tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34462382024-02-08T15:38:39.407-05:00Sterling Silver<font size=6>Not <i>too</i> sure that I'm right<font size>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1133394880128122322005-11-30T18:52:00.000-05:002005-11-30T18:59:56.033-05:00Support the Leukemia and Lymphoma SocietyIt's been ages since I've posted, so this may be a tree falling in an empty forest, but it can't hurt:Next April, I will be running in the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville, Tennessee, as part of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training (depending on how the training goes (so far I'm up to 5 miles), I may run the whole 26. As this is my Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1107541287475138522005-02-04T13:04:00.000-05:002005-02-04T13:36:39.326-05:00Jesus Told Me So
Gregg Easterbrook suggests that in order to avoid civil libertarian objections to government-sponsored displays of the Ten Commandments, the Roy Moores of the world should simply display "the Six Commandments, enunciated by Jesus himself." In Easterbrook's view, this avoids any objection from the ACLU, because Jesus' abridgment of the Decalogue omits all Commandments having Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1074816363666157072004-01-22T19:06:00.000-05:002004-01-23T15:34:18.046-05:00Why Don't You Then, DearieThere seems to be no end of people who think Israel the root of all evil. This time, it's Jenny Tonge, MP of the British House of Commons. Seems Jenny would consider being a suicide bomber herself:I think if I had to live in that situation - and I say that advisedly - I might just consider becoming one myself." Thankfully, her remarks have been pretty roundly condemnedUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1074036205890746092004-01-13T18:23:00.000-05:002004-01-13T20:44:45.340-05:00A Rooting Interest in DeathAmish Tech Support runs an annual "dead pool," in which blogger-participants attempt to guess 15 famous people who will not be with us at year-end. I heard of the pool on Meryl Yourish's site. I didn't participate, because I felt uncomfortable having a rooting interest in death. Meryl added an interesting twist: A Dead Arab Dictator's matching fund. She would Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1073595053979423532004-01-13T17:27:00.000-05:002004-01-13T17:27:28.326-05:00On Jewish JusticesWhen I served as a law clerk, I attended a luncheon program at the court where the featured speaker, a reform rabbi and lawyer, was to speak on the topic of the Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court. The Jewish Justices, including the current two, are on the whole a group in whom the American Jewish community can justifiably take great pride, but I nonetheless listened to the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1072279226932856812003-12-24T10:20:00.000-05:002004-01-08T17:46:06.343-05:00I'll Say This for Strom ThurmondHe was no hypocrite. Most commentators on the revelation of Strom's illegitimate child, like Anna Quindlen, are criticizing the late racist for hypocrisy -- advocating segregation and fighting "miscegenation" on the one hand, while fathering a child with a black woman on the other. I think calling him a hypocrite lets him off the hook too easily. Hypocrisy, to Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1072211508256245432003-12-23T15:31:00.000-05:002004-01-08T17:40:49.576-05:00Their Names Both Use the Letter "Q"At least in transliteration. [I don't know Arabic, and so don't know whether the "q" in Iraq and the "q" in Qaeda are in fact the same letter (in Hebrew, the sound /k/ can be rendered with two different letters, and in English with three, after all).] My good friend Chris has asked me whether I find this piece from the Weekly Standard convincing on the alleged Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1071868515234977242003-12-19T16:15:00.000-05:002003-12-23T15:08:46.700-05:00Well, we had to invade somebodyDennis Miller, former comedian (as his angry white man persona has come to the fore, he's gotten distinctly less funny), former sportscaster, and soon to be talking head, offered perhaps the most inane justification I've yet heard for the war: "I wish there was a country called al-Qaedia that we could have invaded, but there wasn't. (Saddam was) the only one who Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1071771756644101662003-12-18T13:22:00.000-05:002003-12-18T13:27:26.496-05:00A Tale of Two PostsAndrew Sullivan objects on Monday that Joe Wilson lacked class for calling members of the adminstration "f***ing a**holes and thugs". A fair critique, actually. While I'm guilty of some ad hominem invective myself in this blog, it's not effective argument, and I won't defend it as such. But then Tuesday, Sully's hawking t-shirts with a similar expletive. Granted, the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1071713263071890662003-12-17T21:07:00.000-05:002003-12-17T21:13:00.310-05:00Self-Defense and Probable CauseLast week, Volokh posited that where a homicide is committed in self-defense, there is no probable cause to arrest. I responded here that self-defense being an affirmative defense, it ought not to figure in the probable cause determination. Volokh responded to that assertion, hewing to his original premise. He brought one case from the Northern District of Ohio Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1071696322967127282003-12-17T16:25:00.000-05:002003-12-17T16:26:15.466-05:00Please pass the crowLast week, I accused Dubya of being dense in his handling of the Iraqi debt forgiveness/reconstruction contracts issues. Comes yesterday's announcement that France and Germany have agreed, in principle, to a Paris Club restructuring of Iraqi debt, and he's looking not quite as dense. Of course, there's a quid pro quo, as the article reveals that the decision on Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1071256511371910442003-12-12T14:15:00.000-05:002003-12-12T14:18:56.280-05:00Volokh Channeling McKinnon/Dworkin?Professor Volokh points to this article about a woman in Texas arrested after shooting to death her estranged husband. It appears to have been an act of self-defense, as the dead guy had broken into the woman's home the night before she was to go to court and seek a restraining order against him. Volokh thinks that this arrest violated the Fourth Amendment, Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1071163872820911712003-12-11T12:31:00.000-05:002003-12-11T12:34:05.340-05:00Either he's really stupid. . . or he thinks everyone else in the world is. How else to explain announcing in the same news cycle that you're barring the anti-war nations of Europe from participating in the reconstruction, while asking them to forgive Iraq's debts? This is what Bush said:If these countries want to participate in helping the world become more secure, by enabling Iraq to emerge asUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1071089384200629092003-12-10T15:29:00.000-05:002003-12-10T18:14:47.013-05:00298 Pages, Signifying Nothing?McCain-Feingold is, in the main, constitutional. That summary should save you some reading. If you're still inclined to read the opinion, finish this post first.The various opinions run to over 250 pages. The syllabus alone will consume 19 printed pages in the United States Reports. I’d be willing to wager this sets a record.But don’t mistake the opinions’ heft Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1069447075190320762003-11-21T15:37:00.000-05:002003-11-21T16:12:27.763-05:00Anybody Here Seen My Old Friend John?He was my childhood idol (I came to baseball later than normal children), and thirty years of revisionist history have done little to lessen either my admiration or my sense of loss for a man I know only from books and television. Today, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of his murder, I remember him by quoting from his speech in Houston during the 1960 Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1069436966695319392003-11-21T12:49:00.000-05:002003-11-21T12:49:52.936-05:00Amor Vincet OmniaGregg Easterbrook demolishes "Christian" arguments against gay marriage. He speaks the truth, with a capital "T".Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1067899710579528902003-11-05T16:11:00.000-05:002003-11-05T16:11:22.263-05:00Now What?Gregg Easterbrook thinks that we must leave Iraq immediately, having discovered that there are, in fact, none of the banned weapons that furnished our justification for invading in the first place:Why are we in Iraq? If the reason really, truly was that we really, truly believed Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons, then our assault on Iraq was justified, but now we must leave Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1066660538299739692003-10-20T10:35:00.000-04:002003-10-21T14:24:31.200-04:00Sign This PetitionThere's an online petition to save Gregg Easterbrook's job at ESPN. I've signed it. So should you. Click here
UPDATE: A good friend pointed out to me that perhaps the petition goes too far, in that it calls on prospective employers not to consider negatively Easterbrook's anti-Semitic rant. Indeed, that formulation does go too far (as my own post below implies). Of courseUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1066593522737344542003-10-19T15:58:00.000-04:002003-10-19T15:59:09.006-04:00Higher Standards, Chosen-ness, and All That JazzOne blogger, the aptly named Isntapundit defended Gregg Easterbrook’s anti-semitic raving last week on the grounds that “he wants to hold Jews to a higher moral standard, which any rational person would take as a compliment.” Well, we don’t view it as a compliment, and we’re not irrational. The higher standard is a form of a hatred, plain and Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1066588398152572142003-10-19T14:33:00.000-04:002003-10-19T14:55:25.540-04:00Evil Simple-minded Pandering NitwitsI bet Gregg Easterbrook never imagined the tempest he'd whip up when he penned his pan of Kill Bill. I've got a few thoughts on the matter. First, Sullivan and InstaPundit both minimize what Easterbrook did in posts this weekend by linking to the text of the Malaysian Prime Minister's hate-filled diatribe at the OIC this past week, and calling that "real Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1066138551806312802003-10-14T09:35:00.000-04:002003-10-14T09:58:30.470-04:00Sic Semper Tyrannis?Sully, InstaPundit, and the rest of the Bush propaganda machine (no, I'm not asserting they're in the administration's employ) have been busy, ever since it became obvious that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, trying to spin the war in a way that shows it was justified after all. The tactic that seems to have had the most traction for them is "thus always toUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1065725689399401622003-10-09T14:54:00.000-04:002003-10-09T15:00:17.893-04:00Arafat's DemiseYesterday, Meryl Yourish channeled Janis Joplin on the subject of Arafat's death:Oh Lord, won't you give us an Arafat death?
We've waited for decades, so please stop his breath
Prayed hard for this deed, and fasted, no less
So Lord, won't you kill him, and settle this mess?I have two problems with the ditty. I raised one of them directly with Meryl, and she published my view and aUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1065655744157293602003-10-09T13:40:00.000-04:002003-10-09T15:15:41.786-04:00Limited ImaginationSusan Ager, a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, "can't imagine who would disagree" with her assertion that Jack Kevorkian should be released from prison.Well, I do, for one. And I doubt I'm alone. Ager submits that incarcerating Kevorkian any longer serves no purpose because (1) he's been punished enough and (2) he poses no danger to anyone. Wrong on both counts. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1064550375312344692003-09-26T00:26:00.000-04:002003-09-26T00:26:58.646-04:00Hey, Teleparasites: Don’t Call MeWhen the Oklahoma judge struck down the national Do Not Call List on Tuesday, I didn’t much care. He ruled on narrow grounds of statutory construction, and whether he was right or wrong, the remedies were quick and relatively painless as Congress showed today.Today’s decision from Denver, however, is another matter entirely. The Denver judge bought the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3446238.post-1063834398231960882003-09-17T18:40:00.000-04:002003-09-17T17:40:33.190-04:00Mooses on Beaches & Tuesday Morning TwistLord knows, the ease of blogging, lack of editors, and press of time can lead to errors in posts. Lord knows I've made a few. But Gregg Easterbrook, over at Yet-to-Be-Named has a couple of glaring ones this week. First, his assault on Chief Moose, late of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department. Apparently, Moose settled with Marriott on a claim Unknownnoreply@blogger.com