More cool stuff - 11 December 2008

Greetings, people of interest. You will, no doubt, be pleased to find out that many a cover of the Wonder Woman series involves the heroine on a phallic menace of some sort. If one does the research behind Wonder Woman, of course, then such things become significantly less surprising.

Onward, then, to the news.

On the international stage, more troops to Afghanistan, in anticipation of more troops to Afghanistan, where people cross their fingers and hope it turns out like Iraq has, Pakistan has cut off a charity that was recently designated by the United Nations as a terrorist-supporting organization linked to the Mumbai attacks, the Iranian Vice President mentions that destroying Israel should be a global mission.

Domestically, police used a taser on a son trying to rescue his father by going into choppy water from the beach, after the father was swept out to sea. The police and fire people were waiting for the Coast Guard, the son didn’t want to wait, but apparently the use of a stun gun was deemed acceptable to get the son to stop trying to rescue his dad. And then the son was arrested for trying to interfere with a rescue that didn’t happen.

While involving no fatalities or arrests, the person selling a picture of their brain that appears to contain the Virgin Mary on eBay is probably hoping that people demonstrate a certain amount of gullibility or religious fervor. Maybe if they made it into those brain-scan building blocks I saw a little while ago?

Now that there's going to be a Democrat in the executive office, look - potential Democratic scandal number two. Which is the way of investigations - I wonder how many we’ll be seeing before the new President is sworn in. So, want to continue with those accusations of media bias? Or should we, instead, rout the corrupt and restore the journalistic profession to sufficient strength so that they can report and rout the corrupt themselves? For a lot of people, bradhicks included, widespread corruption is a kick in the teeth to those who want good government and people who thought the corrupt individual was going to give them good government.

The commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison doesn't think it will be closing any time soon after the new President takes office. Even if the outgoing administration is responsible for all the abuse that went on there.

An Oregon doctor attempts to understand why someone would refuse to get a child necessary medical care because they trust more in faith healing than in science, even in some religious organizations that don’t forbid their members from getting medical care. Well, trust in G-d for everything, I guess, but there’s got to be more to it than that for most.

Lighter fare: dawdling in the left lane, or going under the speed of traffic there for a prolonged time, might net you a moving violation. Being ticketed for going too slow - how’s that for interesting. Additionally, the checkout counter is a great place to get material for a popular book... actually, just about any front-line public service job is. I’m sure someone will come out with, if they haven’t already, some sort of Tales From the Library in actual print, rather than the many blogs on the matter.

In opinions, Richard Stallman on why the OLPC project has turned into a vampire (no, not the sparkly kind) and inverted its entire goal set through one action - making it possible to run Windows and shipping OLPCs with Windows. The idea of the OLPC running entirely free (as in freedom, not beer) software was to break dependence on things like proprietary OS like Windows and avoid generating Windows slaves the whole world around, plus being able to use the open source and free software community to make things better.

Thomas Sowell on how the culture of favoritism for athletes can end up hurting them more in the long run, because they get used to, then start believing, how the rules don’t apply to them and they are above it all or will come through it because of favors. On this, Mr. Sowell and I agree. Athletics are a money-maker, sure, and probably fund many of the other sports that don’t, but it would be better in the long run for all players to have to get through their courses without even a hint that they’re receiving special treatment in their academics because they’re sports stars.

Terrence Jeffrey on the virtues of small government: even though it's unpopular right now, small government and breaking "the addiction to federal entitlement programs" will keep us from collapsing under the weight of unfunded mandates.


In technology, the debate on whether vat-grown meat is going to be good for you, the environment, and whether it will actually be edible, scientists giving their okay for healthy people to take brain-enchancing drugs (hey, new memory boosters soon), touch as the future of interfaces, illuminating cancers more precisely, Microsoft's desire to simulate the entire world, realistically, so they can do even better sims, a restless leg monitor, to help people either break the habit or find the creative groove, and using Google's analytics and social events to get inside the minds of people. Well, unless we just decide to look inside their brains and reconstruct images. He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake...

Oh, and the likelihood of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way just went way up.

Last for tonight, 42 instances of excellent modern earth and land art. Pretty. And The Twilight Drinking Game, which intends on being useful every time someone in that movie tries to be pretty.

Right before the weekend - 12 December 2008

Greetings, literate readers and devourers of knowledge! Our first offering is a twin situation, both hosted from Anime News Network, about the case of Christopher Handley, who stands accused of possessing obscene material - manga imported from Japan that came under the scrutiny of the Postmaster. The post office allowed Mr. Handley to pick up the material, had the police tail Mr. Handley to his home, and then raided and arrested him. If convicted, he will be treated and branded as a sex offender. Jason Thompson tells fans of Japan's products why this case will be precedent-setting, involving the definition of what constitutes “community standards” for manga not created in America, and how subjective the definition of “obscenity” really is, depending on judge and jury. Carl Horn provides the complement, on why fans of comics everywhere should donate to the CBLDF to support Handley, and the far-reaching implications of what happens if Handley is convicted - the power to choose what you want to read is taken away from you and placed in the hands of police, judges, and juries, most of which do not have your values or represent your community. And some author by the name of Neil Gaiman explains that true defense of freedom of speech means defending speech and expression that you personally find distateful, in this case and the one involving depictions of Simpsons characters having insecutous, underage sex, because The Law will never be fine-grained enough to suit your preferences, and The Law will be used against you on things you consider perfectly fine, but someone else considers distateful and obsence. Thus, the only way to win the game is not to play, thus exercising your right not to read what you find objectionable, while leaving it on the shelf for the Alan Moore enthusiast next to you. When it comes to actual children, though, then you can demonstrate someone real being hurt, and use The Law as needed to put a child predator away. Your porn, my art. My porn, your art. The Law does not and cannot understand these gradations and will sweep us both away without thinking.

Internationally, now that he doesn’t have a Parliament to contend with that might block him, Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is looking to fill vacant Senate seats, claiming that the opposition would fill them with people “not committed to Canadian unity”. First, suspending the Parliament so you didn’t have to take a confidence vote, and then making appointments in the interim? I think that confidence vote is going to come crashing back with a vengeance.

An icon of the push that brought sexuality out into a more public sphere has died. Bettie Page, popular pin-up model turned born-again Christian, has died at the age of 85, leaving people with a legacy of pictures, some clothed, some not, and some in kinky poses that would garner attention from the Morality Police.

Suspected terrorists detained in Belgium, Iraq's clerics urging calm after a serious suicide/homicide bombing attack, of which I think we can expect more to try and destabilize agreements or hurry the withdrawal schedule,

Housing shortage? Consider converting your swimming pool into an apartment. Or, here in the United States, wait for a housing crash so that houses become affordable, and then take out that wonderful savings you ha... or, perhaps, consider converting someone else’s swimming pool into an apartment.

An example to aspiring writers - "Bimbo to buy George Weston unit for $2.38 billion" is probably not the best title for a story about the acquisition of a breadmaking firm. It will, however, probably make people do a doube-take.

Domestically, the economy’s made top billing again. The cash that was paid to AIG to bail them out? Has been used not only for corporate vacations, but now corporate bonuses.

The much smaller, and much more hotly-debated automobile industry bailout... FAILURE. No cash for strapped automakers, with the UAW and its apparently-inflated wage structure cited as the reason why. Namely, this generates, well, crush, kill, destroy feelings in a lot of people. Which leads to Liberal Seagull on the large amount of class warfare involved in the automobile bailout talks, as well as some pieces here and there about how it might be more expensive to let GM fall than to float them a loan. Seagull links to a Media Matters report on how much conservative pundits are blaming minorities and groups that don't really have wealth or influence for affecting outcomes that require both wealth and influence. (Incidentally, and off the main point, that could extend further to Prop 8, as well - the fastest reaction out when people got mad was “Go blame the minorities. They put it over the top, so they’re to blame, and the large base of white Christians that got it close enough to let them put it over the top are totally blameless.”) Professor tscheese notes the disparity of scale, as well as the union-busting rhetoric, linking to fengi‘s similar inability to logically reconcile the two events.

A mover-and-shaker on Wall Street ahs been arrested for running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Hrm... $50 billion? How much of that came in to him... and can it be seized and used to pay a bailout? Elsewhere, the WSJ accuses the FCC chairman of trying to set up a spectrum auction that guarantees it will go to one particular copmany, through the use of potential regulations that happen to fit one company’s business model.

The Republican campaign's firesale of technology forgot to do a thorough erasing of the data from that technology, meaning news organizations and maybe other elements obtained the items and potentially the data on them. Yet another way the Republican Party made sure your data was safe before turning it over to a third party. Actually, this is probably an honest mistake.

A possible appointment of the President-elect's to be the "drug czar" attempted to give Minnesota state tax dollars to a nakedly religious drug treatment program, one that even boasted that “complete Jews” came out of the program. The General wonders about the process of completing the Jews, and whether it has anything to do with foreskins, as Ed Brayton comments on the potential First Amendment issues, or at least issues that would arise from a perception that the government was endorsing evangelical Christianity’s programs by funding them and then having judges sentence convicted drug offenders to them with no other options.

In much more straight-forward wingnuttery, The Webstboro Baptist Church has asked to exercise their free speech rights by placing a sign near the Washington Capitol's Nativity display about the evils of Santa-as-idol. Well, at least, the Santa that drives consumerism, and possibly the saint himself, considering how some denominations hold that venerating saints is idol-worship. Althoguh laying the entire economic crash at the feet of Santa is stretching things a bit. So, in a way, that’s pretty par for the WBC course. These days, though, consumer-Santa may not have quite as much a tug on the purse strings.

In the opinions, Christopher Cox on the need for a bailout exit strategy, the process by which the government relinquishes the control it has of companies and returns to being something separate from markets, regulating them at arm's length. Lest we do something like nationalize industries and complete the transition to communism. Don Bordeaux feels that Chapter 11 is still the best option for the automobile companies, to find how best to redistribute their assets, workers, materials, and to get them to a point where they are at a properly competitive size, even if it includes some mergers. Additionally, it won’t start a slippery slope of bailing out private industry (any more than we already have). The WSJ thinks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should not get off the hook for their role in creating the current difficulties, based on their actions, and the lobbying they did to get the regulators to stay off their backs. To emphasise the ridiculousness of it all, Daniel Henninger spins a yarn about the need to bail out Santa.

The outgoing Secretary of State believes the international world is in a better place than when the outgoing administration came into office, citing gains and progress in Iraq, Lebananon, China, and other places, while acknowledging the need for work to be done in Iraq, North Korea, Russia, and other places. I suspect the matter of good/bad is heavily weighted by the weighting someone gives to how important the places mentioned are. Elsewhere, Turd Blossom has advice for how the GOP can come back to power, by developing tools to match the Democrats’ ability to fundraise, utilize new media effectively, and get their message out to voters, new and old alike.

Mark Steyn feels the media bias, complaining about all the stories that say Muslims feel persecuted because of the Mumbai attacks, despite the media apparently trying hard to not tie the attacks to Islam or mentioning the religion in their articles, and leaving out the part where the Jewish center was chosen as an attack site long before the strike. Oh, and those Muslims need to speak up more and denounce the crazies.

On matters of the incoming President, John fund believes that he can and should do lasting damage to corruption in Ilinois politics by using the bully pulpit of the Presidency.

Last out, Feministing on how the new "burger virgins" campaign of Burker King is probably doing more damage than help, if you see the “noble savages” not-too-subtle subtext involved.

In technology, developing a test to see whether the universe is cylical or not, the first coatings that will heal themselves after being scratched, graphene transistors turning in some pretty nice clock speeds, coffee as a possible biodiesel fuel, where even the old grounds will still work to generate the fuel, the reaction of a teacher to a student's Linux-distributing ways, which initially generated a storm of angry opinions, mostly because of ignorance (of details of the situation, of Free Software, of the idea that there is something other than Microsoft products, etc) on many parts. After some context application, further investigation, and conversation with the teacher hit by the blowback, apologies issued to help us get the right context, too. After all that heavy stuff, going back to something I’ve probably posted before, using Tesla to generate a burglar-repellent field.

Last for tonight, Star Wars as a stage show with accompanying orchestra. Or, for those feeling more hands-on, the CubeCraft design of the Prince of All Cosmos.