![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Football Day - 1 Feb 2009
Feb. 1st, 2009 05:01 pmIt's a double dose of caff--er, news.
Can we get a confirm/deny on whether the new consumer safety act has been put on hiatus for a year?
And following on an earlier story, apparently a PR firm has been cruising the Web trying to intimidate people into taking down articles critical of high fructose corn syrup and/or posting apologetics about it. Apparently, we're not big enough in the world to warrant such personal attention, as I have not received my apologetic commentary yet, but I'm hoping.
At the international desk, Iraq's elections are over, with no major violence. That's good! Factions more closely aligned with the United States appear to have gained parliamentary seats, which could be good or bad depending on your viewpoint. You may cue a new round of smugness about the success of United States action in Iraq.
An Iranian minister claims that the United States' willingness to talk means that "the system of domination has failed", which is weird. The phrasing "war on terror" is falling out of fashion, which might have prompted the comment about failure above, or something.
The Jerusalem Post reports accounts of Gaza citizens used as human shields by Hamas in the recent conflict, which would make sense, whether as a propaganda unit or as one of many examples. This knowledge does mean that people will start saying they were right about who was doing what during the conflict. And no cease-fire seems to want to hold - already there are talks of reprisals for rocket attacks.
Regarding Iran, the leading candidate for prime minister in Israel has said he will do anything necessary to stop Iran if it gets too close to having nuclear weapons of its own, which means, if elected, we may be seeing glassed Iran within the current President's time in office.
Journalist for an independent paper is a really dangerous job in Russia, where state-controlled or sympathetic media is the norm. One particular paper, the focus of the article, has had several journalists killed in suspicious circumstances over the years, but continues to crank out anti-Kremlin and unfriendly articles.
On the domestic desk, following the footsteps of the Democrats (sort of), the Republicans elected their first African-American chief, Michael Steele, despite calls that the selected candidate was too much of a centrist. Which confirms that much of the party of the opposition has very little interest in changing their ways. On matters of abortion, they'll accuse the President of allying with the "most extreme wing of the abortion lobby".
The party in power, however, seems to be having trouble picking candidates that have clean tax records.
In the news of the big bailouts, there are some people whose more moderate bonuses mean the difference between making ends meet and failing short. So, maybe not all of those bonuses are bad. But I'm betting a lot of the big executive ones don't qualify. If you want more reasons to hate corporations, many of them were looking for foreign workers to fill slots, even as the system was laying off lots of qualified American workers. Doesn't stop the WSJ from believing that Washington will overreact to the bonus revelations.
For good information, though, have a visual guide to what the unemployment number really is, instead of the official statistic they use. Any number over 0.0% is fairly well unacceptable, but we don't have the social programs in place to really use that number as our goal.
A detailed overview of the names and places that stimulus cash will be going to, generally speaking. Not much on really drilled-down details, but it does chart out where everything is potentially going - no dollar amounts, though.
Properly using the National Guard, Kentucky's governor has mobilized the entire force to help clean up the aftermath of a serious ice storm. That would be another thing the President should be ready to do - bring back all the National Guard troops stationed overseas.
And into the pool of opinions we dive. Mr. Krauthammer feels that Mr. Obama is trying to make himself into a savior of Muslim relations, when the United States has had excellent relations with Muslims for quite a while now, even when the rest of the world had riots. Mr. North feels that asking for relations to run back to the way they were is to reinvoke the Iranian hostage crisis or other Muslim attacks. Mr. Berkowitz feels that those who hate Bush and idolize Obama are just expressing the same feeling two different ways, both prefering passion over reason. And Mr. Prelutsky puts the cap on this by decrying the MSM as the sycophants of Mr. Obama.
Although, if one wants to step outside the system of capitalism, ddjango suggests that the only way to have a good Presidency is for the current administrator to admit that capitalism is a failed system, that it's raping us clean, to bust corporations back to the inhuman things they are, and bring all the troops home, period. And I suspect that's just a start to what he wants.
Mr. MacKinnon thinks most of our reviewers are stuck in their ivory towers, which is why they're having fits over the fact that a crude movie about a mall cop is popular.
Rather than hammering on one aspect, the WSJ says the country needs to think about what it really needs to get out of the recession. Mr. Moore focuses on the green jobs environemtn in California as a reason why doing it nationwide would fail. Mr. Su believes that foreclosure and forcing people to go back to houses they can afford is the best solution to the economic crisis. Sure, it hurts, but it's the market-based solution.
And Mr. Bolton feels that we shouldn't forget North Korea in all our focus on the Middle East.
Technology welcomes us to the fuuutuuuuure wiiith... sewage powering buses in Norway, a suggestion to the new administration to give NASA its home planet mission back, so that NASA looks both inward and outward in terms of the planet, WaterPod, an attempt at a floating self-sustaining island, climate change creating a higher ocean acidity, with negative effects on the food web, dolphins using specific techniques to clean their meals before eating them, someone drawing picture of objects observed through a telescope before Gallileo, but who did not publish, and thus, like most academics, perished without tenure or fame for it, more signs and Alaska volcano is ready to blow, and India lowering the bid on an OLPC project by developing a laptopt device that costs $10 US.
All of that is not for Bill'O, though, who complains about the ease of simulations and screens, and how it's replacing the lessons that we would have learned had we actually played sports, instead of sitting in front of Madden 'XX. Including a ludicrous claim that people these days don't know how to rebuild themselves because they've been seduced by the ease of cyberspace. Hey, Bill, coming from someone who used cyberspace to get himself a job, and all the other people who are doing the same, using their knowledge and contacts and networking skills, try it once, eh? It's not a world of jocks and hoods anymore. It's a world of jocks and geeks, and odds are better than ever that it's the geeks you want to hang out with these days.
Last for today, though, is by far the best opinion I've seen in two days - Austin Cline on how Republicans have no real objections to contraceptive and family-planning funding, but instead want to control the people through trying to make them think that the wrogn kind of sex is bad, which contraceptives and such counteract by removing the negative consequences that Republicans want to inflict on anyone who doesn't have approved sex.
Can we get a confirm/deny on whether the new consumer safety act has been put on hiatus for a year?
And following on an earlier story, apparently a PR firm has been cruising the Web trying to intimidate people into taking down articles critical of high fructose corn syrup and/or posting apologetics about it. Apparently, we're not big enough in the world to warrant such personal attention, as I have not received my apologetic commentary yet, but I'm hoping.
At the international desk, Iraq's elections are over, with no major violence. That's good! Factions more closely aligned with the United States appear to have gained parliamentary seats, which could be good or bad depending on your viewpoint. You may cue a new round of smugness about the success of United States action in Iraq.
An Iranian minister claims that the United States' willingness to talk means that "the system of domination has failed", which is weird. The phrasing "war on terror" is falling out of fashion, which might have prompted the comment about failure above, or something.
The Jerusalem Post reports accounts of Gaza citizens used as human shields by Hamas in the recent conflict, which would make sense, whether as a propaganda unit or as one of many examples. This knowledge does mean that people will start saying they were right about who was doing what during the conflict. And no cease-fire seems to want to hold - already there are talks of reprisals for rocket attacks.
Regarding Iran, the leading candidate for prime minister in Israel has said he will do anything necessary to stop Iran if it gets too close to having nuclear weapons of its own, which means, if elected, we may be seeing glassed Iran within the current President's time in office.
Journalist for an independent paper is a really dangerous job in Russia, where state-controlled or sympathetic media is the norm. One particular paper, the focus of the article, has had several journalists killed in suspicious circumstances over the years, but continues to crank out anti-Kremlin and unfriendly articles.
On the domestic desk, following the footsteps of the Democrats (sort of), the Republicans elected their first African-American chief, Michael Steele, despite calls that the selected candidate was too much of a centrist. Which confirms that much of the party of the opposition has very little interest in changing their ways. On matters of abortion, they'll accuse the President of allying with the "most extreme wing of the abortion lobby".
The party in power, however, seems to be having trouble picking candidates that have clean tax records.
In the news of the big bailouts, there are some people whose more moderate bonuses mean the difference between making ends meet and failing short. So, maybe not all of those bonuses are bad. But I'm betting a lot of the big executive ones don't qualify. If you want more reasons to hate corporations, many of them were looking for foreign workers to fill slots, even as the system was laying off lots of qualified American workers. Doesn't stop the WSJ from believing that Washington will overreact to the bonus revelations.
For good information, though, have a visual guide to what the unemployment number really is, instead of the official statistic they use. Any number over 0.0% is fairly well unacceptable, but we don't have the social programs in place to really use that number as our goal.
A detailed overview of the names and places that stimulus cash will be going to, generally speaking. Not much on really drilled-down details, but it does chart out where everything is potentially going - no dollar amounts, though.
Properly using the National Guard, Kentucky's governor has mobilized the entire force to help clean up the aftermath of a serious ice storm. That would be another thing the President should be ready to do - bring back all the National Guard troops stationed overseas.
And into the pool of opinions we dive. Mr. Krauthammer feels that Mr. Obama is trying to make himself into a savior of Muslim relations, when the United States has had excellent relations with Muslims for quite a while now, even when the rest of the world had riots. Mr. North feels that asking for relations to run back to the way they were is to reinvoke the Iranian hostage crisis or other Muslim attacks. Mr. Berkowitz feels that those who hate Bush and idolize Obama are just expressing the same feeling two different ways, both prefering passion over reason. And Mr. Prelutsky puts the cap on this by decrying the MSM as the sycophants of Mr. Obama.
Although, if one wants to step outside the system of capitalism, ddjango suggests that the only way to have a good Presidency is for the current administrator to admit that capitalism is a failed system, that it's raping us clean, to bust corporations back to the inhuman things they are, and bring all the troops home, period. And I suspect that's just a start to what he wants.
Mr. MacKinnon thinks most of our reviewers are stuck in their ivory towers, which is why they're having fits over the fact that a crude movie about a mall cop is popular.
Rather than hammering on one aspect, the WSJ says the country needs to think about what it really needs to get out of the recession. Mr. Moore focuses on the green jobs environemtn in California as a reason why doing it nationwide would fail. Mr. Su believes that foreclosure and forcing people to go back to houses they can afford is the best solution to the economic crisis. Sure, it hurts, but it's the market-based solution.
And Mr. Bolton feels that we shouldn't forget North Korea in all our focus on the Middle East.
Technology welcomes us to the fuuutuuuuure wiiith... sewage powering buses in Norway, a suggestion to the new administration to give NASA its home planet mission back, so that NASA looks both inward and outward in terms of the planet, WaterPod, an attempt at a floating self-sustaining island, climate change creating a higher ocean acidity, with negative effects on the food web, dolphins using specific techniques to clean their meals before eating them, someone drawing picture of objects observed through a telescope before Gallileo, but who did not publish, and thus, like most academics, perished without tenure or fame for it, more signs and Alaska volcano is ready to blow, and India lowering the bid on an OLPC project by developing a laptopt device that costs $10 US.
All of that is not for Bill'O, though, who complains about the ease of simulations and screens, and how it's replacing the lessons that we would have learned had we actually played sports, instead of sitting in front of Madden 'XX. Including a ludicrous claim that people these days don't know how to rebuild themselves because they've been seduced by the ease of cyberspace. Hey, Bill, coming from someone who used cyberspace to get himself a job, and all the other people who are doing the same, using their knowledge and contacts and networking skills, try it once, eh? It's not a world of jocks and hoods anymore. It's a world of jocks and geeks, and odds are better than ever that it's the geeks you want to hang out with these days.
Last for today, though, is by far the best opinion I've seen in two days - Austin Cline on how Republicans have no real objections to contraceptive and family-planning funding, but instead want to control the people through trying to make them think that the wrogn kind of sex is bad, which contraceptives and such counteract by removing the negative consequences that Republicans want to inflict on anyone who doesn't have approved sex.
