And just when I was about to post - 9 Dec 2008

Up top, Because it’s worth riffing on, as well as being a warning, scientists are worried that pollution and corrosive chemiclas are feminising men, giving them smaller and more feminised genitals. Thus, those people who have been making Serious Complaints about the unmanliness of men these days finally have a leg to stand on - and should thus rush out and campaign to save the environment and stop the usage of chemicals. It’s the manly thing to do, now. So take more interest in greened cities in curvy designs. Forserious. Or, perhaps, participate in the Santarchy... or the apparently popular rival Bananarchy.

The Unabashed Feminism Department will likely want to open a Withering Sarcasm Warning on the waif-thin models advertising plus-size prom dresses. No, seriously. Unless, by some deviantly twisted definition, these woman are “plus-sized”, there’s no way those pictures will accurately reflect what it will look like on the target audience. Unless... quick. Someone tell me if “plus-sized” now means any positive number size. And then contemplate the horror of the negative size. If there’s a “plus four”, then there’s a corresponding “minus four”. It was bad enough when people were shooting for zero, now they’ll want negative numbers.

Public Service Announcement of Interest: Ten Things all the people in a relationship should do before having sex - this works for pairings or bigger. They’re all good to go through, considering the problems that can develop if one of them is skipped or glossed over.

Internationally, Today marks the beginning of a hajj for millions of Muslims, who have come from all over the world to perform one of the sacred duties of Islam - a pilgramage to the beginning point of the religion.

Five former members of Blackwater Worldwide have been charged in connection to the deaths of seventeen Iraqi citizens in 2007 - manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and use of a weapon in a violent crime.

Identity thieves claim they have 21 million bank account numbers in Germany, and are offering to sell the list for 12 million euros. So, those who bank with German banks may want to scrap their current accoutn and get a new number, and/or put all the fraud/theft flags they can on their account to stop transferrence without authorization.

Advertisement of light spectacular turns out to be dimmer than promised. At least, however, there were no fatalities, unlike this account in Canada, where a difference in heating time led to a stabbing.

Pakistani authorities claim to have captured the person behind the terror attacks in Mumbai, a rights group has claimed the methods of the United States and Europe in resolving the Somalia conflict are only making it worse, as others claim Afghanistan is deterioriating. For the trifecta, look, new missile tests in Iran. All this means more opinion pushes to get serious about the matter, usually involving military intervention.

In Greece, and has been going on for a while now - riots have exploded across the country, apparently triggered by the shooting of a 15 year-old student by a police officer. The officer claimed warning shots, witnesses claimed he took aim. The root cause may be similar to what sparked riots in France - disaffected youth who do not feel they have options for advancement, but also the interesting spectre of past student-government relationships, and the anarchic trend of the area where the child was shot. voxbaryton provides his Greece-founded perspective on how anarchists, economic depression, and the martyr figure all compressed together to make this explosion, and how it’s not likely to end well for anyone.

In the domestic sphere - the FBI has arrested and charged the governor of Illinois with attempting to sell the Senate seat left behind by President-elect Obama. The corruption charges indicate that the governor was allegedly shopping the seat around to whomever would give him the most benefits and cash for it.

Continuing in the theme of the president-elect, one of the appeals to the SCOTUS about the "natural born citizen" status of the President-elect has been dismissed. Totally unrelated to this, the president-elect is also trying to assure the populace that there's no need to stock guns up, because he doesn't intend on banning or restricting lawful gun ownership. Actually, they might be related - strange behavior related to this election. all I’d really need now would be for someone to say they were moving or planning to because they didn’t want a Muslim president.

The supposed mastermind behind the 11 September attacks and four co-attackers wish to plead guilty to the crime, according to reports issuing from the prison slash alleged torture facility Guantanamo Bay. Because of the nature of the facility where they are held, skepticism at whether they are guilty and confessing it or are playing the role of the scapegoat abounds in my mind.

The outgoing administration takes issue with a New York Times editorial claiming the political pressure was more responsible for the Iraq invasion than the "faulty intelligence" admitted to by the outgoing administration. Said administration was also quick to poke at the Times for not rabidly covering the rampant progress in Iraq as proof of both victory and moral rightness of the invasion, faulty intelligence or no.

Peeking under the hood of police procedure - a group rented a house, utilized grow lights to grow Christmas trees, and then waited for the police to raid them. Which they did. Less than 24 hours after the trap was set up. The problem is, there was nothing illegal going on, despite the police being there, ready for a marijuana bust. Which says something about the information gathering techniques of the police, most likely something illegal or false. To balance this zealotry, sometimes the charges sort of walk into the policeman’s hands, like the lady lighting up a joint during a traffic stop. Or problems develop from the policeman, as the police chief who shot himself in the thigh after giving his daughter a gun safety lesson. Actually, that probably was an effective gun safety lesson, as an object demonstration of what can happen if you don’t observe all your safety procedures.

The Tribune Company, which offers papers such as the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, has filed for bankruptcy, adding more companies hurt by the economic downturn to the pile. Additionally, as ladyfox7oaks put it, "Even the G*dd*mn Batman has been hit by the financial crisis - a Smart Car in proper colors and wings.

Possessing pornographic pictures of the Simpson children is not only a violation of copyright, it will get you in trouble with the kiddie porn authorities. Looks too much like people forms, even with the caricature drawings.

On wingnuttery, a crucifix... in spaaaace?? The world has spontaneously converted to Christianity, and thus, as a sign of our worldwide devotion, we’re launching a giant symbol of our religion into orbit! Wait, what do you mean there are billions who don’t believe as we do? The General has a much more sensible plan - instead of orbiting a crucifix, simply lunaform the moon into one - then it will be visible by all for most of the month as a testament to Christians, instead of its current use as a pagan and possibly Islamunofascist symbol.

The case for the development of a one world government, no doubt to be sprung on us in our economically disadvantages times as a condition of getting out of those economically disadvantaged times and, as a bonus, helping to fight the War on Concepts. The columnist, however, notes that local issues, even for global government, will be the sticking point on how such a thing would succeed or fail.

In opinions, if one is so inclined, one can leave a thank-you for the outgoing administrator. The letter professes that you, personally, were attacked and friends of yours were killed on 11 Sept 2001, and your appreciation for the way that the outgoing administrator has protected you all from terrorism since. Creativity in naming oneself may or may not be encouraged. This is part of the ongoing effort to rewrite the current administration as "He kept us safe", pairing it with all the good work the administration has done, like on HIV/AIDS research, rather than focusing on the details of the methods by which he “kept us safe”. Or, as Mona Charen suggests, the next administration will steal all the credit for it themselves, and the populace will let them. Paul Weyrich makes the claim that there was uranium in Iraq, its existence has now been released, because it was a secret beforehand, and that everyone who accused the outgoing administrator of lying about WMD should apologize. If that were the case, why am I reading about it first in an opinion column? Something like that wouldn’t hesitate to fly across the media. Hell, even rumors of it would have stoked specualtion and articles for days or weeks. If there was yellowcake, and the government managed to keep it a secret for this long, then hats off to whomever was the plumber on that operation.

A well-reasoned argument on why the Bible does not prohibit homosexual marriages - actually, the Bible has very little at all to say about marriage, other than, “if you have to” and “don’t get divorced”. And there’s a lot more there, of course, that was once code and is considered a quaint product of its time now. And the Chistian Foundational Writings skew toward the inclusive and accepting and bringing everyone into the tent, where everyone is God’s chosen and just has to realize it. Because of such, almost naturally, the reaction is swift and unthinking. It’s almost into stupid, stupid Pavlov territory - publish something positive about homosexuals, some organization somewhere sends off an angry letter. Or publishes a letter on their blog about it.

Maters of the President-elect: Bret Stephens declaring that the Obama cabinet are not rivals but clones on foreign policy matters, and agree totally with the outgoing administration, William McGurn thinks that the President-elect and the populace understand Guantanamo better, now that they have to decide where to house the residents while they're on trial, the WSJ thinks the President-elect's health plan resembles the attempt in 1993 for the same, but that this one might work, to all our detriment, and David Limbaugh goes for the whole ball of wax by contending that the President-elect will make sweeping changes while appearing a moderate, and his personality cult will mean he isn't taken to task on the promises he breaks.

The WSJ suggests that the United States stay out of the next United Nations conference on racism, becuse it is already set up to be an anti-Semitism brawl and will only get worse, Thomas Sowell is convinced that Americans will be attacked again, and declares his allegiance to the "give up liberties for security" camp, because he’s certain that the terrorists are always going to hunt us, Iran will get a nuke and then hold the world hostage with it, and there’s no way that any government can successfully protect its citizens once evil people have nuclear weapons and use them on American cities. (He also believes that the measures passed in the name of security have had sufficient effect that we haven’t been attacked in the last seven years. Absence of proof, etc, etc.) The WSJ concurs on the effectiveness of the rights erosion, and suggests that even more is needed in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, especially in the FISA requirements.

Austin Hill believes that the visible assault on the Latter-Day Saints is an indication that the political left will wage war on all relgiious beliefs, intending to silence them from public participation. The tactics, I think, would be decried by most people - after all, Christians deplore the usage of signage outside places they don’t agree with, of chants and protests, and they certainly don’t condone violence against those who are inside or attending the plave because they have business with it. We’ll see all the violent and scary protests at abortion clinics vanish, in exchange for pulling back the violent and scary protests at the LDS chruches. Sound fair? Truthfully, violent tactics anywhere are stupid, because they give the opposition reason to believe they’re persecuted. And if you happen to be a locus point, somewhere vsible, you will often become a representation of teh faceless masses elsewhere that can’t be targeted or protested for their role in the matter. The ballot is secret, so individuals are safe, but the donor list tells lots. Once there is an Other, then the fun begins in earnest. For most conservatives and those who love to protest places, take note: The tactics against the LDS are your tactics. If you don’t like them, then you should stop doing them.

On a related tangent, Brent Bozell III complains about Prop 8, the musical, and the way that Hollywood has apparently handled supporters fo the measure, considering it blacklisting of the kind Hollywood fought against in the 50s, as well as the musical being untrue.

On economics: the WSJ suggests something that probably breaks rules or laws somewhere - that the Ford foundation dissolve and give all its assets to the motor company that bearks the same name, Jonathan Macey feels that corporate boarsd should be suffering most and are least qualified to make decisions in the crisis, based on how poorly they did leading up to it. Charles Schwab suggests reintroducing a rule that will, in his opinion, stop people from manipulating the market by short-selling and driving a stock's price downward. Harvey Golub suggests pograms that don't generate or encourage more debt are worthwhile, and last, and most certainly best for inflammatory value, Neal Boortz endorses a proposal that would suspend federal income and withholding taxes for two months so that the populace gets their share of the $350 billion left in the banking bailout, after which, when the people see just how much of their money is taken out by taxes every check, will march on Washington and revolt for the cause of smaller taxes. (This is one of his reasons why it will never happen.)

Having hacked our way through the opinion jungle, one last for the road, and it’s a doozy. Burt Prelutsky does his best to tell us what he really thinks about liberals, how we’re all traitors, Communists, feminized people who love Orwell, hate the will of the people, want homosexuals to have special rights beyond the equality they already have, support the Fairness Doctrine, so we can have pron for all and not have to listen to conservative talkers, and otherwise behave like pinheads who give lip service to rights while trying to make sure the rights of the people we don’t like are taken away. Because we all want to feel good, damn any other consequences. This is all issues-based stupidity, naturally. And then, one to match - Michael Savage calls every woman over 25 a dominatrix, possibly a post-op transvestite and says talk radio is the last refuge for men.

In tech, vintage SF landscapes, the bizarre usage of anti-retroviral HIV/AIDS drugs to induce an altered state, an HP prototype of a flexible display, although no word on when that will hit market, nine scienctists and an SF writer on ten ways Terra could be doomed through almost no fault of the humans, the discovery of a giant human boneyard in the Sahara, suggesting the giant desert was once much more green, the possibility of establishing more marine protected reserves, a DIY test that supposedly can tell you if you are infected with a common cold, and the end of Polaroid film.

Last for tonight, what our tech can do for the Third World, and how Third World usage should be informing us how to develop and use our tech. That usage for good and usage for ill, by the way. You can’t have one without the other.

Oh, one postscript. Dogs understand the concept of unfairness and justice. Which, for slacktivist and many others, makes them smarter than newspaper reporters, who considered it envy, and several other membrs of the populace uninterested in economic justice, considering it to be envy.