Yuval Pinter

“Given the way the paper was structured, I felt I had to read most of it.”

Jake Likes Onions

More dog adventures.

And hey if you’re in Vancouver this weekend, I’ll be at the CARDED! show at the Hot Art Wet City gallery on Saturday night. Details here on www.dougsavage.com.

In other news, I totally forgot that today was April Fools Day.

Hovertext: I'm just realizing this is the followup to the happiness fairy comic.

New comic!
Today's News:

“What is disturbing is that the author was not adequately supervised or otherwise assisted by faculty at her institution. They failed her completely in providing oversight and input. Young and inexperienced researchers should never be placed in a position of subjecting themselves to the painful rigors of critical reviews without guidance prior to submitting.”

One of the items in the gift box handed out to the thousands of runners in the Qingyuan marathon in Guangdong province last Sunday:

You're dehydrated, your mouth is parched, you need a shot of energy….  You pull out the attractively packaged bar and take a quick glance at it:  grape flavor, new, fruity, extra moisture….

You tear open the package, chomp into one end, swallow it ravenously…, before you realize it is soap!  It's already down in your stomach.  You don't even have a chance to spit it out!

"Over 12,000 Runners Seek Medical Care in S China’s Marathon, Some of Them Mistook Soap Given by Organizers as Energy Food" (People's Daily Online, 3/25/16)

It would have helped if they had put féizào 肥 皂 ("soap") somewhere on the front of the package, but it seems that this company prefers English only.

This press release ("At the Flick of a Switch"), from the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, is apparently for real. Here's a direct quote:

Since the page was taken down a few hours after I posted this, the content can be found here. This is exactly what was on the Judiciary Committee website earlier, shorn of the header and footer and sidebars giving lot of juicy Judiciary Committee links.

Among the striking things about this document is its take on gender identity.

The message is clearly partisan, and so represents the views of the Republican majority of the committee. If my count is correct, of these 24 representatives, just one is female — the list is Bob Goodlatte, Virginia, Chairman; Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin; Lamar S. Smith, Texas; Steve Chabot, Ohio; Darrell Issa, California; Randy Forbes, Virginia; Steve King, Iowa; Trent Franks, Arizona; Louie Gohmert, Texas; Jim Jordan, Ohio; Ted Poe, Texas; Jason Chaffetz, Utah; Tom Marino, Pennsylvania; Trey Gowdy, South Carolina; Mark Amodei, Nevada; Raúl Labrador, Idaho; Blake Farenthold, Texas; Doug Collins, Georgia; Ron DeSantis, Florida; Mimi Walters, California; Ken Buck, Colorado; John Ratcliffe, Texas; Dave Trott, Michigan; Mike Bishop, Michigan.

But the affective and attitudinal content of the message is expressed — or at least underlined — by means of 10 animated gifs, in eight of which the expressive protagonist is female. An effort by Bob Goodlatte and the other male representatives to explore their feminine sides? Good for them, if so; though it's interesting that this is what they've found there so far.

Also, Wikipedia tells us that

Goodlatte is the co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Internet Caucus, Chairman of the House Republican High-Technology Working Group, and Co-Chairman of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus. […]

Goodlatte is an original sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act, H.R. 3261, introduced in the House's, Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet Subcommittee, which he Chairs.

I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that these gifs were not licensed by authorized representatives of the personalities involved, and thus their use represents implicit support for open-access mash-up culture.

Seriously, this press release was no doubt put together by a couple of sub-millennial staffers. But somebody cleared it for release, and it hasn't been taken down yet. So maybe this style will become the new normal in DC.

 

הנה הסבר קצת יותר ברור: בעוד שהעין האנושית יכולה להסתגל במהירות למעבר בין חושך לאור, הדרך ההפוכה קשה...

“I am personally offended that the authors believed that this study had a reasonable chance of being accepted to a serious scientific journal.”

Hovertext: Can you at least appreciate how clever my word choice was?

New comic!
Today's News:

Desperately hoping no else has made the exact same joke... 

Via

From Eric Smith:

"Police appeal after teenage girls kissed and touched in alleged bus incident", Isle of Wight County Press, 3/24/2016.

In today's enlightened society, why shouldn't teenage girls kiss and touch?

I think this illustrates that, in a British headline

* if a verb form is ambiguous as between a preterite tense and a past participle, the past participle is probably what is meant;

* if the syntax is ambiguous as between a standard sentence and an abbreviated sentence, the abbreviated sentence is probably what is meant.

As a secondary point, I suspect that "appeal" is intended as a noun, so that "Police appeal" is a nominal and not a clause.

So isn't it past time to create the British Headlines Treebank?

Obigatory screenshot:

Harry says this little scene was the culmination of “a classic washing-up feud” at his office in London. (Kind of adorable, right? I would SO watch a movie about anthropomorphic milk bottles with British accents.)

related: Sorry, I can’t hear you over all the chattering appliances

 

Hovertext: Maybe this is what those Quantum Wellness people are talking about.

New comic!
Today's News:

דונלד טראמפ, מארס 2016: ״אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״

טד קרוז, מארס 2016: ״אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״

ג׳ב בוש, 2015: ״אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים.״

מיט רומני, 2010: ״אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״

ג׳ון מקיין, 2008: ״אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״

שרה פיילין, 2008: ״אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״.

ביל קלינטון, 2000: ״אשקול להעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים. יש לנו כבר קרקע מוכנה לכך״

ג׳ורג וו. בוש, 1999: ״ביום הראשון שלי בחדר הסגלגל, אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״.

הילרי קלינטון, 1999: ״אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים.״

ג׳ון קרי, 1999: חתם על החוק להעברת השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים

בוב דול ודניאל מויניהאן, 1995: חקיקת חוק העברת השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים

מייקל דוקאקיס, 1988 ״אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״.

אל גור, 1987: ״אשקול להעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״

וולטר מונדייל, גארי הארט, 1984 ״אני אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״ (מונדייל ציין בעימות שהוא תומך בהעברת השגרירות מזה 20 שנה ואילו הארט אמר שהוא שינה את דעתו בנושא חמישה ימים קודם לעימות)

רייגן, מאי 1984 ״בכל זאת אולי אשקול להעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״

רייגן, אפריל 1984 ״לא אעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״

קרטר, 1976 ״כאות לכך שאנו מאמינים שירושלים היא בירת ישראל, יש לשקול להעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים״

ג׳רלד פורד 1972 ״צריך להעביר את השגרירות האמריקאית לירושלים. על ניקסון לעשות זאת״

"I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him."

"Man Accuses Rubio Of Trying To Steal His Girlfriend During Florida Rally".

Is it

or

or something else entirely?

This one is far enough outside the bounds of real-world background knowledge that I don't think there's any basis for accurate guessing.

In fact it seems to be the second case — the alleged stealing took place in New Hampshire, while the accusing took place in Florida.

Update — Bob Ayres points us to the recent headline "Wife of Redskins owner donated to Trump", which surely takes what James Joyce called "the solitary, unique, and, if I may so call it, récherché buscuit":

Update #2 — adjoining another syntactic ambiguity, hectorthebat in the comments points us to "William Shakespeare's handwritten plea for refugees to go online":

Powerpointsapper, "The Gettysburg Address – the Donald Trump Version", Angry Staff Officer 3/8/2016:

It was a long time ago – I don’t think anyone can even remember, but I can remember, I have a great memory, I’ve got the best memory ever. These guys, they made the most special thing, really, really special. Where everyone was free and everything was great, just the way I’ve made America, I really, really mean that.  

This, of course, translates the first sentence of the original:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

[Updated –] In the comments, Thylophract links to another version by Alexandra Petri in today's Washington Post ("Donald Trump’s Gettysburg Infomercial"), which starts like this:

Hello America. Hello, Gettysburg!

I love Pennsylvania. I love it here! Look at this place. How can you not?

Forty, 50, maybe 60 years ago, some really brilliant, remarkable guys, they got together and said, hey, let’s build something. Something great, where people can be equal. And now look. Look what we have. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?

You should both versions in full — the authors do an excellent job of capturing Trump's  tapestry of interwoven digressive word-string repetition.

For some earlier discussion and examples, see "Donald Trump's repetitive rhetoric", 12/5/2015, and "Trump's rhetorical style", 12/26/2015. And for another example, here's Trump's answer from the 3/10/2016 debate to a question about Social Security:

Well, first of all, I want you to understand that the Democrats, and I've watched them very intensely, even though it's a very, very boring thing to watch, that the Democrats are doing nothing with Social Security. They're leaving it the way it is. In fact, they want to increase it. They want to actually give more. And that's what we're up against. And whether we like it or not, that is what we're up against. I will do everything within my power not to touch Social Security, to leave it the way it is; to make this country rich again; to bring back our jobs; to get rid of deficits; to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse, which is rampant in this country, rampant, totally rampant.

And it's my absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is. Not increase the age and to leave it as is. You have 22 years, you have a long time to go. It's not long in terms of what we're talking about, but it's still a long time to go, and I want to leave Social Security as is, I want to make our country rich again so we can afford it. I want to bring back our jobs, I want to do things that will make us, that will bring back GDP… I mean, as an example, GDP was zero essentially for the last two quarters. If that ever happened in China. you would have had a depression like nobody's ever seen before. They go down to 7 percent, 8 percent, and it's a — it's a national tragedy. We're at zero, we're not doing anything. We've lost our jobs. We've lost everything. We're losing everything. Our jobs are gone, our businesses are being taken out of the country. I want to make America great again and I want to leave Social Security as is. We're going to get rid of waste, fraud, abuse and bring back business.

I don't think that this rhetorical pattern has a Greek name, but it's undeniably effective.

 

 יש דבר אחד שב'הארץ' ממש, אבל ממש רוצים שתדעו על בית"ר ירושלים

 

 

היום קלט נועם לפלר והעלה בפייסבוק, את האופן המגוחך בו דוחף 'הארץ', בכל מחיר ובלי שום קשר, את הטענה שלו נגד בית"ר ירושלים, על כך שבשורותיה לא משחק שחקן ערבי:

'מעניין' חשבנו לעצמנו במערכת 'פרספקטיבה'. 'יכול להיות שמדובר באובססיה דומה לאובססיה אחרת של העיתון, להימנע מלהזכיר את "אם תרצו" בלי להוסיף, גם כאן בכל מחיר וללא קשר, את הקביעה (ממנה חזר בו ביהמ"ש בערעור) לפיה "בית המשפט קבע כי יש לה מאפיינים פשיסטיים"?

שפטו בעצמכם: 

14.3.16

אז איך קרה שהברומטר של בית"ר - בשורותיה לא שיחק מעולם שחקן ערבי – ואחד הקשרים האחוריים הטובים בליגה נשאר אלמוני באופן יחסי להצלחתו? הוא פשוט לא יודע עברית. או אנגלית.

30.8.15

שתי הקבוצות ניסו, נתניה אפילו יותר מבית"ר, אך זה היה רחוק. כמו בשבוע שעבר, בית"ר – בשורותיה מעולם לא שיחק שחקן ערבי – מצאה את קורת השער מבעיטה של עומר אצילי במחצית הראשונה.

24.8.15

מנגד, בשער בית"ר – בשורותיה מעולם לא שיחק שחקן ערבי-ישראלי – התייצב אקס הפועל, בוריס קליימן. והרי גם הבעלים הנוכח־נפקד הגיע מוולפסון.

8.11.15:

אווירה מצוינת היתה, ואפילו קצב, אבל חיפה כמעט לא סיכנה באמת את השער. בית"ר, בשורותיה מעולם לא שיחק ערבי, היתה טובה במחצית הראשונה ונעלמה ברוב רובה של השנייה

27.10.15

לבית"ר ירושלים — בשורותיה לא שיחק מעולם שחקן ערבי — נשמרה הזכות לבחור את הדרך (לסיקור המשחק בין בית"ר ירושלים למכבי תל אביב) שבה היא רוצה למות מול מכבי תל אביב.

9.7.15:

16 אלף אוהדים הגיעו הערב (חמישי) לטדי כדי לראות את בית״ר ירושלים, עדיין ללא שום שחקן ערבי בשורותיה,  חוזרת למפעלים האירופיים אחרי שבע שנים.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

Happy Pi Day!

“The journal editor stated that our manuscript was rejected. We were shocked that the reviewer’s comments read “fuck you” (handwritten on a torn strip of paper scotch-taped to the editor’s letter to us)”

Yesterday I linked to a couple of Lindsey Graham's jokes at celebratory dinner ("Fecal compounds", 3/5/2016). But the journalists and politicians who spoke at last night's annual Gridiron Club dinner outdid him.

Some examples (from here, here, here) —

Doyle McManus:

“Knowing Donald Trump, it won’t be long before he dumps the United States for a much younger country.”

Nikki Haley:

“When I endorsed Marco, everyone assumed we had cut a deal… We did. He promised I could borrow his boots.”

"I won't really feel like I've made it, until Donald Trump demands my birth certificate."

"When the press makes fun of itself, they call it parody. When the press makes fun of Republicans, they call it journalism."

Joaquin & Julian Castro:

Q: “Why do people take such an immediate dislike to Ted Cruz?”
A: “Probably because it saves them time.”

Joe Biden:

“Donald has attacked every person of color – except John Boehner.”

“But folks, on a serious point, Trump said he likes ‘people who don’t get captured. What a terrible thing to say about my friend and a genuine war hero, John McCain.
So tonight I call on Donald Trump to be a man of his word – and release Chris Christie right now.”

“As you know, I’ve always ranked among the poorest Members of Congress—and all of these years, it didn’t bother me much before. Until I learned my net worth was even less than Bernie Sanders. Look—when a socialist has more money than you— you know you’ve been doing something really wrong for a long, long time.”

“Ted Cruz? An inspiration to every kid in America who worries that he’ll never be able to run for President because nobody likes him.”

“I told Barack, if you really, really want to remake the Supreme Court, nominate Cruz. Before you know it, you’ll have eight vacancies.”

Of course, politicos have been hiring good writers for their Gridiron Club speeches for a long time. From Ted Cruz's 2015 appearance:

“I was accused of acting like some pompous, condescending know-it-all. We’re all familiar with the type, and at Harvard Law School there is even a word for it: alumni."

“Canadians are so polite, mild-mannered, modest, unassuming, open-minded. Thank God my family fled that oppressive influence before it could change me.”

 

 

“The peaceful atmosphere between Christmas and New Year was transiently disrupted by reading this manuscript.”

מבחר מנחי "תיק תקשורת" לדורותיה נפגשים לרגל 1,000 תוכניות

After last night's doozy of a Republican debate, Meghan McCain tweeted the following this morning:

Every negative stereotype I have tried to combat for the last 8 years about republicans has been utterly destroyed in the past 9 months.

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) March 4, 2016

McCain's dim view of the current crop of presidential candidates doesn't support the notion that they are "utterly destroying" negative stereotypes about Republicans, as several people pointed out. Quite the opposite, in fact.

@MeghanMcCain @deray "destroyed" or "confirmed"?

— S.I. Rosenbaum (@sirosenbaum) March 4, 2016

You mean "reinforced and brought to vivid three-dimensional life" ? @MeghanMcCain @ClistonBrown

— Tanya C. (@AZTanya) March 4, 2016

"Reinforced" more than "destroyed," but I see her point. https://t.co/NaXnwSoXiE

— Heidi Stevens (@HeidiStevens13) March 4, 2016

Nancy Friedman brought this to our attention, calling it "an odd sort of overnegation." It does have the flavor of misnegations we've discussed in the past (see this list of posts), though it lacks the "combination of modals, negatives, and scalar predicates" that we typically see creating semantic problems. So how to explain the confusion?

To me it feels like McCain is shoehorning a couple of different concepts into one sentence. On the one hand, as the above responses indicate, she would like to convey how all the negative stereotypes she has sought to combat have only been reinforced/confirmed by the primary candidates' antics. But her use of "utterly destroyed" is telling: she must feel that something has been destroyed in the process (perhaps her own party?). I suspect this sort of sentiment was lurking in her mind when she composed the tweet:

All the work I've done trying to combat negative stereotypes about Republicans for the last 8 years has been utterly destroyed in the past 9 months.

Then, in producing the tweet, her efforts in combating negative stereotypes got conflated with the stereotypes themselves. I'd chalk it up to the terse style of Twitter, which can end up curtailing complex ideas. And yet I find it notable that most of McCain's Twitter interlocutors (Twitterlocutors?) seemed to understand exactly what she meant despite a literal reading implying the opposite. As with more classic cases of misnegation, we tend to zero in on the intended meaning of a statement thanks to context, regardless of its surface sense.