This time, they’re attacking the gendarmes with shotguns. This isn’t a riot. It’s an insurrection. What is Sarkozy going to do?

I find this particular euphemism by the press quite irritating. Can’t we be a little more specific and descriptive about the “youths”? By using that phrase, we’re tarring all French youth, many of whom, if not most, I suspect, are not blasting the cops in the faces with shot. Are they Catholics? Huguenots? Mormons? Amish?

In the US, when they won’t tell you the race of a criminal suspect, it’s generally a good bet that he’s of African descent, and if they make you guess the party of a miscreant politician, it’s a good indicator that it’s a Democrat. In French riots, one strongly suspects that when the perps are described only as “youths,” that they are (a) not necessarily that young and (b) at least notional followers of the Religion of Peace™. But we don’t want to prejudice anyone against the religion that cannot be named, no, or tell the readers what’s really going on here. We’ll just slander all young French people.

This time, they’re attacking the gendarmes with shotguns. This isn’t a riot. It’s an insurrection. What is Sarkozy going to do?

I find this particular euphemism by the press quite irritating. Can’t we be a little more specific and descriptive about the “youths”? By using that phrase, we’re tarring all French youth, many of whom, if not most, I suspect, are not blasting the cops in the faces with shot. Are they Catholics? Huguenots? Mormons? Amish?

In the US, when they won’t tell you the race of a criminal suspect, it’s generally a good bet that he’s of African descent, and if they make you guess the party of a miscreant politician, it’s a good indicator that it’s a Democrat. In French riots, one strongly suspects that when the perps are described only as “youths,” that they are (a) not necessarily that young and (b) at least notional followers of the Religion of Peace™. But we don’t want to prejudice anyone against the religion that cannot be named, no, or tell the readers what’s really going on here. We’ll just slander all young French people.

This time, they’re attacking the gendarmes with shotguns. This isn’t a riot. It’s an insurrection. What is Sarkozy going to do?

I find this particular euphemism by the press quite irritating. Can’t we be a little more specific and descriptive about the “youths”? By using that phrase, we’re tarring all French youth, many of whom, if not most, I suspect, are not blasting the cops in the faces with shot. Are they Catholics? Huguenots? Mormons? Amish?

In the US, when they won’t tell you the race of a criminal suspect, it’s generally a good bet that he’s of African descent, and if they make you guess the party of a miscreant politician, it’s a good indicator that it’s a Democrat. In French riots, one strongly suspects that when the perps are described only as “youths,” that they are (a) not necessarily that young and (b) at least notional followers of the Religion of Peace™. But we don’t want to prejudice anyone against the religion that cannot be named, no, or tell the readers what’s really going on here. We’ll just slander all young French people.

Life is such a bowl of cherries, and devoid of actual news (news here being defined in the traditional media sense of mayhem and misery), that here in south Florida, at least, the local teevee station is going to have team coverage of people lined up for the capitalist bacchanalia that commenced in the wee hours of the morning at the malls.

Now that’s news I can’t use. But I’m glad to hear there’s nothing of importance to cover.

Oh, and speaking of the local news team, the Weather Weasel* (my nickname for Chris Farrell, the perky little guy in the Princeton haircut who serves up the lack of weather here every morning on Channel 29 out of West Palm) lied to me again. All week, he and the other meteorological prognosticators have been threatening a Front (not a cold front–those hardly ever happen down here–even when they call them that, they’re just a Slightly Less Warm Front) would be coming through on Turkey Day, bringing Increased Clouds (words apparently meant to instill fear in the tremulous heart of a Sunshine Stater), and perhaps even the dreaded Isolated or (worse yet) Scattered Showers. Maybe, just maybe, even a Thundershower. Things would be even more dire on Friday, supposedly. Bear in mind that all these “warnings” come in the midst of a continuing drought as we head steadfastly into dry season, the dud of what was supposed to be an above-average hurricane season, from which we barely got one tropical storm on the first day of the season, ending one week from today. While Lake Okeechobee is five feet below normal.

Now what most people around here consider a threat, I consider a promise–a sacred one. Anyway, here it is, Friday morning. The dreaded Front stalled up around Orlando, and the sky is cloudless.

OK, you’re saying, weathermen aren’t perfect. They misjudged how far it would make it before the stalling process.

Fair enough. But here’s what really bugs me. If they’d admit that they were wrong, and explain what happened, and how they’re going to adjust the models so they’ll get it right next time, I’d be fine with it. But no. It’s Orwellian. On the forecast this morning, he made absolutely mention of the previous warnings, the most recent of which was last night, at 11:15 PM, just before I hit the pillow.

Just said, hey, it’s a sunny day, gonna be beautiful, just like it’s supposed to be down here. Maybe even warmer than normal. As though he and the others had not promised (well, at least to me) us all the Horrid Weather to come all week. Just down the memory hole, as though it never happened.

I dunno, maybe it’s just me. I hear stories of people who live up in the Pacific Northwest, who get depressed at what seems to be incessant clouds and drizzle and general dreariness, and take great joy when the sun pokes its head through the holes. Well, give me Seattle. I get despondent at the thought of this ongoing unremitting solar bath. I look forward to clouds, and rain, particularly if accompanied by thunder and lightning, but now that we’re heading into what passes down here for winter, I’m just in for one long soul-sucking period of non-weather for the next several months, which is simply made all the worse by the weathercasters’ continual glee in telling me that it will continue, while occasionally teasing me with the possibility of a change (with somber demeanor), only to shatter my dreams and then pretend they never did it.

Oh, well. At least the heat and humidity are down.

*I’m sure he’s a very nice fellow, and perhaps Weather Chipmunk would be a more appropriate nickname, but it doesn’t have the alliterative quality of the “W” word. And he does dash my hopes so often.

I’m watching “Back To You,” a new sitcom with Kelsey Grammar and Patricia Heaton, while getting ready to brine the turkey for tomorrow.

He is overfeeding the goldfish, and she warns him not to do this (it’s a metaphor about what a lousy absentee dad he is, to put it in context of the ongoing plot).

The goldfish, of course, because this is television, dies immediately from overeating.

The only problem is that no goldfish ever died from overeating. Or at least, that’s not why you shouldn’t overfeed a goldfish (nor is the related Dr. Seuss story worth worrying about either).

It’s bad to overfeed fish because they won’t eat all the food, and the uneaten food will rot and pollute their bowl. It happens over a period of many hours or days, not instantaneously. But the dumb writers think that the fish gorge themselves and die (otherwise, they’d have no story line).

In today’s Wall Street Journal I find this gem:

Maybe home builders should knock off work until spring.

Pillory OPEC for not raising oil production and pillory home builders for producing too much?! And another:

“If people stop cutting prices, that’s actually good [for builders],” says David Goldberg, an analyst with UBS Investment Bank. “If everybody does it, it works. If one builder does it, it doesn’t.”

If OPEC conspires to raise oil prices, it’s evil, but it’s OK to conspire to keep housing prices up? This is bad reporting.

It’s in each builder’s interest to keep building as long as their cost to build is lower than the expected sale price and the cost of capital for keeping the house on the market for longer than historical averages (and at higher interest rates than before the credit crisis). They will continue to build and prices will continue to fall. It probably won’t be a sellers’ market in housing in many parts of the country until 2009 or 2010. While builders continue to build, the 10-month supply of houses will only slowly drop and prices will also only drop slowly. If it made sense to build houses at 50% of current prices in some markets, there will be building for a while especially with labor and materials less scarce given that the peak of the housing boom is over.

Lower housing prices will make houses more affordable and stoke demand. That is what media should anticipate: a smoothly functioning market because the market price isn’t too high to sell anything. Not a way to repeal the Law of Supply and Demand.

Mark Steyn writes about Hollywood, and the war:

Which brings us back to those yelps of delight when the Americans clobbered the jihadists two hours into the test screening of The Kingdom. Pace Peter Berg, it’s not “bloodlust”: if you want that, you’re best to stick to the amoral fetishization of violence in the 3.10 remake. What the preview crowd were telling Berg is, hey, we’d love to see one film where our guys kick serious terrorist butt

Mark Steyn writes about Hollywood, and the war:

Which brings us back to those yelps of delight when the Americans clobbered the jihadists two hours into the test screening of The Kingdom. Pace Peter Berg, it’s not “bloodlust”: if you want that, you’re best to stick to the amoral fetishization of violence in the 3.10 remake. What the preview crowd were telling Berg is, hey, we’d love to see one film where our guys kick serious terrorist butt

Mark Steyn writes about Hollywood, and the war:

Which brings us back to those yelps of delight when the Americans clobbered the jihadists two hours into the test screening of The Kingdom. Pace Peter Berg, it’s not “bloodlust”: if you want that, you’re best to stick to the amoral fetishization of violence in the 3.10 remake. What the preview crowd were telling Berg is, hey, we’d love to see one film where our guys kick serious terrorist butt