Archive | Uncategorized

was apparently selling a line of “Everybody Loves [Ethnic Group] Girls” T-shirts — “Irish” with shamrocks, “German” with beer steins, “Jewish” with purses and dollar signs: I’m pretty cautious about charging people with anti-Semitism; and I should also acknowledge that the target market for the shirts is obviously Jewish girls, so it would be Jewish […]

[NB: I dislike calling such things ‘memes.] The Manchester Union-Leader’s Bernadette Malone: When the extent of Howard Dean’s irascibility became clear, they said, “Thanks, but no thanks, nut-ball.” Kerry slowly was ticking upwards in New Hampshire polls even before the Iowa caucuses. But the size of his victory Tuesday night ? or even his victory […]

Usually I avoid this topic when blogging, but here is some rare common sense, combined with a sense of balance. My favorite passage: “Intelligence failure was inevitable given the nature of the Iraqi regime. The new conventional wisdom is that Hussein wanted us to think he had a more advanced WMD program than he thought […]

I’m pleased to report that Wonkette has just been added to our blogroll. I normally don’t announce such things, but given this post, I think I have to make an exception.      I know, I know, the old “don’t blogroll her, or else we’ll never link to you” ploy is the oldest trick in the book; […]

I’m watching television news tonight, which I almost never do. Maybe this is long-established. But: when did this affectation begin of talking about ‘Missourah’? I know it’s how some natives say the word. But it would sound silly for commentators with whitebread middle-America accents to name my hometown as “Pahtsmath, New Hampshah,” just like it […]

The New Hampshire primary always shifts me out of scholarly political-scientist mode and into political-news-junkie mode. And when I say ‘always’ I mean ‘always.’ I remember uninformed arguments on Portsmouth playgrounds during the 1980 campaign, when I was eight. By the time of the ’84 Hart-Mondale race I was fully a part of the culture: […]

The Federalist Society has always been a coalition between conservative and libertarian lawyers and law students. However, judging from the folks I met at national student conferences when I was in law school (88-91), the libertarians in those days were concentrated at the “elite” law schools. Harvard, Yale, Chicago, all had substantial minorities (or in […]

I’ve finally finished up a draft of my Crime-Facilitating Speech article that I’m ready to show the world. There are still a few substantive points that I need help on (marked in the piece), and I’ll have to do a lot of editing. What’s more, the piece is nearly 120 pages, which is too long […]

A reader writes to complain about “quote” being used as a noun to mean quotation; the reader says that it’s a “made up” word.      Well, if it’s made up, that’s only in the sense that all words were made up. My Oxford English Dictionary lists quote as a synonym for quotation, dating back to the […]

How can you determine from this map the profession of the person who decided how the map would be divided into the various colors? Answer is here. No fair drawing inferences from the character of the organization that put up the map; just consider the map itself, plus of course whatever other knowledge you might […]

I just came across (via speechcodes.org) this policy in the 2003-2004 On Campus Housing Student Handbook: “D.8 Posting and Distribution of Materials . . . . c. Materials may not contain direct or indirect references to alcoholic beverages or illegal drugs; lewd or sexually explicit conduct; or criminal activity.”      This clearly prohibits “Just Say No […]

A quick google search suggests that the opening paragraphs of the UCLA administration Web page endorsing a particular religious viewpoint on homosexuality is actually drawn from “Homosexuality; Not A Sin, Not A Sickness; What The Bible Does and Does Not Say,” by Rev. Elder Don Eastman, which seems to be a document generally distibuted by […]

It is one of the Corante group, www.corante.com/transition, the blogger is Nick Schulz of TechCentralStation.com fame. Read about the politics of steroids, how athletes calculate [disclaimer: this post praises my writings], and sex change operations in the former East Germany. Why a serious sports blog? Sports is both big business and a significant part of […]

I just saw The Castle, an Australian movie about a guy who fights the government when it tries to take his home. First, it has a positive social message — Institute for Justice had a screening of this movie in New London, Conn., during its anti-eminent domain battle there. Second, it’s really funny — (1) […]

Mark Kleiman on the Dean Scream.