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It was a blast, as always. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kaijumaster and his wife held a club meeting yesterday, where we saw the first five episodes of a new Witchblade anime (choice phrase from there - the competing factions are Apple and Microsoft, and the Witchblade is a fully functional Linux that would make either of their OS complete, were they to merge.), and then the Ultraman 40th anniversary movie. A quick jaunt into a fast history of super sentai, and then the football game was on. There were some good jokes zipped about there regarding the winning and losing teams.Best remark of the night, however, came in the halftime show, when the Artist put on his purple guitar, which had a hook curving out from the body, underneath the fretboard, and then was shadowed against a backdrop. We say, according to the shadow, that the Artist was playing his guitar, but we also took a page out of Men in Tights and said that the lower, smaller, and curved shadow was the phallus of the Artist, who had unzipped on stage, and, by extension, the reason the camera was staying on the shadow was because they didn’t want a repeat of the “wardrobe malfunction” fiasco. Nothing hostile toward anyone for the whole meeting and the game, just lots of making fun of lots of things. The mood just carried over from Witchblade hilarity (d00d! She’s got b1g b00bz! That’s why she can wield the Witchblade!).
Not done with my work yet, but have dented it some. Should make finishing touches to a lot of things this week. Then, maybe, I’ll feel less pressured.
Liberal Eagle discusses why Bush's troop surge is like a desperation move by a chapter 11 company, taking a quote from the Talking Points Memo and pointing out the aptness of the argument made. Liberal Eagle then goes on to say why it would be bad to let the CEO of America continue to try desperate things that are likely to kill lots of people and cost lots of money while posing no discernible benefit. It looks like the violence may be stepping up on all ends, as now there's a four-star United States Army general leading NATO troops in Afghanistan, as well. Cleaning up after all that’s been done so far in this administration will definitely take a while.
More people have died because of Bush’s order than Satan’s order, but he still has a long way to catch up with God, if the statistics at Dwindling in Unbelief are to be believed. Satan versus God: Past and future Killings tries to nail down a number as to how many have been done in by the two adversaries. Apparently, it doesn’t take much to kill more than Satan does. Heck, if a report by the government’s science agency is true and Sydney and Australia will dry up and have a permanent drought by 2070, then global warming will probably kill more than Satan. (Of course, there is always the possibility that global warming reports are exaggerated. If they happen to be true in their particulars, though, and we let them happen, then we’re going to be sorry we did.)
In the “Where are my flying cars already?” department, a look back on how your daily life will be changed after the war, courtesy of Mechanix illustrated, which talks about new dehydrated food, synthetic fibres and fabrics, and medical techniques that will make it so that people have better, happier, healthier lives. Most of what they predicted has come to pass, I suspect... including the tendency of society to throw away the mass-produced clothing (and other things).
I can voice my opinion of what I thought on the first reading of the following press release, but the broadcast seven-second delay would render it a mostly incomprehensible string of tones. In Washington State, the Secretary of State has accepted a proposed initiative that would define marriage to only those who are capable of having children, require couples married in the state to have a child within three years of marriage or have their marriage annulled or "unrecognized", if out of state, and criminalize those who receive marriage benefits in "unrecognized" marriages. Note, all this most likely means is that the Secretary of State verified that the WA-DOMA group followed correct procedure for writing and filing an initiative, and thus followed their legal responsibility to place it on the docket. It means nothing, from what I can gather, as to whether there is any support at all for such a measure. The WA-DOMA group also intends to file two more initiatives, one to prohibit divorce or separation taking place if the married couple has a child, and to classify persons who have a child together as automatically married. I sincerely hope that the WA-DOMA group, in filing and describing these initiatives, also supports fully the right of a woman to use any and all available birth control means up to and including abortion of a fetus. It would be the fair thing for them to do, if they wish to see their initiatives become law. I also hope that they are strong supporters of the child welfare agencies of Washington State, and will push strongly for sufficient funding and staff to handle what will likely be an increase in caseloads. After reading their main page, I suspect they would - after all, they’re just looking to implement a Supreme Court decision to the fullest. Although, that strategy can backfire. Look at what happened to Mike Cox in Michigan.
That said, recall that there’s no demonstrated support for this initiative. If they can start showing that, then I’m going to be worried. Because all it takes is one state passing something before other states start sporting similar initiatives... and the other ones may not be done to make a point, but to make a law.
Lastly, here’s some positive vibes. Well, sort of. More like a blueprint for figuring out what is needed to improve your situation and your outlook. The first step to improvement is identifying the difficulty and the lack that makes it difficult. If you don’t know what’s wrong, or where you have a deficiency you want to fix, it’s hard to improve. So Steve Pavlina suggests ask yourself questions of the form: "What would a person with more X do in this situation?", where X is a quality like compassion or courage. Once the spots are identified where improvement is needed to achieve the goal, it can be worked on. This does assume that all problems are due to a deficiency in the questioner, though. There may be some problems that can’t be solved by a single individual changing behavior, but those problems can probably have lesser effects, at least in terms of stress and such, if there is a behavioral change by the person on the receiving end of the problem.
kaijumaster and his wife held a club meeting yesterday, where we saw the first five episodes of a new Witchblade anime (choice phrase from there - the competing factions are Apple and Microsoft, and the Witchblade is a fully functional Linux that would make either of their OS complete, were they to merge.), and then the Ultraman 40th anniversary movie. A quick jaunt into a fast history of super sentai, and then the football game was on. There were some good jokes zipped about there regarding the winning and losing teams.Best remark of the night, however, came in the halftime show, when the Artist put on his purple guitar, which had a hook curving out from the body, underneath the fretboard, and then was shadowed against a backdrop. We say, according to the shadow, that the Artist was playing his guitar, but we also took a page out of Men in Tights and said that the lower, smaller, and curved shadow was the phallus of the Artist, who had unzipped on stage, and, by extension, the reason the camera was staying on the shadow was because they didn’t want a repeat of the “wardrobe malfunction” fiasco. Nothing hostile toward anyone for the whole meeting and the game, just lots of making fun of lots of things. The mood just carried over from Witchblade hilarity (d00d! She’s got b1g b00bz! That’s why she can wield the Witchblade!).Not done with my work yet, but have dented it some. Should make finishing touches to a lot of things this week. Then, maybe, I’ll feel less pressured.
Liberal Eagle discusses why Bush's troop surge is like a desperation move by a chapter 11 company, taking a quote from the Talking Points Memo and pointing out the aptness of the argument made. Liberal Eagle then goes on to say why it would be bad to let the CEO of America continue to try desperate things that are likely to kill lots of people and cost lots of money while posing no discernible benefit. It looks like the violence may be stepping up on all ends, as now there's a four-star United States Army general leading NATO troops in Afghanistan, as well. Cleaning up after all that’s been done so far in this administration will definitely take a while.
More people have died because of Bush’s order than Satan’s order, but he still has a long way to catch up with God, if the statistics at Dwindling in Unbelief are to be believed. Satan versus God: Past and future Killings tries to nail down a number as to how many have been done in by the two adversaries. Apparently, it doesn’t take much to kill more than Satan does. Heck, if a report by the government’s science agency is true and Sydney and Australia will dry up and have a permanent drought by 2070, then global warming will probably kill more than Satan. (Of course, there is always the possibility that global warming reports are exaggerated. If they happen to be true in their particulars, though, and we let them happen, then we’re going to be sorry we did.)
In the “Where are my flying cars already?” department, a look back on how your daily life will be changed after the war, courtesy of Mechanix illustrated, which talks about new dehydrated food, synthetic fibres and fabrics, and medical techniques that will make it so that people have better, happier, healthier lives. Most of what they predicted has come to pass, I suspect... including the tendency of society to throw away the mass-produced clothing (and other things).
I can voice my opinion of what I thought on the first reading of the following press release, but the broadcast seven-second delay would render it a mostly incomprehensible string of tones. In Washington State, the Secretary of State has accepted a proposed initiative that would define marriage to only those who are capable of having children, require couples married in the state to have a child within three years of marriage or have their marriage annulled or "unrecognized", if out of state, and criminalize those who receive marriage benefits in "unrecognized" marriages. Note, all this most likely means is that the Secretary of State verified that the WA-DOMA group followed correct procedure for writing and filing an initiative, and thus followed their legal responsibility to place it on the docket. It means nothing, from what I can gather, as to whether there is any support at all for such a measure. The WA-DOMA group also intends to file two more initiatives, one to prohibit divorce or separation taking place if the married couple has a child, and to classify persons who have a child together as automatically married. I sincerely hope that the WA-DOMA group, in filing and describing these initiatives, also supports fully the right of a woman to use any and all available birth control means up to and including abortion of a fetus. It would be the fair thing for them to do, if they wish to see their initiatives become law. I also hope that they are strong supporters of the child welfare agencies of Washington State, and will push strongly for sufficient funding and staff to handle what will likely be an increase in caseloads. After reading their main page, I suspect they would - after all, they’re just looking to implement a Supreme Court decision to the fullest. Although, that strategy can backfire. Look at what happened to Mike Cox in Michigan.
That said, recall that there’s no demonstrated support for this initiative. If they can start showing that, then I’m going to be worried. Because all it takes is one state passing something before other states start sporting similar initiatives... and the other ones may not be done to make a point, but to make a law.
Lastly, here’s some positive vibes. Well, sort of. More like a blueprint for figuring out what is needed to improve your situation and your outlook. The first step to improvement is identifying the difficulty and the lack that makes it difficult. If you don’t know what’s wrong, or where you have a deficiency you want to fix, it’s hard to improve. So Steve Pavlina suggests ask yourself questions of the form: "What would a person with more X do in this situation?", where X is a quality like compassion or courage. Once the spots are identified where improvement is needed to achieve the goal, it can be worked on. This does assume that all problems are due to a deficiency in the questioner, though. There may be some problems that can’t be solved by a single individual changing behavior, but those problems can probably have lesser effects, at least in terms of stress and such, if there is a behavioral change by the person on the receiving end of the problem.
