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Just past a VEWPRF - 26 December 2008
Dec. 26th, 2008 07:03 pmGreeting, and a happy VEWPRF to all of you. The spirits were out over the last few days, one of which was involved in meting out justice by keeping a burglar captured in the house he was robbing until authorities arrived.
It’s not the new year yet, and the Dead Pool has quite a few names to strike off the list for this year. Batman lost a Catwoman, and Cronk no longer has Yzma to boss him around, as Eartha Kitt died at 81 years.
At the bureau of the nations, A judge in Saudi Arabia dismissed an annulment request from the mother of an 8 year-old girl promised in marriage as a way of settling a debt. There are a lot of things wrong with this picture. A girl being sold into marriage to pay of a family debt. The fact that the girl is eight years old, and the judge has to ask that her future husband not have sex with her until she hits puberty, and the fact that the judge ruled the mother has no standing to bring the case, because she’s not the legal guardian of her daughter. It takes Dad, who is obviously fine with this, to bring the case. The article mentions the girl can bring suit to dismiss the marriage... once she’s old enough to be able to represent herself. That could be years away, and all that time, she’s the wife of someone. Without her consent or choice. And won’t know anything different, and won’t be able to survive as a single woman in Saudi Arabia, especially as a divorced woman. Now would probably be a good time for a child slavery group to step in and keep this from happening.
Afghanistan gets more troops, new strategy involves India and Pakistan, because stable neighbors makes for stable country, especially in places where you share borders or murky regions where autonomy is not wholly clear.
Domestically, a judge ruled in favor of Fox on their copyright battle with Warner Brothers over the movie adaptation of Watchmen... which makes me pop an eyebrow, considering the film is already in production. Had Fox wanted to assert their claim, they’re coming to town a little late on the matter, unless they wanted to wait until Warner had sunk quite a bit of money into the project before suing, which might be grounds for a suit of its own.
President-elect Obama surpasses the outgoing administrator as the most admired man in the country for the first time in seven years, which is a surprising matter considering how much the media believes everyone hates him. There’s nothing in he article about what he is admired for, and what percentage of the vote the champ had garnered in those last seven, which has been steadily decreasing, commensurate with the drop in his approval rating, a number which has been significantly in the red, on net, for quite a few years now. A victory with five percent is still a victory, of course. Plus, considering how split the country is politically, the Gallup Organization’s random polling was bound to pick up a lot of supporters of the outgoing administration, while those who were “running” against him were probably more disparate in their interests. Doesn’t stop people from using it as a sign that the country really didn’t hate the president and approved of him. Although, when pairing it with Karl Rove's revelation of the book-reading contest he and the outgoing administrator had for the last three years, it lets on the idea that the outgoing administrator really did cultivate that down-home image despite being highly educated. Which means that he was smarter than he let on and was portrayed. And also means that he probably knew full-well what he was doing when he made his decisions. While it sounds like something heartening and jovial and good to remember the outgoing administrator by (despite the populace’s still-visible dislike, distrust, and occasionally outright hatred of smart people), it betrays the fact that he probably deserved every negative rating he got, and that all his Texan charm really was an act. So, for as much as conservatives complain about the incoming President being all hat and no cattle, the outgoing one successfully made you believe he was something else through two terms in office, where both hat and cattle were for show. Who’s worse? History may forget this, though, if history and the campaign to make the outgoing administrator better succeed.
Coal ash sludge breaks dam, covers 400 acres of Tennessee in potentially harmful material several feet deep. Bad, ewww, coudl takea while to recover. Slightly less hazardously, but equally infrastructure-related, fixing tunnels that leak some twetny million gallons of water out of them daily.
The New Yorker does a detailed profile on a man whose research interest is in reconstructing the technical specifications of the first atomic bomb, and while the subject is still classified, so nobody knows how right he is, there are a lot of people who want to read the book he’s published from all his research.
Opinions generated over the course of time between this post and the last include Walter E. Williams's insistence that the scientific community is not united on the issue of man-made climate change, citing 650 scientists who are skeptical. That’s out of... how many total? His real point, of course, is to say that the fear of climate change will be a useful tool for lawmakers to pass laws that control and constrict our lives even tighter, and that wouldn’t be repealed even if a glacier were sighted in the Great Lakes region. So, because climate change may not be happening for the warmer, it’s not worth trying to build civilizations that have as little environmental impact as possible?
The Media Research Center has released its notable quotable awards of 2008. Conveniently, the quotes they mention are all liberal in nature. Surely an organization that purports to do media research knows that there are plenty of conservatives, columnists or on-air, who have some interesting things said. Ah, but that would mean that the MRC would actually be nonpartisan, instead of trying to make people think it is with the name.
John Stossel returns to the refrain that the best way out of recession is to lighten government, not to use government as a transformative tool to reshape our lives, because people won’t invest and companies won’t innovate if there’s government nearby, on the reasoning those people will panic and assume the government will take over or squash their investments and innovations. Like they’re doing now, with the financial sector, right? Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. agrees and is pessimistic about the chances of recovery because of incoming bad policy.
Furthermore, the eventual return to prosperity will make it harder for central planning to take over our lives. Again with the “control you from the government” angle. Do people seriously believe that the President-elect will institute something that fine-grained? I’ve heard big plans about spending money, and the WSJ complains about the selection of Cabinet people known to spend money, the existence and request from ethanol corporations for credit to stay afloat, and decries the possibility of nonprofit foundations losing tax exemptions o as to feed desperate government coffers. Although, depending on which columnist you ask, some money spending may be good. Martin Feldstein likes the idea of increasing war spending for the next two years, for example.
Donald Lambro coaches optimism for us, even in troubled economic times, because we're still free to complain about troubled economic times, and because the signs are showing the recession will be ending soon. Zachary Karabell concurs with the optimistic look, because while we got in trouble, we didn’t actually crash. And lest we eyeball the rich with red in our eyes because they don’t seem to be suffering like we are Larry Elder tries to placate us by showing how much money they've lost over this last year, noting quickly at the end that this hasn’t ruined any of them, just made them a little less rich, and that they’re not rich because they stole and ducked and evaded while we got stuck with the soakings, but because they’re honest, hardworking people who made their money and are thus, entitled to keep it.
Taking opinions on religion at their face, Tony Blankley recommends a book that purports a terrible problem with American school textbooks - they take Judaism and Christianity as speculation and describe Islam as historical fact, because the segments on Islam apparently lack the conditional words. This, according to Blankley, indicates that a cabal of the minority Muslims are successfully putting forth their religion as fact in defiance of the truth and all the Jews and Christians who have to suffer their religion described as a religion. Of course, all I get are excerpts, some of which sound suspiciously like they are halves or parts of sentences, or situated in paragraphs that provide the necessary context about the religious beliefs of Muslims.
Ann Coulter claims to have defeated Kwanzaa, a holiday she claims was fabricated to foster racial hatred and that serves no purpose but to promote Marxism, a totally liberal holiday, while all the African-Americans that it was “designed” for are celebrating Christmas instead. So, I guess displaying the books on my library shelf is pointless? Perhaps she should ask Bill’O how his War on Christmas is going.
And at the end, the requisite VEWPRF tale of action, danger, and the godless communists. No, not Henry Jones. And his twin, the requisite tale of the godless Americans shirking their Christian heritage and birthright.
In science and technology, the anniversary of an iconic photograph of Terra rising against Luna's sky, another good reason to get enough sleep, a look inside a cancer cell to see how it is physically displacing genetic sequences to new areas, and the year summary articles in genetics (where people are taking the DIY approach to generating life and new genetic material), quanta, biomedicine, and the on-line world, a place where the cave allegory almost breaks down from all the other light sources.
That’s it for me for a bit. Enjoy the weekend.
It’s not the new year yet, and the Dead Pool has quite a few names to strike off the list for this year. Batman lost a Catwoman, and Cronk no longer has Yzma to boss him around, as Eartha Kitt died at 81 years.
At the bureau of the nations, A judge in Saudi Arabia dismissed an annulment request from the mother of an 8 year-old girl promised in marriage as a way of settling a debt. There are a lot of things wrong with this picture. A girl being sold into marriage to pay of a family debt. The fact that the girl is eight years old, and the judge has to ask that her future husband not have sex with her until she hits puberty, and the fact that the judge ruled the mother has no standing to bring the case, because she’s not the legal guardian of her daughter. It takes Dad, who is obviously fine with this, to bring the case. The article mentions the girl can bring suit to dismiss the marriage... once she’s old enough to be able to represent herself. That could be years away, and all that time, she’s the wife of someone. Without her consent or choice. And won’t know anything different, and won’t be able to survive as a single woman in Saudi Arabia, especially as a divorced woman. Now would probably be a good time for a child slavery group to step in and keep this from happening.
Afghanistan gets more troops, new strategy involves India and Pakistan, because stable neighbors makes for stable country, especially in places where you share borders or murky regions where autonomy is not wholly clear.
Domestically, a judge ruled in favor of Fox on their copyright battle with Warner Brothers over the movie adaptation of Watchmen... which makes me pop an eyebrow, considering the film is already in production. Had Fox wanted to assert their claim, they’re coming to town a little late on the matter, unless they wanted to wait until Warner had sunk quite a bit of money into the project before suing, which might be grounds for a suit of its own.
President-elect Obama surpasses the outgoing administrator as the most admired man in the country for the first time in seven years, which is a surprising matter considering how much the media believes everyone hates him. There’s nothing in he article about what he is admired for, and what percentage of the vote the champ had garnered in those last seven, which has been steadily decreasing, commensurate with the drop in his approval rating, a number which has been significantly in the red, on net, for quite a few years now. A victory with five percent is still a victory, of course. Plus, considering how split the country is politically, the Gallup Organization’s random polling was bound to pick up a lot of supporters of the outgoing administration, while those who were “running” against him were probably more disparate in their interests. Doesn’t stop people from using it as a sign that the country really didn’t hate the president and approved of him. Although, when pairing it with Karl Rove's revelation of the book-reading contest he and the outgoing administrator had for the last three years, it lets on the idea that the outgoing administrator really did cultivate that down-home image despite being highly educated. Which means that he was smarter than he let on and was portrayed. And also means that he probably knew full-well what he was doing when he made his decisions. While it sounds like something heartening and jovial and good to remember the outgoing administrator by (despite the populace’s still-visible dislike, distrust, and occasionally outright hatred of smart people), it betrays the fact that he probably deserved every negative rating he got, and that all his Texan charm really was an act. So, for as much as conservatives complain about the incoming President being all hat and no cattle, the outgoing one successfully made you believe he was something else through two terms in office, where both hat and cattle were for show. Who’s worse? History may forget this, though, if history and the campaign to make the outgoing administrator better succeed.
Coal ash sludge breaks dam, covers 400 acres of Tennessee in potentially harmful material several feet deep. Bad, ewww, coudl takea while to recover. Slightly less hazardously, but equally infrastructure-related, fixing tunnels that leak some twetny million gallons of water out of them daily.
The New Yorker does a detailed profile on a man whose research interest is in reconstructing the technical specifications of the first atomic bomb, and while the subject is still classified, so nobody knows how right he is, there are a lot of people who want to read the book he’s published from all his research.
Opinions generated over the course of time between this post and the last include Walter E. Williams's insistence that the scientific community is not united on the issue of man-made climate change, citing 650 scientists who are skeptical. That’s out of... how many total? His real point, of course, is to say that the fear of climate change will be a useful tool for lawmakers to pass laws that control and constrict our lives even tighter, and that wouldn’t be repealed even if a glacier were sighted in the Great Lakes region. So, because climate change may not be happening for the warmer, it’s not worth trying to build civilizations that have as little environmental impact as possible?
The Media Research Center has released its notable quotable awards of 2008. Conveniently, the quotes they mention are all liberal in nature. Surely an organization that purports to do media research knows that there are plenty of conservatives, columnists or on-air, who have some interesting things said. Ah, but that would mean that the MRC would actually be nonpartisan, instead of trying to make people think it is with the name.
John Stossel returns to the refrain that the best way out of recession is to lighten government, not to use government as a transformative tool to reshape our lives, because people won’t invest and companies won’t innovate if there’s government nearby, on the reasoning those people will panic and assume the government will take over or squash their investments and innovations. Like they’re doing now, with the financial sector, right? Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. agrees and is pessimistic about the chances of recovery because of incoming bad policy.
Furthermore, the eventual return to prosperity will make it harder for central planning to take over our lives. Again with the “control you from the government” angle. Do people seriously believe that the President-elect will institute something that fine-grained? I’ve heard big plans about spending money, and the WSJ complains about the selection of Cabinet people known to spend money, the existence and request from ethanol corporations for credit to stay afloat, and decries the possibility of nonprofit foundations losing tax exemptions o as to feed desperate government coffers. Although, depending on which columnist you ask, some money spending may be good. Martin Feldstein likes the idea of increasing war spending for the next two years, for example.
Donald Lambro coaches optimism for us, even in troubled economic times, because we're still free to complain about troubled economic times, and because the signs are showing the recession will be ending soon. Zachary Karabell concurs with the optimistic look, because while we got in trouble, we didn’t actually crash. And lest we eyeball the rich with red in our eyes because they don’t seem to be suffering like we are Larry Elder tries to placate us by showing how much money they've lost over this last year, noting quickly at the end that this hasn’t ruined any of them, just made them a little less rich, and that they’re not rich because they stole and ducked and evaded while we got stuck with the soakings, but because they’re honest, hardworking people who made their money and are thus, entitled to keep it.
Taking opinions on religion at their face, Tony Blankley recommends a book that purports a terrible problem with American school textbooks - they take Judaism and Christianity as speculation and describe Islam as historical fact, because the segments on Islam apparently lack the conditional words. This, according to Blankley, indicates that a cabal of the minority Muslims are successfully putting forth their religion as fact in defiance of the truth and all the Jews and Christians who have to suffer their religion described as a religion. Of course, all I get are excerpts, some of which sound suspiciously like they are halves or parts of sentences, or situated in paragraphs that provide the necessary context about the religious beliefs of Muslims.
Ann Coulter claims to have defeated Kwanzaa, a holiday she claims was fabricated to foster racial hatred and that serves no purpose but to promote Marxism, a totally liberal holiday, while all the African-Americans that it was “designed” for are celebrating Christmas instead. So, I guess displaying the books on my library shelf is pointless? Perhaps she should ask Bill’O how his War on Christmas is going.
And at the end, the requisite VEWPRF tale of action, danger, and the godless communists. No, not Henry Jones. And his twin, the requisite tale of the godless Americans shirking their Christian heritage and birthright.
In science and technology, the anniversary of an iconic photograph of Terra rising against Luna's sky, another good reason to get enough sleep, a look inside a cancer cell to see how it is physically displacing genetic sequences to new areas, and the year summary articles in genetics (where people are taking the DIY approach to generating life and new genetic material), quanta, biomedicine, and the on-line world, a place where the cave allegory almost breaks down from all the other light sources.
That’s it for me for a bit. Enjoy the weekend.
