The Stuff, she is interesting.

[silveradept]

So I went and gave blood today, which was good, and then refereed many games of water polo - I want to say about seven or so. Three was evaluation being done this week, too, so I get hit by having taken both shifts. Plus the one I have on Wednesday, so I'm only going ot get more of it. Yarg. But I made significant spending money tonight - maybe by the end of the seasons I'll be able to finance most of my trips. Enough about my story, though - there's plenty else to be interested in.

Like Marines with post-traumatic stress disorder coming back from Iraq. It's a strain on the sanity, it sounds like. The worst part about it is that we're too entrenched at the moment to get out without serious collapse, but the longer we stay, the more time, lives, and money is wasted. As M. Kane Jeeves points out, it looks like the State of the Union is still in the draft stages.

The illegal spying operation hasn't missed a trick, either - vegans are suspected terrorists now. There's also a cute bit about how the confirmation vote got moved without telling anyone to try and forestall a filibuster, and then this wonderful bit - how do you stop someone investigating you? Offer him a place on the federal bench. Bribe? Bah. If tapping domestic citizens isn't a flagrant violation of the law, then one teeny tiny convienent appointment won't be, either. It's just... surreal. Reality has been usurped, and it looks like all the people who could start the Katamari of Dissent rolling are perfectly happy to stay in fantasyland until the gates close.

Beyond politics, there's an interesting opinion piece here that recommends the reduction of the drinking age - so that parents will be more involved in the learning stages of their child's drinking life. Good thought, isn't it? Parents actually being involved with their kids? Madness. *half-snarl* People who have kept with my journal know where that particular rant path leads, and it's not worth trodding it again.

Oh, yeah, and one of my lightbulbs burnt out on me. So today was a good day for me to please everybody else. And save some lives, too.

Comments

[shadesfox.livejournal.com]

I think the problem with lowering the drinking age like you propose is the assumption that parents will be involved with their kids. There seems to be a grand lack of that.

Though on the subject of wiretapping, what the NSA is doing is rather facinating from a tech point of view. Even the NSA doesn't have the equipment to actually listen to all the phone calls they tap. Rather, they create a social network of people you contact. This network is analyzed for strange patterns, mostly in the the connections out side of the clique a person tends to form.

And if you ever want to be really freaked out I'll tell you what the Secret Service will do to your computer to hack your passwords ;p

[silveradept]

In order: No argument here, makes sense, and no thanks, I prefer to believe that the government by and large respects the rule of law and privacy, even though there's more and more evidence over the years that it doesn't and never did.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) *wonders*