MemeMachineGo!

It seems that the structure of the Inuit language makes it fairly pointless to talk about the number of words for a thing.

But the Eskimoan language group uses an extraordinary system of multiple, recursively addable derivational suffixes for word formation called postbases. The list of snow-referring roots to stick them on isn’t that long: qani- for a snowflake, api- for snow considered as stuff lying on the ground and covering things up, a root meaning “slush”, a root meaning “blizzard”, a root meaning “drift”, and a few others — very roughly the same number of roots as in English. Nonetheless, the number of distinct words you can derive from them is not 50, or 150, or 1500, or a million, but simply unbounded. Only stamina sets a limit.

On Salon, Glen Greenwald writes:

The most amazing quote was from chief Mukasey supporter Chuck Schumer, who, before voting for him, said that Mukasey is “wrong on torture — dead wrong.” Marvel at that phrase: “wrong on torture.” Six years ago, there wasn’t even any such thing as being “wrong on torture,” because “torture” wasn’t something we debated. It would have been incoherent to have heard: “Well, he’s dead wrong on torture, but … “

Now, “torture” is not only something we openly debate, but it’s something we do. And the fact that someone is on the wrong side of the “torture debate” doesn’t prevent them from becoming the Attorney General of the United States. It’s just one issue, like any other issue — the capital gains tax, employer mandates for health care, the water bill — and just because someone is “dead wrong” on one little issue (torture) hardly disqualifies them from High Beltway Office.

See also This is who we are.

This rocks.

Colleen was from a comic book
Her spandex bursting at the seams
Belinda dressed up all in brass
Fulfilled my Princess Leia dreams

Connie turned me on to Sandman
Death had never looked so fine
Gretchen was a vampire slay’r
Showed me her stake, I showed her mine

Starting February 18, 2009, television broadcast in the U.S. will go digital.

People in the U.S. still using an old TV with an analog tuner (like I am now and probably will be then) should know that households qualify for two $40 coupons toward digital-analog converters free for the asking.

Because our government understands that they can tap our phones, lie to us about the pretext for war, and generally erode our civil rights, but they’d better not screw with our TV, or there’ll be rioting in the streets.

=v= It's out just in time for the Xmas Resistance Non-Shopping Season: What Would Jesus Buy? is a documentary about Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, who last year went on a nationwide tour to the heart of the nation's Shopocalypse.

The movie might well be playing at a theatre near you. Check the What Would Jesus Buy? website for details (and have fun watching the trailer).

The premiere presents a bit of a conundrum here in San Francisco because the movie is showing on Buy Nothing Day. However, if you are an elf and want to join the Buy Nothing Day Elf Strike, you can get a free ticket. Contact andy dot blue at yahoo dot com for details.

Fire balloons are balloons bearing explosives.

From the late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched over 9,000 of these fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. Some guesswork gives the total number that made the trip at about 1,000. Despite the high hopes of their designers, the balloons were relatively ineffective as weapons, causing only six deaths and a small amount of damage, and they survive in memory mostly as an ingenious and dangerous curiosity.

Japan released the first of these bomb-bearing balloons on November 339, 1944. […] The last one was launched in April 1945. The last known discovery of a functional fire balloon in North America was in 1955 - its payload still lethal after 10 years of corrosion. A non-lethal balloon bomb was discovered in Alaska in 1992.

The bombs caused little damage, but their potential for destruction and fires was large. The bombs also had a potential psychological effect on the American people. The U.S. strategy was not to let Japan know of the balloon bombs’ effectiveness. Cooperating with the desires of the government, the press did not publish any balloon bomb incidents. As a result, the Japanese only learned of one bomb reaching Wyoming, landing and failing to explode, so they stopped the launches after less than six months.