Word: argumentative
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...other argument against Wanted is that the plot not only strains credulity, it breaks through the strainer and plops like pulp in the kitchen sink. Note to critics: Not every work of popular art needs the mathematical precision of a Mozart sonata. It's true that the movie is studded with the sort of schemes a genius madman hatches in his basement. (One plan involves peanut butter, tiny bomb jackets and the use of rats as suicide bombers.) But if you have trouble accepting, even as a fantasy premise, that "A thousand years ago, a clan of weavers formed...
...being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Its confounding syntax aside, Scalia said the fact that the Amendment is framed in a military context is "unremarkable" given the era's martial climate. His argument, says Northwestern Law School professor John McGinnis, is rooted in the judicial philosophy of originalism: "When there really isn't clear precedent, you look at what this meant at the time," McGinnis says. "Scalia's point is that there's nothing to suggest [that arming state] militias exhausts the scope...
...dissenting opinions, Justice John Paul Stevens called Scalia's argument "strained and unpersuasive." He also blistered the majority for its expansive reading of the Amendment's "ambiguous" text. "Until today, it has been understood that legislatures may regulate the civilian use and misuse of firearms so long as they do not interfere with the preservation of a well-regulated militia," Stevens wrote. "The Court's announcement of a new constitutional right to own and use firearms for private purposes upsets that settled understanding...
...media, under pressure to work fast, sharpen their voices and cut costs, are increasingly making news blog-style, through argument and controversy. Certainly, the mainstream press is still the chief source of straight news. But that hasn't had nearly as much impact as the punditry (analysts burying Clinton before New Hampshire), glib remarks (Fox News calling Michelle Obama Barack's "baby mama") and opinion (Keith Olbermann's tirades against Clinton). The debates drew millions of viewers and reaffirmed TV's reach. But can you remember any substantive questions from them as much as the back-and-forth about "likability...
...years of friendship were over his treatment of both Clintons, which I thought was occasionally too sharp--and had its roots, I believed, in the strict lessons about sex and probity he'd learned from the nuns (which he often joked about). Our last conversation, sadly, was an argument over that...