Pun Salad

Instead of using "google" as a verb, like everyone else, I'm going to start using the word as if it referred to an actual being, sort of like an oracle. For example, instead of saying "I googled for possible greylist milter software," I will say "I asked the Google for possible greylist milter software."

My hope is that this anthropomorphic quirk will be seen by others as endearing in a dotty-old-uncle sort of way. But it also has the advantage of being (roughly) true.

• We use mostly Dell servers here at the U; only exceptions are the file servers (NetApp) and the WebMail servers (needed a little more oomph there, so we went with HP Opteron-based machines). This blog is hosted on the Dell PC in my cube; I'm typing on a Dell laptop. When a disk went wonky on the University backup web server, Dell got us a replacement disk the same day, and I had to talk the Dell tech guy out of coming here from across the state to install it.

  But I'm 90% decided to stop buying Dell because of their poor treatment of second-smartest woman in the world. Frankly, they need a market-based reality check.

• The smartest woman in the world, on the other hand has the inside scoop on one person's jihad against those little silver balls some folks use to decorate their holiday confections. An "environmental lawyer" named Mark Pollock is responsible for their vanishing from the People's Republic of California. Concludes the SWITW:

  Pollock is a fanatic who's determined to stamp out other people's small pleasures in pursuit of his own version of righteous living (and collect lots of money along the way). He succeeds because it costs him almost nothing to sue. His victims settle rather than spend more, in time and money, to fight his claims. Any litigation system that encourages--indeed, rewards--this petty tyranny needs serious reform.

  She is, of course, absolutely correct, as usual.
• The "logic" of socialism is alive and well in discussions of health care, where it's fueled by both envy and fear. Anthony Dick has a good article at NRO that describes how this is currently playing out in Canada. Michael Moore is unlikely to make a movie based on this article.