good list, including some that surprised them. Here are my favorites, including some that […]
Sentencing Guidelines and the Jury Trial Clause post-Blakely:
A Seventh Circuit panel, in an opinion by Judge Posner, essentially holds large aspects of the federal Sentencing Guidelines scheme unconstitutional because of the recent Supreme Court Blakely decision. (That’s an oversimplification, but it’s close enough.) Judge Easterbrook dissents. Special bonus: Use of the words “ukase” and “discombobulate.” Thanks to Doug Berman (Sentencing Law and […]
Orin Kerr:
I am delighted to report that my friend and former coblogger Orin Kerr, who specializes in criminal law, computer security law, and other matters at George Washington University law school in D.C., is rejoining the blog. He left last year to start his clerkship for Justice Kennedy, and now that he’s done, he’s back. I’m […]
Writing exercise:
I thought I’d pass along, in case anyone is interested, a draft of an exercise that I plan to eventually include in the next edition of my Academic Legal Writing book. Many law students tend to phrase things too abstractly; this exercise aims to help them make their writing more concrete and therefore clearer and […]
A google view of the world:
Musing on Jefferson’s “We might have been a free and a great people together” line, I did a google search for “a free and a great people together” (without the quotes). Here were the first ten results: Great Expectation Dating Services Quality online dating services Internet directory PACT: Los Angeles Cat and Kitten Adoption and […]
What might have been:
The alternate history “What if the British had kept America?” thread reminds me of Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson had a paragraph in which he condemned his fellow Englishmen: Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. . . . [W]e appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, […]
Adam Smith on What If the British Had Kept America:
Reader Zev Sero points to Adam Smith’s take (in 1776) on what would happen if the British kept America (as he thought they should, and they could with the right policies): Such has hitherto been the rapid progress of that country in wealth, population, and improvement, that in the course of little more than a […]
Fertility:
Senator Sam Brownback goes even farther than Stanley Kurtz, offering as a reason for supporting the Federal Marriage Amendment that The experience of Europe also shows that the decline of the institution of marriage goes hand in hand with a decline in married fertility, and a corresponding decline in population. Because of the birth dearth […]
Who’s stupid here?
My friend Arvin Tseng (Rebuttable Presumption) blogs: Stupid, Dirty Girl . . . Richard Riordan, former mayor of LA, and now state education secretary, told a 6-year-old girl that’s what her name meant. Seriously. The girl, 6-year-old Isis D’Luciano, asked Riordan if he knew her name meant “Egyptian goddess.” Riordan replied, “It means stupid dirty […]
Fashion slave:
Yes, yes, I knew that, as Virginia Postrel notes, a bad fashion sense isn’t actually any defense against a charge of acting fashionably, and that she was suggesting that I might be responding to peer pressure from my fellow academics. I gave a non-responsive defense because a responsive defense to that kind of charge just […]
“Capturing the Friedmans”:
I saw the documentary “Capturing the Friedmans” last night. The film is about a “normal” family torn apart when the pedophile father and his eighteen year-old son are accused of (and ultimately plead guilty to) violently molesting children who took computer classes in their home. The case arose against a backdrop of hysteria over purported […]
Check out this sentence,
from the Eighth Circuit federal appellate court, in Rife v. Ashcroft (“this issue” refers to fear of religious persecution): The record on this issue is not so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution from the ambiguous evidence in the Country Report that Israel may be less than […]
An odd day:
My endorsement of Kerry, my criticism of Bush on grounds of competence, and my criticsm of Badnarik on security grounds have led to some very odd e-mails and blog posts; they’ve left me disagreeing with people I’m ordinarily very closely algined with and agreeing with people I’d really rather not. But this has to be […]
Religiosity and peaceful coexistence:
Robert Reich writes, in The American Prospect: The great conflict of the 21st century will not be between the West and terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. The true battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernists; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human […]