Long-time VodkaPundit readers will probably remember my buddy Lein Shory, or more likely Lein’s creation, the Irate Savant. For those who haven’t been around so long, the Savant blog was an experiment in blogging as a creative device–and a highly effective one. Based on the comments and emails Lein received, I’d guess at least half of his readership was convinced that the Savant was a real person.

Since wrapping up the blog in late 2005, Lein has been hard at work transforming the Savant’s story into a novel. I was fortunate enough to get to read an early draft, and I can say without prejudice that it is very likely to be considered the first landmark novel of the blog era–but that’s not the point right now.

As a quick glance back at the original Savant blog will tell you, Lein’s title character has a fondness for writing with a distinctly Buckley-esque vocabulary (don’t read any political content into that observation, as Lein and I occupy entirely different political hemispheres). In his seemingly-endless quest for additional obscure words with which to populate the Savant’s first-person prose, Lein has been using the popular Thesaurus.com site as a resource.

Then came last Monday. First, Thesaurus.com went down for a long stretch, and after it came back up, a remarkable number of words were gutted of synonym entries, and some were missing entries altogether. Nonplussed, Lein started to do a little Googling. Here’s what he found, as posted on April 9 at Jezebel:

An observant reader was pissed off enough at Thesaurus.com to tip us off to this, and we share her rage. If you search for synonyms for the word “weaker” two main entries come up: Female and lady.

Apparently the Jezebel post, as well as a similar rant at Feministing got the attention of Thesaurus.com’s corporate owner, Lexico. From a post on Lexico’s blog dated April 9, written by one Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD (whom I’m sorry to say is the editor and compiler of Roget’s New Millennium Thesaurus):

The synonym “weaker sex” appears in many thesauruses for terms like woman, lady, and female. It is considered an informal, possibly derogatory, synonym for those words. Due to the way our search technology works, a search for weaker appeared to suggest that it was a synonym for female and lady. This was incorrect and has been fixed.

We take your concerns about language and society seriously (this is, after all, our business) and after reading feedback on the entries for female and lady, we carefully reviewed our editorial decisions. In light of how our customers use Thesaurus.com on a daily basis, we chose to remove “weaker sex” as a informal/slang synonym from our site. The entries now describe current American English usage more accurately and we feel we’re providing more helpful suggestions for those seeking guidance on word choice from us.

A quick look at Thesaurus.com indicates that Dr. Kipfer did a lot more than just fix an ‘incorrect’ link in Lexico’s database. There’s a screen shot of the previous “weaker” entry at the Jezebel link above, and you’ll have to go there to see it for yourself, because if you go to Thesaurus.com today and enter in the word “weaker,” you get… nothing.

No entries at all. No synonyms, no antonyms, no Tiny Tims. There’s nothing at all listed under the word, except a query as to whether you’ve misspelled it (and you haven’t).

As Eddie Murphy once said in an entirely different context, “Well, that’s peculiar.” Let’s look around for a few other words, eh? How about… malefactor. Only three synonyms are listed today, and no other useful information, but if one goes looking in Google’s cache for the same word, one finds a multitude of options that have now vanished into the ether(net).

How about a few more? Try comparing today’s Thesaurus.com entry for, say, omnipotent (there’s nothing there, the word isn’t even recognized) to the Google cache version, where there’s a whole page full of stuff. You can see similar rather astonishing edits for reprobate (cached version here), inamorata (cached version here) and inimitable (cached version here).

So, what’s going on here?

I’m hesitant to jump right out and call this an outright Ministry Of Truth descent into Newspeak. Relational databases are very tricky beasts, and I’m perfectly willing to believe that Dr. Kipfer and/or her minions simply made mistakes in correcting word links within Thesaurus.com’s internal systems while they were ‘cleaning up’ this business of the “weaker sex.” I certainly hope that’s the case, as I really don’t want to live in a world where the editor of today’s Roget’s Thesaurus is in the business of sanitizing the language in the name of pacifying pressure groups.

With that understood, even if the intentional part of Thesaurus.com’s “cleanup” were limited to the “weaker” and “female” connection, this is still troubling stuff. I’d personally have no problem if references to “the weaker sex” were tagged as archaic (which is certainly true) or even “offensive,” which is also obviously the case to most modern eyes. I do have a problem with people who are supposed to be caretakers of our linguistic heritage taking it upon themselves to write words and definitions out of the English language.

Looking at the missing words above, it looks to my eyes like most references to male or female characteristics of those words have been hacked out (along with many other references that presumably were lost in the database shuffle along the way). I should note here that Thesaurus.com has not bothered to make such changes that would affect other political points of view (check out the current entry for “unprogressive,” if you doubt me), but hey, I don’t want them to go editing those entries, either! I just want my language back.

UPDATE: Curiouser and curiouser. As commenter Scott discovered, the source of the pre-April 14 cached links is Roget’s New Millennium Thesaurus (of which the aforementioned Dr. Kipfer says she is the editor), while the current links (at least those that link to anything at all) are referenced to “Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus.”

(I am compelled to wonder if Wesley Crusher is a contributor to the latter, but never mind that.)

So, what’s the deal here? Lacking any actual announcement from Lexico, is this all due to a switch in databases? And if so, why? The “Roget’s II” appears to be singularly lacking compared to the previous version… could Lexico just be trying to move users to the pay-per-view version?

Inquiring minds want to know, but either way, I thank Scott for his detective work.

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I’ll be on the Michael Koolidge Show today, sometime between noon and 1PM Mountain. We’ll be talking about last night’s debate, of course.

I’m working on an angle that looks like this: Barack Obama = Tom Lehrer – The Humor.

UPDATE: Link was broken, now fixed.

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Technical troubles so bad I was tempted to do violence to my computer were still preferable to that… debate.

That said, I welcome our new liberty-sapping overlords.

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7:13pm (All times, as always, Mountain) We’re kicking off a little late here in the VodkaCompound, as Melissa’s roast was especially good. And by that I mean we had to open a second bottle of wine.

Charlie Gibson is looking especially serious with his glasses way down on his nose, and George Snufflefagus always looks cute in his Big Boy haircut. And now, on to the debate. ABC has decide to play it semi-YouTube, with video from the candidates stump speeches. I think they’d get better ratings if instead they flashed Eliot Spitzer’s phone records or maybe stills from that Marilyn Monroe Sex tape. Anyway — onward.

7:14pm Speaking of ratings, is there one person anywhere who still cares what Mario Cuomo thinks? Why is Gibson using him as the basis for his opening question? Because let’s be honest: The only reason anyone anywhere still sometimes listens to Cuomo is because he never tried and failed to become President. See: Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry.

7:16pm That’s sweet, quoting the Constitution at Democrats. Might as well quote Ghandi at Stalin.

7:18pm Hilary just wants a Democrat to win in November. Uh-huh. That means one (or two) of two things: Either she knows just how high her negatives are, and/or she’s willing to take the bottom of the ticket.

7:19pm First Bittergate question. “Do you understand that some voters in this state find that patronizing?” Obama sticks by his “mangled” excuse. And then segues right back into the whole “we’re in difficult times” spiel. In other words, “You understood me just right, you redneck motherhumpers.”

7:20pm “This [religion] is a place where people can find some refuge.” I’m an atheist and Obama is a churchgoer, and yet I get the feeling I have more respect for Christians (at least white Christians) than Obama has.

7:21pm Hillary is the granddaughter of a Pennsylvania mill worker or something that John Edwards might have said. And doesn’t she seem the part?

7:22pm Seriously, Clinton is playing this well. She’s not claiming that people “cling” to guns or god because “times are bad.” She says simply that these are things people believe in. Had Obama made this statement a week ago, there might never have been a Bittergate.

7:24pm First question from George S, and all I can think is, “His colorist needs to let at least a little gray show through. He should hire whoever Steve Jobs is using.”

7:33pm We’re having technical difficulties over here. No idea what’s up. Back in a bit with a wrap up.

7:48pm I am so fed up right now with anything to do with technology that I’m going throw my laptop through the television then go outside and sit naked in the snow. The latter will help me imagine what life will be like next year after President Obama gets his tax increases.

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If you’re looking for the debate drunkblog, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. Our tape-delay broadcast doesn’t start until an hour after the debate does.

Leaving me plenty of time to dig into the roast Melissa has roasting. And maybe knock back a cocktail or two.

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This storm is supposed to last all night and into tomorrow.

Sell your bicycle. Remove your catalytic converter. Slap Al Gore with a damp hippy.

Please. I’m begging you.

(more…)

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Macs: Faster, cheaper. Really.

(Hat tip to the Professor.)

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This little nugget from CNN can’t go without comment:

Rep. Jack Murtha, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, introduced the New York senator at a Washington appearance Wednesday with the observation that Sen. John McCain is too old to be president. “It’s no old man’s job,” said Murtha.

Murtha, three years older than McCain, is just the right age however to be a corrupt, logrolling, pork-dolling, tax-sucking, Marine-maligning, senile old fuck.

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This time each year I pretty much lust after global warmening. April is typically our second-snowiest month here in southern Colorado, and this year is proving to be no exception.

Monday it was (just) warm enough that I took the doors off the Jeep. Well, the driver’s side door — the baby isn’t quite old enough yet for that particular thrill. And since I ripped the back seat out right after buying the Wrangler, the boy sits up front with me.

This morning the door went back on. The skies are already black, and we’re supposed to get seven to 11 inches* of snow tonight. And that’s the prediction for the lower elevations. Up here on Monument Hill? Could be anywhere from 50% to 100% higher. Er, “deeper,” I guess.

A taste of spring, followed by a 50 degree dip and a foot of snow. Pretty standard stuff, really. Which is why I urge all of you to breed often and buy Hummers. Let’em idle in the driveway for no good reason, too. The Hummers, I mean, not the kids. The children you should teach from a very young age to leave a carbon footprint the size of a triceratops.

Because if that’s what it takes to keep me from me having to shovel that damn driveway again, then I’m all in favor. And you people in Florida and all those coastal places know how to swim, right?

(more…)

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Short version: Obama’s got trouble.

Long version: So does McCain.

(Click on the map for the bigger version.)

We’ve got lots of changes to go over from the last map. Six weeks ago, it looked to me like the Democrats had a lock on 227 EC votes, and the Republicans 229. The remaining 82 up for grabs were, at that point, totally unpredictable. But with the candidates nearly known (Obama vs McCain) the number of unknowns has actually gone up.

OK, here’s the thing. Current polls — and the primary votes already held — show Obama does best in states he has virtually no shot at winning in November. (Maybe the red states are so red because the local blue voters are even further to the left than blue state voters. Just a thought; I’ve got nothing to back that up.) And Bittergate turns a few deer-infested True Blue states into tossups. The most important of those are New Jersey Ohio, Michigan, and of course Pennsylvania. Obama loses Oregon as a sure thing, too. I don’t know if that’s because of all those bitter ignoramuses out in the woods or if the white supremacist groups in the eastern part of the state are expected to show up at the polls in great numbers. Virginia is trending blue, and might just be a blue state by 2012. But this year Virginia is in the heart of Deer Country, and stays red. Missouri should probably go on this list, but I’m leaving it to its role as the bellwether state.

If Hillary were the nominee, I’d color New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Oregon blue again. Maybe Pennsylvania, too. Clinton would probably take Arkansas, despite the fact that voters there know her so well. (Maybe absence really does make the heart grow fonder.) And I’d have to give serious thought to taking the red off of Florida.

Does McCain bring anything with him? Not that I can see. Colorado voters like maverick independents and maverick Democrats, but not so much the maverick Republicans. Colorado stays unshaded. New Mexico, too — I don’t know if McCain’s immigration slipperiness will help him or hurt him with that state’s Hispanic voters.

The way the map looks to me now, McCain has a lock on the same 229 EC votes, but Obama is down to 168. With the war and the bad economy, however, I’d expect the swing states to trend Democratic.

Typically, voter passion drives the race. But McCain vs Obama is a weird matchup. For Obama, the passion will have to come from the left, the young, and other fools. McCain, undear as he is to conservatives, will have to generate passion — and lots of it — from the center if he wants to win any more states than he already has.

(more…)

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Actually, Jules Crittenden is playing pin-spotting with Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to decide whether or not to drunkblog tonight’s debate. Our local ABC affiliate isn’t broadcasting it until 7pm, and I’m not sure if that’s live or tape delay. Seems silly to liveblog something on tape, doesn’t it? And I’d hate to sillify the serious business of e-shouting at a pretend debate.

UPDATE: So Jules emailed (and posted) with:

Personally, I find it less revolting when pols pander to the lumpenproletariat with shots and beer. In fact, that might be a good way to resolve this ongoing Democratic primary thing. Have them debate each other drunk.

If they decide to do that, by the way, my money’s on Hillary. It’s not just that I think she’ll hold her liquor better. It’s an eye-gouging thing.

Come on, Vodkapundit. If we can’t have a drunk debate, let’s at least have it drunkblogged.

Oh, fine! See you at 7pm Mountain, live via tape delay.

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Windows Vista: Pissing you off on purpose.

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Demented as the Iran-Contra scandal was, at least Reagan was trying to accomplish something positive. What does Carter think he’ll accomplish by hugging Hamas, other than to soothe his own twisted ego?

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Here in gun-friendly Colorado Springs, Colorado College students protested our state’s liberal gun control laws:

“Last year I had a very close and personal friend of mine from childhood die as a result of an accidental shooting,” Colorado College student Angela Cobian said.

Cobian said her friend that was killed was only 17-years-old. She said the shooter should have never had a gun.

“I have always been a firm believer in good gun control and enforcement of our gun laws which is really important,” Cobian said.

Angela helped organize the lie-in at Colorado College. 32 people representing Virgina Tech’s 32 vicitm’s lied down for three minutes in the middle of the school’s commons.

Meanwhile, in freakin’ Boulder some CU students there are taking a slightly different stance:

“We just want students to be able to point something other than a cell phone at a shooter in an assault situation,” said Jim Manley, a graduate student at CU Boulder. “Right now students are defenseless in any situation that might happen.”

I wish them luck.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, where are the calls for pipe and broomstick control laws?

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Here’s the strange case of a New Mexico photographer who got taken to one of those silly human rights commissions (and forced to pay legal fees!) for refusing to shoot a lesbian wedding.

I’d have taken the job, but only on the condition I could shoot the honeymoon, too.

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It’s Dan Spencer’s Right Side Politics Examiner.

A mouthful, huh? But pretty darn useful.

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Uh… wouldn’t it be better just to fill it with beer?

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David Cushing emails, “Ok, McCain finally figured out how to get my vote.” Here’s how:

If elected president, McCain plans to overhaul the tax code, close “costly, unfair” corporate loopholes and veto every bill containing earmarks “until the Congress stops sending bills with earmarks.”

Not bad. But how about a promise to get McCain-Feingold repealed? Not much short of that will get me to vote for McCain.

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Code Pink likes Barack Obama — about 50 grand worth of like. Read:

The co-founder of the radical anti-war group Code Pink has “bundled” more than $50,000 for Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and pro-troops groups are demanding that he return the money.

Jodie Evans, a Code Pink leader, gathered at least $50,000 from friends and associates and donated it to Obama’s presidential campaign, according to information compiled by the nonpartisan watchdog group, Public Citizen.

Evans and her son, a student who lives at her Southern California address, each also gave the maximum individual allowable donation of $2,300 to Obama’s campaign.

Is this the first time a likely presidential nominee has taken money from people responsible for defacing military recruiting offices? The important question is if or how Obama will return their support.

Another question is: Even if we were at peace, what message would a President Obama send to potential recruits?

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You try explaining to a two-year-old why it’s not OK to imitate Fran Drescher.

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Eric Volz was wrongly imprisoned in Nicaragua a while back. Now he’s blogging, and has smuggled video from his time behind bars.

Hat tip to Will Hinton.

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Yet another left-leaning European government has given way to the center-right:

Billionaire media mogul Silvio Berlusconi won a majority in both houses of the Italian parliament and will return to power for a third term as premier.

Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party and its allies took 166 seats in the Senate, the upper house, to 138 for Walter Veltroni’s Democratic Party and its partner, according to a projection by RAI state television. In the Chamber of Deputies, Berlusconi took 45.9 percent of the vote compared with Veltroni’s 38.9 percent, RAI estimated. That would give Berlusconi around 340 lower-house seats out of 630.

“Berlusconi is back,” said Maurizio Pessato, chief executive officer of polling company SWG Srl in Trieste, Italy. “With this result, he can last.”

Knowing Italian politics, I’m assuming that last line was meant ironically. In Italian, “lasting government” means “maybe through the summer.”

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Don’t worry about China’s new jets, tanks, or missiles. Worry about their new NCOs.

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So my rocket scientist friend Ed Lambert emailed this morning, “What a glorious day for a rocket op! Let’s launch two!” You can watch the video here.

One of those launches will feature the heaviest-ever payload for an Atlas 5 rocket.

Cool.

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Clinton with a 20 point lead in Pennsylvania? Don’t those dumb hicks know Obama loves them little folk?

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Coolest. Project. Ever.

Hat tip to John Noonan, who must be spending way too much time in missile silos.

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Do the Democrats want to throw Califreakinfornia to the Republicans? Read:

Joe Six-pack will have to pay a lot more to get his buzz on if Assemblyman Jim Beall has his way.

The San Jose Democrat on Thursday proposed raising the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack, or 30 cents per can or bottle. The current tax is 2 cents per can. That’s an increase of about 1,500 percent.

I’ll be the first to say it: Jim Beall is the stupidest fucking Democrat in California. Which is a lot like being the circus clown with the biggest shoes.

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