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All sorts of interesting stuff happened over the weekend. Here’s a sampling of what went down.
For those interested in the continuing LJ revisions, new policy changes are now available for perusal.
Looks like there’s ice on the Red Planet, which is a major “d00d!” for scientists and the mission involved. More details to follow as the Phoenix mission page gets updated.
Internationally, claiming that violence is at an all-time low, the United States plans on withdrawing four thousand "surge" troops from Iraq. So we’ve almost got all the surge troops out. Will this trend continue, with more of the initial rush of troops being sent home? Or is this really just trying to make us think progress is being made, while not actually reducing the troops levels past the initial deployment?
Of more interest is a story appearing about Marines claimed to be proselytizing dominionist Christianity, through coins minted with verses, to the Iraqi people. A powder keg, poor international relations, and not to mention that the military is at least nominally nonreligious, and it’s a wonder that the Marines didn’t find themselves facing down an angry mob. The Marine involved at the distribution of the coins has been removed from duty, but it is unlikely that this is the only person involved, or that there aren’t other, potentially more subtle, proselytizations going on elsewhere. The coins are really the tip of the iceberg, as was the incident of using the Koran for target practice. Soldiers in Iraq are willingly becoming distribution points for Chrstian literature and go out trying to convert the residents to their own faith.
Iran has claimed that it has a sovereign right to enrch unranium, and that right is not negotiable. That’s the difficulty of nuclear power - there is a right to develop the technology and use it for civilian use. I’m sure that had the Untied States not developed the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, someone else would have, but it would have really been nice to have avoided that part of the atomic age.
The international community warned Myanmar not to force refugees to return to their original locations, stressing that moving home and rebuilding should only happen voluntarily, when the refugees feel that they can go home, and it is safe for them to go home. The government has been making statements that the country has returned to normal and that more aid is not necessarily needed. I think the government fears that the populace may revolt on them, with the cyclone bing the disaster needed to put a competent government into power.
Possibly invoking the wrath of Godwin, Pupaganda notes an eerie similarity between how Hitler came to power and changed things for Germany, and how G.W. Bush came to power and changed things for America.
Potentially invoking the wrath of others, A campaign ad slurs a candidate by changing the pronunciation on her name, from Kay to Gay, because she was involved in fundraising in California. Which probably wouldn’t have been weird, except for that whole ruling on homosexual marriage thing. Still, it’s stooping pretty low to say that someone supports homosexual marriage because of fundraising in California, and the stoop goes even further down by perpetuating the idea that calling someone “gay” or friendly to homosexuals is an actual argument or attack against a candidate.
The judge who resisted trial dates for a suspected 11 September attacker has been sacked, after making demands that the prosecution turn over the detention records of the attacker as evidence. This is after the judge dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction and was told to go ahead by a review panel. No word yet on whether the new judge will want this evidence as well.
Exhibit that made visible the innards of the body by encasing them in plastic may have been using individuals who were tortured in China, according to the results of an investigation by the New York Attorney General. Sounds like a more modern extension of how cadavers used to be delivered to hospitals for examination... after they had been dug up from their graves.
News from the City of F: Excel found living in a hosue, caught when her host became suspicious of food disappearances and installed a surveillance system that captured her.
Speaking of surveillance, A demo system would put cameras in every passenger's seat to track them, all in the name of capturing and stopping potential hazard scenarios before they became problems. Certain behaviors and anxieties would trip the system into having the crew believe one is a terrorist.
Universal Studios caught fire over the weekend, with several important sets burning down and the fire spreading to some video areas. There were supposedly no irreplacable losses, but movie studio stuff will have to be rebuilt.
Talking about candidate matters, Kimberly Strassel thinks Senator McCain could win by running against Congress, Democrat and Republican alike, promising that he’s a president that can get things changed in Congress and not John McSame. For all his maverick sensibilities, he still sounds like someone unwilling to budge on very serious issues that will not endear him to Democrats. His campaign has also launched the ability to personalize one's "for McCain" message. All the messages are subject to approval by the campaign, of course, but I suspect some very enterprising Discord-sowers could find legal, legitimate, and approved things to say that have the opposite meaning that is intended in this promotion. I dont’ know if it’s worth the money, but having the campaign print an attack against it would be funny.
In the opinion columns, OpinionJournal dismisses McClellan's book as nothing new, printed by someone who has ties to the Obama campaign, and nto well-supported, but receiving plenty of attention because it fits the liberal media narrative on Iraq. Rick Moran accuses Scott McClellan of being an ungrateful little shit, backstabbing the person that made it psosible for him to become famous and write his book in the first place. Through all of this, Peggy Noonan wonder why wer're not trying to find out whether McClellan's account it true, regardless of whom it wounds and how much it feel traitorious to Republicans. Would be nice to have more data so we can figure out how true the allegations and assertions are.
Thane Rosenbaum believes that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence when it comes to terror attacks on U.S. soil, and with that, thinks that Mr. Bush hasn’t been an all-bad president. While there may not have been another attack on U.S. ground, there have been plenty of hits against the United States - it’s just easier to blow oneself up in Iraq at the moment. Recent history suggests that there’s often a long lead time between terror strikes, and that a large amount of those plotting are rounded up normally, or never have their placs reach a stage where they are actually dangerous. It was eight years between the WTC bombing and the bombing that leveled the WTC, right? Does Bill Clinton also get credit for being a master terror-fighter?
As if providing a response to my rant about liberalism and conservatism, Neal Boortz's hypothetical commencement speech, telling new graduates to get rid of their liberal thinking, as it will not serve them at all in the real world. Making the government out to be a theif that steals and that will kill to accomplish its thievery, with no benefit to the victim, he also derides the kind of people that use government assistance, and tells the hypothetical class that they have no rights beyond freedom and the right to profit from one’s own work, that those who work 9-5 are losers and will never be rich, that the poor have deliberately chosen to be there, whether overtly or subtly, and that the expansion of the definition of poverty is really a cover for the government to expand its control, power, and thievery from everyone, especially the 40+ hour hard-worker who makes lots of money. I still think that espousing a philosophy like that is basically advocating for people to withdraw as much as possible from the society around them, and then resent the society because of what they do, leading one to be bitter and disappointed, possibly with a little wealth, much like Scrooge was.
Charles Krauthammer suggests that liberals have latched onto environmentalism as their way to control the world, after socialism and communism have failed. Apparently, capitalism just totally ground socialism and communism into the dust, and liberals were about to become extinct from the halls of power when environmentalism became the pet project that kept them in. Riiiight. Krauthammer also finds the nuclear taboo as “convenient” for stopping oil dependency (replacing carbon emissions and a finite supply with radioactive waste that will take generations to manage, is not exactly an even-up trade...), but it at least sure that more research is needed and that the doable parts that will make the world more environmentally friendly should be achieved. At least he’s not proclaiming that nothing or very little is wrong and that nothing needs to be done.
And one more thing: The Infamous Brad puts up some statistics to show that the police in Missouri do tend to stop non-whites more, even though more of their white stops produce actual contraband.
Technology leads with a great example of the intelligence of users. Twitter wasn’t supposed to be a social messaging platform, but a microblogging platform. Thanks to the users, though, Twitter is being rebuilt from the ground up to take on that mission. Amazing what sorts of unintended uses our technology can be put to, isn’t it?
The Guardian took a look inside one of the UK's primate research facilities, and did not find mad scientists abusing monkeys. At the same time, they acknowledged that finding alternatives to primates in research is still something to move toward.
Anyway, that’s the weekend news round-up. I’m still hoping for world peace to be declared on Monday, just before a friendly ET contact, but until then, I’ll keep doing what I do.
For those interested in the continuing LJ revisions, new policy changes are now available for perusal.
Looks like there’s ice on the Red Planet, which is a major “d00d!” for scientists and the mission involved. More details to follow as the Phoenix mission page gets updated.
Internationally, claiming that violence is at an all-time low, the United States plans on withdrawing four thousand "surge" troops from Iraq. So we’ve almost got all the surge troops out. Will this trend continue, with more of the initial rush of troops being sent home? Or is this really just trying to make us think progress is being made, while not actually reducing the troops levels past the initial deployment?
Of more interest is a story appearing about Marines claimed to be proselytizing dominionist Christianity, through coins minted with verses, to the Iraqi people. A powder keg, poor international relations, and not to mention that the military is at least nominally nonreligious, and it’s a wonder that the Marines didn’t find themselves facing down an angry mob. The Marine involved at the distribution of the coins has been removed from duty, but it is unlikely that this is the only person involved, or that there aren’t other, potentially more subtle, proselytizations going on elsewhere. The coins are really the tip of the iceberg, as was the incident of using the Koran for target practice. Soldiers in Iraq are willingly becoming distribution points for Chrstian literature and go out trying to convert the residents to their own faith.
Iran has claimed that it has a sovereign right to enrch unranium, and that right is not negotiable. That’s the difficulty of nuclear power - there is a right to develop the technology and use it for civilian use. I’m sure that had the Untied States not developed the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, someone else would have, but it would have really been nice to have avoided that part of the atomic age.
The international community warned Myanmar not to force refugees to return to their original locations, stressing that moving home and rebuilding should only happen voluntarily, when the refugees feel that they can go home, and it is safe for them to go home. The government has been making statements that the country has returned to normal and that more aid is not necessarily needed. I think the government fears that the populace may revolt on them, with the cyclone bing the disaster needed to put a competent government into power.
Possibly invoking the wrath of Godwin, Pupaganda notes an eerie similarity between how Hitler came to power and changed things for Germany, and how G.W. Bush came to power and changed things for America.
Potentially invoking the wrath of others, A campaign ad slurs a candidate by changing the pronunciation on her name, from Kay to Gay, because she was involved in fundraising in California. Which probably wouldn’t have been weird, except for that whole ruling on homosexual marriage thing. Still, it’s stooping pretty low to say that someone supports homosexual marriage because of fundraising in California, and the stoop goes even further down by perpetuating the idea that calling someone “gay” or friendly to homosexuals is an actual argument or attack against a candidate.
The judge who resisted trial dates for a suspected 11 September attacker has been sacked, after making demands that the prosecution turn over the detention records of the attacker as evidence. This is after the judge dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction and was told to go ahead by a review panel. No word yet on whether the new judge will want this evidence as well.
Exhibit that made visible the innards of the body by encasing them in plastic may have been using individuals who were tortured in China, according to the results of an investigation by the New York Attorney General. Sounds like a more modern extension of how cadavers used to be delivered to hospitals for examination... after they had been dug up from their graves.
News from the City of F: Excel found living in a hosue, caught when her host became suspicious of food disappearances and installed a surveillance system that captured her.
Speaking of surveillance, A demo system would put cameras in every passenger's seat to track them, all in the name of capturing and stopping potential hazard scenarios before they became problems. Certain behaviors and anxieties would trip the system into having the crew believe one is a terrorist.
Universal Studios caught fire over the weekend, with several important sets burning down and the fire spreading to some video areas. There were supposedly no irreplacable losses, but movie studio stuff will have to be rebuilt.
Talking about candidate matters, Kimberly Strassel thinks Senator McCain could win by running against Congress, Democrat and Republican alike, promising that he’s a president that can get things changed in Congress and not John McSame. For all his maverick sensibilities, he still sounds like someone unwilling to budge on very serious issues that will not endear him to Democrats. His campaign has also launched the ability to personalize one's "for McCain" message. All the messages are subject to approval by the campaign, of course, but I suspect some very enterprising Discord-sowers could find legal, legitimate, and approved things to say that have the opposite meaning that is intended in this promotion. I dont’ know if it’s worth the money, but having the campaign print an attack against it would be funny.
In the opinion columns, OpinionJournal dismisses McClellan's book as nothing new, printed by someone who has ties to the Obama campaign, and nto well-supported, but receiving plenty of attention because it fits the liberal media narrative on Iraq. Rick Moran accuses Scott McClellan of being an ungrateful little shit, backstabbing the person that made it psosible for him to become famous and write his book in the first place. Through all of this, Peggy Noonan wonder why wer're not trying to find out whether McClellan's account it true, regardless of whom it wounds and how much it feel traitorious to Republicans. Would be nice to have more data so we can figure out how true the allegations and assertions are.
Thane Rosenbaum believes that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence when it comes to terror attacks on U.S. soil, and with that, thinks that Mr. Bush hasn’t been an all-bad president. While there may not have been another attack on U.S. ground, there have been plenty of hits against the United States - it’s just easier to blow oneself up in Iraq at the moment. Recent history suggests that there’s often a long lead time between terror strikes, and that a large amount of those plotting are rounded up normally, or never have their placs reach a stage where they are actually dangerous. It was eight years between the WTC bombing and the bombing that leveled the WTC, right? Does Bill Clinton also get credit for being a master terror-fighter?
As if providing a response to my rant about liberalism and conservatism, Neal Boortz's hypothetical commencement speech, telling new graduates to get rid of their liberal thinking, as it will not serve them at all in the real world. Making the government out to be a theif that steals and that will kill to accomplish its thievery, with no benefit to the victim, he also derides the kind of people that use government assistance, and tells the hypothetical class that they have no rights beyond freedom and the right to profit from one’s own work, that those who work 9-5 are losers and will never be rich, that the poor have deliberately chosen to be there, whether overtly or subtly, and that the expansion of the definition of poverty is really a cover for the government to expand its control, power, and thievery from everyone, especially the 40+ hour hard-worker who makes lots of money. I still think that espousing a philosophy like that is basically advocating for people to withdraw as much as possible from the society around them, and then resent the society because of what they do, leading one to be bitter and disappointed, possibly with a little wealth, much like Scrooge was.
Charles Krauthammer suggests that liberals have latched onto environmentalism as their way to control the world, after socialism and communism have failed. Apparently, capitalism just totally ground socialism and communism into the dust, and liberals were about to become extinct from the halls of power when environmentalism became the pet project that kept them in. Riiiight. Krauthammer also finds the nuclear taboo as “convenient” for stopping oil dependency (replacing carbon emissions and a finite supply with radioactive waste that will take generations to manage, is not exactly an even-up trade...), but it at least sure that more research is needed and that the doable parts that will make the world more environmentally friendly should be achieved. At least he’s not proclaiming that nothing or very little is wrong and that nothing needs to be done.
And one more thing: The Infamous Brad puts up some statistics to show that the police in Missouri do tend to stop non-whites more, even though more of their white stops produce actual contraband.
Technology leads with a great example of the intelligence of users. Twitter wasn’t supposed to be a social messaging platform, but a microblogging platform. Thanks to the users, though, Twitter is being rebuilt from the ground up to take on that mission. Amazing what sorts of unintended uses our technology can be put to, isn’t it?
The Guardian took a look inside one of the UK's primate research facilities, and did not find mad scientists abusing monkeys. At the same time, they acknowledged that finding alternatives to primates in research is still something to move toward.
Anyway, that’s the weekend news round-up. I’m still hoping for world peace to be declared on Monday, just before a friendly ET contact, but until then, I’ll keep doing what I do.
