Wednesday, May 7, 2008

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Here are a few things that I couldn't put anywhere else:

Patrick at Lone Star Liberty has a rare good word for Senator John Cornyn. Senator Cornyn has figured out that ethanol subsidies might be killing people.

Adamant has some unbelieveable before and after cyclone satellite photos of Burma.

Marko at The Munchkin Wrangler has an interesting concept called "Search Term Safari". Whatever search terms people key into his blog (see the top left search field on this page), he tries to write about every Monday. I would try that, but I think I've written enough already about Brett Younger, Is There A Hell?, and Ethanol Subsidies.
He's got another good post about his site being hit by a splog. If I hadn't read about it, I would've never known what was happening to my site the last few days. A legit blogger that I've linked to (most splogs aren't legit) is apparently logging in here and going back and forth between my site and his a few dozen times (we've linked to each other) about once an hour. He's got a reciprocal link thing going with a few other sites and he's doing it to them also. It's to get his advertising revenue up. Kinda pitiful.
I like getting hits the old fashioned way. By writing about Brett Younger, Is There A Hell?, and Ethanol Subsidies.

In honor of D.G. at T.C.U., here's a rare link from The Whited Sepulchre to Greg Mankiw to Paul Krugman. It's a good analysis of why politicians bring up a red herrings like the gas tax holiday.

Robb Allen, filling in for Hazel at The Line Is Here, has a post that would've fit well in the rant I did yesterday. Let's see if we can fill in the blanks....
"In the face of [Motorcycles popping wheelies], Florida Representative Carlos Lopez-Cantera has urged [a Florida legislature with lots of time on it's hands] to [ mandate two wheels on the pavement at all times ] in order to [ prevent Darwinian laws of natural selection from going into effect ]."
I love that formula. It's like Mad Libs for cynics.

Mississippian Gus Van Horn, who presides over the best objectivist blog on earth or any other planet, provides us with this abomination. Here's Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson taking a few moments away from fleecing their flocks to warn us of the evils of Global Warming, NO ! Climate Change, NO ! the weather changing.

Mr. Van Horn ordinarily writes deep philosophical posts about self-interest as it relates to the good of the rest of our species. The video above is due to a rare lapse in taste.

The great Alan K. Henderson has three consecutive posts about wooden heads, plants, and Ann Coulter. As if there's a difference.

The good folks at The Pheisty Blog, who I've been neglecting lately, once again force me to trot out The Formula that I posted yesterday.....
"In the face of [some home foreclosures ], Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has urged [the people who spend your taxes ] to [bail out a lot of people with bigger houses than mine ] in order to [ stabilize house prices in neighborhoods with lots of bigger houses than mine ]."
I think that summarizes Bernanke's statement nicely.

Back To The Drawing Board explains the difference between rights and entitlements. There is one.

According to Saint Albert, The Goracle of Music City, the recent tragedy in Burma was due to our failure to contribute to The Saint Albert retirement/pension fund. Compliments of Counting Cats. The Cat Counter has another one here, about how people and organizations tend to become what they hate.

Rex Flex alerts the nation to a legislative scheme that would send every Mississippi restaurant into bankruptcy. I'm tempted to apply The Formula to it, but as a potential target of this legislation, it's too depressing.

Munzenberg, who co-blogs with my sorta online friend Jay at Soobdujour, takes a Michael Gerson speech and breaks it down into the rhetorical devices used. (Rhetorical questins, irony, hyperbole, metaphors, parallelism, etc.) Has anyone ever done a complete book of speeches this way? Or is that what you find in every Rhetoric textbook? If so, is there one that's considered the standard? Munzenberg, please advise....

Law, Legislation, and Lunacy encourages Bill Maher to visit Clues "R" Us, in hopes that he will purchase one.

Andrew Ian Dodge, of Dodgeblogium, posts the infamous picture of Obama associate and convicted terrorist William Ayers wiping his feet on the United States flag. I've heard all about it, but this is the first time I've seen it.

Either my site is running slower because of all the links on this post, or I'm running slower because of all the links I've done on this post.

Good Night !

3 comments:

G said...

cheers for the link. To answer your questions.

I don't know if anyone has done any books analysing a variety of speeches. There are books on specifics though. One good one that comes to mind is "The book of Jerry Falwell" by Susan Harding link: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Jerry-Falwell-Fundamentalist-Politics/dp/0691089582

It covers rhetoric use within religious speech.

Cosma Shalizi has a great list here (which mentions the above book): http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/rhetoric.html

You would find a breakdown of rhetoric in certain types of textbooks. Formal logic texts probably would not have them but informal logic texts would. Rhetoric study could also be found in argumentation theory texts, communications texts and classical studies texts. I can't really recommend any textbooks at the moment because I've only used one.

Oh, and lastly, I recommend this fantastic site on classical and renaissance rhetoric: http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm

Anonymous said...

zbeth says:
Leave out so many links. I only have dialup and it takes forever to load your blog.
One link at a time.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Munzenberg,
Thanks for your advice. The Falwell book is something that I'll probably love, but would've never known about otherwise.
Also, I can't tell you how much I've benefitted from your site. Great stuff, without fail. The stuff I can understand, anyway.

Zbeth,
Hit the link to the site, go to Fort Woof park with all those dang dogs, and by the time you get back, everything should be downloaded.