Yeah, all that makes sense. As a Jew, I’m much more upset that the role of the large-nosed goblin bankers is apparently going to be played by a bunch of WASPs. And also, according to the latest reports, the soul-sucking dementors will be played by several people who are definitively not my bosses from the various…

On the other hand, one could say that she’s once again getting credit for retroactively inserting minorities into the Harry Potter narrative when she didn’t have the courage to explicitly include them to begin with. Gay Dumbledore might have been a more powerful symbol if the books had bothered to mention it.

Are you telling me all those people in novels that I assumed were Martians were actually just nauseas? And that some of those Native Americans were really embarrassed white people? At least tell me the Avatar folks were really blue and not just cold.

Yes, the point is probably to intimidate the plaintiffs. Generally speaking, defamation suits (especially by public figures like Cosby) are inadvisable. They tend to focus attention on whatever it is the plaintiff was accused of (see the Streisand Effect) though, in Cosby’s case, the reputation ship has pretty much…

Granted, my understanding of gender relations comes entirely from cartoons, but hear me out. What if when male soldiers are trying to talk to their female squadmates, they get butterflies in their stomach, vomit, trip over their shoelaces, and end up on the floor with stars and hearts spinning over their heads? I…

The following is the classiest way to decline any invite:

But imagine how much our education system would improve if the winner of the science fair gets a blue ribbon, and then the loser gets arrested? I mean, that’s a pretty good incentive.

And much like New England Clam Chowder, they are pasty white, fishy, and we keep buying them even though they’re kind of gross.

While, of course, the South African system is different, it is worth pointing out that the Double Jeopardy Clause in the US does not necessarily prevent the prosecution from appealing an erroneous conclusion of law. For example, if the jury hands down a guilty verdict, but the defense makes a motion for a judgment of…

I didn’t read this article, but I find its premise frankly untrue and offensive. I paid for literally almost all of my beer during college.

So, a person who sat around huffing Jenkum while their parent worked their way up to owning a small business and their own home over the years should get to keep suckling parasitically at the teat of inherited wealth after that parent goes to whatever hell is reserved for successful American Dreamers? The fact that…

No problem.

Yeah, although the state of the law in many jurisdictions should allow consent as a defense, courts often infuse their application of the law with their own moral judgments. Here is what the Model Penal Code (which is just a model, so it does not serve as the law in a jurisdiction until that jurisdiction adopts it)…

Well, first off, although some states have lumped together assault and battery, assault is generally defined as either intent to put someone in reasonable fear of imminent harmful or offensive contact, or as an attempted battery. Battery is a crime (or tort) that occurs when contact actually results, so for clarity’s…

It’s not legally binding in the sense of being subject to perjury charges, as it is not a statement made while under oath. It also does not bind Deen or his lawyer to take any particular stance in a civil case or criminal prosecution (and in fact, in a criminal prosecution Deen could plead innocent without fear of…

Well, yes, but that is because assault is defined by reference to lack of consent, so consensual contact is by definition not assault. But contact that would otherwise be assault or battery may absolutely be consented to; for example, tackling a random person on the street would be battery, but tackling another…

No, apparently it’s a J.R.R. Tolkien book.

“running off to join an international terrorist group hundreds of miles from home to participate in their global jihad?”

Right, that was our domestic policy.

No problem!