One is led to wonder whether Breitbart Unmasked is now being written by the room full of monkeys who were supposed be typing the complete works of Shakespeare.
Qui sunt hae simiae, qui strepitus inanis scribunt?
Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
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Category Archives: Sloppy Writing
Quote of the Day
Well, there’s a probability of anything. Statistically speaking, if you gave typewriters to a treeful of monkeys, they’d eventually produce the works of William Shakespeare. Of course, you and I both know that at the end of a millennium they’d still be tapping out gibberish.
—The Fifth Doctor
Euphemistic Lying
Or lying by euphemism. Stacy McCain calls out the President and his flacks in the press for the use of the term “new revenues.”
A business can generate “new revenues” by expanding sales. A government doesn’t have that opportunity, and it won’t find “new revenues” some magical, super-secret hiding place. They’re taxed out of our wallets.
In his essay, Politics and the English Language, George Orwell wrote that
one ought to recognise that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.
He wrote that in 1946, but it’s also true today. Indeed, the time has come when we need to stop allowing the use of nonsense terms in our government’s financial planning. Not collecting a tax is not an “expenditure.” Spending more this year than last is not a cut just because you were planning an even larger increase. Etc.
Actually, there is a way that government can get new revenues. Over the long haul since WWII, the federal government has been able to take in about 19% of GDP as taxes. That’s been true regardless of how high or low the tax rates have been. When government gets out of the way of the economy so that it can grow, that 19% share grows with increasing GDP.
Quote of the Day
You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
Quote of the Day
I always have a quotation for everything—it saves original thinking.
—Dorothy L. Sayers
Where in the World is Lee Stranahan?
As near as I can tell, he’s spent the weekend in Steubenville, Ohio, where he’s been doing a first-rate job of debunking the outrageous lies being told about a rape case, the people involved, and the whole town.
As Mr. Stranahan has noted, there seems to be some sort of tie between the Anonymoids harassing Steubenville and Team Kimberlin. Cabin Boy Bill Schmalfeldt’s fascination with Lee Stranahan has led him to make all sorts of unsupported claims—the most recent being that Mr. Stranahan was not, in fact, in Steubenville this weekend.
Now, I don’t know of my own personal eyewitness knowledge that Mr. Stranahan went to Ohio this weekend. However, I’ve had a communication from a trustworthy person claiming to have paid for Mr. Stranahan’s airline ticket. Moreover, I’ve found Lee Stranahan to be truthful. CBBS, OTOH, is routinely found to be factually challenged.
CBBS and his followers and sock puppets are all over Twitter demanding that someone prove where Lee Stranahan was today. That’s nonsense. They are claiming that he wasn’t where he said he was. They are making an accusation. They are obliged to prove it.
Either offer proof, not innuendo, but proof, that Lee Stranahan was not in Steubenville, or shut up.
Gun Knowledge Test
Ace of Spades HQ has caught the Chicago Tribune is a rather silly error about bayonet lugs on M16s. See if you can correctly identify the mystery rifle part.
Civility is a Characteristic of the Civilized
Stacy McCain has another post up about the University of Rhode Island professor who has made a fool of himself with his comments concerning Wayne LaPierre and the NRA.
You know, I really am glad that he’s working this story so that I don’t have to.
Bonus Quote of the Day
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
—Winston Churchill
Proper Grammar and Punctuation
I agree with Stacy McCain in the importance of proper grammar and punctuation. In a short piece posted today he writes:
There’s probably no connection. On the other hand, maybe my insistence on proper spelling, punctuation and grammar — even in such informal contexts as Twitter and text-messaging — is evidence of a traditionalist predisposition.
Bravo! But I would make one change. My tradition-bound punctuation propensity would have included the so-called Harvard comma in
… proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar …
The Liberal Grouch Demonstrates How NOT to Vet a Source
The Liberal Grouch briefly published and then withdrew pictures of a woman who he identified as Lee Stranahan’s ex-wife. She was not.
There’s a reason why one is supposed to rely on verifiable information when one publishes. A real Shoe Leather Reporter explains the potential problems of not doing one’s homework.
Quote of the Day
Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.
—Guy Kawasaki
Gun Reporting @ NPR!
NPR has a report about the new AK-12 assault rifle. (H/T, Shall Not Be Questioned) In it they correctly point out that the AK family of weapons is to Russian exporting what Coca-Cola is America’s.
But, of course, the got something wrong.
Designed in 1945 by former Russian tank gunner Mikhail Kalashnikov, the AK-47 was the first gun to bridge the gap between submachine guns and long, heavy rifles.
Nope, not hardly. The first assault rifle was the German StG44 from WWII. Here’s a picture of a German soldier using one during the Battle of the Bulge.
Brevity Verbosity is the Soul of Wit a Nitwit
It seems that the new CAFE regs coming from the EPA are not only the most costly to the economy, they’re the most verbose. They require over 550 pages of 10-point type set in three columns. Today’s Federal Register wasn’t released on time. Hmmm.
Moses needed fewer than 80,000 words for the Torah. That’s all the Law plus the histories of the Patriarchs and the Exodus.
Nanny Bloomberg Says …
Nanny Bloomberg says,
“This haiku may save your life.
Proceed with caution.”
Facts? What Facts? Oh, Those Facts!
Allahpundit has a post up shaking his head over the silliness of a Frank Rich piece that tries to recycle the failed idea that the JFK assassination was a right-wing plot. This brings to mind a second Dorothy L. Sayers quote for today. She gave Bunter these words:
My old mother always used to say, my lord, that facts are like cows. If you stare them in the face hard enough, they generally run away.
Stare away, Mr. Rich.
UPDATE–Bryan Preston adds this in a post at PJ Media:
… Frank Rich. His column shows that in all the decades since Kennedy’s murder, the left has never really changed. They blamed Dallas for Kennedy’s death then, and they blame Sarah Palin and conservatives for the senseless shooting in Tucson this year. The facts of the story change, but the smear stays the same. Frank Rich blames “hate” for both, but the only hate on display is his own.
Quote of the Day
I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.
–Carl Sandburg
Homophone Phobia?
I guess Justin Sink suffers from homophone phobia.
You beat him with a Cain.
If your name is Cain, you can make jokes about caning your opponent, and if both of you are black, the remark probably isn’t racially motivated.
Duh.
What are they teaching in “journalism schools” these days? I learned about homophones in the seventh grade.
Earth Calling Alter, Over
Jonathan Alter has a piece up at Bloomberg where he asserts that the Obama administration has been miraculously free of scandal.
[T]he president’s Teflon is intriguing.
Mr. Alter must be living on a different planet from me. Fast and Furious. Bad Karma (made in Finland). Black Panther voter intimidation. CLASS Act. I could go on and on. It’s not that there’s no dirt; the MSM is doing its best to keep it away from the President. We don’t really know if he’s Teflon-coated. Little sticks because little has been applied.
UPDATE—Tina Korbe comments at Hot Air:
Instead of marveling at the Obama miracle, maybe Alter ought to do a little reporting himself.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE 2—It dawns on me that one might consider the Obama administration relatively scandal free considering its roots in Chicago machine politics, but that really isn’t the point of view of Alter’s piece.
Nobody Died During Watergate
Bob Owens has an excellent piece on the main stream media’s apparent complicity with the DoJ’s misdeeds relating to gunrunning to Mexican Drug cartels.
When I was working in broadcasting, we viewed our news operation as a check on the government, as one of the things that helped keep it accountable to the people. It looks as if a bunch of the newsies have changed sides.
Burn Due to Water-ski on Fire, Initial Encounter
V91.07XA is the medical code derived from ICD-10-CM for the condition described above. I can understand the need for precision in diagnosis, but this is silly.
It’s also bad English usage. The phrase “due to” does not express causality; it expresses obligation or denotes scheduling, as in “My salary is due to be paid on the 15th,” or “The train is due to arrive at 4:13 pm.”
There’s a certain sloppiness of thought that uses the wrong words to attempt to give the appearance of precision. Why would we want the bureaucrats mandating such silliness to manage our health care?
UPDATE–Does anyone know the code for Burn Due to Tar and Feathers, Initial Encounter?
