Ah, iPhone delivery day has arrived as, coincidentally enough, the following message appears on the FedEx order status page:
IMPORTANT!
Package deliveries are proceeding as normal; however tracking updates are temporarily being delayed. Please try back later.
I wonder if the delay has something to do with 600,000 eager Apple customers hitting refresh every five minutes as they wait for their pre-ordered iPhone 4 to show up?
Senator Kyl of Arizona said on Friday that President Obama told him that securing the border is a “problem” because “if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reforms.” The White House denies the conversation took place according to Politico.
Stories like this annoy me. It seems very likely that the White House would deny Kyl's story whether it's true or not, and is there any chance at all that either side is going to get the other side to concede that it's their own guy who's lying? Any chance? No. And unless Senator Kyl has a secret recording of the conversation, which seems rather unlikely, it would usually be a safe bet we'd never know for sure one way or the other. (For the record, senator, if you do have a recording, that would be awesome.)
Of course, the logic Kyl claims Obama put forth would make logical sense coming from the president, given his stated agenda, and would be compatible with the political strategy the president and his supporters have repeatedly endorsed: “You never want a serious crisis go to waste,” as Rahm Emmanuel puts it. And I had to laugh when I saw that in the very sentence where he denies the White House is so eager to promote “comprehensive immigration reform” that it would undermine border security, Obama's Communications Director… manages to cram in a plug for comprehensive immigration reform:
“There are more resources dedicated toward border security today than ever before, but, as the President has made clear, truly securing the border will require a comprehensive solution to our broken immigration system,” [Dan] Pfeiffer said.
He couldn't even wait and slip a period in there?
In any case, notice Pfeiffer's focus is on activity, not outcome. He talks about resources spent, not about the results of that expenditure—because, of course, the border remain insecure. Perhaps that's a safe tack for the administration to take, since clearly a good number of the president's supporters—legal and otherwise—don't much want the borders secured, and I suspect a great many wouldn't much care if he had to lie to keep them open.
…as Russell says here, why is the Dalai Lama claiming to be one?
That's how long I had to watch the May 17, 2010 episode of "Glenn Beck" until he made me angry. You see, my familiarity with this much loved (and much hated) pundit comes largely from clips I see on "The Daily Show", or "The Colbert Report". So, I said to myself, "Myself, watch him, start to finish." And I really thought it might take five or ten minutes for him to incur my wrath. Nope. I the first minute he said:
"We have Markist revolutionaries fundamentally transforming and
attacking the republic of the United States and moving us a global
community."
I have two problems with this. 1) I think there are probably not that many Marxists in government right now. There are some Democrats, and maybe even a Green or two. But no Marxists. I have to assume Beck is being incindiary for shock value, not that he's dense enough to not know the difference. And 2), is global community bad? And if so, why? He does not return to this theme again in the show. So, maybe just a strange slip of the tongue.
In the ninteenth minute, he likens the impending collapse of our economy (which, if we don't believe is going to happen, we clearly have no honor... no, I'm not kidding, he said that) to a sinking ship, and underlined it by showing some of the more horrifying special effects from "Titanic". Now, that's pretty bad. But it got worse when he went directly from there to a commercial, which had an actor in front of a green screen, showing stormy seas, and we learn he's pitching GOLD as an investment. Way to cozy up to your few remaining sponsors!
In the twenty-fourth minute he told us about the three things that the progressive movement at the start of the Twentieth Century did to undermine our country. They systematically devalued our churches and our faith first, then the Constitution, then the founders.
"We don't talk about the consitution anymore. The founders, we
don't talk about."
Well, I hear people talking about the Constitution endlessly. And as for the founders, I wonder if he's hoping people will want to hear more about the founders because he's selling a huge bucket of books about them on his website. Only $828!
Now, to be honest, he did spend a chunk of the show talking about how terror suspects shouldn't have their rights abridged, Miranda-wize. But he went on to take Eric Holder to task for being uncomfortable with the phrase "radical Islam", as if there's some sect out there with the name "Radical Islam" on the door. And is it really a bad idea for our nations top attorney to be measured with his language? Even when I agree with Beck, I disagree with him.
Well, there's one hour down. I wonder what today will bring!
Several times in the last few days, I’ve seen writers confusing these two words. It’s starting to annoy me, so I'm going to complain about it, because I can.
The mistake that set me off this morning was someone writing that a magazine article "wreaked" of a conspiracy theory.
No it didn't. If anything, it reeked of a conspiracy theory.
To wreak is to inflict or cause, and you don’t wreak of something. A rampaging horde might wreak havoc on the enemy. Ill-conceived economic policy might wreak havoc on the economy. Havoc does seem to be the popular thing to wreak, and wreak has generally negative connotations overall. Hardly anyone talks about wreaking happiness. A shame, really.
To reek is to emit or exude something, such as an unpleasant odor. A dumpster might reek of garbage, for example. In fact, I daresay most do.
Come on people, get it right—don’t make me come over there!
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
—Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
A sampling of recent headlines:
Today: Jobless claims rise unexpectedly
February 5: US unemployment rate falls unexpectedly, but job losses continue
January 21: Initial jobless claims unexpectedly climb
December 31: US new jobless claims fall unexpectedly
November 4: New jobless benefit claims rise unexpectedly
October 22: New Jobless Claims Up Unexpectedly to 531K
September 24: US home sales, jobless claims drop unexpectedly
Maybe it’s just me, but the word “unexpectedly” in this context is starting to annoy. An occasional miss, and I’ll give you that the story should be about what unemployment “unexpectedly” did. When we’re missing the forecast every month, on the other hand, the real story is that our system for setting expectations is crap, yet we keep citing it. Maybe it’s time to set lower expectations for our ability to predict the future, and stop reporting every number as if it’s a surprise?
This is cool, and yet so very, very uncool at the same time. USDebtClock.org breaks down federal revenue, spending, and debt, and shows it all in real time. In the time it took me to write and post these three sentences, our government spent an additional $6 million it doesn’t have—debt that your children, and their children, will have to try and repay. (Via Jason Calcanis)
UPDATE: next time you are calculating your family’s net worth, factor in an additional $177,598 in debt for each member of your family to see the real number.
Charles Krauthammer sums up the basic problem:
It's not a hatchet. It's not a scalpel. It's a Q-tip. It's a fraud. This is a miniscule amount. It excludes Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs. It excludes all the entitlements, which are 60 percent of the budget. It excludes stimuli past and future — the two thirds of the near trillion-dollar stimulus that has not been spent. All of that is excluded. It excludes the $1 trillion that would end up being spent on health care if it were passed. What it is, is a $15 billion reduction in a year, 2011, in which the CBO has just announced we are going to have a deficit of $1.35 trillion, which means it is — it's a rounding error, it's lunch money…
This isn't a real cut. It's an appearance of cuts. It's a maneuver as a response to what happened in Massachusetts because he lost the independents… and he knows independents worry about debt and deficits and spending…
And apparently, he think independents are innumerate morons.
I don’t think independents are morons. But just in case, let’s dispense with those confusing word thingies, and look at a pretty picture instead.
Here’s a chart comparing the current US debt ($12.3 trillion), actual Federal outlays in 2009 ($3.5 trillion), and the proposed freeze (using Krauthammer’s $15 billion figure). I apologize in advance for making the chart so tall, but it was the only way I could make the bar that shows the “freeze” tall enough that you can see it.
Ann Althouse asks: “what's more exciting about [today]: the State of the Unison Address or the unveiling, presumably, of the Apple Tablet”?
The (admittedly unscientific) results of her online poll are not a surprise.
“This is the clip reel of the damned!!”
This would be a lot funnier if it wasn’t going to kill us eventually.
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