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ACEN 07: The Writeup will follow soon enough, but for now, I have to catch up on being away from the ‘net world for four days. Which isn’t hard for some, as they were at the convention with me. But for a lot of things, this could be Deluxor Entry of Doom (Doom!) So get comfortable as I catch up and catch you up on all things. Some of this may be as old as Thursday, which in ’net world, is forever, so if there’s more to it, then let me know.
For all those who are mothers, happy day to you, even if a day late. Hopefully Mother's Day will go back to its roots, and take all people along in a request for peace.
The conflict in Afghanistan, rarely on the HUD of the American viewpoint, reported the death of a particularly violent Taliban commander. They were also realistic in saying that he would likely be replaced soon.
On the other conflict, perhaps in a fit of pique more than breaking ranks, the U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that if the Iraqi parliament asked the United States to leave, he'd be happy to see us go. The Iraqi government is not having any of this, though, lobbying hard to keep U.S. troops in the country. The House seems to have agreed for the moment, approving a bill that would fund operation in Iraq until July, a bill that the President threatens to veto. The Army itself is having to turn to different measures to maintain troop levels, including paying bonuses to active and retired Army personnel who recruit civilians to sign up for a tour. Ah, speaking of money being paid out TomDispatch says he's got the figures on how much the various lives that have been killed are worth - American killed in 11 September terror: $1.8 million. Iraqi killed on any given day by United States forces: $2,500. Hrm. Maybe that guy Stalin wasn’t so far off with his comparison between one death and one million deaths. Continuing on the monetary vein, A draft report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office suggests that anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 barrels of oil are unaccounted for in Iraq per day, fueling speculation that persons opposed to the current situation have some control over the pipelines. A less conspiracy theory suggests that production numbers are being misreported and the discrepancy is due to exaggeration or inability to keep accurate records.
All in all, however, the American public disapproves of both their elected representatives and their President equally, because neither side seems able to accomplish anything on the important issues. Phil Harris thinks he’s discovered the reason why - we let politicians become career politicians, and much like old fish, after about so long, they start stinking. For those looking for a way to say they were for the Iraqi conflict, but are now against, Victor Davis Hanson offers up some suggestions on how to nuance things to tell the truth and still be anti-war.
The Wall Street Journal’s opinion column holds Peggy Noonan praising European countries for showing us the future - a Nothern Ireland ruled by both sides of a bitter conflict, a France with an interesting and passionate election, and an England where the prime minister plans to set down the mantle on 27 June. The first two, I agree with, the third, well, we’ll see how Mr. Blair is remembered by history.
Okay, last for the political section - Louisiana Conservative offers what s/he considers to be satire in declaring Why I am Switching to the Democrat Party. I don’t find it particularly satirical, just someone listing off their gripes and expecting the audience to laugh along with them as they deliver rant after rant. If you want to see what some people think that liberalism is all about, go ahead and read.
Babes and tots are watching a lot of television, we’re told. Which is something that we know - but these people say that it’s not a babysitter exercise, but that parents want to have educational content for their tiniest. In further educational news, Kansas is getting off the joke list as fast as it can, enacting "abstinence plus" policies that include sex education, further undoing the damage set by the infamous board that preceded them. It remains to be seen whether there will be actual education, but the current board says it should be there.
George Will in Townhall, surrounding a decent reason why the President might veto the hate crimes bill the House passed, rehashes the argument that giving protected status to one group means everyone will eventually be a protected group.
The cicadas are almost ready to come out and play, which means much for chirping as they have their orgies.
From pr0n-renter to Subway spokesman:The Story of Jared Fogle, according to the Best Week Ever. Sometimes, lazy can be helpful. Although there are probably plenty of people who have tried the same thing and not accomplished the same result. Outliers and all that. Although the pr0n probably wouldn’t have gotten him a call from the police, as the gentleman who had his play with dolls interrupted because a neighbor thought he was carrying a dead body.
Serial sock snatcher once again in trouble. It appears he has a fetish for foot covering strong enough to induce behavior that runs him afoul of the law. Luckily, it’s not something like murder, but it might be the best idea to get this particular person either lots of socks to play with or to put him into a facility, if he wants to be cured or manage his sock fetish.
Going past the sex part, though, the Pope implied that Mexican politicians have self-excommunicated (a process different than a formal excommunication) from the Catholic Church by legalizing abortion. Which is pretty in tune for someone who was the head inquisitor of the Catholic Church before becoming the Pope. No doubt the pontiff would approve of "crisis pregnancy centers" that have a very anti-abortion stance to them. Such centers are less popular with places like Planned Parenthood, which say the centers distribute misleading information and pressure the people who walk in their doors to give birth rather than abort. Continuing in the religion and women line, Jesus Creed has eight possible reasons why women in ordained offices is still an issue of contention.
A small bit for A minor history of minitaure writing, which showcases some of the attempts to answer “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” Continuing in the print tradition, perhaps because of shortening attention spans or the increasing of netspeak/chatspeak tendencies, but officially because they believe the brain wasn’t wired well to deal with paragraphs, Walker Reading Technologies has created Live Ink, a way of reformatting and coloring text to make it more comprehensible. It’s certainly not a compact technology, I’ll say that much.
Depending on how well trials and refinement goes, there could be a big help for the shortage of blood, as Sheffield University researchers claim to have created artificial blood molecules made of an iron core surrounded by plastic. The artificial blood, currently in prototype, would be storable at room temperature and may last longer that human blood. It doesn’t say immediately whether the plastic would be usable as a short-term replacement or for longer-term operations. I suspect short-term, at least for now. I wonder whether the artificial blood would find it’s way out of the bloodstream in a natural manner or require the body to work harder to effect its destruction when cell renewal came about. Still, could be very interesting. Continuing on the medical theme, Wired reports that new emergency treatments for cardiac arrest will be tested on live patients - without obtaining consent beforehand. In this particular case, I suspect it’s a matter of “well, we can’t induce a cardiac failure that might kill someone to run the tests, so we’ll have to see whether they work in the wild.” Yes, this means some people might end up dying because of things, If a newer technique works out to be more effective, though, it may end up saving more lives down the road. It’s a really sucky tradeoff. Hopefully, all of these techniques can be performed, checked, and then more traditional techniques be used before the window of opportunity passes. Finally, less women are receiving mammograms to test for breast cancer. This has medical professionals worried, because they’re still the best way of detecting breast cancer that we know of.
What ends up at the end of this entry is something useful to know, whether it’s wuwei or zazen that’s your cup of tea - The Birth of the Seeker is a piece about how much striving happens when looking for things, whether in trying to be the best or to find the answer. The conclusion is, well, rather Buddhist (makes sense, coming from Buddhist Geeks), but it’s still an important one for many still looking for the Right Answers.
So, having gone through a significant amount of material to end up on the other side, I’m going to go to bed now and sleep. Because that sounds like a really good idea right now.
For all those who are mothers, happy day to you, even if a day late. Hopefully Mother's Day will go back to its roots, and take all people along in a request for peace.
The conflict in Afghanistan, rarely on the HUD of the American viewpoint, reported the death of a particularly violent Taliban commander. They were also realistic in saying that he would likely be replaced soon.
On the other conflict, perhaps in a fit of pique more than breaking ranks, the U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that if the Iraqi parliament asked the United States to leave, he'd be happy to see us go. The Iraqi government is not having any of this, though, lobbying hard to keep U.S. troops in the country. The House seems to have agreed for the moment, approving a bill that would fund operation in Iraq until July, a bill that the President threatens to veto. The Army itself is having to turn to different measures to maintain troop levels, including paying bonuses to active and retired Army personnel who recruit civilians to sign up for a tour. Ah, speaking of money being paid out TomDispatch says he's got the figures on how much the various lives that have been killed are worth - American killed in 11 September terror: $1.8 million. Iraqi killed on any given day by United States forces: $2,500. Hrm. Maybe that guy Stalin wasn’t so far off with his comparison between one death and one million deaths. Continuing on the monetary vein, A draft report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office suggests that anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 barrels of oil are unaccounted for in Iraq per day, fueling speculation that persons opposed to the current situation have some control over the pipelines. A less conspiracy theory suggests that production numbers are being misreported and the discrepancy is due to exaggeration or inability to keep accurate records.
All in all, however, the American public disapproves of both their elected representatives and their President equally, because neither side seems able to accomplish anything on the important issues. Phil Harris thinks he’s discovered the reason why - we let politicians become career politicians, and much like old fish, after about so long, they start stinking. For those looking for a way to say they were for the Iraqi conflict, but are now against, Victor Davis Hanson offers up some suggestions on how to nuance things to tell the truth and still be anti-war.
The Wall Street Journal’s opinion column holds Peggy Noonan praising European countries for showing us the future - a Nothern Ireland ruled by both sides of a bitter conflict, a France with an interesting and passionate election, and an England where the prime minister plans to set down the mantle on 27 June. The first two, I agree with, the third, well, we’ll see how Mr. Blair is remembered by history.
Okay, last for the political section - Louisiana Conservative offers what s/he considers to be satire in declaring Why I am Switching to the Democrat Party. I don’t find it particularly satirical, just someone listing off their gripes and expecting the audience to laugh along with them as they deliver rant after rant. If you want to see what some people think that liberalism is all about, go ahead and read.
Babes and tots are watching a lot of television, we’re told. Which is something that we know - but these people say that it’s not a babysitter exercise, but that parents want to have educational content for their tiniest. In further educational news, Kansas is getting off the joke list as fast as it can, enacting "abstinence plus" policies that include sex education, further undoing the damage set by the infamous board that preceded them. It remains to be seen whether there will be actual education, but the current board says it should be there.
George Will in Townhall, surrounding a decent reason why the President might veto the hate crimes bill the House passed, rehashes the argument that giving protected status to one group means everyone will eventually be a protected group.
The cicadas are almost ready to come out and play, which means much for chirping as they have their orgies.
From pr0n-renter to Subway spokesman:The Story of Jared Fogle, according to the Best Week Ever. Sometimes, lazy can be helpful. Although there are probably plenty of people who have tried the same thing and not accomplished the same result. Outliers and all that. Although the pr0n probably wouldn’t have gotten him a call from the police, as the gentleman who had his play with dolls interrupted because a neighbor thought he was carrying a dead body.
Serial sock snatcher once again in trouble. It appears he has a fetish for foot covering strong enough to induce behavior that runs him afoul of the law. Luckily, it’s not something like murder, but it might be the best idea to get this particular person either lots of socks to play with or to put him into a facility, if he wants to be cured or manage his sock fetish.
Going past the sex part, though, the Pope implied that Mexican politicians have self-excommunicated (a process different than a formal excommunication) from the Catholic Church by legalizing abortion. Which is pretty in tune for someone who was the head inquisitor of the Catholic Church before becoming the Pope. No doubt the pontiff would approve of "crisis pregnancy centers" that have a very anti-abortion stance to them. Such centers are less popular with places like Planned Parenthood, which say the centers distribute misleading information and pressure the people who walk in their doors to give birth rather than abort. Continuing in the religion and women line, Jesus Creed has eight possible reasons why women in ordained offices is still an issue of contention.
A small bit for A minor history of minitaure writing, which showcases some of the attempts to answer “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” Continuing in the print tradition, perhaps because of shortening attention spans or the increasing of netspeak/chatspeak tendencies, but officially because they believe the brain wasn’t wired well to deal with paragraphs, Walker Reading Technologies has created Live Ink, a way of reformatting and coloring text to make it more comprehensible. It’s certainly not a compact technology, I’ll say that much.
Depending on how well trials and refinement goes, there could be a big help for the shortage of blood, as Sheffield University researchers claim to have created artificial blood molecules made of an iron core surrounded by plastic. The artificial blood, currently in prototype, would be storable at room temperature and may last longer that human blood. It doesn’t say immediately whether the plastic would be usable as a short-term replacement or for longer-term operations. I suspect short-term, at least for now. I wonder whether the artificial blood would find it’s way out of the bloodstream in a natural manner or require the body to work harder to effect its destruction when cell renewal came about. Still, could be very interesting. Continuing on the medical theme, Wired reports that new emergency treatments for cardiac arrest will be tested on live patients - without obtaining consent beforehand. In this particular case, I suspect it’s a matter of “well, we can’t induce a cardiac failure that might kill someone to run the tests, so we’ll have to see whether they work in the wild.” Yes, this means some people might end up dying because of things, If a newer technique works out to be more effective, though, it may end up saving more lives down the road. It’s a really sucky tradeoff. Hopefully, all of these techniques can be performed, checked, and then more traditional techniques be used before the window of opportunity passes. Finally, less women are receiving mammograms to test for breast cancer. This has medical professionals worried, because they’re still the best way of detecting breast cancer that we know of.
What ends up at the end of this entry is something useful to know, whether it’s wuwei or zazen that’s your cup of tea - The Birth of the Seeker is a piece about how much striving happens when looking for things, whether in trying to be the best or to find the answer. The conclusion is, well, rather Buddhist (makes sense, coming from Buddhist Geeks), but it’s still an important one for many still looking for the Right Answers.
So, having gone through a significant amount of material to end up on the other side, I’m going to go to bed now and sleep. Because that sounds like a really good idea right now.
