4 ms·
Spent a few minutes trying to decipher why Bloomberg would go through such hoops to silence his own wife.
by bt1a 6y ago
Spent a few minutes trying to decipher why Bloomberg would go through such hoops to silence his own wife.
- zarmin 6y agoHer name is Ms. Placedmodifier
- dang 6y agoWe've changed the title above to that of the HTML doc, which fits the 80 char limit. (Submitted title was "Bloomberg Killed Investigation, Fired Reporter Then Tried to Silence His Wife", which I'm sure was cut to that to try to fit the limit.)
- lisper 6y agoPlease consider extending the limit to 120 or 140 characters. 80 often forces me to produce a misleading condensation in my submissions. In the alternative, add a "privileged comment" pinned to the top of the page which cannot be replied to, where an extended summary of the submission can be added by the submitter. But just changing the character limit of the title is probably a lot easier.
- roosterdawn 6y agoThis issue comes up a lot. As a sibling comment says, if it is so common an occurrence for the character limit to lead to misleading headlines because they were overly condensed, you may want to consider slightly expanding the headline length limit (perhaps to 120-140). But I appreciate that it's a balancing act, because making it too long dilutes the punchiness of the HN front page itself. No easy answer here.
- dang 6y agoIt comes up somewhat regularly but it's quite rare for there to be a case where there isn't a natural solution. For example in this case the HTML doc title not only fit the limit nicely, but was more neutral and thus better for HN. I think HN benefits from this limit.
- lpah4all 6y agoNixon's Attorney General, the horrible, horrible man, John Mitchell, had his wife silenced by drugging and sequestering her. "If you guys could get John Mitchell, that would be beautiful." (Quote from All the President's Men) There's an interesting 1994 BBC documentary, "The Watergate Affair" that talks about it. Mitchell was one of the few players in that sordid saga that didn't speak on camera. They're such a bunch of smug bastards, the lot of them, except for John Dean; he's only half an ass. But, yeah, what was the elephant doing in your pajamas?
- ashtonkem 6y agoNixon personally blamed Martha Mitchell for the scandal and impeachment.
- lpah4all 6y agoThe same guy who told Frost, "Well, if the President did it, it's not illegal." Clearly, his grip on reality was a long time gone in service to his power-seeking for his constituency. Even a president can be a data point in Dunning & Kruger's "too stupid to know how stupid they are" category. Now, we have a mobbed-up slumlord 1000x more stupid and infinitely more amoral. He is a true credit to the GOP's fundamental guiding principles.
- ashtonkem 6y agoIt’s interesting to think what Nixon could’ve been if he wasn’t so paranoid and vindictive. Arguably the shenanigans in Watergate weren’t even necessary to secure a victory.
- lpah4all 6y agoYeah, it kinda seems that he was only a personality defect or two away from being a truly great President, with all his foreign policy successes. But, really, the GOP was already fully evil by then; they just got caught doing what they do to the other politicians, instead of to our own poor, especially minorities. And, sure, his victory was likely beyond doubt, but people so hell-bent on power are way beyond being able to not seize every advantage they can gain, no matter how risky. Amoral and ravenous, their momentum and self-belief are beyond examination. Watergate changed nothing but at least we caught a glimpse of their true nature, which was then, in their desperation, magnified in how far they went in the coverup. And is now utterly epitomized in the Dear Leaders of many nations.
- ashtonkem 6y agoI believe this is what’s called a “Garden Path” sentence, because it leads you to the wrong conclusion initially.
- wastedhours 6y agoOriginally thought it was an investigation about a killing, made the second half of the title all the more sinister.