Alex Marsh is considered a clement judge—the type who lets first-time offenders off the hook and gives repeat offenders the minimum required jail time. —— (Merriam-Webster)

George W. Bush has a helluva problem. The Court said No to the lady's final appeal against the death sentence. The lady in question is youngish (38) and beautiful. She is a born-again Christian. In the course of her conversations with the prison chaplain, all of them conducted with bulletproof glass separating minister and postulant, a courtship developed, and lo! they have been married, though they have never shaken hands. The prosecutors who got her sentenced have asked for clemency. So also a pro-death-penalty former U.S. attorney. So also the sister of one of the murder victims. Pat Robertson, the Pope of the Christian Coalition, has publicly requested clemency, while reiterating his support for capital punishment. —— On the Right; National Review; January 26, 1998

Saddam will have the greater number of troops in the theater, the easier logistics, and the more intimate familiarity with local landscapes and people. And like Darius III he too will lose badly. True, the perennial, unpredictable wild cards of battle — inclement weather, unforeseen new deadly weapons, sudden coups, the appearance of an unknown Iraqi Hannibal or Guderian, horrible accidents and rampant confusion — may well alter the planned sequence and progress of our attack. But ultimately we will fight as we live. Thus our military will simply be an expression of our larger values of freedom, consensual government, secular rationalism, capitalism, religious tolerance, individualism, group discipline, civilian audit, self-critique and egalitarianism. And so we will win decisively a war that we did not seek — allies or not. —— Victor Davis Hanson; What Wins Battles?, Warriors Are Not Always Soldiers; National Review; March 4, 2002

The desserts featured a poached pear bathed in an amaretto-chocolate sauce; a strikingly bitter chocolate soufflé; a light and silky tapioca pudding with clementine sauce; a passion fruit meringue-cream mixture in the shape of a sunflower; a molten chocolate cake; a pain perdu (the French word for “French toast”); a pomegranate sorbet in a meringue shell; and a rhubarb soup with a tiny île flottante (a small floating island of meringue). This last was watery and uninteresting, for which we were actually thankful — we now had room for a bonus plate of chocolate miniatures and dime-sized petits-fours. —— Sarah A. Maserati; Sleek d'Resistance; National Review; April 3, 2002

Did you know? (Merriam-Webster)
Defendants in court cases probably don't spend much time worrying about inclement weather. They're too busy hoping to meet a clement judge so they will be granted clemency. They should hope they don't meet an inclement judge! "Clement," "inclement," and "clemency" all derive from the Latin "clemens," which means "mild" or "calm." All three terms can refer to an individual's degree of mercy or to the relative pleasantness of the weather.

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