Hey, let's do some news - 20 November 2008

We’re going onward from or start point. So here we go. The Dow continues to sink. And you know what that means, right? Shopping malls are in danger of having to close.

So, hey, remember that whole part about the membership list of a far-right English party getting published and now being available on the Internet? Yeah, well, those on the list are a bit afraid at their outing. Perhaps they learned about how Glenn Beck was treated at a truck stop and fear the same for themselves. (Don’t take my word for it on Beck, either. Read some transcripts yourselves.)

Then again, this membership isn’t all that strange. There are a personal site for Ayn Rand supporters, people turning a man versus environment sport into a competitive exercise, an arrest made of a person who had his genitalia in a pasta jar, and the ability to use a single SQL query to generate a Mandelbrot Set.

More seriously, Iran has enough uranium to make nuclear weapons... if they refine it and them manage to build the weapon in the first place. Iran’s not looking good as a place, as one of the chief architects of the blogging explosion in Iran was just arrested and accused of spying for Israel. And Pakistan is complaining pretty hard about how we keep violating their borders in our pursuit of terrorists. We’ve even got al-Qaeda higher-ups hurling racial taunts at the President-elect.

Domestically, apparently nothing interesting has happened enough that the AP is reduced to speculating on what President Obama will do to the White House, in decoration and/or in greening. And CNN mentionins that the management of GM and Ford have said no to the Iacocca deal, refusing the $1 salary in exchange for some money to prop up the business.

Did we mention it was a slow news day? People are finding Obama chairs on World of Warcraft, and a rumor that the President-elect is aware of AYBABTU, and Monty Python is going on Youtube.

In the opinions, we’ll draw in the Slacktivist on why asking anyone whether Obama is a Christian is a question well above your pay grade

Walter E. Williams on why socialism is evil - it forces someone to be used to ends they didn't agree to, even if there’s intermediaries like paying one’s taxes into government coffers to be distributed ag... wait a second. Calling us all thieves who rob Peter to pay Paul, but then managing to slip in the idea that the grand majority of taxes and spending is actually socialism? Niiiice. That’s quite the indictment of the last few decades. If you were aiming squarely for the President-elect, though, as your target, I’d say you might have winged him, but you probably killed a lot of other people in the process.

Newt Gingrich on why President-elect Obama's tax plans aren't really tax cuts, but welfare. You’re late, Newt. That ground’s already been covered. Another classic error: assuming that someone else's presented health care plan is President-elect Obama's health care plan. A much better perspective is a healthy skepticism of the Treasury Secretary's motives during the bailout process. And further suspicion of whether he's had any effect. And, perhaps, of Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Putin, and Dmitri Medvedev, all who want to be on the President-elect’s good side.

Michael Slaughter on why bailing out the Big Three would be really bad for the American auto industry and the country in general, not only because it encourages protectionism, but because it will cause asset drops as well. And the WSJ keeps thinking that President-elect Obama should indicate in some way that he believes in free markets, and that people should invest, rather than get bailed out, or Wall Street will continue to tumble. Mitt Romney also hammers on Detroit, saying it should fail.

But the best for tonight, in a “he didn’t really just say that, did he?” is Daniel Henninger linking the economic crisis to the increasing secularization of society. That’s right - because the country apparently doesn’t want to say “Merry Christmas” to each other, it indicates a lack of moral fiber and being, and that is what allowed the whole thing to happen. Oookay. So let’s talk to the I Drew This crowd, who have a good reason why the idea that all morality comes from a deity figure isn't really healthy for society.

In science and tech, robots that looks like baby seals begin migration to hospitals, where they will be used theraputically by the patients, progress made on reproducing the visual system on a computer, data on how Google's app for the iPhone can hear you speak, the search for a really powerful computer (possibly to put this all together), a $10 million price tag for regenerating the wooly mammoth from extinction, the European Union's response to Google Book Search, and the possible detection of dark matter? Oh, and low doses of marijuana, below the point of getting high, might be memory aids .

Last for tonight, steampunk not as a way of trying to recapture the past, but as a way of reimagining it and using it to comment about the future. And the 10th Transgender Rememberance Day, recalling all those transgender killed throguh hate, ignorance, or fear.

One more for the road - 21 November 2008

My librarian self starts with a "Huh." Namely, The Text 118118 service, which will offer SMS answers to SMS questions. 160 characters, perfect for quick reference. Why don't we do stuff like this? We've got stuff like QuestionPoint that will triage and store and make it easy to do e-mail and chat reference services - why can't we get a nice SMS plan and answer questions through that way? It would be easy and if we consorted with places, there could be a 24/7 possibility for those times when someone needs a Guiness Record at the pub. Or to warn someone away from watching the Twilight movie.

Also, this ties into another important thing - all that time spent on the Internet socializing is good for teenagers. No, really! This is another reason why we need to be where they are, instead of expecting them to come to us.

And before we get into the meat of things, we start with art - Rene Magritte, most famous for "The Son of Man", which at least one person on my Friends List has subtly altered to fit her tastes.

Internationally, Iraq is asking to accelerate the security transfer process, apparently something that makes the military people here have second thoughts. And your feel-good cathartic Iraq stories is that the person behind the killing of a reservist in Iraq has been killed himself in a raid. There, don't you feel better? No? Then maybe a stirring tribute to a recently deceased, long-lived Marine. Doesn't your heart swell with pride now and make you want to enlist?

Machinations in Venezuela, elections, and speculation that Hugo Chavez may not be able to hold onto his power without extraordinary action.

In the domestic sphere, even Barney the Dinosaur wants sound science in the Texas curriculum, but they may have difficulty getting past the creationist-friendly State Board. The General has his own take on the matter, including the obvious implications of Barney's coloration. Perhaps we could get the person who filed the amicus as God to provide some help?

The pentagon takes 1,500 computers offline because of a cyber-attack. And makes it sound positively ho-hum. What's scarier? The Secretary of Defense wasn't worried about his e-mail being compromised because he doesn't use e-mail. The Secretary in charge of a department that has to be able to move at the speed of transmission, if not faster, doesn't use e-mail. If I were feeling snarky, I'd say, "Oh, so that's why it always seems like the military is behind, even when it's supposed to be a high-technology operation." More seriously, cybercrime is a very costly enterprise, possibly leading to a different sort of crisis.

And that slow news day? Continues. Speculation as to whether President Obama will have sex with his wife while in the Whtie House. In other news, water wet, bears defecate in wooded areas, Bishop of Rome a Catholic.

Perhaps slightly more interesting is that Governor Palin appears not to understand that after pardoning a turkey, having an interview where turkeys are being slaughtered on camera is probably a bad idea.

But then we're back to mocking Thomas Kincade's attempt at a movie, gone straight to video, and apparently made with certain visual guidelines in mind. For a change of pace, Matt Duffin's art.

In the opinions, speculation on whether President-elect Obama should visit Georgia in support of the Democratic Senatorial candidate for the runoff, taking a risk on whether he thinks he can hit sixty by campaigning. Larry Elder goes after the President-elect on the Iraq conflict, trying to convince us that the alternative to what we did would have been far worse, as Emmett Tyrrell calls the President-elect "the first motivational speaker elected president" en route to saying he should follow Gordon Brown when it comes to economics, because his lack of experience means he needs a mentor.

And Ann Coulter gives her ringing endorsement of the outgoing administration...by extolling their bipartisan virtures...of what they did before the first major event that defined the presidency. And then says that the incoming President-elect isn't doing anything like all that outreach that the current President did. Well, before that event, anyway. Seriously, Ms. Coulter, if you're going to make the case for a bipartisan, meet your enemies and work with them presidency, shouldn't you include examples from all eight years, instead of the first two?

LaShawn Barber tries a column about how the President-elect should end racial preferences by acknowledging that a core issue is one of socioeconomic class, and hoping that the President-elect will steer his assistance decisions in that way and away from race. There's something to be said for that, and perhaps, if the focus is retooled, we find out that the amount of aid and assistance stays basically the same and to the same places, but some groups may be reworked. A poential worry is that retooling the focus means that minority acceptance and hiring drops out totally because there are enough socioeconomically disadvantaged majority-race folk to fill positions. I don't recall the exact study, but I do remember something that employers prefer names that sound like their own ethnic group over others. And, of course, there will always be racists who have control over hiring. I'd have to ask whether or not most African-Americans feel that affirmative action policies are insulting to them because it uses a lower standard for them, or whether they're happy to be able to do things that their parents or siblings may not have been able to. I don't know.

In our science and tech departments, A frikkin' huge (relatively speaking) single-celled organism, more on using electric signals from the surface of the cranium to control devices, more on using the ocean's different temperatures to generate power, the possibility of using light to stimulate ear neurons, which would allow for much more complex tones to be understood by the deaf, Hond's electric supercar, which would do well in the Bay Area of California, which approved a $1 billion plan to build battery-exchange points, plug-in spots, and control centers for electric vehicles, Google's CEO on using what we've learned about the Internet to make energy more efficient and innovative, and Google rolling out a way for users to customize their search results and have them annotated and saved.

Last for tonight, we go back to the art world with two great bits - phenomenaly cute mascots for blood donation, courtesy of Japan. If those were the things that were asking me to donate blood, especially Kokoron-chan, I think I'd be much more regular about the matter than I am. Which reminds me, I'm eligible again - once I knock the sniffles away, I'll go get myself stuck. And finally, Lunch Bag Art, which takes the brown bag and makes it into a canvas. Awesome!