Halloween... DIY.

Homemade costumes are absolutely dominant once again this year in Madison, Wisconsin. No one thus far has turned up in a store-bought packag...

Kerry.

The John Kerry "stuck in Iraq" story is dominating the news today. It's rather unfair to the Democrats who are actually runni...

"If my dad married a man, who would be my mom?"

Here's an ad supporting the anti-same-sex marriage amendment. I suspect it will be quite effective for some people. My question is wheth...

"We have acquired this responsibility..."

Christopher Hitchens on Iraq: [T]he many disappointments and crimes and blunders... do not relieve us of a responsibility that is either ins...

Why the antagonism toward Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

She won the "Least Favorite Justice" poll with 40 percent of the vote. I understand that who linked had a lot to do with whether ...

Which Supreme Court Justice went on a nude cruise?

The Chief Justice has launched an investigation to get to the... uh... to figure out exactly which Justice that San Francisco Chronicle tra...

“All they want is sweets... They’re not scaring you, or singing to you, or charming you — they’re just grabbing it and going to the next house..."

Halloween's not making sense to the British. “Trick or treat? I don’t know about you, but my answer to this question, if I’m honest, wo...

Inborn morality.

Does this idea bother you? Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, ... propose[s] that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their n...

"Michigan is ground zero in the national debate on the meaning of equal opportunity."

A ballot initiative in Michigan: The ballot initiative, Proposition 2, which would amend Michigan’s Constitution to bar public institutions ...

"The Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses."

Hardcore rhetoric from George Bush. Dick Cheney is somewhat more elegant about it: "It's my belief that [the insurgents are] very ...

"E-lection Nite Blog Party."

So what do you think of this? [CNN] plans to host more than two dozen bloggers from across the political spectrum — including sites like Red...

Early sunset.

"Karl Rove, somewhere inside that massive brain of his..."

"... has figured out the political landscape more clearly than the entire collection of conventional-wisdom pundits and pollsters in th...

Making fun of Bush for saying "the Google"...

... while using the term "internet blogs." Time for NPR to catch some mockery from this weblogger on the internet web.

If Democrats win the House with candidates who seem more like Republicans...

... what will happen to the party? Democratic officials said they did not set out with the intention of finding moderates to run. Instead, a...

"Go ahead, put marks on me. That's what I want. Go ahead."

More news in the Duke lacrosse team rape case.

Is blackface humor acceptable?

Some people think so .

Mid-fall, UW Law School.

I never seem to get any good shots of the Law School. But I kind of like this one from yesterday, with one bare tree and one showy one.

"What Tennesseans will get will be a Jesus-loving..."

Jesus-loving ! I've never heard a candidate promise to be Jesus-loving . Wow! That's just not the way people talk in politics. But c...

The right to silently protest a speaker.

On Friday, I wrote about the UW-Oshkosh police throwing students out of a lecture for standing and turning their backs to a speaker -- who ...

Street scene with smashed head.

Did you get trashed last night at Freakfest?

New morning light.

I'm enjoying the new infusion of light into the morning. This was yesterday, when midday looked like late afternoon:

''The military was forced to pay a human cost for the country's caution..."

"... and then paid again with its prestige when some labeled the inevitable results of such limited activity 'military incompetence...

"It's an alternative food source."

..."And not because it doesn't taste great." ..."Again, sustenance, that's the key."

"We wanted to see a capacity for growth and change in Mr. Lieberman."

The NYT endorses Ned Lamont.

"People just assume you’re a Democrat, and turn and look at you and say, 'Can you believe what this nut in the White House is doing?'"

"And then you can say, 'I voted for him twice,' or you can nod and move along." Here 's an article about how people ha...

"Small crowds of hostile attendees briefly chanted and taunted police..."

But other than that, Madison's "Freakfest" seems to have gone well : By 2:05 a.m. post-daylight saving time on Sunday, State S...

Harsh shadows.

On a sunny, mid-fall day:

Do you think we can predict what's going to happen in the election...

... by looking how certain movies are doing this weekend? Newmarket's very controversial Death of a President (91 theaters) did only $....

Fall.

Bleak: But that was yesterday. Today... I need to get out.

"In one semifamous cleanliness lapse in the 1992 presidential campaign..."

"Bill Clinton, who had just shaken dozens of hands at a tavern in Boston, was handed a pie but no fork on his way to the car. The raven...

"I commend Oprah Winfrey for the very fair and balanced treatment she gave O'Reilly..."

Says Lorie Byrd. I saw the show (only because I hastily set up a season pass for "Oprah" so I wouldn't miss... Madonna!). It w...

"If you want to read about attitudes toward females..."

So it's finally arrived! The day when we scour the files of political candidates for evidence about their attitudes toward females ! An...

"When it's done right, it's a controlled maneuver, and it stops the car."

The new high-speed case chase: The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether police officers can be sued for intentionally ramming a fle...

Architecture or nature?

Take your pick. It's just a matter of taste.

Steve Irwin mockery.

Were you upset by the little Steve Irwin thing on "South Park"? Satan is giving a Halloween party, and he confronts a guy who ap...

"In few places is the power of global climate change celebrated as it is in Wisconsin..."

It's the Ice Age National Scenic Trail.

Bestial.

Sometimes, on an impulse, I set up a Google alert for a word that strikes me for some reason or another. I'm looking for some random inp...

Reading movie and TV recaps instead of watching movies and TV.

How widespread is this trend? In two days, I encountered two individuals who said they derived their movie and TV entertainment from reading...

Have you been having trouble seeing new posts to this blog?

I had that problem myself in Firefox, and it's corrected in this new update . For some reason, the "check for updates" functio...

After the radio show...

I cross the pedestrian bridge over University Avenue... ... and pass through the inhumane architecture of the Humanities Building... ... int...

Radio.

I'm on Week in Review, starting in a few minutes, and, nicely, I'm able to get on the WiFi today. We'll see if being able to loo...

"Canada can take care of North Korea. They’re not busy."

Let's talk about the part of the anti-Harold Ford ad that's not about the Playboy lady. Canada's upset!

"After we clean the world of the White House first..."

That's when Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly, the most prominent Muslim cleric in Australia, said he would step down . Reuters paraphrases...

Spot the free speech issue.

Kevin Barrett, the UW's part-time lecturer who thinks the U.S. government perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, spoke at the University of Wisco...

"Will the idealistic Coyote take up his father’s whip to exploit the leadership-hungry clowns?"

The Broadway show that asks that question gets the terrible review you knew it would get when you watched the clip yesterday. Ben Brantley ...

Radio alert.

I'll be on the "Week in Review" show on Wisconsin Public Radio Friday morning at 8 Central Time. It will be streamable here l...

"Whatever short-term political gain there is [for Democrats], it can only have a negative impact on gay men."

Camille Paglia on the Mark Foley scandal: When a moralistic, buttoned-up Republican like Foley is revealed to have a secret, seamy gay life,...

Judging a candidate by his fiction writing.

George Allen attacks Jim Webb for the tawdriness in his novels. The stuff is rather awful, but it does seem lame to go after fiction. Poli...

Who's your least favorite Supreme Court Justice?

Well, the poll to choose your favorite Supreme Court Justice is over , and -- of course! -- Scalia won. He won by a lot. He inspires people ...

"The center of political gravity will shift."

David Brooks is making predictions again: In the liberal era, the urban Northeast dominated the landscape. In the conservative era, it was i...

"It is the most ridiculous contract in the world. It's just crazy."

That would be marriage , according to Simon Cowell. "Without any legal advice you sign this binding contract and you are not sure where...

"They're freaking jungle-drums... It's racist -- it tries to conjure up deep, dark African moods. Yeah, it's overtly racial."

I was one of the people who thought that anti-Harold Ford TV ad was meant to stir up racial feelings, but I think the complaints about this...

"Dems Dodge Big Gay Bullet?"

Says ... asks ... Mickey Kaus: It seems to me the New Jersey Supreme Court has -- perhaps non-accidentally -- denied Republicans the powerf...

"None greater than thee, O Lord, none greater than thee."

Danny Harold Rolling, who murdered five college students, sang a hymn as he received his lethal injection.

"A conservative gets up early to be productive, driven by the pure instinct to be self sustaining...."

"... A liberal thinks they can sleep in, and someone will cover their lame ass.” So said Ted Nugent, who came to Madison, Wisconsin la...

"Running with Scissors."

I love the book, so I'm interested -- warily -- in the movie. But I'm incredibly annoyed at the poster . It depicts scissors, runnin...

"A fresh exploration of the timeless tale of a young man's coming of age."

The musical "The Times They Are A-Changin’" opens tonight . Here 's a look at how the Broadway folk are interpreting Bob Dylan...

New Jersey Supreme Court finds right to same-sex unions.

Here 's the news story. The urgent subject now is: How will this affect the election? I assume most people will say this helps the Repub...

Stem cell politics in a YouTube world.

I hate the way the stem cell research issue is used to manipulate voters' minds, and the Michael J. Fox ad is just one more thing. But ...

Encouraging experimentation with single-sex public schools.

The federal government is changing the rules about permitting single-sex education: Two years in the making, the new rules, announced Tuesd...

"He missed the state of the union address one year."

Chief Justice John Roberts said about his predecessor William Rehnquist. "When asked why, he said it conflicted with a water color cl...

"Oh, sure, there's some prejudice."

The WaPo article about Harold Ford Jr., the Democratic candidate for Senator in Tennessee, focuses on racial issues. The second paragraph i...

Things that affect a boy's mind.

A divorced man has won a lawsuit that he brought to prevent his 9-year-old son from getting circumcised: The couple's 2003 divorce decr...

"It seems to me the reporting on that case was a lot clearer than the opinions."

You don't like my writing. Fine! I don't like your writing. Dahlia Lithwick talks back to Antonin Scalia.

Howard Dean declines the "gladiatorial contest."

Analyze the stuttering stumbling at the end of the quote: I detect dissimulation. ADDED: I've been reading old blog posts -- reminiscing...

"It so happens that everything that is stupid is not unconstitutional."

So said Justice Scalia. Let's talk about English usage! It would be better to say "not everything that is stupid is unconstitutiona...

How can the doctors say your illness is only in your head...

... if stuff that looks "like large flecks of black pepper" is coming out of your skin?

Does the President go on the "internets"?

Yes! He likes Google Earth: “I kind of like to look at the ranch on Google, reminds me of where I want to be sometimes." But -- unlike...

Who's your favorite Supreme Court justice?

ATL is taking a poll. I forgot to guess who I thought would win before I looked at the results... at which point it seemed obvious. It...

"A whirling dust plume filled with asbestos, benzene, dioxin and other hazards."

The dust from the falling World Trade Center towers: What damage did it inflict?

Disenfranchisement/fraud.

Democrat/Republican. Pick your side on the voter I.D. issue.

Stay the course!

Don't you have to stay the course about staying the course? The WaPo has what should become a classic in the annals of political rhetor...

I can't seem to watch television anymore.

And my cable bill is over $130 a month. Is that better or worse than the fact that I'm paying $37 a month for my land line phone, which ...

"We shared the dream of girls playing rock and roll."

"Sandy was an exuberant and powerful drummer." Sandy West, a Runaway, dead at 47.

Stanley Fish to professors: "Do your job."

It's not about free speech. (And his speech isn't free either: you need TimesSelect to read it .) So, do your job... and make sure y...

"From that moment on, he began to try to understand it by painting himself."

A painter responds to a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer’s affects the right parietal lobe in particular, which is important...

Democrats = net neutrality?

How close is this connection? I'd like to know.

"Good DAY, Althouse!"

You know, I forgot why I don't like Jeff Goldstein... oooohhh... wait... it's coming back to me... something about balloons... and M...

The legal strategy of that expansive, ambitious defendant, Google.

The NYT has a terrific article about Google's approach to the law. It expects and perhaps even wants to be sued, and it will fight for ...