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Mid-weekend update - 7 December 2008
Dec. 7th, 2008 04:59 pmBefore the news, a silly request - I've been wondering if I need to explain some of the slang or turns of phrase used in the blog, whether they would be helpful to those just joining on, or if I'm clear normally without referring to too many in-jokes... that aren't necessarily researchable. This could turn into one of those "ask me about my interests" questions, too, so I have no clue how it would turn out. But if you spot some references that need further explaining somewhere, let me know and I'll try to compile them into a later post.
Up top - in this day in history, through an attack on the Pearl Harbor naval facility in the state of Hawai'i, Japan sealed their fate, and those of the Axis Powers, by drawing the United States into a war that they had otherwise been happy to ride out and profit off of.
Huh. Jubilation back home in Ann Arbor, as the unranked Michigan basketball team beats Duke at home. Combined with beating UCLA, both top 5 teams at the points of their defeat, the nonconference looks good for the maize and blue. Question is whether that will work out into the regular season and the conference games. For some, this is as strange as finding out the private lives of the toys after people go to bed... and not in a Toy Story sort of way.
Also in the oddrealms, an atlas of True Names, along with some explanation as to how those things were derived, along with a caveat lector that not everything you read is true. Just like how your eyes deceive you in these suggestive adverts, and a cake that is a lie.
Internationally, in more serious matters, Pakistan continues to be a thorn, with a raid and torching of several military vehicles destined for Afghanistan, new rules with the new agreement in Iraq, like United States troops actually needing a warrant to detain or search - took six years for the most basic Fourth amendment protection to get there? Geez.
In domestic news, a very slow news day for the local reporter, the history of the neighborhood where the outgoing administrator will be living after his term of office ends (which could be "a slow news day for the national reporter"), and Pin-up model Bettie Page is in the hospital.
Now officially a recession, the predictions are on to see whether this will be the worst ever. On that matter, Austin Cline suggests that running government like a household by trimming spending is raising zombie Hoover, with the same likely results, while The WSJ says that spending like a government is New Deal Doom. To see the real effects, plus realizing that Detroit has been declining long before the rest of the country even blinked, observe these pictures of the place, and see how similar it may be to all sorts of other abandoned places. Which might be the spur for others to say that the financial crisis has devolved into the banking system versus everyone else, whether Democrat, Republican, or otherwise. Henry Kaufman shares his projections of how things will change after this financial crisis resolves, which mostly involves the reduction of debt creation, some savings, and the consolidation of much of our debt into the hands of only a few institutions. Do I hear a trustbust in the works?
Speaking of cash, the figures for the last political campaign have been released, and the president-elect built himself a serious funding juggernaut, even having $30 million left over. Who knows? Maybe we can get that network to be able to help pay down debts when the economic engine is running hot.
The American Civic Literacy Program wants you to take a civics quiz, while giving you statistics that say (as other opinion columnists have reported on) that the high school age populace can't pass quizzes like it, and don't know the basics of their own government. Well, if you do take the quiz, there's a lot more than just civics there, and you have to take it as if you believe in free-market capitalism as the superior economic system, among other things. Enjoy.
Hey, opinion time. Progress in Iraq through the courts, according to the WSJ, for condemming Saddam Hussein's cousin and fellow to death for his use of poison gas on the populace, and for permitting a parliamentarian to return to his duties after a visit to Israel, something illegal under the Saddam regime.
Kimberly Strassel fears that the President-elect's environment team will undo any smarts obtained by his picks for economy and security, because they'll do stuff like cap and trade and carbon regulate and be left-wing greenies, meaning expensive taxes, regulation, and putting power in the hands of the EPA. So, like, planning long-term against the possible threat of climate change and letting the agency do what it was chartered to do? This is somehow a bad thing? It will apparently kill Detroit if too much new environmental standards are put on them as a course of loaning them cash, for which the option of sending them to bankruptcy looks better, instead of making them the puppets of the federal government and the above "green or die" movement that some columnists are afraid of.
A suggestion for the new administration that in addition to the cooperation already in place by the outgoing administration, new focus on counteracting extremist ideology will help the War on a Concept succeed, especially in the India-Pakistan-Afghanistan areas of the world.
Last out of the opinions, define "Cynical" - the WSJ believes that Al Franken will keep lobbying for more votes to be counted until he's ahead - and then suddenly decide it's time to stop and certify him the winner. Like hell. Once set in motion, these things are not stopped until they finish their tasks. Well, okay, there was that one decision, Bush v. Gore, but that's an aberration... right?
In science and technology, 21 rayguns for Forrest J. Ackerman, coiner of "sci-fi", collector of great memorabilia, and literary agent who represented and discovered a lot of the Golden Age authors, a website dcidated to obsolete technology, branding the Roman oil lamps, which all look pretty similar on the outside to me, and teddy bears... in SPAAAAAAACE. All together now! For SCIENCE!
Last for tonight, blood binds tighter than politics - David Horowitz eulgoizes his daughter as the wonderful woman she was, even if their political ideologies were opposite each other. And, perhaps fittingly, Dreams, a spot the difference game with some very gorgeous artwork telling a story of an asleep girl.
Up top - in this day in history, through an attack on the Pearl Harbor naval facility in the state of Hawai'i, Japan sealed their fate, and those of the Axis Powers, by drawing the United States into a war that they had otherwise been happy to ride out and profit off of.
Huh. Jubilation back home in Ann Arbor, as the unranked Michigan basketball team beats Duke at home. Combined with beating UCLA, both top 5 teams at the points of their defeat, the nonconference looks good for the maize and blue. Question is whether that will work out into the regular season and the conference games. For some, this is as strange as finding out the private lives of the toys after people go to bed... and not in a Toy Story sort of way.
Also in the oddrealms, an atlas of True Names, along with some explanation as to how those things were derived, along with a caveat lector that not everything you read is true. Just like how your eyes deceive you in these suggestive adverts, and a cake that is a lie.
Internationally, in more serious matters, Pakistan continues to be a thorn, with a raid and torching of several military vehicles destined for Afghanistan, new rules with the new agreement in Iraq, like United States troops actually needing a warrant to detain or search - took six years for the most basic Fourth amendment protection to get there? Geez.
In domestic news, a very slow news day for the local reporter, the history of the neighborhood where the outgoing administrator will be living after his term of office ends (which could be "a slow news day for the national reporter"), and Pin-up model Bettie Page is in the hospital.
Now officially a recession, the predictions are on to see whether this will be the worst ever. On that matter, Austin Cline suggests that running government like a household by trimming spending is raising zombie Hoover, with the same likely results, while The WSJ says that spending like a government is New Deal Doom. To see the real effects, plus realizing that Detroit has been declining long before the rest of the country even blinked, observe these pictures of the place, and see how similar it may be to all sorts of other abandoned places. Which might be the spur for others to say that the financial crisis has devolved into the banking system versus everyone else, whether Democrat, Republican, or otherwise. Henry Kaufman shares his projections of how things will change after this financial crisis resolves, which mostly involves the reduction of debt creation, some savings, and the consolidation of much of our debt into the hands of only a few institutions. Do I hear a trustbust in the works?
Speaking of cash, the figures for the last political campaign have been released, and the president-elect built himself a serious funding juggernaut, even having $30 million left over. Who knows? Maybe we can get that network to be able to help pay down debts when the economic engine is running hot.
The American Civic Literacy Program wants you to take a civics quiz, while giving you statistics that say (as other opinion columnists have reported on) that the high school age populace can't pass quizzes like it, and don't know the basics of their own government. Well, if you do take the quiz, there's a lot more than just civics there, and you have to take it as if you believe in free-market capitalism as the superior economic system, among other things. Enjoy.
Hey, opinion time. Progress in Iraq through the courts, according to the WSJ, for condemming Saddam Hussein's cousin and fellow to death for his use of poison gas on the populace, and for permitting a parliamentarian to return to his duties after a visit to Israel, something illegal under the Saddam regime.
Kimberly Strassel fears that the President-elect's environment team will undo any smarts obtained by his picks for economy and security, because they'll do stuff like cap and trade and carbon regulate and be left-wing greenies, meaning expensive taxes, regulation, and putting power in the hands of the EPA. So, like, planning long-term against the possible threat of climate change and letting the agency do what it was chartered to do? This is somehow a bad thing? It will apparently kill Detroit if too much new environmental standards are put on them as a course of loaning them cash, for which the option of sending them to bankruptcy looks better, instead of making them the puppets of the federal government and the above "green or die" movement that some columnists are afraid of.
A suggestion for the new administration that in addition to the cooperation already in place by the outgoing administration, new focus on counteracting extremist ideology will help the War on a Concept succeed, especially in the India-Pakistan-Afghanistan areas of the world.
Last out of the opinions, define "Cynical" - the WSJ believes that Al Franken will keep lobbying for more votes to be counted until he's ahead - and then suddenly decide it's time to stop and certify him the winner. Like hell. Once set in motion, these things are not stopped until they finish their tasks. Well, okay, there was that one decision, Bush v. Gore, but that's an aberration... right?
In science and technology, 21 rayguns for Forrest J. Ackerman, coiner of "sci-fi", collector of great memorabilia, and literary agent who represented and discovered a lot of the Golden Age authors, a website dcidated to obsolete technology, branding the Roman oil lamps, which all look pretty similar on the outside to me, and teddy bears... in SPAAAAAAACE. All together now! For SCIENCE!
Last for tonight, blood binds tighter than politics - David Horowitz eulgoizes his daughter as the wonderful woman she was, even if their political ideologies were opposite each other. And, perhaps fittingly, Dreams, a spot the difference game with some very gorgeous artwork telling a story of an asleep girl.
