Miniupdate - 25 May 2009

Not much here, just the stuff that’s been around the desk over the last couple days. Like Towel Day, for you hoopy froods. Also the day where you salute those who died in war, and curse those who sent people to die in unjust wars for needlessly causing the deaths of others.

This does mean, however, that horror stories on toilet paper are clearly in, as are tips on how to make a little money writing science fiction (at least, on the business side), and a curious affair involving inflatable rhinoceroses. Oh, did you hear about the shirt that is taking the Internets by storm?

We also see the Church of Scientology going on trial in France for organized fraud.

And we find out one of the pinup girls written to by soldiers kept the correspondence, which proves that the artifacts of our history are often lying in the hands of the people you might think wouldn’t have any.

It also means, though, that we find out the FCC claims that it has the right to enter a house without a warrant to inspect any equipment that uses radio spectrum, like your wireless router, there are some people trying to manufacture the latest terror plot just to keep you scared, which didn’t work all that well.

We also find that in some areas of the country, prom is still a racially segregated affair, which is sad in a lot of ways, but pales in comparison to the version of American History written from the explicitly Christian perspective, calling itself a Patriot Bible and ignoring completely the religious proclivities of the founders and several other influential thinkers in declaring that everyone was a Christian, even if other history books don’t say as much. Because, “Everyone knows” the Bible is the single greatest influence on the country throughout time.

California's going to have to work things out on their own, at least for now, according to the scuttlebutt from Washington and some fears of setting a dangerous precedent for bailouts. Mr. Krugman has seen the seeds of this collapse and wonders why there aren't more people moving, in California, to fix it. Kinda wish the reasoning about dangerous precedent had come into play before the previous administration decided certain institutions were too big to fail and declined to trustbust them as a condition of assistance, and we do wonder why the things that are handicapping the state’s ability to get out of the situation aren’t being steadily repealed.

Amazon is adding in a disc-on-demand service.

Next to last, bottoms up - urine and sweat reprocessing is a success - water from waste is go.

Last for tonight, and most importantly, someone took the Olbermann challenge and got himself waterboarded. No, not Sean Hannity. Eric “Mancow” Miller went under. He lasted six seconds and declared it “Absolutely Torture”. For his part, Mr. Olbermann donated $10,000 to the charity of Mr. Miller’s choice, Veterans of Valor. So now, there's really no reason to say or believe that it isn't torture - the skeptic said it was torture.

Regular-sized news post - 26 May 2009

Greetings - now that the day of rememberance is past, we can see the articles about it come out, some calling for more money to be spent on disabled veterans, who deserve to be taken care of for their sacrifice, and others noting that NASCAR racers stopped their race completely to observe a moment of silence at the appointed time. Some wrote of personal experience, praising the inhabitants of the country, with a little guilt trip about soldiers added on right at the end.

At the international desk - be careful, if you threaten to jump too much, someone might just push you off - although there were cusions and things in place to make sure that there wouldn’t be damage done.

The Netherlands is closing prisons for lack of criminals. Huh. Nice to see something like that. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could say the same thing about our prison system? Probably could, if we decriminalized certain drug offenses or reduced them to fines only.

Disturbing - some concrete pictures of what pollution really looks like, including people wallowing in garbage. Scientists are going to have a look at one of the bigger oceanic landfills.

Also disturbing, North Korea has tested another atomic weapon, based on an “artificial” earthquake recorded in the area and confirmation from North Korea that it took on the test. The President called this second test a "grave concern" and called for action to happen against North Korea. Much like the last time, when nothing happened. Will something actually go this time? We don’t know. The Washingotn Times suggests this latest test is a sign that Kim Jong-Il is going to hand over the reins of power soon. The Times also suggests that both Iran and North Korea are mocking the West because their responses have been lukewarm at best.

The United States continues to tiptoe around human rights issues when politicians are in China, with Speaker Pelosi choosing to focus on the environment (a good issue, mind) while she was there. See the, uh, slant in that article and headline? China is not a single-issue country, and all that. Similar example - half of Israel favors glassing Iran, neglecting that the other half would rather wait and see. Headline could have read “Israel split on whether to attack Iran, which would be less aggressive.

The Telegraph tells us of plans for banks and stock brokers to shoot themselves in the foot by not taking on American clients if the new American tax regs going after offshore accounts pass.

Last out, the Governor-General of Canada made headlines today by attending the gutting of a seal by First Nations people and then consumed some of the heart raw. The matter could be interpreted as a protest against an EU ban on seal products, but the Governor-General has having none of it.

Domestically, any port in an economic storm - New Jersey seeks unemployed traders to teach high school mathematics. Well, they do use it, so that would be a decent fit, unless they just believed whatever the computer told them and didn’t remember the actual maths. As it is, some of the applicants for the program failed the maths tests.

President Obama selected Sonia Sotomayor as his replacement for Justice David Souter on the Supreme court. Now comes the vetting process, but confirmation looks likely, according to the article. That would make three women over the course of the court and the first Hispanic Justice. These are apparently disadvantages, according to conservative groups, because she will use being a woman and being Latino as influences in her decision-making and court rulings. And, what, the white dudes aren’t?

Equality for all persons in name as well as practice took a hit today. The California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8 today, while letting the marriages performed before it took effect remain legal. That hurts, and it puts up the scare that another initiative will nullify those marriages performed. In their defense, the Supremes were ruling on whether or not the courts could overturn a valid voter initiative (we’d say yes, even as a constitutional amendment, because of the conflicts it engenders with other consitutional guarantees, especially based on the precedent that led to this initiative) and not on whether the initiative itself is wise or sound. The ruling also leaves the strong domestic partnership framework intact in the state. So, legally, the right decision was made. Practically, it hurts. Beyond that, though, the WSJ is absolutely correct - the fight itself will continue to rage on. And people will make comments like ”Hey, California. How does it feel to be behind Iowa in progressivism?“ (via twitter) [Edit/Update] See the entry for the 27th of May for an analysis that suggests the California Supremes made the right legal decision in upholding the initiative, but basically denied any knock-on effects from that initiative, resolving the constitutional conflict and preserving the initiative process by saying that Prop 8 is exactly what it says it is, a label definition, and nothing more.

The fight will be in places where children have to get parental permission to hear another student's report on Harvey Milk, because his homosexuality automatically makes a biographical report about him into sex education, which requires parental permission. I think it was The Weirdo who mentioned this first, which menas I’m not recalling it or doing it justice correctly, but an awful lot of people think the things that make you stand out are the only things that matter. So any talk about someone who happens to be homosexual means a lot of people gravitate immediately to imagining the sex they’re having. Perhaps The Duck put it more bluntly, when he was borrowing from someone else - when men watch even heterosexual pornography, there’s an insistence that the penis be large, erect, and virile, because men want to see that as part of their experience. Yet many of those same men would insist there’s no shred of homosexual interest in them. Despite their insistence on a certain type of penis, regardless of the variant types of the woman, and their willingness to believe that some body types aren’t attractive to them. I think there’s also a certain insistence on the body type of the male, too - no dweebs or geeks or unfit, unattractive men allowed in our pornos, no, no. But of course they aren’t interested in men. Not at all.

One bright spot, though - Same-sex partners of diplomats at State get benefits.

Senator Reid, we suggest another venue for your fundraiser - bringing the President to Vegas after Vegas claims ”lost revenue“ from his equation, real or imagined, of a Vegas trip with greed is probably not the smartest of ideas. Handwaving will only do you so much on getting people not to press the point.

The previous President had some very PMD-style beliefs involving the Middle East, according to new information that only strengthens the case that the conflict in Iraq was engineered under false pretenses to be waged for reasons other than to fight a just war against an enemy. Excepting, perhaps, that the previous president and others believed they were fighting a just war to bring about the promised kingdom yet to come.

Last before the opinions, some levity - the soldier photographed in his boxer shorts fighting Taliban in Afghanistan has been assured his job is safe. The Defense Secretary is playing it up as a demoralizing aspect to the opposition - a guy in pink boxer shorts is toasting you, under the impression, I guess, that Americans are so good they don’t even need to be fully dressed to be effective.

The opinions open with an essay detailing the value of manual labour, in the very most original meaning of the word - skilled trades and things you can do with your hands. Because, y’know, we all haven’t transcended material reality into the ether and the knowledge workforce. Plus, some people really like it. The education system, which has been busily dismantling trade applications, or using them as the outlet for those who can’t reach the hallowed college gates, could stand to do better to send students toward things they’re interested in and like doing. (Which often brings up the ”tracking“ NIMBY argument, because all our children are special snowflakes, if you just give them the right environment, so we shouldn’t be closing doors off prematurely before they show their talents. I agree on not closing doors off, but I think we would be better served by starting the process by which one discovers what one likes earlier.) On the other end of it, the possibility that higher education might be the next bubble to burst, which would land us with the need to encourage the skilled trades again. Perhaps this is a long-running boom and bust - we’ll go back to manufacturing and industrial strength and then slowly creep back up into the totally electronic, then bust and start again.

Running on the same theme as his last piece, ddjango reminds us the new world order is already here, we just haven't admitted it to ourselves yet, because we’re either still holding out hope that the current Administrator will buck tradition and the previous one, or the full effect of it hasn’t hit us in the face yet, as all our wonderful technological progress is used for the sinister purposes for which it was intended.

In more partisan opinions, Mr. Schultz says that the practice of stabbing your fellows in the back is shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to building a powerful Republican coalition. Thank you, Mr. Schultz, for pointing out what should be obvious to your colleagues. Clearly, they’re not interested in listening. Perhaps because Mr. Powell, also thrown under the bus, agrees with you that the base needs to be expanded for success, and he claims to be a Republican still, despite Boss Limbaugh dismissing him. At least other Republicans are encouraging him to lay out his plans.

Ms. Strassel praises the Minnesota Governor's use of powers that let him strip out spending to balance the budget, which let him run around the Democratic Party in the legislature, then veto the bills that came to him, and now can decide on his own what needs to be cut out. Well, the governor is using what’s granted to him by the legislature. Look for the legislature to go ”We’ll be getting rid of that control“ soon enough.

Politico does some fact checking on the assertions Mr. Obama and Mr. Cheney have made about detainees, Guantanamo Bay, and whether any of the security theatre of the last eight years has worked. Elsewhere, Democrats stomped on an inquisition proposal to look into whether Speaker Pelosi was telling the truth about the CIA, rightly squishing the sideshow. Hopefully they’ll go for the full investigation that looks into what everyone, this and past administration included, knew, when they knew it, and how much permission they had to give to let it happen. Suggesting pardons for everyone involved, based on the reasoning of not wanting to go through with the investigation, is not the right idea. And, while noting that in 2002, everyone was about keeping the country safe and that the threats mentioned never materialized, calling it similar to Mr. McCarthy’s Communist scare is missing the point. Fear, after all, is a national pastime when it comes to Presidential proclamations. Luckily, Mr. Hanson makes a solid point afterward by pointing out the shifting of opinion in the winds is what to watch for - if things go bad again, how many people will go back to what they were in 2002?

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann get one right...by complaining that credit card reform is pretty useless if you don't cap the interest rate, which lets the usurers continue to do their thing, making up for lost fees by upping their rates. Wish I had the resources to send a staffer diving into the bill to see whether there’s any rate controls or not. As it is... *boots THOMAS* yep, nothing there. No maximal caps, only material on how rates can’t be raised in certain periods.

Mr. Will also gets one right, noting that free speech is not something that should be toyed with or made equivocal to anti-corruption principles, with vigilance preferred to restriction of speech based on wide definitions of what ”self-serving“ matters are. (His ultimate solution, that more people join conservativism, which prefers to take away the government’s ability to regulate instead of add to it, misses what he was trying to get across, I think, but otherwise, it’s a good opinion.)

Hrm. I think that’s three good solid points today - we’ve become balanced, instead of horribly off, for once. Of course, pinnacle to nadir is going to be a bumpy slide. Brace yourselves.

Just missing the mark of shame is Mr. Hunt, who wants you to believe terrorists are recruiting American prisoners to a violent form of Islam, to be put into practice when they are released from prison, making the domestic prisoners a much greater threat than the foreign ones. Hey, wait, what else is in there... ”...two-thirds of whom are nonwhite. Many feel oppressed by the white power structure and sentencing disparities, which too often fall most harshly on minorities.“ Oh, but clearly it’s Islam that’s the culprit for turning them into violent men, because Islam is incompatible with freedom, democracy, Truth, Justice, and the American Way, based solely on how well those nations that declare themselves officially Muslim run. Ah, yeah, and those nations that declared themselves explicitly Christian, in our past, were not paragons of virtue toward minorities themselves. Sounds to me more like the problem is with explicit religious and political intertwining, not with one particular religion’s struggles to modernize. The proposed solution has good bits and bad bits - religion course in high school, encouraging the loving version of the religion to come out, but also banning materials and people from visiting prisons. Mr. Allen does demonstrate he understands the proper root, though, even though he deludes himself into thinking it’s one specific religion - ”Worse, we will continue to release prisoners onto our own streets yearning not to assimilate into society but rather yearning to get even.“ Meaning that the correction aspect of corrections isn’t working, and with the bit above about harsher sentences and disproprtionate populaces, might indicate the real solution is in reforming the law and its guidelines.

Mr. Spencer opens up the competition for quiche with "The Wussification of America", a demand that liberals and Americans go back to the square-jawed machismo of previous times, becuase it was through that excessively male posturing that stuff got done, wars were won, and America became the powerhouse that it is. In the further explanation, he says that he's just standing firm on his ideas, believes he's right, and doesn't think any less of someone who disagrees with him if they do, just that liberals are giant hypocrites, getting more worked up about three people than the millions that were saved from the information gatehred from those three, and would rather hug a terrorist than fight one (so naturally, all the women will flock to the fighting man, because that’s what they’re looking for, the ”real man“). Because of the broader scope, incorporating the whole ”Islam is terrorism“ angle into the bigger failure, this one gets bronze.

Moving on. Ms. Marsden recycles the screed against global warming and doing things for the environment, with the standard "government will control you" line, calling the President a dork who is acting out a revenge fantasy of dorks by using his power to impose control and force others to play his game, as well as invoking Godwin within the first paragraph. Well done, I must say. But not the worst of the worst, because you had no innovation in your mockery, and you chose relatively civil names to call the President.

Thus, here at the bottom of the inverted pit, we have Mr. Connor, who not only hits the comparison with the Nazis in his abortion cry, but declares that people opposed to abortion do not have to respect the views of people who support it, while describing abortion procedures in as violent of terms as possible. I think he’d fit in with many of the abortion clinic protesters, and those people driving the vans with pictures of aborted fetuses around the college town while I was concentrating on rehearsing music for the football game later that day. Mr. Connor then indicates how he considers ”choice“ to be ”the choice to kill my innocent child“, and rails on about how little tolerance the left has had for the staunch defenders of unborn life, accusing them of discrimination and bigotry against the unborn, and of hypocrisy in their tolerance for babykilling as opposed to their intolerance for race-baiters and homosexual-haters. Pro-choice is simply wrong, he says, much as the decision to ingest poison, thinking it will heal you is wrong, and both options leave people dead. Until the President and every other pro-choicer decides to become anti-choice, Mr. Connor says, he and no anti-choice person should have to or choose to give any respect to them. So, really, it’s ”Until you believe the way we do, we’re not going to respect you or listen to anything you have to say“, which is not really the way you go about bringing people over to your beliefs. For quantity of vitriol, unwillingness to listen, and engaging in the behavior you decry (but it’s okay, because you’re ”right“), I do believe we have golden pastry, piping-hot and available. Enjoy.

Be dismayed, as well, that significant portions of the religious still believe that torture is justifiable, a depressing pit of polling that inflames the Slacktivist into screaming "W.T.F. What Bible are you reading? What religion are you following? Do you notice the instrument of torture that you take as your symbol of pride?".

In technology and less applied sciences, studying those who advance into very old age without a trace of dementia to figure out how they made it this far, harnessing viruses to kill cancer cells (and no others), making wings waggle to generate less air resistance in airplanes, a new record in solar cell efficiency, although it’s still less than 25%, using sustainable technique to grow biofuel from sugar without razing the rainforest, lasers to find objects under the water, a robot that looks like a baby seal, designed for use in Animal Assistance therapy, computers that plug into a wall, for about $40, which are basically a box and a USB port to plug in peripherals and storage capacity, really futuristic concept cars, and robots that you never knew you wanted.

Last for tonight, read up about the secret origins of your well-known nursery rhymes. Or at least, according to the Internets. We also have some vintage film posters for your perusal, as well as vintage medical instruments, which might have been used in some of those films to get that authentic feel. And then, at the very end, some big eye-foolin' murals.