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New month, same stuff. Punctuated, of course, by the celebration of Canada Day, the United States Independence Day, my date of birth, and my brother’s date of birth. All told, July is a bit on the front-heavy side, and then it settles into being another summer month.
Not to be outdone, or to be done by the same (the latter being the current official theory), a gent almost drove his vehicle into a Glasgow airport, and then the driver attempted to set the vehicle alight and explode it. Fire extinguishers prevented the car’s explosion, and police prevented the driver’s escape. When did the United Kingdom present itself as a target. Is it because they’ve been chummy with the United States? Or does out media tend to focus on England because of the ties between the two nations? Either way, rather depressing.
Kevin McCullough takes the attempts as an excuse to trot out a popular conservative accusation, that terrorists are being aided by liberals and progressives who trust in the process of law, rather than spying on anyone who looks funny and then locking up anyone who does anything funny, because everyone is a potential terrorist. Isn’t it nice to know that people are out there, looking at you and trying to decide if you’re worth reporting to the authorities? (And perhaps more disturbingly, there’s a good chance the authorities will listen if you do get reported?) It’s all supposed to make you afraid and pliable. Austin Cline at Jesus' General points out how fear produces authoritarian legislation and police harassment with impunity. In a society that’s artificially kept aware of how much there might be a terrorist in their toilet, it’s very each for authority to overstep their bounds for reasons of “security”, and then continue to do so when they’ve managed to convince enough people to be afraid of the terror and thus willing to let the authorities run roughshod over them. This is old news to a lot of people, I realize. Even while wising up and becoming sane, the people are having a very difficult time of having their voice heard on how they’s like all that stuff that was taken from them back now, please. To which every time, the people in power shout “Fear! Uncertainty! Doubt! Terrorism in your toilet!” It being Canada Day on July 1, I also offer a sampling of a similarly-themed fear argument, only in smaller dollar amounts, for Canadians, from the Ruxted Group. The timing was too great to resist a “fund your military, regardless of what they ask for, because if you short them a dollar, terrorists will bomb the country into ashes!” attack. We are not amused.
Similarly depressing is the speculation engaged by Peter J. Wallison on what the Middle East would look like had America not invaded Iraq. It would look... a lot like it does now, although supposedly with Saddam and Iran trying to outduel each other in an arms race, Israel looking more and more like it should hide, and the West trying to figure out how to stop the Middle East from careening out of control. Which sounds like, well, we might be in the same situation we are in now a few years later from then. Or possibly worse. Who knows? Maybe Iraq would pull aggro long enough for a workable strategy to appear and be agreed to by all parties. Maybe because Iraq or Iran wanted to do things. In similar feel-good-about-Iraq-please ventures, Oliver North laments that all the good work the Army does doesn't make it to the news. Mr. North, all the good work that gets done in our own country doesn’t make the news, unless there’s a celebrity involved. Regarding Iraq, I suspect that the majority of people believe that the only good news coming from there is that we’re not going to stay there any longer.
Phyllis Chesler tacks on extra blame to Hollywood by accusing the film industry of always portraying Arabs, even terrorists, in a sympathetic light. Well, we’ve found that moviegoing audiences prefer villainy that isn’t evil for evil’s sake, but has justification behind it. We like realism, apparently, so there has to be some “positive” portrayal of the villain’s way of life, just before the satisfying crunch of the hero’s boot against their head, or the familiar seventh shot out of a six-shot weapon that finds its way to strike a killing blow.
Looping around to the media, after such a nice low-hanging fruit for segue, a triple-shot of buzz. The start point is MSNBC reporting that journalists at major and minor news outlets make donations to political causes. They’re citizens, after all. Corporate executives do so regularly, one should not worry too much about the subordinates doing so as well. So long as it doesn’t creep into their work, most people would say. (You may insert at this point, whichever discussion or statement you like about how journalists are not unbiased sources, but are trained to bring about the point and angle they wish to cove in a short amount of newspaper inches.) Some companies have official policy in place that prohibits staff from contributing to political organizations or engaging in political work. Anyway, the list has many journalists on it that have made contributions to one or another political organization. What people pounce on, though, and this was evident in how I was linked to it, is that 90% of the journalists on the list contribute to liberal causes. You can imagine the headlines that would appear, like MSNBC confirms liberal bias in mainstream media, and the like. Because everyone knows that journalists are supposed to be unbiased, and making a campaign contribution as a private citizen totally removes any ability to be unbiased about anything. It’s like how voting for or against a candidate in an election either qualifies you as a saint among men and a savior of the people or a rotten worthless bastard with no redeeming value at all. Right? Although, if we’re going to enforce the requirements of being unbiased on every profession where it’s useful or could be required... well, there’d be a lot of people unable to express their opinions off the job because it might ruin their unbiased-ness. The world would be a much duller place. It’d be fair and balanced, and staff turnover would be weekly, if not daily, because of opinions slipping out. So. What one does as a private citizen and what one does in the official capacity of the job are separate things. In a news organization, things like bias and opinion that cannot be backed up with fact and supporting document are supposed to be edited out before appearing in any official capacity. There’s already a mechanism for catching things in place. And even with those mechanisms in place, we still characterize news outlets as being conservative or liberal based on what they choose to air, whom they interview, and the like. Things that are perfectly within the acceptable bounds of news reporting, so long as nothing libelous is printed or nothing slanderous said (that can be proven to be so). I certainly agree that disclosure of the fact that your journalist made contributions is a good thing, and that if you care that much, you can look up the relevant reports. The conglomeration of work-self and private-self is not welcome, in my opinion, and I would rather they stay well away from each other. To close, there was fallout from the incident, as news organizations dropped columns, fired reporters, and enforced discipline on those violating their policy. Since it’s there, not much to rail about them enforcing it.
We’re almost across the minefield, but the last segment is a doozy. It comes from WorldNetDaily so utterly drenched and saturated with words that it’s almost impossible to tell what actually went on. Think something so very well slanted and bent that it views its own rectum in normal position. Ready? Here’s the headline - District gags 14-year-olds after 'gay' indoctrination. What’s actually happened? What it looks like is that the high school, in conjunction with the school Gay-Striaght Alliance, hosted a frank talk about homosexuality, with peers as the facilitators for the discussion. I have no idea what the agreement regarding the talk was, and can only speculate that it was probably something agreeing that knowing the identities of the facilitators was not going to be a prelude to launch crusades against them. It sounds like parents were not welcome at the talk for fear of being unable to speak freely about the subject between peers. Considering the writeup that you see, I’d say it’s quite a reasonable demand. Somehow, a meeting of a recognized organization that wants to talk is transformed into a secretive indoctrination session for the homosexual lifestyle, and that parents should be carefully checking their children to see if they caught any clarified yak butter from the encounter.
There is some good news passed my way, however none of it relates to any of the above. A procedure heading into animal experiments is testing to see whether the material that produces the HIV virus can be extracted out of cells and then destroyed, not only stopping spread, but leaving a healthy cell in its place. It’ll be three years of animal testing, plus some human testing, before we have in idea whether it will work or not. Still, it’s promising to see that methods are being tested that might work out. HIV might be beaten in my lifetime.
Unfortunately, that’s all I have for good news, other than to congratulate![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
droewyn on accomplishing the rarest of Nethack feats - an ascension. So it’s once again bed-time for me. At some point, I will probably have a happy links day. It’s probably not scheduled until we’re well past the holidays, so that people don’t use the whole “freedom, freedom!” thing to push their political agendas. Night, folks.
Not to be outdone, or to be done by the same (the latter being the current official theory), a gent almost drove his vehicle into a Glasgow airport, and then the driver attempted to set the vehicle alight and explode it. Fire extinguishers prevented the car’s explosion, and police prevented the driver’s escape. When did the United Kingdom present itself as a target. Is it because they’ve been chummy with the United States? Or does out media tend to focus on England because of the ties between the two nations? Either way, rather depressing.
Kevin McCullough takes the attempts as an excuse to trot out a popular conservative accusation, that terrorists are being aided by liberals and progressives who trust in the process of law, rather than spying on anyone who looks funny and then locking up anyone who does anything funny, because everyone is a potential terrorist. Isn’t it nice to know that people are out there, looking at you and trying to decide if you’re worth reporting to the authorities? (And perhaps more disturbingly, there’s a good chance the authorities will listen if you do get reported?) It’s all supposed to make you afraid and pliable. Austin Cline at Jesus' General points out how fear produces authoritarian legislation and police harassment with impunity. In a society that’s artificially kept aware of how much there might be a terrorist in their toilet, it’s very each for authority to overstep their bounds for reasons of “security”, and then continue to do so when they’ve managed to convince enough people to be afraid of the terror and thus willing to let the authorities run roughshod over them. This is old news to a lot of people, I realize. Even while wising up and becoming sane, the people are having a very difficult time of having their voice heard on how they’s like all that stuff that was taken from them back now, please. To which every time, the people in power shout “Fear! Uncertainty! Doubt! Terrorism in your toilet!” It being Canada Day on July 1, I also offer a sampling of a similarly-themed fear argument, only in smaller dollar amounts, for Canadians, from the Ruxted Group. The timing was too great to resist a “fund your military, regardless of what they ask for, because if you short them a dollar, terrorists will bomb the country into ashes!” attack. We are not amused.
Similarly depressing is the speculation engaged by Peter J. Wallison on what the Middle East would look like had America not invaded Iraq. It would look... a lot like it does now, although supposedly with Saddam and Iran trying to outduel each other in an arms race, Israel looking more and more like it should hide, and the West trying to figure out how to stop the Middle East from careening out of control. Which sounds like, well, we might be in the same situation we are in now a few years later from then. Or possibly worse. Who knows? Maybe Iraq would pull aggro long enough for a workable strategy to appear and be agreed to by all parties. Maybe because Iraq or Iran wanted to do things. In similar feel-good-about-Iraq-please ventures, Oliver North laments that all the good work the Army does doesn't make it to the news. Mr. North, all the good work that gets done in our own country doesn’t make the news, unless there’s a celebrity involved. Regarding Iraq, I suspect that the majority of people believe that the only good news coming from there is that we’re not going to stay there any longer.
Phyllis Chesler tacks on extra blame to Hollywood by accusing the film industry of always portraying Arabs, even terrorists, in a sympathetic light. Well, we’ve found that moviegoing audiences prefer villainy that isn’t evil for evil’s sake, but has justification behind it. We like realism, apparently, so there has to be some “positive” portrayal of the villain’s way of life, just before the satisfying crunch of the hero’s boot against their head, or the familiar seventh shot out of a six-shot weapon that finds its way to strike a killing blow.
Looping around to the media, after such a nice low-hanging fruit for segue, a triple-shot of buzz. The start point is MSNBC reporting that journalists at major and minor news outlets make donations to political causes. They’re citizens, after all. Corporate executives do so regularly, one should not worry too much about the subordinates doing so as well. So long as it doesn’t creep into their work, most people would say. (You may insert at this point, whichever discussion or statement you like about how journalists are not unbiased sources, but are trained to bring about the point and angle they wish to cove in a short amount of newspaper inches.) Some companies have official policy in place that prohibits staff from contributing to political organizations or engaging in political work. Anyway, the list has many journalists on it that have made contributions to one or another political organization. What people pounce on, though, and this was evident in how I was linked to it, is that 90% of the journalists on the list contribute to liberal causes. You can imagine the headlines that would appear, like MSNBC confirms liberal bias in mainstream media, and the like. Because everyone knows that journalists are supposed to be unbiased, and making a campaign contribution as a private citizen totally removes any ability to be unbiased about anything. It’s like how voting for or against a candidate in an election either qualifies you as a saint among men and a savior of the people or a rotten worthless bastard with no redeeming value at all. Right? Although, if we’re going to enforce the requirements of being unbiased on every profession where it’s useful or could be required... well, there’d be a lot of people unable to express their opinions off the job because it might ruin their unbiased-ness. The world would be a much duller place. It’d be fair and balanced, and staff turnover would be weekly, if not daily, because of opinions slipping out. So. What one does as a private citizen and what one does in the official capacity of the job are separate things. In a news organization, things like bias and opinion that cannot be backed up with fact and supporting document are supposed to be edited out before appearing in any official capacity. There’s already a mechanism for catching things in place. And even with those mechanisms in place, we still characterize news outlets as being conservative or liberal based on what they choose to air, whom they interview, and the like. Things that are perfectly within the acceptable bounds of news reporting, so long as nothing libelous is printed or nothing slanderous said (that can be proven to be so). I certainly agree that disclosure of the fact that your journalist made contributions is a good thing, and that if you care that much, you can look up the relevant reports. The conglomeration of work-self and private-self is not welcome, in my opinion, and I would rather they stay well away from each other. To close, there was fallout from the incident, as news organizations dropped columns, fired reporters, and enforced discipline on those violating their policy. Since it’s there, not much to rail about them enforcing it.
We’re almost across the minefield, but the last segment is a doozy. It comes from WorldNetDaily so utterly drenched and saturated with words that it’s almost impossible to tell what actually went on. Think something so very well slanted and bent that it views its own rectum in normal position. Ready? Here’s the headline - District gags 14-year-olds after 'gay' indoctrination. What’s actually happened? What it looks like is that the high school, in conjunction with the school Gay-Striaght Alliance, hosted a frank talk about homosexuality, with peers as the facilitators for the discussion. I have no idea what the agreement regarding the talk was, and can only speculate that it was probably something agreeing that knowing the identities of the facilitators was not going to be a prelude to launch crusades against them. It sounds like parents were not welcome at the talk for fear of being unable to speak freely about the subject between peers. Considering the writeup that you see, I’d say it’s quite a reasonable demand. Somehow, a meeting of a recognized organization that wants to talk is transformed into a secretive indoctrination session for the homosexual lifestyle, and that parents should be carefully checking their children to see if they caught any clarified yak butter from the encounter.
There is some good news passed my way, however none of it relates to any of the above. A procedure heading into animal experiments is testing to see whether the material that produces the HIV virus can be extracted out of cells and then destroyed, not only stopping spread, but leaving a healthy cell in its place. It’ll be three years of animal testing, plus some human testing, before we have in idea whether it will work or not. Still, it’s promising to see that methods are being tested that might work out. HIV might be beaten in my lifetime.
Unfortunately, that’s all I have for good news, other than to congratulate
droewyn on accomplishing the rarest of Nethack feats - an ascension. So it’s once again bed-time for me. At some point, I will probably have a happy links day. It’s probably not scheduled until we’re well past the holidays, so that people don’t use the whole “freedom, freedom!” thing to push their political agendas. Night, folks.
