Montana needs an English-only law.

A newspaper there reports:

"Members of the Missoula County Search and Rescue Team had their hands full Sunday as a half-dozen hikers reported route-finding issues in the Mormon Peak area."

Having route-finding issues is more respectable than being lost?

(H/T to Friend John in the GMA)

Controversially speaking

My newspaper, companion of my childhood, once upon a time an outlet for my words, always a source of bemusement, reports this morning:

"The Senate passed a controversial bill that would allow sheriffs less discretion in granting permits to carry concealed weapons."

I wonder if the meaning of the word "controversial" even cracked the consciousness of the writer and editor.

The shall-issue bill cleared the upper house 44-4, raising a certain objection to the sentence quoted above. To wit: "Holy pschitt you freeken moron, how the freek controversial can the damned thing be if it pleases pleases almost everyone in a fractured Senate -- Democrats, Republicans, drunks, sleepers, and the confused statist dudes who got elected last cycle only because their counties were pissed off at George W. Bush?"

(That was unforgivably vulgar, but it made me feel better.)

Actually, I doubt "controversial" was the product of any cognitive/analytical process at all. It was just a series of reflexive keystrokes hardwired into the brain of journalists who are required to mention firearms.

Ah so Toyoda-san, (redux)

So your pedal that wouldn't go back and forth is being fixed with a shim.

A shim? A freaken shim!?

And it doesn't help a damned bit to re-edit the news releases and in the second-day issues to call the shim a "precision steel plate."

You are in a good deal of trouble with us folks who tinker with guns. We know all about shims. We use shims to (barely) salvage rifle scope installations which we have totally screwed up due to purchasing incorrect or badly designed parts, or to simple laziness, or to ineptitude.

But at least we hardly ever claim our shim is a precision steel plate.

Hell, I guess I wouldn't mention fixing a deadly flaw on a $40,000 car with a 30-cent shim either. Shim sounds like sham which would remind some car buyers of scam which might get them wondering what other hidden and fatal shortcuts the Toyoda samurai might be trying to get away with.

On the other hand, I find your interior fabric collection simply stunning.

Obama Speaks, sort of

If the AP has it right, and, c 'mon you guys, the AP usually does, on the simple stuff anyway, President Obama yesterday told the nation he can't imagine "anything more devastating to the public interest" than the Supreme Court's decision to ease limits on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions."

Lemme hep y'all out there, Mr. President. A mutant-strain bubonic plague outbreak. Nuclear war. A collision with Mars. All the women in the world suddenly looking and talking like Nancy Grace. That's four more devastating things, and I ain't even had enough breakfast yet to get my imagination kicked in good.

I have a dream. National leaders will one day address the nation in reasoned speech, the terms of which have actual referents.

There are too many generations of pious-tongued Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians between me and my Celtic heritage. In old Ireland I could cuss like a man and insult effectively.

American English has no match for the majestic "gobshite." Nothing to even approach "richfokkenturd."

---

EDIT: Yes, I am reading Greeley, specifically "Irish Gold."

The Times Square Machine Pistol

Reporter Colleen Long probably got at least two things wrong, and at least one editor let her get away with it.

1. The Mac 10 may or may not have been the "machine pistol" she called it, but the odds are extremely high that it was just the semiautomatic version of the gun. Coleen, "machine pistol" is a term reserved for fully automatic weapons, and they are not available to anyone who walks into a gun store in Virginia. If this one happened to be a true machine pistol, it was sold to the woman only after a special background check, registration, and a hefty excise tax.

2. Coleen tells us New York crooks go to southern gun shows "where there are no required background checks for people buying secondhand weapons."

This is, of course, flatly wrong. A licensed dealer requires the legal paper work and background checks for all firearms, new or used. Colleen is confused because transfers among private citizens do not require the federal records and background checks, and this is true whether the transactions happen in a gun show, a living room, or a a target range. The lesson here, and I am going to shout, is:

"THERE IS NO GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE!"

I know I'm preaching to the armed choir here, mostly in hope that these journalisticly inconvenient truths might catch the eye of a stray news person here and there.

And Coleen, a small hint from a veteran ink-stained wretch: When you're unsure about things -- like whether a firearm is or is not a "machine pistol" -- and the deadline pressure doesn't give you time to check, quote a cop or other "authority" on the matter. He may be just as wrong as you are, but the embarrassment for error is on his shoulders, not yours, and our once-honorable profession looks the better.

An idle aside: I wonder if j-schools have decided it's no longer necessary to mention the concept of attribution.

EDIT: It was the semi-auto version. Ain't no machine pistols 'round here, Boss.

Editor and Publisher

We used it to fish for jobs. It told us who got promoted. A dab hand at reading between the lines could use it to figure out who was about to be fired. It kept us up to date on which media baron was foraging for a fresh Goss. But most of all it demanded that we think about what we were doing as we went about the mundane business of telling the world what it was like.

Dirk Smilly of Forbes writes part of the obit:

With a stodgy layout and, until recently, retro typeface, the monthly journal was one of the most respected sources of news about the newspaper business. Over the years it covered the triumphs of Pulitzer Prize winners, the trials of kidnapped journalists in the Middle East, efforts to crack down on checkbook journalism and the ethical problems posed by tabloid values seeping into news.

The world will be a poorer place when the last E&P rolls off the presses. It may be even more saddening that so few understand exactly what was lost.

Our 'Bama Which Art

I suppose most of you have heard that President Obama was to be awarded a Nobel Peace prize. And now It has happened, moving an AP man to write this lead:

OSLO – President Barack Obama entered the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize winners Thursday with humble words, acknowledging his own few accomplishments while delivering a robust defense of war and promising to use the prestigious award to "reach for the world that ought to be."

Pantheon?

Yes, we're all aware of the figurative use of language, but I wonder if it's really a good idea for our media to reinforce His cosmic image of Himself.

With windy paeans like this routinely disgracing the pen of honest journalism, His Obamaness can certainly afford to keep his own words humble.

For Glenn Adams and David Crary of The Associated Press

Gentlemen,

May I relate a short tale? Thank you.

The world was younger and I was covering a legislative session for the AP that we three all cherish. Republicans outsmarted minority Democrats on a parliamentary maneuver. I wrote that the Democrats "howled angrily" at the ruse. It never occurred to me that gratuitous figurative language in straight reporting might rightly be considered editorial comment.

My bureau chief, Dan Perkes, later head of AP News features, called me into his office and gently corrected me. I say gently because the bleeding was well controlled with a tourniquet improvised from used Model 15 ribbons.

Glenn, David, I wonder if you could keep that in mind next time you are tempted to write something like dealing the gay rights movement a heartbreaking defeat in New England, when reporting an election result. I'm sure you would bristle at a challenge to produce for public inspection a gay movement (which I suppose could consist of as few as two gays, but that would be damned lame) whose hearts are demonstrably broken. But that is precisely what good editors did to green reporters in the days when we still had and deserved a little respect.

"Jim," Bureau Chief Perkes said, "next time you write shit like that you'd better have a picture of Democrats on their knees, their eyes raised to the moon, and a tape."

Heartbreaking my ass, boys. In the first place the voters' decision was so widely expected that the heartbreak would have taken place weeks ago and hence been old news. In the second, heartbreak is, by definition, a subjective condition of the innermost soul, a place hardly ever revealed, even to crack wire service men.

If you really wanted to use the term, all you had to do was dial a couple of your gay contacts and quote them as saying they were suffering heartbreak. Then you would have been reporting, not emoting.

Cordially,

Jim

Important Edit: Or did some dim desk jockey insert the word into your copy?

Good Morning, Senator Kirk

So whaddawe got here?

Insurance lawyer, insurance lobbyist, long-time crony of Teddy Kennedy, leader of pragmatic (get mine first!) pols as DNC chairman, super-delegate backer of B. Obama, favorite of Ted's kids, and, incidentally of the aforesaid Mr. Obama himself.

Hope and change arrives, cleverly disguised as just one more matinee by those venerable Vaudeville tappers Tip O'Neill and Joe Kennedy.

-----

An addendum.

The AP reports; "Patrick planned to send a letter to the secretary of state to declare an emergency, allowing him to override a legislative vote that defeated his administration's effort to make the bill take effect immediately. Normally, legislation faces a 90-day waiting period. "I recognize the gravity of this decision and I will make it very soon, and tell you just as soon as I do," the governor told reporters Wednesday night.

If feeding Obama the rubber-stamp vote he wants now rather than in December is handling an "emergency," then what word will Gov. Patrick use when, say, Obama bin Laden is discovered on the bridge of a hijacked destroyer, steaming into Boston Harbor at flank speed?

"Kennedy to Lie in Repose in Boston..."

No, actually. Not in Boston. Not anywhere else. Nor, for that matter, in any bodily position.

(It's a current AP headline on a piece that draws on Lincolnesque imagery to further sanctify a Massachusetts politician who recently died.)

The certainly worser Bert Waisanen

A wire story reporting on the degrees of bankruptcy facing California and some rational states contains this:

"Numerous things look worse than some past recessions," said Bert Waisanen, a fiscal analyst with the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures. "The housing market is worse. Industrial production is worse. Wages are nearly worse."

No punishment is too great for a linguafelon who would construct "nearly worse," and I'm at a loss even to find a label for the assault against both language and logical thought processes. A subjective hypothetical comparison of a non-comparable eventuation resulting in anti-meaning?

To even begin to justify the impossible concept of "nearly worse," his data had to show wages either the same or slightly better, but to say so would have stalled the verbal cavalry charge.

Vocabulary note

One finally gives up and looks up "bling."

It is an unnecessary word and gentlemen should not use it.

Waterboarding the English Language

AP Headline:  "Economy Declining but Recession Abating."

Eh?

Sure, there's a way to defend the Dali-esque logic of that,  but only for Econogeeks who keep a copy of Samuelson on their night stands.  It probably means that  the economy sucks and will continue to do so but isn't sucking  badly enough  this week to meet whatever offical definition of "recession" Geithner is using these days.

I think the writer was simply obeying an old cub-reporter notion that obscurity is a sure sign of a subtle and profound mind. Good copy desks killed crap like that immediately. The crusty old fart in the green eye shades probably would have changed it to   "You're Still getting Screwed, Only  Slower."

(Ms. Whiskbottom in Standards &  Practices would have bowdlerized it a bit.)

 

How's that again?

"It's just tragic, that based on the guns that are on the streets, that three young men have lost their lives today," Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis said.

I defy anyone to parse that sentence for linear logic. 

I suppose he meant "because of" rather than "based on." It would be just as bone-headed, but at least it would illustrate that Chief Jody is up to the demands of constructing a simple declarative sentence.

Loopholing

It is by official decree of His Majesty's Government  both a sniper rifle and an assault weapon, fully capable of modification to accept a silencer.

Or, as the Brits called it in 1941, a "sound moderator." 

Winston's plan was to issue  the Winchester 74s to the able-bodied in coastal counties. They would lay low as the German invasion wave swept over them, then emerge in the Nazi rear -- take the image any way you want -- to wreck general havoc. Some 74s  were equipped with "No.42 straight scopes"  and the government freely admitted they should be employed by citizens for assassinating Wehrmacht  officers and "important administrative officials."

More on this noble use of one of the excellent little .22 semi-autos here. Dandy site, by the way, for  research on several civilian rifles we sent to Albion when she needed them. 

Anyway, the pretty one that got loopholed*  in Dakota Territory today joins a twin brother in the rack, and the guy who bought it says he's now damned well ready to defend liberty against any heathen hordes of left-wing gophers.

---

*Decent citizens rightfully despise gratuitous verbing,  but the the blooming idiots on the left have made "loopholed" and its derivatives  both useful and graceful. 

 

Tasering the Language

Daschle took a dive. Zzzzzz. Old news by now.

But the assault on English continues. Through at least three separate leads (updates),  AP has described his wimpout as "stunning." 

The word is strictly the reporter's, a piece of his "objective" narrative.  He does not quote anyone who is a qualified expert in the analysis of what is or is not stunning.

I didn't find it "stunning" that the former senator caved in. Neither did anyone I've talked with.  About as strong as a rational mind can go is to call it a little surprising this early in the game, especially given the Senate's stunning acceptance of tax-evader Teddy G.

Aside: Does Obama's "absolute" backing of Daschle (until he stunned) remind anyone else of McGovern's "1,000 per cent" loyalty to Tom Eagleton?

EDIT: Finally, in a fourth (or more) lead,  an authoritative source. AP reports: "I was a little stunned. I thought he was going to get confirmed," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont...." 

Danged Ol' Divisiveness

President Obama is getting a straight-A from the newshawks for not being "divisive." The current AP ramble on the subject is typical, headlined: "Obama breaks from Bush, avoids divisive stands."

So "divisive" continues its climb up the list of preferred synonyms for plagues and locust swarms, just as "unity" is elevated to  the-word-so-sacred-it-may-not-be uttered-by-profane-lips.

Wouldn't our  entire  system of governance benefit from less divisiveness? Imagine the calm progress of the ship of state if we simply scuttled the idea of power shared among the congress, the courts, and the administration. Pick one to run things and we reduce divisiveness. We have a rilly rilly good President now. He kneels hourly at the altar of unity, so why shackle him  to the pestiferous kibbutzing of the courts and the congress.? Let el Presidente write the law, decide it's Constitutional, and enforce it. That's unity, and, by gawd, anything else is divisive. 

At a lower level, divisiveness is a thing to be cherished, like the division between me and a kiddy-rock band. Or Senator Feinstein. 

Since this is still a pretty strong country, we'll probably  survive Obama. Surviving the holy war against language is iffier.

.

Call it unresolved relative repugnance. What should be hated more?:

Evil 1: The spectre of JBTs coming around to collect the collection, certainly including the ~ .69 caliber 18th-Century boarding pistol. They can't legally do that yet.

Evil 2:  The JBLiteraryTs hijacking our language.  That's legal. Sarah's legions have convinced the media of the need to append "sniper rifle" to ".50 caliber." Always.

If we let them get away with that, we've lost a treasure, namely language as a device for sharing logical thought processes.

Arguably, all rifles are sniper rifles, but I won't debate that just now. The operative bitch here is the assault on American language.

Linguistic Genocide

We need a better term for this war to the death against language and the thought processes it accommodates. Linguicide? Logicide?  Thanks to Roberta:

A writer for The Nation  says Israel's retaliation against the Quassad rockets from Gaza G.W.  Bush's "last and final war crime."

That's like PETA yapping "atrocity" when you swat a fly. 

All Bush did was refuse to stand in Israel's way and remark that the Gazoids swung first. If that's war crime I'll kiss your butts on the Capitol steps Jan. 20,  soon as Obama draws the crowd.

It's a good illustration of  jihad against reasoned use of language. Israel may be accused of folly, cruelty, undue machoism, and other sins without leaving the realm of reason, and the same applies to folks who care to substitute terms like wisdom and forebearance. You can reasonably debate any of that.

But if we let nitwits con us into accepting "war crime" to denominate Bush's  Gaza response, what sort of term do we have in reserve for, say,  Bataan, Nanking, Manilla, Dachau?

Examples abound. For instance, I hear every new offering from bands  grownups never heard of called "awesome."   If so, what adjective might be used to describe the Second Coming?

And that's why I didn't call The Nation writer a lame-brained idiotic  slug.  Gotta hold something back for writing about Pelosi and Limbaugh.