…sort of. Oh, they’re still collecting their blood money, but the “feddle gummint” thugs have their paperwork in hand for 2011, now, at least. May they choke on it.
Just sayin’.
Yet Another Cavil, Gripe, Grumble, Complaint
Full Curmudgeon Mode, I suppose… *sigh*
Something I’ve noticed more and more recently–and even worse, found myself unconsciously influenced by!–is a growing occurrence of sentence fragments used in the place of complete sentences. It doesn’t seem to matter what the genre is, either. I’ve seen it (of course *arrgghh!*) in the simperings, whinings and blatherings of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, in academic writing and in fiction. The use of sentence fragments that are nothing more than prepositional phrases in place of complete sentences is especially pernicious.
I suppose some may be excusable in casual writing as some sort of contemporary method of adding emphasis to a preceding sentence. Maybe. But it’s seeming to become pervasive, invasive and influential as it corrupts clear, concise writing.
It’s irritating, especially when coming from the pens of otherwise capable, competent, effective writers. Are they simply trying to write for the ADD/ADHD crowd, those whose attention spans can’t grasp the use of commas, conjunctions, semi-colons and other means of joining independent clauses, and who even stumble over the simple addition of a prepositional phrase modifying or expanding upon an independent clause?
Thankfully, my writing style does drive off those whose grasp of English falls within the parameters of “Me, Tarzan. You, Jane” or “See Dick. See Jane. See Dick run. See Jane run.” I really don’t want or need anyone reading my screeds who’s too lazy, inattentive or stupid to understand sentences longer than three or four words…
Oh, well. It’s not as though I gave a rat’s patootie; it just chaps my gizzard a wee tad.
/rant off
Wisdom of the Ages
From Forward the Mage by by Eric Flint, Richard Roach and Jim Baen: How to deal with enemies:
Whenever you can, stab ’em in the back.
Better yet, stab ’em in the back in the dead of night.
Best of all, stab ’em in the back in the dead of night while they’re asleep.
If you’ve got to stab ’em in the front, try a low blow.
If none of that works, then use all your skills as best you can, you stupid dummy.
Git ‘er done.
*heh*
We R Rural
Pretty much, here in America’s Third World County, yep: rural, all right. Purdue University has applied an “Index of Relative Rurality” to stats from American counties that illustrates the point pretty well.
A recently introduced, continuous, multidimensional measure of rurality, the Index of Relative Rurality (IRR), avoids the confusing effects of inclusion in metro boundaries. (2) It does not answer the question “Is a county rural or urban?” but instead addresses the question “What is a county’s degree of rurality?”
The IRR is based on four dimensions of rurality: population, population density, extent of urbanized area and distance to the nearest metro area. These dimensions are unquestioned in terms of their contribution to rurality and are incorporated implicitly in many existing rurality definitions. The index is scaled from 0 to 1, with 0 representing the most urban place and 1 representing the most rural place
(CLEEK to Embeegan, as TWC’s–relatively–vast alien invasion population might say *sigh*)
See that color code next to the bottom? That’s us. We’re not completely devoid of human habitation, and we do have access to–sort of–“urban” areas, but da “piney woods” is our “back yard” (and for many their front yard too), and there are parts of the county where YOU DO NOT GO even if you aren’t a terminally stupid “revenooer”.
A good place for a “bug out location”. Just sayin’.
Oh, you’ll notice I gave no further indication of which of those counties color-coded with the next-to-most-rural coding is America’s Third World County. Long time readers of this blog can pick it out right away, anyway.
Amazingly Talented
I have an amazing lip-reading ability. For example, I do watch Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind “news” programs every now and then, but I mute the sound when I do. That way, when, say, The Zero is featured in a clip, I can amaze others present with my lip-reading ability. For example, in the clip the following graphic was extracted from…
“Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.”
See? Amazing.
(BTW, I also have the ability to read minds. I know this because I got absolutely nothin’ from Biden.)
This Stuff Is Simply the Best
I used to use another product that’s almost as good to clean post n pans, coffee and hard water “stained” glasses and mugs, etc., but this stuff is less expensive and better:
While I mostly use it nowadays to shine up my “stainless” steel pots and pans, it has tons more uses. Gottaloveit. Just sayin’.
Lies, Damned Lies and The Zero’s “SOTU” Lies
(Titled with insincere apologies to Twain.)
After perusing the text*, I think summing up all the lies The Zero’s phony “State of the Union” address (more like, “State of the Election” campaign speech?) would simply, for the most part, be a repeat of the text. Is there any substantive portion of the text that could stand as an example of an honest reflection of actual fact? No.
And this is what we have come to as a society: this bald-faced liar is viewed by 40% or more (in many polls, a majority!) of those polled as someone worthy of re-election. If such polls are to be believed, then America deserves to be placed on the ash heap of history.
Second thought… the text presented at the link is presented as, “Full text of President Obama’s State of the Union Address, as provided by the White House”–something that doesn’t necessarily inspire any confidence that it really is an actual transcript, and in fact almost assures that it is not, given the serial deceptions this administration is infamous for. But still, I have no desire to watch a video of it and be simultaneously bored to tears by the typical lackluster, lame, awful lack of oratorical skills The Zero genuinely possesses in place of the myth of his oratorical genius, AND infuriated by bald-faced lies issuing from his pie hole.
BTW, before anyone cites The Zero’s credit-hogging on the matter of the Bin Laden execution operation as a truthful statement, I’ll just flatly state that his claim of credit for Bin Laden’s death is so highly exaggerated as to make a lie of the thin facts it depends upon. And that, as any thinking person well knows, is how one constructs “competent” lies: out of a few facts comprising thinly applied lipstick on the pig the liar wants idiots to miss seeing.
I’ll Scan a Transcript Later
Who, me? Watch the State of the (Dys)Union Lies? Nah. The lies will be much easier to spot reading a transcript. For one thing, confronting the lies that way is less likely to result in vomit on the floor and a RCOB* evening.
*RCOB=”red curtain of blood” referring to what would likely descend over my eyes as I went berserker. Just sayin’. I am able to be a wee tad more dispassionately analytical–or at least able to almost fake the dispassion–when confronted with lies in print.
Not Quite That Ambitious
I saw an article on building a Linux-controlled “Corretto” coffee roaster and thought, “Cool, but where would I put everything in our kitchen? I’d have to build on an addition!”
*heh*
Still, one of the things that gives Henry Ward Beecher a claim to historical immortality that rival’s his sister’s is his appreciation of good coffee:
“A cup of coffee – real coffee – home-browned, home ground, home made, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy nor frothing on the Java: such a cup of coffee is a match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all.” – Henry Ward Beecher
And, after reading the above paean to a good cuppa joe and singing a few verses of O Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree i9n appreciation of The Holy Brew (#1) myself, almost the article cited above persuadeth me to do a “Linux Coffee Roaster” build of my own… Almost. I’d still need to build that addition onto the house.
Metaphor Inflation=Imagination Deprivation
I can recall a time well over half a century ago (OK, I was four years old) when I went around “touching” things with an imaginary eleven foot pole that I “wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole”.
And then I read recently,
They’d be fools to touch it with a 40 foot pole.
*sigh*