Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Bark louder, little dog.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Come on, man.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

This really is a full service blog.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

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No matter how shitty my day is, I have found that spending fifteen minutes under the comforter with the pooches makes things better. Provided Rosie will stop moving long enough to let me relax.

It has been raining all day, which means it has been an ordeal to get Lily to go outside. Rosie is raring to go, but I have to pick Lily up and throw her in the wet grass, and even then she looks like she is being abused.

Was reading an article earlier, I forget what, and it had the word “hermeneutics.” Here is a brief list of words which, every time I read them, my eyes glaze over:

hermeneutics
dialectical
fiduciary
patriarchy
post-structuralism

I’m sure there are more, and you might have some, as well, but these were ones I thought of right now.

Reader Interactions

287Comments

  7. 7.

    JGabriel

    @Loneoak:

    I use four of those words pretty regularly.

    Yeah, me too. Dialectical can make my eyes glaze over occasionally, but I have no problem with hermeneutics or the other three.

    .

  8. 8.

    neill

    The hermeneutics of post-structural patriarchy avoids Marx’s dialectic while resting in the sanctuary of old white men’s “fiduciary responsibility.”

    The cure for this claptrap:

    “Eat the rich.”

  12. 12.

    piratedan

    for me it’s more along the lines of phrases that cause me to tune out….

    fiscally responsible
    liberal agenda
    vouchers
    free market regulation
    fetal pain

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    John, this is easy. Fiduciary has to do with money. At one time, being a banker meant that you were a fiduciary…a guardian of that money.

    Not any more, of course.

  16. 16.

    p.a.

    teleology
    heuristic

    and I’ve looked up the meaning of picaresque a dozen times and can’t remember the meaning.

  18. 18.

    Yutsano

    @piratedan: The Italians have a saying: “Parsley is like children. It gets into everything.” Ponder the possibilities and pass the gravy.

  20. 20.

    scav

    susurration and imbrication generally make me happy though. Unexpected words showing up as verbs usually make my hackles rise though. Defense against the MBA dark arts system kicks in.

  21. 21.

    Walker

    Don’t you teach in a communications department? How does that word not come up all the time?

  23. 23.

    Brachiator

    I’m sure there are more, and you might have some, as well, but these were ones I thought of right now.

    ecosystem (applied to operating systems or hardware devices)
    meme
    social construct
    War of Warcraft

  24. 24.

    RSA

    Hegemony.

    it looks like Raleigh, NC took a direct hit from a nasty tornado

    It’s quiet now, but the power went out for about an hour and just came back on.

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    At one time, being a banker meant that you were a fiduciary…a guardian of that money.

    The way MBA culture has twisted the meaning of fiduciary duty is one of its worst crimes. They’ve managed to convert it from an extra ethical responsibility above and beyond normal legal and moral restrictions into a mandate for sociopathy. I guess that tells you everything you need to know about contemporary American business culture.

  26. 26.

    maya

    deregulate, derivitive and
    delovely
    The Long March of Mao
    The Long Form of Obama
    lapel pin measurement tool

  29. 29.

    scav

    @p.a.: heuristic is linked to pragmatic, let’s not go over-board with insisting on perfection, in my world. That is to say, another word I’d drag to my safe and happy place. Go figure.

  31. 31.

    New Yorker

    @piratedan:

    Not to be “that guy”, but do you ever notice that when Oklahoma or Alabama or Mississippi get smashed by a violent tornado (as happened the last few days), Pat Robertson and company never blames it on the sinfulness of the locals? It’s only when San Francisco has an earthquake (or New York has two skyscrapers destroyed by suicide terrorists), and then it’s the gays and the liberals and the secularists who had it coming.

  37. 37.

    Yutsano

    The one word that will send me into apoplectic fits is substantiation. If that word comes up at work I automatically know the case I’m working just got a helluva lot harder.

  40. 40.

    p.a.

    @Brachiator:

    meme

    Is this a web-inspired neologism? I don’t remember seeing it before I got online. Seems to be used as a pretty close synonym for ‘theme’.

  41. 41.

    Suffern ACE

    Right now resumes of entry level post college grads are making me sleepy. Can’t tell them apart. Who wouldda thunk that college kids majoring in business and applying for corporate jobs would all end up with the same resume?

  42. 42.

    scav

    @p.a.: something originally academic linking idea and gene if I remember correctly. GSD knows what it’s now come to mean on the tuubz.

  43. 43.

    transmaniacon

    Post-modern classical liberals who whine constantly because Pajamas Media went tits up and continues to deny them the career path they most richly deserve.

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    @piratedan: you forgot “Barry”!

    @scav: For awhile people were using “modem” as a verb, and for me that was like nails scratching on a blackboard.

  45. 45.

    Yutsano

    @piratedan: This doesn’t bother me, mostly because I have the cilantro gene and I lurve the stuff. But those who hate it HATE it. There is very little middle ground I’ve noticed.

  46. 46.

    Phoebe

    empowerment

    And what you all said. True fact: just reading this post and thread has made me suddenly sleepy.

  47. 47.

    Martin

    @Suffern ACE: Do what I do in that case – look for something interesting. My last recruitment everyone had the same resume so the a-list was the girl that swam to Catalina, the guy that followed Springsteen on tour for a year, and the woman that worked in the mortuary during college for money. All three were great interviews and would have been fantastic hires.

  48. 48.

    Brachiator

    As we approach the April 18 Filing deadline (Apr 15 was a holiday in DC, so the IRS extended the deadline nationwide), the Tea Party People and the GOP ask you to keep this in mind:

    In fantasy land, Americans are being crushed by an increasing federal tax burden because Obama and the Democrats are, after all, tax and spend liberals. But in the real world there is this:

    Three-quarters of all filers will get refunds this year, about the same as usual — but the amount of those refunds has surged over the past decade.
    __
    While the practice of overpaying Uncle Sam throughout the year in order to collect a big refund the next was once sacrilege to personal-finance experts, the rationale is getting more compelling.
    __
    Last year’s average refund reached a new high of $3,003, and this year’s average is tracking last year’s, says Internal Revenue Service spokesman Eric Smith. That is almost twice the $1,698 average of 1999. The growth far outstrips inflation.
    __
    A close look at tax data shows the growth in refunds hasn’t been confined to taxpayers at any one income level, says economist Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center in Washington. Some people who suffered job or investment losses in the 2001 or 2007-09 recessions did overpay inadvertently, and received bigger refunds, but these increases don’t explain the total rise.

    Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me that this doesn’t get reported until the weekend, when most people will not be paying attention.

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @p.a.:

    Is this a web-inspired neologism?

    No, it’s a neologism coined by Richard Dawkins to refer to a self-replicating idea. The name is made by analogy to gene. A recurring theme like a snowclone is an example of a meme.

  50. 50.

    scav

    @WaterGirl: Tangential, but I caught my mother in the bloody late 70s asking me to download the dishes in order to set the table. She’s not lived it down yet.

  51. 51.

    jeff

    I think John was the right age to have been in college during the very height (depth) of pomo silliness.

  52. 52.

    licensed to kill time

    I most often see the word heuristics when my anti-virus scan is almost finished and tells me it is now scanning for “heuristics and other stuff(paraphrasing)” so it doesn’t bother me much. I’m not really sure what it means, patterns in code/language or something? I guess I should go look it up.

    /brb

    eta:reading Wikipedia now, no need to edumacate me ;)

  54. 54.

    p.a.

    2 responses to my discomfort with ‘heuristic’. I might not get that much feedback if I claimed Michelle Obama fertilized her garden with ground up puppies! I have uncovered an underground cabal of heuristicians. (edit- redundancy, but with alliteration! ugh)

    Remember Calvin and Hobbes? “I love the word smock.”
    “Smock Smock Smock!”
    “SHUT UP!”

  56. 56.

    Yutsano

    @Brachiator: In an ideal world I wouldn’t have a job, because what I do should really be unnecessary. But there does seem to be a lot of confusion about how to fill out a W-4 form correctly, and to be honest, the instructions themselves are hella confusing. That causes a plurality of my phone calls at work. And truth be told, if you don’t fix the problem the IRS will. And don’t even get me started on independent contractors or self-employed folks. Estimated taxes are much more complicated than they need to be.

  59. 59.

    Suffern ACE

    @Martin: I think this is more a problem of my HR department who seems to be screening for bland. I feel for them though. They apparently read the 75 or so resumes for applicants so that I could have these 15 declarative poems about senior case studies.

    (To be fair to the youth of today, my first resume 25 years ago had my 4-H experience on it. I’m lucky I got by the person in my position now and got my first job. I probably got the job because I had a degree and was willing to work cheap.)

  60. 60.

    MattR

    CNN has a beautiful article of a son recounting his father’s last days with cancer. It is a wonderful story about letting go gracefully and with as little pain rather than trying to hold on to that last shred of life. It also included this insightful bit (which I have top admit I never really thought about)

    Things moved quickly. I’m a professional, with understanding employers and a flexible schedule. I have a reliable partner in my wife, Sarah. Though struggling with her own grief, she and her mother took on our household and children.
    __
    My brothers were similarly fortunate, so we were all together. I wondered what death is like for those without such economic and domestic stability. Is it yet another measure of class distinction? Or is it a unifier — we all do what we must when we must?

  62. 62.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Roger Moore: actually the idea originated with E. O. Wilson. He wanted to call the concept “culturegenes”.
    Sir Richard changed it up.
    Memes is a lot more catchy i think.
    i larnt that in coll-uge.
    ;)

  63. 63.

    RSA

    @p.a.:

    I have uncovered an underground cabal of heuristicians.

    If you do any work in the area of artificial intelligence (I have and sometimes still do), “heuristic” is hard to avoid. My impression is that it’s more commonly used as a noun than a verb, in my area at least.

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    @joe from Lowell:
    That’s about what I said when I saw how much I’m getting back this year. More specifically, I said that the mortgage tax deduction- which I get to use for the first time this year- is really unfair because it gives the most money to the people who need it the least.

  68. 68.

    Mouse Tolliver

    Looks like Atlas Shrugged is on its way to becoming another conservative flop. Its per screen average so far ($2,276 per screen) is only slightly higher than An American Carol’s per screen average ($2,231).

    Or maybe Kathy Nickolaus will find additional ticket sales on her personal computer by Monday morning, catapulting AS to the #1 spot.

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    @p.a.:
    Maybe I’m just sensitive because I’ve used “heuristic” professionally, and for about the reason that most people don’t like it. Using a $5 word is a great way of making what you’re doing sound fancier and more impressive than it really is.

  74. 74.

    FlipYrWhig

    @p.a.:

    I’ve looked up the meaning of picaresque a dozen times and can’t remember the meaning.

    That’s in my wheelhouse. A “picaro,” from the Spanish, is a rogue, like a social outsider living by his wits. The original picaro, Lazarillo de Tormes, is a street kid who does things like stealing sausage from a blind man’s plate. “Picaresque” stories are about people like that. They tend to have rambling, episodic plots, because the point is to create more and more sticky situations from which the picaro can improvise an escape.

  75. 75.

    scav

    @RSA: or as a description of a method for producing a solution that should be good but can’t be proven to be optimal. At least in my less rarefied treks through Location-Allocation and Operations Research. Although I’d so like to be part of an underground cabal.

  76. 76.

    MattR

    @John Cole-

    No matter how shitty my day is, I have found that spending fifteen minutes under the comforter with the pooches makes things better.

    I didn’t think that was legal, even in West Virginia.

    OTOH – I have to admit that Rosie was in one of my dreams a few nights ago.

  77. 77.

    JGabriel

    @scav:

    Unexpected words showing up as verbs usually make my hackles rise though.

    Get over it. Verbing is a feature of the English language, not a bug or aberration.

    .

  78. 78.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Roger Moore:

    Using a $5 word is a great way of making what you’re doing sound fancier and more impressive than it really is.

    That’s a rather platitudinous thing to say. ;P

  79. 79.

    gogol's wife

    The latest cliche I’ve noticed is “drill down.” I’m not even sure whether it means “dig for a more profound interpretation” or “drill away the excess verbiage.” I’ve heard it used both ways. The problem is it’s always said with a sort of self-satisfaction that means the person saying it knows they’re being cool. I hate it.

  80. 80.

    FlipYrWhig

    @scav:

    Unexpected words showing up as verbs usually make my hackles rise though

    Where are the hackles? Are they near the craw where things stick or the gorge where things rise?

  83. 83.

    Brachiator

    @p.a.: RE: meme

    Is this a web-inspired neologism? I don’t remember seeing it before I got online. Seems to be used as a pretty close synonym for ‘theme’.

    This term seemed to pop up a few years ago when talking about how ideas could be transmitted and “evolve.” And some people used it when, as you note, “theme” would work just as well.

    The Wikipedia has something on this, but I can’t stand to look at it, because my eyes will definitely glaze over.

  84. 84.

    JGabriel

    @maya:

    lapel pin measurement tool

    That really shouldn’t make your eyes glaze over. It’s just a synonym for Republican penii.

    It might make you avert your eyes (and laugh), but not glaze over.

    .

  87. 87.

    Amir_Khalid

    An oldie but goodie: disintermediation. Very popular in the early 1990s to describe the notion, the current, that the Intertoobz would cut out the middlemen between you and all the informations out there.

    Sigh. We were all so innocent then.

  88. 88.

    Roger Moore

    @RSA:
    Heuristic is great because it lets you do something that might otherwise be seen as cheating. I’m not telling my program how to do everything based on my expert knowledge, I’m using heuristics.

  89. 89.

    FlipYrWhig

    @gogol’s wife:

    The latest cliche I’ve noticed is “drill down.” I’m not even sure whether it means “dig for a more profound interpretation” or “drill away the excess verbiage.”

    I didn’t think it was either one of those, exactly. I thought it was just “go down to the next layer,” but with the connotation that down there things are simpler or truer. I first heard the phrase when I was doing web/database programming.

  91. 91.

    p.a.

    @RSA: My work (for a telco whose name rhymes with ‘horizon’) involves proximity to intelligence neither artificial nor natural. I include myself in this statement. Hence my discomfort with ‘heuristic’.

  92. 92.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @FlipYrWhig: Hackles are the hair on the neck and shoulders of a dog or wolf that stand up as an anger display. But you probably knew that and were being funny.

  93. 93.

    MattR

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Was she mad at you?

    Not at all. I remember her not leaving me alone. Which was kinda funny since I also remember that her intro into the dream was that she appeared out of nowhere when I was walking Ellie and all of a sudden I realized that I had forgotten about Rosie (who was my other dog).

  94. 94.

    stuckinred

    How about the ubiquitous “in-studio”? Who gives a fuck if someone is “in-studio” or on the goddamn phone?

  99. 99.

    stuckinred

    And another thing, all the weenie politicians with their “look”. “Look, we all know this is bullshit. . . “

  100. 100.

    Tehanu

    @gogol’s wife:

    me too. And it doesn’t mean either one, as far as I can tell. It seems to mean something like, “actually get down to the details of how it works instead of just stating vague generalizations.”

  101. 101.

    scav

    @gogol’s wife et al: might be originally derived from data-mining where you drill-down to reports of finer and finer detail — at least that’s where I first heard the term. Say start with a sales report of all Amazon books and then ask for greater detail about sales of fiction, then contemporary novels, then recent publications by Jasper Fforde.

  102. 102.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Omnes Omnibus: Really? Huh, no kidding. I actually thought the hackles had something to do with cockfighting, like it was a particularly sharp part of the bird’s foot.

  103. 103.

    Roger Moore

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I thought it was just “go down to the next layer,” but with the connotation that down there things are simpler or truer.

    I think it’s intended to be analogous to “dig deeper” but with the implication that you’re targeting something specific rather than something more general.

  105. 105.

    FlipYrWhig

    @stuckinred: I like “look” better than “Make no mistake,” but, yeah, clearly it’s something that politicians are taught by their handlers, just like pointing with the knuckle instead of an outstretched finger.

  106. 106.

    piratedan

    @New Yorker: i hear ya, the lord god willin’ we’ll all survive, except for those sinful bastards who live over there who watch Oprah!

    I’ve always been fascinated by tornadoes and like that line uttered by the female lead (Ms. Hunt) “You’ve never seen why it takes these houses and leaves this one alone, we need to understand”

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    @Yutsano:

    In an ideal world I wouldn’t have a job, because what I do should really be unnecessary. But there does seem to be a lot of confusion about how to fill out a W-4 form correctly, and to be honest, the instructions themselves are hella confusing.

    Tell me about it. I had to help a temp employee with her state withholding. The payroll department at the temp agency was doing it wrong and insisted that they were correct. Had to actually take them to the state site and walk them through the damn calculation.

  112. 112.

    JGabriel

    @scav: Oh. Yes, you have a point there. I tend to use verbing for humorous effect (a possibly bad habit learned from Whedon), but you’re right: it’s absolutely maddening in business speak — whether it’s because of all the other stupidity surrounding it, or because of the implied selectivity/cultism of people speaking in that style, I’m not sure. As usual, it’s probably both.

    .

  113. 113.

    FlipYrWhig

    @JGabriel: I really thought “hackles” were something sharp that was used to hack, and thus “raising your hackles” meant preparing to strike. (Like an animal version of “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver.”) This hackles = hair thing is going to take some getting used to.

  114. 114.

    gogol's wife

    @scav:

    Okay, I’m starting to realize it’s like a lot of other terms that originate in number-crunching and then get adopted by humanists who don’t know what they’re talking about so that it loses all meaning. See “parameters.”

  116. 116.

    Brachiator

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    read vintage E. O. Wilson the father of sociobiology if you wanna know the origins.

    I had forgot about Wilson. I’ve seen Dawkins and others use the term. It’s damn stupid.

  117. 117.

    Martin

    @Suffern ACE: Our HR is quite good about pre-screening. I give them a list of specific skills/degrees/job experience and that’s all they send me. If you’re not a moron supervisor (let’s not go there) you send a very limited and reasonable list, not the ’10 years experience in iPhone development’ bullshit. They don’t look for anything else so if you don’t give a degree requirement, they don’t screen for that and you’ll get everything from HS degree to MDs. There’s no corporate culture in .gov that they’re trying to achieve, so it works very well, and we don’t have many HR staffers as a result.

  119. 119.

    Josie

    @FlipYrWhig: In my son’s little pug, you can actually see the hackles rise when she gets mad and barks at another dog. They are in a short line from the neck down to just below the shoulder blades along the center of her back. I had never seen them so clearly until I met her.

  120. 120.

    Arundel

    Optics, pivoting, and walking back are three political terms that have been irking me over the past half-decade or so. Maybe it’s because I always think of Sully, or the Villagers wanting to sound “savvy”. Makes themselves sound like the herd creatures they are.

  121. 121.

    scav

    @FlipYrWhig: Nah, that’s basically the right idea. It’s more the hair rising on the back of your neck before you attack than the thing rising that actually used to strike but it’s definitely along the threat-attack line of thought. The big hair in this context makes you look bigger and scarier, not closer to god.

  123. 123.

    gene108

    @Yutsano:

    I personally think, when the IRS writes instructions to the tax code, they employ a group of cryptographers to hide the true meaning from people, who do not have access to the cipher.

    The cipher is kept in a deep, dark, vault only accessible to a small cabal, under the Washington, D.C. subway lines.

    Clarifications as to what the cryptograms tax code means are specifically handed to IRS field agents, from the deputies of this small cabal, in order for them to collect on unpaid taxes.

  126. 126.

    Yutsano

    @gene108: This has more truth than you probably want to realize. Except the secret underground vault is in West Virginia.

    @jeffreyw: AAAWWWW!!! He looked like such a sweet lil puppeh too!

  127. 127.

    John - A Motley Moose

    Just out of curiosity, why do you throw Lily out if she doesn’t want to go? A mature dog knows whether they can hold it or not. If she has to go bad enough then she’ll go out rain or not.

  130. 130.

    transmaniacon

    @Richard Fox:

    My 78 year old mother was rejected today for specialist care because she was three years over the maximum.

    This appears to be post-Ryan modernism.

  134. 134.

    RSA

    @p.a.: I feel your pain. Know what I hate (though I don’t know that this is your situation)? Business managers who adopt tech talk without understanding what the words mean. They’re worse than sportscasters.

  136. 136.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    I get the creeps when I hear the buzz word “Stake-holders,” used often collaborators and clients in the non-profit sector. It makes me think of Dr. Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood.

    On the other hand, words are our friends. So much better at work to say “I’m not sanguine about this project” as opposed to “This is a shit sandwich.”

  137. 137.

    Linda Featheringill

    @piratedan:

    I’ve always been fascinated by tornadoes and like that line uttered by the female lead (Ms. Hunt) “You’ve never seen why it takes these houses and leaves this one alone, we need to understand”

    I was raised in Tornado Alley and I can tell you, there is no why. There is no reason. There is only what is.

    Or, in other words, the universe is absurd.

  142. 142.

    Studly Pantload, Vibrant Trollbot for Obama

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall:

    Woot — a blog!!

    Edit: I keep forgetting if you can click on someone’s name, here, you’ll be taken to their blog. Gotta learn me up on usin’ those linky things.

  143. 143.

    Jason

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: “unpack” was the new “interrogate,” and “interrogate” was the new “problematize,” or maybe that was the other way around

    Also, I am surprised the call for words effectively distracted the thread from the phrase “I have found that spending fifteen minutes under the comforter with the pooches makes things better.” Somewhere there’s a dog-lovin’ politician in need of a good PR guy

  146. 146.

    Amir_Khalid

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I heard “stakeholders” a lot back when there was a brief corporate fad for a bit of humbug called “corporate social responsibility”. In fact, one of the first people I heard saying “stakeholders” and “corporate social responsibility” (in 1990, as I recall) was the chairman of British Petroleum, as it was still called then. Make of that what you will, my American friends.

  147. 147.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @lamh34:

    Just from looking at that video, it seems that the non teatards substantially outnumbered the target audience.

  148. 148.

    Delia

    Here is a brief list of words which, every time I read them, my eyes glaze over:
    …
    hermeneutics
    dialectical
    fiduciary
    patriarchy
    post-structuralism

    Golly, sounds like you need a session with The Post-Modern Generator. It’ll give you a lot more words to make your eyes glaze, and arranged in fake essays, too. It’s always good for a spin on a rainy day.

  149. 149.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Amir_Khalid: I think it is an idea that should take hold with the public. If the towns in which a corporation has offices or plants is seen as having a stake in what happens, if labor is seen as having a stake in what happens, if people living downstream or downwind are seen as having a stake in what happens, corporations will need to make different decisions. I also want a pony.

  151. 151.

    eemom

    @Josie:

    same with my yellow lab mix. His fur literally stands up and forms a stripe down the middle of his back. It’s hilarious.

  152. 152.

    soonergrunt

    @New Yorker: Well, there’s also that city that had a very high percentage of black people living in it that got hit by a hurricane. Pat told us all about God’s wrath on their sinfulness.

    I live in OK, and I spent a couple of weeks mobilized for the May 3, 1999 tornado, and I’m here to tell you that God seemed pretty wrathful to me for the various misbehaviors and sins of the people here.
    That first and most obvious one would be pride.

  154. 154.

    Jay C

    @Gordon, The Big Express Engine:

    Come on, show of hands. Who here has seen Atlas Shrugged?

    So far, the only “show of hands” for Atlas Shrugged has been with the middle fingers extended: it looks like it’s going to be another right-wing box-office disaster.

    Unless, of course, the Koch Brothers or Rupert Murdoch or someone is going to pay people to fill seats and boost the numbers (like they do with RW books needing hyping)…

  155. 155.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jay C: My guess is that most of the business will be repeat customers, and the theaters might need to mop up afterwards.

  156. 156.

    lamh34

    did anyone else see Fringe last night? It was literally a trip!

    I’m so glad this show has been renewed. The next season can give it a chance to finalized all the things that have happened this season.

    love it.

  161. 161.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @soonergrunt: … and you go to the games in a surrey with the fringe on top? July-November 1988 was a long time for me to spend in the Lawton area. Geronimo’s grave was cool though.

  166. 166.

    Amir_Khalid

    @Omnes Omnibus: No disagreement on the idea that corporations ought to be socially responsible. It has been the work of unions, environmental and consumer organizations, civil rights groups, and everybody else who cares, over more than a century, to fight to make corporations act socially responsible. And to educate society to expect it of them.

    But the sociopathy you find deep in the core of corporatist culture tends to treat CSR as one more thing to pay lip service to, while they go right on fucking us over. As they see it, being socially responsible costs them profits. Worse, it means yielding power to those whom they are accustomed to fucking over.

    I’ll get off my soapbox now.

  167. 167.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    @transmaniacon:

    Are the elders aware that you’ve become such a brazen hussy?

    How rude. I’m not a fucking BAPTIST. All Baptists are heretics as are, frankly, all alleged “Christians” who are not members of the one true church.

    I am a good Catholic woman, which means that I can get away with anything as long as I say sorry five minutes before I die.

  169. 169.

    jank_w

    Orthogonal. Anybody tries using that word with me and they’re on the permanent shit list.

  171. 171.

    eemom

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall:

    don’t worry Sarah, we semi-lobotomized law school survivors here at BJ iz got yer back. I can whip up a 20-count malicious prosecution complaint for compensatory and punitive damages in nothing flat.

    Also too, little old ladies make awesome plaintiffs.

  172. 172.

    Ruckus

    @Yutsano:
    Just for giggles I went to the US immigration web site a couple of days ago to see what the requirements are. I have looked at other countries sites and they are pretty straight forward. From country so and so these rules, over or under these ages look here. The US site? Faaget about it. I still have no idea after looking around for about a half hour if there is an age limit, a country limit, or even an actual process that someone, anyone can understand. There seems to be no recognizable language other than bureaucratease on the site. And I thought I knew how to read bureaucratease but I was wrong.

  173. 173.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eemom: Hell, she has a right, no, a responsibility, as a person with the 21st century equivalent of a printing press to make facts known to the voting public so that they may be better informed and thus make the best possible decision as they perform their most solemn duty as citizens.

    Shorter me: SP&T can haz 1st Amendment counts too.

  174. 174.

    soonergrunt

    @Omnes Omnibus: 5 days is a long time to spend in Lawton. You spent five months there? Wow.
    The fact that Artillery (and now ADA) is centered in Fort Sill explains a great many things about Artillerymen, but you seem to have healed.

  175. 175.

    Ruckus

    @MattR:
    The only thing I’d change is:
    We do what we can when we must.

    Not everyone in every family can handle things all that well. As long as people do what they are capable of handling, things work out eventually. But you are right the more of each others shoulders there are to cry on the better it can be.

  176. 176.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    @eemom:

    Why thankyou dear. If I need any help I’ll let you all know.

    Also too, little old ladies make awesome plaintiffs.

    Little old ladies who have slept with three serving Supreme Court judges and know exactly where the whips and chains are kept make even better plaintiffs.

  177. 177.

    lamh34

    Lord, Space Jams in on CARTOON Network. I haven’t seen this movie since the damn 90’s!!!!

  180. 180.

    nicteis

    abreaction
    decompensate
    recalibration
    deconstruct
    Pareto optimal
    dynamic (as a noun)
    financial instruments

  182. 182.

    George, Short and Sneaky

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall:

    I am a good Catholic woman, which means that I can get away with anything as long as I say sorry five minutes before I die.

    Ha ha. That won’t save you, insatiable wench, when St Peter asks for the mileage on your chastity belt

    Bwaaa Ha. Good Catholic woman! You’ll need to ask for an extension on the five minute warning for a cover to cover reading of Gideon’s Bible. Bwaa hhaa That might get you an interview.

  186. 186.

    soonergrunt

    @efgoldman: It’s kind of like being the only Airborne troops on a Leg post–the nail that sticks up gets hammered.

    @Omnes Omnibus: ANY car (especially those with less-than-optimal air conditioning) are ovens here.

  190. 190.

    stuckinred

    @soonergrunt: Or being in basic at Ft Campbell in 66 when the entire cadre was airborne. Dude had us spinning the guidon in front of the formation as they ran our sorry asses to death!

  191. 191.

    soonergrunt

    @stuckinred: If one is drafted, I should think that Artillery would be preferred over Infantry. Bad enough to force you to serve, they don’t gotta be pricks and put you in the high-casualty jobs, too.

  195. 195.

    Martin

    @Josie:

    When I was a teenager (back in the dark ages) I was so jealous of the Catholic girls for this very reason.

    When this atheist was a teenager (in the very same dark ages) I prayed every night in thanks for Catholic girls. Oh, and for the church for telling them everything that would send them to hell. They were always very thorough.

  198. 198.

    Martin

    @Ruckus: US immigration policy seems to be distilled most simply down to ‘attorney welfare’. The requirements for becoming a US citizen: pay an immigration attorney a fuckton of money, and then you’re a citizen.

  199. 199.

    soonergrunt

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yup. That sucked in Fort Ord, CA.

    @stuckinred: I volunteered for that shit. That fact doesn’t commend my intelligence. One of my Drill Sergeants at Fort Benning (’88) left mid-cycle and became a Black Hat (Airborne Instructor) right before I graduated Infantry school. The miserable prick was waiting for me when I got to Jump School.

  202. 202.

    stuckinred

    @soonergrunt: Yea, many of us were a bit light. After my tour in Korea myself and two other dopes in an Honest John unit at Lewis PAID a guy to get us into a unit going to the Nam. Fucking Mensa.

  204. 204.

    soonergrunt

    @stuckinred: Wow. Going from nuclear artillery missile (and all the REMF-ness that implies) to combat Arty–you know, even today, firebases aren’t exactly known for their amenities.

  205. 205.

    stuckinred

    @soonergrunt: Negative, judge said son, you will leave this community on your 17th birthday. It’s up to you whether it’s the joint or the big green machine. A good lookin 135 pounder like me had no place in jail. . .and not much business in the Army for that matter.

  207. 207.

    transmaniacon

    @Corner Stone:

    Sorry, I’m not ‘Allan’.

    Does your Hillary worship get in the way of your critical thinking all of the time, or just some times?

  210. 210.

    stuckinred

    @soonergrunt: The other way around, 1/79th Arty (105mm) THEN Honest John. There is a guy at work that was an Arty officer in the mid-late 70’s and he tried to tell me a John had a 100 Mile range. He was duly humble when I sent him the correct range.

  217. 217.

    soonergrunt

    @mr. whipple: I had a nice federal refund, but had to pay $250 in state taxes, which is ironic and sad, because the state government of OK is fucking useless for most things.

  219. 219.

    Ruckus

    @Martin:
    I got that from the site. Most of the instructions had sections about what your attorney needed to do or pay and nothing about what a human needed to do.

  221. 221.

    Rihilism

    @Martin: When I was closeted Catholic school boy, I lacked the self-awareness to be either jealous of or thankful for Catholic girls. I was much too busy fantasizing about which shoes would compliment the rest of my papal finery…

  222. 222.

    Anne Laurie

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I actually thought the hackles had something to do with cockfighting, like it was a particularly sharp part of the bird’s foot.

    Well, fighting cocks & hawks do have hackles, and IIRC it’s a term of art in falconry as well; apart from political blogs & horror movies most of us probably recall the word from T.H. White and fantasy novels.

  225. 225.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    this one may be odd but

    modern.

    to me the word means what people for the first part of last century thought the future should be, or something that was evidence at the time of progress.

    which is fine.

    its when modern is used to mean contemporary, or referring to something of the last 30 years or so, as modern.

    plethora, its like the only “power word” some people know, and gets shoe-horned in, more often than not.

    artisanal, which to me means overpriced.

  226. 226.

    soonergrunt

    @Martin: But that’s one of my US Senators doing that so the state doesn’t even get in on that action, either.

  227. 227.

    stuckinred

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Here’s how it is defined for Navy Archives

    Held by The National Archives

    Deck logs of commissioned U.S. Navy ships from the earliest times through 1940 are in the Old Military and Civil Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC 20408 [Telephone (202) 501-5385,web-site http://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/washington/%5D. Logs from 1941 through those that are 30 years old or older are in the Modern Military Branch, National Archives, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park MD 20740-6001

  235. 235.

    Rihilism

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall: I just knew Roberts had to be one of them. He’s so humpy! Blue eyes, blond hair and noticeable bulge even in robes! Gotta be packin’ if you plan on skull-fucking the nation, am I right, ladies?

    As for the others, may I ask you, have you ever played softball?…

  237. 237.

    soonergrunt

    @Martin: Yeah. I was hoping that we would return Coburn to OK so that he could save us all from that, but it was not to be. Washington, DC is safe though! No need to thank us.

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes, we were, and if I thought jumping in February at Benning was cold, December must have been more so.

  238. 238.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    Don’t need a reason to spank you son. Nor point out your pathetic behavior when it reaches the levels it has on your sniffing out sockpuppets and people who may or may not be using other handles. As it is, each new person that arrives here has to weather your inane accusations of who they might be.

  239. 239.

    Corner Stone

    @General Stuck: Listen dumbass. The Blue Oyster Cult douchebag showed up talking shit about lots of things long past. He’s not a newbie, just a new handle. And only a couple people would show up out of the blue and just randomly say the things he’s saying to me.
    Pull your head out of your ass for just a second or two.

    Or don’t. Wevs.

  240. 240.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @soonergrunt: I don’t remember it being particularly cold. I just remember being tired and wanting to land safely if not elegantly (which, as it turns out, is exactly what I did).

  245. 245.

    Dennis SGMM

    @New Yorker:
    Paraphrasing a comedian whose name I have, lamentably, forgotten: “Hell, half of those bubbas live in houses that have wheels. Why don’t they just pull them to a place that doesn’t have tornadoes?”

    ETA: When the next big quake strikes California, the bubbas will be quick to state that we shouldn’t be living where earthquakes are a known hazard.

  247. 247.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Violent thunderstorms that have already spawned dozens of tornadoes are blowing through here right now, Pat Robertson’s home city.

  249. 249.

    Yutsano

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Stay low and stay safe good sir. And hopefully the worst consequences are scared dogs and downed tree limbs.

    @Omnes Omnibus: Heh. I’m required to file as a condition of my employment. Done in February. Soooo looking forward to Monday now.

  250. 250.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @suzanne:

    And “bullshytt” and “proselytize” and “memetic”.

    awww…..not a Neal Stephenson fan? And you forgot missionariism.
    And stupid.

  251. 251.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    @Rihilism:

    I just knew Roberts had to be one of them. He’s so humpy! Blue eyes, blond hair and noticeable bulge even in robes!

    The man is an animal. But not as much fun as Sandra Day O’Connor. She was a right goer.

  254. 254.

    transmaniacon

    @Corner Stone:

    Sorry about that.

    The Blue Oyster Cult was a simple MacGuffin, necessary for a Reptilian take-over bid to usher in the New World Order.

  256. 256.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus: Don’t get me wrong: the United States tax code is complicated as all get out, and trying to figure out which way is up there can drive the fire out of any man. Having said that, it’s also not college-level calculus, and it can be done. What really makes me sad are the people who don’t file then find out (through me) they were due refunds. You got three years to claim e, folks. And if no return by Monday, you lose out on any from 2007.

  257. 257.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Yutsano: I actually do some tax work. Nothing complicated. I have my last tax client to finish up on Monday. I am trying to get him out of paying the kiddie tax.

  258. 258.

    eemom

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall:

    Roberts?!? Dear lady, he’s young enough to be your —

    heh. Never mind. Better I judge not, lesteth I be judged.

    As for Breyer, the WaPo had a perfectly adorable quote from him today about how he has “a Twitter thing.”

  259. 259.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @transmaniacon: well …..if you don’t get latenite radio and Adventure University, then joo mus’ be An Old Person.
    Mebbe Sarah, Plain and Tall will hook joo up.
    ;)

  262. 262.

    Anne Laurie

    @John – A Motley Moose:

    A mature dog knows whether they can hold it or not. If she has to go bad enough then she’ll go out rain or not.

    Certain breeds, many of them lapdogs, will go full Tycho Brae rather than subject their candy arses to water from the skies. My favorite papillons will happily plow through snow higher than their shoulders, but three drops of rain and they’re clinging to the screen door like kittens, wailing ‘Let us in! We’re suede!‘ If you live with one of these dogs, it’s either harden your heart & let them know Out Means Out, or put down waterproof mats at the door…

  264. 264.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: You know, when an artist experiments with technique, it is one thing. When Picasso showed multiple angles at once, it was intentional and he was playing with concepts of perspective. When I do it, it is because I am shite as an artist.

  267. 267.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus: Have you called my work before? Have we communicated without even realizing? Or do you not get involved when it comes to dealing with ACS?

  270. 270.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Omnes Omnibus: awww…too crude? But they totally don’t get it when i’m subtle.
    Whoosh it goes, right over their heads.

    “The difference between stupid and intelligent people – and this is true whether or not they are well-educated – is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. ”
    — Neal Stephenson

  271. 271.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus: I guess that would just leave Burnsy who would have to deal with lil ol’ ebil me. But his specialty kinda precludes that from happening.

  272. 272.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: I read it as freshman in college. We had a program called Freshman Studies that all freshmen took and all faculty members taught; it was supposed to provide a broad base of common references for everyone. Kuhn was one of the books, as was Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying.” Unfortunately, I really don’t remember much of it except that the next vaguely scientific book we read was “Sand County Almanac” which I loved.

  274. 274.

    parsimon

    John Cole’s original list of words-to-make-your-eyes-glaze-over tells me that he and I will never make it. With the possible exception of “fiduciary”, the rest might make me roll my eyes, depending on context, though “patriarchy” usually makes my ears perk up.

  276. 276.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @suzanne: here suzanne, a gift.
    My favorite quote from Anathem.

    “… you should not believe a thing only because you like to believe it. We call that ‘Diax’s Rake’ …”
    — Neal Stephenson (Anathem)

    bonne nuit et dormez vous bien

  278. 278.

    Anne Laurie

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: Y’know, the Spousal Unit (who is a Stephenson fan) read Anatheum, and he thought the ‘bullshyte’ spelling was pretty obviously intended as a satire on the sort of minds who took such reimagineering waaaay too seriously…

    But then, he’s a linguist, not a mathematician.

  279. 279.

    licensed to kill time

    A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I tried to make my way through Camille Paglia’s book Sexual Personae.

    Totally ruined the word chthonic for me forever, man.
    Never finished the book, either.

  282. 282.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Anne Laurie:

    …a technical or clinical term denoting speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said.
    usage note: It is inherent in the mentality of extramuros bulshytt talkers that they are more prone than anyone else to taking offense (or pretending to) when their bullshytt is pointed out to them.

    Wow, how wonderful to read Stephenson as a linguist.
    I’m jealous.
    I bet your husband loved Snow Crash.

  283. 283.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Anne Laurie: i suppose this is really rude to bring this up, but the last two times suzanne swung on me she wound up punching herself in the neck.
    slow learner?

  284. 284.

    Phoebe

    @efgoldman: I almost put “synergy” too! We must be attending the same powerpoint presentations.

    And yeah, “empowerment” means: I’m about to bore you into a black hole, or, if you insist upon paying attention to me, offend you with how pompous and presumptuous I am toward the population I claim to aim to empower.

    And the thing is, both those words are kind of useful, but I have to find other ways to say what they mean because they are absolutely ruined by association.

  285. 285.

    Tehanu

    @Dennis SGMM:

    Wasn’t that Sam Kinison? I still remember him screaming about starvation in Africa, something along the lines of, “Why don’t those idiots GO WHERE THE FOOD IS?”

  287. 287.

    jafd

    A seminary professor called up the computer support tech, said
    “I’m having a problem. This morning, I printed out the syllabus for my course on the Synoptic Gospels, and it came out fine. This afternoon, I tried printing out the syllabus for my course on Postmodern Hermeneutics, and all I got was gibberish. Can you give me a hand here?”

    The tech came up, looked around, said
    “Well, what do you expect from a Canon printer?”

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