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Well, even though I’m nowhere near it, I hope that U*CON goes off without a hitch this year. First one in six that I’ll be missing, but that whole job on the other coast thing severely limits the options. I kept trying to make today Wednesday, which is wasn’t, and hoping it was Friday, maybe, which is isn’t.
But anyway, onward to more important things.
Recall on toys because if ingested, they metabolise into GHB. The famed “date-rape” drug GHB. Bad for adults, and here it is in the children. Good, I suppose, that it was found and recalled, very, very bad that this was the method of finding it. Other medical science news includes creating a "fearless" mouse by stopping it from behaving instinctively when it smelled predators, like cats. Yeah, if my fear response were suppressed, I’d probably be more buddy-buddy with my worst enemies, too.
Dispatches from Iraq’s PR department - drop in Baghdad violence is sustainable, even as forces will leave the area. And they’ll also point to the fact that more people are coming back to Iraq all the time as positive change as well. Even though what’s probably causing it is the tightening of borders in the neighboring country and the expiration of temporary refugee statuses in those countries.
Some soldiers are itching to get back into the war zone after losing limbs. With new advancements in prosthetics and rehabilitation, it’s quite possible that someone who lost one limb will go back on active duty and could lose more. Some people want to do this, and I’m glad that medical technology helps them out, but I’m having trouble understanding why you would want to go back to the place that took one of your limbs.
Oh, and an Iraqi Chaldean was elected to the College of Cardinals.
Nine Iranians will be released, as eleven others are held on insurgency charges. At the same time, Iran claims to have achieved another nuclear processing milestone. Which, if you believe the reports coming from the International Energy Agency about the end of petroleum power arriving quickly, may end up being beneficial to Iran, assuming the intent of Iran really is peacful and civilian uses of the energy.
Rounding out the foreign affairs bureau, police have been called out to stop mass protests in the country of Georgia after the President instituted emergency measures. Georgia expelled Russian diplomats and accused Moscow of fomenting the protests that led to the declaration of emergency. It’s a hot week for emergency powers. Anyone here going to try that shtick soon?
Now in domestic affairs, another death knell for Mayor 9/11 - he picked up Pat Robertson's endorsement. Although they’ll both be trying to spin that in a positive way, I do believe that Mayor 9/11 picked up another albatross. Of course, my bias might be showing a bit. What it does potentially show, though, is that the religious and social conservatives are splitting themselves among several candidates. Although only for the primaries, as best I can tell - once the general election gets underway, they’ll probably be back in lockstep with the Republican candidate.
Telecom spying whistleblower says that the retroactive immunity provision is a cover-up operation. Something many of us know or have theorized, so it’s nice to know we’re on the same wavelength.
Quiche competition time! On the light and fluffy exterior, an Air Force general says not only do extremists want to take over the world, they have a one hundred year plan to do it with. Here. I’ll make the general a deal. If he can produce a hard copy, or even a strongly credible argument for why it would be 100 years, or that even such a worldwide conspiracy exists in any form more than loosely associated terror cells, I’ll give him a sneak peek at the Liberal Agenda and let him see what’s in store for the next year, or something. Assuming that my copy of the Agenda ever arrives. Until then, I’ll have to content myself with the rising ocean levels tea-cup, it changes with hot water.
Potentially demonstrating stupidity and inability to see shades of grey, MySpace may be blocking profiles that have futhork on them, because certain less-than-desirable hate groups also like to use them on their pages/Internet venues. Which pisses off all the rune-using Pagans, of course. No confirmation on that, though.
If one were going straight for hubris, however, then tonight’s award would certainly have to be given to the chupacabra - Ann Coulter promotes a book that paints Joseph McCarthy as a dedicated patriot who knew about Soviet spies infiltrating the government and acted upon that knowledge, rather than the overzealous witch-hunter his current historical profile places him as. This requires the Democratic party to have been complicit, or at least too stupid to notice, in allowing Soviet spies to infiltrate the government and people’s lives. Which is no stretch of the imagination for Coulter, given her opinion of the current crop of persons to carry that label. And if she’s willing to project those images into the past, then it becomes very easy to see Democrats and liberals of past lives letting traitors in and turning a blind eye to their obvious leanings. Not to invoke the wrath of Godwin, but I will kindly remind her that the philosophies of the Third Reich had quite the following before the Second World War, and that they still have some adherents yet today in a world significantly more liberal than before. The United States did not become a Marxist/Leninist state, and the Stalinist state has since collapsed.
Tonight’s Seriously Awesome Thing is two Tesla coils tuned to play the overworld theme from Super Mario Brothers.
After that kind of awesome, I’m going to bed.
But anyway, onward to more important things.
Recall on toys because if ingested, they metabolise into GHB. The famed “date-rape” drug GHB. Bad for adults, and here it is in the children. Good, I suppose, that it was found and recalled, very, very bad that this was the method of finding it. Other medical science news includes creating a "fearless" mouse by stopping it from behaving instinctively when it smelled predators, like cats. Yeah, if my fear response were suppressed, I’d probably be more buddy-buddy with my worst enemies, too.
Dispatches from Iraq’s PR department - drop in Baghdad violence is sustainable, even as forces will leave the area. And they’ll also point to the fact that more people are coming back to Iraq all the time as positive change as well. Even though what’s probably causing it is the tightening of borders in the neighboring country and the expiration of temporary refugee statuses in those countries.
Some soldiers are itching to get back into the war zone after losing limbs. With new advancements in prosthetics and rehabilitation, it’s quite possible that someone who lost one limb will go back on active duty and could lose more. Some people want to do this, and I’m glad that medical technology helps them out, but I’m having trouble understanding why you would want to go back to the place that took one of your limbs.
Oh, and an Iraqi Chaldean was elected to the College of Cardinals.
Nine Iranians will be released, as eleven others are held on insurgency charges. At the same time, Iran claims to have achieved another nuclear processing milestone. Which, if you believe the reports coming from the International Energy Agency about the end of petroleum power arriving quickly, may end up being beneficial to Iran, assuming the intent of Iran really is peacful and civilian uses of the energy.
Rounding out the foreign affairs bureau, police have been called out to stop mass protests in the country of Georgia after the President instituted emergency measures. Georgia expelled Russian diplomats and accused Moscow of fomenting the protests that led to the declaration of emergency. It’s a hot week for emergency powers. Anyone here going to try that shtick soon?
Now in domestic affairs, another death knell for Mayor 9/11 - he picked up Pat Robertson's endorsement. Although they’ll both be trying to spin that in a positive way, I do believe that Mayor 9/11 picked up another albatross. Of course, my bias might be showing a bit. What it does potentially show, though, is that the religious and social conservatives are splitting themselves among several candidates. Although only for the primaries, as best I can tell - once the general election gets underway, they’ll probably be back in lockstep with the Republican candidate.
Telecom spying whistleblower says that the retroactive immunity provision is a cover-up operation. Something many of us know or have theorized, so it’s nice to know we’re on the same wavelength.
Quiche competition time! On the light and fluffy exterior, an Air Force general says not only do extremists want to take over the world, they have a one hundred year plan to do it with. Here. I’ll make the general a deal. If he can produce a hard copy, or even a strongly credible argument for why it would be 100 years, or that even such a worldwide conspiracy exists in any form more than loosely associated terror cells, I’ll give him a sneak peek at the Liberal Agenda and let him see what’s in store for the next year, or something. Assuming that my copy of the Agenda ever arrives. Until then, I’ll have to content myself with the rising ocean levels tea-cup, it changes with hot water.
Potentially demonstrating stupidity and inability to see shades of grey, MySpace may be blocking profiles that have futhork on them, because certain less-than-desirable hate groups also like to use them on their pages/Internet venues. Which pisses off all the rune-using Pagans, of course. No confirmation on that, though.
If one were going straight for hubris, however, then tonight’s award would certainly have to be given to the chupacabra - Ann Coulter promotes a book that paints Joseph McCarthy as a dedicated patriot who knew about Soviet spies infiltrating the government and acted upon that knowledge, rather than the overzealous witch-hunter his current historical profile places him as. This requires the Democratic party to have been complicit, or at least too stupid to notice, in allowing Soviet spies to infiltrate the government and people’s lives. Which is no stretch of the imagination for Coulter, given her opinion of the current crop of persons to carry that label. And if she’s willing to project those images into the past, then it becomes very easy to see Democrats and liberals of past lives letting traitors in and turning a blind eye to their obvious leanings. Not to invoke the wrath of Godwin, but I will kindly remind her that the philosophies of the Third Reich had quite the following before the Second World War, and that they still have some adherents yet today in a world significantly more liberal than before. The United States did not become a Marxist/Leninist state, and the Stalinist state has since collapsed.
Tonight’s Seriously Awesome Thing is two Tesla coils tuned to play the overworld theme from Super Mario Brothers.
After that kind of awesome, I’m going to bed.
