Our royal family lineage

In one of those weird moments where random crap seems really appropriate, the Presley family titles:

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Sir Pierce the Pompous of Hope End Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

My Wife's Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Noble Excellency Kelly the Hunted of Throcking in the Hole Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

My Daughter's Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Imperial Majesty Laura the Ineffable of Biggleswade by Biscuit Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

My Son's Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: His Most Serene Highness Lord Kane the Dulcet of Gallop Hophill Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

My inner grammar Nazi makes an appearance

Commas, semicolons, colons, lists and “and”, and how they work together to handle nested lists.

Poor usage:

“Metro’s operating expenses are paid through three sources: passenger fares, revenue raised by the agency through advertising and other sources and taxpayers in the District, Maryland and Virginia.” — “Metro Considers Increasing Rail Fares” by Lena H. Sun, Washington Post Dec. 11, 2006, Page A11 (from A1).

What’s happening here? There’s a list, the colon tells us that, but then there is but one, wait, no, two commas and three “and”s to help us sort it out. No semicolons. Lots of words that go together in confusing ways.

The most likely answer is that there are nested lists and we need some way to sort them out, and this is where semicolons working with colons, commas and “and”s shine.

Try this:

“Metro’s operating expenses are paid through three sources: passenger fares; revenue raised by the agency through advertising and other sources; and taxpayers in the District, Maryland and Virginia.”

Not only is this now clear, but it opens the sentence up to paring unnecessary words.

Thus:

“Metro’s operating expenses are paid from: fares; advertising and other revenue; and taxes from the District, Maryland and Virginia.”

No need to say “three sources, because our semicolons make that perfectly visible, and this leads us away from other cruft like “passenger fares” and “revenue raised by the agency.”

My inner grammar Nazi usually stays in the background, but occasionally there's something that requires action.

Inhuman intellect

In its glorious entirety and brevity, a post from Razib at Gene Expressions (A Science Blogs Joint):

In the post below there is a lot of talk about genius that might rival Newton. I didn't throw down a list of criteria for why I esteem Newton, a lot of this is gestalt intuition anyway, and I'm probably not reflectively totally aware of why I feel the way I do. That being said, someone threw down Aristotle. Instead of Aristotle, or Plato, or any of the other numerous ancients I mentioned Archimedes. Why? Aristotle certainly had, and has, more influence than Archimedes. The reason is simple: Aristotle had superhuman intellect, but Archimedes had inhuman intellect. Aristotle had beefed up hard disk space, lots of RAM and top of the line CPU, but Archimedes had incredible applications that you just didn't see on any other box. Aristotle took the vector that was humanity and extended incredibly across the length and breadth of human space, but Archimedes shifted orthogonally outside of the plane of known space. I believe that Frederick Gauss, Isaac Newton, and their kind were aliens amongst us. While superhuman intellectuals can aid us in accelerating faster across the ocean of the unknown, the unhumans can cast a spell which magically parts the waters and exposes dry land.

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing when discussing the intellects of Aristotle and Archimedes, and if not then it's not fair to compare the two.
There are probably as many ways to slice the question as there are reasonably binary pairs, but in this case I'll take theorist vs. engineer. Aristotle was a consummate theorist, someone who thought about how things should fit together. Archimedes, on the other hand, thought about what things could do, and while I think Razib is correct in projecting a perpendicular relationship between the two, I think that perhaps the great difference in direction might have misled him about the difference in the quantity and quality of their intelligences.

Working Again

Well, I've finally rejoined the workforce. Today through Dec. 3 I'm working at Wintec Arrowmaker in what will hopefully be the last short-term assignment for quite a while. I'm doing print production on a contract proposal, bringing together materials from different companies into a coherent whole. So far, everyone here is great.

On Dec. 4, I go to work at Synergy Enterprises, doing the same sort of thing plus some things ancillary to production, as a full-time, temp-to-hire employee.

The perverse upside to this is that I'll hopefully be posting more, since I won't be drowning in my own inertia at home, plus I truly believe that busy people get the most done--to an extent.

I suppose time will tell. But it is nice to be working again.

That Syria?

The state sponsor of terrorism? The torturer? The supposed resting place of Saddam's WMD? The country some posited was next on the invasion list? That Syria is going to "help bring stability" to Iraq? We're playing international footsie with those bastards? (Referring to the government; I have no rancor for everyday Syrians.)

And it only gets a blurb box on the front page of the Washington Post? While polygamists, fucking OJ and bible-reading grunts take up space. (Not that I'm begrudging the grunts anything, but c'mon, it's a feature photo unrelated to any of the stories. Unrelated art is by definition unnecessary.) I know the State Department is being run by Aunt Tom and that we've apparently become unable to control the Vichy Iraqi Government. But Syria? That Syria?

33 months and counting ... what to do?

Mahablog says:

What are we to do? Let’s think about this.
Although I support impeachment, I’m not sure that’s the way to go. We’d have to impeach Bush and Cheney — a tall order — and if they’re removed from office we’d end up with Dennis Hastert in the White House. I’m not sure the 33 months are lookin’ any smoother under that scenario, although perhaps Hastert will be enough of a wuss to not do much. That may be the best we can hope for. At least he would probably work with Congress to run the country.
Same thing if Bush and Cheney were forced to resign, as Nixon and Agnew were.
If Dems get control of at least one house of Congress next year the subpoenas can begin. Perhaps if Bush is under incessant investigation for his last two years he will be slowed down some. On the other hand, he might start another war just to wag the dog.
And if Republicans keep control of both houses of Congress I don’t see an alternative to limping along as we are.
Thoughts?

Read the rest at Mahablog.

My two cents
Cent one: the midterms are probably our last chance to grind this to a halt. We’re going to have to get subpoena power in congress and a set of juevos for pushing the subpoenas in the face of withering fire from the VRWC and corporate media. And don’t doubt this: even if Bush’s numbers drop to the single digits, it’s going to be a fight to win those seats, thanks to the trifecta of gerrymandered safe seats, years of GOP institutionalized leftist voter repression and the VWRC working the refs and corporate media bending over and taking it.

Cent two: I’m sorry, but start thinking about what we should do to halt this maladministration from hell? The unwillingness of most of the left, not to mention the DLC, centrist weenies currently keeping almost all of the Dems out of the pool in re Iran, warrantless wiretapping, etc., is exactly why we’re in this situation. The unwillingness to discuss impeachment, censure, threatening armed rebellion, hell, any substantive action in response to the rape of America, her ideals and her reputation has done, I think, more harm than the Bush administration. This is the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, but the unwillingness to call them on it, to hound them into the impotence of the above-mentioned failed administrations has allowed them to shoot again and again and again. Why should they change tactics? No one has forced their hand. If we get congress, we’re going to have to beat on this administration like it’s a turtle we’ve mistaken for a steel drum while in the midst of a Jamaican revelry on speed, or they’ll come out and screw something up. It’s like fluorescence or something.

Bonus third cent: Some have made mention of the populace’s (notice I didn’t say “voters'”) disaffection with politics. Part of that is the constant refrain from ethically challenged politicians and their allies that “everyone’s doing it”; part is the parties’ unwillingness to purge their ranks of these people; part is the VRWC’s insistence that “real people” lie outside of the political process–all fine and true. But I hold that a large part is the lack of any pushback. What does it avail a person to become disenchanted with crooked politicians if all that is ever offered to them is another politician with a different letter by his or her name on the ballot. Dems have got to stop cutting off the Paul Hacketts of the world in favor of career politicians. Make the slogan “We’re going to change more than the names on the office door; we’re going to change more than the ‘culture’; we’re going to change more than the window dressing. Politics as usual, meet politics for the people.” Throw some (verbal) bombs, hoist some petards, burn some effigies, relentlessly call out the transgressions of the powerful and, for the sake of all that is good about this country, offer a real alternative.

My brother-in-law, thespian

This either puts him in a league with a NASCAR pit crew, or a chimp, if previous commercials are any guide.

CREW files complaint against Grover; Joe in DC is shocked, shocked!

Joe said:

... CREW is alleging that Grover was using his non-profits as for-profit companies to launder money. That would violate IRS rules - irnoic for the leading anti-tax guy ...

Didn't a great writer, like John Grisham (please note sarcasm), write a book once about an evil law firm that, among other things, gladly took as much money as its rich clients would give them for figuring out ways to let the clients pay "the firm" (hey, that would be a good title, gotta write this stuff down) instead of the man?

I mean, yes, we'd all like it if everyone was a non-hypocritical grownup like we usually envision ourselves to be, but I think we're really into Pollyanna land to think that people like this won't break some rules to get to the tax-free utopia a bit before everyone else.

Intipuqueños celebrate ... someone ... or something

Among the anonymous sources floating administration trial balloons and salacious dirt came a nice front-page story in today's Washington Post about Salvadorans living in Washington who return to their home town of Intipucá in the "state" of La Unión, and the changes in the town and the emigrants. It's a pretty good story, with a lot of cultural sensitivity and human interest in both El Salvador and Metro Washington. But the narrative hook the reporter chose was the event that drew back the former residents, referred to as a "patron saint festival" apparently honors some saint whose name must not be mentioned. It's really the celebration of the immaculate conception of Mary, which is rather more of an event than a "patron saint," unless you're going to claim that Mary was a different person at each of the celebrated eras of her life.

South America may be the last place outside of Vatican City where the Catholic calendar of saints is still the defining latticework partitioning out the year. Cities and towns traditionally celebrate one (or more) of the festivals much like American ones do everything from oatmeal to pickles to pumpkin chunkin' on any given weekend, in addition to the major feasts that everyone celebrates like Carnivale, Christmas and Easter (or New Year's Day, Easter, Independence Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas for the states). Referring to the festival in this way may be intended to preserve its relationship to festivals honoring saints' entire lives, but it doesn't make grammatical sense nor does it tell that the city is honoring not only Mary, but what is perhaps one of the most agreed-upon celebrations in Catholicism, and it is only one of several festivals in the calendario de fiestas patronales that honor something other than a single saint, from the divine face of Jesus to the black Christ of Esquipulas, a statue of Jesus in dark wood housed in a nearby Guatemala town that is now the most significant pilgrimage site on the continent. Mary herself is celebrated in many different ways, both as symbol and as person.

Why would a story sensitive enough to use the correct name for a town native, intipuqueño and intipuqueña, including the tilde (though it omits the accent from the town's name and capitalizes the nouns despite proper Spanish usage, both common occurrences in American newspapers; the presence of the tilde in so many may be due to the difference in meaning between ano and año and the popularity of a telenovela rendered in many listings as "Los Anos Perdidos," babelfish.altavista.com translation: The Lost Anuses) gloss over the question of what the focus of the festival actually is? After all, this isn't just a festival of Mary, it's a festival of the immaculate conception, an event signifying Mary's lack of original sin, probably the most important reason she is held in adoration by Catholics comparably to Jesus, the only woman of comparable importance among prominent religions and certainly of the Abrahamic strains. It's probably too much to ask that the writer note that the immaculate conception celebrates Mary's conception (and existence thereafter) in a state of grace and is set on a date (Dec. 8, though Intipucá starts two days earlier) nine months in advance of Mary's birth, a parallel to the celebration of the incarnation of Christ on March 25, nine months before Christmas, and not the virgin birth. But in a story about a significant minority in a geographic area with a sizable Catholic population (both Salvadoran and other nationalities), naming the festival wasn't important?

Pierce Presley is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Memphis and a freelance writer living in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. He received his B.A. from Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit Catholic university.

Note: edited to correct babelfish link.

If that's what it'll take ...

Here was a picture of Bush with the caption "Won't somebody give this man a blowjob so he can be impeached?" But it's gone now.
But, of course, it wasn't the sex, it was the lying, which means Bush was impeached years ago. But it's a secret, so no one has told the people, and that's just the way President Cheney likes it.

paper cd case

For idiots (even your host, sometimes) who lose their CD case and for those trusting souls who think that a bubble envelope is overkill, what with the professionalism of your modern postal worker, there is an origami paper CD case. Added bonuses: a CD search engine for those CDs that cleverly omit track info in favor of kewl graphics and a compilation of people's mix CDs that you could rip off, or draw inspiration from.

Boing Boing: Cafe Scientifique

Boing Boing has an article up about Cafe Scientifique, a chance for people to marvel at scientific minds on display. I think that any exposure to science, the scientific method, rationality, etc. is good for people, even if one already has a scientific outlook.
Sadly, I was less than amazed that there isn't an affiliate in or around Washington, D.C., given both the current administration's well documented hostility to science and Mark Kleiman's noting that think tanks just ain't what they used to be.

And people wonder why I laugh out loud spontaneously

I don’t know which is funnier: that I had the sudden realization that my basement laundry room would be infinitely cooler if it had the sort of industrial disintegration sound effects that you could imagine in any early Nine Inch Nails video if the audio wasn’t composed entirely of far more aggressive industrial sounds, crazy drum tracks and Trent Reznor doing things to keyboards that nature never intended, maybe with a little trippy visual disorientation like the onset of LSD; or that this thought came to me at 34 years of age and as the father of two, as I was gathering sheets from the dryer and moving a blanket into it and stuffing a big-ass king-size comforter into an energy-efficient front-loading washer. Maybe the humor is in the difference in the life I projected for myself 13 years ago and where I’ve ended up.