Dang, I just wasted a lot of time playing around with these lists of celebrity Republicans. The most surprising people? 50 Cent and John Malkovich.

I emailed my friends about 50 Cent and said "Did you know that 50 Cent would've voted for Bush if he weren't a convicted felon?" And then I realized that sentence has a grammatically ambiguous modifier...except for the fact that there's nothing ambiguous about which of them is the felon. So does that make the sentence ambiguous or not?

Man, I wish I was still in touch with my best friend from college; we'd have a blast analyzing that one.

Posted by: Sarah at 12:58 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 come on Sarah, diagram that sentence... you know that it is ambiguous as written. C+ for effort.

Posted by: MajMike at November 29, 2005 02:29 PM (zXWkt)

2 I'm not arguing that it's not *grammatically* ambiguous, but what I'm asking -- from a Descriptive point of view -- is whether *meaning* should count at all for ambiguity.

Posted by: Sarah at November 29, 2005 02:34 PM (3l/e2)

3 Can we just agree to say that there is no ambiguity about which one has been convicted?

Posted by: Pericles at November 29, 2005 10:00 PM (eKf5G)

4 Sarah, I knew what you meant. :-) Erin

Posted by: Erin at November 30, 2005 06:39 AM (AUtEP)

5 How about, "...had he not been convicted of a felonious crime", or "...had he not been a convicted felon"? Love your site, Sarah, and wish you and your Captain a great Christmas and New Year. Jim

Posted by: Jim Shawley at November 30, 2005 08:06 PM (bKR1b)

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Apparently the American Film Institute is trying to pick the most inspirational film of all time. Good luck. The list of nominees is long, including movies that definitely belong (Apollo 13, Stand and Deliver) and some dubious choices as well (Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Moulin Rouge?) John Hawkins has a good list of his own choices; I agree with most of his picks, especially Spider-Man 2 and Rocky. I'd add a few movies of my own that either bring me to tears or have me jumping out of my seat cheering: 12 Angry Men, From the Earth to the Moon, The Great Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird, Rudy, The Lord of the Rings, Miracle, Amistad and Band of Brothers. In no particular order, all of which made the cut except for the HBO ones. Props to the AFI for including The Karate Kid, which is one of my all-time favorites, even if it is a bit cheesy. (For the record, my husband said that he never laughed so hard as he did in There's Something About Mary at the line "I guess I just wish they made movies like they used to make. You know, classics like The Karate Kid" because he thought that was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. But the joke's on him, because his paycheck bought the whole trilogy.)

Posted by: Sarah at 09:49 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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(via LGF) There was a rally against the Iranian regime held at Berkeley. Although it was small, I'm glad to see people speaking out against this horrible theocracy. When my husband and I first got married, we lived near a wonderful Iranian family. During the build-up to Iraq, they half-jokingly begged my husband to invade Iran instead. They were so upset at what their country had become.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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