blog.rightreading.com

News that Sarah Palin’s political action committee has bought more than $63,000 worth of Going Rogue shows that the ex-governor knows how to manage her books. Going Rogue retails for $28.99. If the books were bought at full retail price and author got a 15 percent royalty off the retail price, that means that 15 [...]

Never mind.

I am reading and enjoying Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. It is my misfortune, I realize, to be so sensitized to colonialist attitudes as to imagine I detect in the book a faint taint of colonialist condescension.
But I am not here today to rant about colonialism but rather to share the following [...]

“BALI” is a word that poses some problems typographically. The wide BA combination makes a lot of white space, while the LI tends to be narrow and sticklike. Furthermore, nobody seems to sure what kind of type connotes Bali. (You can confirm this by searching Amazon for books with “Bali” in the title — not [...]

Congratulations to Barack Obama and his campaign on their landslide victory, but even more so to the USA, which has taken a great step forward out of the depths of the past eight miserable years.
Obama’s win is being celebrated as a great moment in race relations and a triumph for black people. It is those, [...]

Dixville Notch, first polling place in the nation since 1960, announces its results: McCain 6, Obama 15.
Obama’s 9 votes up, so now he just has to run out the clock!

Someone gave me a Pogo book recently. Among memorable campaigns, the possum’s ranks high. Howland’s comment above reminds us that it’s a good thing for Obama that Democrats now control the secretary of state position in several swing states.
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With one week to go, Barack Obama is unveiling his closing argument.
The McCain campaign, meanwhile, is still working on their clothing argument.
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UPDATE, 11/05, via Newsweek …
NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded [...]

Impossible not to talk politics now. So let’s look at the electoral map. It’s hard to see how McCain can pull this one out. Even Ohio + Florida don’t seem to give him enough, assuming:

M. Right Reading has been very busy and productive lately. Just not so much on the blog. Fear not, he will soon revert to his sedentary tendencies. Meanwhile, though largely stearing clear of politics on this blog, he leaves you with this quotation from the NYT:
Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on [...]

From a series by Tom Tomorrow.

via language log

My sites are closed today for Labor Day (and besides, all except Frisco Vista are moving to a new server. Nothing should change for visitors, but it means I can’t update the sites very well for a few hours). Meanwhile, here’s a Labor Day message from Can’t Keep Quiet.

I’ve been thinking about how our system of appointing Supreme Court justices is flawed. Life expectancy is increasing and presidents are appointing younger justices now, who might serve thirty or forty years. If several positions open up during the same term, a single president has the ability to determine the course of the court for [...]

The new ability created by Wikipedia Scanner to track Wikipedia edits by IP address has brought some folks hours of entertainment. Where have the collaborative encyclopedia’s edits been coming from?

Fox News. You will be shocked — shocked! — to learn that they have been spinning items in a conservative direction.
Diebold, the electronic voting machine vendor. [...]

TimesOnline reports that liars have trouble telling their stories in reverse order. It’s a good way to trip up falsehoods. Let’s try it out …
“We’re fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, and, let’s see, we went in, the United Nations … no that was, um, there were weapons of mass destruction, no wait, that was, let’s [...]

That’s the headline I’m reading here. Seems Europeans have been gaining on us, to the point where Americans are now shorter than the average Dutchman. From the article:
Researchers have established in recent years that wealthier families tend to provide better nutrition for their children and, as a result, they tend to grow taller. The drastic [...]

According to the lawyer of the alleged “D.C. Madam,” Vice President Cheney “isn’t not” on her list of phone records.

Interesting. Republicans here, Democrats here. Via Vark.

Sorry posting has been slow. I’m about to break out another site, announcement soon.

“People who regularly watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report could correctly answer more political trivia questions than those who watch CNN or Fox News or especially the teevee network news — those people were only barely cognizant of their own arms.”
Via Wonkette.

Apparently the following is a real post from Senator Brownback’s real website. This man wants to be your president!

Why is memory not taught at every level of our educational system
April 11, 2007
The greeks believed in such a discipline and the best became Roman slaves, who taugh the Romans. All around the med this was true. [...]