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Friday finished - 08 February 2008
Feb. 9th, 2008 01:20 amI should already be asleep by now, so not much for smarmy comments or context necessarily. Work tomorrow. And the day after. Whee. My professional self is curious about The Free Library, to see what sort of breadth and depth it has in coverage.
In international materials, a New Zealand domestic flight took a scare when a woman stabbed pilots and threatened to blow up the plane. Luckily, no explosions, and no fatalities. And we’re hoping that it gets found out that the lady was just off her medication for that day, and that there aren’t any sort of TSA-like reactions to the matter.
Further international matters - clearing land to make room for biofuels will likely make the warming problem worse, according to a study done at Princeton. Yeah, cutting down trees to grow corn is pretty carbon-counterproductive. Better to find other methods that keep the trees, and maybe plant a few more, while still being able to produce quality ethanol fuels.
Have a drink in Iran, get a death sentence. At least here in America, all we did was outlaw it with a Constitutional Amendment. And then repealed it when we saw that it wasn’t working, anyway. Sure, Muslims are supposed to refrain from alcohol, but being in the country does not automatically make one a Muslim. At least, it shouldn’t. Additionally, in the West, we don’t stone people for blasphemy or having new ideas about theology - we put them in Time instead.
Ah, it’s official - the existence of a secret camp not supposed to exist in a camp not supposed to exist has been confirmed to exist. It’s a place where the really special people go - and if it wasn’t officially recognized until now, I wonder what sort of “enhanced interrogation” has been going on there. Considering Mr. Bush continues to assert that torture is legal, probably a lot.
And the icing on the cake - even by his own benchmarks set last year, President Bush has met 3 of 18 possible targets. And the surge was supposed to help with this. So, once again, this time even by your own standards, Mr. Bush, the surge is a failure. And it doesn’t look too good for the future. Get out, now, before you sacrifice more lives to the fires of Moloch. Start thinking about doing right by the people you’ve sent over, not arguing against giving them the mental health care they deserve, trying to find any way you can to label their conditions as something other than mental disorders, and letting them become homeless in significantly greater amounts than before. Shameful treatment like this is not troop support in any way. (Hat Tip to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ldragoon and her post "Toy Soliders")
Oh, and that economic stimulus including tax rebates? They're payday loan-type checks, to be deducted against next year's tax refunds. So it’s not really a rebate, since you’ll be paying it back to them next year in reduced refunds.
Gunman in St. Louis area shoots up town hall meeting. Apparently disruptive to meetings beforehand, and whilebradhicks hasn’t given his full explanation yet, he’s hinted that absolutely nobody should be surprised that this event happened the way it did, and provided some background (though not necessarily directly related) primers for understanding, like how lynching fell disproportionately on wealthy black people who had white neighbors that wanted their property and business, if there are enough people determined to kill you, regardless of the cost to themselves, to their families, and to others, they will, and if one goes and researches the areas involved in the shooting, a disturbing trend of white-upper-class suburbanites annexes black-working-class neighborhood, use eminent domain to seize property which is then sold to Wal-Mart and other types of places to begin building on, and the new city services seem less than friendly toward their new residents. With those broad bush strokes, the probability that one of the residents of the annexed area is pissed off enough to do violence to the city government goes way up.
Brian Fitzpatrick thinks all the obsession about the historic possibilities of the Democratic campaign is driving a wedge between citizens and groups in the country. Or at least, getting them to not pay attention to where the candidates stand on issues. In that point, I agree - pay attention to the issues. If you like, be swayed by an account that puts a face, a name, and a story for one of the millions of illegal immigrants in the United States trying to achieve the American Dream without being deported. Or follow Rebel’s Yell’s reasoning on why John McCain is the right candidate for her, based on his economic stance.
Mr. Bush wants conservatives to rally around the Republican candidate. While not mentioning Mr. McCain by name, he did urge solidarity among his party members. I’d rather have them vote for whom they think is the best person for the job. Which may mean a lot of votes for Maxine, the newest RNC member. I doubt that James Dobson's endorsement of Mike Huckabee will chance a whole lot in the final standings. The problem is that most of us realize that by November, the competent ones are usually the ones whose campaigns falter, fail, or are outspent. The rhetoric being bandied about so far seems to be focusing again on the idea that Democrats in office will “surrender to terror” or some other nonsense phrase implying that the Democrats will let terrorists walk all over the United States, when what many of them want is to stop propping up an illusion - either get the real change done, which is unlikely, or get out and not waste the lives and money on it.
Our “Stu-pid” file has found a doozy - woman uses gasoline to clean paint off hands... near her stove. Predictably flammable result happens from this, and her trailer burns down. No Darwin mentions here - all she got were burns on her hands from the gasoline.
The Society of Librarians Who Say Motherf*cker have a real gem of an account about what some people are willing to do - including intimidating a young girl into giving up her spot at the computer she was logged into, and then lying to the librarian that she was the girl's mother. Suffice to say, the librarian was Not Happy about the matter.
Ex-gay ministry New Life Church takes a credibility hit, as Ted Haggard, whom New Life Church was trying to cure of homosexuality, has left their "restoration" program. New Life’s press release says, of course, that the process is incomplete, and they wish he would stay, but if he has to go, then they’ll let him. But since he’s not completely cured, any sort of deviant behavior on his part isn’t their fault. Pretty clever.
Next to Last for tonight, the department of Arts lets us get Behind the Name and see the origins of names, which are then put to good use in Little Miss and Mr. Men parody pictures.
The Very Last, courtesy ofgreyweirdo, a gallery of devices meant to cure "female hysteria" by inducing "hysterical paroxysms". These ancestors are very important devices for all of us.
And thus, bed. Because I should have been asleep by now for a while.
In international materials, a New Zealand domestic flight took a scare when a woman stabbed pilots and threatened to blow up the plane. Luckily, no explosions, and no fatalities. And we’re hoping that it gets found out that the lady was just off her medication for that day, and that there aren’t any sort of TSA-like reactions to the matter.
Further international matters - clearing land to make room for biofuels will likely make the warming problem worse, according to a study done at Princeton. Yeah, cutting down trees to grow corn is pretty carbon-counterproductive. Better to find other methods that keep the trees, and maybe plant a few more, while still being able to produce quality ethanol fuels.
Have a drink in Iran, get a death sentence. At least here in America, all we did was outlaw it with a Constitutional Amendment. And then repealed it when we saw that it wasn’t working, anyway. Sure, Muslims are supposed to refrain from alcohol, but being in the country does not automatically make one a Muslim. At least, it shouldn’t. Additionally, in the West, we don’t stone people for blasphemy or having new ideas about theology - we put them in Time instead.
Ah, it’s official - the existence of a secret camp not supposed to exist in a camp not supposed to exist has been confirmed to exist. It’s a place where the really special people go - and if it wasn’t officially recognized until now, I wonder what sort of “enhanced interrogation” has been going on there. Considering Mr. Bush continues to assert that torture is legal, probably a lot.
And the icing on the cake - even by his own benchmarks set last year, President Bush has met 3 of 18 possible targets. And the surge was supposed to help with this. So, once again, this time even by your own standards, Mr. Bush, the surge is a failure. And it doesn’t look too good for the future. Get out, now, before you sacrifice more lives to the fires of Moloch. Start thinking about doing right by the people you’ve sent over, not arguing against giving them the mental health care they deserve, trying to find any way you can to label their conditions as something other than mental disorders, and letting them become homeless in significantly greater amounts than before. Shameful treatment like this is not troop support in any way. (Hat Tip to
ldragoon and her post "Toy Soliders")Oh, and that economic stimulus including tax rebates? They're payday loan-type checks, to be deducted against next year's tax refunds. So it’s not really a rebate, since you’ll be paying it back to them next year in reduced refunds.
Gunman in St. Louis area shoots up town hall meeting. Apparently disruptive to meetings beforehand, and while
bradhicks hasn’t given his full explanation yet, he’s hinted that absolutely nobody should be surprised that this event happened the way it did, and provided some background (though not necessarily directly related) primers for understanding, like how lynching fell disproportionately on wealthy black people who had white neighbors that wanted their property and business, if there are enough people determined to kill you, regardless of the cost to themselves, to their families, and to others, they will, and if one goes and researches the areas involved in the shooting, a disturbing trend of white-upper-class suburbanites annexes black-working-class neighborhood, use eminent domain to seize property which is then sold to Wal-Mart and other types of places to begin building on, and the new city services seem less than friendly toward their new residents. With those broad bush strokes, the probability that one of the residents of the annexed area is pissed off enough to do violence to the city government goes way up.Brian Fitzpatrick thinks all the obsession about the historic possibilities of the Democratic campaign is driving a wedge between citizens and groups in the country. Or at least, getting them to not pay attention to where the candidates stand on issues. In that point, I agree - pay attention to the issues. If you like, be swayed by an account that puts a face, a name, and a story for one of the millions of illegal immigrants in the United States trying to achieve the American Dream without being deported. Or follow Rebel’s Yell’s reasoning on why John McCain is the right candidate for her, based on his economic stance.
Mr. Bush wants conservatives to rally around the Republican candidate. While not mentioning Mr. McCain by name, he did urge solidarity among his party members. I’d rather have them vote for whom they think is the best person for the job. Which may mean a lot of votes for Maxine, the newest RNC member. I doubt that James Dobson's endorsement of Mike Huckabee will chance a whole lot in the final standings. The problem is that most of us realize that by November, the competent ones are usually the ones whose campaigns falter, fail, or are outspent. The rhetoric being bandied about so far seems to be focusing again on the idea that Democrats in office will “surrender to terror” or some other nonsense phrase implying that the Democrats will let terrorists walk all over the United States, when what many of them want is to stop propping up an illusion - either get the real change done, which is unlikely, or get out and not waste the lives and money on it.
Our “Stu-pid” file has found a doozy - woman uses gasoline to clean paint off hands... near her stove. Predictably flammable result happens from this, and her trailer burns down. No Darwin mentions here - all she got were burns on her hands from the gasoline.
The Society of Librarians Who Say Motherf*cker have a real gem of an account about what some people are willing to do - including intimidating a young girl into giving up her spot at the computer she was logged into, and then lying to the librarian that she was the girl's mother. Suffice to say, the librarian was Not Happy about the matter.
Ex-gay ministry New Life Church takes a credibility hit, as Ted Haggard, whom New Life Church was trying to cure of homosexuality, has left their "restoration" program. New Life’s press release says, of course, that the process is incomplete, and they wish he would stay, but if he has to go, then they’ll let him. But since he’s not completely cured, any sort of deviant behavior on his part isn’t their fault. Pretty clever.
Next to Last for tonight, the department of Arts lets us get Behind the Name and see the origins of names, which are then put to good use in Little Miss and Mr. Men parody pictures.
The Very Last, courtesy of
greyweirdo, a gallery of devices meant to cure "female hysteria" by inducing "hysterical paroxysms". These ancestors are very important devices for all of us.And thus, bed. Because I should have been asleep by now for a while.
