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The NYT appears to be wrong again
The New York Times story about the orange baby’s declaration of victory over the Houthis in Yemen is “provably unreliable in at least two ways: the timeline, and the claimed involvement of Trump.” So is Maggie Haberman just a chump who gets played constantly? Or maybe it’s all on purpose. Continue reading
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We don’t have kings because we can’t afford them
“Let me step away from current events for a moment and ask what may seem like an odd historical question: Why did absolute monarchy disappear from the Western world in the 18th and 19th centuries? How did republics or constitutional monarchies that basically functioned as republics become the norm?” “A large part of the answer Continue reading
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Re-righting history
“There’s a kind of desperation that clings to propaganda dressed as commentary—an ache to not only rewrite the record but to salt the earth where truth once stood. The Telegraph’s April 14 op-ed, ‘Trump has been proven right about pretty much everything,‘ by former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, is one such piece.” –Joan Westenberg Continue reading
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Nonsense can get lucky
“A rational astrology is a set of beliefs which one rationally behaves as if were true, regardless of whether they are in fact. Rational astrologies need not be entirely fake or false…. Some rational astrologies may turn out to be largely true, and that happy coincidence can be a great blessing. But they are still Continue reading
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Not Numidinae
It’s nowhere near November or Thanksgiving, so we have plenty of time to consider the word “turkey.” The first thing to consider is that the bird has that name because of a mistake. The North American species was confused with a bird called a “guinea fowl,” and those were thought to be from Turkey. Two Continue reading
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Peeves, pet and otherwise
A lot of English speakers — and maybe this goes for other languages too — have pet peeves about the way other people use, misuse, or “misuse” words. The words compose and comprise are easy to get mixed up. Or maybe not. If you go by the “first” definitions of both of these, then you’d Continue reading
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Archiloquy
Here’s a sentence you’d be unlikely to encounter nowadays. “It was noscible in the village that the oporopolist’s stall was often closed because of his fondness for riviation.” You’d be unlikely to encounter it because “noscible,” “oporopolist,” and “riviation” are all words that were once in general use in English, but haven’t been heard from Continue reading
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Don’t buy TNT from ACME
Eponyms are words that come from someone’s name. “Flack” is an eponym because it came from Gene Flack. “Dickens,” as in the old fashioned “oh he’s just a little dickens,” is not an eponym based on Charles Dickens; “dickens” was a synonym for “devil” a couple of centuries ago. But “boycott,” refusing to engage in Continue reading
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“Like a business,” they said
The idea that the US should be “run like a business” has been popular with the republic party for decades. Like many of the slogans they parrot, the actual thinkers in the party almost certainly don’t agree with it, but recognize it as a convenient talking point that will convince their base. Now they’ve got Continue reading
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What is missing
Socrates said “Virtue does not come from money, but rather from virtue comes money, and all other things good to man.” John Siracusa opens his latest essay with that quotation. It was featured, he points out, on the website of Ambrosia Software, which released really good games for the Mac back in the days when Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my other blog, Techlimitics, where I’m grappling with the nature of simplicity.
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