Too Lazy to Fail

Disclaimer: I did not take this photo. I found it when an idiot on a forum decided to go out with a bang and post as much of his image collection as he could before he got banned. I think this one was right after the blonde licking an XD40…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2545351.ece

The crowd scattered and ran to reform a few hundred yards up the road. Banging their shields, the riot police advanced again with the loud-speaker van behind them.

The message was both crude and courteous. It included an honorific form of the Burmese word for “you”, and might be translated like this: “Good sirs, please leave the area or we will open fire in ten minutes time.”

My thoughts on Ahmadinejad’s request to lay a wreath at the site of the WTC in New York City, and the expected denial of permission:

Ahmadinejad got exactly what he wanted out of this, and it had nothing to do with the US. He knew that there’d be a riot in NYC if he actually stepped foot on Ground Zero, and that his security forces (as well as their US counterparts) would never allow such a controversial visit in such an exposed area.

Ahmadinejad isn’t the Fearless Leader of Iran that US media often makes him out to be. For some strange reason, we usually don’t hear about the internal politics of Iran, when Ahmadinejad is at tension with elements of Iran’s Parliament as well as Ayatollah Khamenei over issues of both domestic and foreign policy. Internally, Ahmadinejad is often seen as not Islamic enough.

So Ahmadinejad makes an “overture of peace” to the United States, with the expected outcry from US citizens following shortly after. “They don’t want peace with us,” he can tell Iranians in speeches, “all they have in their hearts is hatred for Muslims.”

Which isn’t necessarily true, but certainly helps him draw some perceived distance from the west in the political sphere in Iran and the Islamic Middle East in general. There’s not much else we could have done, but it’s helpful to understand that (in my opinion) the obviously outrageous proposal for a visit wasn’t due to stupidity or even malice, but as a political display not even really meant for our consumption.

I’ve shamelessly stolen (without permission) my sister’s open letter to her cat:

Dear Gibson,

You’ve been mine for a couple of years now, and I love you a lot, but lately things have been getting out of hand. I think it’s time to set a few rules, and perhaps give some suggestions. I was two once, you know.
First of all, cats are supposed to eat cat food, not cotton. Appreciate the fact that I’ve provided toys for you to play with, and please don’t eat the q tips out of the garbage can. This causes mommy problems when she has to spend extra time picking up trash every morning.
Second, your brother and sister are both wearing collars which look quite handsome. I bought you one, and if you would just leave it alone when it’s around your neck instead of trying to eat it and getting your jaws stuck open (which makes you drool and gag), I’m sure you would look very handsome too. In short, I guess I’m sorry you’re a little retarded. Mommy loves you anyway, but it’s funny, so please don’t get your feelings hurt if you see me laughing at you. A lot. And often.
I’ve spent quite a few bucks on toys, and I don’t mind so much if you like to put them in the litter box. Just know that I’m going to throw them away with your poo and you just won’t have as many toys left. (That doesn’t mean you should go looking for q tips when you run out of toys.) What I absolutely prohibit is the act of removing said toys from the litter box, putting them near my face in the morning, and expecting me to want to play the game of fetch.
I’d like to go out wearing black clothes that are not covered in cat hair. You’re a healthy boy, and I know you can’t help shedding, so I guess I’ll just leave this one alone.
Last one (for now): Please don’t eat the baby.

Love and kisses, fatty fatty,
Mum.

I see this phrase used incorrectly all the time. It’s “bated”, people. As in “abate” for shorten or lessen. Those who use it in spoken communication don’t have to worry about it, but I see it written quite frequently, especially when the writer is trying to look cute. All they really accomplish is looking like an idiot. A simple web search would show you the answer:

It’s easy to mock, but there’s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it has the meaning “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.

Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in The Merchant of Venice: “Shall I bend low and, in a bondman’s key, / With bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness, / Say this …”. Nearly three centuries later, Mark Twain employed it in Tom Sawyer: “Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale”.

For those who know the older spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image, which Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and consciously) captured in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:

Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

So get it right, especially when dealing with a potential client via email!

(And yes, I know that my punctuation-relative-to-quotation-marks is “incorrect” by American standards. The story of why we do punctuation relative to quotation marks differently from the rest of the world is an interesting story which I reserve for a post of its own. Suffice to say, I place my punctuation where it makes sense logically rather than according to misguided convention.)