"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Made arrangements for a car repair today with a new (to us) mechanic (referral from a STRONG referral). Guy I ended up talking with had the same name (last name NOT common) as a childhood buddy of mine (now deceased). Of course, I didn’t know that until I’d made arrangements and got his card, but a nice lil addendum to the transaction.
I think Son&Heir’s car is in good hands.
Probably. *heh*
. . . that my fav line from Ghost, by John Ringo is,
“Dead bad guys and naked girls. It’s like an op in a titty bar.”
Yeh, there are tons of great lines/scenes in the book, but somehow, that one gets me every time. (And, yes, since confession is good for the soul, I do re-read the first book of the Paladin of Shadows series every now and then. It’s a quick “palate cleanser” *heh*)
I like simple, one-pot recipes. Cube a couple of steaks and brown ’em. Add chopped peppers and onion (and some freshly ground black pepper). Toss in a cuppa rice, some tumeric (& whatever *heh*), and a couple of cupsa beer. Lil later, add some frozen peas. Let it all kinda simmer a while, then chow.
Oh, some beer batter bread is a nice accompaniment.
And another beer. 😉
The US reached an impressive 81% high school graduation rate in 2013. That was also the year that, had previous models been followed, the Department of (Mis)Education would have conducted another National Assessment of Adult Literacy. But, of course, following the dismal results of the 2003 assessment (which varied not a whit from the 1993 assessment) did not militate for yet another embarrassing survey.
Oh, that 2003 NAAL? Here’s all you need to know: 69% of recent (at that time) college grads could not read and understand “complex text” that included bus schedules, want ads, warning labels and driving directions.
BTW, the CIA Factbook defines that level of “reading” ability as illiteracy. Warring bureaucrappies? No, because although more than 50% of Americans–based on the NAAL, cannot read such materials, the CIA Factbook hilariously states that American literacy is over 97%. BTW, the NAAL dumbed down the term “literacy” to the point that it could come up with an 81% literacy rate. The data disagrees. . . and has become harder to get to recently, for some reason.
Has literacy in the US improved since then? The question virtually answers itself.
*sigh*
While it is not (yet) correct to say that all US citizens are functionally illiterate, it is far to say not only that not all US citizens are functionally illiterate, but that probably 50% or more of them can tell no difference between the first statement and the second.
*gagamaggot*
Reading almost anything written in the last 30 years is a crap shoot. As traditional publishers have come to be run more and more by bean counters and literate editors have been more and more pushed aside in favor of hucksters who know how to weigh manuscripts or some other such stupid criteria, the murder of the English language there has become more and more par for the course. Still, there seem to be a (very) few literate adults left in trad pub houses.
“Indie” publishing is all over the place, but yes, execrable treatment of English is a wee tad more common in “Indie” books. It’s as though in all forms of publishing practiced nowadays, books are becoming dominated by products from writers (and proofreaders and editors) who all received degrees in Assassinating English from Valley Girl U.
Example abound, but the proximal cause of this wee rant is,
“If X didn’t hack into Y’s accounts and trace the money to Z, we might never have put it together.”
No, moronic graduate of Valley Girl U. No. “”If X hadn’t hacked. . . ”
I really, really, really wanted to dope slap the writer (and any proofreader and editor) for that, especially since it was the capstone of many usage, grammar and utterly stupid POV errors.
People who want to get paid to write (or proofread or edit) text should do their due diligence. They ought to at least work to become minimally literate. The example above disqualifies the writer (and any proofreader and editor involved in the book) from inclusion in the class, “literate.”
Let’s take just a couple of small problems with the cult’s doctrines, mmmK?
Global temperature measures. How are the NOAA, et al, figures arrived at? From weather stations situated however one of the cultists feels best, apparently. Web search it (not Google, please) to see the ways cultists situate weather stations in heat oases. Truth. Why, I could do the same kind of thing here in America’s Third World County™! For example, both the digital and good ol’ analog thermometers on my front porch regularly yield temps between four and FIFTEEN degrees higher than the local electric company’s weather station a mile away in the bottoms, and on days like today (overcast, moist air, wet ground from recent rains) the windy area at the top of the hill just a quarter of a mile away from the bottoms is even cooler.
Guess where an Anthropogenic Climate Warmening cultist would put a weather station. Good guess.
Then there are the well-documented cases of cultists (falsely claiming all sorts of “scientific” reasons) having falsified data to render decades of lower temps (the data for the early part of the 20th Century for darned near ALL of South America has been corrupted by Anthropogenic Climate Warmening cultists. And they proudly proclaim they’ve done so, giving bullshit reasons–of course).
And, of course, Climategate. Oh, sure, Anthropogenic Climate Warmening cultists have made all kinds of excuses for the truth that Anthropogenic Climate Warmening cultists ADMITTED FALSIFYING DATA to fit their models, but no one with more active brain cells than a dead poodle believes their lies, even those who say they do.
If the Warmenists would just stop lying, I’d start paying more attention to them, but they can’t, because to do so would be to deny their dogmatic assertions of faith in bullshit.
I’m really tired of all this “hashtag this/hashtag that” crap.
Just shove it up your nose, blow it out your ears, and rub it in your hair.
OK, “backyard” I can almost buy as a noun, since it’s been (fairly infrequently) used that way, and not just as an adjective, since the 17th Century. It’s still infelicitous. (And note the differences in pronunciation between “back yard” [separate adj+noun] and “backyard”[adj]) But using the adjective “backseat” as a noun in place of “back seat” is just laziness, committed by writers whose verbal vocabulary exceeds their reading/writing vocabulary (and who have a tin ear for nuances of pronunciation, as well). How many morons write “frontseat” to be used as a noun? Yeh, maybe a few–though in today’s increasingly illiterate society, increasing in number–morons. Unfortunately, there is a growing number of subliterate, lazy writers misusing adjectives as nouns. . . and editors and “proofreaders” who are just as subliterate and lazy. All should be flogged with dangling participles.
And all of the above who get paid for their abuse of English should be flogged–for real–through the streets before being tarred and feathered.
That is all. For now. . .
Arrogant media elites mock Middle America
As The Puppy Blender said, “Most of these media folks come from flyover country, and their main source of self-regard lies in feeling superior to the rubes they left back home, who never properly appreciated them in high school. . . ”
Yeh, it’s all about getting back at the kids who shunned them in high school. That’s surprisingly credible.