Do you think the Democratic Party is stealing the Minnesota senatorial election for Al Franken? Whether it is or not, if he winds up winning now, it's going to look like he did. Here's a hypothetical , which we'll ca…
The college did not appreciate his on-line confession of a crime. Here 's Phil Busse's Huffington post item, called "Confessions of a Lawn Sign Stealer": [T]he oversized 4 x 8 foot mini-billboard in front of the…
And so it begins: "I'm absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there's a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, despera…
"... the former is vaguely inspired by the idea of the latter." Sasha Volokh disses Madison in the comments to a Volokh Conspiracy post by Judge Paul Cassell . The post is about whether it's ethical for a judge to …
And would you be required to eat it ? Oh, I'm picturing it: Skum-skimming wasn't hard to learn. You got up at dawn. You gulped a breakfast sliced not long ago from Chicken Little and washed it down with Coffiest. You put …
With all this trouble Barack Obama has been having with his connection or seeming connection to religion that either is or seems extremist, wouldn't this be a good time to remind folks that John McCain's religion is the m…
Steven D. Levitt -- whose Freakonomics blog is now on the NYT website -- applies his thinking skills to the enterprise of plotting terrorism! He identifies the goals: "what really inspires fear... is the thought that they c…
"Each investigated this and cleared themselves, but they both have vested interests." From the WaPo's piece on the Beauchamp affair, that's a quote from journalism prof Mark Feldstein
The too-little-too-late resignation of Michael B. Nifong, the Durham County district attorney, announced Friday who brought sexual assault charges against three Duke University lacrosse players. “It has become increasingly appar…
Speaking of plagiarism and allusion, when do you have to credit the source of a political joke? Should Harry Reid have to say "as James Carville said"?
Geoffrey K. Pullum has some subtle analysis of the subtle line: If I had hoped Mr McIntyre would not identify the source of my very funny metaphor and would think me responsible for its brilliantly humorous simile, I would not b…
Says Damien Hirst , who seems to be laughing the hardest, as he sells a diamond-encrusted skull for $100 million. The dazzle of the diamonds might outshine any meaning Hirst attaches to it, and that could be a problem. Its value …
Is it unethical for a documentary to exaggerate ambiguity for artistic effect? Harvey A. Silverglate and Carl Takei, writing in Slate , seem to think so: [T]he makers of Capturing the Friedmans made a studied decision to minimize…