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PSA to all of us addicted to our LJs: Four hour downtime starting 11am EST, 8am pacific.
And forward, soldiering on. Speaking of, The United States Army has its first female four-star General. Women are still excluded from units that see direct combat, but there's a lot more than fighting that the women can do these days.
Hopefully she's smarter than some prison guards, who permitted an inmate to mail himself out of the prison, and some prison designers, who apparently did not have to contend with a man whose frame was too large for the cell, earning his early release.
A draft of the continuing forces agreement has been approved by both U.S. and Iraqi sides. You didn't really think they'd let that one get away, did you? Of course, this means Muqtada al-Sadr will reopen hostilities, but hey, with the troops there, he can be viciously suppressed, no doubt. But, according to the CIA, Osama bin Laden is too concerned with covering his own ass to attack ours, so that has to be progress, right? And all we have to do is cut off gas to Iran, and they'll fall in line, throw many many more troops at Afghanistan, and then we'll have a peaceful world.
The Untied States is also unhappy about Russia's announcement to put missiles in place to counter the United States missile emplacements in Poland, ostensibly there to deter Iran rather than reignite the Cold War. As an aside, apparently John Bolton thinks that President-elect Obama should let himself be painted into positions by his allies on missile defense rather than sticking to his own stated policy.)
In the domestic sphere, the obligatory "no communion for the pro-choice candidate or his supporters" Catholic priest quote, which has been going on for some time, in various places, and is studiously ignored. Because most people make political decisions based on more than just what their church says they should be voting on. Of course, for some subset of the religious populace, including lots of evangelicals, there is nothing Barack Obama can do to win them over. For those feeling fozen out, the use of rhetoric like "resistance movement" and "rebels" certainly makes it sound like the big bad liberal is going to oppress them with all of his government might... excepting that monotheism is still the overwhelming majority faith in the country, and Christian denominations the majority of that. So the President-elect would have to do some pretty impressive oppression for them to be truly a resistance movement. Although, based on the report that the President-elect has received more assassination threats than any of his predecessors, for whatever reason, Barack Obama might have managed to get enough stupid people to come out and start planning enough to be noticed. Whether serious or at the same accepted credibility level as those who believe in giant and secret government mind-control experiments and programs, it has not yet been released to our knowledge.
Speaking of the President-elect, building on his successful Internet campaign usage, President Obama will post his weekly address on YouTube, as well as testing his potential cabinet for their tech-savviness. Since a copy of that questionnaire is in the press, this means shreiking voices will point toward the President-elect's unwillingness to put a gun champion on his staff and thus undermine the Second Amendment.
And in the opinions, Burt Prelutsky says everything short of "President Obama will destroy the world" in his doom and gloom prediction of the next four years, while claiming that liberals never own up to any of their mistakes, that Obama pals around with disreputable people, and that the Fairness Doctrine and capital-S Socialist president will ruin conservatives and Republicans and the country for years to come. Gee, Burt, I'm glad you're feeling so optimistic! Maybe you and Michael Gerson can get together to discuss all the things that Obama&aps;s going to do that are wrong and controversial, like the Fairness Doctrine, stem cell research, and making sure that everyone who wants reproductive choice has it. (I'm sensing a trend...)
David Limbaugh is still convinced Sarah Palin is the greatest thing for Republicans and the country since the invention of sliced bread, and that "elitists" in the country were oh-so-wrong about how President Obama's opponents would be racists or use race as a wedge, because of all the other things that were wrong about Obama, oh, and did you know he'll pass the Fairness Doctrine?
David Harsanyi says its a good idea to let Detroit die completely, not only because of their inferior product, but because it would then make the unions desert the Democrats too as their power suddenly was pulled away from them. Paired with Lawrence Kudlow's lavish praise for the current administrator's defence of free market economics, of which excerpts are available (Bailout? What bailout? Seriously, even Michelle Malkin thinks it's been a disaster, and that's without the clamoring that any additional stimulus packages would flop, too), The Wall Street Journal starting to shift the blame for the economic downturn on fear about the President-elect's economic plan in addition to the apparent Democratic desire to kill the 401(k) and replace it with something else, and Paul Weyrich adds that permitting domestic drilling is still a good idea (John Boehner agrees, under the premise of "energy independence"), and you would think that there was a conservative elected rather than a liberal. If the President-elect did all those things, he would be a conservative. The voters rejected the conservative in favor of the less-conservative. La plus ca change, I guess.
One international matter of opinion - if things continue along their present path, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe will have successfully managed to kill any reform, even with the people having elected the opposition to power.
And out of rabidly political affairs, Daniel Henninger calls out for common sense on deciding whose monument goes were on government property like parks, citing that the government can quash whatever it likes, even as he recognizes the conclusion that scouring the parks of all religious-themed matters is a possibility, although he takes it out to a nonsensical degree in declaring that even secular monuments like those to Alice in Wonderland would be scrubbed, too, in the name of fairness and equality.
In science and technology, using floating energy islands to generate large-scale solar power, and possibly some extra food, clean drinking water and such, examining what may be a temple way older than even Stonehenge, the open-sourcing and plan publication of a device intended to turn off televisions in public places without alerting anyone to whodunit, A Second Life affair ending with a First Life divorce, and another successful Shuttle launch.
Last for tonight, even in humor, the newest jokes are older than you think. And in a totally different literary form, questions on whether science fiction is a dying genre, or at least one lagging hard behind the science and science predictions of today, with perspectives from Nick Sagan, Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, Stephen Baxter, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Ursula K. LeGuin, all of whom are certain that there will always be science fiction in some form, because there will always be new ways of imagining what was, what is, and what will be.
And forward, soldiering on. Speaking of, The United States Army has its first female four-star General. Women are still excluded from units that see direct combat, but there's a lot more than fighting that the women can do these days.
Hopefully she's smarter than some prison guards, who permitted an inmate to mail himself out of the prison, and some prison designers, who apparently did not have to contend with a man whose frame was too large for the cell, earning his early release.
A draft of the continuing forces agreement has been approved by both U.S. and Iraqi sides. You didn't really think they'd let that one get away, did you? Of course, this means Muqtada al-Sadr will reopen hostilities, but hey, with the troops there, he can be viciously suppressed, no doubt. But, according to the CIA, Osama bin Laden is too concerned with covering his own ass to attack ours, so that has to be progress, right? And all we have to do is cut off gas to Iran, and they'll fall in line, throw many many more troops at Afghanistan, and then we'll have a peaceful world.
The Untied States is also unhappy about Russia's announcement to put missiles in place to counter the United States missile emplacements in Poland, ostensibly there to deter Iran rather than reignite the Cold War. As an aside, apparently John Bolton thinks that President-elect Obama should let himself be painted into positions by his allies on missile defense rather than sticking to his own stated policy.)
In the domestic sphere, the obligatory "no communion for the pro-choice candidate or his supporters" Catholic priest quote, which has been going on for some time, in various places, and is studiously ignored. Because most people make political decisions based on more than just what their church says they should be voting on. Of course, for some subset of the religious populace, including lots of evangelicals, there is nothing Barack Obama can do to win them over. For those feeling fozen out, the use of rhetoric like "resistance movement" and "rebels" certainly makes it sound like the big bad liberal is going to oppress them with all of his government might... excepting that monotheism is still the overwhelming majority faith in the country, and Christian denominations the majority of that. So the President-elect would have to do some pretty impressive oppression for them to be truly a resistance movement. Although, based on the report that the President-elect has received more assassination threats than any of his predecessors, for whatever reason, Barack Obama might have managed to get enough stupid people to come out and start planning enough to be noticed. Whether serious or at the same accepted credibility level as those who believe in giant and secret government mind-control experiments and programs, it has not yet been released to our knowledge.
Speaking of the President-elect, building on his successful Internet campaign usage, President Obama will post his weekly address on YouTube, as well as testing his potential cabinet for their tech-savviness. Since a copy of that questionnaire is in the press, this means shreiking voices will point toward the President-elect's unwillingness to put a gun champion on his staff and thus undermine the Second Amendment.
And in the opinions, Burt Prelutsky says everything short of "President Obama will destroy the world" in his doom and gloom prediction of the next four years, while claiming that liberals never own up to any of their mistakes, that Obama pals around with disreputable people, and that the Fairness Doctrine and capital-S Socialist president will ruin conservatives and Republicans and the country for years to come. Gee, Burt, I'm glad you're feeling so optimistic! Maybe you and Michael Gerson can get together to discuss all the things that Obama&aps;s going to do that are wrong and controversial, like the Fairness Doctrine, stem cell research, and making sure that everyone who wants reproductive choice has it. (I'm sensing a trend...)
David Limbaugh is still convinced Sarah Palin is the greatest thing for Republicans and the country since the invention of sliced bread, and that "elitists" in the country were oh-so-wrong about how President Obama's opponents would be racists or use race as a wedge, because of all the other things that were wrong about Obama, oh, and did you know he'll pass the Fairness Doctrine?
David Harsanyi says its a good idea to let Detroit die completely, not only because of their inferior product, but because it would then make the unions desert the Democrats too as their power suddenly was pulled away from them. Paired with Lawrence Kudlow's lavish praise for the current administrator's defence of free market economics, of which excerpts are available (Bailout? What bailout? Seriously, even Michelle Malkin thinks it's been a disaster, and that's without the clamoring that any additional stimulus packages would flop, too), The Wall Street Journal starting to shift the blame for the economic downturn on fear about the President-elect's economic plan in addition to the apparent Democratic desire to kill the 401(k) and replace it with something else, and Paul Weyrich adds that permitting domestic drilling is still a good idea (John Boehner agrees, under the premise of "energy independence"), and you would think that there was a conservative elected rather than a liberal. If the President-elect did all those things, he would be a conservative. The voters rejected the conservative in favor of the less-conservative. La plus ca change, I guess.
One international matter of opinion - if things continue along their present path, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe will have successfully managed to kill any reform, even with the people having elected the opposition to power.
And out of rabidly political affairs, Daniel Henninger calls out for common sense on deciding whose monument goes were on government property like parks, citing that the government can quash whatever it likes, even as he recognizes the conclusion that scouring the parks of all religious-themed matters is a possibility, although he takes it out to a nonsensical degree in declaring that even secular monuments like those to Alice in Wonderland would be scrubbed, too, in the name of fairness and equality.
In science and technology, using floating energy islands to generate large-scale solar power, and possibly some extra food, clean drinking water and such, examining what may be a temple way older than even Stonehenge, the open-sourcing and plan publication of a device intended to turn off televisions in public places without alerting anyone to whodunit, A Second Life affair ending with a First Life divorce, and another successful Shuttle launch.
Last for tonight, even in humor, the newest jokes are older than you think. And in a totally different literary form, questions on whether science fiction is a dying genre, or at least one lagging hard behind the science and science predictions of today, with perspectives from Nick Sagan, Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, Stephen Baxter, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Ursula K. LeGuin, all of whom are certain that there will always be science fiction in some form, because there will always be new ways of imagining what was, what is, and what will be.
