Links for April 26th
On 26 April 02011 with 5 comments
- Letters of Note: On bureaucratese and gobbledygook
This is a delightful memo sent by Civil Aeronautics Board chairman Alfred E. Kahn to the organization's top staff in 1977, begging them to please stop writing in "bureaucratese," and to instead use "straightforward, quasi-conversational, humane prose." He provides some specific examples that still apply nicely today. - Wikipedia: List of Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of possessing Casio watches
Just what it says on the tin. (I think I have a Casio in a drawer somewhere. Don't tell the feds.) - Ezra Grant: Jon Kyl Deletes His Lie From Congressional Record
Here's an insufficiently known fact: the congressional record reflects what legislators wish they'd said, not what they actually said. So if somebody says something stupid—like Sen. Kyl claiming that "abortion [is] well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does" (it's actually 3%)—then they can just have that remark edited out. Once audio transcription improves a bit more, I'm looking forward to somebody (Carl Malamud, I suspect) creating the unofficial—yet more official—congressional record. - New York Times: A Satisfied Customer, but 50 Times Over?
Lucas Fayne is a very, very satisfied customer. On over fifty businesses’ websites, he praises the quality of their work. In fifty different cities. For fifty different home improvement projects. For fifty different homes. What's the story here?
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