[anonymous]: haha i am own teh dictionary

There is no lesson here. I just laughed over this.

technorati tags:grammar, english, words

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This might not be so much of a grammar lesson, but an idiom lesson. Quite often the saying, “toe the line” is mistakenly written as “tow the line.” I, myself, learned the correct idiom from Tom Palmer in a seminar on becoming better writers during my internship at the Cato Institute. It came up recently in a conversation with a friend, so I thought I’d share what I know with everyone.
I believe the reason people get the two mixed up so easily is that the correct meaning can be inferred even when one confuses them. To “toe the line” means to follow the rules or do what is expected. Wikipedia places the origin of the phrase with the British Parliament. Members were reminded to “toe the line” (stand behind certain lines on the floor) when debates became heated so they would come to blows with their swords.
The Wikipedia entry also notes that “tow the line” “is grammatically suspect, as the verb tow refers to the object being towed, e.g. a car or a boat, not the mechanism by which it is towed, such as a rope or chain.”

technorati tags:grammar, idioms, english, language

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This weekend I’ve been doing the most thorough cleaning of my room in a long time. It is really making the fact that I’m moving in 26 days sink in. I’m going to miss everyone up here like crazy.

: \

technorati tags:moving

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My friend Jacob wrote such a great post about a congressional candidate running in the Houston area, that I felt like I needed to link to it.
Why would I care about a congressional race in Houston? Well, first of all it is interesting because it is a race for the district of Tom DeLay, the indicted former House Majority Leader who dropped out. The second reason is that a Libertarian candidate, Bob Smither, has a shot at winning the traditionally Republican seat because there is no Republican candidate on the ballot.

Take a look at Jacob’s post for details. I’m with him in that it’d be great to give Ron Paul some company.

technorati tags:libertarian, congress, elections, houseofrepresentatives, LP, Republican

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I’d never written to my elected representatives until the other day. I was pissed.

Dear [Congressman Honda, Senator Boxer, Senator Feinstein]:

I understand that the terror plot that was foiled caused great fear in many people, but having the TSA react with extremely burdensome regulations after the fact will not likely halt further attacks. The security measures currently in place obviously worked in this instance. Why, then, cause undue havoc in the private lives and schedules of millions of Americans?

My parents and elderly grandparents are going to my uncle’s wedding next weekend in Denver. They are only going for a few days. They were not planning on checking any bags so they could get through the airport rapidly because my grandma has a hard time walking or standing for great lengths of time. They will be forced to check bags and waste time in the airport because THEY CAN’T CARRY LIPSTICK ON THE PLANE.

[Mr. Congressman, Senator Boxer, Senator Feinstein], I know you get special privileges because you are in the government, but you really must make an effort to understand what a hassle this causes in ordinary Americans’ lives when it doesn’t do anything to make us safer.

By allowing the TSA to disrupt our way of life, you are helping the terrorists win.

Sincerely,

Tommy Keswick

technorati tags:tsa, feinstein, boxer

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I woke up this morning to find about 18 emails in my Gmail Inbox that were spam. I had caught a blurb on Slashdot yesterday about a new wave of spam but didn’t think it would get to me. It did. The way it seems to be working is they paste a bunch of text from a novel of some sort and then attach an image with the spam message in it.

It bothered me so much at first that I considered scrapping my Google Account under this name. I’ve gone years on this account without getting much spam. The funny part is that as soon as I stopped giving the address away on even sites I semi-trusted and started using Bloglines disposable email addresses for every sign up form, I started noticing more spam in the Spam Folder. I’m sure the spammers sell lists to each other and that is why it is growing.

The good news is that Gmail seems to learn quickly. After marking all of those messages as spam and then a couple more that trickled in this morning, Gmail placed one in the Spam Folder on its own. There is hope.

technorati tags:email, gmail, spam

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I received an email today from the UCLA Housing Department with the contact information of the guy with whom I’ll be sharing an apartment next year.  His name is one of those that cannot be easily Google-stalked: Patrick Greene.  He has a 408 phone number, so he’s presumably spent some time in the South Bay.

Eh, we’ll see.

Tonight I watched a bootleg copy of X-Men 3. I don’t feel bad about it. I would have rented it at some point anyway.

I subscribe to Netflix. I can get any movie or TV show in the mail at any time. Downloading a movie or a TV show is simply a more efficient means of me getting what I normally would have received in the mail anyway.

Now, I’ve been a Netflix customer for many, many years. I’m on the plan where I get to have four DVDs out at once. The turnaround time for me getting movies is about three days. I mail one back and two days later a new one arrives. Theoretically I could stagger my DVD rentals so that I would have a new one coming in every single day. I don’t do this for a few reasons, but mainly because there is not that much stuff I want to watch.

My understanding of the movie rental business is that the rental companies buy each copy of a DVD from the studios for hundreds of dollars because they are expected to recoup their expenses with many rentals. The movies are already paid for and my monthly bill to Netflix takes care of me paying them. I’m paying for at least one DVD per day by that logic and the studios have my money in their pockets.
I certainly do not download and watch that many shows or movies in a month. Even if my method of getting my Hollywood entertainment doesn’t conform to the industry’s preferences, the ones who are in the business to profit are still coming out ahead with me.

I do not really see any problems with my way of thinking about this, but I would love to hear another take on it.

technorati tags:netflix, filesharing, downloading

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Jim Harper has a good succinct piece up today on the Cato Daily Commentary about the worthlessness of a National ID Card.

It’s true that surveillance makes law-abiding people easier for authorities to control. People required to show ID could, for instance, be run against databases of outstanding fines and tax delinquencies at local shopping malls. But identification gives the government no similar control over terrorists and sophisticated criminals - the people we’re trying to stop with these ID checks.

Criminals always find ways around the law. That is the definition of what they do. Besides making government more of a nuisance in honest citizens’ lives, a National ID would not tell authorities in advance who will commit crimes.

Examples are legion in terrorism, and routine in crime, of people with no history of wrongdoing being the ones who act. For the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda selected operatives without records of involvement in terrorism.

The whole piece is a quick read and fairly convincing, though it is only a fraction of the larger issue.

technorati tags: nationalid, security, privacy, policy