Ever since he made a speech in Mumbai on the demerits of the "war on terror", followed by an article in the Guardian in which he argued that "resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms", India's media has been teeming with angry rebukes from commentators as well as politicians.
Last week started with an important speech from Tony Blair on the merits – or, rather, demerits – of a referendum on our membership of the European Union.
A donor cornea was provided by the North Carolina Eye Bank and was transplanted to DeMerit on Oct. 19.
The lapses have earned Mr. Obama a "promise broken" demerit on the "Obameter" at the nonpartisan Web site Politifact.com.
The group threatened Republicans with a "demerit" on their scorecards, or even 30-second attack ads in their districts if they did not obey orders.
The vents on the front fenders are a styling cliché these days, but they're a minor demerit on an otherwise compelling design (and at least they are functional).
Really the only demerit on her CV, at least since her days as a corpse, was Othello, an ambitious staging in 2009 that reworked the tragedy with modern trappings (senators, mobile phones – who knows, a handkerchief made from a polyester blend).
I probably had a suspicion that the meeting could result in the equivalent of a corporate demerit on my record at the company, but I didn't care.
He is acted on by the agent, but apart from that he is no more than a place holder for the spectator who will imaginatively occupy his shoes and make a judgment concerning merit or demerit on the basis solely of his conception of how he would respond to the agent if he were in the place of the recipient.
It's hard to defend America's current political system, but it's even harder to rally behind the solutionist project for one simple reason: the proposed Internet-powered "solution" is not sold to us based on its inherent merits — of those we hear very little — but, rather, on the demerits of the existing system, be it partisanship or sleaze.
