We have been seeing the word consensus used to mean something other than 100% agreement quite a bit lately, so I checked the definition. Sure enough, there is a secondary definition that says it can just be a majority opinion, at least according to Merriam-Webster. (I don't have access to the OED on-line right now, or I'd have checked that ( Read more... )

A friend of mine posted a comment on something on Facebook earlier saying, "Not to get pedantic . . . " and then later in the same conversation, "Anyway, please pardon the pedantry." To which I responded, "Pedantry is MY job, anyway." (What, you don't think I know this about myself ( Read more... )

Just putting my neck out to say that no one automatically deserves respect. It isn't an unalienable right. Everyone deserves to be treated with common decency - until they prove themselves unworthy of it - but that is not the same thing as respect. At least, not in my book.

Before we got married, the_original1 took me to see Peter Schickele and Calliope (the renaissance band, not the Italian progressive rock band) at the historic Egyptian Theater in DeKalb, Illinois. It was arguably one of the best concerts I've ever seen. About half the show was a performance of Schickele's "Bestiary," which really has to be seen and not just ( Read more... )

Just look at the icon!

I got tired of seeing the ads for the "one rule" to get rid of stomach fat, and now jiggly arms, too, so I did a Google search to see if I could find out what this one rule supposedly was without clicking on the ads. I found Cranky Fitness, which I promptly put on my Google Reader. (Yes, I'm becoming addicted, but that's ( Read more... )

I guess George Carlin finally had to move his shit so someone else would have somewhere to put their stuff. He died of heart failure at the age of 71.

From the Reuters obit: Carlin told Playboy that his sensibilities developed in the 1950s, "when comedy stopped being safe ... (and) became about saying no to authority."He cited such influences as ( Read more... )

verlaine does not post nearly as much as he should, which is less than he used to, but it's still more than he does lately. I think this even though he has the horrible misconception that elk are somehow superior, or at least equal to, moose.

This week, he is collecting information on playground slang, and discussing the relative merits of American and ( Read more... )