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Archive for the ‘O Mores!’ Category

Hammers in the air

Posted by Ron Coleman on July 31, 2008

Walter Olson:

Thomas Girardi, of Girardi & Keese, and Walter Lack, of Engstrom Lipscomb & Lack, are among California’s highest-profile plaintiff’s lawyers, often working closely together on litigation . . . Now both men are in a spot of bother with the Ninth Circuit, where a special master, senior circuit judge A. Wallace Tashima, has recommended hundreds of thousands of dollars in sanctions against them and where a three-judge panel (Kozinski, Reinhardt, Berzon) has just moved to appoint a special prosecutor to recommend further discipline in the case.

That’s an intro that has to make you keep reading!  It’s so rare that lawyers who break the rules get called out — maybe that’s what the Ninth Circuit is for, after all.

Posted in Lex scripta, O Mores! | Leave a Comment »

Pony baloney

Posted by Ron Coleman on July 23, 2008

Some lines are too good to waste.

Having heard that one: How much more can John Edwards go away than he is now?

Posted in Jocularity, Narcissus Rex, O Mores!, Politics and Poker | 2 Comments »

Un-fabulous

Posted by Ron Coleman on July 10, 2008

The thing about the nuts that fall from Obama’s tree, it seems, is you get a good luck* look at the unappetizing meat in ’em when they crack open on the hard ground. Tales from the Unreality-Based Community:

A homosexual man who has a blog on Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign website is suing two major Christian publishers for violating his constitutional rights and causing emotional pain, because the Bible versions they publish refer to homosexuality as a sin. . . .

Fowler alleges both Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, with its King James Bible, manipulated Scripture without informing the public by using the term “homosexuals” in a New Testament passage, 1 Corinthians 6:9.

He told the Grand Rapids TV station in an interview he wants to “compensate for the past 20 years of emotional duress and mental instability.”

Zondervan, he contended, is misinterpreting the Bible.

“These are opinions based on the publishers,” Fowler said. “And they are being embedded in the religious structure as a way of life.” . . .

Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, says in his complaint against Zondervan that the publisher intended to design a religious, sacred document to reflect an individual opinion or a group’s conclusion to cause “me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder.”

So much… so very, very much… that is so stupid, so nuts, so God – help – Michigan about this. Where to begin? How to say when?

First… if you want it… I’ve downloaded the insane, hand-written complaint here. Go ahead, you read it. Now, the bullet points: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Americana, Faith and Works, Lex scripta, O Mores!, Oppression | 9 Comments »

Freeman Hunt: People Are Not Pets

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 6, 2008

Is it immoral to give people the opportunity to exit the stone age?

Posted in Homo sapiens, O Mores!, Oppression | Leave a Comment »

All ambition, all the time

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 25, 2008

The Iron Lady:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly apologized Friday after citing the June 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in defending her decision to keep running for the Democratic presidential nomination despite increasingly long odds.

“I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever,” the former first lady said.

Forget about the conditional apology part — “I regret that if” — which is standard political procedure these days. It’s just the last, sad rusted bolt in her metallic coat: Mrs. Clinton, ultimately, was always prepared to say anything, anything, to justify the previous half century of her life as a political robot by grabbing the iron ring.

We see now it was not merely a matter of the truth, which never stood in the way of the message (UPDATE:  uh-huh!). It is simply that she does not care at all about the content of anything she says except whether or not it will have the desired political effect. That, of course, is a formula that is inherently self-defeating, but when you lack sensitivity… when you do not care… when you just do not get it…

You defeat yourself.

Cross-posted on Right-Wing News.

Posted in O Mores!, Politics and Poker | 1 Comment »

Happy marriage in sunny California

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 15, 2008

Instapundit:

CALIFORNIA’S SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN the state’s ban on gay marriages. Did it just hand the state to McCain? Well, possibly.

Personally, I favor gay marriage, but I think it would be much better if it were adopted through political, rather than judicial, channels — though I realize that some would call that a distinction without a difference where California is concerned. . . .

I had been saying the same thing on Dean’s World most of last year (and would link to that chain of posts but, alas, there’s not such thing any more on that blog — here’s one ), except the favoring part. The next step, of course, is the proposal in California of a constitutional amendment to reverse this decision (since the Cali court claims to act under constitutional color), and, depending on California’s procedure for making a constitutional change, myriad legal, political and judicial attempts to keep that off the ballot and at all costs prevent the occurrence of democracy … the whole tiring, usual thing that has played out everywhere.

It’s kind of like the revenge of Rose Bird!

Posted in Lex scripta, O Mores!, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Calling our libertarianism

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 12, 2008

Dean Esmay:  Why I’m No Longer A Libertarian.

Posted in O Mores!, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »

Interview with a “Prude”

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 25, 2008

John Hawkins at Right-Wing News talks with with Carol Platt Liebau about her book, Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!):

A lot of people think the only downside for premarital sex is STDs and pregnancy and if you avoid those problems … then you might as well enjoy yourself. Let’s say a person isn’t religious and they don’t get STDs or get pregnant; why shouldn’t they have sex before marriage?

That’s the key question that I was trying to strike at the heart of Prude.

You know what? You may avoid an STD, you may never confront an unwedded pregnancy, but even so, giving too much, too soon, to too many people is still a terrible idea. It’s terrible idea because there are many, many, emotional and psychological consequences that often these little girls are never told about.

Like what?

They include regret, anxiety, shame, the inability to trust men, and trouble forming permanent committed relationships later. You know, John, it all makes sense. If you’re the kind of young woman who doesn’t understand why it’s important not just to have sex with any guy that wants you to, you’re probably going to be prone to seeing some of the less attractive sides of male behavior. If you see that over and over again…it’s going to be difficult to learn how to trust men because you’ve never gotten to see the finer or noble side of men. Of course, it’s going to be difficult to forge long term relationships later, because if you don’t trust men, then on what basis are you building when you finally find a man you’d like to spend your life with?

This is, of course, territory covered recently, and successfully, by Dawn Eden in her book, The Thrill of the Chaste.  I would be interested in knowing how the books differ.  If anyone has read reviews comparing and contrasting — I couldn’t find one — or otherwise has a clue (such as by reading them, perhaps?), I would be interested in knowing.

Posted in Faith and Works, Homo sapiens, O Mores! | 2 Comments »

How bad a cad

Posted by Ron Coleman on February 22, 2008

A fortunate avoidance of what might be called “gentleman’s rape,” from Megan McArdle.

It never seeks to amaze me.  Despite all the horrors I learned about growing up about what people are prepared to do to each other for their own purposes, I just can never get ahead of just how bad people can be.

Posted in O Mores! | Leave a Comment »

Gallery of Atrocities

Posted by Ron Coleman on February 20, 2008

vegetable-stall.jpgTime to get morally serious about that salad you’ve got there, buster.

Hat tip to Irina Tsukerman!

UPDATE: I had intended to add a link to an article I wrote for Student Lawyer magazine about 20 years ago, a parody law-school “welcome” booklet for a fictional fourth-tier law school called “Welcome to Lincoln Law” in which I believe I actually first originated the concept of a “Vegetable Rights Clinic.” But I recently cleaned up and threw out a bunch of junk, and, well, there ya go. No documentary proof… yet.

Um, I did find this (PDF) from the same era. It’s not as funny, but it has its atrocious aspects, too.

Posted in Jocularity, O Mores! | 2 Comments »