It’s interesting how much difference context makes. For example, consider these slogans:
- Keep your laws off my body
- My body my choice
- Politicians make bad doctors
What does that make you think of?
What if I said the context is Covid-19 and government-mandated wearing of masks?
The interesting part to me is that the two sides of those slogans flip if you change the context from abortion to quarantine.
Talk about public health and social distance and masks and shutting down gatherings, and all of a sudden the conservatives are the ones saying
- Keep your laws off my body
- My body my choice
- Politicians make bad doctors
and the liberals are welcoming laws and executive orders that limit what they can do with their bodies and they are trusting politicians to make good medical decisions.
Of course that’s a generalization and there are exceptions, but in general that’s how it appears these days.
So it seems to me those slogans are not true because people don’t believe them across the board. Also, “if you don’t like masks then don’t get one.”
P.S. I was going to submit this as an idea to the Babylon Bee, but I couldn’t find anywhere to send it. Their contact form has a dropdown list of reasons to contact them but the glaring omission of “article ideas” made me think they did that on purpose.
I would have reformatted it first – something like “Conservatives and liberals are engaged in negotiations for who gets to use which slogans. The initial proposal was to have the conservatives return ‘My body my choice’ on June 1 and retain ‘Politicians make bad doctors’ throughout the summer, but talks have stalled over ‘Keep your laws off my body’.”
I didn’t fully write the article, as you can see, but it’s mostly there.
Answer a fool as his folly deserves, That he not be wise in his own eyes.
Proverbs 26:5
Posted in Current Events | 1 Comment »
I noticed some people were trying to use the German accenterator to sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The problem is that Arnold is not German, and he doesn’t sound like the stereotypical German.
So I went ahead and created an accenterator page for everyone’s favorite Austrian farmer. Go visit the Austrian accent page to try the accent.
One thing I noticed is there are many similarities between The Ahnold and a Boston accent. Try each of them with a phrase like ‘smart park your car in Harvard yard’ and see how close they are.
So why doesn’t Arnold sound like he’s from Boston? I think it’s mostly the tone of voice. That’s one of the drawbacks of written English – no tones. Say that phrase with a lower, more even tone and it’s Arnold. Say that same phrase with a higher, brighter tone and it’s Bostonian.
They called this out with a loud voice in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them, so that they might take the city.
2 Chronicles 32:18
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For those of you keeping track, you were expecting this week’s post to discuss the most popular baby names of 2019. I know I certainly was.
But, alas, that is yet another effect of the coronavirus – no more baby name lists until further notice. Don’t blame me – that was the decision of the Social Security Administration.
Here is their reason for not fulfilling their annual tradition: “Out of respect and honor for all people and families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the announcement of the 2019 most popular baby names is being rescheduled to a to-be-determined date. ”
Now there are several reasons that would have made sense to me – reduced staff, higher priorities at this time, etc. – but “out of respect and honor”? That does not make sense to me. How are people honored by not being able to see what names are popular? Maybe some medical workers are pregnant and want to check their possible names against the list – how are they respected by withholding the list?
I just don’t get it. Why that reason? Did they not want to tell us the real reason they don’t have the list?
Anyway, my annual post of the real most popular baby names is postponed until the SSA agrees to release their list.
Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that when your words come to pass, we may honor you?”
Judges 13:17
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I was inspired by this FoxTrot comic strip
to figure out exactly how many horsepower would be the equivalent of 350 elephantpower.
My answer: 2800 hp.
But then I got to thinking “What other animal-power could there be?” So I came up with a list. And made it into a web page, so that you could find the equivalent of the power of various animals. For example, a 2009 VW Rabbit actually has about 71,000 rabbitpower.
Anyway, head on over to Some Fun Site and try the Animal Power Converter to figure out how other animals compare to horses.
I will note that Bill Amend must have done his research, because as far as I can tell, the elephant is the most powerful land animal. A blue whale would theoretically dwarf the elephant in terms of horsepower, but I kept the list to land animals.
When comparing animals, remember that power is a function of force and distance and time. So an ox might be able to generate a lot of force, but it is not very speedy so it has a low power rating. And a cheetah is very fast, but it can’t move a lot of weight at that speed so it also has a low power number. A transmission could help in each case – give the ox some higher gears and give the cheetah some lower gear.
And if there’s an animal you want added to the list, please leave a comment here.
A horse is a false hope for victory; Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength.
Psalm 33:17
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This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
