Legal Commentary

Blog noir at Patterico's

Posted on November 17, 2008
Wikipedia tells us that "film noir," literally "black film," is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

Twisted dollop of evil scum Bill Ayers claims his and Weather Underground's bombs were mere "protests" and never terrorism, but that U.S. gov't "murdered" thousands every month

Posted on November 15, 2008
I know that when John McCain called Bill Ayers just "some washed up old terrorist," he was trying to minimize Ayers' significance and deprive him of any current relevancy. But that was just another of McCain's well-intentioned misjudgments. Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, there is evil in the world, and Bill Ayers was, and remains to this very day,...

Regarding the Obama camp's leaks about confidential talks with the POTUS

Posted on November 12, 2008
On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will become the 44th president of the United States. We call him the "president-elect" in recognition of that fact, and it's an important fact. But until then, he's the junior senator from Illinois ? complete with a goofy pretend seal of office (you'd think he would have learned, but no) and the apparent political...

Beldar on Brooks on conservatism

Posted on November 12, 2008
My subject in today's post is David Brooks' column in yesterday's New York Times on the future of conservativism. And here on my blog, I am going to give that column every bit of the thoughtful discussion, and exactly as many hyperlinks, as it deserves, given the current credibility of its author on this subject and the source of its...

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Meanwhile, in the Oval Office

Posted on November 10, 2008
Ann Althouse is right: This photograph of Dubya and Obama in the Oval Office is "[a]rtfully composed and deeply historic." It's flattering to both men, and although it cannot soothe all or even most of my worries about the impending Obama Administration, it's nevertheless reassuring in many important ways...

Visualizing Obama's victory

Posted on November 09, 2008
A new reader I've known for a long time emailed me with this link to a series of fascinating maps (with explanations for how they're prepared) created by Mark Newman, the Paul Dirac Collegiate Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan. I'll reproduce one of the most interesting (and, arguably, meaningful) here: So what do you think Obama's victory...

No to Gorelick for AG

Posted on November 09, 2008
The Democratic Party's ethical standards have now plummeted significantly below those which prompted Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards to joke in 1983 that "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy...

A plea to John McCain: Find and expose the anonymous sources telling lies about Sarah Palin and use the McCain temper to "make them famous"

Posted on November 08, 2008
In the many hours I spent online doing background research on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin before I wrote my first post about her on June 8, 2008, I read many dozens of newspaper stories about her, dating back to her time as mayor of Wasilla in the late 1990s, in the state's largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, as well...

BeldarBlog re-design done (for now)

Posted on November 08, 2008
Many thanks to those of you who've provided feedback on the changes in format I've been experimenting with here. I've decided to stick with a fixed-width white container for post text, and to go with something wider than the 500 pixels I'd used since 2003...

Yard sign, remodeled

Posted on November 07, 2008
Dave from Sugarland sent (and gave me permission to republish here) a photo of his yard sign ? which is not the product of vandalism, but rather, of his intentional remodeling: Simple. Energy-conscious (re-cycling). Works for me.

Changes in comments format

Posted on November 07, 2008
While I was tinkering with other things tonight, I think I've figured out how to make two changes to the format in which comments are displayed. First, comments will no longer display email addresses (even with what's supposed to include no-spam harvesting code)...

Are the wider margins better?

Posted on November 06, 2008
When I first started blogging in 2003, most folks used lower resolution settings on their monitors, and there were very few wide-screen monitors. My sense is that both of those things have changed, so at least temporarily, I've widened the white text-box for my posts (as opposed to my grey-colored sidebar on the right) to make each of the text...

Is Barack Obama a good man?

Posted on November 06, 2008
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the charismatic and popular 35th President of the United States, was a war-hero who'd managed to get his PT boat cut in two by a Japanese destroyer. He was the son of a mob-connected bootlegger, and he won the presidency in one of the closest elections in American history ? his margin of victory came from manufactured...

Thanks and farewell [to HH.com] from Beldar

Posted on November 06, 2008
This, in all probability, is the last of my teaser posts here noting a guest-post of mine at HughHewitt.com. It's been great to have the traffic at Hugh's place. It's been frustrating to have no control over the comments there, however, which are sometimes indistinguishable from things you'd read from the more immature posters and commenters at dKos...

Feeds

Posted on November 06, 2008
Some things about the internet, I know about. Some things I don't. Some things I don't know are known unknowns, and some are unknown unknowns, but one of my known unknowns is the whole subject of feeds, aggregators, and the like. My blog hosting company, TypePad, has provided some sort of feed, which I think I have turned on properly,...

Congratulations to President-elect Obama

Posted on November 05, 2008
Okay, with this post, I'm caught up again on cross-posting here for the guest posts I've made so far at HughHewitt.com. If you're reading down the page from this post, keep in mind that the teasers here for posts since late October were all done in the wee small hours after I already knew the disappointing election results...

Congrats to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on his re-election

Posted on November 05, 2008
I'll blog more about state-wide Texas races, probably, but I wanted to go ahead and congratulate Sen. John Cornyn before the wider audience at HughHewitt.com.

Palin voting

Posted on November 05, 2008
Mark Stein also found a photograph of Sarah Palin voting that I like. Thank you, Mr. Stein.

In 9pm EST calls, NM switches to blue

Posted on November 05, 2008
And it got worse for my team from then on.

Too soon IMHO to call Pennsylvania

Posted on November 05, 2008
When I wrote this guest-post, it was. But it's not anymore.

Steyn's blood and guts assessment

Posted on November 05, 2008
Steyn made me laugh when I wasn't in a very funny mood. Thanks, Mark.

Don't fixate on a video of a tough black guy with a stick in Philly, 'cause he's not what's threatening our rights

Posted on November 05, 2008
If there's evidence of widespread and consequential voter fraud, I haven't seen it yet, but I remain very concerned about the clear evidence of widespread fraud in voter registrations because I don't think people commit that crime unless they intend those registrations to count for something...

Cotton candy beginning to hit the network airwaves

Posted on November 05, 2008
If the exit polls were wrong, they weren't wrong enough to matter. I still think they're evil.

Marinucci claims SF Chron didn't report Obama's promise to "bankrupt" coal industry and cause "skyrocketing" electric rates because readers weren't interested

Posted on November 05, 2008
My team lost the election, but in this follow-up guest-post about Obama's promise to bankrupt the coal industry and make electric rates skyrocket over at HughHewitt.com, I believe I thrashed the San Francisco Chronicle soundly. I suspect they've gotten over it already, huh?

Dow-Jones at 9633.01 as I write this

Posted on November 05, 2008
Okay, this is me, grasping at straws in yet another Election Day guest-post at HughHewitt.com.

No surprise, but the NYT says CBS News and others may "call" the election before even Central time zone polls close

Posted on November 05, 2008
This turned out not to be a problem. An election that turns out not to be close hides a great many risky early calls.

Ayers casts his vote at same polling place as Obama

Posted on November 05, 2008
I really, really, really don't like Bill Ayers. It bothers me that he can vote. He should still be in prison.

A hiss for Prof. Philip Busse, and a cheer for old St. Olaf!

Posted on November 05, 2008
Sign-stealers of either party are criminals, and I was glad to see one such criminal who'd bragged of his crimes on the Huffpo actually pay a price.

Election Day news before the polls close is among the least important news of the entire election season

Posted on November 05, 2008
This was sort of a "pay no attention to any of the men behind the curtain" post, again designed to try to encourage people not to be discouraged. More GOTV.

Election morning prayer

Posted on November 05, 2008
This was what it says.

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