On time, for once - 20 May 2009

Hello, everyone. Did you know that people developed martial art methods for walking sticks, so that they could defend themselves with canes and sticks against ruffians? Just proves that you can make a martial art out of almost anything. Thanks, Ranma!

Significantly seriously, a new turn in the case of the thirteen year-old ordered to undergo chemotherapy treatment by a judge - he's gone, his mother took him, and dad doesn't know where they've gone.

On the big international desk, expect a glassing soon for Iran - they just test-fired a missile with the range to reach Israel. Probably not the wisest idea if you want to stay alive. Here comes the working group, and those offering advice to the Israeli PM in their own columns. Elsewhere, an investigation declares MI5 didn't have enough resources to properly investigate and stop the 7 July terror plotters. Can only guess what kind of funding bump they’ll want from Parliament.

Domestically, a hard drive containing sensitive data from the Clinton Administration has gone missing. Bad. The former governor of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation took the fifth on allegations that he had improper contacts with Wall Street firms while he was in office. Worse. The top House Republican declares that the Speaker is taking a wrecking ball to intelligence morale with her statements about what she knew, continuing to play up the partisan sidshow in favor of ignoring the real question about the legality and need to prosecute those who engaged and abetted the torture, regardless of party. Worst. And the media is joining in (sort of), choosing to play up gaffes by the Senate Majority Leader on several issues, including the possibility of moving Guantanamo Bay residents to secure facilities inside the United States.

Otherwise, body armor manufacturers are claiming moving the testing to actual Army facilities will slow the process of getting the body armor out to the troops. And a gun safety demo in Phoenix made a very object lesson in why you always assume your gun is loaded and never point one at something you don't intend on killing.

Several reforms to credit cards have been passed by Congress and sent to the President's desk, which will hopefully protect users from surprise fees, interest rate spikes, and possibly getting more credit than they can afford to repay, as banks adjust their costs to reflect the new rules. All of this was not done without, say, threats and dire predictions that regulation means people who pay on time and maintain good credit will subsidize those who don't (bailouts, anyone?), as well as possible new fees and ways to soak those good credit risks because they won’t be able to be properly usurious to those who aren’t good credit risks.

Which makes a nice transition to the opinions, because the first phrase out of many a person’s mouth on that would be “Go to Hell.” As the Slacktivist points out, though, Hell isn't what we want - most of us don't believe in it, anyway. What we want is justice, the kind where the person doing the wrong finds himself experiencing the wrong so totally that he understands why it is wrong as well as experiencing all the emotino and further damage that comes from the wrong. The rare kind of justice that always happens in movies and rarely outside of them.

ddjango advocates for bringing in a new world order, because the one we have ain't cutting it, letting us all be played as pawns to corporate masters, instead of uniting as communities to do our thing our way. I would venture that krinndnz agrees with the premise, if not the specifics, in describing the meaning of feminism and other isms that look to shape our behavior away from what worked when we were semi-nomadic tribes and get us to think of new ways of existence.

Mr. Lerner believes that the middle-of-the-road pragmatism Barack Obama promotes will be his downfall, because without the ideology on display to back up his program decisions, Mr. Obama wastes an opportunity to breed future voters who will flock to the Democratic causes after his charismatic self leaves office, and he leaves the people without a well-known ideological alternative to Republicanism.

Mr. Thiessen believes that if Mr. Obama truly wanted to do arms reduction, he would continue to do the no-treaties part of waht the previous administration was doing, instead of reviving talks with Moscow about reduction of nuclear arms.

The WSJ believes it has an example of the forthcoming cost-rationing of health care under the government-option-that-everyone-knows-is-single-pay-and-thus-socialist Obama plan: the decision by Medicare to not pay for virtual colonoscopies, considering that if polyps are found, the regular procedure has to take place anyway, and thus it is better for Medicare to pay for the standard procedure and not the virtual one.

Ms. Saunders points out how little war experience the current administration has, after liberals thrashed the previous administration for having several members that dodged drafts and received deferrments. She’s okay with it, thoguh, because it was a always a phony issue in her mind, and we’re proving it now. Except that, if I recall correctly, the liberal wing wants the wars stopped, and thus doesn’t really have to worry about military experience, unlike the party previous, who had a vested interest in running two wars in Asia. Ms. Byrd swings below the belt, declaring that the changes on national security, photo release, military comissions, and the like is an admission that Mr. Bush was right all along, and that liberals will just have to accept that, unless they want to concoct the obvious (to her) fantasy that the President is simply changing with the political winds. There’s always the chance that the information that is reserved to the President can change their minds about how to handle things, sure, but if that was the case, one would think Mr. Obama could allude to or say such when discussing his changes. The left wouldn’t necessarily have to admit Mr. Bush was right (after all, there’s still solid arguments to be made that Guantanamo should be closed, the commissions system should be dismantled, and the like, unless this secret information trult does trump all), but they would then know there was something in the top security echelons that we can’t know about that justifies things continuing the way they are.

Prepare the pastry! And, surveying the field today... make it a double batch. Pairs of quiches for those who deserve them.

Getting the first of two bronzed pastries, only because I don’t think anyone can really take this seriously, Mr. Chuck Norris believes the government and the country will soon be outlawing the unpopular conservative and religious opinions, with the Fairness Doctrine reappearing and the social outcry to Miss California’s question response cited as proof that soon it will be thoughtcrime to oppose the government. I’d say stick to acting, but then I remember the current Lion of Republicanism was an actor, too.

Mr. McGurn, you come in a disrespectable third for taking Notre Dame to task on hosting the President for a commencement address, instead of sticking to its Catholic principles of “no abortions, ever” and denying the President the platform to speak to college-age Catholics who must make their own decisions about their lifestyle after exiting the University. Take a page and several lessons from Mr. Thomas, who by setting aside most of the things that get in the way of taking the address seriously, manages to respect the President and his speech, while leaving it certain that he expects the President to be staunchly pro-life before Mr. Thomas will beleive any of his commitments. The considerable mention of pregnancy crisis centers without explicitly stating their religious and anti-choice sentiments is a bit disturbing, but we’ll give him the benefit of some doubt, as he gave the President some.

Although, we must admit, he did better than still desperately-unfunny and increasingly-desperate comedian David Limbaugh, who believes Mr. Obama is an inveterate liar, using soothing rhetoric to mask his radical agenda, on everything from abortion to union membership and beyond, and that if he actually spoke truly about his intentions, the populace would turn against him. Except I think the candidate spoke truthfully about his intentions, and the people elected him anyway. Still, one of the two silver efforts is yours.

The other? Mr. Thomas, who buries a perfectly servicable point about how the media, television, and sound bites can't give you a complete picture of anything underneath swipes at Congress posing for the cameras, making decisions away from them, and using judicial nominee televising as a way of twisting otherwise-excellent nominees into demons based on their politics and discouraging other excellent ones from trying. Well, at least they’re not firing already sitting attorneys based on their level of political fealty.

Which brings us to a dread pair of loser/winners tonight. Ms. Hagelin starts the pairing by doing Mr. Sowell one better about media, declaring programming aimed for teens to be a vile cesspit of trash, juvenile inclincations for boys and hypersexuality for women, all cynically manipulated by marketers looking to get teen brains hooked and then use that hook to sell all sorts of product to them while similarly retarding their growth into adults. Teenagers, while thinking they are above and immune to the marketing messages, are actually so far in it they don’t even realize the depth of their addiction. So, parents and adults must figure out a way of getting to those teens so they resist the temptation to never grow up/grow up too fast and become fine young men and women of character and integrity (and probably wouldn’t hurt if they were pro-abstinence and Christian, too). This reminds me of... oh, yes, that’s right. This reminds me of the set-up and some part of the execution for a Chick Tract. Except, instead of exhorting the people to accept a warped version of Jeezis as their personal savior, she exhorts parents to manage to produce more of an influence on their children than is possible (and probably induce guilt if their kids start liking that trashy stuff).

The cream of the crop, and top loser/winner tonight is Mr. Salmon's article for Reuters on the plight of the blue-collar male. In a recession that is claiming jobs left and right, he thought it important to write an article on how much men, who are by and large employed more in percentage and in quantity than women, are suffering bigger losses in the workforce, and he is only now noticing that blue colar jobs, which can be both shipped overseas or cut entirely in the face of rising costs, are being shipped overseas and cut because of the recession. Any Michigan boy, girl, transgender, or other could have told you that, and will wonder precisely where you’ve been the last twenty years. So, for not only stating the obvious, but managing to get it published on a major news service, Mr. Salmon, you are the recipient of the second golden and flaming quiche for tonight. I can’t say one way or another whether this counts as also bein sexist by only reporting on men - the Unabashed Feminism Department is probably a better judge on that than I am.

In science and technology, the discovery of a very old, very well-preserved primate ancestor, slotting in an early member of the line that eventually led to Homo, gene therapies to treat brain disorders giong into trials, batteries that can use oxygen from the air to store significantly larger amounts of power over their life, and reassurances that robotic warriors sent against us will have ethical codes that will keep them from killing us all off. I was about to use complete decimation, but then I realized that would leave a lot of us still around, and that wasn’t the idea I was going for.

Last for tonight, check out the construction of a life-size Gundam, and pictures of kaiju monsters done up very nice and modern.

The Early Post - 21 May 2009

So, neat thing to start with today. Whoopi Goldberg eviscerates Glenn Beck, calling him a lying sack of dog mess, and Beck then admits he doesn't fact-check things, either, or at least, that's what I heard and the Coutndown transcript confirms it.

Not so neat - Apple has been rather slow to patch a known Java vulnerability issue that allows for execution of arbitrary code outside the Java sandbox.

Also receiving top billing, a primer on how expensive it is to be poor, because everything costs more when you don't have the means to make it cost less. It takes more in time, in peace of mind, and in money, too, because more time working is not necessarily meaning more money to save up, or you have to pay loan sharks and other places to do bank services, for which fees and percentage fees eat up what little money you might have left.

Internationally, the United States Army burned several Christian Foundational Writing books translated into the local Afghan dialects and sent to a soldier on duty there by a cult. Which naturally invited comments about how the country should be incensed that the Army was burning the Holy Writ, and the more sane commenters saying, "Do you want more soldiers to get killed? If not by the locals, then by their COs who will string them up by their genitalia for behaving like a stupid Crusader." Perhaps this sign about the life and death of Jesus would be the appropriate local response, were the soldiers actually distributing such material.

President Obama approved a sale of nuclear technology to the United Arab Emirates, making them into a nation with the capacity to produce civilian nuclear power. The worries are, of course, that this will spark an arms race in the Middle East and nations will go all crazy pointing nuclear warheads at each other.

Domestically, a former CIA head says that the CIA is always and always has been truthful, honest, and open to the Congress. If that were really the case, then there would be very few secrets for the Agency to have, and they would feel like they weren't getting anything done. The CIA may not feel like it lied, but I'm betting it hasn't hesitated to omit or redact when it suits the purpose. They were destroying tapes, after all.

Skepticism from CNS about the figure Vice-President Biden cited on how stimulus money is creating jobs. Speaking of the stimulus, Lousiana lawmakers have voted to override Gov. Jindal's veto of stimulus dollars, although the article suggests that some lawmakers were unaware of what they were doing when they did so. Which is politics as normal, certainly, but people who do such things should be reprimanded if not censured or stripped of their office.

Further appeals on the Plame outing are dismissed by Justice, believing nothing wrong happened at the lower courts that rendered the initial judgment on the matter.

Hitting our stride in the opinions, the Republicans have an offering for an alternative health care plan - shift subsidization from insurance companies and employers to individuals themselves - in essence, tax credits so that each individual can then purchase a full-price insurance policy of their own, rather than depending on their employer or the government for insurance, although many will continue to see coverage through their employer, it seems. So, the Republican proposal is... to maintain the status quo, with a little bit of possible yay to those who can afford their own plans - they'll get some part of it back as a tax credit. Assuming they can get in, and assuming they can pay the premiums.

I'm getting precisely one side of this story - Mr. Boortz reprints a letter he received about a Dodge dealer who is apparently having his franchise name seized and then given to another dealer, leaving him with cars and parts, but no ability to use the Dodge name or do warranty service on the cars. And the blame for this is somehow on President Obama, when it is the Chrysler Corporation that is making these decisions and deciding to remove their brand name from certain places. Congratulations, sir, you just became an independent vehicle dealer! You're free to stock and sell whatever you like! Enjoy your newfound freedom, and pull yourself up by your bootstraps into becoming the successful businessperson that Republicans want you to be. Let Mr. Jenkins complain about how unions will run Chrysler into the ground and the WSJ complain about how higher fuel efficiencies are not what consumers want, because fuel efficiency is for small cars, and Americans want the biggest thing on the road.

Of course, if you're Mr. Gordon, the government can't run any sort of economic enterprise, because it seeks headlines instead of profitability, is run by politicians instead of entrepreneurs, ignores competition, spends money other than its own, and thus, based on its current record of failing everywhere it goes, the government shouldn't be allowed to keep trying. Only greed for profit and competition with others for a bigger share of profit keeps businesses running well, we're told. Otherwise, we run into the gangs of D.C., interested solely in keeping and increasing their own power. And the end result, will be, of course, unsafe, unliked, fuel-efficient cars that taxpayers are propping up because nobody wants to buy them, with the evil collusion between the government, the automakers, and the UAW continuing until there is no competition or choice left and we're all forced to drive unsafe, tiny, unliked, fuel-efficient cars, which cost too much and will kill us if we get them in an accident.

Mr. Jeffrey intends to take the President to task for not defending the CIA against Nancy Pelosi, but really, Mr. Gerson makes the point he was aiming for - that the Democrats are systematically destroying our intelligence capacity by accusing the CIA of lying, and thus making the country less safe. Not to mention that the ones making the accusing are at variance with the CIA's official account, and thus they must be the liars.

Mr. Bolton is seeing nuclear boogeymen in the closet, with his usual warnings that Iran and North Korea will continue testing missiles and then Surprise! Buttsecks! the United States, Israel, or Japan with a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Apparently, the fears the China will hack us all will soon be less founded than they were before.

However, in competition for the pastry, The WSJ uses Sri Lanka as an example of what they believe to be a maxim - you must defeat terrorists militarily before you can negotiate with them politically. With the associated costs of death, destruction, and war waged on the civilians around where the government and the Tigers clashed. And as we have done and are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a sense, this generally requires stomping a terrorist group militarily to be "worth it" before engaging them. Yet the WSJ believes that all groups should receive such a stomping before they will stop, instead of foiling them the more conventional way.

However, winning the bronze honor is Ms. Malkin, who points at a New York Times decision to spike a story about the sharing of campaign donor lists between the Obama candidacy and Project Vote, a subsidiary of ACORN, on the night before the election as proof that the NYT is a biased champion of Obama and liberalism, using the fact that the Times has made significant money with Obama-related merchandise as her support that the paper has no interest in actually reporting the news. It was supposedly a story with documentation and everything, ready to go right before it got passed on by the editors. The suggestion from the NYT is that there was no fruit coming from the story, so perhaps the expose was slow in gathering (or manufacturing) the evidence it needed to present, and took too long to get its ducks in a row. Thus, evidence-gathering first, media contacts later. Besides, with as fringe as Ms. Malkin has been in the past, an accusation from her that the NYT is biased against conservatives holds as much water as a steel sieve. She'll need more than one spiked story and some merchandise to convince us.

Gaining silver, Boss Limbaugh issues a challenge to the MSNBC network to go thirty days without mentioning him once, believing that MSNBC is piggybacking on his great fame and addicted to poking at him because they have nothing substantive to stand on themselves. Setting aside the hubris of believing an entire network is jealous of you, the responses came back - Mr. Olbermann said "Sure, if you'll go thirty days without boasting or mentioning anything that you've done or said on your own show". The host of The Ed Show, Ed Schultz, said he'd do it if Limbaugh refrained from making derogatory or hateful comments about the President for thirty days. Suffice to say, the war continues on apace. Because he's the boss of the Republican Party, he warrants a silver for singling out MSNBC and having the hubris to believe, much like Bill'O does, that MSNBC is building itself on the back of any conservative organization, whether it be him or Fox News.

The Republican Party almost made it to the winner's circle today. Almost. Why? They wimped out on a resolution that would have demanded the Democratic Party change its own name to the Democrat Socialist Party, instead settling for a much milder condemnation of the Demcorats taking us on a march toward socialism, with language indicating "the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals," and has a "clear and obvious purpose in proposing, passing and implementing socialist programs through federal legislation". Would have been better, I think, for the Republicans to go for it, so they could truly resign themselves to being a fringe party, and some other coalition could begin the work of building themselves up into a Loyal Opposition. As it is, we're still stuck with two dysfunctional entities.

The Unabashed Feminism Department Bureau Chief has a pair of opinions that deserve that immaculately-baked quiche to be thrown into their writer's FAAAACE! Or, yes, these are the winners. First up, women who are childfree or don't want children are not to be trusted, tells a mom and ex-boss, because they're weird for not having three kids right out of high school! And, apparently, the childfree are all the bitches in the office (is that because they're constantly being harangued about not having kids?). But don't worry! After a mere 50 years, women grow out of being bitches! It's true, it's true, and the pastry-paults are sending those beautiful prizes on their way across the pond.

In science and technology, males will be a distant memory in the next, oh, five million years, KOBIAN, a robot that attempts to express emotion with full-body movement and gestures, instead of just facial movement, designing protocols to make robots stealthy, memory material that could last longer than human males, and "five-dimensional" optical writing to increase storage greatly, and new IBM software to find correlations in giant data sets, which is something the computers can do a hell of a lot better and faster than the humans can. Oh, and a dutch Go computer beat two professionals in two different matches, pictures (of a sort) of a black hole, and the beginnings of Super Soldier Serum starting, well, at least, it looks that way.

At the end, however, remember, there's a monster at the end of this book. Always. Luckily, he doesn't look anything like these potoatoheads.