Stromata Blog: Malapropism of the Day: Kamala Will Ban Price-Gauging

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Worth Reading (Fiction)

Mamet, David: Chicago: A Novel
In Roaring 20's Chicago, a Great War veteran turned hard-boiled reporter falls in love with the wrong woman and then seeks to find her killer.
Nelson DeMille: The Cuban Affair: A Novel
Two million dollars to charter a boat for a fishing tournament? A great way for the owner to pay off the boat's mortgage, but it turns out to include slipping into Castro's prison island in search of a lost (and perhaps imaginary) treasure.
Kate Atkinson: Life After Life: A Novel
Ursula Todd has the opportunity to relive her life, over and over and over, moving steadily through the Great War and its sequels and accumulating shards of memory.
Connie Willis: Crosstalk: A Novel
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Mark Steyn: The Prisoner of Windsor
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Tim Powers: My Brother's Keeper
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Tim Powers: Declare: A Novel
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H.F.M. Prescott: The Man on a Donkey
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Theodore Odrach: Wave of Terror
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Simon Montefiore: Sashenka: A Novel
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Harry Turtledove: The Man with the Iron Heart
Can the U.S. maintain its resolve against a defeated enemy's terrorist campaign? Imagining a post-World War II Nazi insurgency, Harry Turtledove puts this question into a new context. As Reinhard von Heydrich's "werewolves" devastate Germany, war-weary Americans call for withdrawal, regardless of the consequences.
Neal Stephenson: Anathem
If you have not a smidgen of interest in how Platonic philosophy relates to the "many worlds" version of quantum mechanics, you still may like this novel, though you'll probably wish that the characters talked less. Persevere. After a slow start, the story grows compelling, and the intellectual dialogues turn out not to be digressions.
Alfred Duggan: Lord Geoffrey's Fancy
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Rodney Bolt: History Play : The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe
A pseudo-history springing from the premise that Shakespeare's flashy predecessor survived the famous Deptford brawl and fled to the continent, where he secretly wrote almost all of the Bard's works. A clever, tongue-in-cheek reworking of literary history that also recreates the milieu shared by many real Elizabethan exiles.
Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, and Essays (Library of America, 131)
Fiction and essays by a black American writer who deserves a wider audience.
Harry Turtledove: Gunpowder Empire
Debut of a juvenile series set in parallel worlds. 22nd century teen siblings, trapped without adult aid in a besieged city, must cope with the bizarre (to them) customs and prejudices of a never-fallen Roman Empire.

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Saturday, August 17, 2024

Malapropism of the Day: Kamala Will Ban Price-Gauging

Words get confused now and then. Hardly anyone knows the difference between “gauntlet” (a glove) and “gantlet” (an American Indian torture). Englishmen often write “prevaricate” (mislead) for “procrastinate” (put off until tomorrow). And even Presidents of the United States think that “literally” and “figuratively” are synonyms.

Kamala the Joybringer therefore did nothing unprecedented yesterday when she firmly cackled that under her reign the federal government will crack down on “price-gauging”.

She has indeed much reason not to gauge prices. The gauge shows that the inflation rate, 1.4 percent when she and that other guy took office, is now 2.9 percent. That’s a slowdown from the nine percent peak that it reached. Nonetheless, it is a rate at which prices double in 24 years and nearly octuple over the Biblical three score and ten. That gauge doesn’t bring Joy. Ban it now!

Posted by Tom Veal on Saturday, August 17, 2024 at 09:24 AM in Biden Administration, Current Affairs, Economics, Elections 2024 | Permalink

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Books by Tom Veal

Strange Tales for Strange Times
Get the stories shown below plus more in one inexpensive package.
The Miracle Wrought by Silas Gantry
What if everyone believed in miracles?
Igor's Campaign: A Tale of Ambition
The World Science Fiction Convention comes to Yeltsin-era Russia.
The Monkey and the Amazon: A Tale of Illusions
Intrigue, disguise and magic in Hellenistic Babylon.
Daimon Born: The First Adventure of Theagonistes
A being who dwells between the Moon and the Empyrean makes a (literal) impact on the Earth.
Shadowloves: A Tale of Desire
Where romantic dreams come all too true.
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Hillary Clinton won in 2016, but not as expected. Her narrow victory sparks intrigue, catching a callow reporter in a fast spinning news cycle.

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Saturday, August 17, 2024

Malapropism of the Day: Kamala Will Ban Price-Gauging

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