Monday, October 29, 2007
Cockamamie Ideas
"Cockamamie is the child's version of 'decalcomania,' dye transfers that youngsters used to put on their hands and arms. Since they were cheap, they soon wore off. So, 'cockamamie' first meant anything trifling or second-rate, and later came to mean simply silly or laughable." From "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins" by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988).
Interesting word, cockamamie. I've never thought much about the word and actually don't recall hearing it used in many years. Then last week I heard it on a rerun of "Charmed" , you know the show about the three witches. Piper asked who comes up with all these cockamamie rules anyway concerning an explanation given about the powers and their intervention in human events.
Then I read an article about the Michigan primary and Senator Carl Levin trying to end New Hampshire's "cockamamie" first-in-the-nation role in presidential primaries. Intrigued because I had come across this seldom used word twice in a couple of days, I began to think about the various things I see, hear and read that simply fit this word's definition. Here are a few.
John Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina, says the federal government should underwrite universal pre-kindergarten, create matching savings accounts for low-income people, mandate a minimum wage of $9.50 and provide a million new Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor. He also pledged to start a government-funded public higher education program called "College for Everyone."
Hillary Clinton has declared she would like to "give" every child born in America a $5000 savings account, "give" everyone a $1000 Individual Retirement Account (I thought Social Security was supposed to be government's answer to retirement) and provide government managed universal health care for all Americans.
Barbara Boxer, Senator from California's Beserkely area, stated that the wildfires in California would have been controlled faster and better if their National Guard were not off fighting in Iraq, even though only 2000 are deployed in Iraq and over 17000 were not even called in to fight the fires.
California Lieutenant Governor, John Garamendi said, "We must also consider the degree to which global warming creates or perpetuates the conditions that allow these devastating wildfires to consume our state." Perhaps it just may have something to do with the terrain and climate conditions in the areas that people have decided to live. Can everything can be blamed on global warming?
Apparently it can since according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. talking to reporters last week, "One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming."
And talk about the topmost cockamamie thing I have witnessed in the past two weeks, Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize. He made a damn movie! Not a very factual one at that and he wins a peace prize? Give him an Oscar if you want but a Nobel peace prize? Good God, how cockamamie is that?
I asked a liberal friend of mine if he thought Al Gore deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. He said as much as anybody else. I guess since a history of former winners includes Jimmy Carter and Yassir Arafat, he may well be correct.
And that's cockamamie to me.
OH
Interesting word, cockamamie. I've never thought much about the word and actually don't recall hearing it used in many years. Then last week I heard it on a rerun of "Charmed" , you know the show about the three witches. Piper asked who comes up with all these cockamamie rules anyway concerning an explanation given about the powers and their intervention in human events.
Then I read an article about the Michigan primary and Senator Carl Levin trying to end New Hampshire's "cockamamie" first-in-the-nation role in presidential primaries. Intrigued because I had come across this seldom used word twice in a couple of days, I began to think about the various things I see, hear and read that simply fit this word's definition. Here are a few.
John Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina, says the federal government should underwrite universal pre-kindergarten, create matching savings accounts for low-income people, mandate a minimum wage of $9.50 and provide a million new Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor. He also pledged to start a government-funded public higher education program called "College for Everyone."
Hillary Clinton has declared she would like to "give" every child born in America a $5000 savings account, "give" everyone a $1000 Individual Retirement Account (I thought Social Security was supposed to be government's answer to retirement) and provide government managed universal health care for all Americans.
Barbara Boxer, Senator from California's Beserkely area, stated that the wildfires in California would have been controlled faster and better if their National Guard were not off fighting in Iraq, even though only 2000 are deployed in Iraq and over 17000 were not even called in to fight the fires.
California Lieutenant Governor, John Garamendi said, "We must also consider the degree to which global warming creates or perpetuates the conditions that allow these devastating wildfires to consume our state." Perhaps it just may have something to do with the terrain and climate conditions in the areas that people have decided to live. Can everything can be blamed on global warming?
Apparently it can since according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. talking to reporters last week, "One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming."
And talk about the topmost cockamamie thing I have witnessed in the past two weeks, Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize. He made a damn movie! Not a very factual one at that and he wins a peace prize? Give him an Oscar if you want but a Nobel peace prize? Good God, how cockamamie is that?
I asked a liberal friend of mine if he thought Al Gore deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. He said as much as anybody else. I guess since a history of former winners includes Jimmy Carter and Yassir Arafat, he may well be correct.
And that's cockamamie to me.
OH
# posted by OH @ 7:37 AM 
