Things That Make You Go "Aughh"

In the Washington Post today:

"...in Pakistan, where patriotism is equated with support for the military...". Written, without irony, in the newspaper of the capital city of the U.S.A.

"In an even more welcome feat, he manages to de-mythologize Hawaii and bring it into new post-Obama, Pacific Rim-era relevance." The second half of that sentence sounds informed and erudite, but I have no idea what it might mean. What, in 2011, is "post-Obama"? If it's only now that Hawaii has acquired "Pacific Rim-era relevance", what geopolitical space has it been occupying since 1940? And anyway, why does a change in a movie reviewer's attitude toward Hawaii carry geopolitical significance? On 11 Sept. 2001 the scales that blinded Americans to certain geopolitcal realities fell from our eyes—the World itself did not suddenly change. (From a review of the movie The Descendants.)

I've been losing respect for Chris Elliott the travel writer for a couple of months now; it took a big hit from this column: "One incident of planes stranded on tarmac doesn’t justify new laws". Which would be true, except that it isn't "one incident." The new laws were enacted, as laws generally are, in response to something: the continuing occurrence of such low-intensity events. To imply otherwise (when he very much knows better) is disgraceful. Then, to use as his one example a severe-weather-related event that involved multiple aircraft, airlines, and even the entire airport—a wholly atypical situation with respect to the tarmac law? Please.