Tom Ewing helps me out a bit with this post:
The best counter to the more sweeping conclusion is that last.fm users are also very keen to listen to songs by women. The same songs, often. But the initial conclusion - the kind of music listeners are ashamed of is overwhelmingly by women - stands, I think.
Tom’s right; my contention that “Last.fm users can’t bear to let people think they listen to songs by women,” was sloppy and hyperbolic. We’ll stick with the initial conclusion.
- andyhutchins replied to your post: Jukebox January
Lil Wayne (no apostrophe) and Cory Gunz. #Pedantry
Cory Gunz has been fixed. (Oops.) Screw Rock ‘n’ Roll house style, however, is to give all rappers with a “Lil’” in their name an apostrophe. They’re lucky I’m not insisting on the most correct “Li’l.”
I’m more stodgy than the New York Times on this count. I sha’n’t bend.
- tasfromtas replied to your quote: In my perfect world, we’d take the 35% corporate…
Ireland’s woes weren’t caused by their low corporate tax rates, & the US won’t stay the biggest game in the world forever. Empires fall all the time man.
- ecuadorthree replied to your quote: In my perfect world, we’d take the 35% corporate…
Ireland’s a bad example - the multinational IT/Pharma/etc sector is the only part of our economy that’s not completely fucked right now, which is why we’re eager to hang onto the low corporation tax rate in the face of EU pressure to raise it.
The folly of ill-thought closing asides. I certainly didn’t mean to suggest Ireland’s woes were caused by low corporate tax rates, just that the Celtic Tiger prosperity such rates supposedly ushered in was largely illusory. Though I won’t pretend I can solve the problems facing the Irish economy, I can quite understand the desire mentioned by ecuadorthree to not raise any taxes right now. Contractionary measures tend to be contractionary, after all. (I also won’t pretend I know whether Ireland has the luxury of pursuing growth rather than repaying debt at the moment, though I strongly suspect it doesn’t.)
As for tasfromtas’s point that empires fail all the time: I quite agree. That’s why America should not fall into complacency about its economic future. But it should work from the advantages it has instead of pretending it needs to adopt measures not suited to the country it is right now.
“Glimmer with an intellectual weight.”
Jonathan, I know you were trying to continue the “sheen” image, but please explain how weight can possibly glimmer?
EDIT: I think I was trying to suggest the idea of a hologram or something, I don’t know.
jonathanbogart replied to your quote: The reason I had little sympathy for the movement…
Prevarication? You’re lying? Prevarication not-equals-sign vacillation.
prevaricate:
to deviate from the truth
vacillate:
to waver in mind, will, or feeling : hesitate in choice of opinions or courses
I meant the latter.
