I'm with Grandma. Good lord who wants to think about this now?
South Dakota, which is a state
We used to go there because bottle rockets were legal.
Good lord who wants to think about this now?
I do!
But, you know, feel free to talk about Michael Crichton instead.
Michael Crichton will definitely not be on the ballot in 2012.
Boy did The Andromeda Strain suck ass. Learn to write an ending, Chrichton! OOPS TOO LATE.
2: Well, 2006 was totally correct that Mitt Romney ran against Hillary Clinton for president in 2008.
Michael Crichton, like Paul Volcker and Jimmy Stewart, seem to get a lot of undeserved respect based on the fact that they are unusually tall.
Eaters of the Dead was a pretty good book in my opinion.
Jurassic Park made a pretty good film once Spielberg had carefully filtered out all the unpleasant aspects of Crichton's psyche which had seeped into the book.
Did he write Coma? That scared the bejeezus out of me when I read it as a kid.
Wrote the book and directed the movie.
13: Oddly he didn't write the book, but he did direct the movie.
He didn't write "Coma". I would have read it if he did. I read all his books up until "Airframe".
He was super-tall?
Huh, in all the hoopla, I had not heard that Crichton was dead. 'Spect that goes for lotsa folx.
Has anyone yet living read Dealing: Or The Berkele-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues? I saw a copy on a friend's nightstand once, and it intrigued me, but I've never seen it again and haven't been motivated to read it. The only other Crichton I've read is the two Jurassic Park books.
He was super-tall?
Huh. I had either missed or forgotten that he died.
9: I don't know about Crichton or Volcker, but Jimmy Stewart was great.
17: Check his date of death and you'll realize why.
I had not heard that Crichton was dead.
How could they tell?
(What's up with this site, that got lost?)
14: Oh, right. Wrote the *screenplay* and directed the movie.
Check his date of death and you'll realize why.
Obama killed Michael Crichton!
My Dad and Chrichton grew up together and were frenemies for about 50 years. One of the most fun things you can do in my parents' house is to get my Dad to go on a rant about what an asshole Chrichton was.
25: I look forward to the congressional hearings. It'll be like Vince Foster—plus dinosaurs! Yay!
After Sarah Palin sweeps the primaries in '12, I predict she will select Amy, Congo's talking gorilla, as her running mate. The cross-over appeal of the first (mostly) human (mostly) ape ticket, combined with Democratic disappointment in Obama and a last-minute push by George W. Bush, who comes out of retirement to make his chimp face at every whistle-stop, will return the Republicans to the White House. But their triumph will be brief. Before the end of her first 100 days, Sarah will resign the Presidency to play herself in a big budget biopic, starring with Jennifer Grey and Yahoo Serious, and Amy, the talking gorilla, will be inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. Americans will have a Commander-in-Chief they can look up to at last.
29: A Michael Crichton plot with an arrogant, powerful woman who overestimates her own intelligence and gets out of her depth? I never heard of such a ...
oh, sorry.
From the link in 26:
Who needs a mandate when you have a majority in both houses? This is stupid.
Posted by: Tassled Loafered Leech | Link to this comment | 11- 5-08 11:27 AM
Sigh.
Apparently one of the House Repubs top priorities is going to be to provide an amnesty to all criminals that are illegal immigrants, aka passing a bill saying that illegal immigrants are not subject to US jurisdiction, aka ending birthright citizenship.
I'm having trouble following the equivalencies in 32.
I have some, very small, hopes that Obama will go past even FDR in his compassion, responsibility and courage to eztrelegality.
Posted by: bob mcmanus
Hey! It's not just everyone in the world other than bob mcmanus who failed to detect, before the election, the crystal-clear signals that Obama was history's greatest monster. It's bob mcmanus too!
I don't get 32 either. If somebody is illegally in the U.S. and gets arrested, they get tried. If convicted, they go to prison and get deported on release.
The constitution guarantees birthright citizenship to all who are born in America to people subject to US jurisdiction, i.e. without diplomatic immunity. If you want to block children of illegal immigrants from getting citizenship without changing the constitution you can only do so on the basis that US courts have no more right to try illegal immigrants for crimes than they do foreign diplomats.
1. The constitution says that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States".
2. Therefore, anyone born in the US but not subject to its jurisdiction is not a US citizen. This would be, for example, the offspring of a foreign diplomat.
3. Therefore, if you pass a law saying that IIs aren't subject to US jurisdiction, [I think terza is saying], their children won't be citizens.
4. IIs would also be able to commit crimes in the US without fear of punishment, though, so I don't think this is really a goer.
36, 37: Then they want to change the constitution? Check IDs in maternity wards?
They're arguing that they don't need to since II's shouldn't be seen as persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and therefore all they have to do is pass a law to that effect.
It strikes me that Sarah Palin is the Republican equivalent to William Jennings Bryan. Immensely popular, ran for President three times, defeated three times. I could even see her in her own Scopes Monkey Trial, fighting against some new scientific theory.
Bryan was noted for his speaking ability.
And he was a total MILF
Midwesterner I'd like to follow?
Bryan was noted for his speaking ability
True Dat, Moby. But Mrs. Palin looks good on TV, which is more important to the modern voter.
44: She hardly ever bring the goods out to the front, IFKWIMAITYD.
And Bryan campaigned in shirts open to this navel.
IIs would also be able to commit crimes in the US without fear of punishment, though, so I don't think this is really a goer.
Aahh, but now we have this lovely precedent for setting up kangaroo courts for people who aren't under US jurisdiction but we still want to try anyway. So you have one real system for people who can prove that they are US citizens and another for terrorists and illegal aliens (or maybe just Muslims and Mexicans.)
You won't get such a system in place with Obama as president, but I'm certain it will be hugely popular with white US voters. Maybe in 2012
48.last: The American Cleavage and Citizenship Integration Act (ACACIA) of 2013.
45. I have no idea who her new handlers are, but between Her TV show and her daughter's incomprehensible Dancing with the Stars popularity she is certainly getting a lot of face time with the voters, all for free. Maybe she put the hit on that Hollywood publicist
50: My prediction ( was that after a scandal knocked her out of politics, Sarah Palin would find great success in a reality tv show about her family.
My prediction doesn't seem that far off, but the reality seems even weirder.
What moved him, at bottom, was simply hatred of city men who had laughed at him so long, and brought him at last to so tatterdemalion an estate.
From Mencken's obituary of W.J. Bryant.
That sounds kind of like Sarah -- except you couldn't call her estate "tatterdemalion".
The power brokers aren't going to support Palin unless she's accompanied by a second-in-command who can direct her appropriately, for some value of appropriately.
A lot is going to happen in the next two years. What's odd is that the first Republican presidential primary debate is supposedly as early as this coming spring, last I heard; I imagine it will be a zoo.
Meanwhile the establishment vs. Tea Party Republicans are going to be smacking each other around both publicly and privately. McConnell isn't thrilled about having to capitulate over earmarks. It wouldn't surprise me if there's an internal party discussion over the kind of funding that empowered the Tea Party (Armey and FreedomWorks, Rove and American Crossroads).
Oops, group therapy time! But I'll be back. Just promise you'll think about letting me in the club, okay? You guys are the best.
she is certainly getting a lot of face time with the voters
At the same time she's subscribing to the Donald's (not The Donalde) belief that there's no such thing as bad publicity. We'll see how this works out for her.
What moved him, at bottom, was simply hatred of city men who had laughed at him so long,
To tie two threads together, I am convinced that the adolescent revenge fantasy, as in Enders Game and Atlas Shrugged, will be America's signiture contribution to world literature. Just as the ancient Greeks are known for epic poetry, and czarist Russia is known for long family novels, Americans will be known for petty, self-indulgent, self-centered stories of grotesque violence.
the adolescent revenge fantasy
I think rob is on to something here. But of course, America's medium is the cinema. I nominate this fine film
56: I thought it would be superhero comics. Maybe it's the same thing.
I can't possibly fathom how Republicans think Ending Earmarks will work when it comes to their own pet projects.
60: Michelle Bachmann is on the case.
|| I have this insanely bright blue SAD LED thing shining at my face. I cannot believe this does anything. It's probably like ear candles. Oh well, I'm sure it's all about having a good attitude.
|>
62: Oh man. Well, more convenient than moving to a tropical island. (I know someone who did that because of their SAD. Like you even need an excuse!)
62: perhaps you eventually feel like so much of an idiot it's impossible not to get a big idiot grin on your face, leading ineluctably to an elevated mood?
The way I cured my SAD was to move to California and realize I wasn't actually necessarily happier.
Why is the SAD LED bright blue, and insanely bright? And shining at your face? Shouldn't it be ambient? Why is it bright blue?
62: I think it's working! You seem happier already!
I mean I really have Job-Tired-of-Affective Disorder if we're being honest, and they don't make a light for that. If anyone has a tropical island, I am up for doing a study. "Effects of Tropical Islands on Being Tired of Your Damn Job."
66: No, these things they make for SAD are REALLY REALLY BRIGHT and you have to shine them at your face for some period of time. I'm not sure if they're actually supposed to be blue. I think it doesn't matter because it's all made up anyway?
69: Is there a risk of blindness? Is is like with masturbation -- just a chance you'll have to take?
70, corrected: Is there a risk of blindness? Is it like with masturbation -- just a chance you'll have to take?
I have actually been tired of my job on a high quality tropical island, complete with palm trees, fresh coconuts, and flying foxes. Didn't help with the job much.
REALLY REALLY BRIGHT and you have to shine them at your face for some period of time
That just sounds wrong.
SAD is a real thing, and light is an issue, and sunlight is relevant, and Vitamin D is in play, as is just plain exercise, getting out and about during daylight hours, but seriously, shining a really really bright light at your face sounds distressing. I imagine there's research behind it, though.
Sunlight is indeed relevant. I work in an interior office and don't see the sun during the work week. This year I'm trying Vitamin D, I think. I'm going to order it on the internet rather than walk four blocks to the health food store, though, because if there's one thing I am sure of after many years of life, it's that exercise is worse than unhappiness.
Oh I'm kidding. Sort of.
You know what'll cheer you up faster than any fancy light?
I knew that's where that link would lead.
Why is it bright blue?
Because Smearcase comes from beyond the stars. From a hotter planet that circles a brighter, bluer sun.
75: Oh I'm kidding. Sort of.
Mm, I'd try to walk four blocks to the health food store. This has many, many benefits. You will see people who are involved in the project of being healthy. That's good. You can ask them about the Vitamin D thing. They'll probably have things to say! They might smile in the process.
One step at a time! Do that.
75: Vitamin D and B12 (at like 1000mcg/day) are good for just that kind of lowish-level depressiony seasonal stuff.
I'd try to walk four blocks to the health food store.
But think of the horrible people you might come across under leaden skies on the way there, not to mention the people at the store itself. Is it worth the risk?
I read a while ago about a lamp that changed color during the course of the day, simulating dawn and dusk. I thought it sounded like a great idea, but I've never been able to relocate it since then.
82: A cow-orker used to have something like that. It always reminded me of Simon, the memory game.
Speaking of lamps that will cheer you right up + 60s/70s.
I had no idea Crichton was very tall. Great pair of sentences from his Wikipedia page (which is weirdly fannish):
As an adolescent Crichton felt isolated because of his height (at 6'9"). As an adult he was acutely aware of his intellect which often left him feeling alienated from the people around him.
Why is it bright blue?
Sympathetic magic. You feel blue, so you look into the blue light, and it takes your blues away.
It's like how looking at yellow birds helps with jaundice.
There was a 19th c. boondoggle/error sciency claim that blue light cured, uh, lots of things. It's in _Banvard's Folly_. Steampunk cure.
Lights set to come on gradually just before your alarm goes off, and also to turn themselves off gradually when you know you ought to go to sleep but can't stop reading, are excellent.
ALso, the Sha Na Na scholarly analysis is almost perfect. To be truly perfect, it needs to be always already a fiction itself.
As an adolescent Crichton felt isolated because of his height (at 6'9"). As an adult he was acutely aware of his intellect which often left him feeling alienated from the people around him.
"As a middle-aged man he often felt isolated by his great wealth and popularity."
Related to the height issue: I've seen it claimed that Aussie actor Bruce Spence is "the tallest man ever to be the lead in a feature film". Could this be true?
[the film in question being, among others, Herzog's "Where the Green Ants Dream"]
The really awesome thing about the sentence about Crichton's intelligence is that it's immediately followed by: "During the 1970s and 1980s he consulted psychics and enlightenment gurus to make him feel more socially acceptable and to improve his karma." Yes, what an amazing intellect!
@89
Spence's a kiwi.
Spence's what is a kiwi? His favorite fruit?
No his favorite bird.
As an adolescent Crichton felt isolated because of his height (at 6'9"). As an adult he was acutely aware of his intellect which often left him feeling alienated from the people around him.
Agreed that this is a great pair of sentences. My housemate is 6'7" and it's notable enough, affecting many things in ways one might not have considered. Another two inches would be, well, another two inches.
Bruce Spence is "the tallest man ever to be the lead in a feature film". Could this be true?
Some of the user reviews may be subtly ironic.
10/10 stars
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Dude. This movie was AWESOME. I loved when he dunked it. Alright, i'm drinking, but so what? So, apparently I have to fill 10 lines of text. That's terrible. Good thing I got half a bottle of wine left. So, yeah, Kazaam was amazing. Shaq was a genie. Who better to play the part? No one, that's who. Yizzeah. So, anyway, Max lives in Compton and is sick of getting shot at so he hires this basketball player to be his genie. Said basketball player is terrible at free-throws. Anyway, this guy is always..like..turning crap into something else and making some other crap fall from the sky. Then he (and the Miami Heat) beat the Washington Wizards 105-86 in the opening game of their Eastern-Conference-semifinals playoff series, but then he lost to Steve Nash in the MVP voting. So, the moral is, genies are better than wizards.
Minivet, type "dawn simulator" in the search window on Amazon.
Hi, I'm Mister Smearcase, and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to cheer the fuck up.
And yet where is your gravy fountain?
For what it's worth, Standpipe Bridgeplate spoke of this dawn simulator as well. Ze was to report back on its efficacity, but never did as far as I know. Results vary, no doubt.
98: Talk to me after I've poured a few tequilas up my nose and I might just go for a gravy fountain or two.
Two gravy fountains would be gauche.
God can you imagine? Sit back and tip a margarita-ful neti pot into your nasal cavity as gravy burbles merrily against your forehead? I should open a spa.
103: But what would you use for colonic irrigation and anal bleaching?
Neti pots could work with gravy.
With the protection against rodent pests an obvious side benefit.
And not just rodents:
CoyotePee is the solution for Deer, Raccoon, Groundhog,& Woodchuck, IGUANA and Training medium-size DogsThose other things are irritating, but I sure as hell don't want an IGUANA up there.
Nor an untrained medium-size Dog.
I am so not going to click on the link in 108, given that gravy is under discussion.
And 110 confirms my decision.
And now the blog will observe a few moments' silence while commenters figure out what the acronym IGUANA stands for.
I'm Gonna Urinate And Never Aim?
Fucking benefactors apparently decided the past few years of postdoc recruitment dinners have involved too much money and this year arranged with the restaurant to give us a limited menu to choose from. I want my free multiple whiskeys, dammit.
Um, nonetheless, I am drunk in my office.
You should stick it to 'em by getting even drunker, essear.
Trapnel and essear have started an Unfogged around-the-world inebriation relay. I suppose I could do my part for this time zone, but the project seems likely to peter out over the Pacific.
119: Where's Not Prince Hamlet when we need him?
Essear's situation is grim. Fucking benefactors.
Good point. Just kidding, benefactors! Pls to keep paying my salary and travel expenses!
That will probably work. Maybe the travel expenses will go away, but I doubt it. You probably don't have to worry too much.
I'm not actually very drunk, just trying to uphold my internet tradition. I think I can drive home now.
I like how people I've never seen before are always lurking outside my office at night.
126: outside your office? Pssh. SEK is unimpressed.
126: Do they support you in email?
On the Venn Diagram defined by "functional", "alcoholic", and "lawyer" what are the relative proportions of the commentariat, and what function of those three variables best separates them from the general population?
In related a related issue, it so happens that I too am quite drunk.
To the OP: People divulge capitalistic testiculation.
129: I don't know how to draw Venn diagrams in comments, but I will say that this being on anti-depressants and trying to get used to a CPAP machine is a lot like being constantly hungover, except without the nausea or the fun of getting drunk.
Two gravy fountains would be gauche.
You'll never have a world-class sex grotto with that attitude.
Yeah, I probably should have added "depressive", and "test-taking ability" to make the populations cleanly-separable by a linear discriminant.
a linear discriminant
Olive Oyl first used that phrase when Hooters wouldn't hire her.
Factor analysis leads to rage and ruin, Eggplant.
Throw in "frustrated" and "academic" and we can really get down to business.
Once I get my gravy fountain, I assume frustration is past.
Our drunken internet cameradie is strictly nonlinear, Eggplant. Drunk Wolfram would have seen this.
My spelling as well is nonlinear.
I've typed PCA at least two dozen times today (and read it many more), but it was for patient-controlled analgesia. An IV bag full of gravy has real potential.
Eggplant searches in vain for b, the elusive "bro factor", in unfogged comments.
You've been gravied, bro! Take a knee and chug!
Bro' gravy how come you taste so good, now?
Bro' gravy just like a frat boy should, now
I bet your mama was a French poutine
Poutine: proof that a taste for good peasant food is not genetic.
Bro' gravy
This could work! Convenience stores can put in the space where the Four Loko cans used to be.
I could see gravy with XTREME caffeine, taurine and guarana, but the alcohol will really screw up the silky suave texture that we bros, and we be loyal bros, expect from our gravy.
The alcohol will be dispersed in the fat.
145: I bet your mama was a French poutine
A heart attack beauty of northern cuisine
I'm no Québécois but je sais ce que j'aime
You shoulda heard me just around minuit.
As all bros know, gravy is where Miller's vortex bottleneck technology is going to goddamn shine.
Hey, I drank a few beers, too, and introduced someone uninitiated to Zardoz, which we watched to completion.
THE PENIS IS EVIL!
150: I said oui, oui, oui, whooooo!
I could be such a sweet link on the "sun never sets on the btock-style empire" if I weren't a joyless teetotaller. sorry bros. maybe I could chug extra gravy to make up for it?
No worries: we can make up that gap with Smearcase's SAD light.
maybe I could chug extra gravy to make up for it?
Vivid Video presents Hot Narnian Gravychuggers 3.
Boy am I embarassed reading the comments I wrote past night, wherein I revealed I might use LDA on Boolean properties like "lawyer". Ah well, when I drink I tend to make discretion errors.
97: Thanks, Herr Schmierkiste! Damn, those are expensive.
154: all we need is a commenter a bit further west who's prepared to get btock-style starting from about, say, 10.30 am Greenwich time, to fill in the gap between the last of the drunk west-coasters slumping unconscious over their iphones and the first of the east coasters hitting the bars.
10.30 in Greenwich is 4.30 pm in Omsk, Siberia. Just saying. And if I was in Omsk with nothing to do but comment on unfogged, I think I'd probably be btock-style pretty much from breakfast.
154. There's an 8 hour time difference between GMT and Pacific. If they start in at 2:30 a.m. their time theeylll be tio btpck=sytle ven t conmnmnmnt heer.
Keir needs to stand up.
Keir needs to stand up.
And, subsequently, fall over.
It would also be a big help if some of the unemployed commenters could go ahead and start drinking at 7:30AM-ish.
I'm actually getting into this concept.
Keir's in NZ - so when the last West Coaster collapses (let's say at 0130 local, which is 0930Z) it'll be 2030 where Keir is. And he has to fight through until the first European commenter can be respectably btock-style. Let's say that's 1830 local, which would be 1730Z, or 0430 local for Keir.
Eight hours of btock-styling.
Seems a bit harsh for him to do on a regular basis, not that I'm impugning his Anzac-style hardiness or anything. I think the site still needs a commenter in India or Iran or somewhere who can take up the slack for poor old Keir.
Don't limit me just because I have a job.
yeah, step-up, unemployed people. I understand money's tight, so I'd go with a 40 of fine malt liquor; sometimes the sketchy, ethiopian-run convenience store on your corner has super-deals on the expired bottles.
if only we had someone to comment from mongolia, that would be perfect.
I think the site still needs a commenter in India or Iran
Here's where we could really use ogged.
You know what would help with this? Four.
152: I don't think I've seen it all the way through in the same sitting.
The trouble is that I think it's generally frowned on to get btock style in Iran.
167: We don't have Ethiopian-run convenience stores that I know of. We also don't have convenience stores that sell alcohol.
173: it all makes sense that way.
||
Scottish Voice-Operated Lift
|>
Are we specifically going around the globe drunk, or just trying to find someone to staff Unfogged around the clock, drunk? Because I can't remember who at the moment, but someone was recently talking about how they're a baker with nite-owl hours. They could be drunk.
I can't believe we don't have any commenters in Aqtau.
We also don't have convenience stores that sell alcohol.
Right. To the Chinese restaurant you go. I'll take Schezuan string beans and an egg roll, as long as you're heading over.
178: either is acceptable, but I think going round the globe drunk (cf. alameida's "sun never setting on the btock-style empire") would be better; otherwise the site might as well be just a local community of variously insomniac garrulously cantankerous alcoholics.
I had to look up Aqtau. At first I thought it was the imaginary world in the Borges story, but on checking I see that's Uqbar.
In Aqtau, the streets actually do have no names. U2, take note.
There's some sort of ethical werewolf out there somewhere, right?
I think the site still needs a commenter in India or Iran
Dry countries, mostly. I mean, it would be great to have people commenting from those places, but the cost of liquor is a bit prohibitive.
So we need a few strategically placed Russians.
So, the answer is to recruit some of those Russian physicists?
Or physicist groupies -- it wasn't clear.
186: I sometimes wish I hadn't broken my Civ IV cd in a failed attempt to write a dissertation.
186: Damn. Why'd we give those spies back so hastily?
(My cousin who was living in Kabul is now at the University of Chicago. Better prep for signing up here, I suppose, but useless for this project . . .)
Good morning, everybody! Just wanted to wish you all a happy Friday!
||
"An as-yet-unnamed Southern-based grocery chain is moving to McKeesport ...."
At first I thought we might be getting a Harris Tetter, but the more I think the more I guess Food Lion.
|>
186: or a bored bloke with a laptop on Diego Garcia.
188: wait, physicists have groupies? Why did no one tell me this?
I think we should recruit a drunken Somali pirate.
191. My guess is that broadband is probably a bit unreliable in Kabul, even if you were there and had a source of booze.
193: A cow-orker swears by the Food Lion-brand pita chips. So that's something to look forward to, if you like pita chips.
re: 181
I don't really call that debunking. I regularly struggle to get voice recognition systems on call-centre menu fuckery to work.
Once an airline's phone system kept pretending not to understand me when I was trying to deal with a canceled flight, but it immediately understood "Fuck you."
196 -- A certain former commenter is visiting an island in the Gulf of Aden in the near future. It would certainly be awful if anything was to go wrong, but it's nice the know that there might be an upside.
My only other idea is that Hilzoy was doing a thing a while back that had her in Pakistan semi-regularly. Btock-style commenting from her would be amusing, though dense, cerebral, and, probably, grammatically correct.
FWIW, there used to be various tricks you could use to force phone systems to connect you to people, but recently I've found most of those have stopped working.
||
A different political culture.
|>
203: I often opt for Spanish, as the wait times are many times much shorter. Take that, Red America!
201: I think I read somewhere they actually are programmed to recognize intonations that go along with seething rage.
yeah what the fuck, neil the ethical werewolf should be drunk! I'm having him over thursday, so I can totally make this happen. god it would be sweet if I could find a smirnoff ice somewhere...
I regularly struggle to get voice recognition systems on call-centre menu fuckery to work.
The problem is they don't say "Please say 'yes', 'no', or 'nae'".
re: 208
Heh. The pedant in me would point out that in most accents/dialects, 'nae' in fact means 'none'.
"Aye, we huv nae bananas"
And, since we are on the topic, was bamboozling an English speaker with this the other day:
http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/corpus/search/document.php?documentid=1474
[Came across it via a google search for one of the words in the poem]
essear is frequently drunk in his office on the University's dime, and physicists have groupies. Clearly I went into the wrong business.
210. No. I can follow the gist, but I couldn't translate it without a dictionary.
209: "If you are calling with a query about your bill, please headbutt the '1' key."
204: So what's the deal with the BBC headlines where they put phrases in inverted commas? France rejects 'Bin Laden talks' for instance? Or Indonesian maid 'killed in Saudi'? Is that like an overall English newspaper thing, or some arbitrary BBC convention or what?
I'm actually rather proud that I can translate about 80% of that... clearly I haven't been completely deracinated yet.
re: 215
I had to look up three words as I had no clue, and a couple of others I guessed [and was right], but I probably followed 95% of it right off the bat. I'm from a fairly Scots speaking area, though, and have studied Scots briefly at uni'.
214: it implies "this is what someone else, someone less reliable than us and probably foreign, is saying; it's not necessarily what we, from our podia of Reithian infallibility, are saying".
So the Indonesian maid is only "'killed in Saudi'" not "killed in Saudi", because we've only got the Indo government's word for her death and the circumstances thereof. The 'Bin Laden talks' may or may not have been a credible offer. The video wasn't of a real happy, just someone pretending to have a happy. Etc.
I see, that sort of makes sense. Awfully English.
re: 214
The BBC always does that. It's not a general newspaper convention, though. Any time the BBC is referring to someone else's description of an event, person or thing it tends to put it in inverted commas. Also, any time that a particular description is contentious or questioned, or the product of a partial point of view, and so on. They are pretty promiscuous with them.
re: 220
Do they do that in German? Either way, I think you can lay pretty high odds that anything the BBC does is NOT in conscious imitation of the Germans.
They have a special tense they use for that purpose.
Teraz is presumably alluding to the Konjunktiv I mood.
I called a business yesterday, keyed the option for "I know who I want to talk to" and it told me to type in their name on the key pad. My phone only has a qwerty keypad, not an abc=2 keypad. I hate my phone, btw. It wouldn't let me go back to an operator, and the system hung up on me after two attempts. I got momentarily furious.
Ah, that's interesting. I didn't know that mood existed.
I'm the baker with crazy hours. If it wasn't my day off, I'd be btock-style right now. In fact, yesterday at this time, I was drinking an enormous hot toddy. Going out for the after-shift beer with co-workers at 9:15 am is a little strange. Fortunately, Portland, ME is a fisherman's town, and there are fisherman bars.
My favorite has a bacon burger with a fried egg on top, called the third-shifter. One day, I looked up from my cribbage game to see a man(obviously a regular) mumble his (regular) order and receive a pint glass full of vodka. Then I found five dollars.
My grandfather grew up in Maine! And he plays cribbage!
Horse race, indeed. I accidentally caught a few minutes of the end of Hardball the other week. Andrea Mitchell pronounced definitively that there would be a challenger to Obama.
Someone else suggested the possibility of Feingold, though even CM wasn't enough of a bull-shitter to agree to that.
Smearcase-- A dawn simulator helped a lot for me. It turns your light on gradually to help you wake up and (even if you still need a regular alarm) it tricks your brain into thinking that it's a June morning.
CPAP is so ridiculous, but it can really help!
The medical supply business is the most opaque thing and so corrupt. I thought about switching companies and going online, but I kind of have to deal with the one my doctor uses.
Okay, totally pwned.
My doctor did vitamin D blood levels, and I was deficient even at 600 mg a day or so. She recommended Costco's Kirkland brand or Nature Made, because they're USP verified.
There's a lot of lead in some supplements. (She, in fact, did a study of women who had taken certain supplements for a long time and found that there were higher levels of lead in their blood.)
NatureMade is available at CVS or similar. A lot of the "high-quality" health food store stuff is worse than the drugstore versions.
For mood, I'm kind of intrigued by n-acetyl cysteine. It supposed to help cognition a bit too. The research is really preliminary though.
Has anybody ever gotten B-12 shots. Those sound like they'd be awesome. (Okay, that's too enthusiastic, but still.)
This news about Donald Trump considering a run for president is totally bizarre. Maybe Tim Gunn should run against him.
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I'm a bit worried to learn, just now, that the photocopier can send a fax. That means it must be digital which means it might have stored pictures of asses that were only supposed to have been mailed anonymously to HR.
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Has anybody ever gotten B-12 shots
No, but I've had a B-52 shot.
tricks your brain into thinking that it's a June morning.
This reminds me of a prank a school friend pulled, which involved setting up lights outside the curtained window of another guy's room early, early one day the guy had an exam or presentation or some such. I'm not sure exactly how they did it--I think they reset his clock and then woke him up, saying that he'd overslept--but he dressed frantically and ran out into the pre-dawn darkness. Totally cruel, in retrospect, but what are friends for?
This news about Donald Trump considering a run for president is totally bizarre
He's made the same noise before. Just a publicity stunt.
My father has recurring paranoid fears of Mike Bloomberg buying the presidency. This seems unlikely to me, but I suppose anything could happen.
241. I suppose he might buy the Republican nomination by raising gazillions from large businesses terrified by the prospect of tea-driven instability, and then win the general on a tidal wave of public relief that the Republicans weren't running DeMint or some such. Especially if the loony candidate did well in the early primaries. Is that your dad's scenario?
242: It's pretty hard to imagine a gay-friendl, pro-choice Jewish guy winning the Republican nomination even with gazillions of dollars.
Gay-friendl sounds like a character from Heidi.
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Most unintentionally funny youtube comment I've seen in a while:
they dont make country music like they did few years ago.
Apparently the public has a short attention span for everything, not just politics.
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246: I think it was intended to be funny.
Which makes it less funny, I guess.
243. Oh, sure. I was just speculating that if he was going to do it that would have to be how. He couldn't actually buy enough votes directly ("Hey, you! Vote for me and I'll pay your mortgage for next year!") even if he could get away with it.
But I don't see why he'd want to do this. If you're richer than god, why subject yourself to endless trouble and abuse just to live in an inconvenient apartment in DC for four years. He's probably already more powerful than the president.
248: Well, I think he would have a slightly better shot running as an independent. Still extraordinarily unlikely.
But I'm pretty sure he would like to be President. He's already going through the inconvenience of being Mayor of New York, so he clearly is into political power.
He could run the country from Bermuda, with all the appurtenant tax breaks.
250: Then, whenever he equivocates, it will be known as the Bermuda Triangulation.
250, 251.
How does Bloomberg look in shorts? This could be key.
252: http://manolomen.com/2007/04/20/dorkus-maximus/
253. I think LB's dad has nothing to worry about.
Holy shit, the Manolo still blogs?!
254: My dad doesn't look nearly that good in shorts -- varicose veins hit about a decade back.
What hizzoner needs are some jorts.
I wonder what that guy thinks about Catalonia.
He looks like he might be the sort who could orgasm just from voting, whether he voted Socialist or not.
Incidentally, somebody else will have to take over the CET timezone drinking shift tonight; I'm still thoroughly hungover. Shocking, I know.
My father has recurring paranoid fears of Mike Bloomberg buying the presidency.
Well, my father kept going on this evening about how he totally wants to vote for Bloomberg for president. So I guess our dads cancel each other out.
I wonder what that guy thinks about Catalonia.
Not much. He just pays homage to it.
@223: yes, the rule is that reported speech or expressions of dubious validity in general are subjunctive and direct ones are indicative. As you may be able to imagine, German journalism is heavy on the subjunctives.
I think quite a lot of British newspaper convention is an attempt to do something similar although the language doesn't have that feature (a bit like the horrible, horrible way for-loops work in JavaScript).
So Arnold will only be running in 2016? Makes lots of sense, I guess: you cannot have two forunners running against each other, now can you?
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The top three auto-completions Google offers for the string "austan" are:
austan goolsbee
austan goolsbee white house
austan goolsbee jewish
For "timothy geithner" the top two are:
timothy geithner
timothy geithner jewish
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votar es un placer or Catalonian Socialists suggest politics isn't tepid.
The Equality minister says: "If it was true, electoral participation would go up greatly, but I think we are dealing with a misleading advert."
