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Take one for today - 4 January 2009
Jan. 6th, 2009 09:48 amHey, it's a Sunday thing. Much of the news involves military movement, so here's a life-size green army man to mentally move about the maps.
Internationally, Israel and Gaza is on a lot of people's lips. That which was bombing runs has now become a ground offensive. Additionally, people on the ground report on the situation, horrors and all in text and in video. Naturally, this also means research into trying to definitively say who broke the cease-fire first and questions about how much the American media has not been commenting on the matter. For others, the international community's lack of outcry against Hamas shows their colors, because they believe that Israel is the oppressor and attacks like Hamas rockets are defensive against occupiers, when it's obvious that Hamas has no interest but the destruction of Israel, and thus a crush-kill-destroy plan by Israel is the correct action. Congresswoman Capps decries the matter, both for the dead in Palestine and the likelihood that suicide bombings will go up, and calls for an immediate cease-fire. The UN would have acted to call for one, but apparently the United States blocked such a statement from passing the Security Council. .
Suicide bomber on major Shiite religious festival in Iraq celebrating the death of one of the majro Shiite saints. Is saints really the right word there? Either way, that there were attacks is expected, apaprently, based on the trend of them happening in years past on this festival day.
Finally, possibly in a bid to have somewhere to launch operations from that's closer to the target zones, Guam is getting a military makeover, with some expensive and heavy base construction projects slated.
On the domestic side of things, a particular recruitment station has had five recruiter suicides over the last seven years, a statistical anomaly compared to the 17 others total over the last few years. It was also interesting to note that there are recruitment quotas for the people trying to convince us to sign on. The stress must be incredible.
President-elect Obama's commerce secretary-appointee withdrew his acceptance due to an investigation into how he awarded some state contracts. While confident that the investigation will exonerate him, Gov. Richardson, the appointee, decided the investigation would cause an undue delay in his appointment.
In the opinions, analyss on how the world will probably remember the outgoing administration, mostly based on the personality of the administrator, with lots of the things that nobody apparently cared about, in the little things, while the big things were still raging on.
Inspector Lohman speaks of the Vorocrats, those businessmen that rule the country solely for their greed and desire for profit. They surely destroy the country, and will do whatever they can to hide that destruction. They are people that even the capitalists should beware of.
Jonathan Gurwitz speaks of the priorities of the government, that can spend billions on bailout but can't find millions to help rehabilitate soldiers or their health care, an idea that can probably be abstracted out to a lot of other situations, too, many of which involve health care for people having trouble affording it. Private donations stepped in for the center Gurwitz speaks of, and the opinion piece is a bit of a rah-rah for putting up more private donations, but at the same time, well, private donations can only do so much.
The WSJ comments on the apparent refusal to seat the Illinois replacement to President-elect Barack Obama, finding the Senate truthfully unable to stop it and predicting dire consequences should the Senate then vote to expel, getting a dig in at a different Senator involved in the financial crisis, suggesting he would be more worthy to expel than the new appointee. Speaking of, Jim Sollisch blames HGTV for inspiring the lust for more that led to our current housing problem.
Paul Driessen is okay with coal power, claiming that pollution and particles have gone way down, that coal is the backbone of most energy generation in the country, and that coal powers life-saving technologies, machines, and places. So coal's just fine, at least until the environmental lobby can generate something that will replace all that power and be cleaner.
In the "Dark People are Terrorists" department, glee at a guilty plea while also sternly warning Americans that there are lots of people who want to see us destroyed, and a strong attempt to make the shoe-thrower into a puppet of the terrorists, aiming for spectacle and show, and to sow doubt into the bewildered American media and people, getting them to say "So why do they hate us, after all we've done for Iraq?" and be less likely to go on the next land war or support the current one, because the populace there seems unwilling to thank us properly or feels like they're backsliding, an image fed by the media showing off all the people showing their shoes in support, rather than those who feel it was an embarrassment. Eh. Am thinking that the shoes part was a physical demonstration of what a lot of anti-war people have been thinking anf protesting in their own way. That it got that close, I think, was the part where a lot of people were happy or paid attention - it was a happy thing for the converted. If there were people who were going to get indignant and nonsupportive, I'd like to see them, mostly because the people I would expect to be incensed would use it as justification for more troops, more land wars, and more bloodshed, because the enemy Idea hasn't been stomped out yet.
Last for this segment, Jay Winik reminds the President-elect that he still has to make the decision, whether based on sound advice, on his gut, or something else, and the consequences of those decisions will haunt him alone. Not only that, there will be things unexpected or untidy, and those will probably define his presidency. Pass the medication, Mr. President-elect. We may need it as much as you do. After all, we've got Bill'O telling us that we can't trust the government, the media, but we can trust each other, because the government will tax us and spend money it doesn't have on entitlements and things that the people believe they should have but don't really need, while also letting private enterprise and the people sack the economy, the media couldn't find a fact with two hands, a flashlight, and a map, and are now so horribly slanted that there is no such thing as journalistic integrity, but that the populace are still generous to each other and to charities, even in these troubled economic times. So, private institutions and people can do it right by being generous, government can't do it right because they're government, despite the ability to affect more people at a swing than private charity.
In science and technology, rublings under Yellowstone, but no worries about a big quake yet.
Internationally, Israel and Gaza is on a lot of people's lips. That which was bombing runs has now become a ground offensive. Additionally, people on the ground report on the situation, horrors and all in text and in video. Naturally, this also means research into trying to definitively say who broke the cease-fire first and questions about how much the American media has not been commenting on the matter. For others, the international community's lack of outcry against Hamas shows their colors, because they believe that Israel is the oppressor and attacks like Hamas rockets are defensive against occupiers, when it's obvious that Hamas has no interest but the destruction of Israel, and thus a crush-kill-destroy plan by Israel is the correct action. Congresswoman Capps decries the matter, both for the dead in Palestine and the likelihood that suicide bombings will go up, and calls for an immediate cease-fire. The UN would have acted to call for one, but apparently the United States blocked such a statement from passing the Security Council. .
Suicide bomber on major Shiite religious festival in Iraq celebrating the death of one of the majro Shiite saints. Is saints really the right word there? Either way, that there were attacks is expected, apaprently, based on the trend of them happening in years past on this festival day.
Finally, possibly in a bid to have somewhere to launch operations from that's closer to the target zones, Guam is getting a military makeover, with some expensive and heavy base construction projects slated.
On the domestic side of things, a particular recruitment station has had five recruiter suicides over the last seven years, a statistical anomaly compared to the 17 others total over the last few years. It was also interesting to note that there are recruitment quotas for the people trying to convince us to sign on. The stress must be incredible.
President-elect Obama's commerce secretary-appointee withdrew his acceptance due to an investigation into how he awarded some state contracts. While confident that the investigation will exonerate him, Gov. Richardson, the appointee, decided the investigation would cause an undue delay in his appointment.
In the opinions, analyss on how the world will probably remember the outgoing administration, mostly based on the personality of the administrator, with lots of the things that nobody apparently cared about, in the little things, while the big things were still raging on.
Inspector Lohman speaks of the Vorocrats, those businessmen that rule the country solely for their greed and desire for profit. They surely destroy the country, and will do whatever they can to hide that destruction. They are people that even the capitalists should beware of.
Jonathan Gurwitz speaks of the priorities of the government, that can spend billions on bailout but can't find millions to help rehabilitate soldiers or their health care, an idea that can probably be abstracted out to a lot of other situations, too, many of which involve health care for people having trouble affording it. Private donations stepped in for the center Gurwitz speaks of, and the opinion piece is a bit of a rah-rah for putting up more private donations, but at the same time, well, private donations can only do so much.
The WSJ comments on the apparent refusal to seat the Illinois replacement to President-elect Barack Obama, finding the Senate truthfully unable to stop it and predicting dire consequences should the Senate then vote to expel, getting a dig in at a different Senator involved in the financial crisis, suggesting he would be more worthy to expel than the new appointee. Speaking of, Jim Sollisch blames HGTV for inspiring the lust for more that led to our current housing problem.
Paul Driessen is okay with coal power, claiming that pollution and particles have gone way down, that coal is the backbone of most energy generation in the country, and that coal powers life-saving technologies, machines, and places. So coal's just fine, at least until the environmental lobby can generate something that will replace all that power and be cleaner.
In the "Dark People are Terrorists" department, glee at a guilty plea while also sternly warning Americans that there are lots of people who want to see us destroyed, and a strong attempt to make the shoe-thrower into a puppet of the terrorists, aiming for spectacle and show, and to sow doubt into the bewildered American media and people, getting them to say "So why do they hate us, after all we've done for Iraq?" and be less likely to go on the next land war or support the current one, because the populace there seems unwilling to thank us properly or feels like they're backsliding, an image fed by the media showing off all the people showing their shoes in support, rather than those who feel it was an embarrassment. Eh. Am thinking that the shoes part was a physical demonstration of what a lot of anti-war people have been thinking anf protesting in their own way. That it got that close, I think, was the part where a lot of people were happy or paid attention - it was a happy thing for the converted. If there were people who were going to get indignant and nonsupportive, I'd like to see them, mostly because the people I would expect to be incensed would use it as justification for more troops, more land wars, and more bloodshed, because the enemy Idea hasn't been stomped out yet.
Last for this segment, Jay Winik reminds the President-elect that he still has to make the decision, whether based on sound advice, on his gut, or something else, and the consequences of those decisions will haunt him alone. Not only that, there will be things unexpected or untidy, and those will probably define his presidency. Pass the medication, Mr. President-elect. We may need it as much as you do. After all, we've got Bill'O telling us that we can't trust the government, the media, but we can trust each other, because the government will tax us and spend money it doesn't have on entitlements and things that the people believe they should have but don't really need, while also letting private enterprise and the people sack the economy, the media couldn't find a fact with two hands, a flashlight, and a map, and are now so horribly slanted that there is no such thing as journalistic integrity, but that the populace are still generous to each other and to charities, even in these troubled economic times. So, private institutions and people can do it right by being generous, government can't do it right because they're government, despite the ability to affect more people at a swing than private charity.
In science and technology, rublings under Yellowstone, but no worries about a big quake yet.
