This and that

I love English. Sunday morning, lazing in bed to the radio; reading a book on meat, Will Shortz was asking questions of someone. The game was to name two rhyming words, which answered a pair of clues.

The clue was a kind of street, and a nag.

I thought of, "bourse/horse" (though as I type this I realise that course would have worked as well).

The answer they got/wanted was through/shrew. What amused me wasn't that I thought of an obscure word for an open market (which seems a better fit than part of a street (throughway) or a description of its connecting to other streets), but rather that when I heard "nag" I didn't think of a person, but a horse.

Doghouse Riley has rant up on the subject of English, and how it came to be where it is too.

His has more politics.

For a different piece of politics, this piece is obscene (which was only linked because when I couldn't get to link, clownburner was kind enough to remind me to try tinyurl which fixed it). It seems the DoJ has been outsourcing investigations, but it doesn't actually endorse the conclusions of the people they are paying to do the work which they ought to be doing themselves.

Once you've filed your report, it is reviewed by "a team of two seasoned investigators," according to those documents. If they find merit to your allegations, the investigators will "conduct a thorough review," prepare a report and forward it to the Justice Department and your U.S. attorney. Sounds pretty official -- and yet, as you leave the Justice site, a disclaimer pops up saying that the department "does not endorse the organizations or views" of ObscenityCrimes.org and "takes no responsibility for, and exercises no control over . . . the accuracy" or "legality of the material contained on this site."

Let's see. The DoJ has authorised (to the tune of $150,000, back on 2005, chump change to lots of this sort of earmarking, but that's not the point) this company to perform investigations. That company has posted guidelines for the filing of complaints (on which the findings witll be made) but can't excesise any control over, nor assure the accuracy and legalityof the stuff that company tells you?

What the hell is the DoJ doing then, because, last I checked, the charter of the DoJ was all about ensuring the legality of stuff like that. You know, investigations into crimes.

Finally, If you aren't conservative, Sirius Radio thinks you are unpatriotic

Supporting the troops

Boredom is a terrible thing, and when one is deployed, it's one of the things one fights.

I read anything I could get my hands on; some of it absolute crap (I don't know how Mary Higgens Clark and James Patterson ay the rent; though to be fair, maybe the horrid parts of the Clark novel were written by her daughter and they were as fixed as they could be).

John Scalzi is, once again, offering an e-version of his newest book to troops who are forward deployed. This is a different scale version of the books pnh arranged to have sent to my First Sergeant (this was as I was being medevacced, which is why I didn't get them; I didn't need them).

Go here.

Spread the news far and wide.

What the hell

I don't normally engage in silliness like this, but hey, we only get egoboo every so often.

Oh my...!