http://xkcd.com/505/

Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude
Wayth-men ware commendyd gude
In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale
Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale.

Orygynale Chronicle (1420), Andrew of Wyntoun.

The city’s full of cheddar like a cheese pizza
known for senoritas and Inglewood Familias
The landmarks in the ‘hood is legendary
the fabulous Forum, the Court and the Library

Inglewood Swangin (1997), Mack 10.

John Derbyshire at the Corner:

In my own days as a math undergraduate (old British system: no nonsense about majors and minors, we just did math) it was a running joke that when invited to the room of a female Humanities student, we’d browse her textbooks while she was making coffee; but when they came to our rooms, they never browsed our books.

The Planster’s Vision

Cut down that timber! Bells, too many and strong,
Pouring their music through the branches bare,
From moon-white church-towers down the windy air
Have pealed the centuries out with Evensong.
Remove those cottages, a huddled throng!
Too many babies have been born in there,
Too many coffins, bumping down the stair,
Carried the old their garden paths along.

I have a Vision of The Future, chum,
The worker’s flats in fields of soya beans
Tower up like silver pencils, score on score:
And Surging Millions hear the Challenge come
From microphones in communal canteens
“No Right! No wrong! All’s perfect, evermore.”

by Sir John Betjeman

Usually I hate “educational” versions of rap songs (where are the wide screen TVs and girls shakin’ they thang?). That said, this does have something going for it….

“Why would you hand the keys to the car back to the same guys whose policies drove the economy into the ditch and then walked away from the scene of the accident?” “For the Republicans to say vote for us and bring back the guys who got us into this mess in the first place, I don’t think it’s a winner.”

Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, discussing tomorrow’s Senatorial election for the seat of the late Ted Kennedy of Chappaquiddick fame.

Rather beautiful and very sad:

Mr. Eugenides rips into the modern left’s impulsive assignment of moral blame to the West:

“In a fundamental sense” may just be the axiomatic Comment is Free phrase. In one sense, responsibility for throwing acid in a schoolgirl’s face may lie with the acid thrower; in a fundamental sense, however, it is actually ours. In one sense, killing innocent people may be the reponsibility of the killers; in a fundamental sense, though, it’s really the fault of Danish cartoonists.

Read the whole thing, very good indeed.

Thinking hard about what to buy my sisters for Christmas, I attempted to harness the powers of Google to aid my search:

Maybe not.

Political Compass is supposed to help you to find your position on the ideological spectrum. The quiz takes the form of a list of statements with which you can agree or disagree. The problem is that many of these statements already acknowledge a left-wing worldview.

For example:

“If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.”

If you accept the premise of this question, that you have to choose between the wellbeing of corporations and of “humanity” then you have already conceded to a point of left-wing dogma (that trade is to a large extent zero-sum). Economic liberals would argue that the success of trans-national corporations and “humanity” are complementary and thus we do not have to choose between them.

“Those with the ability to pay should have the right to higher standards of medical care.”

Describing medical care as a “right” so the question of differential amounts of care becomes a question of unequal rights automatically concedes the leftist belief that health care is a right. If the statement was written: “Rich people should be allowed to spend their money on purchasing medical care” then I suspect many more people would agree with it.

“A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies.”

The issue of competition policy is one that certainly does divide conservatives from libertarians. However, the use of the words “multinational” (evil foreigners) and “predator” seem designed to make the statement non-neutral. Anyone in favour of “predators”? I thought not.

“It’s natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents.”

There are some odd ones like this. I’m not sure if agreeing with it is supposed to make you authoritarian, libertarian, conservative, leftist. Strange.

On the whole it is a decent quiz, although a few improvements wouldn’t go amiss.