It's An Oyster

… with two tickets to that thing you love:

  • Edmunds reports that used car prices are up by an average of 10.3% from last year, in some cases up 30%. They point their shaky fingers at Your Federal Government and its Cash For Clunkers program. I can't sum up better than Radley Balko:
    So we have a government program whose stated aim was to shore up huge, failed corporations by giving public money to mostly upper-income people that in the end will penalize low and middle-income people. But remember folks, it's the libertarians--who opposed C4C--who are greedy corporatists who hate the poor.

  • Here's something I didn't realize about the term "weasel word". It is:
    … a qualifier that sucks the meaning out of a phrase in the way that weasels supposedly suck the contents out of an egg.
    I thought it was less specific than that. Pun Salad will try to use the term correctly from here on out.

    Oh yeah: the link goes to analysis of a pro-ObamaCare propagandish TV spot. In which Andy Griffith—yes, Andy Griffith—uses weasel words to try to reassure his fellow geezers about the legislation. And it's all paid for by Your Federal Government.

    But by now, that's kind of a dog-bites-man story. Nothing new, ho-hum. I do appreciate knowing about the proper usage of "weasel word" though.

  • In other language news, Prof "City Mouse" Althouse will tell you everything you need to know about the correct pronunciation of teat.

    Oh yeah, the context. Alan Simpson making the (apt but misspelled) analogy about Social Security: "We've reached a point now where it's like a milk cow with 310 million tits!" The suckers are trying to get him in trouble…

  • Your faithful blogger got a credit at the WSJ's Best of the Web Today for submitting the Puffington Host headline:
    Glenn Beck Is Not Martin Luther King Jr.
    I thought it might make a good "Bottom Story of the Day", but the crack WSJ team realized it was a closer fit to their "News You Can Use" category.

    And for a third language note, BOTWT also uses the word "apophasis", for all I know correctly.