2014 archive
Stuff That Just Happens 0
You have all heard non-apology apologies. They commonly contain phrases such as “I am sorry if anyone took offense,” when the speaker knows damned well he or she did offend someone. That’s why he or she is apologizing, for Pete’s sake.
Radley Balko takes on a cousin of the non-apology apology: the non-explanation explanation, specifically police departments’ explanations of police officers shooting innocents. A nugget, after a quotation from a news item about the shooting of a 10-year old boy in Georgia.
What isn’t remotely plausible is that the deputy’s gun jumped out of its holster, walked up to the kid and shot the kid in the leg. . . . Yet the sheriff’s explanation, at least the way the WALB reporter relays it, leaves open just that possibility.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Play politely.
This has been your daily does of politeness.
(Whoops, originally published on the wrong day. I’ll blame computer error, yeah, that’s the ticket, computer error–an error made using a computer.)
Misdirection Play, Fee Hand of the Market Dept. 0
The Gloomy Historian explains how the concept of the “free market” has become a misdirection play. A nugget:
When abstractions are spoken of as real things, we call it reification. Reification is a semantic fallacy, but its use is sometimes necessary when one wants to communicate complex realities with considerably less words. However, a semantic fallacy, if not challenged, can go on to support faulty conceptualizations of reality, especially once it seeps into discourse. The special problem in this case is that the reification complements an ideology, one that rejects the natural and necessary role of the government in the maintenance of the economy
Articles of Faith 0
Steven M. captures the wingnut belief system. Read it.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Another gun becomes self-aware and chooses to be polite all by itself.
During the investigation, it was reported two males had stopped to visit the women at the hotel.
One of the men who was carrying a gun was showing it to the women when it accidentally discharged striking Soape.
Clown Suit 0
Dick Polman can’t restrain his scorn for John Boehner’s latest stunt. A nugget:
Translation: “We’re gonna sue the king for refusing to speedily enforce the same law that we’ve tried to repeal 50 times.”
This is the best they can do? To tie their shoelaces together and fall on their faces?
Facebook Frolics, Lost Cause Dept. 0
The great-grandson of Emily Post, continuing in the family business, offers etiquette tips for Facebook.
“Natural Persons” 0
At Delaware Liberal, one of the regulars compares persons and “corporate persons” and wonders which gets the “Get Out of Jail Free” card. A nugget:
Follow the link. The whole post is worth your while.
“Corporate personhood” is a Frankenstein’s monster which, like its original, has the potential to destroy its creators while laying waste to the polity and its environs–and its environment.