![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Midweek stuff and more stuff - 07 May 2008
May. 8th, 2008 12:05 amIt’s like, ten days to Anime Central. I’m psyched, what can I say? And after getting my big rant off my chest, I feel much better now.
We’ll start with what is buzzing around the blogs and the news programs - Senator Clinton lent her campaign some $6.4 million dollars in the last month. She’s having trouble managing her own campaign - how will she manage the tax revenues, then? Oh, and Senator Obama received the most votes in North Carolina, with Senator Clinton receiving the most votes in Indiana. The deadlock continues. Rich Lowry considers Senator Clinton to be the electable candidate because of her shift toward conservatism, pegging her as a centrist who will appeal to a lot of voters. Well, perhaps in that the voters know what they’re getting with John McCain and want no part of it. Thomas Sowell feels Senator Obama isn't promoting the strong work ethic that makes America great, pulling out examples of people who persevered through their hardships and went on to be successful. Sowell promotes the “pull yourself up” mentality that often leads to “Well, why should I finance these schools/roads/public works? If they want those kinds of luxuries, they can do what I did and earn them.” Which, for some people, just isn’t possible. They’re working multiple jobs just so they drown slowly, while others enjoy the profits of their work and charge them extra for the privilege.
What we should be talking about, however, is that there are no backup copies of e-mails sent from and to the White House right around the time of the Iraq invasion. How strange - I would think that the public and posterity would be very interested in those e-mails. That they seem to be missing and have no backups makes me wonder what the administration is hiding from us in those e-mails. Not only are the archivists of the United States raising eyebrows at this, the e-mails being “lost” is a convenient way of not having to answer any FOIA requests about them, either. Even if it is “extremely costly” to have to sift the tapes, I think the public interest is greater. And it’s probably cheap compared to the current Iraq War cost.
The IAEA's chief is urging the United States to be more flexible in its Iran dealings, asking the United States to consider economic and other conditions when trying to offer Iran good reasons to give up their program. Offer something they like, rather than threatening to use nukes against them? Well, if nothing else, it makes you seem reasonable if you should decide to knock them over later. I might be more inclined to believe Iran is on the backburner after reading that special forces are spread pretty thin, in addition to the regular troops being concentrated on cleaning up Iraq. It may have finally sunk in that there aren’t enough people to fight several land wars in Asia. Not when the locals in Iraq are still trying to convince the PMCs that cash isn't enough recompense for dead people.
Colombia has extradited one of the country's feared warlords to the United States to face drug charges.
Doing this as much for the picture as anything - 5,000 evacuated as a volcano erupts in Chile. The ash cloud has its own lightning blasts. Wow. Here’s hoping that nobody was hurt in the blast.
In the United Kingdom, the increased presence of surveillance cameras has not dropped the crime rate, according to police there. But now that it’s there, it can be used for whatever other purpose a government would want to, even if its official mission is still preventing crime.
Attesting to the creativity of humanity, eight ninja-style uses for binder clips, all of which will help you organize your life in new ways. In Iraq, that creativity manifests in a short-game 9-hole golf course made in the ground. Of course, that’s temporary, as there are plans for a more permanent and green golf course in Iraq. Back home, trying to ensure that returning vets do have work gets a wounded veterans' internship program - isn’t this the sort of thing that the federal government/military should have, as well?
I haven’t had a “sing the praises of Ben Stein against those evul libruls” opinion column in a while. So, Phyllis Schlafly completely misses the point of why scientists criticize "Expelled", attributing it to a determined effort by science-types to enshrine Darwinism as gospel and fire, bully, intimidate or otherwise remove all critics from places of power or influence. I believe that science accords Darwin respect as a pioneer, but has long since changed its view away from his original theories. Schlafly also sets up some dubious associations - Hitler was a fan of Darwin, as were advocated of eugenics! See, those scientists are evul like Hitler and want to sterilize everyone, after they drive out ID. Academics do not teach ID in science class because ID is not science, lacking testability by any known scientific method. But, much like being “pro-life”, so long as you control the words and their definitions, it doesn’t matter how horribly you’re abusing them, so long as the people believe you.
An excerpt from the 2006 Yale Law School Commencement regarding John Yoo and the torture memo, where the professors correctly note that one’s memory as a law practitioner is not by how skillfully one interprets the law, but by the purposes which that skill is put to - using it to give the green light to torture makes one a bad lawyer, and pretending that one’s work wasn’t doing just that is worse. It would be like the scientists on the Manhattan Project denying that their work was being used to create something that caused massive destruction. Oh, and did we mention that post-war suicides might exceed the official count of combat deaths?
Moving into more positive, pleasant things - pictures of Zeppelins, for instance. Or that NASA is planning a manned mission to an asteroid as preparation for trying to live on Mars. Or Luna, I would say, but small steps seems to be the order of the day today. There’s also a possible multiple sclerosis treatment discovered by accident, where a marrow transplant produced a remission of the disease. And a hands-free, eleven minute Super Mario World level that provides good counterpoint to tunes playing over top of it. The time and effort put into it must have been quite interesting, but the result sounds good, even if the look is a little weird. There’s also Barackula, which looks to be just a bit bizarre.
Last for tonight, Ask Genghis Because Khan knows all. And take a pack of animal index cards as your consolation.
Okay, one more thing. I was going to link to a picture of a hut with chicken legs sticking out of it, and make a joke about the phrase "Hey, chickenlegs! Squat!", but as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
greenhornline tells me, that's an f-locked post, so it doesn't quite work out. (Ten points to your house if you know who says that line, anyway.)
We’ll start with what is buzzing around the blogs and the news programs - Senator Clinton lent her campaign some $6.4 million dollars in the last month. She’s having trouble managing her own campaign - how will she manage the tax revenues, then? Oh, and Senator Obama received the most votes in North Carolina, with Senator Clinton receiving the most votes in Indiana. The deadlock continues. Rich Lowry considers Senator Clinton to be the electable candidate because of her shift toward conservatism, pegging her as a centrist who will appeal to a lot of voters. Well, perhaps in that the voters know what they’re getting with John McCain and want no part of it. Thomas Sowell feels Senator Obama isn't promoting the strong work ethic that makes America great, pulling out examples of people who persevered through their hardships and went on to be successful. Sowell promotes the “pull yourself up” mentality that often leads to “Well, why should I finance these schools/roads/public works? If they want those kinds of luxuries, they can do what I did and earn them.” Which, for some people, just isn’t possible. They’re working multiple jobs just so they drown slowly, while others enjoy the profits of their work and charge them extra for the privilege.
What we should be talking about, however, is that there are no backup copies of e-mails sent from and to the White House right around the time of the Iraq invasion. How strange - I would think that the public and posterity would be very interested in those e-mails. That they seem to be missing and have no backups makes me wonder what the administration is hiding from us in those e-mails. Not only are the archivists of the United States raising eyebrows at this, the e-mails being “lost” is a convenient way of not having to answer any FOIA requests about them, either. Even if it is “extremely costly” to have to sift the tapes, I think the public interest is greater. And it’s probably cheap compared to the current Iraq War cost.
The IAEA's chief is urging the United States to be more flexible in its Iran dealings, asking the United States to consider economic and other conditions when trying to offer Iran good reasons to give up their program. Offer something they like, rather than threatening to use nukes against them? Well, if nothing else, it makes you seem reasonable if you should decide to knock them over later. I might be more inclined to believe Iran is on the backburner after reading that special forces are spread pretty thin, in addition to the regular troops being concentrated on cleaning up Iraq. It may have finally sunk in that there aren’t enough people to fight several land wars in Asia. Not when the locals in Iraq are still trying to convince the PMCs that cash isn't enough recompense for dead people.
Colombia has extradited one of the country's feared warlords to the United States to face drug charges.
Doing this as much for the picture as anything - 5,000 evacuated as a volcano erupts in Chile. The ash cloud has its own lightning blasts. Wow. Here’s hoping that nobody was hurt in the blast.
In the United Kingdom, the increased presence of surveillance cameras has not dropped the crime rate, according to police there. But now that it’s there, it can be used for whatever other purpose a government would want to, even if its official mission is still preventing crime.
Attesting to the creativity of humanity, eight ninja-style uses for binder clips, all of which will help you organize your life in new ways. In Iraq, that creativity manifests in a short-game 9-hole golf course made in the ground. Of course, that’s temporary, as there are plans for a more permanent and green golf course in Iraq. Back home, trying to ensure that returning vets do have work gets a wounded veterans' internship program - isn’t this the sort of thing that the federal government/military should have, as well?
I haven’t had a “sing the praises of Ben Stein against those evul libruls” opinion column in a while. So, Phyllis Schlafly completely misses the point of why scientists criticize "Expelled", attributing it to a determined effort by science-types to enshrine Darwinism as gospel and fire, bully, intimidate or otherwise remove all critics from places of power or influence. I believe that science accords Darwin respect as a pioneer, but has long since changed its view away from his original theories. Schlafly also sets up some dubious associations - Hitler was a fan of Darwin, as were advocated of eugenics! See, those scientists are evul like Hitler and want to sterilize everyone, after they drive out ID. Academics do not teach ID in science class because ID is not science, lacking testability by any known scientific method. But, much like being “pro-life”, so long as you control the words and their definitions, it doesn’t matter how horribly you’re abusing them, so long as the people believe you.
An excerpt from the 2006 Yale Law School Commencement regarding John Yoo and the torture memo, where the professors correctly note that one’s memory as a law practitioner is not by how skillfully one interprets the law, but by the purposes which that skill is put to - using it to give the green light to torture makes one a bad lawyer, and pretending that one’s work wasn’t doing just that is worse. It would be like the scientists on the Manhattan Project denying that their work was being used to create something that caused massive destruction. Oh, and did we mention that post-war suicides might exceed the official count of combat deaths?
Moving into more positive, pleasant things - pictures of Zeppelins, for instance. Or that NASA is planning a manned mission to an asteroid as preparation for trying to live on Mars. Or Luna, I would say, but small steps seems to be the order of the day today. There’s also a possible multiple sclerosis treatment discovered by accident, where a marrow transplant produced a remission of the disease. And a hands-free, eleven minute Super Mario World level that provides good counterpoint to tunes playing over top of it. The time and effort put into it must have been quite interesting, but the result sounds good, even if the look is a little weird. There’s also Barackula, which looks to be just a bit bizarre.
Last for tonight, Ask Genghis Because Khan knows all. And take a pack of animal index cards as your consolation.
Okay, one more thing. I was going to link to a picture of a hut with chicken legs sticking out of it, and make a joke about the phrase "Hey, chickenlegs! Squat!", but as
greenhornline tells me, that's an f-locked post, so it doesn't quite work out. (Ten points to your house if you know who says that line, anyway.)
