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Take one more day away - 10 April 2007
Apr. 11th, 2007 07:27 amGot to wake up tomorrow for class. And present. But luckily, it’s an informal presentation. Shouldn’t be too hard. Been fighting a hack that’s not evil, just persistent. I wonder if it might be bronchitis acting up again. If it is, is there something OTC that I can take for it, or should I utilize my remaining student insurance days and hightail it somewhere that will write me a prescription for whatever it is I need?
Leading with art. Something that might appropriately be paired with “Ozymandias”. Abandoned Abhazia, what looks to be a rail station, no longer being used. When we’re all gone, will out accomplishments be like this place?
Outlaws and Highwaymen, a piece about the legends surrounding these people, not a political page about big business and the stomping of the individual in the rush to cater to big business.
Iran claims it has enough centrifuges working to enrich uranium on an industrial scale, in defiance of United Nations sanctions and pressure. A number of three thousand has been floated, but there’s no strong confirmation of how many are actually there and working.
Domestically, the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page lauds the Congressional Black Caucus for sponsoring debates on the Fox News Channel, while deriding Democratic candidates like Obama and Edwards for bowing to “affluent and angry liberals who’ve never run for office”. What I guess I’m missing from this is how having a large and active leftist base can hurt the Democratic party, which nominally calls itself the left-wing party. Even more so, the Journal seems to take offense at organizations like MoveOn and “Internet vigilantes” taking an active role in defining who is and isn’t a Democrat or a liberal. Apparently, being billed as “the MoveOn candidate” is a bad thing in the political realm, and the Republicans will have a field day with that. This smells like another part of the phenomenon that Liberal Eagle refers to in his analysis of why the media jumps all over nonscandals because they involve Democrats, while ignoring real scandals perpetuated by Republicans, namely, “Liberal media, my tailscales.” It would appear to me that the Journal thinks that being active and political should only be done by Republicans and conservatives, and that liberals have no right or say in defining their own political beliefs or candidates.
Showing signs that they might be willing to explore other options, some states are refusing federal sex-ed funding, because they want to teach more than abstinence. Sounds like the research that abstinence-only programs aren’t working like people want them to is catching up. Here’s hoping that the feds get wise, too, and stop forcing an abstinence-only program on kids. That said, we’ve come a rather long way from the attitudes expressed in the following set of links. They’re all from the same book, On Becoming A Woman. First up, why masturbation is evil, all girls will become housewives, and boys are ruled strictly by their penises. There’s more, about how dating is a chaste matter, of boys asking girls, and why your circle of friends should always think as you do. Oh, yes, and the chapter on homosexuality. From the views expressed there, society’s come a long way. I wonder, though, how many still think that this book would be the perfect manual for their daughters. (All scans courtesy of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blinkytreefrog.)
I’m wondering about (a) the legality, and (b) the potential prejudice this can create, not only by juries, but in jobs and other parts of life. The object in question is a list of people who have been arrested for solicitation of prostitutes. Not those convicted, or those sentenced. Those arrested. Names, faces, almost-complete addresses, and such. I can’t help but think this somehow perverts “innocent until proven guilty” as well as possibly prejudicing any and everyone against these individuals, even if they are exonerated of the charges.
The baseball season is underway, and it's been sixty years since the color barrier was broken in baseball. Baseball is now a pretty integrated sport. Some people would worry that all manners of sport are becoming more and more the province of one race or another and that this is somehow a bad thing. Just ask Don Imus his opinion about the women's basketball final. Not only is he degrading on race, he’s being sexist, too. I really want to believe that we’re making progress, and then things like this show up and make me wonder if we’ve made any progress at all.
Scienceblogs has some of the contributors going over the IPCC report with a fine-toothed comb. Now that a draft of the final report is leaked, comparisons between the two are going on. While there was knowledge that the final report had been mokeyed with politically, the Questionable Authority shows that many substantive changes were made to the document to weaken its conclusions immensely. This makes many very Not Happy, since this was supposed to be a definitive word on climate change and possibly the spur that some needed to act.
An article in the Independent talks of a study of sediment cores in Gibraltar suggesting that a cold snap brought about the end of the Neanderthals. The chill may have brought about a drought that finally stressed the ecosystem enough to kill the last of the Neanderthals. Still speculation, though, and requiring further analysis.
NPR has a story that’s a bit on the odd side, about Toynbee tiles, a mysterious set of messages in porcelain... on pavement. The messages don’t make much sense, but they took some time to be crafted. Maybe there are others doing the same thing elsewhere. Perhaps it could be done as a short-lived time capsule of some sort. Although it would certainly take some ability to place them there and then have them be covered up without being noticed.
From the Daily Mail, a different sort of oddity - a cat that regularly rides a bus for a stop and then jumps off. Just part of the routine, apparently.
Advice on Get a Life! relates a story of a shy kid who enjoyed a Capoeira demo quite highly, transforming into a high-energy classmate. It then goes on to tell us how to go about freeing one's energy and passion and putting it to good use.
The last part for tonight, though, is R2S2 - the steampunk predecessor to the modern R2 unit. He’s got a few things hanging out, but he makes a good droid.
Entry published late because connection went poof just as I was finishing up.
Leading with art. Something that might appropriately be paired with “Ozymandias”. Abandoned Abhazia, what looks to be a rail station, no longer being used. When we’re all gone, will out accomplishments be like this place?
Outlaws and Highwaymen, a piece about the legends surrounding these people, not a political page about big business and the stomping of the individual in the rush to cater to big business.
Iran claims it has enough centrifuges working to enrich uranium on an industrial scale, in defiance of United Nations sanctions and pressure. A number of three thousand has been floated, but there’s no strong confirmation of how many are actually there and working.
Domestically, the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page lauds the Congressional Black Caucus for sponsoring debates on the Fox News Channel, while deriding Democratic candidates like Obama and Edwards for bowing to “affluent and angry liberals who’ve never run for office”. What I guess I’m missing from this is how having a large and active leftist base can hurt the Democratic party, which nominally calls itself the left-wing party. Even more so, the Journal seems to take offense at organizations like MoveOn and “Internet vigilantes” taking an active role in defining who is and isn’t a Democrat or a liberal. Apparently, being billed as “the MoveOn candidate” is a bad thing in the political realm, and the Republicans will have a field day with that. This smells like another part of the phenomenon that Liberal Eagle refers to in his analysis of why the media jumps all over nonscandals because they involve Democrats, while ignoring real scandals perpetuated by Republicans, namely, “Liberal media, my tailscales.” It would appear to me that the Journal thinks that being active and political should only be done by Republicans and conservatives, and that liberals have no right or say in defining their own political beliefs or candidates.
Showing signs that they might be willing to explore other options, some states are refusing federal sex-ed funding, because they want to teach more than abstinence. Sounds like the research that abstinence-only programs aren’t working like people want them to is catching up. Here’s hoping that the feds get wise, too, and stop forcing an abstinence-only program on kids. That said, we’ve come a rather long way from the attitudes expressed in the following set of links. They’re all from the same book, On Becoming A Woman. First up, why masturbation is evil, all girls will become housewives, and boys are ruled strictly by their penises. There’s more, about how dating is a chaste matter, of boys asking girls, and why your circle of friends should always think as you do. Oh, yes, and the chapter on homosexuality. From the views expressed there, society’s come a long way. I wonder, though, how many still think that this book would be the perfect manual for their daughters. (All scans courtesy of
blinkytreefrog.)I’m wondering about (a) the legality, and (b) the potential prejudice this can create, not only by juries, but in jobs and other parts of life. The object in question is a list of people who have been arrested for solicitation of prostitutes. Not those convicted, or those sentenced. Those arrested. Names, faces, almost-complete addresses, and such. I can’t help but think this somehow perverts “innocent until proven guilty” as well as possibly prejudicing any and everyone against these individuals, even if they are exonerated of the charges.
The baseball season is underway, and it's been sixty years since the color barrier was broken in baseball. Baseball is now a pretty integrated sport. Some people would worry that all manners of sport are becoming more and more the province of one race or another and that this is somehow a bad thing. Just ask Don Imus his opinion about the women's basketball final. Not only is he degrading on race, he’s being sexist, too. I really want to believe that we’re making progress, and then things like this show up and make me wonder if we’ve made any progress at all.
Scienceblogs has some of the contributors going over the IPCC report with a fine-toothed comb. Now that a draft of the final report is leaked, comparisons between the two are going on. While there was knowledge that the final report had been mokeyed with politically, the Questionable Authority shows that many substantive changes were made to the document to weaken its conclusions immensely. This makes many very Not Happy, since this was supposed to be a definitive word on climate change and possibly the spur that some needed to act.
An article in the Independent talks of a study of sediment cores in Gibraltar suggesting that a cold snap brought about the end of the Neanderthals. The chill may have brought about a drought that finally stressed the ecosystem enough to kill the last of the Neanderthals. Still speculation, though, and requiring further analysis.
NPR has a story that’s a bit on the odd side, about Toynbee tiles, a mysterious set of messages in porcelain... on pavement. The messages don’t make much sense, but they took some time to be crafted. Maybe there are others doing the same thing elsewhere. Perhaps it could be done as a short-lived time capsule of some sort. Although it would certainly take some ability to place them there and then have them be covered up without being noticed.
From the Daily Mail, a different sort of oddity - a cat that regularly rides a bus for a stop and then jumps off. Just part of the routine, apparently.
Advice on Get a Life! relates a story of a shy kid who enjoyed a Capoeira demo quite highly, transforming into a high-energy classmate. It then goes on to tell us how to go about freeing one's energy and passion and putting it to good use.
The last part for tonight, though, is R2S2 - the steampunk predecessor to the modern R2 unit. He’s got a few things hanging out, but he makes a good droid.
Entry published late because connection went poof just as I was finishing up.
