But They Speak So Well!

Last week, there were linguistically aware sausages. This week, many of them talk for themselves, so I won't have to explain why they matter. Perhaps this just demonstrates that although E. coli cannot evolve immediately into a human being, a politician is not an impossible result. Sometimes, even the grievously uninformed learn when reality is shoved in their faces.

• PayPal says it's going to overhaul its overaggressive funds-freezing system. This will do no good whatsoever for US citizens so long as our banking electronic-transfer system is so screwed up; it is designed not to either meet customer needs or prevent fraud, but to extract revenue for the banks.
• Put down that beverage and learn a little bit about book covers. Keep in mind, too, that this is about speculative fiction covers because — unusually — most of the people in publishing who gravitate toward speculative fiction imprints are also fans, and have at least a minimal sense of humor about field-wide memes.
• And aren't usually independently wealthy, because many of them will be caught in bookstores and libraries. Lurking beneath the surface is the issue of homage to the past... and learning from it (although one must be careful from whom one learns). Or not, as the case may be.
• I have never accepted the purported "the Western is the American fairytale/chanson de geste" meme that self-justifies all of those awful Westerns (in print and in visual media... not to mention in song); I prefer Ken Macleod to McCloud (which managed to throw in the civilization-stops-at-the-Hudson meme, too). Fortunately, there's other subversion (finally) in progress.
• All of which is more credible than subverting the myths of filmmaking by filming at Disneyland... without approval.