April, 2013 archive

Timothy Lavin argues that more precise news reporting might lead to a better understanding of the news. A nugget (emphasis added).

George Orwell illuminated something important about how bad policy can be both the cause and the effect of sloppy writing. Language, he wrote, “becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

I bring this up apropos of the gun-control plan the Senate has been considering. You might think, reading this morning’s news, that the Senate had voted on this plan and then “defeated” or “rejected” it. The Hill, for instance, wrote: “It failed by a vote of 54 to 46, with five Democrats voting against it. Only four Republicans supported it.” Reading that, you wouldn’t suspect that 54 senators actually supported passing the measure in question, which they did. Or that the proposal was actually blocked by a filibuster.

Newshound explains the “silent filibuster.”

Warning: The slideshow may not work in all browsers (like my Opera, for example, which, despite the warning, is as modern as it comes). You can watch it in a “supported browser”* at the original location.

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*Really lame, Newshound. Really really lame.

Thom wonders why the fear of big guvmint and offers a theory. An excerpt:

Billionaires and big transnational corporations don’t want big government because when government stops funding the commons, things like schools, hospitals, water, power systems, then the billionaires can grab those natural monopolies and squeeze more and more money out of the working people.

Susie outlines how Republican hostility to safety regulations led to the explosion in Waco.

Just read it.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Stanton Peele offers a taxonomy for classifying the cackling that resounds after an event such as the Boston bombing.

Here’s an example; follow the link for the rest (emphasis in the original).

Vamping. “Vamping” is the term for the circumlocutions speakers use when they have nothing to say.* You can always tell when media people are doggie paddling — they say the same things over and over again, report there is no new information but that when any appears they will surely let us know (thanks!), and use as many words to say nothing as possible. Thus, the single phrase that best indicates you are participating in a kabuki theater media exercise is “at this point in time,” as in, “We don’t know that at this point in time,” when “We don’t know that at this point,” “We don’t know that yet,” or — most succinctly — “We don’t know” would all suffice.

Aside:

The latest rumor in the press is that an arrest is near. A caution: Get some grains of salt and remember Richard Jewell.

Republicans in Maine have forestalled an attempt to ban persons under 18 from tanning salons because parental freedom.

Under that reasoning, I should have been free to give my kids plastic bags and tell them to go play in the street.

David Farmer also disapproves. A nugget:

A February 2012 report found that of 300 tanning salons contacted nationally, 90 percent state that indoor tanning did not pose a health risk, while more than half of salons denied that indoor tanning would increase the risk of skin cancer.

In fact, nearly 80 percent of salons said that indoor tanning is beneficial to health, and some said it would prevent cancer.

At least one salon said: “It’s got to be safe, or else they wouldn’t let us do it.”

We shouldn’t let them do it.

The science is shocking.

A study released last fall by the University of California-San Francisco estimated that indoor tanning is responsible for more than 170,000 new cases of skin cancer a year just in the United States.