Felix Salmon points us to an entertaining takedown of Steve Forbes.
… And how does Caesar figure into the Finkelstein saga, exactly? Well, there was that whole flap over the inhouse Macy’s clothing brand, just for starters. Under Finkelstein’s power-mad reign, you see, Macy’s “began pushing its own private labels despite the fact that customers still [...]
The Washington Post quotes SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor: “each time I see a split infinitive, an inconsistent tense structure or the unnecessary use of the passive voice, I blister.”
Have we established that split infinities are perfectly grammatical only to have them declared unconstitutional?
I’m looking forward to the ruling on distinguishing necessary from unnecessary uses of [...]
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
—Anatole France
I added this to my quote collection today, and in looking it up had a look at its context, from The Red Lily, 1894.
Nowadays it is a duty [...]
This is from a CNN pointer to a Pew Research Center poll.
Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful
The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
More than half of people who attend services at least [...]
Matthew Yglesias. Worth keeping in mind.
Normal Flu
If I were to say that this year 30,000 Americans would die from the flu, you’d probably think I was offering an alarmist take on the current swine flu outbreak. In fact, I would be offering an extremely optimistic take on influenza in 2009. According to the Centers for [...]
From the NY Times:
Name Not on Our List? Change It, China Says
BEIJING — “Ma,” a Chinese character for horse, is the 13th most common family name in China, shared by nearly 17 million people. That can cause no end of confusion when Mas get together, especially if those Mas also share the same given name, [...]
Matthew Yglesias has a post on The Declining Demographics of Suburbanism, which by all means read, but what caught my eye was this graph:
The change isn’t quite so dramatic as it appears at first glance (it’s based at 40%), but it’s dramatic enough. There are two relevant trends, say the Census Bureau.
Increases in longevity [...]
Via Arnold Zwicky at Language Log, an explanation for “NPR names”, which I’ve heard mentioned in passing, and for the explanation if which I’m grateful.
NPR names
Here’s how it works: You take your middle initial and insert it somewhere into your first name. Then you add on the smallest foreign town you’ve ever visited.
Unfortunately, “Jonathan Ken” [...]
Geoff Pullum has for some time now led the charge against Strunk and White’s “horrid little book”. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of The Elements of Style, Pullum pulls his criticisms together in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved [...]
NPR had a piece this morning on an auction of Michael Jackson memorabilia. In an interview likely conducted on or near Good Friday, we’re told that “the Holy Grail of the entire auction” is Jackson’s “crystal-encrusted white glove”.
Who is IOZ?
I See A Bad Moon Risin’
Gaymarriage will take away my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Gaymarriage will make hockey players skate on gravel. Gaymarriage will create weakly godlike artificial intelligences that will destroy you, soft, weak human. Gaymarriage will disassemble all of the planets and non-stellar matter in the solar system and create [...]
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart — HL Mencken
via Sam Smith
I grew up, in part, near the Red River, in Kittson County MN, closer to Winnipeg than Fargo. My chief memory of the terrain: flat. But I never realized just how flat until I read this in the NY Times this morning.
…the Red River, though fairly modest compared with some more famous rivers, [is] devilishly [...]
from the flickr account of one “9 0 0 0“
Time Magazine, via Barry Rithotz
Raised Dump Truck Hits Overhead Sign On I-84 In Manchester
“When [the truck] left the construction site and re-entered the highway, the dump body was upright,” said Trooper William Tate, a state police spokesman. “For obvious reasons, that’s wrong.”
via Bob Morris
…Tuesday edition. Because sometimes, you know, God just can’t wait.
Mormon beefcake
From the Chronicle of Higher Education
Brigham Young University has rejected an appeal from a student who had completed all the requirements for a degree but saw his diploma withheld last year after he published Men on a Mission, a calendar of buff Mormon missionaries without [...]
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.
— Mark Twain
Popovers are good to eat. Popovers are unpredictable. There isn’t very much to a popover. It is an ungainly-looking medium for getting butter, jams, jellies, and honey into the mouth.
The popover owes its fragile puffiness to steam levitation. It is done without yeast or chemicals of any kind. Only steam raises it high, and then [...]
A little TLS tease from Andrew Brown.
Sisters, not parent and child
An interesting and important point from John Barton’s essay on conceptions of the afterlife in the current TLS (not online):
Jews and Christians do not of course believe the same things, but the structures of the two faiths are much more similar than people think. This [...]