Let’s nip it in the bud

Let’s nip it in the bud

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QT News Presented Without Comment:
The 2012 Texas Republican Platform opposes the teaching of “critical thinking skills” in schools because, in part, they “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs.”






QT Digest of Reviews of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom on HBO (for Your Convenience):
”… exponentially tedious… so naive it’s cynical… overwrought… chokes on its own sanctimony… a baffling free-fall… dramatically inert… talky and tendentious… ."
When Sorkin turned his critical gaze toward politics, say, in The West Wing, the news media couldn’t get enough of it.
But now that he has turned his gaze toward the news media… .

News Headline: “Obama’s promise of government transparency is a farce.”
News Headline: “Government transparency is a joke.”
QT will once again remind: Laughter is aerobically healthy for the heart.
President Obama is trying to save a few lives here.


Tom Nee, an Oak Lawn reader, regarding QT’s noting that the case of a woman charged with assaulting her boyfriend with pasta and a spoon may end up with a spaetzle prosecutor, writes:
“But does she have a criminal record — in other words, any pasta salt and buttery confections?”
Stop it.
Stop it now.




News Item: Republicans push through Pennsylvania voter ID law to “limit vote fraud.”
Repubican State Rep. Mike Turzai praising his party’s accomplishment:
“Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”
The Republican National Committee would like to have a word with you, Rep. Turzai.


The latest undiscovered asteroid to pass between Earth and the moon is Asteroid 2012 MF7.
It was discovered four days after it made its close pass last week.
But if it had hit Earth, it would have, at worst, created a crater only a half-mile wide and destroyed everything for only two miles in every direction.
So will you please stop worrying?


News Headline: “Nearly nude women to protest leather.”
News Headline: “Montreal students stage nearly-nude protest.”
News Headline: “Women protest half-nude.”
Add nude protests to the list of things that aren’t what they used to be.

The Sub-Bureau for Rapid Service and Predictions of Earth Orientation of the International Earth Rotation Service wants you to know that there will be a leap second added to civil time at midnight June 30.
Use it wisely.

News Item: ”…The police department received a call reporting a disturbance at the moving-up ceremony… ."
When did graduation ceremonies become moving-up ceremonies, and when can we have graduation ceremonies back?
And B.A., a Chicago reader, wants to know when hotheads became “persons with anger management issues,” and when can we have hotheads back?
And… .

QT Early Warning System:
Avatar 2, Avatar 3, Avatar 4.


News Item: The depiction of Jerry Sandusky on a well-known mural across the street from the Penn State campus has been replaced by an image of a poet… ."
QT First Rule of Naming Things After Famous People or Making Monuments or Whatever:
Never, ever, while the person is still alive.




News Headline: “Kreep wins a place on the bench.”
In other words, birther Republican attorney Gary Kreep has won the election over prosecutor Garland Peed for a San Diego, Calif., judgeship.
The final margin was 1,702 votes.
No word from Peed on a possible recount.
But QT will keep watch for any leaks.
And we can hope there won’t be a recount, can’t we.

Modern Education + the Criminal Mind =
A woman being questioned by Okaloosa County, Fla., sheriff’s deputies decided to come up with a false name but could not spell the name when a deputy asked for the spelling, police said.

Has everyone been enjoying National Rebuild Your Life Month so far?


From the QT Archive of Knowledge:
+ The letter Z appears 77 times in the Polish national anthem.
+ Big Ben is the bell, not the tower or the clock.


QT Grammar R Us Seminar on the English Language:
M.B., a Chicago reader, regarding QT’s noting that a group of hippopotamuses is a bloat of hippopotamuses, writes:
“Etymologically, a ‘bloat of hippopotamuses’ is actually ‘a bloat of hippopotamoi.’ ‘Hippopotamus’ is a Greek word.”
Yes. But what do you call a group of etymologists?
There are only three syllables in “naivete,” by the way.


Write to QT at qt@wbez.org
QT appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.