And there's more to do yet - 18 November 2008

In international affairs, in an attempt to boost recruitment and make up for crew shortages, the Australian navy is off for two months. The entire navy. Which might make for some interesting times, as Somali pirates are stepping up their attacks, seizing a Saudi supertanker filld with oil.

Also, more transparency, says the UN's nuclear watchdog, trying to ascertain whether uranium found at the Syrian site of an Israeli attack is from a reactor that could be making weapons-grade material.

Pesticides the possible cause for what is called "Gulf War Syndrome"? Maybe. For some, it’s proof, for others, it’s cute, but not proof. Although a VA hospital turning anyone away who had neurological problems of any sort seems rather uncouth. Of course, this is an agency under the thumb of those that want to reclassify conditions as pre-existing so they don’t have to pay for them.

And finally, Swiss government generates a document telling people that plants deserve respect, too.

The Detroit Three's competitors oppose bailing out Ford, GM, and Chrysler, reminding us that if those companies fail, the country will not be without vehicles to drive. For Neal Boortz, of course, the faster they fail, the better, so the people&aposs will be done, cutting out the salaries and benefirs and not forcing on the populace cars they apparently don’t want to buy, even if they were forced to be greener and more efficient.

Citigroup is laying off 53,000 employees because it, too, has been hammered by bad financial practice, and is giving the staffers the short end of the stick to make up for it. For which The Slacktivist floats a trial balloon as to whether those 53,000 could band together through their stock ownership and become a thorn in the side of the executive board until their voices were heard.

An interview with the founders and editors of Coilhouse magazine, on how to get started, why not to quit your day job, and what will keep your content and ideas at top quality. A good place to start might be the Book View Cafe, a place where free content from published authors is available, supposedly exclusively. But, if you want to get started early, then there’s no reason not to. At least one 12 year-old is reviewing the restaurants, hopnig perhaps he'll get to write for the Zagat guide.

In matters more opinionated than where’s the best place to eat, Supporters of Prop 8 shocked to find the boycott technique leveled against them. What, after the AFA and other religiously conservative groups had been howling for them against anyone who dared even support the idea that homosexuals are people? (Oh, and maybe if you’re such a Prop 8 supporter, you shouldn't be putting on Avenue Q and Forever Plaid). Truthfully, however, for a lot of groups, they don’t necessarily all agree with each other on whether to fund or not. If you own stock in those companies, though, it might be worth trying to engineer a shareholder revolt to oust the upper management that decided to contribute.

In opinion matters, even the third parties are now being accused of shilling or being the useful idiots for the two main parties, while also taking a dig at DailyKos’s ridicule of Ralph Nader and his supporters.

Harry R. Jackson, Jr. expects the movement for equal treatment of homosexuals to get violent, ugly, and racist, because some people are misled by the idea that “black people passed Prop 8” and other anti-equality measures... because they weren’t supported at all by the near-even fragments of all other racial groups, and single-handedly carried the issue to fruition in spire of staunch opposition. This would be more than just a classic blunder, this would be utter stupidity if anyone at all allowed this line of thinking to gain traction... or acted on it. Sadly, it sounds like some idiots don’t get it.

The WSJ gives us their fervent hope that the President-elect will build on the current progress of Iraq, rather than continue along his “get troops out” idea, believing that for all the talk of Iraq being a failure, it has succeeded remarkably well. William McGurn thinks that the architect of the surge should receive a medal from President Obama, as a way of saying “Yes, the surge worked, we can achieve victory, and I want to reward the person who generated this option.” Which is pretty pragmatic. It depends on how much the President-elect wants to be seen hitting the center instead of the fringe. On the other front, Ann Marlowe says that victory is possible in Afghanistan, despite the president's offer of amnesty for the negotiation process, probably using a similar framework as Iraq, like President-elect Obama intends to.

Ralph Malanga is of the opinion that it would be good to force states to cut and pay doen their own debts so they can re-learn fiscal responsibility... and cut their social programs as well to make up for the shortfalls. New York is a target for the writers.

At the tail end of this, I think Bret Stephens echoes most of the conservative world in eagerly awaiting the time when they can point at any remaining problems from the current administration and say, "Those aren't our fault any more, they're yours". Or perhaps hoping for some fresh difficulty to appear while President Obama is in office that they can use as a wedge against him. Some are already convinced every liberal is a hypocrite, but in a “there, there, you can’t help yourself” patronizing manner, because apparently liberals aren’t making way for the minority candidates they profess to want with affirmative action, have no students in the public schools they champion, and find tax cuts and loopholes while proclaiming that everyone needs to pay their fair share and that government can spend money wisely. Others are convinced liberals, and especially academic liberals, are all Marxists and cheered when the Socialist Obama was elected, while disapproving of signs that made the connection and using their powers to stop them from being put up in public spaces. And then, just for spice and kicks, there is still the contingent that believes Barack Obama is a Muslim, despite his faith, despite his church attendance, and despite the fact that if he were, he would be a horrible Muslim - not once on the campaign trail or elsewhere did we see the President-elect do his daily prayers, nor did he fast during Ramadan, as best I can tell. Which, of course, means the President-elect is the Antichrist, instead. Insert the requisite Worms / Bone phrase here.

In technology, the secret stuff that will help protect the President, presumably to stop him from being kidnapped by ninjas. (Or any other criminal.) Then, microsopic fuel cells getting closer to battery capability, antimatter creation for study, although no word yet as to whether we’ll have to deal with the two creating a big boom, the multiverse as the scientifically plausible theory of existence, which makes us pretty damn lucky that we’re in the one that generated our lifeforms, using light flashes as a substitute for broken nerves, which may be letting neurons communicate using the light flash as a bridge, instead of being stopped at the broken nerve point, confidence in quantum crypto to secure communications, tunneling nanotubes as the secret to viral and cancerous propagation, a spider's missing on the International Space Station, and 20 pictures fo the BioScape contest, viewing the very tiny world in vibrant color.


Heading to the end, Preserved Onion - the satirical newspaper's 1783 edition. For more real and serious stuff, the proceedings of the Old Bailey, London’s criminal court, from late 17th to early 20th century.

At the very tail, Litgasm, the project to tag all Discordian works, mentioned in the first and maybe only issue of Intermittens.

Mid-daily news - 19 November 2008

Greetings to all of you - enjoy yourselves immensely, please. After all, when the End Times are so near, despite the preferred antichrist having none of the signs in the Apocalypse of John, you have to get everything in before the Rapture. Although, in these tough economic times, it's harder to keep a lover on the side, being expensive and all. Perhaps now is the time to talk to your partner about changing your relationship?

Starting with news that is out of this world, a toolbag floated away from spacewalkers adding more modules and living space to the ISS. Ooops. I don’t think they’ll go out and try to retrieve it, unless they can use one of the large arms to snag it as it goes by, or something.

In the international sphere, lest you forget, the U.S. still thinks Iran is interfering in Iraq, including arresting alleged Iranian agents. Even as they make plans for shifting the major focus from Iraq to Afghanistan under the new administration.

India claims to have destroyed a pirate ship in the area of Somalia, where recent successes are making headline news, and are now starting to generate opinions on how to stomp them back into hiding, as well as making sure that nobody else gets any funny ideas.

The entire membership list of the far-right British National Party was lost and is feared to be posted on the Internet for all to see. That would be the whites-only British National Party, by the way, which might explain why it was posted. It is a breach of privacy, and if the person who leaked is caught, they should get the full weight of the law on them. I don’t know how many people will be pursuing that too aggressively, though, to be honest. The leader of the party may know who the leaker was, as well.

In the breaking domestic news, Ted Stevens finally loses. Not by much, mind you, but the margin of “ahead” is finaly bigger than the amount of available ballots left to count, and looks like it will stay out of mandated-recount territory. So we can say, finally, with confidence that the American populace would not elect someone with seven federal felonies to the United States Senate.

Richard Cheney and Alberto Gonzales charged with conspiracy to block investigations into abuse of prisoners at a company Mr. Cheney has invested in. It’s unknown whether those charges will actually stick and go to trail, and whether Mr. Cheney and Mr. Gonzalez will actually consent to being charged, or will just invoke their reasoning about what they’re actually liable for and dismiss it completely.

In other Senate matters, speculation on why President-elect Obama and the Democrats kept Senator Lieberman on board and chairing his committee, most of which involves the idea that Senator Lieberman now owes the President-elect big time, and will stay loyal because of that. This may annoy the progressives and all those who thought that Senator Lieberman’s endorsement and stumping for Senator McCain was an act beyond the pale, but if it turns out to be a good gambit, that annoyance will be replaced by happiness at how smoothly President Obama enacts his agenda. This pragmatism earns praise from the WSJ.

Speaking of that smoothness, and getting into opinions, an opinion piece in the WSJ about giving the populace the liberalism they elected, starting with the Employee Free Choice Act, a tool that would make it much harder for management at companies (like, say, Wal-Mart) to stop the workers from organizing and enforcing an anti-union culture through punishments and rewards.

The WSJ feels that the Democratic Congress wants to use the financial difficulties to force Detroit automakers into making green changes to their cars that nobody wants, including letting California set their own rules for anticarbon, and for not budging on the greening requirements for some $25 billion available. So, it’s bad to make a car company actually generate vehicles that have minimal environmental impact, and to provide money for that? But apparently the current administration doesn’t want to free up any more money for the other problems plauging Detroit, instead insisting that Congress use the green money for that purpose. Huh. So, “go green or die”? Is that the options that both Congress and the administration are presenting? Eh, sounds like a fair deal to me, apologies to the UAW and everyone whose jobs will be toasted by such a decision. And letting them count overseas manufactures toward their environmental standards? Cop-out. Better to let them go bankrupt than to let them cheat like that. Besides, the fact that their overseas units can bring their economy standards up means they know how to do it. Maybe after a bankruptcy, they’ll decide to actually sell the efficient cars alongside their SUVs. That’s one prong of the argument - the other is that the Big Three deserve to fail because the UAW has them so knotted up that there's no way they can succeed, and with bankruptcy, all the benefits and wages paid to the UAW will be reduced if not eliminated altogether - and it keeps a meddling government from muting the voice of the American populace. (Although, if we were casting ballots, I’d still say we’re voting against Detroit because they haven’t done the environmental, fuel-efficient thing.)

Thomas Sowell on the profligate spending of governmental entities, with an unsubtle attack on the idea that employers should be providing benefits and wages for their workers. From the tone of things, though, it sounds like Mr. Sowell would be similarly incensed at the government providing such things, so he must be a fan of each individual buying all their things themselves, including retirement and health care. I can only hope that employers and the corporate masters would deign to make such things affordable, either through lowered prices or raised wages to make up for the lack of benefits.

In the Aftermath of Proposition 8 segment, Dennis Prager thinks anyone comparing the struggle of homosexuals to the Jim Crow Era is deluding themselves, because African-Americans should resent the comparsion, being that there isn’t one between then and now, homosexuals already have every right that activists are clamoring for except for marriage, and that society as a whole does not benefit from redefining the words so as to accomodate “some gays” and turn traditional religious groups into hate groups. To this, add Chuck Norris talking about an uppity minority lashing out, unable to accept “the will of the people”, unfairly blaming religious institutions for creating the mindset, and being generally thuggish, although careful not to protest at black churches because that would seem racist and un-PC (while repeating the canard that it’s this way because the black people wanted it that way). Apparently, for Chuck and for Dennis, tradition and the majority should be enough, “the people” have spoken, and those uppity gays should just sit down and shut up. That’s kind of why those throwback comparisons keep appearing - because the rationales being used to justify them are word-tweaked from the justifications for the mistreatment of other minorities throughout history. That some of the movement’s members are doing stupid things doesn’t reflect on everyone, kind of like how everyone has grudgingly come to accept that it is not Islam that wants to conquer the world, but a bunch of people who want to hide behind Islam and conquer the world. Plus, how could the homosexual minority feel safe when people like the American Family Association are publishing tripe like a DVD that says media portrayals of homosexuality are sanitized, implying some dark underbelly waiting to suck the unaware in, and a DVD about how good Christian folk were suddenly subverted because homosexuals took over the city council and made it into a more homosexual-friendly place, with the “It can happen to YOU!” pretty clearly spelled out? If homosexuals really were as tolerated and rights-blessed as they are, why would someone be putting out constitutional amendments to strip them of those rights with the serious thought they would pass? Why aren’t there federal protections in place? Why hasn’t the 1996 DOMA been repealed? The idea that any minority should just sit down and shut up because the majority decided they were second class is anathema to the democratic and the jusicial process.

Last out of this, a note of praise for Senator McCain that we can agree on - Kudos to Senator McCain for not using Jeremiah Wright in his campaign. Perhaps because he saw what it would do to him and his campaign (preferring, instead, to let his VP talk about “palling around with domestic terrorists” and running a “We don’t know who he is” campaign), or perhaps because he wanted the discussion to stay on high levels, Senator McCain did not make much of the pastoral associations. If you shuold run again, Senator, I suggest that next time you don’t pick Sarah Palin, or the first time she says something out of line, you squelch her until she understands what she can and can’t say. Of course, for some, Sarah Palin is the way the GOP should be going for the next election cycle, based on the mass abandoment of GOP voters (and not at all because the Democratic offerings were superior), so we may not get there from here. So how much of “return to the core values” will cause a disintegration of the party, because the social conservatives have very different priotities than the fiscal conservative and the libertarian conservative.

In science and technology, cloning as a possible way of saving endangered species, a new theory that suggests autism and schizophrenia are opposite ends of a genetic spectrum, which, even if shot to hell through experimentation, will likely garner insights into mental health problems (kudos to the researchers for putting up the hypothesis, even if it does end in failure), using rats to detect the presence of land mines, a reminder to keep your web pages up to date and interesting, suggesting the parkour game Mirror's Edge makes us feel nauseous because it gives us the right cues to make us feel like we're really doing it, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and might help enhance the gameplay experience, thinking of ways of building robots that don't hurt humans, which hopefully comes with Microsoft's new robot-application-building software, weaving nanotubes into fabrics to create wearable sensors, a successful test of an Internet-like network innnnnn spaaaaace, and the process of casting silver bullets - not as easy as the Lone Ranger or werewolf films would have you think.

On the very tail end tonight, does anyone really pay attention to the plot in a pornographic film? Even as some directors try steadfastly to stick to one? And stay very close to stereotype while doing so, even as they try? Then again, maybe some of this come out of porn’s unfailing ability to parody or provide a story similar to what Hollywood and others are doing (Like you haven’t thought there would be Potter-pr0n or Twilight-pr0n. Rule 34, man, and the fanficcers usually don’t require as much salary or camera as the video stars). Considering what many watch it for, though, I suppose the loss of a coherent plot and the devolution to simply a set of scenes that start in the same place and end the same way, only changing the actors along the way doesn’t really hurt it any. Contrast, say, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, which, while containing significant amounts of toplessness and sex work, manages to hang together a plot with it.

And, to give you something to take your mind off all that dirty thinking, the Hand-Drawn Map Association.

So, Proposition 8: What now?

Having been goaded into posting on the matter, bradhicks says on face, what would be antithetical to the current homosexual-equality movement: Stop being so loud about it. With a little drilling and some context, though, what that really turns into is: Stop playing the game on your opponent's home ground, by their rules. Because, when you do, you give them grounds to complain about being a persecuted minority, declare the media is biased against you, and rouse the culture warriors even more against you. (Warning: At this juncture and beyond it, I am representing what I think to be the correct position. I may not be. Always check the source material to make sure.)

Big protests and campaigning on the issue of marriage is the surefire way to get the populace to turn against you, apparently. It gives the churches license to say “They’re trying to take away our sacred institution and force us to have sinners married in the eyes of God, and we’ll all be punished for that!” It gives the bigots license to believe that there are “uppity homosexuals” who aren’t content with the fact that the government doesn’t exterminate them as soon as they start showing homosexual tendencies, buoyed by the “ex-gay” ministry and the argument that homosexuals are unnatural, childless, and thus don’t deserve the benefits of marriage unless they’re willing to deny who they are and look like everyone else. You know, the “special rights” argument, because “Hey, if they wanted the benefits of marriage, they could marry someone of the opposite sex!” And, quixotically enough, the big reason is that people start shotuing, “Think of the children!”

Naturally, the response is not to sit down, shut up, be invisible, and hope that the majority decides in magnanimity to vote you equal rights or that a court decision is met with a collective “Meh.” by most of the population, although Mr. Hicks would use that collective Meh as a barometer of sorts to decide whether or not to go ahead with the decision, that the fight over it is continuing because it was a decision triggered too early, before the consensus was in place, and thus all the reactionaries felt like they had enough momentum, and people on their side, to fight it. (They may yet, but I do wonder how many of those numbers are people who that way because they haven’t thought about the alternatives, have been presented no alternatives, or otherwise have active interference in letting them come to the apparent majority conclusion themselves) With the matter of “gay rights”, according to Mr. Hick’s projections of historical trends, there has been a lot of progress going on as judges applied the law in places where it was going to have to be applied to prevent other undesirable outcomes, like children. On those, the populace said “Whatevs.”, and let committed parents, of whatever stripe, continue to adopt.

So, as it is now, the whole marriage thing, whether you think it should be called marriage, everyone should have marriage, or the government should GTFO entirely and only handle the legal and contractual parts, like inheritance, power of attorney, et cetera, and leave the religious ceremonies to the religious, is apparently a big source of You’re Doing It Wrong. The suggested idea of Mr. Hicks is to change tactics away from “Equality now! Including the religious ceremonies and the blessing of the State!” to letting it go for a while and letting time take its course. When prodded a bit further about how being told to sit down and shut up would make most people bristle, he suggested the following technique, “Look. You know these people, they’re your friends. They also happen to be homosexual. That mean law they passed? Stops this highly mediagenic, nonthreatening, typically American couple from marrying and having children. This couple? Well, they can’t adopt and be sure that someone won’t call Child Protective Services on them and have the child removed because two moms or two dads is an unfit parenting household, in their opinion. These people can’t be sure that if one of them gets sick, their family won’t insist on keeping him out of the hospital, because he’s not family or married, insist on a burial totally against their wishes, and fight for every last possible inheritance bit they can, because his partner isn’t married, and thus doesn’t have those rights. See what kind of hurt you’re doing to these otherwise normal Americans?” And that, one after another, after another, these mediagenic, clean, non-embarrassing, no dirt possible partners show up on television, on radio, in your lives, and people talk about them and come to the conclusion that these guys aren’t so bad, and maybe it would be okay to let those people marry, because they’re decent enough folk, if a bit confused about their gender preferences“. (Okay, significantly more brief than that, but that’s the gist of it - stick an angel in front of the camera, get people to feel for them, then as their discussion dies, stick another one there. Lather, rinse, repeat.) In that way, the number of people convinced and swayed by knee-jerk rhetoric about collapsing families and destroying institutions gets smaller and smaller, as they start ascribing names and faces and lives to the people who were an abstract hate. By bringing them into the Monkeysphere, most people would stop, or so the reasoning goes. And then, when the collective barometer reaches ”Meh.“ or ”Okay.“, then the courts knock over the discriminatory laws, or Legislatures get enough pressure to strike them from the books. It’s expensive, it will take time, and it has none of the ideological satisfaction of having met the enemy on the field of high battle and kicked his sorry ass all the way back to his stronghold, but it’s the solution that has a high probablilty of working without major fighting and bloodshed. And if someone says that you should think of the children, you can nod and say, ”We are. We want healthy, happy homes, just like you. So we need to have committed and devoted parents be able to marry, so that their children can be assured the continuity of their parents.“

In an ironic sort of way, the best way to go about it is through children and adoption and all of that, tugging the heartstrings all the way. It has none of the glory, nor any of the ”This Ends HERE!“ glamour that will make for great movies, or any ”enlightenment awakenings“ happening. Just steadily making sure that the populace always knows someone, if only by news programs, that has been hurt.

What do you guys think? Where do people go from here?