From the French phrase esprit d’escalier, literally, it means ‘the wit of the staircase’, and usually refers to the perfect witty response you think up after the conversation or argument is ended.
“Esprit d’escalier. The answer you cannot make, the pattern you cannot complete till aterwards it suddenly comes to you when it is too late.”
See also: Treppenwitz in German.
Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap. Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period. Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.
Hmm, since there has been no ‘industrial revolution’ on Mars, at least that we know of, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that climate change has more to do with the giant nuclear fusion reactor at the center of our solar system than people driving SUVs. You know, Occam’s razor and all that.
The Sunday Times: Climate change hits Mars
Canada will be among the first countries in the world to ban the purchase of traditional light bulbs as part of the government’s plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
The government’s announcement yesterday follows the lead of Australia and Ontario and will take effect in 2012. Canadian retailers will be required to stock more efficient light bulbs such as compact fluorescents and halogen bulbs.
The best part:
“I see it as an end-run around the United Nations system,” Beatrice Olivastri of Friends of the Earth Canada said. “Anything that is a U.S.-related program is clearly outside of Kyoto, so that to me is very worrisome.”
The Globe and Mail: Canada to ban traditional light bulbs
Chumps pay $25 for parking. Cheapskates take public transportation, which provides valuable life lessons for the children:
“Daddy, why is that man talking to himself, picking at his sores and not wearing any pants?”
“Because he roots for the Cubs, son.”
KZPS in Dallas — on the dial at 92.5 FM or online at lonestar925.com — will no longer run traditional 30- or 60-second advertisements. Instead, advertisers sponsor an hour of programming, during which a D.J. will promote its product conversationally in what the company calls integration.
I fail to see how the DJ “conversationally” inserting the sponsor is less annoying than prerecorded ads. An interruption to the music is an interruption to the music. Besides, aren’t people turning off the radio, not because of the ads, but because the music they play sucks?
New York Times:In Dallas, Commercial Radio Without Commercials
prolix \pro-LIKS; PRO-liks\, adjective:
Prolix is derived from Latin prolixus, “poured forth, overflowing, extended, long,” from pro-, “forward” liquere, “to be fluid.”
See Also: Logorrhea
Dictionary.com: Word of the Day Archive: prolix
Some food for thought, should Senator Hillary Clinton be elected the next President of the United States and serves two terms:
The Corner on National Review Online: Dynasties
[T]he [Virginia Tech] administration has created a “Gun-Free School Zone.” Or, to be more accurate, they’ve created a sign that says “Gun-Free School Zone.” And, like a loopy medieval sultan, they thought that simply declaring it to be so would make it so. The “gun-free zone” turned out to be a fraud — not just because there were at least two guns on the campus last Monday, but in the more important sense that the college was promoting to its students a profoundly deluded view of the world.
I live in northern New England, which has a very low crime rate, in part because it has a high rate of gun ownership. We do have the occasional murder, however. A few years back, a couple of alienated loser teens from a small Vermont town decided they were going to kill somebody, steal his ATM cards, and go to Australia. So they went to a remote house in the woods a couple of towns away, knocked on the door, and said their car had broken down. The guy thought their story smelled funny so he picked up his Glock and told ‘em to get lost. So they concocted a better story, and pretended to be students doing an environmental survey. Unfortunately, the next old coot in the woods was sick of environmentalists and chased ‘em away. Eventually they figured they could spend months knocking on doors in rural Vermont and New Hampshire and seeing nothing for their pains but cranky guys in plaid leveling both barrels through the screen door. So even these idiots worked it out: Where’s the nearest place around here where you’re most likely to encounter gullible defenseless types who have foresworn all means of resistance? Answer: Dartmouth College. So they drove over the Connecticut River, rang the doorbell, and brutally murdered a couple of well-meaning liberal professors. Two depraved misfits of crushing stupidity (to judge from their diaries) had nevertheless identified precisely the easiest murder victims in the twin-state area. To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. Like the new Yale props department policy, it signals to everyone that you’re not in the real world.
Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun Times:Let’s be realistic about reality
Reason magazine’s David Weigel has a nice interview with Jackson Publick, creator, director, and co-writer of The Venture Bros.
Reason: And I suppose you’re not just talking about the failure of superheroes, because these fantasy science stories were produced by a culture that was high on superscience — beating the Russians to the Moon, curing every disease, etc.
JP: That’s the deeper thing behind it — it’s me voicing my disappointment that we don’t have that kind of magic going on any more, that level of enthusiasm and hope. That extends to the kind of cultural stuff that was going on in the 60s, a youthful generation thinking they could change the world. I’m voicing my displeasure at having been born in a time when some of that magic, for lack of a better word, is gone, and some of those promises that were made in all of our pop culture were never met. My laptop is the coolest thing that’s come out of that. I’m still waiting on my jet pack.
