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The Ledes

Saturday, May 18, 2024

Washington Post: “Paul D. Parkman, a scientist who in the 1960s played a central role in identifying the rubella virus and developing a vaccine to combat it, breakthroughs that have eliminated from much of the world a disease that can cause catastrophic birth defects and fetal death, died May 7 at his home in Auburn, N.Y. He was 91.”

New York Times: “Dabney Coleman, an award-winning television and movie actor best known for his over-the-top portrayals of garrulous, egomaniacal characters, died on Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 92.”

The Wires

The Ledes

Marie: BTW, if you think our government sucks, I invite you to watch the PBS special "The Real story of Mr Bates vs the Post Office," about how the British post office falsely accused hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of subpostmasters of theft and fraud, succeeded in obtaining convictions and jail time, and essentially stole tens of thousands of pounds from some of them. Oh, and lied about it all. A dramatization of the story appeared as a four-part "Masterpiece Theater," which you still may be able to pick it up on your local PBS station. Otherwise, you can catch it here (for now). Just hope this does give our own Postmaster General Extraordinaire Louis DeJoy any ideas.

The Mysterious Roman Dodecahedron. Washington Post: A “group of amateur archaeologists sift[ing] through ... an ancient Roman pit in eastern England [found] ... a Roman dodecahedron, likely to have been placed there 1,700 years earlier.... Each of its pentagon-shaped faces is punctuated by a hole, varying in size, and each of its 20 corners is accented by a semi-spherical knob.” Archaeologists don't know what the Romans used these small dodecahedrons for but the best guess is that they have some religious significance.

He Shot the Messenger. Washington Post: “The Messenger is shutting down immediately, the news site’s founder told employees in an email Wednesday, marking the abrupt demise of one of the stranger and more expensive recent experiments in digital media. In his email, Jimmy Finkelstein said he was 'personally devastated' to announce that he had failed in a last-ditch effort to raise more money for the site, saying that he had been fundraising as recently as the night before. Finkelstein said the site, which launched last year with outsize ambitions and a mammoth $50 million budget, would close 'effective immediately.' The New York Times first reported the site’s closure late Wednesday afternoon, appearing to catch many staffers off-guard, including editor in chief Dan Wakeford. As employees read the news story, the internal work chat service Slack erupted in what one employee called 'pandemonium.'... Minutes later, as staffers read Finkelstein’s email, its message was underscored as they were forcibly logged out of their Slack accounts. Former Messenger reporter Jim LaPorta posted on social media that employees would not receive health care or severance.”

Page Links

Monday

Nov272017

Word of the Year (for the Turd of the Year)

By Akhilleus

Dictionary.com has come out with its word of the year. And no, it isn't "asshole", although that, along with "pernicious" and "dick" would have been perfectly fine choices. I'd have thought it would be "collusion", but no, it's "complicit", which describes the entire Trump clan and everyone on his execrable cabinet of clowns and confidence schemers.

Complicit: "'Choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act' and 'having partnership or involvement in wrongdoing.'"

That pretty much describes Trump World, don't it?

But if that word doesn't suit you, you can go here and try your hand at selecting a word to describe the little king hisself, apart from his milieu. But don't select "arrogant", "idiot", "orange", "asshole", or "president" (yeah, I know, no asterisk). They're the top vote getters, over 10,000 a piece.

Scroll down and you do run across some unusual, but accurate choices:

wazzock: (English, dialect) a foolish or annoying person
bunghole: self explanatory
flaccid: one of my favorites.

And hey, santorum got 16 votes!

Some are just odd: Tomato, prune, wax, lobster, mong? Baka? Dillhole? Enoch?

Two people suggested "word" which I suppose is a bit waggish since the exercise is called "trump in one word". Ha-ha, very clever, kids.

Only two picks for "jejune" which I found surprising.

"Cockgobbler" is in there (which I found not surprising--along with scads of similarly sexual turns of phrase).

"Mugabe" gets a knowing head nod.

Then there's "Pajero", which, I discovered, means 'He who fiddles with himself for sexual gratification'. Check.

"Turdburglar"? Why not?

Twelve selected "savy" which could mean they're not very savvy themselves. But at least they're all Confederate illiterates.

Several people suggested "antidisestablishmentarianism", which tells me they either wanted to show off their spelling chops or haven't read much in the way of 19th C English history.

Things get really interesting when you scroll down to the entries with a single submission.

Arrogantaur, asswipemotherfuckinpieceofrac (that's all that fit), tchump, FartBlossom, and Antechrist (he came before Christ?), onionhead, and Dick-Cheese. Ladyweoutof was good, as was colonscope and Dunderpate; but I liked the comprehensiveness of Omnibuffoon. One anatomically confused entry was VaginaBallsack. Covers the waterfront, I guess.

PIck out your own faves. Open the Thesaurus. It's hard to go wrong.