Kerry's wrong about DNA and the death penalty. Asked in the California debate about his position on the death penalty, John Kerry served up this factoid:

[W]e have 111 people who have been now released from death row -- death row, let alone the rest of the prison system -- because of DNA evidence that showed they didn't commit the crime of which they were convicted.

The number 111 is (about) the number of death sentences overturned since 1973. But it's certainly not the number of persons shown by DNA evidence not to have committed the crime. According to the ACLU's website:

Although there has been much attention surrounding the use of DNA testing, only 13 death row inmates of 112 have been exonerated by use of DNA.

Here's what really happened (again according to the ACLU, which opposes the death penalty):

The vast majority of those exonerated were found innocent because someone came forward to confess committing the crime; key witness testimony was found to be illegitimate; or new evidence was found to support innocence.

Why are journalists, like Noam Sheiber at TNR, just repeating Kerry's factoid without checking its accuracy? Sheiber really should have taken two minutes to check the fact, because it played a big part in his comparison of Kerry to Edwards:

[O]n the death penalty, an issue that should have given Edwards an opportunity to highlight his cultural moderation, he got bogged down in vaguaries [sic] like "making our court system work" while Kerry cited the more than 100 people released from death row thanks to DNA evidence proving their innocence.

Finally, even when a conviction is overturned using DNA evidence, the DNA evidence doesn't necessarily "show[] they didn't commit the crime." It could very well simply be that without the DNA evidence that the prosecution relied on, there isn't sufficient evidence to convict. (Thus, the ACLU's use of words like "innocent" and "exonerated" are not accurate.)

UPDATE: Instapundit and CJR Campaign Desk are linking to this post. Still no word from Sheiber, though I've emailed him. Getting linked by Instapundit brought more visits to this blog in half a day than in the entire previous existence of this blog (that is, since January 14).

NOTE ADDED 5/24/07: I'm going back, rereading all my old posts to add labels. I just wanted to note that this is the first post of mine that got an Instapundit link.

Would Shakespeare really blow the new SAT? Some Princeton Review people talk about what it takes to ace the new essay section of the SAT.

To receive a high score a student should write a long essay of three or more paragraphs, with each paragraph containing topic and concluding sentences and at least one sentence that includes the words "for example." Whenever possible the student should use polysyllabic words where shorter, clearer words would suffice. The SAT essay will not be a place to take rhetorical chances. Flair will win no points; the highest-scoring essays will be earnest, long-winded, and predictable.

They then proceed to analyze writing samples by Hemingway, Shakespeare, Gertrude Stein (who does particularly badly), and the Unabomber. Of course, the Unabomber's writing style is what the "holistic" graders at the SAT will be looking for. Very amusing, but should we worry that something is terribly wrong with the test?

Some high school teachers will pick up extra pay doing this grading, which is nice for them. Should we see them as dreary drudges, blind to the creativity of the Shakespeares and Hemingways who are taking the test? Please. If there is really a Shakespeare/Hemingway in the mix, he's sharp enough to find and absorb the Princeton Review's advice on how to maximize your writing score and sane and focused enough to easily crank out the requisite material. Anyone who wrote out an "essay" like that Shakespeare speech or that Gertrude Stein passage on the SAT test would be incompetent. Shakespeare and Stein weren't crazy--they knew where they were and what they were doing at any given time. I think they'd notice--perhaps with the sublime awareness of the true artist--that they were taking the SAT.

UPDATE: Sorry about the bad link that was here earlier. It should work now.

The truly principled.

Nice going, Cliff.

UPDATE: Play suspended due to inclement weather--in Tucson! I wonder what that's like. Anyway, Cliff is 7 under par and tied for 15th, 14 holes into the second round. Good luck!

Women's Army Corps Song Book. I've written about this book before and said I wanted to scan the pictures, but here's a website where someone has done that. You can get a sense of how charming the line drawings are, though they are reduced in size here and don't look as crisp as in the actual book. My copy, which was my mother's, is in better condition that the one scanned here. There's only a 17 on that page's hitometer, so go over and hit that page, please. You can click on the links and get to song lyrics, like this from the WAC version of "We're In the Army Now":

We'll stand Reveille scantilly clad,
Wearing cotton is the latest fad,
We don't care, we'll show them how
We're in the Army now.

Who would have thought the words "scantilly clad" (misspelling in original) would appear in an official government military song? And to think that wearing cotton could have been perceived as a hardship!

"Vile and vicious and hateful." Rosie O'Donnell gives this reason for going to San Francisco to marry her female partner:

"We were both just trying to come here after the sitting president said the vile and vicious and hateful comments he did on Tuesday and inspired myself and my brand-new wife to fly here this morning."

Quite aside from how it sounds to cite hostility to President Bush as your reason to marry or, more specifically, whether the gay marriage cause is helped by presenting it as a political protest, is it really necessary to tar supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment this way? It was only two years ago that O'Donnell first publicly said that she was gay. How fast can you expect social progress to take place? Only last summer, the Supreme Court withdrew the power to make homosexual sodomy a crime, and now, already, we are asked to think people are "vile and vicious and hateful" because they want to restrict marriage to different sex couples? It was only a couple months ago that Howard Dean was being praised for instituting civil unions in Vermont, while specifically reserving marriage for heterosexual couples.

The President Bush's statement this week takes a similiar approach to Dean's (albeit by constitutional amendment):

The amendment should fully protect marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage.

America's a free society which limits the role of government in the lives of our citizens. This commitment of freedom, however, does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic social institutions.

Our government should respect every person and protect the institution of marriage. There is no contradiction between these responsibilities.

We should also conduct this difficult debate in a matter worthy of our country, without bitterness or anger.

In all that lies ahead, let us match strong convictions with kindness and good will and decency.

Now that is portrayed as "vile and vicious and hateful"? Supporters of gay marriage would do well to show some understanding for the feelings and beliefs of the people they are trying to persuade. The sense of alarm about the proposed amendment is understandable, though unwarranted, but it is counterproductive to become overheated and engage in this kind of inflammatory rhetoric. The light of reason is on your side: why act as if you don't think it is?

Hair on water, indivisibility, and Amy as the winner. Prof. Yin has a nice post on last night's The Apprentice. He doesn't like the idea of drinking from a bottle that has Trump-hair on it. Yeah, come to think about it, hair and drinking water are a horrible combination. And a picture of Trump is inherently (in-hair-ently) a picture that draws attention to hair. And hair in its most loathsome form, I might add.

Prof. Yin also notes that "Kwame was non-existent in the episode." Maybe he's just being edited out, but Kwame thus far has been a completely flying-under-the-radar type. That can only work so long. Speaking of invisibility, did you notice that in the boardroom, Bill complained about feeling "indivisible"? Maybe Bill has liberty and justice for all.

I note that Entertainment Weekly is certain that the ultimate winner will be Amy. (This link might not work if you're not fool enough to subscribe to EW, as I am.) Here's the reasoning:

Amy will win. Period. End of discussion. Case closed. ... You see, unlike self-absorbed Omarosa, she doesn't stir up controversy by feigning headaches or by flapping her trap at inappropriate times. Unlike Ereka and Nick, she never stresses, never shows emotion, and never flails under pressure. And in case you missed it, unlike the rest of her loft-mates, Amy has completely avoided the boardroom. ...

[E]ven if Amy were on the losing side for once, I seriously doubt that any of her teammates would have strong enough reason to have her face the dreaded Donald. In fact, hey, while I'm at it, I am willing to place yet another bet -- that the Protégés would keep Amy around even she completely sucked at a task (ha, like that will ever happen!).

Why, you ask? Well, because of her wonderfully smooth patience when dealing with Omarosa. ...

Amy is quite beautiful too. She reminds me of Sharon Stone.

The height of informercialism. The Apprentice reached a new summit in loathsome informercialism last night as the entire show served to introduce the entirely ridiculous product Trump Ice. It's just water, but somehow it's ice, even though it's not frozen, because ice is at least a type of water, though not the type found in the bottle, and ice is a slang term for diamonds, and, you know, diamonds are expensive and Trump is very rich, so it all makes some kind of sense, doesn't it? Who wants to drink water from a bottle with a picture of Donald Trump on it? His face doesn't exactly convey the idea of clean and refreshing.

But aside from that, it was a pretty good show last night. I marvel at the photography and the editing. I used TiVo to go back and study the key scenes of the two characters who were in the running for getting fired and these were beautifully done, with the chess pieces looming in the foreground in front of the calculating Nick and the People Mural suggesting the emotionalism of Ereka. Carefully watch the segment of the show where the contestants are performing the task. The editors know who the bottom three will be and who will lose and will craftily present key scenes to demonstrate the problem Trump will ultimately base his decision on. It will not jump out at you on first viewing, but if you go back, knowing who's going to be fired, you will see all the information was right there in the edit. So, watching the show is like reading a mystery novel.

The King of the Offbeat Interruption. Larry King brought his distinctive style to the debate last night. I found this one-two interruption especially amusing:

KUCINICH: I agree with my friend John Edwards about we need to do something about poverty. And that's why I'd like you to join me in this proposal to have a universal single-payer, not-for-profit health care system, because that would lift tens of millions of Americans out of poverty. And, Larry...

KING: By the way, Harry Truman proposed that in 1948.

KUCINICH: Well, and you know what? John Conyers and I introduced the bill in this Congress. And that would provide all coverage for everyone, all medically necessary procedures, plus vision care, dental care, mental health care...

KING: In other words, socialism?

KUCINICH: ... long-term care. Wait a minute. You know what? What we have now, Larry, what we have now, what we have now, Larry, is predatory capitalism which makes of the American people a cash crop for the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies.

Did Kucinich say "Larry" enough? It seems that Larry is always there ready to pounce--possible tiger influence noted--with one of his Larry-isms and needs to be fended off with consistent acknowledgement.

I was also amused by the way camera shots of Kerry and Edwards often included the outstretched, wizened hand of Larry King. King rules!

Sleep, lifeboat, buzzwords. Limping through the last days of my (horrors!) cold, I felt overwhelmed by fatigue at 7:30 pm last night. Knowing I'd never be able to sleep through the night, I went to bed anyway. I was listening to the final disc of "The Life of Pi," and fell asleep, only to wake, predictably, at 10 pm. I listened to the disc again, the fabulous ending to the story. I can't think of a novel I've enjoyed more, even though I know I've missed slices of it, by sleeping through the middle and ends of each of the nine discs, then haphazardly trying to skip ahead to the missed parts. I was captivated enough by the story to keep moving to the next disc, even though I knew I'd hadn't heard every word of its predecessor. What I need now is a nice car trip, so I can listen to all nine discs straight through. Anyway, that is surely a book to reread (to relisten to).

What could I do at 11 pm but get up and watch TV? I went downstairs, and one of my sons was in the middle of watching the big Democratic candidates debate, so I started watching, but not with my mind in the usual place where it would be if I had been awake all day, planning to watch the debate, and watching it from the beginning. Jumping in in the middle and fresh from sleeping and picturing tigers and lifeboats, I couldn't engage with the debate normally. I just noticed the buzzwords like "jobs" and "outsourcing" floating in a sea of verbiage. I couldn't help thinking, they don't really have any plans or solutions. Most of these words are just there to make a place to put the key words that are said not because the candidates really have anything they can do but because they think that these are the words that, implanted in the minds of voters, tend to make them feel like voting for a Democrat.

Vogue word: robust. Today, while sitting through a paper presentation, complete with comments from the audience, I noticed how often lawprofs use the word "robust." We're always looking for a "robust" version of rights and speculating about what the "robust" enforcement of some notion would be like or what a court would do if it genuinely wanted the "robust" protection of something. Where did that come from?

If you look at law journals, from the entire year of 1983, you'll find only 74 articles using that word (typical usage: "robust debate" as a First Amendment value). Ten years later, for 1993, it's up to 277 ("robust debate" is joined by "robust markets" and assorted other uses). Last year, it was 1241 (now we see "robust judicial federalism," "robust democracy," "robust conclusions"). I wonder what caused "robust" to take hold. I'm thinking the term migrated from the computer world, where there is talk of "robust software."

Ordinary words that could be used to avoid the overusing this vogue word are: strong, sound, healthy, vigorous, sturdy. Another alternative might be to become more aware of the impulse to lard your speech and writing with adjectives. Look inside yourself: what is this inner need that is making you want to tuck assertions about strength and vigor into your every statement?

Oh, here it is nearly 2 pm and I haven't blogged yet. What, am I supposed to have something to say to the entire world every day now? What a strange, distorted sense of responsibility blogging inspires! You start a blog, and by that action, you express a confidence that you will have something to say to everyone every day. Somehow, something will rise to the surface of your consciousness that will be, recognizably, bloggable. And day after day, there are such things, but why should there continue to be such things? I think a trick is to have some little thing early each day, just to break the ice, and then more things will flow, like small talk at the beginning of a conversation.

Strictly Madison. I walked up State Street in the late afternoon today and saw two notable things:

1. An aging folksinger guy strumming an old guitar. He was standing on the sidewalk and singing, "I hate war/I hate war/I hate war/I hate war."

2. A woman twenty feet up in a cherry picker hanging individual green leaf-shaped fabric scraps on a tree. She had gotten about halfway through attaching the leaves all over the branches, right where the real leaves will come out in a few months. Near to her in the concrete speaker's pulpit, which rises about fifteen feet above the square was a guy with a notebook, presumably a reporter, interviewing her, yelling out questions like, "How did you get the idea? Where did you get the scraps?"

Only one slope is slippery. Justice Breyer was concerned at oral argument, in Locke v. Davey, about the implications of deciding in favor of the college student who asserted a Free Exercise Right. (See previous post.) But what are the implications of deciding to permit the state to discriminate based on religion as it doles out various benefits?

Justice Scalia ends his opinion with this set of concerns:

Today’s holding is limited to training the clergy, but its logic is readily extendible, and there are plenty of directions to go. What next? Will we deny priests and nuns their prescription-drug benefits on the ground that taxpayers’ freedom of conscience forbids medicating the clergy at public expense? This may seem fanciful, but recall that France has proposed banning religious attire from schools, invoking interests in secularism no less benign than those the Court embraces today. See Sciolino, Chirac Backs Law To Keep Signs of Faith Out of School, N. Y. Times, Dec. 18, 2003, p. A17. When the public’s freedom of conscience is invoked to justify denial of equal treatment, benevolent motives shade into indifference and ultimately into repression.

I'm sure some people will find that odd, coming from Justice Scalia, because he wrote the opinion for the Court in Smith, the case that decided that generally applicable laws are constitutional even if they burden religion. Under that test, a school could have a general rule against wearing any head coverings without violating the Free Exercise Clause. But Scalia advocates neutrality toward religion. The proposed French law he cites is not a neutral law, but a law that targets religion. According to the cited NYT article, Chirac described his law as a frank discrimination against religious expression:

"In all conscience, I believe that the wearing of dress or symbols that conspicuously show religious affiliation should be banned in schools ... The Islamic veil — whatever name we give it — the yarmulke and a cross that is of plainly excessive dimensions: these have no place inside public schools. State schools will remain secular. For that a law is necessary."

So I would let Scalia off the hook about that point. More important is that the majority, by taking a more flexible approach to the Religion Clauses, preserves more ability to decide future cases pragmatically. Scalia's neutrality test is offered as a hard rule, and a hard rule will dictate outcomes, so deciding one case in a particular way will demand that other cases be decided in lock step. Sorry, but the slope is only slippery on one side. Criticize them all you want for being unprincipled, but the majority can stop its descent down the discrimination slope whenever it wants.

What motivated the Court in Locke v. Davey? I said two posts ago that the Court's opinion today did not reveal the real pressure that I think led the Court to reject a clear rule barring discriminating based on religion. Here's the truly revealing passage in the oral argument. Questioning Solicitor General Ted Olson, Justice Breyer asked:

What is your response to the following concern that's been brought up a few times but I'd like you to address it directly. This case is perhaps a small matter of a distinction that doesn't make all that much sense, but makes some. But the implications of this case are breathtaking, that it would mean if your side wins, that every program, not just educational programs, but nursing programs, hospital programs, social welfare programs, contracting programs throughout the governments would go over, you'd have to go over each of them and there'd be a claim in each instance that they cannot be purely secular, that they must fund all religions who want to do the same thing, and that those religions, by the way, though it may be an excellent principle, may get into fights with each other about billions and billions of dollars, so -- which is something about which I have written about, which you know. All right. So, I'd like you to address that.

Olson's answer was insufficient. All it did was emphasize the Court was only being asked to take the next step on the path of precedent. Breyer burst back in, asking if Olson's position would commit the Court to deciding that a school voucher program not only may include religious schools (as the Court decided two years ago) but must include them. Olson could only flounder about the possibility of coming up with some sort of distinction and try to scramble back to the humble topic of one college student's scholarship. Breyer broke in again:

What are the practical implications? ... Just want a sentence on the practical implication. Is it as far-reaching as my tone of voice suggested?

Relax, Rejoice. Inspired by Nina's meditations on Ralph Nader's "Relax, rejoice" advice--"I urge the liberal establishment to relax and rejoice"--I Googled "relax rejoice" just to see how far down the list of results I would need to go before I got to something that wasn't about Ralph Nader. The man has securely claimed that word combination, because it took me to the third page of results. Fascinatingly, the first nonNader result was to Imagine Nation®:

The "Relax! Rejoice! Rejuvenate!" Women's Retreat is held in Sedona, Arizona. This exhilarating and refreshing weekend getaway is a wonderful opportunity to break from the hectic pace of your everyday life and just breathe!

What the hell is Imagine Nation®? you may ask. Or you may say, Imagine Nation® sounds like a good name for the country Nader pictures himself presiding over. But according to the website: "Nancy Nordstrom’s Imagine Nation® Method of Dream Realization utilizes a fundamental foundation of three basic components. This is a solid, realistic approach that enables you to achieve the outcome you most desire." How intriguingly Nader-esque!

The next nonNader return takes you to Relax and Rejoice/Marriage Manual--Vol. 1. ("Venus Kriyas (yoga exercises for couples) and meditations for women and men for the renewal of love, trust, open communication, sexual sharing and much more.") I'm really not picturing Ralph Nader now. Or maybe, yes, a bit, metaphorically ... Enjoy the relationship, liberal establishment!