I just discovered that the New York Times has a grammar blogger. Philip Corbett, deputy editor, offers useful advice for the grammatically challenged. Here he addresses an issue that often torments me–subject/verb agreement when using collective nouns: Q.From today’s Times online: A team of travel editors and writers from The New York Times uncover affordable places to stay, eat, drink and shop...

Yesterday, the conservative, often controversial (and even more often debunked) media organization Newsmax published an article by John L. Perry that describes how a coup d’etat against President Obama might occur. Newsmax quickly disowned the article, removing it from its Website and issuing a statement (per Media Matters): In a blog posting to Newsmax John Perry wrote about a coup scenario involving...

I am sure some people who visit this blog question whether I am overreacting or exaggerating the effect of what media groups like Fox “News” have wrought, so I thought I would go dumpster diving in Wingnutville and bring you a few examples of the insane paranoia and hatred that now reins (typos are not mine): sandy says: [A]nything that will get us out from under the mess we are in with Obama works...

Fox “News” and other conservatives are STILL obsessing over this. By now, you have likely heard the whole story. Teachers at a Burlington Township New Jersey public school requested parental permission to have preschool students sing a song that praised President Obama during February’s Black History Month. A teacher recorded the children and, without the school’s permission, posted the...

The majority of Americans support a government option included in any health coverage reform package, according to a CBS poll. Of course, CBS makes you scroll down to the last line of the story to learn this: There continues to be support for a government-run health insurance plan, or government option, with 65 percent of Americans saying they are in favor of the plan and 26 percent opposing it. In August, 60...

I have been delving into an article by Dr. J. Suler, of Rider University, who has done several studies on how people behave on the Internet. He put these into a lengthy online article that he frequently updates, entitled “CyberPsychology and Behavior.” One of the questions that arises in Dr. Suler’s work is whether people let their true selves come out on the Internet or whether they pretend...

Normally I post about the purely political, but today I would like to be more personal. I recently spoke with my brother. At some point our conversation drifted to politics and my brother voiced concern that I was “taking it too seriously.” His comment was not the first, I have received a few comments from family members over the last three or four years about their perceptions that I was becoming more...

I apologize for the silence from Debunker Hill, but we’ve had a bit of H1N1 (swine flu) in the household. Fortunately, bed rest gave me alot of time to watch the news, and I saw a lot of coverage of the teabbagger’s march to the White House on 9-12. This is all part of the Glenn Beck project, started last year. The idea, according to Beck, is to recapture that feeling we all had on September 12,...

On Bill Maher, former National Security czar Richard Clarke just said, “I think there’s right-wing strategy to delegitimize the president.” I could not agree more. Republican Congressman Joe Wilson’s outburst is merely the latest example. Despite President Obama’s attempt to shift the nature of the healthcare debate from rhetoric to substance, it seems we are all unable to look...

Debunker Hill’s Grade for Obama’s Speech: Cole: B-  What I wanted to hear, I didn’t hear. I’m also affected by his mishandling of this whole thing. If you were to sit me down 50 years from now and ask me to grade it just as a speech, I’d probably give it a higher grade, like an A-. ChrisM: I give it a B+. While it was a good speech, I agree with Cole that it is hard to separate...