Flit

QUOTE OF THE DAY "We

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"We are not, as it is said, TV Material. Forced to describe myself physically, I'd say I resembled a pumpkin wearing a bib, and the bib itself is smeared with gravy. I stutter a lot. I'm terrified of mirrors, let alone video cameras, which are like super devil mirrors with black brains that remember."

--Tycho, Penny Arcade

BLOGGER IS SAID TO QUESTION

BLOGGER IS SAID TO QUESTION THE PRACTICE OF SAYING TO QUESTION

Reading Nick Denton tonight leaves me to wonder about a recent post of my own. Denton lumps in Tom Coates, Ted Rall and the New York Times as voices who are disguising their honest views with hedgy writing. Valid point... but would a reader in Denton's frame of mind take my recent post on the possibility of a Reichstag fire incident in Moscow and, in the same vein, I was hedging my own ardent beliefs similarly? Probably... but I know personally I wasn't, that I honestly didn't know what to think at the time. I guess I was thinking while I blogged, which is never a good idea. Or if you did believe I wasn't doing a Ted, that I was sincerely trying to raise a question that was nagging at me, how could you tell the difference? Yes, I do believe Rall was being manifestly insincere about his own beliefs... but what was it specifically about that loathsome piece that led me to that conclusion?

(I suppose one obvious difference is that Rall used the old hack's technique of saying "other people are saying this outrageous thing... I'm just reporting what they said." I don't think I've ever done anything that weaselly, yet. My beliefs, right or wrong, doubts and all, are my own.)

By the way, increasing evidence that the Moscow hostage taking was planned at the highest levels of the Chechen movement almost certainly answers any question I might have had about whether the Russians were playing it straight on this one. Personally, I'm a little relieved: it's always nice when the world proves to be not quite as evil as I'm evidently capable of imagining.

UPDATE: We have these people in computer game writing, too. Quoting Gabe from Penny Arcade again, beating up on hapless reviewer Cory Lewis: "He cannot write a single bad thing about the Goddamned game without the next sentence starting with "but" or "however". Jesus man, grow a pair and tell me what you really think of the game. This wishy washy crap is totally worthless."

BELIEVE ME, I CAN SYMPATHIZE

BELIEVE ME, I CAN SYMPATHIZE

This sounds familiar. The difference is, in America this is happening because the country's at war. In Canada, it's because the country apparently doesn't care.