Long and tiring day - 06 December 2007.

As our customary note before we begin, this episode of Silver News Service contains any of the following: *beeeep* independent-rendering physics, manuals on forbidden *bzzzzzzzzzzt*, and *hooooooooooooooooooooooooonk* the state of Michigan. Thank you for reading Silver News Service: random news and opinions at its finest... maybe.

If there’s a word for the state of mind of not being actively unhappy, but not being in the serene or happy state of mind, that’s where I am right now. I’m not unhappy, but I’m not happy-happy. I think it was just the way that the day worked on me. Did some more weeding, finishing the homework from the selectors’ raid, and managed to fill a few more crates worth of material. That said, I’m probably a little ahead on what the weeding schedule will be, even though I’ll have to do more weeding yet. There was a high point in the day where I got to sit in front of a class of sixth graders and let them interview me, and get to talk about all the cool stuff that the library does in addition to having some books. It was cool. The weeding part, probably not. I guess I don’t have as much taste for somethign that can feel like drudgery, despite its necessity. Might also be that as the day wore on and I kept filling crate after crate, I was thinking, rather poorly, “Augh, who let this library get like this!” and that probably contributed some to the bad feelings. Not smart. I’ve also decided that I don’t take even the most well-meaning of criticisms well right when they happen. After a little reflection, sometimes I can do better, especially if I realize “Hey, things are in flux and being restructured in some sort of way, so new stuff’s going to appear. Plus, the language has great capacity for misunderstanding. Make sure people mean what you think they mean.” No use getting all bent out of shape when there’s no intent behind what you thought there was. *sigh* Just need to get to the enlightened state a bit quicker off the draw. Or take some of The Happiness Project's tips for keeping out of holiday blues to practice.

Considering Buddha Day and the rest of the VEWPRFs are approaching, for a Python (Monty) fan in your life, perhaps a pair of holy hand-grenades to hang from your rear view mirror? Or, perhaps, an electric-eel powered VEWPRF tree?

The meat-processing industry is fighting a full-scale war against toxic E.coli, responsible for a lot of beef recalls this year. Techniques abound, and the one that might be the most effective, irradiation, is also the one least likely to be used, because of some very NIMBY attitudes in consumers with regard to radiation and food. (Yes, despite knowing that a microwave works using similar principles to cook said food. At least, I think there are similar principles at work here.)

Shorter tours for soldiers in Iraq? Not for another year at least. Then they’ll go back down to year-long tours. It may not seem like much, but I’m sure there are plenty of military personnel that will thank Prime if they go back to the old way. I don’t know if the occasional Iraqi officer that goes missing in the United States or heads to Canada is enough to require troops staying at their current deployment time, but if this “surge” continues in this manner before too long, there’s going to be breakdowns.

The Slacktivist notes that elections are not an indicator of democracy, pointing to all the elections that have happened, in Russia, in Iraq during Saddam, and elsewhere, that are used to give the appearance of legitimacy to a dictatorial style of government. Sure, they elect their leaders, but the candidates have been carefully hand-picked, there are no other options, and the outcome has already been determined. With media control to ensure that your news is the only news, you can make the trappings look pretty good, without actually doing anything democratic.

The method by which The Scientologist’s character was able to determine that his boss had faked his own death in the first Mission: Impossible movie may not be possible soon. Gideon Bibles are not being stocked in hotel rooms so much in these days. Instead, we get interesting things like free condoms, lover’s dice, “intimacy kits” in the minibar, and other such items that will likely be more useful than the Bible. In a related (ish) story, one of the state legislators in Alabama has introduced legislation to overturn the state's ban on sex toys. Of course, twice in that article, we see people quoting that the ban is a “good law”, just so that the media isn’t accused of being biased.

After being affirmed as legitimate medical marijuana growers, with cultivation and possession charges dismissed, James and Lisa Masters are suing the Colorado police for breaking their property and killing their plants, which they can do under a state statute that requires “any property... used in connection with the medical use of marijuana... shall not be harmed, neglected, injured, or destroyed while in the possession of state or local law enforcement officials.” Dead plants and broken bongs a case do make. And the comment discussion is not about whether there’s grounds for the suit, but an “Evils of pot” discussion. Can’t get past the one issue to deal with the other. If it were just about anything other than marijuana, I suspect it would be a discussion about the law. Probably would have the same problem if it were, say, sex toys or something.

Or porn. Except porn isn't the problem, according to Dr. Mary Klein’s Blog Sexual Intelligence (content on Technoccult because of a lack of permalink on the original). It’s not porn, it’s that the prevailing attitude in the United States is to not talk about anything related to sexuality and to insist that kids not talk or do anything sexual at all as a protective measure. With no education, all those horrible, horrible things tend to come to pass, igniting the circular logic that wants to clamp down even more on the kids so that the horrible things don’t happen. And when you pair this sexual repression with active government support of "abstinence-until-heterosexual-marriage, no deviations" kinds of programs, you get a picture that’s less than rosy. Here’s hoping that my children look funny at me when I talk about “when I was growing up, they fought tooth and nail to stop people from having the options that you do.”

If you’d rather rake some simplistic ideas over the coals, and possibly rack them for a bit, Ecclesia Gnostica in Nova Albion doesn't care for either "The Secret" or "Zeitgeist", finding one to promote greed, and the other to promote smugness and anger.

Right, forward, onward, let's play Q&A with Bruce Schneier about the future and security in the present. While he’s talking good security, Passport Canada provides a great example of very poor security, in permitting an applicant to change characters in the URL and be presented with someone else’s information. D’oh!

Sliding back into the marijuana realm for a moment, a police officer who was suspended after failing a drug test is suing for his old job back, claiming that his wife spiked the meatballs he ate with marijuana. He claimed she was upset with him for not retiring after his twenty years and thought that if he failed the drug test, she could finally get him to get away from his work. Pot meatballs, rather than hash brownies. Inventive, if nothing else. What I wonder, though, is whether the police officer noticed the presence of the pot. If not, then maybe he should retire.

Moving into science, Pink Tentacle reports that a robot played Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" on violin. Obviously going for pun value, the performance was called “slightly robotic, but technically adept”.

Singled out for tonight’s pastry competition, A British firefighter who donated sperm so that a lesbian couple could have a child is having his pay garnished in child support after the two women broke up. Because, technically, he’s the father of the child, and I’ll bet there are laws on the books that specifically require the father to pay child support. I would hope that there is some judicial review on the law, and its interpretation, and that the parliament is strongly encouraged to amend the bill to correct the language.

Also running, the Central Intelligence Agency admitted to making, and then destroying, tapes of its interrogations of detainees. Citing that they were a security hazard, the tapes were destroyed in 2005, three years after their making. Such tapes could have provided definitive proof about techniques being used, and whether they would constitute evidence of torture. But they’re gone now, and we only learn about them two years after the fact. That certainly doesn’t mean they’re still not watching. Actually, there's an entire film being released that's shot from the point of view of security cameras. Kind of like that freerun in the mall, captured on the security cameras.

Mitt Romney addressed the nation today, trying to allay fears that his Mormon beliefs would make him a strange president. Unfortunately for Mitt, he probably didn’t do so well, mentioning his faith by name once in the speech. What he did promise to do was keep the business of government and churches separate, while at the same time promising that his faith would be something that would guide his presidency, were he to capture it, and saying that he would fight the church of secularism. Ah, Mitt, logic check, please?

However, the winning entry for tonight’s pastry derby is courtesy of what is claimed to be the Westboro Baptist Church. Or at least, is inspired by them and contains significant amounts of their imagery, rhetoric, and beliefs. That’s right, as a special bonus to all of you, I offer for serious and MST3K commentary, the Westboro Baptist Church sings "God Hates the World". The real treat, though, is in the last twenty seconds, when we find a young girl, probably fairly innocent of the full impact of what she’s singing, repeating the chorus of the song. What karma the WBC must accumulate in their daily lives. (Also, I’m not sure if this link will hold - the Break.com space that it links to removed the video. So if there’s a stable space where I can be sure the video will stay, let me know, so I can update the link. I would expect Richard Dawkins would mirror the item, just to make a point.)

On a brighter and more cheery note, when it comes to physical ability, we can do more than we think we can do. We just have to convince ourselves that we can do so, and the body will do its very best to match that new conception.

And last for tonight, experimental and abstract musical sounds and performances requiring specialized instruments. I would like to hear “Delusion of the Fury”, so hopefully at some point, it will be available through some media. Right now, though, it’s time to put up the symphony of sleep.