Carnival of the Elitist Bastards XI
Welcome to the eleventh edition of the Carnival of the Elitist Bastards. CEB is a monthly blog carnival that celebrates the intelligent and the exceptional, and decries willful ignorance and uniformity. Some may call us elitist bastards, but we prefer the term “awesome.” I thought the submissions this time fell into three general categories: politics/policy issues, science and other fact-related pursuits, and everyday life stuff. Let’s dig in:
Elitist law, politics, and policy
Stephanie Zvan at Almost Diamonds explains the Employee Free Choice Act. Not content to listen to generalizations from the Wall Street Journal and others reporting on the proposed legislation, she read it herself in order to break down what it really says and does.
Mike at The Big Stick discusses why a revolving door for teachers isn’t so bad. He argues that alternative certification procedures would allow more qualified and excited individuals to become teachers, and that’s better than the status quo for students even if these new teachers leave after a few years for other jobs.
Cujo359 at Slobber and Spittle writes about what history can teach us, specifically regarding the Obama administration’s public statements compared to the outcomes of Obama’s policies as president. King John didn’t write the Magna Carta on a whim alone one day; the British aristocracy held him accountable and pushed for the type of government they wanted.
Just the elitist facts, ma’am
John Pieret at Thoughts in a Haystack deconstructs statements from the Discovery Institute’s Michael Egnor, who argued that intelligent design ought to be taught as science since most Americans are creationists. John points out that this reveals not only that the real agenda behind ID is creationism, but also that ID proponents seem to think science is merely a popularity contest.
Dana Hunter at En Tequila Es Verdad recommends two books by Richard Dawkins on understanding evolution. The Blind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable deal with the somewhat non-intuitive idea that complex beings could have “randomly” evolved. Understanding what the word “random” really means is one of the most interesting parts.
Blake Stacey at Science after Sunclipse mourns the death of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section. They’re going to push a few science-related articles into the business and lifestyle sections if they fit, both space-wise and content-wise it seems.
Two people sent in links about Jon Stewart’s takedown of financial reporter Jim Cramer on The Daily Show. After a week-long feud between the two (Stewart mocked CNBC in a brief segment and Cramer took it upon himself to defend his show “Mad Money” and the station as a whole), Cramer came to Stewart for an interview. It’s pretty painful. Dana Hunter walks you through the gory details. Cujo359 turns it into a case study about how being ignorant of the facts and encouraging ignorance in others spells disaster for anyone, whether you’re a TV personality or not.
Living the elitist life
George at Decrepit Old Fool suggests that we do one impossible thing every year — not literally impossible, but seemingly impossible, something we can’t do yet and maybe never imagined we’d try. He’s learning to ride a unicycle. What will you do?
Blake Stacey also alerts us of the coining of the word TeXgefühl. If you’ve ever written in the typesetting system LaTeX or its variants, you’ll appreciate the notion that it takes a particular instinctive sense to get it right. My TeXgefühl has been gathering a bit of dust lately, but I think the existence of a word is motivating me to get it back in gear.
Here at It’s the Thought that Counts, I wrote about the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign (against the word “retarded”) and why it’s misguided. Respect for others is important, but I think we shouldn’t confuse respect with blind political correctness.
That wraps up CEB XI. Thanks for stopping by! It’s been an honor and a pleasure to host. See you next month!
Comments
5 Responses to “Carnival of the Elitist Bastards XI”
Leave a Reply
Excellente, mon capitan! Muchas gracias!
Awesome! An elite week, served hot…
Thanks for giving us a course and speed, Captain Z.
Excellent stuff! And I feel like such a bastard for saying so.
Thanks a lot, guys. Glad you liked it.