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Jerry Brown has issued a budget that engages a $25b deficit. Note the word engages; not “papers over” or “hides with wishful thinking” or “lies about”; engages. There’s plenty of work not done yet, but this is huge: for the first time in recent memory, our elected chief executive is telling us the truth. Not [...]
Archive for January, 2011
January 14th, 2011
Category: Language and usage
The term “old adage” is very widely used. To see a few examples just from today’s news alone, look here, here and here. The snag is that an “adage” is by definition old, so the modifier is redundant and confusing: It implies incorrectly that there are new adages to which the “old adage” is being [...]
January 14th, 2011
Category: Crime Control
The words don’t come so easily to me this time, but they are still true. Sparing the life of a sick person who committed an atrocity is the most worthy thing we can do.
January 13th, 2011
Category: Uncategorized
28% of Republicans, but only 11% of Democrats and Independents, say that violence against the government is sometimes justified. I wonder who told them that?
January 12th, 2011
Republican attacks on (their own) high risk pool concept….
January 12th, 2011
Category: Language and usage
I can’t let a date with such an auspicious numbering (1/11/11) go by without a post, so I will indulge in a petty grievance. As I page through personal statements of applicants to medical school and psychology graduate programs, I increasingly see statements like “I made a concerted effort to help the children at the [...]
January 11th, 2011
The “Second Amendment remedy” discourse of the last few years is a near-monopoly of the far right, “crosshairs map” and all. And Arizona does have extremely permissive firearms laws, and it’s full of people who really, really, want to be able to play with guns and take them everywhere. I would love to hang the [...]
January 11th, 2011
Category: Crime Control, Journalism (Online and Otherwise)
I can’t prove what I believe: If we stopped rewarding mass murderers with the mass publicity they crave, we might have somewhat fewer of these atrocities.
January 11th, 2011
Businesses and wealthy individuals have gotten used to using “uncertainty” to mean “higher taxes on me.” But when taxes are to increase precisely because uncertainty is removed, the label gets risible.
January 10th, 2011
Category: Health and Medicine, Politics and Leadership
The NY Times has just published a fairly fluffy Q and A with Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin. She’s an accomplished physician and leader, but she’s in a virtually meaningless job. The governmental parallel to Paris Hilton and other second-rate celebrities who are “famous for being famous” are Surgeons General, who are “respected for being [...]