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Bleargh - 08 October 2008
Oct. 8th, 2008 11:50 pmNow that it’s gone and past, I think this summary of Banned Books Week sums up the whole thing nicely.
Feeling tounge-tied in situations where tact, caution, and not setting someone off are important? The Happiness Project offers eight tips for finding the right thing to say in difficult situations.
In our news of slightly stranger, monkeys in a Japanese sake house have picked up the waiter trade, are certified to work there, and take shifts of up to two hours a day.
We also have Christian Nymphomaniacs - enjoying hot spicy sex within the context of their devoted marriages. According to the will of God, of course, which rules out fetish-y things, anything considered pornographic, and things such as sex in the view of others, although things that can be used as fetish devices are permissible, and there’s encouragement for couples to write their own erotic stories, from what I can guess. From a cursory perusal, it looks to be a laudable effort at getting committed and married Christian couples to be okay with kinkier sex acts, fantasies, toys, and other possibilities. While I may not agree with all of their positions, I do appreciate that they’re trying not to make sex into something where one lies back and thinks of the queen.
And now, the regular sort of material we call news.
There are people of various minds all thinking about Iraq. General Petraeus thinks that Iraq techniques may not translate well to Asghanistan. It is yet undecided how American troops that commit crimes will be tried, whether by American commanders or by Iraqi courts.
Darfur and Somalia are becoming increasingly difficult to pacify, says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as he delays the placement of troops in the area. It could be a smart decision, because throwing troops at something just for them to die is no good.
Trying to put brakes on the world freefall of economic markets, the Federal Reseve and several other central banks all simultaneously cut their interest rates again. The question is whether this only helps to soften the smack at the bottom or is actually retarding the fall. If you’re John Stossel, then doing anything to retard the free market, like bailing out firms, is only making the problem worse.
Domestically, more proof that long isolation and the preferred interrogation methods of the current administration are not good for detainees, as it was causing at least one to lose his mind. We find this out through FOIA nearly six years after the fact, of course, when it’s too late to really do anything about it for him, but maybe for the others who are still detained?
An odd situation involving private businessmen, suits paid for, and a Senator who won't say anything more than just that gifts were reported. The Gerneal seizes upon this moment, and asks a panel of prominent Republicans what he should do about it.
And, ah, yes, another presidential debate, with much spoken, little promised, and lots of fact-checking needed. Lots of fact-checking, indeed.
Getting opinionated, avoiding recessions by importing workers and lowering tax rates, which is a much mroe novel solution than those I’ve seen so far.
Talking candidates specifically, The WSJ believes Senator McCain's health-care plan is superior to Senator Obama's, by virtue of it offering everyone a tax break that is supposedly mroe valuable than whet an employer gets for buying health care. A curious ending statement calls Senator Obama “offering Canada on the installment plan”, implying that Canada’s health care is bad (which is certainly isn’t) and that it will be unsustainable in cost, which depends on whether or not the inflows of taxes can match the outflows of benefits. Senator Obama offers the enticing idea of nobody being uninsured, and possibly already having paid for it through taxation. Senator McCain offers the ability to deduct money that you paid for insurances, assuming you can afford it in the first place. Then again, the WSJ is convinced Senator Obama is a walking contradiction, so I don’t think they’d have much positive to say about his plans.
Frank Gaffney, Jr. beings back the zombie "Obama's associations make him anti-American and a terrorist sympathizer" argument, as Thomas Sowell cries "Braaaains!" by talking about how the Senator is apparently against traditional values and an arrogant liberal elitist who wants to indoctrinate kindergarteners with contrary values under the guise of sex education. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the columnists were collaborating, because Terence Jeffrey brings back the last of the old spectres by talking about why Senator Obama opposed the Born-alive Infant Protection Act, where the Seantor’s objection was based on the grounds that the bills would define all fetuses as children anf prevent any kind of abortion, on the grounds that defining a fetus outside the womb, potentially alive, as a child would prevent abortions from occurring. Marjorie Dannenfelser thinks this is an issue desrving more attention and scrutiny, because the Senator is so totally heartless that he would give women the right to choose whether or not they really and trult want a child up to the moment of its birth.
Kathleen Parker wants Senator McCain to put Sarah Palin back on leash, with the way she deftly wields keywords and phrases that trigger responses in the voting populace, like catering to the Dominionists, the Reaganites, and playing a rather dangerous game of dancing right around coming out and saying that Barack Obama is a terrorist, a black Other, possibly a Muslim, and pandering up to the voting populace that believes any or all of those things.
Out of all of this, the Slacktivist on why people continue to perpetuate false rumors, even ones they know are false, because by demonizing someone else, some Other, people can feel that they’re not as bad as them, and thus better than Them, and special because they’re on the right side. So I’m probably guilty of more than a few of them myself, especially if they’ve been falsehoods about the Republican Party and their nominees (and maybe some about the Democratic ones, too). In my defense, I hope that I’ve corrected misconceptions as they appeared and that I indicated in the right places what is the opinion of the author and what is my own opinion. Hopefully, though, stripping away my opinions and others and going on what the people have actually said should be enough for you to form your own opinion about who you want to vote for.
And now, to totally destroy my own apology, forces of intolerance apparently winning in California, thanks to advertisements and large amounts of spending. Why are we still permitting the religious entanglements to get in the way of civil contracts - marriage as a legal matter should be available to anyone who makes the application and is able to consent to it, regardless of the genders and numbers of the people involved. In an officially agno-atheist government, this matter should have been resolved the first time someone sued to marry their partner and was prohibited under a state or local law.
In the science stuff, origami space shuttles from Japan, paper treated to hopefully survive re-entry after being launched from the ISS back into the atmosphere. Assuming it does, then to whomever finds it, a request to contact JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, for return of the shuttle to them.
More Japan matters - a powered exoskeleton will be available for rent to assist people in relearning to walk, or in helping the paralyzed return to walking, with the help of the suit.
Additionally, worries about what NASA will do about a planned Mars mission using a giant rover, because of cost issues, NASA will seek United States commercial cargo flights to resupply the ISS after the Shuttle is retired, although they will use Soyuz capsules for manned missions.
One in four mammal species faces extinction, mostly due to one particular mammal’s planetary domination. Your DNA might reveal your family name, based on some studies that put those of similar name near each other on the genetic scale, being descended from common ancestors and such.
Last out of science, go retro - search Google as it was in 2001. Have fun with that, as I try for more recovery sleep.
Feeling tounge-tied in situations where tact, caution, and not setting someone off are important? The Happiness Project offers eight tips for finding the right thing to say in difficult situations.
In our news of slightly stranger, monkeys in a Japanese sake house have picked up the waiter trade, are certified to work there, and take shifts of up to two hours a day.
We also have Christian Nymphomaniacs - enjoying hot spicy sex within the context of their devoted marriages. According to the will of God, of course, which rules out fetish-y things, anything considered pornographic, and things such as sex in the view of others, although things that can be used as fetish devices are permissible, and there’s encouragement for couples to write their own erotic stories, from what I can guess. From a cursory perusal, it looks to be a laudable effort at getting committed and married Christian couples to be okay with kinkier sex acts, fantasies, toys, and other possibilities. While I may not agree with all of their positions, I do appreciate that they’re trying not to make sex into something where one lies back and thinks of the queen.
And now, the regular sort of material we call news.
There are people of various minds all thinking about Iraq. General Petraeus thinks that Iraq techniques may not translate well to Asghanistan. It is yet undecided how American troops that commit crimes will be tried, whether by American commanders or by Iraqi courts.
Darfur and Somalia are becoming increasingly difficult to pacify, says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as he delays the placement of troops in the area. It could be a smart decision, because throwing troops at something just for them to die is no good.
Trying to put brakes on the world freefall of economic markets, the Federal Reseve and several other central banks all simultaneously cut their interest rates again. The question is whether this only helps to soften the smack at the bottom or is actually retarding the fall. If you’re John Stossel, then doing anything to retard the free market, like bailing out firms, is only making the problem worse.
Domestically, more proof that long isolation and the preferred interrogation methods of the current administration are not good for detainees, as it was causing at least one to lose his mind. We find this out through FOIA nearly six years after the fact, of course, when it’s too late to really do anything about it for him, but maybe for the others who are still detained?
An odd situation involving private businessmen, suits paid for, and a Senator who won't say anything more than just that gifts were reported. The Gerneal seizes upon this moment, and asks a panel of prominent Republicans what he should do about it.
And, ah, yes, another presidential debate, with much spoken, little promised, and lots of fact-checking needed. Lots of fact-checking, indeed.
Getting opinionated, avoiding recessions by importing workers and lowering tax rates, which is a much mroe novel solution than those I’ve seen so far.
Talking candidates specifically, The WSJ believes Senator McCain's health-care plan is superior to Senator Obama's, by virtue of it offering everyone a tax break that is supposedly mroe valuable than whet an employer gets for buying health care. A curious ending statement calls Senator Obama “offering Canada on the installment plan”, implying that Canada’s health care is bad (which is certainly isn’t) and that it will be unsustainable in cost, which depends on whether or not the inflows of taxes can match the outflows of benefits. Senator Obama offers the enticing idea of nobody being uninsured, and possibly already having paid for it through taxation. Senator McCain offers the ability to deduct money that you paid for insurances, assuming you can afford it in the first place. Then again, the WSJ is convinced Senator Obama is a walking contradiction, so I don’t think they’d have much positive to say about his plans.
Frank Gaffney, Jr. beings back the zombie "Obama's associations make him anti-American and a terrorist sympathizer" argument, as Thomas Sowell cries "Braaaains!" by talking about how the Senator is apparently against traditional values and an arrogant liberal elitist who wants to indoctrinate kindergarteners with contrary values under the guise of sex education. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the columnists were collaborating, because Terence Jeffrey brings back the last of the old spectres by talking about why Senator Obama opposed the Born-alive Infant Protection Act, where the Seantor’s objection was based on the grounds that the bills would define all fetuses as children anf prevent any kind of abortion, on the grounds that defining a fetus outside the womb, potentially alive, as a child would prevent abortions from occurring. Marjorie Dannenfelser thinks this is an issue desrving more attention and scrutiny, because the Senator is so totally heartless that he would give women the right to choose whether or not they really and trult want a child up to the moment of its birth.
Kathleen Parker wants Senator McCain to put Sarah Palin back on leash, with the way she deftly wields keywords and phrases that trigger responses in the voting populace, like catering to the Dominionists, the Reaganites, and playing a rather dangerous game of dancing right around coming out and saying that Barack Obama is a terrorist, a black Other, possibly a Muslim, and pandering up to the voting populace that believes any or all of those things.
Out of all of this, the Slacktivist on why people continue to perpetuate false rumors, even ones they know are false, because by demonizing someone else, some Other, people can feel that they’re not as bad as them, and thus better than Them, and special because they’re on the right side. So I’m probably guilty of more than a few of them myself, especially if they’ve been falsehoods about the Republican Party and their nominees (and maybe some about the Democratic ones, too). In my defense, I hope that I’ve corrected misconceptions as they appeared and that I indicated in the right places what is the opinion of the author and what is my own opinion. Hopefully, though, stripping away my opinions and others and going on what the people have actually said should be enough for you to form your own opinion about who you want to vote for.
And now, to totally destroy my own apology, forces of intolerance apparently winning in California, thanks to advertisements and large amounts of spending. Why are we still permitting the religious entanglements to get in the way of civil contracts - marriage as a legal matter should be available to anyone who makes the application and is able to consent to it, regardless of the genders and numbers of the people involved. In an officially agno-atheist government, this matter should have been resolved the first time someone sued to marry their partner and was prohibited under a state or local law.
In the science stuff, origami space shuttles from Japan, paper treated to hopefully survive re-entry after being launched from the ISS back into the atmosphere. Assuming it does, then to whomever finds it, a request to contact JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, for return of the shuttle to them.
More Japan matters - a powered exoskeleton will be available for rent to assist people in relearning to walk, or in helping the paralyzed return to walking, with the help of the suit.
Additionally, worries about what NASA will do about a planned Mars mission using a giant rover, because of cost issues, NASA will seek United States commercial cargo flights to resupply the ISS after the Shuttle is retired, although they will use Soyuz capsules for manned missions.
One in four mammal species faces extinction, mostly due to one particular mammal’s planetary domination. Your DNA might reveal your family name, based on some studies that put those of similar name near each other on the genetic scale, being descended from common ancestors and such.
Last out of science, go retro - search Google as it was in 2001. Have fun with that, as I try for more recovery sleep.
