A Potpourri of Issues, Minor and Not So Much

Justice Kennedy's observation that the mandate changes the relationship between government and the individual is doubtful since there really are quite a lot of actions that citizens are forced to take, like it or not. Jury duty, for one; sending one's kids to school, for another; submitting to TSA searches if one wants to utilize air traffic, for yet another. And, of course, there is a yearly visit to the USPS to mail off the funds the IRS extorts from the citizenry!

Still, yet another step in this direction needs to be seriously resisted. Slippery slopes need not be succumbed to; freedom is too precious to lose because of a history of sloppy judicial reasoning. It's time to take a stand even if precedence makes it look unreasonable.

"First priority" is redundant since priority means first.

"The reason is because/that" ...

"Different than/from" ...

"Lie versus lay down" ...

"People that/who" ...

"A neighborhood of working people" refers to what kind of neighborhood exactly?

Some more language mangling: the use of "a couple..." not completed with "of"; Thus, I read: "...a couple examples..." This one is on the rise.

"Apparently neither of you were..." Robert B. Parker, High Profile (Kindle 46%). Disappointing from the late novelist who I believe used to teach English at Northeastern University. Should have been "was."

Heavy bangs send the message, "Sorry for having a brain!"

PBS's Inspector George Gently and his partner smoke like chimneys though this government subsidized broadcaster's parent institution is supposedly waging a war on smoking!

"[R]ecognizable to anyone that had eyes to see" from Philip Kerr's Prague Fatale (p. 25). This should really be "recognizable to anyone who had eyes to see" − another disappointment from a novelist.

These invitations to join x, y, or z on Linkwhatever are a nuisance when you aren't told who the person is and why it would be a good deal to join. And then the system requires one to sign in so as to reject the invitation. Rude!

News reporters who speak bad English are annoying.

Drivers who refuse to move out of the far left lane are hazardous to one's health.

My university refuses − as, I am told, do others − to let go of any of its staff's retirement funds unless they retire completely, never return, etc. What paternalism! And this is a school administered by libertarians!!!

The New York Times is complaining about partisan polls in Wisconsin. Do the editors have in mind those designed by The New York Times? Consider: Wisconsin's governor isn't anti-union but anti-public service union. Such a union is a monopoly and when it strikes or makes demands there is nowhere else to go, unlike in the private sector. But will TNYT report this? That's being biased!