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Tomorrow, during the day, several states in the United States are having presidential primary elections or candidate caucuses. Choose wisely, for whomever you choose. Please. Ernest Partridge weighs in on what he thinks will happen, and there’s sniping at Senator McCain, including barbs from his fellow Congresscritters. Tough to be the frontrunner. Consider, though, that Senator Clinton is willing to tap the paychecks of those who don't pay for mandatory health care.
Onward to news. Which would be why I’m leading off with What's really wrong with newspapers or mainstream media outlets in general - they’re lacking in speed, mobility, a willingness to take risks, and the ad revenues were considered the golden goose. The Slacktivist goes on to suggest a possible solution to the problem - more transparency into what gets put up as news. We’d really rather hear about marines finding a civilian career as filmmakers than ravings about how militant Islam is infiltrating America and how we need to fight it off before it turns our country into a sharia state, or buys up enough American assets to convert us all. Get me?
Economically speaking, MR. Bush put forward to the Congress a budget of $3.1 trillion USD, of which about $500 billion will be defecit spending, promising that the budget would be balanced by the end of the next President’s first term. Perhaps because of such waste and irresponsibility with the people’s money, and encouraging the same waste in the American populace, the squeeze of the middle class that has been on for a while is not getting to the point where the middle class can't cope. Mr. Bush continues to spend money he doesn’t have in gigantic quantities, all the while proclaiming the necessity of driving the country further into debt. His cuts? A mere $18 billion. Somewhere in here, we need to turn the government’s books over to an independent auditor, and then let someone else manage our assets in trust until we can pay down enough of our loans to be solvent. It would really be nice if the budget were forced to stay at somewhere from 60-75% of revenues until the federal debt was reduced to being manageable, if not gone. Plus, tax cuts enacted could very easily be repealed to bring in more revenue. Yeah, I’ll get hurt by it, too, but I’d rather have the U.S. be able not to borrow every year. The Navy can wait on testing a railgun.
There are a lot of things gone wrong in the entire War on A Particular Noun, and there’s much more to be said about detaining someone who was fifteen at the time he took the hostile action, but it's taken six years since Omar Khadr was arrested for throwing a grenade that killed a soldier during a firefight. What part of “speedy trial” is six years? Turning the baleful eye toward Washington D.C. Sean Gonslaves asks "What is the Point of Congress?" if the President can just append a signing statement dictating what the law actually is? Only because he’s a lame duck can he say that troops will stay in Iraq until 2009, after that, the next President will make those decisions.
That said, there’s apparently no time like the present for diplomacy, if Mr. Bush's intent to hire 1,100 diplomats is to be believed. Although I’d say he’s about eight years late on that.
Are young rebellious teenagers being diagnosed as mentally ill? Bruce Levine thinks that government and the pharmaceutical industry are doing their very best to keep everyone who might start an uprising diagnosed as ill and medicated until those ideas go away. Sounds kind of A Clockwork Orange meets The Matrix. On the other end of the spectrum,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aidenraine writes an open letter to normal people about what suffering from a panic disorder is like.
Things to inflame you and get others thinking you need the medication - Firestone's practices in Liberia leave much to be desired, with the employment of children for long hours, sub-living wages, and toxic work environments.
an Afghan student of journalism has been sentenced to death for distributing a tract that said those using the Qu'ran to justify the oppression of women are misrepresenting Mohammed’s words. Furthermore, the arrest and trial were conducted without legal representation present. In Senegal, publication of pictures supposedly of a gay marriage ceremony have led to the arrests of those in the pictures. And from Unabashed Feminism, the smack-down is laid on a campus writer who buys into the "she was asking for it" defense against "no means no". Austin Cline continues with the theme in wondering what our society thinks of women still, considering how they view political candidates and what jobs are still predominantly female. Moving over to skin color issues, a tale of errors where a properly and validly documented United States citizen was arrested on a charge that didn't happen and assumed to be an immigrant. And getting in a jab at economic class is the state of Mississippi, apparently trying to pass a bill that forbids fat people from eating in a restaurant.
Google involved in removal of images regarding a footballer with a Gaza-sympathetic message, apparently on complaint from Israel. There’s a lot of inflammatory stuff here, I think. But we’re almost to the end. Rather than saying “Ni” to old ladies, some teenagers stole from a Girl Scout, were caught, and appear to only be lamenting that they were caught. What takes the cake out of this whole sequence, though, was that someone decided to use mentally retarded women as suicide bombers, strapping them with explosives and remote detonators. That’s just sick.
After all that, something potentially mildly or desperately annoying - Finland's roadside toilets now need an SMS "Open Sesame" to unlock. This is apparently to help cut down on vandalism, but when you really need to go, I doubt that texting is the first thing on your mind.
From the files of the strange, a diet of cod and chips has resulted in a litter of 16 pups for an Irish setter. Further strange indicates taht historical figures are getting mythic and mythic figures are getting more real, at least in the UK. Here in the United States, everyone outside our own little world is a myth, it seems. Of course, we let Amazon patent the 404 error. Moving onward, a laser technique can change the surface of one element to look like another.
Last for tonight, some tips for when the dreaded 24-hour shift appears. I, however, will not be taking those tips, as I have no intent on doing a 24-hour shift like that at any point in my life. I’m doing for my own entertainment, daggone it, if I do it at all. G’night.
Onward to news. Which would be why I’m leading off with What's really wrong with newspapers or mainstream media outlets in general - they’re lacking in speed, mobility, a willingness to take risks, and the ad revenues were considered the golden goose. The Slacktivist goes on to suggest a possible solution to the problem - more transparency into what gets put up as news. We’d really rather hear about marines finding a civilian career as filmmakers than ravings about how militant Islam is infiltrating America and how we need to fight it off before it turns our country into a sharia state, or buys up enough American assets to convert us all. Get me?
Economically speaking, MR. Bush put forward to the Congress a budget of $3.1 trillion USD, of which about $500 billion will be defecit spending, promising that the budget would be balanced by the end of the next President’s first term. Perhaps because of such waste and irresponsibility with the people’s money, and encouraging the same waste in the American populace, the squeeze of the middle class that has been on for a while is not getting to the point where the middle class can't cope. Mr. Bush continues to spend money he doesn’t have in gigantic quantities, all the while proclaiming the necessity of driving the country further into debt. His cuts? A mere $18 billion. Somewhere in here, we need to turn the government’s books over to an independent auditor, and then let someone else manage our assets in trust until we can pay down enough of our loans to be solvent. It would really be nice if the budget were forced to stay at somewhere from 60-75% of revenues until the federal debt was reduced to being manageable, if not gone. Plus, tax cuts enacted could very easily be repealed to bring in more revenue. Yeah, I’ll get hurt by it, too, but I’d rather have the U.S. be able not to borrow every year. The Navy can wait on testing a railgun.
There are a lot of things gone wrong in the entire War on A Particular Noun, and there’s much more to be said about detaining someone who was fifteen at the time he took the hostile action, but it's taken six years since Omar Khadr was arrested for throwing a grenade that killed a soldier during a firefight. What part of “speedy trial” is six years? Turning the baleful eye toward Washington D.C. Sean Gonslaves asks "What is the Point of Congress?" if the President can just append a signing statement dictating what the law actually is? Only because he’s a lame duck can he say that troops will stay in Iraq until 2009, after that, the next President will make those decisions.
That said, there’s apparently no time like the present for diplomacy, if Mr. Bush's intent to hire 1,100 diplomats is to be believed. Although I’d say he’s about eight years late on that.
Are young rebellious teenagers being diagnosed as mentally ill? Bruce Levine thinks that government and the pharmaceutical industry are doing their very best to keep everyone who might start an uprising diagnosed as ill and medicated until those ideas go away. Sounds kind of A Clockwork Orange meets The Matrix. On the other end of the spectrum,
aidenraine writes an open letter to normal people about what suffering from a panic disorder is like. Things to inflame you and get others thinking you need the medication - Firestone's practices in Liberia leave much to be desired, with the employment of children for long hours, sub-living wages, and toxic work environments.
an Afghan student of journalism has been sentenced to death for distributing a tract that said those using the Qu'ran to justify the oppression of women are misrepresenting Mohammed’s words. Furthermore, the arrest and trial were conducted without legal representation present. In Senegal, publication of pictures supposedly of a gay marriage ceremony have led to the arrests of those in the pictures. And from Unabashed Feminism, the smack-down is laid on a campus writer who buys into the "she was asking for it" defense against "no means no". Austin Cline continues with the theme in wondering what our society thinks of women still, considering how they view political candidates and what jobs are still predominantly female. Moving over to skin color issues, a tale of errors where a properly and validly documented United States citizen was arrested on a charge that didn't happen and assumed to be an immigrant. And getting in a jab at economic class is the state of Mississippi, apparently trying to pass a bill that forbids fat people from eating in a restaurant.
Google involved in removal of images regarding a footballer with a Gaza-sympathetic message, apparently on complaint from Israel. There’s a lot of inflammatory stuff here, I think. But we’re almost to the end. Rather than saying “Ni” to old ladies, some teenagers stole from a Girl Scout, were caught, and appear to only be lamenting that they were caught. What takes the cake out of this whole sequence, though, was that someone decided to use mentally retarded women as suicide bombers, strapping them with explosives and remote detonators. That’s just sick.
After all that, something potentially mildly or desperately annoying - Finland's roadside toilets now need an SMS "Open Sesame" to unlock. This is apparently to help cut down on vandalism, but when you really need to go, I doubt that texting is the first thing on your mind.
From the files of the strange, a diet of cod and chips has resulted in a litter of 16 pups for an Irish setter. Further strange indicates taht historical figures are getting mythic and mythic figures are getting more real, at least in the UK. Here in the United States, everyone outside our own little world is a myth, it seems. Of course, we let Amazon patent the 404 error. Moving onward, a laser technique can change the surface of one element to look like another.
Last for tonight, some tips for when the dreaded 24-hour shift appears. I, however, will not be taking those tips, as I have no intent on doing a 24-hour shift like that at any point in my life. I’m doing for my own entertainment, daggone it, if I do it at all. G’night.
