Pun Salad

In the midst of this debate [about the best way to restore growth, prosperity, balance, and fairness], there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that's happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.

Who are these "some" who say everyone should fend for himself while playing by his own rules? Obama does not say, but they sound like real dicks, don't they?

Congress met on Christmas Day every year from 1789 to 1855, with only three exceptions[.]

This "fact" was also promulgated on a recent episode of Jon Stewart's Daily Show and a History Channel program. And it was too good to check.

In a heroic research effort, Politifact totted up the number of times the Senate and House met on December 25 between 1789 and 1857. Their result: twice.

Further bungling numbers, Roberts cites UCLA’s annual survey of freshmen. In 2010, 77 percent of the college kids said they thought it was important to be “very well-off financially.” In 1980, 62.5 percent thought so. And in 1966, 42 percent were of that opinion. To Roberts, this proves that everything in America is getting worse; to a parent, this proves that kids are getting smarter.

I love my house now belongs to my ex-wife.
I'm not interested in getting married in church is more romantic.
I like working with you is impossible.

Unusual, but not new, Pullum notes. The songwriter Jimmy Webb used the same trick in the song "Honey Come Back", recorded in 1970 by Glen Campbell, and dozens of others since.

Our preferred solution is to get the government out of the mail business. Congress should end the monopoly and sell USPS to the highest bidder. In the age of almost universal Internet access, there is no reason for the government to run a mail company. The USPS services that customers are willing to pay for will continue, and the rest will fall by the wayside. If possible, privatization should also give the new owner a chance to fight the company’s unions, which have negotiated unusually high salaries and benefits, on a level playing field — first in union elections, and then, if workers vote to keep their representation, at the bargaining table.

The author notes, correctly, that most movies get the physics wrong.