Making with the linkies - 9 April 2009

Failure. Attempting to make DC comics characters in the style of manga requires you to actually pay attention to it, instead of looking at stereotypes and saying "Good enough."

For something prettier to look at, have some beautiful jellyfish.

On the world stage, the Somali pirates are running out of options, after losing the ship back to the crew and taking the captain hostage. The WSj thinks that America should step in and solve the problem or at least make the pirates too afraid to attack American vessels. They also seem to think that this similar outlook will work against North Korea (Welcome back to the public eye, Kim Jong Il), Iran, and judges who want to prosecute previous Administration officials.

The counterterror chief of the UK has resigned after a photograph was discovered where highly sensitive documents about an upcoming operation could be read clearly. Good technology, bad security practice.

A graphic novel artist in Egypt is threatened with two years in prison for pubilshing a book that offends public morals, for being about stealing and using colloquial language.

After spending two months in jail without charges, an American journalist was charged with espionage by Iran, crushing hopes of her swift return and changing the arrest story from "working without credentials" to "passing classified information under cover of journalism".

Domestically, if there were gun rampages going on across your country, what would be the logical solution? Remove guns? Stop letting people get them? Require more stringent controls? Well, if you're the U.S., the answer is make it so that more people can have guns, in the idea that they'll be able to defend themselves against someone shooting them. Because we all have Vash the Stampede's reflexes and accuracy so we can shoot the person who already has their weapon drawn.

The Treasury Department is holding off releasing "stress-testing" of financial institutions so as not to upset first-quarter reports from those companies. Which makes me wonder how bad it is that they want the better news to go first before they give us the worser.

H.R. 875, the bill that supposedly destroys small farmers... does nothing of the sort, according to the person who wrote the damn thing. There's that bit about a lie being halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on, I believe...

A member of the House of Representatives has compiled a secret list of seventeen socialists in the chamber, or so he claims. You may begin your HUAC-related jokes or outrage at any point. And while you're at it - we could use some real science education, too, instead of material that's all about teaching to a test instead of teaching students how to learn and think. (Admittedly, lies, damn lies, and statistics. Someone show us what the questions were?)

Mixed opinions still from the Muslim world on President Obama, indicating a willingness to give him enough rope to hang himself with and seeing whether he makes thirteen loops. When he has spectres like Mr. McCarthy's insistence that Islam is a violent, world-conquering religion, no matter what anyone says, it's going to be tough for them to believe that. Mr. Henninger would like to see more tolerance of Christians in Muslim countries before he gives a lot of ground on tolerating Muslims in Christian countries.

In the opinions, Bill'O gets served by...Roger Ebert? Worth a read. Bill, you're slipping - a film critic just knocked you down.

Doing just as badly is Mr. Turd Blossom, who claims that the current President is a divisive figure and that the President is solely responsible for his sharply partisan approval numbers. Leaving the party of NO out of it, and claiming that Mr. Obama's predecessor, upon taking office, was far more bipartisan ad had better support from both places.

Mr. Brownfeld still sees Weathermen as an important part of present-day society, requiring resolution to the acts they did (and proabbly advocating for the sacking of those former Weathermen who are now in academia or associated with the President). It was a bad smear when it was run in the campaign, Mr. Brownfeld.

On similar levels of "you call this news?" - A bunch of doctors, mostly associated with organizations that have "Christian" in their name, are hoping that President Obama won't take away the shield they've been using to not provide medical services to women they don't approve of.

The WSJ praises the doggedness of the DA of Nee York on the latest shell companies for Iran case, but curiously uses all that praise to spread FUD about Iran's great nuclear weapons plans, those evil Iranians, them. Making more sense is Mr. Schaefer, complaining that arms control measures mean nothing to radical countries like Iran and North Korea, and will not make them any less likely to use their own weapons.

Related, Mr. Goldberg still thinks joining the UNHRC is a bad idea, no matter how well the U.S. can clean it up, because joining gives it legitimacy it doesn't deserve.

Mr. Stoseel calls the idea of preschool for everyone a scam that wastes money while providing no real help, because preschool effects mostly rub out by third grade. So naturally, if parents want preschool, they should pay for it at let the competition drive how good things are. All hail The Market's mighty hand. And, of course, remember that Social Security will run away with government spending within our lifetimes, so be sure to not pay as much tax as possible so you can invest in a private retirement at the end of your working years.

Ms. Malkin thinks the selection of the King County, WA, executive for Housing and Urban Development shows what kind of character the administration is looking for in appointments. All bad, naturally, based on a single case brought forward that dinged the executive for withholding public records so that others could see and question numbers involved in subsidies and a ruling that indicated ballots were improperly counted in his reelection in 2004. These are serious allegations. Should they be enough to disqualify? Well, the Senators will decide that, not columnists well known for being on the insane side of the scale.

The WSJ praises a reduction in the estate tax to 35% with the first 5 million dollars exempt, 10 million if you're married. How many people does such a thing affect, and why aren't more people wondering why people who have clearly made lots of money in their life deserve tax breaks upon passing it on to their children? They might have a better case with wondering why venture capital firms might also fall under the systemic risk regulator.

Last out, ten simple things to do to make capitalism more able to resist another big crash like this. Most of these items are common sense - like banning anything more complex than the average investor.

Technology time - pictures of the process of mapping all the cells in the back of a rabbit's eye, YouTube EDU, where lectures and other college education are available for free, big computers tackling big thinky problems, people in the Obama Administration looking at climate geoengineering to counteract climate change, the class upcoming of astronauts will be the first without a spacecraft to fly missions with, and a hybrid generator that does both solar power and pizoelectric vibration power. Because looking on the nano level is where all sorts of interesting things show up.

Last for today, A vanity plate reminds us of the rules of unintended consequences.

All the news that I find or am linked to - 10 April 2009

Good morning, everyone. We’ll start with a laugh. Namely, the idea that it would be a good thing to call people attending Tax Day Tea Parties..."teabaggers". Ms. Maddow was having trouble reporting on it without laughing. If you’re not sure why it’s funny, research the slang meaning of the word.

Much more infuriating, a proposal that looks to pass in France would empower media cabals to hire people to sniff for piracy, trace it back to an originating IP, and then, if it confirmed three illegal downloads, require termination of Internet service.

Ann couldn’t stay out for long. She takes bronze honors for Worst through ranting about the need to have more guns, because it would save more lives in cases of deranged shooters, managing to get to the President’s resposne to missile testing and the apparent streak in all parts of liberalism where reducing or making illegal the things that result in crime is seen as a good thing, when clearly the opposite is correct, because the criminals, will of course, always get those things, legal or illegal. I don’t know if she realy meant to advocate in a general way for the decriminalization of Schedule I drugs, child exploitation, slavery, and the like, but someone could always ask.

The runner up for Worst Persons today is Texas State Rep Betty Brown, who complained that Asian-descended Americans should change their names so as to make it easier to pronounce them. And then denies that she’s being a racist.

The winners for tonight’s Worst Persons in the World contest - the jokers at Fox News who said that Fred Rogers was evil, conributing to the creation of "worthless, lazy socialists who think they’re entitled to rewards without working". Because he taught that all children were special for being themselves. Whether quoting from someone or not, that someone would give it airtime without ruthless and mercliess mocking and discreditation of the person saying it, well, that’s why it’s on Fox News. It was clearly King Friday who was evil, Tinky-Winky tells us.

So, the person claiming that Obama's birth eligibility would spark widespread riots? Turns out he was all about the Satanic Panic, too, and his informational sources for this claim - also head-deep in that as well. Proving that sensible people realize that any candidate that didn’t meet the requirements would have been weeded out before being able to start the Presidential campaign.

To cleanse the palate, 100 gorgeous wildlife photographs.

And now, the news. We lost the other creator of Dungeons and Dragons, David Lance Arneson. I wonder if there will be something like a d20 salute.

Internationally, Iran has said they have technology to improve their centrifuges, meaning fuel production for nuclear reactors will be coming soon. The U.S. will be directly participating in talks where Iran will be present to defend its nuclear ambitions.

The top United States commander in Iraq has said they may miss the stated deadline for United States troops returning to their bases because of a resurgence of al-Qaeda related violence. Which is one possible facet in addition to the three facets the Kagans highlight as important for Iraq in the coming year. In Afghanistan, the United Stated admitted to killing civilians, a reversal of their previous position that those killed in a recent attack were militants.

Clear desperation for the Somali pirates, with Navy warships bearing down on their position. The President would like a peaceful solution, where everyone gets out alive, but it may not end up happening that way.

Domestically, things have become sufficiently grave that the Pentagon is conducting economic-warfare exercises, and advocacy groups are helping squatters find abandoned homes to live in without worrying all that much about law crackdowns. The police are overwhelmed or just not moving very quickly to kick them out. So long as the squatters maintain the place and don’t turn it into the a hive of villany, after some point, they might have a good claim on the house themselves. Would be an easy way of writing off bad mortgages and such - declare them lost to squatters and write the debt off.

Sabotage was suspected in a phone service outsage in Santa Cruz, with authorities discovering an intentionally cut underground cables.

The President inroduced a unified records system for active and retired military personnel, claiming that it would reduce the backlog of claims and prevent delays when an active-duty serviceperson retires and becomes the VA’s responsibility.

The President also apparently thinks that if farmers sell $500,000 (that's sell, not profit), they're doing well enough not to need federal subsidies. Which, after being corrected by ilyena_sylph about the actual costs of doing business in agricultre, I realize is a threshold that’s at least one magnitude of order too low, if one is talking gross sales. If it were profit that were the cutoff point, on the other hand, 500K might be about right.

Rasmussen wants to scare you into beleiving the country is becoming socialists, through a poll that says “Only 53% of Americans believe capitalism is better than socialism”... without actually defining what they meant in either case. And then there’s that curious stinger where only 7% of the people supposedly share “the elitist views of the Political Class” on the end. F.U.D., it sounds like to me. And with Representatives compiling lists of socialists in the House, are we due up for another scare?

In the opinions, Marx may have his revenge on us all, by becoming relevant again in our economic crises, Mr. Hanson is possibly quietly amused that neither Democrats nor Republicans can safely direct populist anger at the other, because both sides helped create the crisis that the people are suffering now, while The WSJ tips their hat to the Defense Secretary, knowing that his proposals will be inevitably shredded by the House and Senate to bad ends, complain about new possible environmental and green regulations coming from Congress, and smugly note that trade wars don't work under the cover of concern about Pacific Northwest fruit farmers.

The best economic-related opinion today, though, is Peggy Noonan, commenting about what Wall Street did after 11 September, 2001, and how far away from today’s reality (and the times before it) that Wall Street was. Maybe bringing some of that Wall Street back would help the markets and the people affected by them. Maybe not. But for a minute there, the cooperation and good spirits proved that it could work. If we wanted it to.

Mr. Elder thinks he's going numb with all the change and assault that Mr. Obama's policies are wreaking on him and conservatives. Mr. Morris and Ms. McGann agree, focusing on the economic aspects of change, and Mr. Medved picks up on the theme, setting up the straw man that “liberals believe people only get ahead by being unfair and cheating, so government should pound those nails back down, and conservatives believe everyone advances on their own merits, and America should be proud and continue to be so exceptional because we’re the best” and then using it to decry Mr. Obama’s curernt plans as punishing the successful, wherever they are, and ignoring the real causes as to why some nations do better than others (because the poor choose to be on welfare, dammit).

The National Review's Editorial Board believes a federal judge just claimed jurisdiction over the world, with a ruling indicating that those detained in a United States military base in Afghanistan have the right to use the United States federal court system to challenge their detention. For them, this is not the way a war is to be fought, and will burden the troops unnecessarily in having to prove their detention cases.

Mr. Gaffney, Jr. wants you to believe that Sharia is evil and must be opposed at all costs, because Sharia is always Taliban men beating young women or sending suicide bombers or any one of many violent acts, and we ahve to be wary or soon we won’t be able to criticize the obviously bloody and violent Sharia lest we meet with law enforcement or bloody ends of our own. I’m assuming, then, that he also believes the Jews and Christians are all very violent people based on their shared teachings, who also want to take over teh world and subject it, and the only reason they haven’t is because many millions of Jews and Christians don’t live according to the laws of their religion.

Last out, Ms. Olson, taxpayer advocate for the IRS, says we need less complexity in the tax code.

In technology today, kittens with extra digits and opposable thumbs, how developing a safe and inexpensive abortion technology has changed the world as we know it, musing that the Internet might develop intelligence spontaneously, DNA analysis possible on Mars, with results returning to Terra - hey, maybe they can find an impact site with space debris and test it for ice, desktop 3D fabrication getting cheaper and cheaper, and a blog about TweetDeck's newest offering to the Twitterverse, with apparently additional ability to post to Facebook as well as Twitter. The comments incoming say “Twitter sux. Get a life. Why does NYT obsess?” Mr. Boothe nods and reminds us that Twitter is a strategy to an end product, not the product itself.

Last for tonight, CompUSA has been revived, and is now a subsidiary of the company that owns TigerDirect.

Additionally, Frank Zappa may have developed the first music file-sharing business concept, but he was, sadly, ahead of his time and it never came into existence. Still, it’s basically what music services have become now, just over phone lines and television cable signals instead of the not-yet-existing Internet.