Archive | July, 2004

A conversation just reminded me of a word I’ve always liked — “Idiolect”: The speech of an individual, considered as a linguistic pattern unique among speakers of his or her language or dialect. Not a good word to use, mind you, simply because of the minor detail that people won’t understand what you mean. And […]

When candidate Bush picked Dick Cheney as his V.P. in 2000, I was impressed, as I thought that Bush chose competence and experience over obvious electoral considerations (I’m sure that one could make the case that Cheney was actually the best pick from a political standpoint, but I didn’t think so at the time). I […]

Last week I quoted from a Robert Novak column on the Zarqawi story. George Stephanopolous has written a letter to the editor of the Post taking issue with the column. (Registration required.) Novak mischaracterizes an exchange I had with Condoleezza Rice on the June 27 edition of “This Week.” I did not ask Rice, as […]

Two years ago, Ring v. Arizona (in which Justice Scalia concurred) held that the Jury Trial Clause requires juries, not judges, to find the basic facts underlying the aggravating factors that cause the imposition of a death sentence. But what to do about people who had already been sentenced under the old scheme, and whose […]

I like Linda Greenhouse a lot, and she’s certainly a very experienced and knowledgeable Supreme Court reporter. Still, I noticed this inaccuracy in her end-of-Term piece Saturday: The second of the chief justice’s major opinions came in an important church-state case, Locke v. Davey. The question was whether a state that underwrites college scholarships for […]

Aeon Skoble, one of my favorite correspondents and now a guest-blogger at Liberty & Power, asks, quite reasonably, All of the reasons he gives for being dissatisfied with Bush are perfectly valid, but I don’t see why that implies voting for Kerry. Why not vote 3rd party, or just stay home that day? Bush’s shortcomings […]

Here are some old Presidential TV commercials, dating back to 1950. You can even view Ronald Reagan from 1964. Thanks to the ever-excellent Geekpress.com for the pointer.

Not Gephardt.

It hasn’t received much coverage in the American media (but see this Krauthammer column), but Israel has been scoring a series of remarkable successes in killing or capturing leading figures of all the major terrorist groups in the West Bank. Last night, the leader of the Nablus Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and […]

From Timothy Noah, arguing that Barbara Ehrenreich should be kept on as a permanent NYT op-ed columnist. If keeping Ehrenreich on the Times op-ed page requires the jettisoning of Maureen Dowd or Bob Herbert, Chatterbox is prepared to make that, ahem, sacrifice.

Having read the lengthy piece by David Kopel, Fifty-six Deceits in Fahrenheit 911, I was struck by the sheer cunningness of Moore’s film. When you read Kopel, try to detach yourself from any revulsion you may feel at a work of literal propaganda receiving such wide-spread accolades from mainstream politicos, as well as attendance by […]

It is hard to think of a more appropriate song lyric for the Fourth of July than the national anthem. While everyone knows the first verse to Francis Scott Key’s Star Spangled Banner, hardly anyone knows the second (let alone all four). Of note, the anthem was written during the war of 1812, not the […]

Yup, that’s what Clayton Cramer is noticing. Two to three percent of the population, and it turns out that they dominate the legal system. It’s not just that a lot of heterosexuals happen to agree (rightly or wrongly) with the gay rights movement, so that heterosexuals dominate the legal system but happen to take many […]