I’ve decided to change the comments setting from ‘separate little window’ to ‘full page’.

The reason is that if people go to a comments ‘page’, I can track it and see what people are most interested in. Also, I think it looks nicer.

If everyone hates it, I may consider changing it back.

…by one vote. So the Republicans can froth and foam about how America is under threat from liberal elements, just in time for the midterms. And they can try the amendment again next year.

I remember seeing this issue come up again and again in the 90’s, and back then I thought that such an amendment would entail an irrevokable loss of freedom of speech.

Now the flag-burning amendment seems trifling, like some quaint nostalgia.

Bush would have dearly loved this symbolic victory in an election year, but don’t you think people would like a few real victories? “Well, you stranded us in Iraq, gas prices are at record highs, the Constitution is in the shredder… but at least you passed the flag-burning amendment.”

Remind me again: How serious is this issue?

There have been four recorded acts of flag burning in the United States this year, and 13 in 2005, according to the Citizens Flag Alliance, an association of veterans’ groups which supported the amendment.

Sheesh.

Everyone’s talking astrology because a political action figure had a belief in it. I’m piling on. From Atrios:

For an agnostic/atheist like myself lots of religious beliefs sound pretty nutty to me, but as Amy Sullivan keeps telling us we keep losing elections because people like me aren’t sufficiently respectful of religious beliefs even though, you know, we generally are. And, now, from left to right, from Tap to TNR to the wingnutosphere, people are falling all over themselves to mock someone who had a perfectly mainstream belief apparently shared by millions and millions of Americans.

I find that rather odd.

There’s one main difference between astrology and religious belief systems: Astrology yields testable hypotheses that can be disconfirmed. People tend to believe in religion and astrology for the same reasons though: it seems valid, the predictions tend to be vague enough to find a ‘hit’ if you’re trying for one, and people are unwilling to let it go when disconfirmations happen. Other than that, astrology makes falsifiable claims where religion generally doesn’t.

And when those claims are tested, they fail. Here’s a reference to a Nature article in which astrologers were unable to match peoples’ psychological profiles to their natal charts at an accuracy greater than random chance. I did go and photocopy (and read) the article; most worth it. This post from Skeptico has many other references to astrological disconfirmations. (No links, sadly. Might have to use that library thing.)

So I don’t believe in astrology because it doesn’t work. Not everyone is aware of this, however. That doesn’t mean they’re idiots.

I repeat: People who believe in astrology aren’t idiots. I wasn’t an idiot when I believed in religion. I was a reasonably smart guy. I just didn’t know what good evidence looked like. And I was unaware of the cognitive blind spots that people have when reasoning under multivariate conditions, including confirmation bias and shoehorning. Once those two situations were rectified, I could see religion for the unsubstantiated rubbish that it is. And I dumped it. If I’d kept believing after that, then I would be an idiot, and a dishonest idiot at that.

Do I have crazy, unsubstantiated beliefs? I’m sure I do. And when I find out I have ’em, I dump ’em.

Your help in this matter would be appreciated. If I slip up, point it out. I’ll gleefully do the same for you.

I know computational linguistics isn’t very well-defined, but this was unnecessary.

Think of CL instead as an interesting mélange of techniques and approaches. A tapestry, if you will.

There. That’s better.

I have just finished marking every last exam for all 206 of my lovely 101 students. It took days and days, but it’s done. The thrill of the achievement is just enough to distract me from realising that it took a good solid week out of my thesis time.

One of the questions I marked (over and over) was about infixation, where a morpheme is stuck inside a root. You’re likely to see this kind of thing in a language like Indonesian or some of the Polynesian languages. We don’t use it much in English, except for the occasional expletive infixation like abso-fuckin’-lutely.

But I was thinking about another possible example: a whole ‘nother, which, despite the word boundaries, seems a bit infixish to me.

The Texas state board of tourism missed an opportunity years ago to elevate the saying to official status. They came out with a tourism slogan: “It’s like another whole country.” I just know someone wanted to make it ‘a whole ‘nother’, but someone on the grammar squad nixed it. They screw everything up.

Good morning, brothers and sisters. I’d like to speak this morning on a rather sensitive topic which represents a great evil in our society. I speak of… the problem of hot dogs. There are many people, both in and outside of the church, who eat hot dogs — a habit that will cause the spiritual destruction of those who engage in it.

Church leaders have warned us repeatedly of the dangers of hot dog eating. It is a pernicious evil. The hot dog industry is a multi-billion dollar business, and its influence in our society is only getting stronger. Hot dogs can be found at this moment in grocery stores, restaurants, and even in those little booths with wheels on the streets of our cities. There are many websites on the Internet devoted to it.

Some people argue that such hot-doggery is harmless, and that it is a sign — indeed, a symptom — of a healthy pluralistic society where many foods are available.

As a result, “people don’t seem to have a sense of outrage,” laments author Andrea Dworkin. “They don’t seem to care.”

Some people think they can get away with a little hot-dog eating once in a while, but the risks are great. It enslaves the eater, and promotes a harmful view of food.

Hot dogs are an addiction. People who use hot dogs may find themselves craving another hot dog days or even years later. Scientists now think that when people eat hot dogs, it triggers the release of ‘hot-doggo-toxins‘ — pleasure-inducing chemicals — in the body that cause the user to return helplessly for more. It has also been found that a great many criminals have hot dogs stored in the fridge when arrested.

I have heard anecdotally of a married couple like many in the church. They had been members of the church for many years, and had served faithfully. Then their world was turned upside-down when the husband confessed to his wife that for years he had had a problem with hot dog eating. She was angry and hurt. Though never consuming hot dogs herself, she felt feelings of guilt and shame. Sad to say, his hot dog habit was ultimately responsible for the dissolution of their marriage.

How can we avoid this threat? Stay away from situations where you may be tempted by hot dogs. Keep the refrigerator in a public place. As a parent, you should know what your children are eating.

Hot dogs are a threat to the spiritual well-being of those who eat them, those who make them… and those who smell them. Thank you.

As people age, hearing gets worse, especially the top end of the hearing range. So there’s a new high-pitched ringtone that people with young ears can hear. Old farts can’t hear a dang thing.

So which are you? Old fart, or young fart? I’m pleased to report that I can still hear it, although I did have to crank the speakers pretty loud. But, as Dan Jurafsky points out, that’s not surprising — the ability to hear high tones is largely a function of volume.

The tone is ready for the downloading on the NPR site. Give it a try and post your (approximate) age and result in comments.