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Tonight's materials - 23 Januray 2008
Jan. 23rd, 2008 11:53 pmThere some additional women’s issues stuff in the last post. I edited it in this morning or last night, and then forgot to re-post. Including yet more reasons why Mike Huckabee is a scary person and totally unfit for the office of President. Tonight’s stuff is a Flickr pool that I think I’ve looked at or linked to before - Illustrated BMI categories. See what people who are supposed to be “overweight”, “obese”, or “normal” can look like. And there’s Jezebel's critiquing of some portion of the talent competition of the Miss America pageant. Worst of the lot are the underage girls involved in prostitution in New Zealand. Prostitution is legal in NZ, but girls under 18 getting involved is a big no-no.
Today had storytelling and being an adult with teenagers and reading and the rest of the soft taco meat and toppings that I had fixed yesterday. Mmmm. Any time I cook, I tend to get looks of admiration from my co-workers that I plan far enough ahead to make stuff for lunch. It’s still kind of weird. Speaking of food, if you’re in New York, be careful of the sushi - it seems to have very high levels of mercury in it.
And now, all the news that I feel is fit to be in print. The economy's still a roller coaster, but that’s not necessarily news, just business as usual here in America.
Jose Padilla gets 17 years on terror support charges. The District Judge and the jury handing down the ruling said that the government failed to prove that Padilla was actually a terrorist and had not committed any specific acts of terror. The jury did convict Padilla and two others on sending support to al-Qaeda. The minimum sentence on that would have been 30 years to life, but the judge used her discretion. Still, seventeen years for a shaky case that didn’t prove he was a terrorist and conviction on having provided support, even after Padilla was subjected to what is tantamount to torture while waiting in prison? This sounds excessive to me. Maybe for a recidivist, that might be appropriate.
Just as important, if not more so, a study by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism found 935 false statements made by Mr. Bush in the two-year period leading up to the Iraq war. The study itself, and an analysis in more depth is available as the War Card at the website of the Center.
Poking fun at Mr. Bush is the introduction of new United States currency based on volumes of crude oil, with appropriate pictures on the denominations (Requires Flash - saw it on Countdown yesterday, thought it was a good example of “Ha, ha, only serious.”) If you’d rather play games, perhaps presidential candidate paintball?
Mr. Bush isn’t the only liar who has documentation proving him wrong. Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's text messages contradict his public statements about the firing of a whistle-blower.
I think I’ve covered this before, perhaps only in potential, rather than in actual, but Maryland has had high school sophomores sign up for a three year course in Homeland Security. Maybe they’ll be able to convince the workers there that REAL ID sucks and that the penalties being imposed are less than intelligent?
Pakistan's president isn't hunting al-Qaeda with those troops stationed near Afghanistan. He’s much more interested in the Afghanistan Taliban remnants that look like they might try to fight him. The United States, of course, is much more interested in Osama bin Laden and somewhat peripherally in the Taliban in how they relate to finding Osama bin Laden. Crossed priorities makes for strained relations, I’m sure.
The Westboro Baptist Church is planning on picketing Heath Ledger's funeral. Which is an incredibly moronic and stupid thing to do, but this is WBC we’re talking about. Mr. Bush used the death as an excuse to cancel an event about prescription drug abuse. And Best Buy is trying to profit off of said death. Amazing what comes out after someone dies.
In domestic politics, Hillary Clinton seems to be a focus on the linklist, with Cal Thomas praising brave Republicans for opposing Hillary Clinton's health care plans when Bill was President, conjuring spectres of a broken health system and government control of the sector had it gone through, in addition to apparent personal attack tactics to destroy the credibility of opponents. The Wall Street Journal joins in on the attack, calling Hillary's campaign a mirror image of Bill's, where the candidate maintains plausible deniability while subordinates and others do the dirty work for her.
I can’t seem to go an entry without a list of some sort. In this case, it’s the seven spiritual laws of success, based on a book by the same name by Deepak Chopra, and offering advice on how to achieve success and happiness and all those other good things. At times, it looks like the Daodejing, in others, it looks like a primer on Buddhism, wavering between action without action and no action at all.
A much better list, and more entertaining than the one above (and that tickles my musical and professional selves) is the mashup of books and band names. It’s a good list and shows off quite a few recognizable titles and bands.
Science provides encouraging news - an Ebola virus has had the ability to replicate removed from it, according to claims. This neutered form of Ebola can be handled and experimented on in conditions much less stringent than the live version, which means more laboratories can do work on it to try and find a vaccine or a cure for the virus. While not everyone is completely convinced yet, this does represent potential progress. Hip, hip, huzzah.
Last for tonight, it’s an interest story, but the caption I had in the link was good enough to reproduce. Buddhism: A religion that doesn't discriminate against dogs. Considering that one of the places one can be reborn is as an animal, it would make sense to have animals be able to pray to the Buddha and try to follow his example.
So it’s bedtime, and sleeptime.
Today had storytelling and being an adult with teenagers and reading and the rest of the soft taco meat and toppings that I had fixed yesterday. Mmmm. Any time I cook, I tend to get looks of admiration from my co-workers that I plan far enough ahead to make stuff for lunch. It’s still kind of weird. Speaking of food, if you’re in New York, be careful of the sushi - it seems to have very high levels of mercury in it.
And now, all the news that I feel is fit to be in print. The economy's still a roller coaster, but that’s not necessarily news, just business as usual here in America.
Jose Padilla gets 17 years on terror support charges. The District Judge and the jury handing down the ruling said that the government failed to prove that Padilla was actually a terrorist and had not committed any specific acts of terror. The jury did convict Padilla and two others on sending support to al-Qaeda. The minimum sentence on that would have been 30 years to life, but the judge used her discretion. Still, seventeen years for a shaky case that didn’t prove he was a terrorist and conviction on having provided support, even after Padilla was subjected to what is tantamount to torture while waiting in prison? This sounds excessive to me. Maybe for a recidivist, that might be appropriate.
Just as important, if not more so, a study by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism found 935 false statements made by Mr. Bush in the two-year period leading up to the Iraq war. The study itself, and an analysis in more depth is available as the War Card at the website of the Center.
Poking fun at Mr. Bush is the introduction of new United States currency based on volumes of crude oil, with appropriate pictures on the denominations (Requires Flash - saw it on Countdown yesterday, thought it was a good example of “Ha, ha, only serious.”) If you’d rather play games, perhaps presidential candidate paintball?
Mr. Bush isn’t the only liar who has documentation proving him wrong. Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's text messages contradict his public statements about the firing of a whistle-blower.
I think I’ve covered this before, perhaps only in potential, rather than in actual, but Maryland has had high school sophomores sign up for a three year course in Homeland Security. Maybe they’ll be able to convince the workers there that REAL ID sucks and that the penalties being imposed are less than intelligent?
Pakistan's president isn't hunting al-Qaeda with those troops stationed near Afghanistan. He’s much more interested in the Afghanistan Taliban remnants that look like they might try to fight him. The United States, of course, is much more interested in Osama bin Laden and somewhat peripherally in the Taliban in how they relate to finding Osama bin Laden. Crossed priorities makes for strained relations, I’m sure.
The Westboro Baptist Church is planning on picketing Heath Ledger's funeral. Which is an incredibly moronic and stupid thing to do, but this is WBC we’re talking about. Mr. Bush used the death as an excuse to cancel an event about prescription drug abuse. And Best Buy is trying to profit off of said death. Amazing what comes out after someone dies.
In domestic politics, Hillary Clinton seems to be a focus on the linklist, with Cal Thomas praising brave Republicans for opposing Hillary Clinton's health care plans when Bill was President, conjuring spectres of a broken health system and government control of the sector had it gone through, in addition to apparent personal attack tactics to destroy the credibility of opponents. The Wall Street Journal joins in on the attack, calling Hillary's campaign a mirror image of Bill's, where the candidate maintains plausible deniability while subordinates and others do the dirty work for her.
I can’t seem to go an entry without a list of some sort. In this case, it’s the seven spiritual laws of success, based on a book by the same name by Deepak Chopra, and offering advice on how to achieve success and happiness and all those other good things. At times, it looks like the Daodejing, in others, it looks like a primer on Buddhism, wavering between action without action and no action at all.
A much better list, and more entertaining than the one above (and that tickles my musical and professional selves) is the mashup of books and band names. It’s a good list and shows off quite a few recognizable titles and bands.
Science provides encouraging news - an Ebola virus has had the ability to replicate removed from it, according to claims. This neutered form of Ebola can be handled and experimented on in conditions much less stringent than the live version, which means more laboratories can do work on it to try and find a vaccine or a cure for the virus. While not everyone is completely convinced yet, this does represent potential progress. Hip, hip, huzzah.
Last for tonight, it’s an interest story, but the caption I had in the link was good enough to reproduce. Buddhism: A religion that doesn't discriminate against dogs. Considering that one of the places one can be reborn is as an animal, it would make sense to have animals be able to pray to the Buddha and try to follow his example.
So it’s bedtime, and sleeptime.
