The QT: Sarah Palin subtlety, the evolution of Edward Snowden, and more

News Item: "Pope Francis has paid tribute to his predecessor Benedict XVI in his first letter to clergy, acknowledging that most of it was written by Benedict..."

Worth noting. It is not often we see an encyclical built for two.

***

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

News Headline: "I pronounce you bridge and wife: Woman marries 600-year-old French bridge"

Does tradition mean nothing?

Marriage is between a bridge and a road.

***

QT Yellowstone Caldera (the eruptions of which can be violent enough to send a layer of ash six feet deep as far away as Chicago and which erupts every 600,000 or so years and last erupted 640,000 years ago) Update:

Some might try to make something of the fact that there were 40 earthquakes at Yellowstone in February, 126 in April, and 176 in June.

But not QT.

***

News Headline: "Image of NSA leaker Edward Snowden evolves with each revelation"

No question it is evolving.

No one will mistake it for intelligently designed.

***

W.R., a Burbank, Ill., reader, writes;

"I've noticed than when you write about Sarah Palin, you generate many comments. In one item, you should just write 'Sarah Palin' six times or so..."

No. That would be overkill. QT is subtler than that.

Sarah Palin.

***

News Headline: "Pope names a commission to reform Vatican Bank"

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them...

Will that work?

***

News Item:"...Luong's time-lapse videos of Hawaiian volcanoes will make you wish you were a sacrificial virgin just so you could get a closer look..."

No. They won't.

***

News Headline: "Chocolate may improve cognitive function"

News Headline: "Beer could improve your heart health"

Keep up the good work, researchers!

***

QT Grammar R Us Seminar on the English Language:

News Item:"...at least one billion computer mice have been sold..."

Is this a good moment to mention that the plural of computer mouse is computer mouses?

Evidently.

***

Write to QT at zaysmith.qt@gmail.com

QT appears Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.