Headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Woman is off life support after stabbing attack.
Why don’t they try that with everyone on life support, then?
To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
Headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Woman is off life support after stabbing attack.
Why don’t they try that with everyone on life support, then?
Headline on St. Louis Post-Dispatch story: Home schooling is attracting mainstream families.
No comment.
Come on, regardless of what you think of their music or eating disorders, it would be kind of cool to have a Spice Girl stalking you. Even Scary Spice. If it were me, I wouldn’t throw her in jail; I’d brag to all my friends (but probably not my wife): “Yeah, that Emma Bunton has been sending me flowers, love notes, and graphic pictures of herself again.”
Headline of the day: Sunset Hills man shoots; kills alleged burglar
As one of the last regular users of the precious semicolon, I must protest whenever someone uses it incorrectly. It’s easier than protesting apostrophe abuse, and it doesn’t make on as hoarse.
George W. Bush.
Some would say he’s stepping on applause lines, but somehow it strikes me as though he’s got more important things to do and to say and he cannot pause for adulation.
Just my impression.
March to protest Venice shootings set for Sunday.
The shootings set for Saturday, because they’re not on the Sabbath, drew no objections.
CNN Headline: Report: Raptors euthanized in error
Obvious punchline: Perhaps they mistook them for the Bucks.
Headline on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel this afternoon:
Militants threatens to kill 6 hostages. Swell.
Here’s the front page of today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
In a surprise move, Danton pleads guilty.
That headline is twice as long as it needs to be; as a matter of fact, the headline contains a fact and a response to the fact, that the writer of the headline is surprised.
This, my friends, is a cry for help. Whoever felt the need to include his or her reaction into the headline of a marginally-relevant story wants us to look at him or her, the surprised innocent or the surprised cynic who would assume that Danton would plead not guilty and appeal as far as he could before trying an insanity defense. But no, Danton plead guilty. And that’s the story, not the author or editor’s reaction.
Unfortunately, all journalism nowadays seems to require the professional journalists insert their own voices into the facts.
The San Francisco Chronicle plays with verbs when it presents this on its Web site:
Text:
Bush Military Info Destroyed
Payroll records that could clarify his service history were damaged. Pentagon blames ‘deterioration.’ AP
Really? The Pentagon–Bush’s Pentagon—blames deterioration? What about “explains fact” or “cudgels conspiracy theory advocates with facts, to no avail”?
Here’s the words from the article:
The letter said that in 1996 and 1997, the Pentagon “engaged with limited success in a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm.” During the process, “the microfilm payroll records of numerous service members were damaged,” the letter said.
This process resulted in “the inadvertent destruction of microfilm containing certain National Guard payroll records,” including Bush’s, the letter said.
This particular conspiracy stretches back to the last year of Clinton’s first term and the first year of his second! Damn, these Bushies are thorough.
I mean, it must certainly be unthinkable that this particular set of undifferentiated records from thirty years ago were damaged by underpaid, but underwhelming, low-ranking government and military functionaries. Instead, the San Francisco Chronicle would seem to have you connect the stars to make damning constellations.
Headline of the day:
Powell, Annan sense crisis in Sudan
Those diplocrats really are more than the common man!
Fed’s rate hike signals rebound in economy.
What? Where’s the doom?
Headline: Schwarzenegger Wants Strays Killed Faster:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to repeal a state law that requires animal shelters to hold stray dogs and cats for up to six days before killing them.
Instead, there would be a three-day requirement for strays. Other animals, including birds, hamsters, potbellied pigs, rabbits, snakes and turtles, could be killed immediately.
Actually, it sounds like he’s reducing a requirement, not mandating felinicide and caninicide. Perhaps Schwarzenegger alone among the ruling class understands that federal- and state-level mandates and requirements serve as Procrustean beds that bind the hands of local governments who must deal with the ultimate execution, er, implementation.
I would guess that if the three-day requirement replaces the six-day requirement that all shelters in the state of California will immediately set the red digital countdown clocks on their puppy doomsday machines to 72:00:00.
Instead, those counties running animal shelters flush with cash will continue their current policies, and those counties whose governments need to choose between hospitals and an extra three days of keeping an ill-tempered, underfed chow-rottie mix in a six by four cage except for brief exercise periods where it snaps at the shelter volunteer but doesn’t–thankfully–draw blood.
But Brian, the counties don’t have to make those sorts of choices! You’re more right than you should be, opposing viewpoint; governments will make both choices whenever possible and will flout a tax increase or ballot initiative to pay for it. But damn it, those tax dollars are the difference between canned asparagus and fresh asparagus, the difference between the pork and the steak, in some people’s diets. So you want to save the animals, you eat lesser food and donate the difference to keep Sapp, that chow-rottie mix, in his chain link for three more days, but don’t make me do it with you, and don’t you fail to do so without your precious government mandate.
UPDATE: Michael Williams gets it.
Economy slows to a 3.9 percent pace in first quarter:
Economic growth in the first quarter was slower than first reported — at an annual rate of 3.9 percent — a pace that was solid but lacking the momentum exhibited as the calendar turned to 2004.
Economic growth was less than the preceding quarter but was growth nevertheless. AP reporters apparently have the same mentality that afflicts equities traders: that growth, not financial strength or profit, determines the state of the economy.
An unfortunate, but probably meditated, mischaracterization. Each quarter, the same amount of gain in absolute dollars represents a smaller growth in the relative percentage measurement because each quarter, the whole gets bigger. So an addition of 3 to a total of 100 is 3% growth in the first quarter, but an addition of 3 in the second quarter (where the total is 103), the economy “slows” to 2.9%, the second seal is broken, and apparently the only way to prevent the end of the world is to elect John Kerry, who will Robin Hood money from the rich and corporations to increase the economy!
Or maybe I am reading too much into it.
What should we make of this headline from CNN? Jenna Bush Agents Join Fistfight. Pic:
Article text:
Bodyguards for President Bush’s daughter Jenna Bush were entangled in a fistfight with two men trying to steal a cell phone in southern Spain, a U.S. Embassy official said Tuesday.
So a couple of Secret Service agents prevent a couple of hoodlums from stealing something, and CNN casts it as bodyguards of Jenna Bush joining a fistfight?
That’s some damn deep, invasive bias that prevents a journalist from writing facts and where every single news story predigested interpretation. Just open up your maws, little cheepies, and mama CNN will regurgitate its truth down your gullet for your own good.
On the News page of the New York Post today, we had this headline:
That particular word is flick, F-L-I-C-K. No matter what your first glance told you.
Unfortunate headline of the day, from FoxNews.Com yesterday:
Kobe Lawyers Want Sex In Trial
Here’s the interactive part of the blog–you get to make your own jokes.
I think the St. Louis Major Case Squad is summining a posse. That’s what I get from this headline, most of the way down the page:
Man, I love those interns who write the headlines for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Law and Order section.
Scientists on way to developing obesity pill
(Link seen on Drudge.)