'Nother Solent

Coffee is.

What I was actually looking for when I found the list below... er, That for which I was actually looking... hey, whatever... was the website relating to new Latin words for stuff the Romans didn't have. I had solemnly believed that this was done by a conclave of cardinals. Not quite. According to Straight Dope it is overseen by the Vatican, but the actual work is done by one Carolus Egger who has produced a Latin-Italian dictionary of neologisms, Lexicon recentis Latinitatis. Alas, I couldn't find it online.

Oh, and I'll explain the title to this post when I'm good and ready.

(Talking of that Straight Dope article, isn't the idea of the Finnish radio station broadcasting in Latin fun? Let no one say the Finns are Icelanders without the sense of humour. Other common Finnish pastimes include motor rallying at high speed through dense forest and beating each other with birch trees after running naked through the snow to and from the sauna. And at this point let's try not to make a joke about the long winter nights, shall we? All letters from outraged Finns will be published if in correct Latin.)

Let logomarchy commence!

A lady caled Elisa Martinez has, since high school, kept up this list of new and unusual words that came her way. 'Commination', 'cotillion', 'eleemosynary', 'eximious', 'intarsia', 'transudation' and 'terpsichorean' were completely new to me. 'Fiacre', 'nescience', 'sedulous' and 'strophe' were all words I had seen used somewhere but had forgotten. 'Calcimine' I would have recognized, but not its alternative spelling 'kalsomine'. My understanding of 'mulct' was incomplete and my understanding of 'cynosure' plain wrong. Given the context I might have been able to guess 'parhelion', and 'tramontane' - and as for 'logomarchy', that was a case of love and understanding at first sight.

The rest I knew, sometimes a little fuzzily.

Looking at the words for which she seeks definitions, 'agurs' seems likely to be an alternative or mistaken spelling of 'augurs' and isn't 'oreeses' something to do with Greek mythology? I'm going to look up 'ecbatic', 'glays', 'oreeses' and 'succous' in the Oxford dictionary-that-came-with-the-magnifying glass.

Radley Balko writes on what US college students find when they scrutinize the small print of their tuition bills. Somewhere near the bottom is a box already ticked to save them the labour of stating that they wish to contribute to the mysterious MOPIRG....

Eh, takes me back that does! When I were a lass the National Union of Students used to run that scam, or something like it. Anyone know if they still do?

Don't wait around - read this.

Brad deLong's post on buying places in a queue, together with its very erudite comments, is sure to become an instant classic. It'll be quoted in an economics textbook next year but YOU have the chance to go to the head of the queue and read it now. (Via, and inspired by, Junius)

Well,

it makes a change from the UN doesn't it?

The Scotsman reports approvingly on a clutch of new EU laws. Among other effects,

"The new laws will also force older children under 4ft 11in to use booster seats to protect them from injuries from the impact of adult belts on the neck and stomach."

I always use a safety belt. So do all my family, and we always used child seats when the children were younger. According to this report there is "95% use of restraints for under-fives." That's good - though I note their use declined last year, which decline I do not hesitate to attribute to a surfeit of propaganda. Still - I must concede that, as wicked statist infringements of our rights go, the existing seat belt laws do seem to actually save quite a few lives. Although I feel I ought to oppose them on libertarian principle, they are waaaay down the List of Objectionable Things.

I start to object a little more strenuously, though, when I consider how big 4 ft 11 inches is. This will mean that children well into their teens are obliged to travel on booster seats. I only have to cast my mind back a few years to remember what a hassle that was if, for instance, a situation arose whereby a toddler was to be delivered to playgroup by the father and taken home by the mother - where was the car seat to be left in the meantime, given that there was not always space to store them? In the nature of things that sort of situation arises much more often with bigger semi-independent children who have a complex network of car-shares and lifts to get them to and from Brownies / football / discos; I predict that the practical requirement to have a clutch of booster seats in every boot or one in every rucksack will prove too much trouble for many people and the law will be widely ignored. It will also make things much more difficult for young families without cars, as they will no longer be able to accept lifts from friends unless, again, there are two or three booster seats provided in advance.

And there is one last oddity about all the reports of this law I have so far seen. A friend pointed it out to me. There is no mention of an upper age limit. As far as I can judge anyone of any age who is under the height of 4ft 11in will have to have a kiddie seat.

I hope we are mistaken and that the new laws do not demand that adult citizens be treated as children. Or it they do demand it, I hope that the lobby groups for "persons of restricted growth" that must undoubtedly exist earn their grants for once and denounce this discrimination.

The old cold warrior keeps his weapons bright.

I nearly put this one in Biased BBC but decided on balance that it was an example of naivety, not bias, and there ain't no Naive BBC website. Of what do I prattle, you ask? Well, I was listening to the Today programme at 7am this morning and heard whatsisname say that Rumsfeld had said that the US could and would fight the war on its own if need be. This statement was described as "cutting the floor from beneath Tony Blair's feet."

On the contrary. I bet it made Tony Blair's day. It told the vacillating countries, "make all the fuss you want - the result will be the same." Now does that motivate them to oppose the war more strongly or less strongly? Does it motivate them to be nicer or nastier to Tony? ("Poor old chap, he did his best, but these Americans....") During the cold war, deterrence theory demanded that you continually offer proofs that your will was strong. Rumsfeld's character was made in those days. He knew what he was doing.

Across the street they've put up a new fence to separate their garden from the path to the little park.

It's a very nice fence, with new orange wood. My daughter observed, justly, that it is like the fence in "Children's World" that surrounds the talking tree - a sort of proudly naive epitome of what a fence should be. It is, in a word, a very fency fence.

Yes, my brain will explode soon. James Lileks knows why. He says that "there is simply nothing to write about, because soon there will be everything to write about. We've been sitting at the top of the rollercoaster for about five months now. Today I saw a NEWS ALERT that suggested there might be another UN resolution that would extend inspections another three weeks, and I nearly shed my skin. No, please no."

Analyst at Acepilots.com made this day by day prediction of how the war would go on March 5. He got March 7th's entry right, so that's 100% success so far.

Power-blocs, horsetrading and cynicism

rule in deciding who gets European votes in a certain international forum. Who knew? There is an interesting post from Björn Stærk about the latest international incident. Don't miss the robust debate in the comments.

AfricaPundit quotes an AllAfrica.com story on the ongoing tragedy whereby starving people are denied the food aid that might save many lives on the grounds that it is genetically modified and might be bad for them. A group of African scientists have complained "that humanitarian groups such as Oxfam, Christian Aid and Save The Children, backed by EU funds, had frightened African governments into rejecting food aid."

Here's the permalink to that story, but bloggervitis has struck so it presently goes to a post about how Charles Taylor of Liberia is a war criminal, which I knew, and that he supports and trades with Al-Qaeda, which I didn't.

Sadly

, the Maltese referendum resulted in a narrow YES vote for EU membership. Public Interest has taken it hard.

UPDATE: that link originally took you to the single word "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh" only longer, which linked to an account of the referendum results. Apparently it caused template problems, and had to be deleted. You can still go to the general Public Interest site for more about the result result and how some Maltese feel about it.

Much laughter in the blogosphere about how some Iraqi soldiers launched a pre-emptive surrender. I hope everyone keeps their laughter, though, directed at the incongruousness of the situation rather than at the Iraqi soldiers concerned. Those men were doing the right thing, as did their predecessors ten years ago. Right as in sensible and right as in morally right. There is no honour in fighting to let a tyrant keep his grip on your country, just as there was no honour in fighting to let him keep his grip on another country.