Queeg

Donald Trump’s press conference (happening now) is turning into the courtroom scene from The Caine Mutiny. I hope there’ll be a transcript.

A related post
#strawberries

“Though” and “the other thing”

From a Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation:

Zelensky: We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

Trump: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike . . . I guess you have one of your wealthy people . . . The server, they say Ukraine has it.

And so on. So the favor, at least at first, is about a search for a server. If you’re puzzled, as I am, by “Crowdstrike,” here’s an explanation. Trump seems to be laboring under the delusion that a server belonging to the Democratic National Committee is hiding in Ukraine. From there the conversation shifts to William Barr’s participation in the search, a visit by Rudolph Giuliani to Ukraine (no question that Zelensky is to welcome that visit), and an investigation of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden:

The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it . . . It sounds horrible to me.

The talking heads on cable news are quoting “I would like you to do us a favor,” which looks bad enough as is. But we would do well not to overlook the word that follows: “though.” You need money for military equipment. But Trump needs something too.

And — if we read carefully — it becomes clear that the favor has several parts: a search for a mythical server, receptiveness to overtures from Barr and Giuliani, and an investigation (with Barr) into the Bidens. The words “the other thing” tie the parts together and point back to “I would like you to do us a favor though.”

If the Trump administration thought that putting this document out would help their case, I can only imagine what’s in the whistle-blower’s complaint that they’re not revealing.

[This document is not a transcript. It is identified as a reconstruction made from “notes and recollections” of those who “assigned to listen and memorialize.” The Associated Press cites “senior White House officials” as saying that the reconstruction “was prepared using voice recognition software, along with note takers and experts listening in.” All infelicities of punctuation and spelling are as in the original.]

Jack Elrod coloring books

Matthew Schmeer let me know of two items available as PDFs from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: Fish, Wildlife and People: A Mark Trail Coloring Book (1987) and Wetlands Coloring Book (1999). Both are by Jack Elrod, who succeeded Ed Dodd as the artist and writer of Mark Trail. Elrod clearly brought his best stuff to the pages of these coloring books.

Thanks, Matthew.

Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

[The USFWS doesn’t identify Elrod as the author of Wetlands Coloring Book, but the WorldCat does.]

Mondays and Saturdays

News from joecab: Stan Newman, puzzle editor for Newsday, is posting old Monday (easy) and Saturday (hard) puzzles daily at GameLab. Stop me before I solve again!

In truth though, I haven’t solved at all — yet. GameLab requires that ad-blockers be disabled, and I’m happy to oblige, but navigating a puzzle once ads kick in, at least with Safari, at least on my Mac, too often feels like the olden days of dial-up. (And the ads, always changing, are mighty distracting.) Printing — at 90% — is a better option, with the grid and clues fitting on a single page.

Solve we must. Thanks, joecab.

Impeachment

In The New York Times, minutes ago:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to announce on Tuesday that the House will begin a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump, Democrats close to her said, taking decisive action in response to startling allegations that the president sought to enlist a foreign power for his own political gain.

National Punctuation Day

Wait — what?

Oh!

There: done, almost.

It still needs a semicolon; that mark of punctuation, however, is one from which I feel ever more removed.

Related posts
How to punctuate a sentence
How to punctuate more sentences

[We all know that National Punctuation Day is a big commercial racket. It’s run by a big Eastern syndicate, you know. Nevertheless, I will honour National Punctuation Day in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.]

An alternative to Google Translate

A recommendation from Tororo at a nice slice of tororo shiru: DeepL Translator.

I put Tororo’s post, written in French, into Google Translate and DeepL. Here’s the start of the opening sentence, with links omitted:

Il y a quelques années, en réponse à la remarque d’un lecteur bienveillant, j’avais testé trois logiciels de traduction (Reverso, Babelfish, Google Translate) disponibles en ligne.

Here’s Google Translate:

A few years ago, in response to a benevolent reader’s comment , I had tested three translation software packages (Reverso, Babelfish, Google Translate) available online.

The space before the comma is of Google Translate’s making.

And here’s DeepL:

A few years ago, in response to a kind reader’s remark, I tested three translation software programs (Reverso, Babelfish, Google Translate) available online.

“Kind” sounds more plausible that “benevolent”; “program,” more apt than “package”; but “comment” fits the blogging context better. But Google Translate cannot know that. As the translations continue, each shows a few glitches. But Tororo finds that DeepL produces, “au moins pour les traductions d’anglais en français et de français en anglais, des résultats nettement meilleurs que les trois susnommés réunis.”

Or as Google Translate puts it, “at least for the translations from English to French and from French to English, results much better than the three above mentioned.”

Or as DeepL puts it, “at least for translations from English to French and from French to English, much better results than the three above-mentioned combined.” Notice that DeepL is smart enough to omit the article before “translations.”

John Shimkus, profile in courage

A Washington Post article about House Republicans leaving Congress notes that John Shimkus (R, Illinois-15), one of those leaving, “declined to say whether he had any problems with Trump”:

“The president is the de facto head of the party by definition, but the party for me is less government, individual responsibility, lower taxes, more personal freedoms and liberties,” he said.

“People come and go. Personalities are personalities,” he added.

Shimkus has served in the House since 1997. He became our representative (after redistricting) in 2012. We may get someone even worse next year.

Related reading
All OCA John Shimkus posts

Meet Dr. Camel

[Mark Trail, September 23, 2019.]

I am avoiding all jokes about doctors and Camels. This Dr. Camel is a cryptozoologist, searching for proof that Yetis exist. My interest is in his handshake, which suggests to me that Dr. Camel might be something of a crypto-creature himself. Do you see the problem?


[Mark Trail, revised by me, September 23, 2019.]

Note to colorist: Proofread. Avoid carless errors.

I improved Mark Trail’s sleeve with the free Mac app Seashore. I added a left margin to make this moment look like a panel unto itself.

Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

[Carless is on purpose, a joke I used to add to pages describing essay assignments.]

The end of the dining car

From The Washington Post: “Amtrak says it is reinventing its dining service on long-distance trains, killing the traditional dining car to create more ‘flexible’ and ‘contemporary’ dining options.”

I remember sitting in a dining car just once — white tablecloth, eggs. Other than that, I’ve known only café cars serving sandwiches — tuna salad on stiff white bread. The tuna salad had relish mixed in.

Now is a good time to visit the Railroad Dining Car Archives.