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Life and Smash Brothers - 30 April 2008
May. 1st, 2008 01:07 amOnward to the news, then, as today was relatively uneventful excepting for an Ubuntu upgrade, and finishing out The Subspace Emissary mode in Smash Brothers Brawl.
Because I feel like scaring you right from the beginning, have a gander at Paulville. Because, for some reason, Congressman Paul has gathered an army of followers, who are more than eager to turn the country and the world into the utopia they imagine his rule would be. But, for each of the many who think Paul is God, there are others that say Paul doesn't work at all.
What may be most scary, however, is the fashionably designed body armor or neoprene and kevlar, complete with gas mask. Perfect for the urban conflict or dystopia near you.
And now, the rundown. Internationally, Human Rights Watch joins several other groups in accusing Zimbabwe's army of aiding millitant groups in spreading terror throughout the country. With the official word being that MDC is ahead, but needs a runoff, the opposition MDC and others are stepping up their accusations that ZANU-PF is involved in a lot of dirty and deadly tricks.
According to official sources, China has rescued at least 167 child laborers sold as slaves. Poor families in one province have their children sold to wok as laborers in other provinces. It’s good to see that China is taking steps to curb at least some really egregious human rights problems.
The Christian Science Monitor details the gains and challenges of the Afghan army, through the eyes and tactics of one Afghan commander that works with Canadian forces.
Dan Rabkin at FrontPage lays out what the options are aside from military strikes at Iran, and wants the government to exhaust those to stop Iran from going nuclear. It may not be a matter of if, but when, by now, which could really do some destabilizing things to the region. According to members of the American and Iraqi militaries, an Iranian general may already be pulling some strings in Iraq, which can only give warmongers more incentive to try and level Iran.
Last out of the international section, the changing face of Saudi religious (and civil) politics, including moderates who receive death fatwas from an increasingly isolated hard-line segment of the populous. On a slightly less deadly scale, Floyd Abrams talks about how worldwide publication can mean being sued in one country where in another, one would be protected.
Moving toward the domestic sphere, Retired Colonel Ken Allard salutes the Pentagon's technique in using retired military officers as mouthpieces to the media, even if it is a middle-finger salute. At least, that’s what I’m envisioning from the tone of the article.
It appears the pressure has become too much. After Pastor Wright said that the government was capable of creating HIV as a vector for genocide, (at least, according to CNS) Senator Obama officially distanced himself and broke with Pastor Wright. According to the Washington Times Article, it sounds like Senator Obama was saying a lot of “he’s not serious”, and then realized, “Wait, he’s serious?” and then distanced himself. Sounds like political football to me, and that the Senator didn’t want to give the Republican nominee any opening for a new vector of attack from Republicans masquerading as evangelicals. Amanda Carpenter thinks this denunciation is spin and politics as well. The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion board considers it a positive first step toward finding out what the Senator's actual opinions on issues are.
Mr. Bush pressured Congress to permit more exploitation of United States oil reserves, blaming them for increases in the prices of commodities and energy. Mr. Bush suggested drilling in new places, including the wildlife reserve in Alaska, and building more refineries to process crude oil into petroleum products, and reducing farm subsidies. If some researchers beat Mr. Bush to the punch by attempting to draw out petroleum reserves from places that are currently infeasible to drill using microbes that would convert the oil into methane gas, then there may not need to be drilling in the wildlife preserves.
Ed Feulner examines the nation's education system and finds it wanting, preferring the adoption of schools of choice and private education vouchers/scholarships as a way of ensuring quality education, in addition to the dismantling of No Child Left Behind.
Last out of this section, our Unabashed Feminism department chief,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ldragoon linked to some impressive material about how far we still have to go to include everyone, including the transgendered, into our lives and festivals. The article talks a lot about the media stereotypes that place trans into the category of a deceiver that must be exposed and then shamed, or a pretender who is obviously not succeeding at looking like what they want to be. Not only that, but both of those images rely on the stereotypical image of what a woman is and/or wants to be, an image mostly crafted by men. For as much as we aren’t supposed to care, it appears that there’s still a lot of caring going on about what people were born with, instead of what they are. Not “identify with”, as that implies it is something different than what they are at heart. Surgery or no, hormones or no, it is the person that counts in that case, not the body.
And in science (SCIENCE!) matters, the generalists and the focused often find each other at odds over whether one mode is better than the other. Being scientists, they came to a polite impasse, but the virtues of both are apparent, and so they may never actually reach a resolution on that issue. Announcements from the research labs include a potential new way of stopping avian flu in the birds, an enzyme that might inhibit the progression of Alzheimer's disease, coatinghalf of Luna in mirrors so as to signal our presence to ET and possibly beam back some extra power, and a potentially vehicle-grade lithium-ion battery.
Getting a laugh before closing it all out, Madonna of the Toast, catalouging sightings of religious figures in ordinary objects. And Iron Man versus various ferrous opponents.
And at the very end tonight, a display of sportsmanship that deserves mention and praise. After hitting the first (and probably only) home run of her career, a Western Oregon player felt something tear and collapsed on the field, crawlign back to first base. After some inquiries about the rules, including realizing that team members couldn’t help the player circle the bases, the opposition's players carried the hitter around the bases, pausing to make sure that she touched each base with her good foot, making the home run count. Later, it was determined that the coach could have sent in a substitute runner to complete the circuit because of the injury after the home run, but the Central Washington players demonstrated a knowledge and understanding of the spirit of the game in helping make sure all the runs earned were scored.
And thus, we head off to bed. I don’t think I’ll need anything like a Dreamachine to get started, but just in case someone else does, there's a Dreamachine available on the web.
Because I feel like scaring you right from the beginning, have a gander at Paulville. Because, for some reason, Congressman Paul has gathered an army of followers, who are more than eager to turn the country and the world into the utopia they imagine his rule would be. But, for each of the many who think Paul is God, there are others that say Paul doesn't work at all.
What may be most scary, however, is the fashionably designed body armor or neoprene and kevlar, complete with gas mask. Perfect for the urban conflict or dystopia near you.
And now, the rundown. Internationally, Human Rights Watch joins several other groups in accusing Zimbabwe's army of aiding millitant groups in spreading terror throughout the country. With the official word being that MDC is ahead, but needs a runoff, the opposition MDC and others are stepping up their accusations that ZANU-PF is involved in a lot of dirty and deadly tricks.
According to official sources, China has rescued at least 167 child laborers sold as slaves. Poor families in one province have their children sold to wok as laborers in other provinces. It’s good to see that China is taking steps to curb at least some really egregious human rights problems.
The Christian Science Monitor details the gains and challenges of the Afghan army, through the eyes and tactics of one Afghan commander that works with Canadian forces.
Dan Rabkin at FrontPage lays out what the options are aside from military strikes at Iran, and wants the government to exhaust those to stop Iran from going nuclear. It may not be a matter of if, but when, by now, which could really do some destabilizing things to the region. According to members of the American and Iraqi militaries, an Iranian general may already be pulling some strings in Iraq, which can only give warmongers more incentive to try and level Iran.
Last out of the international section, the changing face of Saudi religious (and civil) politics, including moderates who receive death fatwas from an increasingly isolated hard-line segment of the populous. On a slightly less deadly scale, Floyd Abrams talks about how worldwide publication can mean being sued in one country where in another, one would be protected.
Moving toward the domestic sphere, Retired Colonel Ken Allard salutes the Pentagon's technique in using retired military officers as mouthpieces to the media, even if it is a middle-finger salute. At least, that’s what I’m envisioning from the tone of the article.
It appears the pressure has become too much. After Pastor Wright said that the government was capable of creating HIV as a vector for genocide, (at least, according to CNS) Senator Obama officially distanced himself and broke with Pastor Wright. According to the Washington Times Article, it sounds like Senator Obama was saying a lot of “he’s not serious”, and then realized, “Wait, he’s serious?” and then distanced himself. Sounds like political football to me, and that the Senator didn’t want to give the Republican nominee any opening for a new vector of attack from Republicans masquerading as evangelicals. Amanda Carpenter thinks this denunciation is spin and politics as well. The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion board considers it a positive first step toward finding out what the Senator's actual opinions on issues are.
Mr. Bush pressured Congress to permit more exploitation of United States oil reserves, blaming them for increases in the prices of commodities and energy. Mr. Bush suggested drilling in new places, including the wildlife reserve in Alaska, and building more refineries to process crude oil into petroleum products, and reducing farm subsidies. If some researchers beat Mr. Bush to the punch by attempting to draw out petroleum reserves from places that are currently infeasible to drill using microbes that would convert the oil into methane gas, then there may not need to be drilling in the wildlife preserves.
Ed Feulner examines the nation's education system and finds it wanting, preferring the adoption of schools of choice and private education vouchers/scholarships as a way of ensuring quality education, in addition to the dismantling of No Child Left Behind.
Last out of this section, our Unabashed Feminism department chief,
ldragoon linked to some impressive material about how far we still have to go to include everyone, including the transgendered, into our lives and festivals. The article talks a lot about the media stereotypes that place trans into the category of a deceiver that must be exposed and then shamed, or a pretender who is obviously not succeeding at looking like what they want to be. Not only that, but both of those images rely on the stereotypical image of what a woman is and/or wants to be, an image mostly crafted by men. For as much as we aren’t supposed to care, it appears that there’s still a lot of caring going on about what people were born with, instead of what they are. Not “identify with”, as that implies it is something different than what they are at heart. Surgery or no, hormones or no, it is the person that counts in that case, not the body. And in science (SCIENCE!) matters, the generalists and the focused often find each other at odds over whether one mode is better than the other. Being scientists, they came to a polite impasse, but the virtues of both are apparent, and so they may never actually reach a resolution on that issue. Announcements from the research labs include a potential new way of stopping avian flu in the birds, an enzyme that might inhibit the progression of Alzheimer's disease, coatinghalf of Luna in mirrors so as to signal our presence to ET and possibly beam back some extra power, and a potentially vehicle-grade lithium-ion battery.
Getting a laugh before closing it all out, Madonna of the Toast, catalouging sightings of religious figures in ordinary objects. And Iron Man versus various ferrous opponents.
And at the very end tonight, a display of sportsmanship that deserves mention and praise. After hitting the first (and probably only) home run of her career, a Western Oregon player felt something tear and collapsed on the field, crawlign back to first base. After some inquiries about the rules, including realizing that team members couldn’t help the player circle the bases, the opposition's players carried the hitter around the bases, pausing to make sure that she touched each base with her good foot, making the home run count. Later, it was determined that the coach could have sent in a substitute runner to complete the circuit because of the injury after the home run, but the Central Washington players demonstrated a knowledge and understanding of the spirit of the game in helping make sure all the runs earned were scored.
And thus, we head off to bed. I don’t think I’ll need anything like a Dreamachine to get started, but just in case someone else does, there's a Dreamachine available on the web.
