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It’s tough working longer hours - but when you have to find another half-day in about three days potential, that’s what you end up doing. Tomorrow will be a long day, too. I’ll probably be weeding from sunup to sundown. (Or close to it.)
To wake everyone up and get them paying attention, Flying Cow destroys minivan after 200 foot cliff plummet. The drivers of the van missed dying. The van and the cow were both killed quickly after the incident.
Now that your attention has been gotten, let’s start with the obvious - Yet another study says that abstinence-only education does nothing to affect teenage sexual behavior, while actual education programs produce the effects abstinence claims, like waiting for sex, lower amounts of partners, and less sex in general. When you stop making sex into a forbidden fruit, then the teenagers make informed decisions about it.
A terror attack killed sixty in Afghanistan, yet the Taliban say “Uh, nope, not us”. With the Afghan ambassador to the United States saying bin Laded is in Pakistan, who’s going to step up to the plate and claim responsibility for this one?
Regarding the strike of the Hollywood writers, two perspectives trying to show how reasonable it is for those writers to be paid residuals on their materials - the fact that they aren't getting any now, with DVD sales skyrocketing, and the people who get really multimillion dollar salaries are reluctant to pay writers even modest residuals, in addition to the point that just about every show has writers, even if there don’t appear to be writers.
Let it be said that the military inconveniences both sexes equally - after basically banning abortions at military medical facilities, there's a push on now to stringently enforce the ban on sexually explicit materials. Yep, now people want all the porn gone. How will the soldiers entertain themselves (and prove their hetero-ness) if all the pinups are gone?
In other matters that involve military personnel, Bret Stephens in OpinionJournal provides insight into why there's an impasse on waterboarding - those who support it see it as a lesser of two evils, always to be chosen because the alternative is for thousands or more to die in terror attacks, and those who oppose it find it morally repugnant and unjustifiable under any circumstances. Practicality versus principle, and in this day and climate, those who adhere to principle are usually unmercifully sieged and blamed for all the wrongs that happen when principle causes harm. In many years, if their principle is accepted, they may be hailed as heroes, but such glory will likely be posthumous. Alan Dershowitz, in the same paper, says that the American people want someone who will sell out their principles when the chips are down, for those likely-improbably situations where torture might actually produce good data in time that couldn’t be obtained in any other way. He also believes in the pragmatic approach, admitting that it is difficult, but that the president should be willing to consider and act on the idea of torture if it is the best option available.
EDNA without transgender/gender identity provisions passes House of Reps.. For those keeping track, anyway - the Senate still has to pass it, and then the person who would probably pass such legislation over his well-cooled corpse gets his chance at it. I don’t think things are going to happen for another year, unless the Congresscritters manage to manufacture an override. I doubt they have the spine for it, but they’ll be claiming they supported it all the way when it comes to elections.
Deserving of similar heat is Duane "Dog" Chapman's tirade about how his son dating a woman of another race means he can't use nigger anymore. Pam’s House Blend does an excellent job vivisecting his protestations that he’s not a racist while defending his right to be one, and telling his son that he can’t work with his pop unless he dumps the girl he’s dating. Nope, not a racist at all - just will turn his son out because his girl’s got the wrong pigmentation. Dave, at Orcinus, notes that when you’re a white guy, other white guys say what’s really on their mind, if they think you’re with them. He then asks what do you do in such situations, if getting on your moral pedestal just does more harm than good? How do you get across the message to someone that they said something offensive in a way that actually sinks in?
The Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have an answer, after awarding a most original costume award to a white employee who went in blackface, dreadlocks, and a prison uniform. Since then, the offending employee has been put on administrative leave, but how much that is because of the reaction to the costume and how much is a manager deciding the costume was in poor taste by themselves, I don’t know.
DHS and Blackwater may be the vanguard of a coup, according to Naomi Wolf, considering the increased restriction and regulation on travel, and the notes that Blackwater is branching out significantly into other security contracts with the government. The piece stops short of saying that “Emergency conditions” might be declared right around the time of the next general election, but it does want to set up the prospect that the way things are being done right now seem to be predicated on the assumption that the next office-holder, whomever it may be, will not significantly reverse course on any of the decisions made so far. With plans having been drawn up for nuclear strikes against North Korea, and probably Iran, there’s always a wonder who the second president to authorize a large-scale nuclear strike will be. And where it will hit.
The mindset that likes authoritarianism, engages in arms races with criminal elements because they feel underpowered, comparatively, and feels that a taser is an effective method for subduing an eighty-two year-old woman (granted, wielding a hammer and possibly in a state of dementia), is probably eagerly awaiting the results of the primaries, just to see whether or not they have to worry about whether the next officeholder will continue the status quo.,
Of course, all the ire at politicians and enforcement personnel could be misdirected - supposedly after sixty years of silence, new documents finger large corporations and cartels as the driving force behind World War II. Bow before your corporate masters, who do their very best to avoid paying taxes on their products.
Sherman, set the Wayback machine! It’s time to explore the fashions at JCPenney in 1977. The colors, the fashions, the designs. All of it from a time when things were much less concerned about color coordination. These days, it’s all about brand name-dropping. Even Facebook is getting into the act, letting its users declare themselves fans of particular products.
Our cool stuff includes HD pictures of Luna, courtesy of a Japanese probe, the My Chopsticks bra, which contains a pair of collapsible chopsticks, conceived as a way of getting the Japanese populace to reuse their tools rather than throwing them away, and successful "printing" of functional tissue structures, which could eventually produce “printable” organs at some point in the future.
And a happy note - some televangelists are getting government inquiry into their finances. Since they’re registered as churches, they don’t file quite as many tax statements, and there have been complaints brought that the church status might be shielding improper use of the money.
And the Happiness Project note - sometimes it's a good idea to be selfish to make everyone happy - if asked for a preference, stating something you really like might be just the right thing to do. Or asking for help, which generally makes you happier.
As does appropriate amounts of sleep, which I will now be engaging in. G’night.
To wake everyone up and get them paying attention, Flying Cow destroys minivan after 200 foot cliff plummet. The drivers of the van missed dying. The van and the cow were both killed quickly after the incident.
Now that your attention has been gotten, let’s start with the obvious - Yet another study says that abstinence-only education does nothing to affect teenage sexual behavior, while actual education programs produce the effects abstinence claims, like waiting for sex, lower amounts of partners, and less sex in general. When you stop making sex into a forbidden fruit, then the teenagers make informed decisions about it.
A terror attack killed sixty in Afghanistan, yet the Taliban say “Uh, nope, not us”. With the Afghan ambassador to the United States saying bin Laded is in Pakistan, who’s going to step up to the plate and claim responsibility for this one?
Regarding the strike of the Hollywood writers, two perspectives trying to show how reasonable it is for those writers to be paid residuals on their materials - the fact that they aren't getting any now, with DVD sales skyrocketing, and the people who get really multimillion dollar salaries are reluctant to pay writers even modest residuals, in addition to the point that just about every show has writers, even if there don’t appear to be writers.
Let it be said that the military inconveniences both sexes equally - after basically banning abortions at military medical facilities, there's a push on now to stringently enforce the ban on sexually explicit materials. Yep, now people want all the porn gone. How will the soldiers entertain themselves (and prove their hetero-ness) if all the pinups are gone?
In other matters that involve military personnel, Bret Stephens in OpinionJournal provides insight into why there's an impasse on waterboarding - those who support it see it as a lesser of two evils, always to be chosen because the alternative is for thousands or more to die in terror attacks, and those who oppose it find it morally repugnant and unjustifiable under any circumstances. Practicality versus principle, and in this day and climate, those who adhere to principle are usually unmercifully sieged and blamed for all the wrongs that happen when principle causes harm. In many years, if their principle is accepted, they may be hailed as heroes, but such glory will likely be posthumous. Alan Dershowitz, in the same paper, says that the American people want someone who will sell out their principles when the chips are down, for those likely-improbably situations where torture might actually produce good data in time that couldn’t be obtained in any other way. He also believes in the pragmatic approach, admitting that it is difficult, but that the president should be willing to consider and act on the idea of torture if it is the best option available.
EDNA without transgender/gender identity provisions passes House of Reps.. For those keeping track, anyway - the Senate still has to pass it, and then the person who would probably pass such legislation over his well-cooled corpse gets his chance at it. I don’t think things are going to happen for another year, unless the Congresscritters manage to manufacture an override. I doubt they have the spine for it, but they’ll be claiming they supported it all the way when it comes to elections.
Deserving of similar heat is Duane "Dog" Chapman's tirade about how his son dating a woman of another race means he can't use nigger anymore. Pam’s House Blend does an excellent job vivisecting his protestations that he’s not a racist while defending his right to be one, and telling his son that he can’t work with his pop unless he dumps the girl he’s dating. Nope, not a racist at all - just will turn his son out because his girl’s got the wrong pigmentation. Dave, at Orcinus, notes that when you’re a white guy, other white guys say what’s really on their mind, if they think you’re with them. He then asks what do you do in such situations, if getting on your moral pedestal just does more harm than good? How do you get across the message to someone that they said something offensive in a way that actually sinks in?
The Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have an answer, after awarding a most original costume award to a white employee who went in blackface, dreadlocks, and a prison uniform. Since then, the offending employee has been put on administrative leave, but how much that is because of the reaction to the costume and how much is a manager deciding the costume was in poor taste by themselves, I don’t know.
DHS and Blackwater may be the vanguard of a coup, according to Naomi Wolf, considering the increased restriction and regulation on travel, and the notes that Blackwater is branching out significantly into other security contracts with the government. The piece stops short of saying that “Emergency conditions” might be declared right around the time of the next general election, but it does want to set up the prospect that the way things are being done right now seem to be predicated on the assumption that the next office-holder, whomever it may be, will not significantly reverse course on any of the decisions made so far. With plans having been drawn up for nuclear strikes against North Korea, and probably Iran, there’s always a wonder who the second president to authorize a large-scale nuclear strike will be. And where it will hit.
The mindset that likes authoritarianism, engages in arms races with criminal elements because they feel underpowered, comparatively, and feels that a taser is an effective method for subduing an eighty-two year-old woman (granted, wielding a hammer and possibly in a state of dementia), is probably eagerly awaiting the results of the primaries, just to see whether or not they have to worry about whether the next officeholder will continue the status quo.,
Of course, all the ire at politicians and enforcement personnel could be misdirected - supposedly after sixty years of silence, new documents finger large corporations and cartels as the driving force behind World War II. Bow before your corporate masters, who do their very best to avoid paying taxes on their products.
Sherman, set the Wayback machine! It’s time to explore the fashions at JCPenney in 1977. The colors, the fashions, the designs. All of it from a time when things were much less concerned about color coordination. These days, it’s all about brand name-dropping. Even Facebook is getting into the act, letting its users declare themselves fans of particular products.
Our cool stuff includes HD pictures of Luna, courtesy of a Japanese probe, the My Chopsticks bra, which contains a pair of collapsible chopsticks, conceived as a way of getting the Japanese populace to reuse their tools rather than throwing them away, and successful "printing" of functional tissue structures, which could eventually produce “printable” organs at some point in the future.
And a happy note - some televangelists are getting government inquiry into their finances. Since they’re registered as churches, they don’t file quite as many tax statements, and there have been complaints brought that the church status might be shielding improper use of the money.
And the Happiness Project note - sometimes it's a good idea to be selfish to make everyone happy - if asked for a preference, stating something you really like might be just the right thing to do. Or asking for help, which generally makes you happier.
As does appropriate amounts of sleep, which I will now be engaging in. G’night.
