Tag Archives: photo essays

Lets All Agree That Apostrophe’s Arent Necessary

by LynwoodWingfiel Posted on January 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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German Lopez says that “apostrophes offer an exciting opportunity to show other people how smart and educated you are”—which all by itself makes it worth learning how to use them. For example:

Another common issue is irregular plural words, like children and teeth. For these words, you add an apostrophe and an s — so children’s toys and teeth’s roots.

Live by the apostrophe, die by the apostrophe. My middle-school English teacher beat into us that only humans can possess things. Animals too, I suppose. Or countries. But in any case, never inanimate objects. So it’s “roots of teeth,” because teeth don’t own roots.

Of course, some young punks think this is a dated rule that makes no sense, and they go around merrily giving inanimate objects possession of everything. This is appalling. Of course this rule makes no sense, but that’s the whole reason that good grammar demonstrates how smart and educated you are. If we did what made sense, we’d eliminate the apostrophe entirely since it’s never necessary for comprehension. But that way lies anarchy.

Anyway, everyone1 loves to argue about grammatical minutiae, so have a beer and get to it in comments.

1Actually, not everyone. But my readers sure seem to like it!

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Lets All Agree That Apostrophe’s Arent Necessary

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Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump: Who Is the Least Charitable?

by MadelinBach Posted on January 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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McKay Coppins tells us that Ted Cruz is “facing questions” about his lack of entirely Christ-like generosity:

In a series of interviews this week, political opponents and pastors alike suggested Cruz — an avowed Baptist who is aggressively courting evangelical voters — has flouted the Biblical commandment of tithing in his personal life….According to personal tax returns released during his 2012 Senate bid, Cruz contributed less than 1% of his income to charity between 2006 and 2010 — a far cry from the 10% most evangelical leaders believe the Bible demands.

Well, Ted had all those loans from Goldman Sachs to pay off, so he probably didn’t have much to spare for tithing. Anyway, those loans were used for the greatest possible gift to the Lord: Ted Cruz’s ascension to the Senate.

Of course, Cruz is Mother Theresa compared to his competition:

Tax filings of the Donald J. Trump foundation show Trump has made no charitable contributions to his own namesake nonprofit since 2008. Without an endowment, the fund has continued to give grants only as a result of contributions from others.

….Pressed by the AP on the details of his contributions, Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks provided a partial list of donations that appeared to correspond with the foundation’s gifts — indicating that Trump may be counting other people’s charitable giving as his own.

“I give to hundreds of charities and people in need of help,” Trump said in an emailed response to questions from the AP about how he tallied his own philanthropy. “It is one of the things I most like doing and one of the great reasons to have made a lot of money.” The Trump campaign did not respond to a request that it identify donations that Trump himself gave.

More here. Obviously Trump is lying about this, but that’s hardly even noteworthy anymore. As near as I can tell, he’s congenitally unable to tell the truth about anything related to his finances. I mean, this is a guy who’s using other people’s money for his supposedly self-funded campaign and who claims to this day that he did great with his Atlantic City casinos.

But he’s somehow invulnerable anyway. As best I can figure it, Trump (a) never goes to church, (b) has never read the Bible, (c) is unusually stingy, and (d) lives a personal life of serial affairs with younger women followed by serial divorces. But somehow lots of evangelicals think he’s a Godly man anyway.

Cruz, on the other hand, is the son of a guy who runs the Purifying Fire International ministry—a preacher so evangelical he seems ready to explode at times. Cruz went to a Baptist high school; he talks about religion interminably; and he attends church regularly. But somehow lots of evangelicals have abandoned him for Trump.

Strange times.

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Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump: Who Is the Least Charitable?

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Why Is Flint’s Water Still Unsafe? Or Is It?

by BethEverett Posted on January 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Can someone help me out? Flint reconnected to the Detroit water system in October, and it was supposed to take a few weeks after that to clean out the pipes. So what happened? I keep seeing pallets of bottled water being delivered to Flint, but shouldn’t the tap water be safe by now? Has it been tested for lead levels in the past month or two? I’ve been trying to check this out, but I can’t seem to find anything definitive.

I feel like I must have missed something. I don’t know how hard a thorough round of testing is, but it sure seems like that would have been a top priority starting in early November. Is it being done?

UPDATE: Here’s the answer:

Over time, the lead pipes in Flint built up a protective mineral coating—or scale—that prevented lead from getting into the water.
During the 17 months it was used, acidic water from the Flint River corroded away the scale, exposing fresh metal.
Even if the water is now good, it’s going to take a while before the scale rebuilds. In the meantime, lead can still leach into the water.

Back in December, the Flint Utilities Director announced that they planned to boost the level of phosphates in the water to aid in rebuilding the scale. They also hired a firm to begin testing of high-risk homes. Normally it can take up to five years for scale to rebuild, but presumably the additional phosphates will reduce this time. Still, it might be quite a while before the water is safe again, which explains the continuing pallets of bottled water.

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Why Is Flint’s Water Still Unsafe? Or Is It?

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Why Are #OscarsSoWhite?

by Beau47Tgqggfj Posted on January 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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The answer to the question in the headline is easy: because Academy voters are mostly white senior citizens (94 percent white, average age 63) and their taste tends to be pretty conventional for white folks born in 1952. At least that’s what all the critics say. This explains, they say, why a great film like Straight Outta Compton didn’t get nominated. A bunch of old white guys just aren’t going to be moved by a film about an angry group of black gangsta rappers.

But what about the critics themselves? According to Hayley Munguia of FiveThirtyEight, here are the 20 films from 2015 that showed up on the most “Best Of” lists. The movies in red got Oscar nods:

Where’s Straight Outta Compton? Not in the top 20.1 Apparently the critics are a bunch of old white guys too.

Next up: maybe Munguia will compile similar lists for the acting categories. Who did the critics love? Did Idris Elba make the top 20? Michael Jordan? Tessa Thompson? O’Shea Jackson Jr? Teyonah Parris? I’m curious about whether the critics ought to be examining themselves as much as they’re examining the Academy.

1Only two movies not in the top 20 got Best Picture nominations. Revenant may have gotten released too late to make many lists. And Bridge of Spies didn’t deserve to be in the top 20, but probably got nominated because everyone loves Tom Hanks.

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Why Are #OscarsSoWhite?

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Sarah Palin Is Such a Creep

by NigelWainewright Posted on January 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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I know I said that last night’s Palin-palooza would “hold me for a year,” but I guess I was wrong. Palin’s son Track was arrested Monday on domestic violence charges, and today Palin addressed this:

My own family, my son, a combat vet having served in the Stryker brigade… my son like so many others, they come back a bit different, they come back hardened, they come back wondering if there is that respect… and that starts right at the top.

I’m not happy with liberals who use Track’s problems as a way of snickering at Sarah. Yes, when you use your kids as campaign props, you open yourself up to some of this. But parents do their best, and kids sometimes have problems. Whatever Track’s problems are, he and his family should be allowed to deal with them in their own way.

That said, if you decide to use your son’s problems as a political cudgel, you can hardly expect to others to hold back forever. Palin should be ashamed of herself.

But leave Track alone anyway. He doesn’t deserve outsize attention just because his mother is such a creep. I only hope he gets the help he pretty obviously needs.

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Sarah Palin Is Such a Creep

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Global Warming Went On a Rampage in 2015

by RaymonGillen Posted on January 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Remember that old chestnut, the climate chart that starts in 1998 and makes it look like climate change has been on a “pause” ever since? It was always nonsense produced by cherry picking an unusually high starting point, but it was still effective propaganda. But those days are gone for good. Last year was already considerably warmer than 1998, and this year has now blown away everything in the record books:

The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2015 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880. During the final month, the December combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was the highest on record for any month in the 136-year record.

During 2015, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62°F (0.90°C) above the 20th century average….This is also the largest margin by which the annual global temperature record has been broken. Ten months had record high temperatures for their respective months during the year. The five highest monthly departures from average for any month on record all occurred during 2015.

George Will is now going to have to find some other way to lie about global warming. I don’t doubt that he’s up to it, but at least he’ll have to work a little harder.

This article:  

Global Warming Went On a Rampage in 2015

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We’re Still Waiting to Find Out What Happened Off Farsi Island Last Week

by JacklynHume Posted on January 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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A week after two Navy boats were taken into custody in Iranian waters, the Pentagon still doesn’t seem to have any idea what happened:

The two boats were supposed to follow a course that would keep them in international waters. They were scheduled to refuel at a rendezvous with the Monomoy, a Coast Guard cutter, at about 5 p.m. But the two boats veered off course Into Iranian waters.

….The crews then stopped to try to fix a mechanical problem in one boat’s diesel engine. “This stop occurred in Iranian territorial waters, although it’s not clear the crew was aware of their exact location,” the report said.

At about 5:10 p.m., one of the boats apparently sent a brief radio report that Iranian boats were approaching. A second message was garbled. All communications were cut off by 5:45 p.m., the report said

This is all still pretty peculiar. On a trip from Kuwait to Bahrain, all these boats had to do was stay within 60 miles of the shoreline and they would have been fine. Why were they so far out? Where was the Monomoy? Did they really suffer an engine failure, two GPS failures, and two comms failures all at once? I know that a thorough investigation can take some time, but this one doesn’t seem very complex. What the hell happened out there?

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We’re Still Waiting to Find Out What Happened Off Farsi Island Last Week

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Friday Cat Blogging – 8 January 2016

by StantonVerdon Posted on January 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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The holidays just fly by, don’t they? At least, that’s what we all say after they’re over. This time, though, the inconvenient timing of Christmas means that you never saw the furballs in action on Christmas morning. As usual, the presents we bought them were dirt cheap, but they nonetheless enjoyed them far more than the humans did. The picture below is relatively early in the morning, when the cat presents were still in tolerably good shape. An hour later it was just a mountain of scraps.

By the way, Hopper here is the reason we didn’t have a Christmas tree this year. It would have been a disaster. Maybe next year.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 8 January 2016

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How to Spend Less So You Can Afford to Save More

by JacklynHume Posted on January 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Thanks to Harold Pollack, personal finance index cards are all the rage. Today, the New York Times even has an index of popular index cards. Many of them share the same suggestions: pay off your credit cards, max out your 401(k), invest in low-load index funds, etc.

This is excellent advice. But how do you do it? Where do you get the money for this? For that, you need Kevin’s pre-index card. Not everything here works for everyone, but most of them will comfortably reduce daily expenses for most people without too much angst. And you can add your own ideas in comments. Enjoy!

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How to Spend Less So You Can Afford to Save More

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Lead and Crime: Another Look

by MichelineConte Posted on January 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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A trio of researchers from the University of Missouri and the University of Iowa have a new paper out that calls into question the correlation between lead emissions and violent crime rates. I want to comment on it, but with two caveats:

I’m not knowledgeable enough to judge the analysis in detail. I can explain what the authors have done, and I can point out some questions, but that’s about it. Serious critiques will have to come from qualified researchers.
This post isn’t hard to follow, but it’s pretty long and the payback is slim. For that reason, I’m putting it under the fold. Click if you want to wade through the whole thing.

Continue Reading »

Link – 

Lead and Crime: Another Look

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