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Up top, it’s that time again - Carnival, the gigantic celebration and feasting before the days of fasting for Catholics.
Asking interesting questions about religion in the Middle East - how did Tennessee evangelicals get a strong foothold in the Kurdish region? And why are there evangelicals embedding with units in Afghanistan? Lastly, is Iran a cosmopolitan place worthy of vacation travel, or is it the Islamic fundamentalist Republic everyone loves to hate?
One thing is for sure - Iran will have a nuclear facility running soon to generate civilian power. Actually, so might Iraq.
Elsewhere around the world, fighting in Afghanistan, fighting in Iraq, charges brought against an Iraqi lawmaker for masterminding several attacks against his fellows, a coal mine explosion kills 74 and wounds more in China, peacekeepers came under fire in Somali, foreigners targeted in an Egyptian blast, and missiles unveiled in North Korea.
Domestically, Recession Hacking: tips and tricks for riding out the eceonomic slowdown. These probably don’t rely on the government too much, which has promised to work to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of the current President's term. Is that including the moneys spent on the bailout, because that wouldn’t be too hard. How about we look at boom towns that are now becoming deserted because the money has gone? Even better, Louisana's governor has refused some part of his allotment of stimulus dollars, believeing that extending unemployment insurance will eventually stick the state with an increased tax burden, a position echoed by the WSJ today.
Here’s something for Americans to be relatively ashamed of - residents of El Paso, NM, often cross the border into Mexico to receive healthcare, because it’s more affordable to them than we have here. It opens up all the potential worries, yes, but in a down economy, people will take chances with their health because they have to make ends meet. At least they can get good-looking wedding rings for cheap.
Hawaii has become a battleground state over he issue of civil unions for homosexuals. Hrm. Stamped down in some places, springs up in others. This issue isn’t really going to go away. Somewhere in it, a pragmatist is probably going to find a solution everyone will tolerate. I have no idea what it is, though.
Microsoft overpaid severance on some employees, and is now requesting those employees pay back the overage, with potential threats hanging in the distance. An accounting error, it appears, was the cause. Luckily, Microsoft doesn’t have to worry about whether its image will suffer too much - most people are still chuffed at them for making the products they do.
More menacingly, the government wants you to keep a log of everything you do for two years on the Internet and send it to them, or if you don’t, the ISP that assigns your IP addresses should be keeping track of you. This is a “think of the childrens” thing that is basically letting the government monitor you to make sure that you have nothing to hide. Or, perhaps, leting media cabals monitor you to make sure they can extorty money from you when you do soemthing that might possibly infringe on an expansive copyright that they think they have?
The RNC chair is hoping that his blackness will make him appealing to young urban culture. Facefault in three, two, one... (Additionally, Mr. Krugman asks who is in charge of distributing the talking points of the opposition, now that they're the opposition.) However, the RNC chair is not the worst offender - Ms. Ferguson wins by paranoia about an attack on the Seatlle-area ferry system, all because she found a Somali coin in a change return.
Although, I have to admit, people devoting time to noticing just how many flags the new President has surrounded himself with earn a demerit just for reviving all the time and press spent on whether the President was un-American because he refused to wear a flag pin.
In the opinions, Austin Cline notes that for as much good as the Obama administration is doing, they still haven't committed completely to stuff that would really mean they meant what they said about torture and such by, say, stopping rendition practices and spying on the populace.
Bill'O winds up to talk about all the insults the American government has received from foreign powers already, from Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Kyrgyzstan, within three weeks of the Presidency beginning. Mr. Hanson believes that the public declarations of new ways of government means there will be too much talking and not enough doing as those insults arrive. The WSJ condemns the deal in Swat, predicting there will be more attacks against citizens, not less. And Ms. Lopez caps it off by saying that we're cowards because we refuse to call millitant Islam by its name, not because we don’t talk enough about racial matters. Maybe they can all get some optimism from Ms. House's analysis of the changes in the Saudi cabinet that look like they might actually lead to reforms.
Mr. Guariglia asks us to entertain the thought of what the world would be like had Iraq not been invaded in 2003, and comes to the conclusion that a dictator would still be there, still researching and developing WMD, or the region would be anarchic as Iraq collapsed from one thing or another. Thus, we were totally justified in invading, because our result is the superior one to all the alternatives.
Mr. Barone, after the Census fracas, suggests spinning the bureau off as an indepedent agency to ensure neutrality and good practice in the count. Mr. Will believes that the Feingold amendment to the Constitution to require special elections to fill Senate seats will do more harm than good, and that it would be better, and closer to the intent of the Constitution, for the 17th Amendment, the one Feingold will modify, to be repealed altogether, bringing us back to state legislatures selecting Senators to serve. And Mr. Blackwell defends standardized testing as an effective and useful thing for admissions to use, declaring attempts to remove them based on claims of bias in the testing to be further along the liberal plot to control education, through admissions this time, because of their success in controlling the professorships.
Mr. Bailey is worried that a new crop-killer will do far more damage than it should because organizations against GMOs have successfully planted the idea in the populace's head that GMOs are dangerous.
Mr. Hanson (again) beleives he has a picture of the average American - completely resentful at all the things their elected leaders are doing and saying in their name, wanting resolution in the world in the form of a stomping for everyone opposing us, assistance to those of us who played by the rules domestically (with another stomping for those who didn’t, because their villany needs to be punished), and no more moralizing on how we have to pay for everyone else’s greed with increased taxes (which should be reduced). Mr. Kimball agrees with this picture of America, and hopes that the taxpayers tell their government to shut up, stop taxing them, and stop guilt-tripping them. Thus, a CNBC rant deserves high praise for telling it like it is.
And last out, Mr. Wheeler says that Mr. Obama held the economy hostage, talked it into its crisis, and then rushed through an expansion of government without mentioning why he thought that much money was necessary. Mr. Wheeler also believes it was doomed to fail from the start, even as the bill passed, because Mr. Obama has no experience running anything. Ms. Zito is convinced that the stimulus bill was pork in its entirety. Mr. Gillespie believes that because the President is not inculcated with the belief that government is unable to do anything correctly, the Republicans need to defend private enterprise from him and any well-meaning encroachments. Mr. Stokes thinks that our socialist leanings make assumptions about people that aren't true, and will make for things that don’t work, rather than letting capitalism, which knows we’re not going to do well by our neighbor, channel our selfishness into something productive. Ms. Parker feels that the crisis wouldn't have happened had government not interfered, and that furthergovernment interference in terms of rescues will only kill our ability to recover faster. Mr. Welch warns us to beware of the flipside of government assistance, which he thinks will be tax spikes to counteract the ability of homeowners to stay in their homes. That way both the people who made smart decisions and the people getting bailed out get punished. Mr. O'Driscoll believes nationalization will be doomed to failure, because it will be a politicized affair, and thus, we have to find solutions that keep private enterprise out of government hands, because turning America into a European nation won't work. Wrapping it all up, Mr. Hanson tells us not to worry, as our recession is not as bad as it looks, and there are natural stimulative processes at work to get us out of it, a position that Mr. Bialosky agrees with, so we shouldn’t panic.
In our science and tech department, promising antibodies tha tmight lead to an influenza vaccine, there's still that climate change thing, entertaining the idea that all of us may have descended from life originating on Mars, flexibility in electronic book readers, continuing to try and index the deep web, using intelligent collaborative agents to accomplish distributed tasks, teaching robots cues and how to interact socially with humans, the possibility of Moore's Law continuing unchecked with smaller components yet for transistors, and Google denying it has found Atlantis.
At the end, horse graffiti, an exhibition of the national Museum of Iraq, missing out on majoring in magic, and The Urban Repair Project, encouraging the creation of bike lanes and the adoption of bicycle culture throughout the world as an antidote to our car-centric world.
Well, and a fusion of Japanese and American icons to create something different entirely. There’s an icon guide if you get lost or don’t recognize all the mashups.
Asking interesting questions about religion in the Middle East - how did Tennessee evangelicals get a strong foothold in the Kurdish region? And why are there evangelicals embedding with units in Afghanistan? Lastly, is Iran a cosmopolitan place worthy of vacation travel, or is it the Islamic fundamentalist Republic everyone loves to hate?
One thing is for sure - Iran will have a nuclear facility running soon to generate civilian power. Actually, so might Iraq.
Elsewhere around the world, fighting in Afghanistan, fighting in Iraq, charges brought against an Iraqi lawmaker for masterminding several attacks against his fellows, a coal mine explosion kills 74 and wounds more in China, peacekeepers came under fire in Somali, foreigners targeted in an Egyptian blast, and missiles unveiled in North Korea.
Domestically, Recession Hacking: tips and tricks for riding out the eceonomic slowdown. These probably don’t rely on the government too much, which has promised to work to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of the current President's term. Is that including the moneys spent on the bailout, because that wouldn’t be too hard. How about we look at boom towns that are now becoming deserted because the money has gone? Even better, Louisana's governor has refused some part of his allotment of stimulus dollars, believeing that extending unemployment insurance will eventually stick the state with an increased tax burden, a position echoed by the WSJ today.
Here’s something for Americans to be relatively ashamed of - residents of El Paso, NM, often cross the border into Mexico to receive healthcare, because it’s more affordable to them than we have here. It opens up all the potential worries, yes, but in a down economy, people will take chances with their health because they have to make ends meet. At least they can get good-looking wedding rings for cheap.
Hawaii has become a battleground state over he issue of civil unions for homosexuals. Hrm. Stamped down in some places, springs up in others. This issue isn’t really going to go away. Somewhere in it, a pragmatist is probably going to find a solution everyone will tolerate. I have no idea what it is, though.
Microsoft overpaid severance on some employees, and is now requesting those employees pay back the overage, with potential threats hanging in the distance. An accounting error, it appears, was the cause. Luckily, Microsoft doesn’t have to worry about whether its image will suffer too much - most people are still chuffed at them for making the products they do.
More menacingly, the government wants you to keep a log of everything you do for two years on the Internet and send it to them, or if you don’t, the ISP that assigns your IP addresses should be keeping track of you. This is a “think of the childrens” thing that is basically letting the government monitor you to make sure that you have nothing to hide. Or, perhaps, leting media cabals monitor you to make sure they can extorty money from you when you do soemthing that might possibly infringe on an expansive copyright that they think they have?
The RNC chair is hoping that his blackness will make him appealing to young urban culture. Facefault in three, two, one... (Additionally, Mr. Krugman asks who is in charge of distributing the talking points of the opposition, now that they're the opposition.) However, the RNC chair is not the worst offender - Ms. Ferguson wins by paranoia about an attack on the Seatlle-area ferry system, all because she found a Somali coin in a change return.
Although, I have to admit, people devoting time to noticing just how many flags the new President has surrounded himself with earn a demerit just for reviving all the time and press spent on whether the President was un-American because he refused to wear a flag pin.
In the opinions, Austin Cline notes that for as much good as the Obama administration is doing, they still haven't committed completely to stuff that would really mean they meant what they said about torture and such by, say, stopping rendition practices and spying on the populace.
Bill'O winds up to talk about all the insults the American government has received from foreign powers already, from Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Kyrgyzstan, within three weeks of the Presidency beginning. Mr. Hanson believes that the public declarations of new ways of government means there will be too much talking and not enough doing as those insults arrive. The WSJ condemns the deal in Swat, predicting there will be more attacks against citizens, not less. And Ms. Lopez caps it off by saying that we're cowards because we refuse to call millitant Islam by its name, not because we don’t talk enough about racial matters. Maybe they can all get some optimism from Ms. House's analysis of the changes in the Saudi cabinet that look like they might actually lead to reforms.
Mr. Guariglia asks us to entertain the thought of what the world would be like had Iraq not been invaded in 2003, and comes to the conclusion that a dictator would still be there, still researching and developing WMD, or the region would be anarchic as Iraq collapsed from one thing or another. Thus, we were totally justified in invading, because our result is the superior one to all the alternatives.
Mr. Barone, after the Census fracas, suggests spinning the bureau off as an indepedent agency to ensure neutrality and good practice in the count. Mr. Will believes that the Feingold amendment to the Constitution to require special elections to fill Senate seats will do more harm than good, and that it would be better, and closer to the intent of the Constitution, for the 17th Amendment, the one Feingold will modify, to be repealed altogether, bringing us back to state legislatures selecting Senators to serve. And Mr. Blackwell defends standardized testing as an effective and useful thing for admissions to use, declaring attempts to remove them based on claims of bias in the testing to be further along the liberal plot to control education, through admissions this time, because of their success in controlling the professorships.
Mr. Bailey is worried that a new crop-killer will do far more damage than it should because organizations against GMOs have successfully planted the idea in the populace's head that GMOs are dangerous.
Mr. Hanson (again) beleives he has a picture of the average American - completely resentful at all the things their elected leaders are doing and saying in their name, wanting resolution in the world in the form of a stomping for everyone opposing us, assistance to those of us who played by the rules domestically (with another stomping for those who didn’t, because their villany needs to be punished), and no more moralizing on how we have to pay for everyone else’s greed with increased taxes (which should be reduced). Mr. Kimball agrees with this picture of America, and hopes that the taxpayers tell their government to shut up, stop taxing them, and stop guilt-tripping them. Thus, a CNBC rant deserves high praise for telling it like it is.
And last out, Mr. Wheeler says that Mr. Obama held the economy hostage, talked it into its crisis, and then rushed through an expansion of government without mentioning why he thought that much money was necessary. Mr. Wheeler also believes it was doomed to fail from the start, even as the bill passed, because Mr. Obama has no experience running anything. Ms. Zito is convinced that the stimulus bill was pork in its entirety. Mr. Gillespie believes that because the President is not inculcated with the belief that government is unable to do anything correctly, the Republicans need to defend private enterprise from him and any well-meaning encroachments. Mr. Stokes thinks that our socialist leanings make assumptions about people that aren't true, and will make for things that don’t work, rather than letting capitalism, which knows we’re not going to do well by our neighbor, channel our selfishness into something productive. Ms. Parker feels that the crisis wouldn't have happened had government not interfered, and that furthergovernment interference in terms of rescues will only kill our ability to recover faster. Mr. Welch warns us to beware of the flipside of government assistance, which he thinks will be tax spikes to counteract the ability of homeowners to stay in their homes. That way both the people who made smart decisions and the people getting bailed out get punished. Mr. O'Driscoll believes nationalization will be doomed to failure, because it will be a politicized affair, and thus, we have to find solutions that keep private enterprise out of government hands, because turning America into a European nation won't work. Wrapping it all up, Mr. Hanson tells us not to worry, as our recession is not as bad as it looks, and there are natural stimulative processes at work to get us out of it, a position that Mr. Bialosky agrees with, so we shouldn’t panic.
In our science and tech department, promising antibodies tha tmight lead to an influenza vaccine, there's still that climate change thing, entertaining the idea that all of us may have descended from life originating on Mars, flexibility in electronic book readers, continuing to try and index the deep web, using intelligent collaborative agents to accomplish distributed tasks, teaching robots cues and how to interact socially with humans, the possibility of Moore's Law continuing unchecked with smaller components yet for transistors, and Google denying it has found Atlantis.
At the end, horse graffiti, an exhibition of the national Museum of Iraq, missing out on majoring in magic, and The Urban Repair Project, encouraging the creation of bike lanes and the adoption of bicycle culture throughout the world as an antidote to our car-centric world.
Well, and a fusion of Japanese and American icons to create something different entirely. There’s an icon guide if you get lost or don’t recognize all the mashups.
