There's a collection of photos of celebrations from around the world on the Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3 blog.. Also, on my Word Face-Off blog, I did a comparison of Obama's victory speech and McCain's concession. I looked into the length of words, sentences, etc. I also included all-inclusive word clouds.
"While we await good tidings—knock on wood!—I am posting some Flickr related pics that I found appealing, interesting, neat, cute... If you 're out there busting your chops for the GOTV effort: thank you! Yes We Can!"
Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3 blog
A new ironic Palin cartoon at the Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3 blog: "ItsAllMcCainsFault.com" (no. 2 in a series).
As is my custom, I analyzed and compared the separate parts of the participants to this debate: bubble graphs of no. and length of words and sentences, word clouds. I added a study of the number of speaking turns of each candidate too. You can find this and more at my Word Face-Off blog. Similar analyses of the previous debates are hyperlinked from there.
I analyzed the words and sentences which Obama, McCain and—why not?—Lehrer used in the debate. Have a look at the bubble graph (no. of words and length of sentences and words). I also made "word clouds." Interesting! Go to my Word Face-Off blog to view.
Teresa, I'm very sorry that your drug is no longer available. You are right, some arrangement whereby doctors should be allowed to prescribe it for narcolepsy should be worked out---preferably above board, not off label.
The FDA has been understaffed, unsure of its role, at times erring on the side of overregulation and then of too much kowtowing to the industry. It's been too political often, both in a good and a bad way. Considering the realities of Washinton, I don't see any improvement anytime soon.
As far as the Nader bashing is concerned: he has done a lot of good through the years; his methods may not always have been totally pure; some of what he started has had bad (unintended) consequences; his ego is enormous; his role in the Bush-Gore election was not pretty. He is not a saint but he is not a devil either---get over it, people! Ad hominem attacks do not help Teresa one bit, the more since, as several people have pointed out, Nader hasn't even been involved with Public Citizen for many years.
The fact that pemoline is not readily available in most other western countries does prove that the FDA decision did not come out of the blue. Esp. since European countries are far less litigious than the US and medicines (availability, price, etc.) are much more government regulated there.
Anyway, I sincerely wish Teresa a swift resolution to her unfortunate situation with as little extra stress as possible.
German archaeologist and aid worker Susanne Osthoff was kidnapped in Iraq more than a week ago. There is still no news about her or her driver after the initial video. In case you're not familiar with Ms. Osthoff, there's a good article at Archaeology Magazine's web site. Please sign the petitions asking for her release! One is by the British Archaeological Jobs Resource, the other by SAFE - Saving Antiquities For Everyone. For continuous updates on the situation, see The Iraq War & Archaeology site. Every little bit helps. Thank you.
Just reminded me of this fictional "good journalism" example: report on a political topic by having a debate between Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi. See, you've done your job as both sides of the spectrum are represented: you're neutral! Never mind that Hitler is a disgusting, murderous psychopath and Gandhi is a pacifist and a moral example... False equivalency, it's called too, right?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Just kidding, guys!
Keep up the good work.
My quick 2 cents as a Belgian living in the US for 10 years now. No, I never considered the US a beacon of democracy or something like that---not a totalitarian hell either. I guess I felt that the US had about as democratic a system as could be expected from a supersized country with superpower status, meaning less so than my native Belgium, small (10 million people) and with no illusions of grandeur of any kind (having been overrun by foreign armies time and again will do that to you). The larger the scale, the harder it is to be truly democratic because money and organization start to overwhelm ideas and communication and genuine compromise. Also, larger countries tend to project themselves more and more outside their borders, creating the need for more and more military assets to the detriment of more social and cultural priorities. Power concentrates in the hands of the few, inequality grows, etc.
About the Greens: lay off already, Teresa! I admire your site, Teresa, but I can't comprehend the animus about the Greens. If I had been allowed to vote, I would've considered Nader in 2000 but probably voted Gore anyway, and this year I would've definitely voted Kerry and not even given Cobb and most certainly Nader not a look. By the way, I actually did volunteer work for a political campaign for the 1st time since living in the US this time: Kerry Edwards. The anger of this horrible November 2 should be channeled in a more positive direction, away from Trotskyite factional warfare!
One more thing: yes, it's horrifying to think what harm can come to the fabric and institutions of this country but please also give more than a passing thought to what the people in Iraq have to look forward to. As I said to friends in March 2003 at the start of the war, there were no more good solutions left for Iraq, only bad ones and worse ones. Tens of 1,000s of dead later and an invaluable archaeological heritage still being destroyed site by site, I'm afraid even the solutions imagined earlier were great compared to what is still left now with the Bush policies "approved" by the ballot.
Concerning the NRG "Sumerian dictionary": this person obviously is not a trained Sumerologist. I studied Akkadian and Sumerian quite a few years ago. From what I still remember I can make a few comments. The listing "Sarrat irkalli" is actually Akkadian (a Semitic language spoken by Babylonians and Assyrians): s[h]arratum = "queen" + irkallum = "underworld." Granted that irkallum is derived from a Sumerian word. "S[h]umma" is also Akkadian, not Sumerian, etc. This person mixes the two indiscriminately. Scribes who wrote Akkadian did use a lot of Sumerian loanwords and Sumerian logograms but they are still 2 different languages. Sumerian is an agglutinative language like for instance Finnish, Hungarian.
The whole BC/AD or BCE/CE discussion gets a little silly. They're just abbreviations, not spelled out anymore, just like, e.g., a.m. and p.m. ("ante meridiem" and "post meridiem" or "before/after noon"). US culture has a Christian frame of reference. That may change with time but in the meantime people of non-Christian persuasions have learnt to live with that. Look at the kids: they're smart about this. Muslim kids insist on celebrating the 'Id el-Fitr as well as Santa Claus. It's just convenience. One can rename all kinds of things, make them "neutral" but people don't grow up, live in a neutral world. Look at the metric system: being European myself, I fully agree that the metric system is easier, more coherent, better structured, etc. than the Anglo-Saxon system used here in the US but no US government promotion campaign has been able to speed up its adaptation. People don't like to change things like that unless there's a necessity. Why are we still honoring Roman gods and emperors in the names of the months? Surely, that doesn't amke sense? Guess what, the French Revolution tried to change them, it didn't work. The names of the days actuially refer to Germanic gods: you'd think the Church would've really pushed to change that! They probably tried ... Change is good but imposing it by intellectual mandate for intellectualist reasons is never going to be easy.
Actually, doesn't "BP" stand for "years before 1950" when the carbon dating method was approximately introduced?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
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| 2008 | 6 |
| 2006 | 1 |
| 2005 | 3 |
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| 2003 | 3 |
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