Occasionally, I backlash ... against nouns becoming verbs, e.g. impact, task, among others.

Shades of Nero Wolfe. In Rex Stout's Gambit there is a classic scene in which Nero Wolfe is burning a book. Here is Archie Goodwin's description:

Mr. Wolfe is in the middle of the a fit. It's complicated. There's a fireplace in the front room, but it's never lit because he hates open fires. He says they stultify mental processes. But it's lit now because he's using it. He's seated in front of it, on a chair too small for him, tearing sheets out of a book and burning them. The book is the new edition, the third edition, of Webster's New International Dictionary, Unabridged, published by the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts. He considers it subversive because it threatens the integrity of the English language....

The nature of the subversion? — The dictionary allowed the use of "contact" as a verb.

People tend to think that their language is static; that it stays the way it was when they learned it. But language is constantly changing. Basically it doesn't change enough over three generations to become unintelligible to the speakers of the different generations, but the youngsters will think that gramps uses a lot of "quaint" expressions and the gramps will think that the kids aren't being taught to use the language properly. But it takes several centuries before the old language start to become incomprehensible.

Al Gore as inventor of the internet, Love Canal, Who Among Us Does not Love Nascar, etc etc -- these are mainstream media memes that benefit, but were not created by right-wingers. They were created by members in good standing of our abysmal press corps.
— Zaxtracks

Al Gore invented the internet was not originally a media production. It came straight from the RNC. See the definitive analysis by the previously mentioned and underpraised Bob Somerby (http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml) [scroll down].

And for those who miss the <a> tag, if you use Firefox there are several Firefox extensions that will make any url on a browser page into a clickable link. I use Linkification, but there are others available. Copy and paste no more.

Ah, a timely reminder. It's long past post time so I suppose it's safe to point out a typo: "she let's us know" should be "she lets us know". "Let's" is a contraction of "let us". This one can't be rescued with dictionary.com

tiberius: Your problem is that you have little if any faith in our system.

I for one have a great deal of faith in our system. This is our system:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What I don't have faith in is people who want to change that system for their own benefit so that the right of the people can be violated at will but the rights of the violators to be secure from scrutiny becomes inviolate.

WT: As I remember it, what was said was that the enormous number of false positives alone, even when using the best heuristic algorithms now available, made such systems essentially useless for the purpose which they were ostensibly built to serve, and that it was unlikely that future developments in these algorithms would substantially improve their effectiveness.

The technical term for this is "garbage in — garbage out". The only technological advance with the new systems is "a very large amount of garbage in — a very large amount of garbage out.

On the other hand, in addition to being able to tell what Joe Blow did with his money, you can also fairly quickly produce a list of everyone who contributed to, say, PETA or the ACLU. But what use could that possibly be to a government that has already demonstrated its willingness to use the machinery of law enforcement for partisan political purposes? Oh, ye of little faith.

The Attorney General has the full confidence of the President, and he appreciates the work he is doing at the Department of Justice to help keep our citizens safe from terrorists, our children safe from predators, our government safe from corruption, and our streets free from gang violence.

If Gonzo wants to keep the government safe from corruption, the best thing he can do is resign. Of course, that would just pave the way for a John Yoo recess appointment.

Via Armagednoutahere:

From: Shalom Midbar

Date: Wed, April 18, 2007, 11:56 AM

Subject: "law abiding" Muslims

Truly astounding, but hardly a new tactic. Indeed, the talking points follow with remarkable correlation a letter written in 1937 and published in 1940 by Hanns Oberlindober under the heading The "Decent" Jew (http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/oberlindober1.htm). Simply replace "Jew" in the Nazi propaganda with "Muslim" and you have essentially the same screed.

As L.W.M. has already noted, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.