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Got the things I wanted to get done, done. Still need to do some planning out for other things, but I feel a little more on top of things than I did yesterday. And I get a weekend to relax, now. Although my finances are in sorry shape right now. I managed to get through this month without dying or overdrawing. That’s good. After all the expenses are paid on time, I’m not going to have a whole lot to work with. That’s bad. The good part is that I get paid soon, so this scenario should be short-lived, and then I can breathe again. And I need to think of some ideas on things I can make that I can bring to potlucks, that count for main dishes, and that need, at most, time in the oven to reheat to appropriateness (or time to cook, whichever). So, the start of December is hectic, and I suspect things are only going to get worse before they get better, both at work and in life.
There is, as expected, clarification on just what the little flag available means now - LJ promises us that a single flagging or two doesn’t trigger a review. And that only the most frequently and consistently flagged stuff makes it. Each user also gets only five flags per 24 hours, and you have to be here a month to use it. Oh, and if you don’t want your content locked out, you’ll have to provide a birthdate to verify your age. It’s not necessarily going to be made public, but you have to give them one. I wonder what our under-18 LJ users are experiencing when they give a correct birthdate - do they have “Explicit Adult Content” silently filtered away from them? And, apparently, anything that could be adult stuff gets auto-LJ cut saying that the stuff therein could be inappropriate for minors. Oh, to make that stuff go away, you have to be logged in, too. And there’s still no word as to just what constitutes reviewable material, or anything about processes, or appeals, or anything like that. I wish that the archiving client I like would hurry up and get Linux compatibility. I can’t even run it in Wine, as best I can tell.
A Canadian maid cafe has closed down on not being able to pay the rent. Which shows that not everything can be successfully imported. Or that Canada doesn’t have enough otaku in the area to make it work. MIT professors have written and are directing an anime-themed play. Is this a jumping-the-shark moment?
Evel Knievel defies oddsmakers, dies of natural causes at 69. Mind you, that’s still a short lifetime by modern standards, but with as much as Evel did with his lifetime, that natural causes, and not one of his stunts, claimed him, probably made a lot of Vegas bets go sour.
Tonight’s entry material contains ideas, concepts, and conversation related to material that is entirely appropriate for minors, even if others believe this to be untrue, or that some concepts are beyond the ken of minors. There will be discussion on *beeeeeeeeeep* giant robots, *hooooooooonk* time travelers, and *doooooooooooooot* the state of Delaware.
Like politics. As requested by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Discordia, kindly read A Field Guide to Critical Thinking before proceeding.
A tape reported to be Osama bin Laden exhorted Europeans to stop assisting the United States in Afghanistan, considering the United States incursion to be illegal, because, apparently, the Afghan people and government knew nothing about the 11 September attacks. Excepting, as I recall, the United States supposedly went into Afghanistan to retrieve his particularly wanted ass, on intelligence that said he was hiding in the caves.
President Musarraf, now civilian, pledges to end his emergency rule a month before the general elections in Pakistan. 16 December is the target date for the lift.
Domestically, Mr. Bush and the Congress might actually be at loggerheads over Iraq war funding. We’ll see whether the Democrats actually continue to apply pressure to get Mr. Bush to draw troops down, or when push comes to shove, they fold again.
Regarding the CNN/Youtube debate, commentators on both sides of the political aisle are firing broadsides into the selection of questions and questioners. Think Progress blasts dumbed-down questions and undisclosed supporters, and Michelle Malkin finds liberal "plants" among the questioners. I think this is one of those rare cases where none of the people are fooled at this particular time. Even CNN admits they screwed up with regard to the questioners.
The Reality-Based Community adds on more regarding Joe Klein, calling for his immediate dismissal if he misrepresented his source as an intelligence professional, rather than a Republican Congressman. In addition to all the other untruths Klein spread, misrepresenting his source would follow the thread.
A poster at Democracy Underground wonders whether the citizens of the United States actually have any power along with their "freedoms". If this is the case, one would note that martial law or other overt takeover measure would probably not be necessary, so long as no actual decision-making ability or power were returned to the people. The question as to whether we are in such a state, and whether anything can be done if we are in that state, is an exercise left to the reader, really.
There was a bomb threat and hostage situation at one of Senator Clinton's presidential campaign offices today. As it turns out, the bomb was not an actual bomb, and the hostage-taker surrendered to authorities. Sounds like a 15 minutes of fame thing to me at first pass. We’ll have to see whether there are others who decide to engage in politics this way, and whether they bring real bombs in with them.
An Arksansas state legislator wrote an e-mail saying that "we are being outpopulated by the blacks" and "we are being overrun" by illegal immigrants. He has since apologized for the e-mail, but claims that it is not racist in nature. The GOP chair for Arkansas, of course, does his duty and chastises the out-of-line state senator. Yet, if you put it to a vote among Republicans, I suspect you’ll find quite a few people who agree with the sentiment there, if not the exact wording.
It’s a banner day for women’s issues here. First, a little light humor and a call to artists. If you want to make an alternative to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Barbie, then you have an outlet. And I’m sure someone has already crafted the idea of the “Debbie Does Dallas” Cheerleader Barbie. Have no idea whether they’ll actually draw it, but it probably has sprung to mind to a couple different people.
On more serious issues, Copyranter offers an opinion about the new Amensty International posters regarding female genital mutilation. For gents, the appropriate equivalent of FGM would be something like a forced castration (or something very close to it). That’s the functional equivalent. Not pleasant, is it?
Mr. Peabody has ordered the Wayback Machine to retrieve advertisements of a previous era. What came back was some pretty un-PC material by modern standards. Although it did retrieve an advertisement advocating for the sadomasochistic lifestyle in the slew of woman-demeaning material. Just goes to show that even if they would never admit to it, there were plenty of kinky people back then. The Wayback Machine also somehow managed to retrieve comments from that era and posted them along with the advertisements.
To round out our coverage of women’s issues, here’s a delightful thought - the Republican candidates for President are all in favor of do-it-yourself abortions, because they’ll make it illegal for any medical provider to assist in any way on an abortion, but if a woman wants to take her own life into her hands, that’s fine with them. The woman who has an abortion, is a victim, someone not in her sane or rational mind, and is to be pitied, rather than criminalized. A doctor who helps a woman have an abortion in a safe manner is a rational actor and is assisting in the murder of an unborn child. If you believe the claptrap about how contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives, are “aboritfacents”, well, then , that just has to go out the window, too. Punish the doctors for writing prescriptions for birth control as murderers, too! Just not the women who go in - they still have to do their duties as baby factories, and once they are forced to have children, they’ll love them unconditionally and wonder why on earth they ever thought about aborting their child. And then, perhaps, when they remember that they weren’t making enough to feed themselves, they’ll do what sane, rational actors do - give the kid up for adoption or otherwise get rid of the little bundle of joy. And then they’ll see firsthand the dark secret of the anti-choice movement - there’s no “pro-life” in it at all, because there won’t be lines of good pro-lifers lining up to adopt her child.
Homosexuals aren’t getting much for headway, either. While there's effort underway to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" law that prevents openly homosexual persons from serving in the United States military and dismisses any persons who become openly homosexual, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any movement on the matter. The reason given is that somehow, not knowing improves unit cohesion and morale. I’m sure I’ve asked this before, and gotten responses to it, but how does knowing the orientation of someone defeat unit morale? Are persons in the military so very insecure in themselves that they feel threatened with the presence of a homosexual? If they’re worried that they’re going to get hit on, and that their male ego can’t handle that, I’m pretty sure that a service person would be more concerned about the mission at hand than the cute man in the mess. Plus, knowing through experience that being out exposes oneself to violence and ridicule, I’m fairly certain that if they wondered about someone’s orientation, they would be incredibly discreet about it. Besides, if the King of Thailand can wear pink, even the most manly of men should be able to be okay with having homosexuals in the unit.
I was blissfully unaware of this, but, when the Slacktivist brings something to your attention, even only peripherally, sometimes it’s worth checking out. Thus, I wandered my way over to see Wife-beating apologist James Dobson pontificate about the difference between "courtship" and "dating". Apparently dating encourages short relationships that are sexual, while courtship represses sexuality entirely in favor of figuring out whether the person you’re interested in is a good marriage and soul match before even considering the idea of their sexual compatibility. Also, as was pointed out, the Knight of the Cart may not be the best example to be throwing about when trying to make a point about the need to stay pure, chaste, and devoted to one’s courtly lady. Still, some of the advice, like abotu being polite, making friends with those you meet, and being able to listen, are good. It’s just the part where it’s all very much “No biological impulses, period”, where things get hairy. (And they couldn’t help but stick in a plug that says courtship people have to make sure that marriage is restricted only to heterosexual couples.) For further examples where things are just downright creepy, observe Bill Gothard's courtship principles.
Thus having spoke at length about sex, now let’s add some beer to the mix. Police in Dublin are attempting to find a thief who made off with 450 full kegs of Guinness. Must be one hell of a bender that needs that much booze.
Last, a little more about religious beliefs - Ratzinger says that atheists have led to some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice". Pot, meet Kettle. His justification for such a statement is the implication that a world that has no God can only have man-created justice and salvation, and such justice must necessarily fall short or fail. People creating their own justice leads to Marx and the French Revolution, and all the effects that were had from there. All that direct killing by dictators, rather than the more indirect methods of killing employed by religious leaders today.
And now, for the topping of our sundae of issues, Canadians may be suffering additional levies as lobby groups aim to recoup monies they think are being lost to file-sharing, mp3 players, and the like. The rationale behind the increased levies boil down to “because you can do illegal things, you will do illegal things, and so we’ll get our money out of you when you buy the tools with which you will do illegal things.” I’m sure the retort “Well, if you would make better material, you might see better sales” still applies. Plus, I kind of agree with BNL and others who say that file-sharing eventually leads to increased purchases. If you know a band kicks ass, because you’ve listened to some of their tracks, or seen their art, or read their books, you’re much more likely to buy the material for yourself, so that you can turn other people on to the good stuff. Or you can show off when Tom Tomorrow makes fun of Bill'O. Just saying.
My professional self notes there are several things that have gone pear-shaped with the following article, if it went according to description. A librarian at Yale has been accused of racial profiling when he believed a drug transaction had taken place outside the library. He saw money and a car key change hands between a white and black person, and reported it to a supervisor. What I want to know is why the library manager thought it was a drug trade, one, and two, why he thought it was in his jurisdiction to report. Then, after there was no indication of drug anything, the library didn’t do a whole lot, it sounds like, to point out that they had investigated, nothing was found, the person responsible has been given a warning/slap/reprimand, and that in no way does the library think this is anything but an isolated incident. So now that the local union has brought a complaint, the damage is already done, and things just get crazier.
Thanks to an unofficial experiment, it appears that if one does not have a true time capsule for storing things, chicken gizzards will do in a pinch, for selected items. In the realms of more conventional sciences, a UCLA mathematician is trying to make it possible for surgeons to practice virtually before actually opening patients up. Such virtual modeling could pave the way for other applications, including bridge-building. Finally, according to a McKinsey & Company study released today, the United States could cut 28% of its greenhouse emissions with minimal technology investments and upgrades. There’s money savings involved as well, in addition to the greenhouse gas reductions, if the corporations involved are willing to make an outlay for greener goods, so that consumers can also get greener goods and reduce their own costs, too.
Ending tonight, 1.5 million volumes are now available digitally at the Universal Library. See if something you want to read is available. (Although I think they’re all TIFFs, so you’ll need appropriate materials to view them with.)
And that’s time, with plenty of stuff written to inform, to entertain, to amuse, and while you’re busy with that, to get you to think some. Of course, my reading audience can think for themselves, it’s why they choose such a respected name and institution as Silver News Service. Hey, at least we admit we’re not fair nor unbiased. It’s newsdumps with commentary and random rants at its finest... maybe.
There is, as expected, clarification on just what the little flag available means now - LJ promises us that a single flagging or two doesn’t trigger a review. And that only the most frequently and consistently flagged stuff makes it. Each user also gets only five flags per 24 hours, and you have to be here a month to use it. Oh, and if you don’t want your content locked out, you’ll have to provide a birthdate to verify your age. It’s not necessarily going to be made public, but you have to give them one. I wonder what our under-18 LJ users are experiencing when they give a correct birthdate - do they have “Explicit Adult Content” silently filtered away from them? And, apparently, anything that could be adult stuff gets auto-LJ cut saying that the stuff therein could be inappropriate for minors. Oh, to make that stuff go away, you have to be logged in, too. And there’s still no word as to just what constitutes reviewable material, or anything about processes, or appeals, or anything like that. I wish that the archiving client I like would hurry up and get Linux compatibility. I can’t even run it in Wine, as best I can tell.
A Canadian maid cafe has closed down on not being able to pay the rent. Which shows that not everything can be successfully imported. Or that Canada doesn’t have enough otaku in the area to make it work. MIT professors have written and are directing an anime-themed play. Is this a jumping-the-shark moment?
Evel Knievel defies oddsmakers, dies of natural causes at 69. Mind you, that’s still a short lifetime by modern standards, but with as much as Evel did with his lifetime, that natural causes, and not one of his stunts, claimed him, probably made a lot of Vegas bets go sour.
Tonight’s entry material contains ideas, concepts, and conversation related to material that is entirely appropriate for minors, even if others believe this to be untrue, or that some concepts are beyond the ken of minors. There will be discussion on *beeeeeeeeeep* giant robots, *hooooooooonk* time travelers, and *doooooooooooooot* the state of Delaware.
Like politics. As requested by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Discordia, kindly read A Field Guide to Critical Thinking before proceeding.
A tape reported to be Osama bin Laden exhorted Europeans to stop assisting the United States in Afghanistan, considering the United States incursion to be illegal, because, apparently, the Afghan people and government knew nothing about the 11 September attacks. Excepting, as I recall, the United States supposedly went into Afghanistan to retrieve his particularly wanted ass, on intelligence that said he was hiding in the caves.
President Musarraf, now civilian, pledges to end his emergency rule a month before the general elections in Pakistan. 16 December is the target date for the lift.
Domestically, Mr. Bush and the Congress might actually be at loggerheads over Iraq war funding. We’ll see whether the Democrats actually continue to apply pressure to get Mr. Bush to draw troops down, or when push comes to shove, they fold again.
Regarding the CNN/Youtube debate, commentators on both sides of the political aisle are firing broadsides into the selection of questions and questioners. Think Progress blasts dumbed-down questions and undisclosed supporters, and Michelle Malkin finds liberal "plants" among the questioners. I think this is one of those rare cases where none of the people are fooled at this particular time. Even CNN admits they screwed up with regard to the questioners.
The Reality-Based Community adds on more regarding Joe Klein, calling for his immediate dismissal if he misrepresented his source as an intelligence professional, rather than a Republican Congressman. In addition to all the other untruths Klein spread, misrepresenting his source would follow the thread.
A poster at Democracy Underground wonders whether the citizens of the United States actually have any power along with their "freedoms". If this is the case, one would note that martial law or other overt takeover measure would probably not be necessary, so long as no actual decision-making ability or power were returned to the people. The question as to whether we are in such a state, and whether anything can be done if we are in that state, is an exercise left to the reader, really.
There was a bomb threat and hostage situation at one of Senator Clinton's presidential campaign offices today. As it turns out, the bomb was not an actual bomb, and the hostage-taker surrendered to authorities. Sounds like a 15 minutes of fame thing to me at first pass. We’ll have to see whether there are others who decide to engage in politics this way, and whether they bring real bombs in with them.
An Arksansas state legislator wrote an e-mail saying that "we are being outpopulated by the blacks" and "we are being overrun" by illegal immigrants. He has since apologized for the e-mail, but claims that it is not racist in nature. The GOP chair for Arkansas, of course, does his duty and chastises the out-of-line state senator. Yet, if you put it to a vote among Republicans, I suspect you’ll find quite a few people who agree with the sentiment there, if not the exact wording.
It’s a banner day for women’s issues here. First, a little light humor and a call to artists. If you want to make an alternative to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Barbie, then you have an outlet. And I’m sure someone has already crafted the idea of the “Debbie Does Dallas” Cheerleader Barbie. Have no idea whether they’ll actually draw it, but it probably has sprung to mind to a couple different people.
On more serious issues, Copyranter offers an opinion about the new Amensty International posters regarding female genital mutilation. For gents, the appropriate equivalent of FGM would be something like a forced castration (or something very close to it). That’s the functional equivalent. Not pleasant, is it?
Mr. Peabody has ordered the Wayback Machine to retrieve advertisements of a previous era. What came back was some pretty un-PC material by modern standards. Although it did retrieve an advertisement advocating for the sadomasochistic lifestyle in the slew of woman-demeaning material. Just goes to show that even if they would never admit to it, there were plenty of kinky people back then. The Wayback Machine also somehow managed to retrieve comments from that era and posted them along with the advertisements.
To round out our coverage of women’s issues, here’s a delightful thought - the Republican candidates for President are all in favor of do-it-yourself abortions, because they’ll make it illegal for any medical provider to assist in any way on an abortion, but if a woman wants to take her own life into her hands, that’s fine with them. The woman who has an abortion, is a victim, someone not in her sane or rational mind, and is to be pitied, rather than criminalized. A doctor who helps a woman have an abortion in a safe manner is a rational actor and is assisting in the murder of an unborn child. If you believe the claptrap about how contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives, are “aboritfacents”, well, then , that just has to go out the window, too. Punish the doctors for writing prescriptions for birth control as murderers, too! Just not the women who go in - they still have to do their duties as baby factories, and once they are forced to have children, they’ll love them unconditionally and wonder why on earth they ever thought about aborting their child. And then, perhaps, when they remember that they weren’t making enough to feed themselves, they’ll do what sane, rational actors do - give the kid up for adoption or otherwise get rid of the little bundle of joy. And then they’ll see firsthand the dark secret of the anti-choice movement - there’s no “pro-life” in it at all, because there won’t be lines of good pro-lifers lining up to adopt her child.
Homosexuals aren’t getting much for headway, either. While there's effort underway to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" law that prevents openly homosexual persons from serving in the United States military and dismisses any persons who become openly homosexual, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any movement on the matter. The reason given is that somehow, not knowing improves unit cohesion and morale. I’m sure I’ve asked this before, and gotten responses to it, but how does knowing the orientation of someone defeat unit morale? Are persons in the military so very insecure in themselves that they feel threatened with the presence of a homosexual? If they’re worried that they’re going to get hit on, and that their male ego can’t handle that, I’m pretty sure that a service person would be more concerned about the mission at hand than the cute man in the mess. Plus, knowing through experience that being out exposes oneself to violence and ridicule, I’m fairly certain that if they wondered about someone’s orientation, they would be incredibly discreet about it. Besides, if the King of Thailand can wear pink, even the most manly of men should be able to be okay with having homosexuals in the unit.
I was blissfully unaware of this, but, when the Slacktivist brings something to your attention, even only peripherally, sometimes it’s worth checking out. Thus, I wandered my way over to see Wife-beating apologist James Dobson pontificate about the difference between "courtship" and "dating". Apparently dating encourages short relationships that are sexual, while courtship represses sexuality entirely in favor of figuring out whether the person you’re interested in is a good marriage and soul match before even considering the idea of their sexual compatibility. Also, as was pointed out, the Knight of the Cart may not be the best example to be throwing about when trying to make a point about the need to stay pure, chaste, and devoted to one’s courtly lady. Still, some of the advice, like abotu being polite, making friends with those you meet, and being able to listen, are good. It’s just the part where it’s all very much “No biological impulses, period”, where things get hairy. (And they couldn’t help but stick in a plug that says courtship people have to make sure that marriage is restricted only to heterosexual couples.) For further examples where things are just downright creepy, observe Bill Gothard's courtship principles.
Thus having spoke at length about sex, now let’s add some beer to the mix. Police in Dublin are attempting to find a thief who made off with 450 full kegs of Guinness. Must be one hell of a bender that needs that much booze.
Last, a little more about religious beliefs - Ratzinger says that atheists have led to some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice". Pot, meet Kettle. His justification for such a statement is the implication that a world that has no God can only have man-created justice and salvation, and such justice must necessarily fall short or fail. People creating their own justice leads to Marx and the French Revolution, and all the effects that were had from there. All that direct killing by dictators, rather than the more indirect methods of killing employed by religious leaders today.
And now, for the topping of our sundae of issues, Canadians may be suffering additional levies as lobby groups aim to recoup monies they think are being lost to file-sharing, mp3 players, and the like. The rationale behind the increased levies boil down to “because you can do illegal things, you will do illegal things, and so we’ll get our money out of you when you buy the tools with which you will do illegal things.” I’m sure the retort “Well, if you would make better material, you might see better sales” still applies. Plus, I kind of agree with BNL and others who say that file-sharing eventually leads to increased purchases. If you know a band kicks ass, because you’ve listened to some of their tracks, or seen their art, or read their books, you’re much more likely to buy the material for yourself, so that you can turn other people on to the good stuff. Or you can show off when Tom Tomorrow makes fun of Bill'O. Just saying.
My professional self notes there are several things that have gone pear-shaped with the following article, if it went according to description. A librarian at Yale has been accused of racial profiling when he believed a drug transaction had taken place outside the library. He saw money and a car key change hands between a white and black person, and reported it to a supervisor. What I want to know is why the library manager thought it was a drug trade, one, and two, why he thought it was in his jurisdiction to report. Then, after there was no indication of drug anything, the library didn’t do a whole lot, it sounds like, to point out that they had investigated, nothing was found, the person responsible has been given a warning/slap/reprimand, and that in no way does the library think this is anything but an isolated incident. So now that the local union has brought a complaint, the damage is already done, and things just get crazier.
Thanks to an unofficial experiment, it appears that if one does not have a true time capsule for storing things, chicken gizzards will do in a pinch, for selected items. In the realms of more conventional sciences, a UCLA mathematician is trying to make it possible for surgeons to practice virtually before actually opening patients up. Such virtual modeling could pave the way for other applications, including bridge-building. Finally, according to a McKinsey & Company study released today, the United States could cut 28% of its greenhouse emissions with minimal technology investments and upgrades. There’s money savings involved as well, in addition to the greenhouse gas reductions, if the corporations involved are willing to make an outlay for greener goods, so that consumers can also get greener goods and reduce their own costs, too.
Ending tonight, 1.5 million volumes are now available digitally at the Universal Library. See if something you want to read is available. (Although I think they’re all TIFFs, so you’ll need appropriate materials to view them with.)
And that’s time, with plenty of stuff written to inform, to entertain, to amuse, and while you’re busy with that, to get you to think some. Of course, my reading audience can think for themselves, it’s why they choose such a respected name and institution as Silver News Service. Hey, at least we admit we’re not fair nor unbiased. It’s newsdumps with commentary and random rants at its finest... maybe.
