Now this is a useful phrase book. Serious travelers take note.
I understand your language perfectly. Je parle français comme une vache espagnole.
Hablo español como un gringo borracho.
Ich sprechen deutsch wie italienisch Fussballtrainer
Is this the way to Red Square? La Place rouge, c'est par ici ?
¿Este calle va a la Plaza Roja?
Geht's hier zum Roten Platz?
Where can I find the dissidents? Où se trouvent les dissidents ?
¿Dónde puedo encontrar a los disidentes?
Wo sind hier die Dissidenten?
Do all your maids smoke? Toutes vos femmes de chambre fument ?
¿Es que aquí todo el mundo fuma?
Rauchen alle ihre Zimmermädchen?
I'm coming, you silly runt! J'arrive, espèce de nain rabougri!
¡Ya voy, enano idiota!
Ich komme, du dumme Witzfigur!
Don't "imperialist pig" me, my good man. Fichez-moi la paix avec votre "cochon impérialiste", mon petit bonhomme.
¡Váyase usted al cuerno con su "cerdo imperialista", hombre!
Nenn du mich nicht "imperialistisches Schwein", mein Lieber.
When the Senate debated campaign finance reform last year, Team Bush listed the simple "reform principles" the President favors -- almost none of which are in Shays-Meehan. Mr. Bush wanted to "maintain strong political parties" -- not in there. He requested "paycheck protection" banning use of union due for politics without explicit worker consent -- not there. And he requested protection of "the rights of citizen group to engage in issue advocacy" -- not there -- and in fact so burdensome on individuals' First Amendment advocacy rights that even some Shays-Meehan supporters agreed the Supreme Court could strike them down.
Memo to W: Two wrongs don't make a right ... nor do they make an excuse. And they certainly don't make a "smart" political move! Call a press conference at the National Archives, read the First Amendment to our Constitution and then ceremoniously dispose of this "Incumbent Protection Act" -- as you promised you would do last January!
Quoted from The Federalist, 2/22/02
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Moira and Grasshoppa have been discussing the deplorable recent tendency to use various grunts and mumbles instead of you're welcome or excuse me. It has become especially rare to hear you're welcome. Let's start saying it again.
The use of no problem instead of you're welcome has become common, but seems problematic. If I ask you to do something, then thank you, and you reply "no problem", it seems gracious. Sort of like saying, "No thanks needed, I was happy to help."
However, if I say. "Thank you for saying those nice things about me." and you reply "no problem", you are implying that I asked you to say those nice things. That's not so pleasant.
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"There is evil in the world, and it coagulates, it gathers force, and
if it bursts its bounds endangers everybody. 'Axis of evil'? Yes,
there can be such things. How could we ever have doubted it? What
dream were we living in, what sort of mist, what fog?"
I was going to write some more about the surrender peanut, but Megan McArdle beat me to it.
One note: It has never in our history been customary or acceptable for ex-presidents to throw their weight around, or to carp at and criticize the current president. Carter and Clinton can do it only because the press gives them a free ride.
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I love my Apple computers, and smile indulgently when I hear of the agonies my Windows friends endure. (In fact, I suspect Macs are the cheapest computers you can buy, when all the costs are figured in. But that's a rant for another day.)
On the hand, there are things I just hate about Apple. First on the list is their advertising. Somebody there has made the decision that Apple ads should be cutsy-brainless. Always. (At least all the ads I've seen. Maybe I've missed something.)
It's such a pity, because there are fascinating real-world stories that could sell a lot of Macs, were they ever told. I just read in Wired (Jan. '02) about NBC reporters in Afghanistan, and their equipment. They all carry Apple Powerbook G-4s. They like them because of their simplicity, and compatibility with DV cameras. They edit their stories with Apple's iMovie!
There are lots of stories like this. Fascinating stuff. Did you know Time Magazine uses all Macs? You will never hear it from Apple. What blockheads they are.
Jimmy Carter has just denounced Bush for his Axis of Evil statement. That's a clear sign that we are on the right path.
I can't imagine how that man can have the gall to pontificate on how terrorism should be handled. We now know that the Iranians had no intention of holding the embassy hostages more than a few days. It was only when, to their surprise, Carter did nothing in response, that the hostage crisis turned into a prolonged nightmare.
Never never never have we sent a clearer message of encouragement to the world's terrorists. We went walking about with a sign on our backs that said kick me, and the socialist slime rabble have been kicking us ever since.
We have no right to criticize the French, after having made that surrender peanut our President.
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Eee-Uuuu The British have lately stopped buying copious amounts of Brussels Sprouts. To rekindle interest, England's leading supermarket chain, Sainsbury's, will now label the vegetables "British Sprouts." [Sainsbury's wants] customers to know that Britain actually grows 99% of the world's Brussels sprouts. But why are Brits off Brussels sprouts? Alex Bingham of the British Sprout Growers Association blames the name: "Psychologically, the connection with Brussels may be a turnoff." Apparently to many Britons, the Belgian headquarters of the EU represents stifling bureaucracy and corruption.
I thought national borders were passé. I thought all Europeans were supposed to embrace this sophisticated cultural evolution, in which the idea of "country" was subsumed into the larger socialist --I mean, social entity. Yet this supermarket is trying to gin up enthusiasm by appealing to its patrons' loyalty to and love of country. A profound lesson for brain-dead liberals.
Gift cultures ... are adaptations not to scarcity, but to abundance ... We can observe gift cultures in action among aboriginal cultures living in ecozones with mild climates and abundant food. We can also observe them in certain strata of our own society, especially in show business and among the wealthy ... In gift cultures social status is determined not by what you control, but by what you give away. Thus the Kwakiutl chieftan's potlach party. Thus the multi-millionaire's elaborate and usually public acts of philanthropy. And thus the hackers long hours of effort to produce high-quality open source.
Viewed in this way, it is quite clear that the society of Open Source hackers is in fact a gift culture. Within it, there is no serious shortage of the 'survival necessities' -- disk space, network bandwidth, computing power. Software is freely shared. This abundance creates a situation in which the only available measure of competitive success is reputation among one's peers.
This analysis also explains why you do not become a hacker by calling yourself a hacker -- you become one when other hackers call you a hacker ...
I think it might be fair to say that, while you can become a journalist by being hired by a paper, or by going to school, you can't fast-talk or buy your way into the ranks of bloggers. If others like your posts, they will be linked to ... the gift is all ...
I suggested previously that if you post info somewhere on the web, make it thorough and complete, because you never know who may be googling it years from now. SO, when I googled my edgebander, (see previous), what do you think was the first item that came up? My own post from maybe 4 years ago!
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Posted
4:59 PM BLOGGING TIPS: These will be basic and obvious to many, but I'm putting them down because I HATE IT when things aren't explained because everybody knows that. I 'm often tormented by this in my work (cabinetmaker) where the more expensive a machine you buy, the skimpier the documentation. When I bought my edgebander I was delighted to find a fat instruction manual -- until I realized it was the same 4 pages repeated in 9 languages...
Templates: Your template is pure text, just like any HTML document. You can copy it into a word processor. (Always turn off curly quotes) Make a back-up, plus another copy to experiment on. If you add the extension .HTM to it, your browser can open it. Make changes to the poor helpless guinea pig document, save them, and then Refresh the browser window. You will see your changes. When all is ready you can just paste the changed template into Blogger.
If you notice a nice feature on someone elses weblog, you can use the VIEW > SOURCE command to see their source code, and just how they did it. If it's just gobbledigook, get a beginning HTML book and look things up. It's a fun way to learn some HTML.
The following op-ed from Congressman J.C. Watts, Jr . appeared in the Washington
Times today:
A choice that means a chance -- J.C. Watts Jr.
The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday for and against school
choice in a voucher case involving students in Cleveland. Over the last
six years, children coming from families with a median income of $20,000
have had the opportunity to enroll in private and parochial schools
because of a successful Ohio program that gives parents a maximum of
$2,250 to spend on annual tuition. In a city where only about a third of
public- school students graduate from high school, this has been welcome
assistance....
...The disconnect between higher education and primary and secondary
education is quite puzzling to many supporters of school choice. As
anyone who has applied for loans, grants or scholarships knows, there
are all sorts of government dollars that flow to private and parochial
colleges. Universities across the country receive tax money in many
ways, shapes and forms. Why, then, are students in elementary, middle
and high schools discriminated against on the issue of choice in
education? These children equally deserve the right to attend the
schools that fit their needs and offer the best chance for a brighter
future.
The black community would particularly benefit if more programs
like Cleveland's were to become a reality. Half of all the participants
in the Cleveland voucher system are Americans of African descent. And in
most polls on the subject of school choice and expanded parental options
in education, three out of four black Americans favor the very case I am
making today....
Posted
7:57 AM blogger has gone wacky on me--it will post a short sentence, but a long post just disappears...
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the
comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service, when it
is violating all His laws." --John Adams
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"The 'street' in any given Arab country consists of 278 state-sanctioned mullahs already preaching death to the Americans and Jews, five state-controlled newspaper opinion columnists preaching ditto, 577,000 state security officers making sure nobody says anything to the contrary, and 73 million people who would very much like to be living in New Jersey." --Michael Kelly These two quotes purloined from The Federalist _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Andrea Harris has been having fun poking and prodding a particularly odious caterpillar...
But all is not well in her dreams of future Oceania:
Instead, I heard talk of essentially a market-based response to the world's ills: philanthropy, self-regulation, corporate social responsibility and voluntary codes of conduct.
What! People actually doing good stuff voluntarily, without being coerced? That's just so... so... wrong.
And, worryingly, there was an almost complete rejection of government as the appropriate conduit for the distribution of justice, social or economic.
She doesn't bother to say why this mistrust of her precious government. Obviously she decided that their objections weren't worth mentioning.
Haven't posted for a coupla days. (Did anyone notice ... ?) Busy days, plus annoying problems with our ISDN service. It may be time to get DSL.
And really, with both Dawson and Natalie gone, beachcombing along the blogshore seems to have lost some of its savor. Dawson's warm heart is a tonic to a cool skeptic like me. And Miss Clever Clogs is so intrinsic...
Soon after writing the previous I stumbled on a reference in the blog Voyage to Arcturus about American evangelical Christians providing money for Jews from around the world to move to Israel. Here's one group's newsletter, International Christian Embassy.
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I've been reading Suman Palit's pieces on the ancient roots of the current friendship between India and Isreal. Fascinating stuff. I knew there were Jews in India, but I had no idea of their history, or how many there were.
He mentioned in the previous part that one thing contributing to the current friendship is romance ...Beyond the shared interests and fears, what energizes the new relationship is romance. As in the United States in the 1960s, a generation of young Israelis has fallen in love with India.
This sort of thing is not uncommon. It has energized America's friendship with Israel. Many Americans, including me, feel sympathy for Israelis; as plucky underdogs, pioneers, freedom fighters. They have reclaimed or re-forested land ruined by feckless arabs, and never given in to bullying tyrants. Like us they broke decisively with Europe; and created a new land based on freedom.
We also have deeper cultural affinities. Christianity has obviously been often opposed to Judaism, but it is also drenched in the Old Testament and Jewish ideas. While America's urban elites have tended to be vaguely anti-semitic, Protestant sectarians, especially in rural areas, are fascinated with all things Jewish. Many of the German Jews who came to American in the 1800's got their start as peddlars. They would often be astonished when backwoods folk treated them as emissaries from the Holy Land, and plied them with Bible questions!
People complain about the Jewish lobby in this country, but I think it is less important than it seems. Jews almost all vote Democrat, but it is Republican administrations that seem to be closest to Israel.
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If you provide practical information in some forum or public place on the net, make it rich and complete. You never know who's going to be googling it, maybe years from now.
Don't just answer a query with: "You can buy those at AntiEntropy Inc."
Expand a bit. Think about those morsels of knowledge that you have gained slowly and painfully, and share them with others. How about something like this:
You can buy those at AntiEntropy Inc. (www.Anti.com) Their prices are a bit higher than most, but it's worth it for the great service. I can personally vouch for the Weidner-tron (#883-ZSW; or 883-ZXX with chrome knobs). It will make toast fall butter-side-up at least 90% of the time...
This ties into larger issues; how Industrial Age organizations have constipated information flow... A rant is in order, but I'm feeling lazy. Read Cluetrain, then we'll talk.
Note: My anti-entropic devices are still in beta testing. I'll keep you informed!
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I liked this article by Eric Zorn (via David Weinberger) on the etiquette of googling people.
"Would you be angry with me if I googled your sister?
The reason I ask is because a good friend recently turned on me when I let drop I'd googled her younger sister. She used bad words, expressions of disgust and ... insinuations.
One of us was out of line. I think she was, but I'm open to the possibility that I provoked her with an offense against the great and largely unwritten code of civilized behavior on the Internet when, in an idle moment, I typed her sister's name into the great search engine at google.com...."
He doesn't give any definitive answer, but at least he raises the issue. He goes into other questions, including whether it's distasteful to put the URL of a family news site into a Christmas card...
"...Now I have strong opinions in certain areas of netiquette: It's rude to send unsolicited file attachments or attachments that could be cut and pasted into straight e-mail, for instance. It's discourteous to circulate online petitions. It's impolite to forward warnings about viruses or various threats without first screening for hoaxes at purportal.com, and so on... "
