Over at the site of Tim Blair (Oppressor), an idiot reporter, attempting to feel Al Qaeda’s pain, is justly mocked:

“My blindfolded eyes refused to adjust to the dark void that engulfed me. I was instantly disorientated…”

Allow me to pile on with a grammar flame. Does he think that adding the redundantly-superfluous “tate” to the perfectly-good word “disoriented” makes his outrageous hyperbole sound smarter and ooohhh so much more intellectual? It doesn’t.

As my first new post after my metapost about my software changeover, I want to belatedly recommend that everyone read Megan McArdle’s disquisition on abolishing the corporate income tax.

This is a worthy cause, of which I despair. Congratulations to “Jane Galt” for taking up the cudgel, anyway.

For those few who have been wondering why my posts have been sparse and sporadic for the last few days, I’ve been engaged in a switchover from Grey Matter to Moveable Type blogging software. It has involved much gnashing of hair and pulling of teeth, but I’ve finally gotten it up and running (at least, assuming that you see this post, and the new look of the site…).

The biggest challenge was in preserving the links to my old posts in the new system, so that archived links from other weblogs will still take people to the relevant posts in the new setup. I think that I’ve succeeded, by generating 400+ referral pages… (good thing I know a little Perl–it would have been murder to do that by hand…).

Anyway, feedback on the new site look is welcome. Also, notice my expanded and reordered link list to the right.

Enjoy.

[Update: Doh! That’s to the left. I was confused ‘cuz it’s on my right from inside this computer thingy…]

[Tuesday Morning Update]

I’m informed that the site is broken in some versions of IE on the Mac. Not owning a Mac, it’ll be hard for me to test, but I’ll play with it today and try to find the problem. I’ll appreciate any feedback from Mac users as I progress.

Both Alex Knapp and David Carr use the Congo volcanic eruption to take amusing jabs at overregulation. However, it’s distressing to see that while the media is now paying attention to this natural disaster in the Congo, that even now, there has been very little noting of the fact that this benighted country has been suffering from the largest and most unreported war on the planet for several years now. And it’s not clear which disaster will ultimately ever be amenable to human intervention–magma buildup, or the equally dangerous accumulation of tribalism, corruption, and failed socialism (thank you, decolonialists!) that continues to ravage much of the African continent.

[Update on Tuesday afternoon]

David Carr informs me via email that I misread his post (to be honest I just gave it enough of a glance to see that it was about the Congo eruption, and satirical):

I just wanted to point out that it wasn’t, in fact, a dig at overregulation but rather to send up the quixotic nature of the EU.

I know it’s just a quibble but I really, really don’t want the EU escaping even one pixel’s worth of my contempt.

Well, let it never be said that I am in any way derelict in my sacred duty to avoid shielding the EU from contempt. (Parse that! I dare you!)

Both Alex Knapp and David Carr use the Congo volcanic eruption to take amusing jabs at overregulation. However, it’s distressing to see that while the media is now paying attention to this natural disaster in the Congo, that even now, there has been very little noting of the fact that this benighted country has been suffering from the largest and most unreported war on the planet for several years now. And it’s not clear which disaster will ultimately ever be amenable to human intervention–magma buildup, or the equally dangerous accumulation of tribalism, corruption, and failed socialism (thank you, decolonialists!) that continues to ravage much of the African continent.

[Update on Tuesday afternoon]

David Carr informs me via email that I misread his post (to be honest I just gave it enough of a glance to see that it was about the Congo eruption, and satirical):

I just wanted to point out that it wasn’t, in fact, a dig at overregulation but rather to send up the quixotic nature of the EU.

I know it’s just a quibble but I really, really don’t want the EU escaping even one pixel’s worth of my contempt.

Well, let it never be said that I am in any way derelict in my sacred duty to avoid shielding the EU from contempt. (Parse that! I dare you!)

Both Alex Knapp and David Carr use the Congo volcanic eruption to take amusing jabs at overregulation. However, it’s distressing to see that while the media is now paying attention to this natural disaster in the Congo, that even now, there has been very little noting of the fact that this benighted country has been suffering from the largest and most unreported war on the planet for several years now. And it’s not clear which disaster will ultimately ever be amenable to human intervention–magma buildup, or the equally dangerous accumulation of tribalism, corruption, and failed socialism (thank you, decolonialists!) that continues to ravage much of the African continent.

[Update on Tuesday afternoon]

David Carr informs me via email that I misread his post (to be honest I just gave it enough of a glance to see that it was about the Congo eruption, and satirical):

I just wanted to point out that it wasn’t, in fact, a dig at overregulation but rather to send up the quixotic nature of the EU.

I know it’s just a quibble but I really, really don’t want the EU escaping even one pixel’s worth of my contempt.

Well, let it never be said that I am in any way derelict in my sacred duty to avoid shielding the EU from contempt. (Parse that! I dare you!)

It just occurred to me that there is at least one way in which webloggers can take the credibility high ground vis a vis “traditional media,” particularly of the dead-trees variety. When the NYT or WaPo makes an error (even assuming that you can get them to admit it), they will publish an erratum, perhaps days later, in small print, in some area of the paper usually unrelated to the original crime.

When bloggers screw up (or at least when I do), the erratum becomes part of the post, for posterity. For instance, in my post of a couple posts back, in which I mistakenly confused Bill Jones for Bill Lockyer, while I corrected the original post, I also now have an erratum describing the original error and what I did to fix it. It will remain there until the bits have decayed off the server (or until, in a fit of new media hubris and desire to emulate the professional journalists, I delete it and send it down the memory hole…)

Newspapers might have more credibility if it didn’t seem so much like pulling unanaesthetized teeth to get them to admit fallibility…

[Update at 1:12 PM PST]

Apropos the above comments, I see that Opinion Journal has picked up on The Nation’s screwup in the Bush/Enron story, as I pointed out on Thursday (advantage, Transterrestrial!).

And note that The Nation didn’t issue an errata. First they just tried to change the offending paragraph, hoping nobody would notice, then, when they realized that it was flawed beyond editorial repair, they simply deleted the entire article. As I said, down the memory hole…

Professor Reynolds has a brilliant suggestion this morning.

I think it’s time for the United States to begin a massive public-education program, starting with distributing a lot of translated copies of The Federalist Papers. Most world leaders will probably hate that, which only adds to the fun.

Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to start in our own country. Perhaps even in Congress, though I’m not sure what language that you could translate them into that would have any hope of penetrating their statist skulls…

Professor Reynolds has a brilliant suggestion this morning.

I think it’s time for the United States to begin a massive public-education program, starting with distributing a lot of translated copies of The Federalist Papers. Most world leaders will probably hate that, which only adds to the fun.

Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to start in our own country. Perhaps even in Congress, though I’m not sure what language that you could translate them into that would have any hope of penetrating their statist skulls…

Professor Reynolds has a brilliant suggestion this morning.

I think it’s time for the United States to begin a massive public-education program, starting with distributing a lot of translated copies of The Federalist Papers. Most world leaders will probably hate that, which only adds to the fun.

Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to start in our own country. Perhaps even in Congress, though I’m not sure what language that you could translate them into that would have any hope of penetrating their statist skulls…