It has received the least attention of his first-day decisions, but President Barack Obama’s memorandum on reviving the Freedom of Information Act stands as the clearest signal yet that his campaign talk about “a new era of open government” wasn’t just rhetoric; it’s for real.
The key phrase comes right at the top: “The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”
Later in the memo: “All agencies should adopt a presumption of disclosure. … The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.”
Furthermore, “In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies should act properly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.” In fact, “All agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public.”
This could not be clearer. The new president was calling for a complete reversal of the Bush administration’s directives on this matter—and a restoration of the Freedom of Information Act’s original purpose.
In other redefining government news from the Obamanation…
President Barack Obama is staffing his Justice Department with some of his predecessor’s fiercest critics, among them lawyers who were fired by President Bush or who quit jobs working for his administration.
Now, the opposition is in charge, and lawyers who spent years defining the limits of executive power will be helping wield it.
[…]
“I think they will be an irritant for Obama in the best possible way — they’re very honest lawyers,” said Rosa Brooks, a professor at Georgetown University Law School, where Lederman also taught. “When Dawn and Marty and David think that he is asking if he can do something that in their view pushes the envelope and goes beyond the bounds of what is legal, they’re going to say, ‘Sorry Mr. Obama, we think that would be illegal.’”
Honest lawyers at the Justice Dept. What will they think of next?
#27 – Mister Mustard,
An acronym is something you say, like “S.W.A.T”, or “WiFi”, or, on occasion, POTUS. If it’s just the first letters of each word, like STFU or FBI, we call that an abbreviation.
Holy crap Musty!! I thought I was the only one anal-retentive enough to know that. That’s why SQL is an acronym but only for those who say sequel or for people who say (yecch) squeel, not for those who say S-Q-L.
#28, 30 – bobbo,
The answer is that an acronym is a word. A word must be pronounced, either in one’s head while reading, or when spoken. If it is spelled out, it is not an acronym. In fact, as acronyms become older, they even lose the all caps spelling and become a simple word, like laser or scuba. (For any who may be unaware, Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation and Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, respectively.)
Acronyms need not be first letters only. FORTRAN for FORmula TRANslation is also an acronym.
ac⋅ro⋅nym
–noun
1. a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words, as Wac from Women’s Army Corps, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or loran from long-range navigation.
word
–noun
1. a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning. …
Sorry bobbo, I’ll be more than happy to help you correct Musty when he’s wrong. But, he’s not wrong this time.
#29 – Mr. Mustard,
Ebonics words are, or will become, words as well. Unfortunately, dictionaries are descriptive not proscriptive.
Sometime soon, by common but incorrect usage, acronym may be expanded to include STFU, even though it is not a word. To the best of my knowledge, this has not happened yet.
It has, however, made it to descriptive dictionaries that a correct usage of the word nauseous is to feel sick, as opposed to causing nausea in others. As you are likely aware, traditional usage was described by the sentence The nauseous motion of the boat made me nauseated. Over time, common incorrect usage made it acceptable to say I fee nauseous or even I am nauseous, both of which would make any grammatically correct speaker 100 years ago nauseated.
#24 – Paddy-trOll,
Okay, tally so far:
One troll who consistently refuses to answer pointed questions.
Well I for one am invigorated by this discussion. I’d have to go back and check but was NATO and FEMA acronyms to begin with? I doubt it. ((PS–my online websters says NATO is an abbreviation , same with FEMA))
SCUBA and even its brother NAUI are good examples describing underwater breathing technology and their related certification procedures. Scuba is now generic as is Kleenix by way of separate etymologies. Is SCOTUS and POTUS currently only an abbreviation and just on the cups of being an acronym?
Is it correct or not to say that an acronym is “any” abbreviation that can be spoken by the usual customary rules==of which SYL is an exception? And if SYL is an exception, why is it not Syl?
Poor old Musty, calcified in the easiest of monolithic characterizations when the fact of the matter is words are definitional, and given that the defining is done by human beings, those definitions are changing all the time.
Certain outlooks on life want, even need, the certainty of simple rules that brook no uncertain line, ambiguity, or change. So much of life is just the contrary.
Bobbo, PaddyO is kidding about the Geneva violations. However, similar nonsense was and is being spouted when the President under discussion is a Republican.
#20 Exactly. Obama authorizes a missile strike on a sovereign nation, Pakistan, that kills 21 people and yet none of the anti-war zealots call him on it. They were yelling for Bush’s head just weeks ago when he did the same exact thing. http://tinyurl.com/d27rx7
Transparency in that, hopefully, you won’t see the crap this government’s gonna pull under Obama like this: http://tinyurl.com/baccay . I love that Charlie Rangel thinks a little thing like State jurisdiction should be overcome by the Federal government. I guess that’s why the Governor choose someone on the side of the State for Senator of New York.
#36–Mike==ok, that makes some sense. I didn’t catch the sarcasm because at least recently the “war crimes” talk has been about illegal detention, not the killing of civilians. But, if that is what Paddy meant, I think that is fair comment in a disconnected irrelevant way.
It is one thing to START something, and quite another to STOP it which does make me wonder just what Obama thinks he is doing by sending more troops to Afghanistan.
I’d love to have a President that was entirely Machiavellian in his pragmatism. Leaders driven by ideology are simply too hit or miss.
bah, he’s just softening us up with feel-good
politics so we’ll going along with the official
formation of the North American Union in 2010 and beg to work on his NASCO superhighway when the dollar and country collapses in a few months..
ho hum.. nice to see him making an effort though.
-s
(watch gold/silver in the next weeks..the bankers ran out of tarp money to continue to manipulate the stockmarkets and gold price.)
Bush & Cheney’s opaque, unaccountable governance is an enemy to democracy and freedom.
You gO Bama!
#35 – Bobbo
>>Well I for one am invigorated by
>>this discussion.
Let’s hope that results in an improvement in your cerebral blood flow. You sense: nonsense ratio is going right into the crapper.
For example:
>>I’d have to go back and check but was NATO
>>and FEMA acronyms to begin with? I doubt it.
Huh? WTF??? Of co urse they were acronyms to begin with. What else could they have been? Legitimate words that didn’t stand for anything? And some beaurocrat one day said “Hey, let’s make up an organization, the initials of which will spell out the common, everyday word NATO, and we can find something to do with that organization… perhaps something involving the North Atlantic! And maybe a treaty!”.
You’re losing it, Bobo, in your effort to avoid having to say “Huh. I didn’t know the difference between an acronym and an abbreviation”.
>>((PS–my online websters says NATO is an
>>abbreviation , same with FEMA))
Bobo, your online websters is like a two-bit whore. It will say anything you want it to say. Check a quality source.
>>Poor old Musty, calcified in the easiest of
>>monolithic characterizations when the fact
>>of the matter is words are definitional,
Bobo, you’re the reason we have school shootings, and why the US educational system is in the shitter that it’s in. Sure, in the “let’s not be competitive, we can ALL win” world of Bobbonia, anything means everything, and we all make up our own special definitions for every word. Same thing with math. There are no “right” answers, only our own special answers.
For people who take language seriously, and who don’t confuse “that” with “which”, “was” with “were”, and who know how to use prepositional cases correctly, an acronym is separate and distince from an abbreviation.
I guess your anything-goes approach to language is in keeping with your hip-and-happening, avante-garde, slightly dangerous, “intellectual” approach to religion.
They’re both bullshit.
And you would be well advised to STFU before you make even more of a ninny out of yourself.
#42
First, I’ll take a policy of government being transparent with their citizens any day, comrade.
Second, you’re full of shit about your cherry pick comment and making shit up.
Third, The election is over so do what Cheney did and remove the stick from your ass. He stated that was why he was in a wheelchair. He has 7 more sticks to go.
#41 – ‘dro
>>Oh, and to MiMu. You do not only falter in
>>English. Your Spanish sucks rhino.
‘dro, I’ll let my Spanish go mano-a-mano with your Kuzconian patois any time.
I am fully aware of the meaning of “Si se puede”. It was the rallying cry of the United Farm Workers Union, popularized by César Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the 1970’s. It was adopted by Obama’s campaign in 2008. For an example, see
http://tinyurl.com/ckhthp
If you spoke even ONE language adequately, you would know that many catch phrases in one language are often not translated literally to another language.
You might also realize that there is no exact English translation for the third person reflexive conjugation for Spanish verbs; thus, “Si, se puede” can be translated to English as either “Yes, we can”, or (more literally) “Yes, one can do it”. By the same token, “Let’s go” can be translated to the French “allons y” or “On y va”.
>>“Si se puede” is “It can be done” in English.
Well, if you knew a little more Spanish and a little more English, ‘dro, you would know that “It can be done” would translate literally to Spanish as “puede ser hecho”, which would not make a good campaign slogan.
In any case, try saying “Si, podemos” at a UWF rally or an Obama campaign, and nobody will know what you’re talking about. Say “Si, se puede”, and folks will raise their fists to the sky and shout “Right on, homes!”.
I REALLY think you should seriously consider S’ing TFU.
You’re not helping your case any by continuing to blabber on.
#43–Musty==you like the certainty of absolute positions don’t you? Words are completely artificial constructs and “mean” only what people agree they mean. That meaning changes between groups of people, from time to time, and place to place. Really rather silly of you to thing/say/believe a certain word/concept can mean only one thing, and that one thing probably the first version of anything you hear.
I use Merriam Webster On Line for quick reference because it is available to all as a Google add-in. If MW says it then I am being reasonable in relying on it as “one definition.” If this reference disagrees with one of yours, thats fine too. Neither reference is dispositive of the other and either gives the speaker a basis from which to pontificate.
If NATO is an acronym then why is it AWAYS seen in ALL CAPS? ALL CAPS is not a word==its an abbreviation, just like M-W says. Further, you go to the NATO website and they spell it out: http://nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm why would NATO do that unless NATO could at a minimum be both an acronym and an abbrieviation??
Why would that be Mr. Mustard??? Huh? Huh? Whyyyiieee?
I’ve got three references that indicates NATO is an abbreviation. You have 1-2-3 saying it is an acronym.
I think only very stupid hide bound brain stiff parties of the “non-reflexsive third type” would ever argue about this stuff. I do it as a penitence, curing the ill so to speak.
#46 – Bobo
>>Why would that be Mr. Mustard??? Huh? Huh?
>>Whyyyiieee?
I tire of playing GET tutor for you, m’hijito. If you’re really interested in the distinction between an acronym (although I’ve already told you all you really need to know), do some research on it. Come back after the redness of your face subsides.
And certainly the meaning of words changes over time. Just because that change sometimes occurs because of ignorance on the part of the users is no reason to embrace ignorance as a general life strategy.
There are those who find no difference among their, there, and they’re. Heck, you say ’em all the same. Or between its and it’s. Or compliment and complement. Or between a simile and a metaphor. Or between asterisk and “axterick”. Or between e.g. and i.e. Or between “among” and “between”, for that matter.
That’s why one finds abominations such as “nucular” in your online Websters.
If you choose the sloppy, imprecise approach to communication, that’s your cross to bear. Maybe your avante-garde, slightly dangerous, hip-and-happening approach to grammar will serve you well. And maybe I’m just a boat, beating on against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. A past where one word meant thing, and another word meant another thing, rather than the whole language be a bowl of raisinless oatmeal, with all words meaning something, not clearly defined, but similar to what all the other words mean.
And as such, I distinguish between an acronym and an abbreviation. As do those who enjoy clear communication.
My take-away conclusion from this little discussion is that you didn’t know the difference between an acronym and an abbreviation. And rather than just admit it, you try to obfuscate you ignorance with whackadoodle punctuation, pretzel logic, gratuitous references to set theory, bloviation, and denial.
#47 – Mustard
>>I tire of playing GET tutor for you, m’hijito.
Woops. There you go, Bobo. I made a mistake, and I admit it. I meant to type “GED”, and I typed “GET”.
My bad.
See how easy that is?
#14, Cow-Paddy,
Shooting missiles into civilian occupied structures where no one is attacking you from, is a War Crime.
Then why aren’t you calling for Israel to turn itself in to the World court? That is more of a habit with them. That plus using white phosphorus on civilians.
#48–Silly Rabbit===everybody knows typo’s don’t count so that is either one, two, or no mistakes you have made depending on – – – you know – – – the definition you use. Course, thats only Snafu for you.
#47, Mustard,
And as such, I distinguish between an acronym and an abbreviation. As do those who enjoy clear communication.
I agree. Even here I skip over those who fail to use proper grammar in their posts. If we fail to follow the proper rules of grammar / spelling, then we end up with several dialects that end up losing any translations. Clarity of communication requires that words mean something definitive, NOT whatever someone WANTS them to mean.
Although I knew the difference between acronyms and abbreviations, your clear definitions reminded me of something I had not given much thought to in many a year.
#47–Musty==you are completely avoiding the points I made. Repetition does not make your argument any stronger==just quite boring.
Adding incorrect “facts” is a sign of desperation. On line Websters does not include nucular in their dictionary.
http://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nucular
You stiff brained types so quickly descend to the lie. Whhhhyyyyiiiiieeeeeeee do you do that Musty??????????
1. Why is NATO in CAPS???
2. Why is NATO spelled out in their own documents?
I’ll mark you down as a minus one for real on this one. My running total is now a minus five for you, offset with a plus 2 leaving you a lifetime performance of No 2. You know what Number 2 is right? HAW HAW!!!!!!
#52 – Bobo
>>1. Why is NATO in CAPS???
>>2. Why is NATO spelled out in their own documents?
Bobo, if you think repeating these senseless queries somehow give you “points”, you must have a truly special scoring system.
Repeating something that does not make a point, over and over, doesn’t magically transmogrify it into something that DOES make a point.
1) There is no “rule” governing whether or not acronyms should be written in upper case, title caps, or lower case. The key identifier is that they be speakable AND SPOKEN.
2) I don’t even know how to reply to this nonsensical utterance. Every acronym stands for something, and if it’s the title of an organization, it makes sense that the organization would define what that is at the beginning of a document. In the link you posted, I see no evidence of either NATO or North American Treaty Organization anywhere in the body of the document; only in the header, where both NATO and what it’s derived from are used.
Don’t you have an appointment at the Food Stamp office or something?
The amount of time you seem to have to devote to badgering me about this issue, when you are clearly IN THE WRONG, boggles the mind.
Give it up, Bobo. Move along. There are more fertile fields to plow.
You made a mistake, and if you don’t want to admit it, that’s OK. Everyone else has admitted it on your behalf.
This is HILARIOUS!
A couple truthful comments (as in NeoLibs saying exact same thing to Bush over exactly same actions) and NeoLibs go absolutely psychotic.
I knew that extremists on both sides were TOTALLY insane. This reaction on the left now confirms, with no other diagnosis possible.
Thanks guys. Also, thanks to the moderates who jumped in. Don’t bother though.
#53 – ‘dro
>>I bet you just repeat the “Si se puede” crap that
>>the illegals started to yell in Spanish as a
>>translation of the Obama slogan.
Ah, ‘dro. I can just imagine you and Bobo, sitting together in your jammies, cackling together as you beat dead horses until it’s time for cartoons.
The “si se puede crap” was not made up by me, by Obama, or by “the illegals”. It was made up by César Chávez, the well-educated and articulate president of the United Farm Workers Union. And has been the rallying cry of that union since the sixties. Obama borrowed it. Chávez was neither an “illegal” nor a “legal”, btw. He was a natural-born American citizen, hailing from Yuma Arizona.
>>And not content with putting one foot in your
>>mouth, you go the extra mile with this pearl:
>>“puede ser hecho”. Man, that doesn’t make any
>>sense. The porper way is “puede hacerse” or even
>>“se puede hacer”.
Uh, ‘dro. ‘dro, ‘dro, ‘dro. When you learn English, perhaps you will understand what I actually WROTE, rather than what your Kuzconian translation imagines I meant. If you read what I wrote, carefully, you will note that I said “puede ser hecho” was a literal (i.e., verbatim, word-for-word) translation of “it can be done”. I dismissed it as not being sufficiently sensical to use as a campaign slogan. Many things, when translated literally, make little sense. For example, no one would ever say “of time in when” in English, although “de vez en cuando” is commonplace in Spanish. Perhaps when you get to English 102, they’ll teach you about idiomatic phrases.
Nonetheless, “puede” (it can) “ser” (be) “hecho” (done; past participle of “hacer”, to do) is the literal, word-for-word translation of “it can be done”.
In any case, love it or not, the phrase that has been used for over fifty years, first by the UFW and later by the Obama campaign, is “Si se puede“.
Perhaps your bitterness over “the illegals” is that you were turned back yourself at the border by La Migra, and didn’t have a chance to become an “illegal” yourself? You obviously have no skills of the sort that would get you a work visa.
http://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/NATO
NATO
One entry found.
Main Entry:
NATO
Function:
abbreviation
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
With all your stiff brained stalking horse issue regarding punctuation, I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to see you write that words – – I say WORDS – – can be capitalized any willy-nilly way you wish when EVERYBODY knows that standard punctuation puts the body of a word/WORD in lower case with the first letter capitalized if it starts a sentence, list etc.
Abbrieviations are placed in CAPS. My own hip, with it, avant-guarde, ee cumingsesque Capitalization is for the obvious humor and whimsy.
And this is a laugh: go ahead and pronounce the speakable acronym SQL which is also always presented in CAPS all the time==but we both trust Scott’s affirmation on this point.
I don’t use food stamps. The local christian charity delivers free food to my door.
#57 – Boobo
>>I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to see you write that words –
>>- I say WORDS – – can be capitalized any willy-nilly
>>way you wish when EVERYBODY knows blah blah blah…
Boobo, you and ‘dro should just quit it. Stop rubbing your hands together in glee, cackling “hey homes, let’s us put some words in Mustard’s mouth!!”.
What I SAID was (and you might want to write this down) “There is no “rule” governing whether or not acronyms should be written in upper case, title caps, or lower case.“.
There are some conventions, but that’s waaaaay too subtle and nuanced for a fellow who won’t even admit the difference between an acronym and an abbreviation.
Isn’t Dora the Explorer on now? Or Hannah Montana? Or are you still fiddling with your digital converter box, so you won’t miss out on any of those shows after The Changeover?
Sheesh. Give it up.
# 58 pedro said, “#55 You thought it would be any different?”
Not really. But, it’s nice to document the nut cases.
#60 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>Not really. But, it’s nice to document the nut cases.
You mean like the ones who claim to be peddling influence in “DC” and hobnobbing with international diplomats, when in real life they’re ringing up coaxial cables and banana plugs at Radio Shack?
#59–Musty==the issue of capitalization arises because you said acronyms were WORDS!! And I recognized the logical implications by way of set theory.
Words are subject to punctuation rules including capitalization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization#Nouns
I note I have provided 3-4 weblinks that you choose to poo-poo but you provide none of your own. Been talking way too much to Paddy-Zero.
‘puede ser hecho’?
Mustard, you’re embarrassing yourself, and making people question all the English you’ve been talking about.
#63 – ‘dro
>>“Hecho” is not the past tense of “hacer”.
Once you learn to read (any language), ‘dro, you will be able to discern that I never said “hecho” was the past tense of hacer. I said it is the PAST PARTICIPLE, coño. Cabrón. Pendejo. As in “no has HECHO nada”. Or as in “has HECHO la puñeta”. Or even as in “puede ser HECHO”, if you wish to translate “it can be done” literally from English.
>>“It can” is literlly translated as “se puede”.
No. It’s not. Literlly or otherwise. “Se puede” is third person singular conjugation of a reflexive verb. If you want to translate it, it would be “One can”, or “they can”, although there’s no literal translation into English for “se”. And the literal translation from English to Spanish of “it can be done” (with “it can” being non-reflexive third person singular) is “puede ser hecho”. Although that is not something that would ever be said (or “nunca será DICHO”, if you prefer), it is the LITERAL translation. If you don’t believe me, go ask a kindergarten teacher.
As to the rest of your copy ‘n’ paste exercise, pfffft. I was conjugating Spanish verbs while you were still sucking on your mama’s titty. Aspirations are great, but don’t go beyond your abilities.
Give it up now, ‘dro. This too, shall pass. The harder you hammer on your incorrect assertions, the more of a maricón you appear to be.
#64 – Lyin’ Mike
Read what I wrote. You are the one embarrassing yourself.
Better to embarrassed through ignorance than through lyin’, right Mike?