Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction
Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of
hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my
pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --
"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers,
bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits,
vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers,
buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train
robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"
Sasha Baron Cohen escaped a near-riot apparently at a rodeo in Roanoke Virginia when, as Borat, he pledged his support for the war on terrorism and then sang the Star Spangled Banner, which he "garbled."
The question I want to know is, which of the two actions mentioned in the article precipitated the crowd's unruliness. Was it when Borat said, "I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards ... And may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq." Or was it the fact that he did disrespect to the anthem? My guess is the anthem, of course, though perhaps the Bush drinking blood joke hit a little too close to home.
Quick Sports The key in my mind to the Colts-Patriots game will be whether the refs enforce the no-contact-beyond-5-yards rule, which was of course instituted after last year's Colts-Patriots playoff match-up. If the Pats don't get their usual favorable calls from the refs, then I think the Colts will be able to put up enough points to win.
Inaccuracies in the press on the Social Security debate
In my cursory reading of the subject over the past few days, I've caught this one. In the Wall Street Journal, from an article on Jan. 11 reporting a WSJ interview with Bush. This is the fourth graf:
'Mr. Bush declined to specifically embrace recent assertions by aides that the Social Security benefit formula has contributed to the system's insolvency by making benefits rise too rapidly, but he pledged to propose more than a "Band-Aid" solution to address the "structural problem" in the system.'
Notice that the system's "insolvency" is treated as a fact. The assertions attributed to aides are about the benefit formula, but the insolvency itself is not attributed or qualified. Again, from what I know, the Social Security system begins dipping into its huge trust fund in 2018 and has enough money to sustain it until 2040. And of course, furthermore, all that's needed to keep it solvent beyond 40 years from now are slight tweaks and adjustments in the payroll tax and benefit schedules.