The Elements of Style is fifty years old. It’s one of the most vital books to my profession. I wish everyone had a copy.
Archive for May, 2009
Strunk and White
Sunday, May 17th, 2009Weekend Linkorama
Saturday, May 16th, 2009Jenny From the Blech
Friday, May 15th, 2009Orac takes on Jenny McCarthy again on vaccine. Worth a read at least, although Orac debating science with Miss 36-24-34 is about as even as me playing checkers against my cat.
Prehistoric Porn
Thursday, May 14th, 2009Hey, it’s not surprise to me that the earliest human sculpture was essentially caveman porn. As Steve said in Coupling, when man invented fire, he didn’t say, “Hey, let’s cook!”, he said, “Great! Now we can see naked bottoms in the dark!” Now we know that when sculpting was invented, he also said, “Great! Now we can carry naked bottoms around with us.”
The Rocket
Thursday, May 14th, 2009I’ll say this for Roger Clemens. Either he really didn’t take steroids or he’s the stupidest man on Earth. (Warning: link automatically starts up ESPN video. What the hell, ESPN?)
Jesse
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009God bless Jesse Ventura. He never fails to speak his mind.
Petting America’s Kids
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009ABC news has a hysterical story about the danger of doggy doors.
Drug Lies
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009Yes, Virginia, the drug czar is full of crap. He’s so full, in fact, he’ll make me link to HuffPo.
The Iron Lady
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009I’ve had quite enough of your Thatcher bashing, young lady.
Nanny State Watch
Monday, May 11th, 2009Reason runs down the case of a British woman arrested for having noisy sex.
Yes, you read that right.
Fortunately, most British people only have sex about once a year, so the problem will be minimal.
ACLUSUX
Monday, May 11th, 2009Nicely done, ACLU.
Weekend Linkorama
Saturday, May 9th, 2009Polling Torture
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009You know, polls showing that a slim majority of Americans favor waterboarding of terrorist might mean something to me if we decided issues in this country based on popular vote and not, as we thankfully do, on the law and Constitution.
Wednesday Linkorama
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009The most common defense of waterboarding is that we subjected our own soldiers to it. That’s true–as a way of training them to withstand enemy torture. When you reverse engineer a torture-resistance program, you’re almost by definition engaging in torture.
In reality, Bush’s waterboarding methods did differ from the U.S. military’s torture-resistance training, in that our soldiers knew how far we’d go and could stop the exercise if they couldn’t bear it. Conservatives have inadvertently confirmed this point. Numerous Republicans object that the release of the torture memos will render waterboarding and other techniques useless–”terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them,” complain former Bush officials Michael Hayden and Michael Mukasey.
It’s true. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, or torture methods devised thereby. Our chief weapon is surprise. (Surprise and fear. … Amongst our weaponry are such elements as surprise and fear, as Michael Palin might put it.) That’s exactly why training soldiers to withstand waterboarding is different than actually waterboarding.