One more talky day and then we're done. - 10 June 2009

So, up top we have Stephen Colbert... editor of Newsweek? Perhaps in the storied magazien there is a mention of the service that tells you when in a movie it will be safe to run to the bathroom, in case the giant soda brings on an urge of a different type, and will talk about a shoe manufacturer's unhappiness that one of their endorsed spokespersons has a tatoo on his leg of the other shoe company's most famous logo.

What may be lacking, however, is a photograph such as this, which expresses opinions on homosexuals succinctly and well.

Going overseas, where we peek in on Japan and a movement underway to ban depictions of non-real minors in sexual situations. (I’m trying to figure out how to word this to get across the idea that drawn or CG’d depictions are under fire here) One of the mentioned reasons, though, follows the same line as “video games encourages violence”, so the people looking for the ban should make for better arguments. Additionally, I would think they should tread carefully on blanket banning - obscenity tests seem to work decently well here, for those that can afford to defend themselves from them.

North Korea says that if the United States extends its missile protection shield to Japan and Suoth Korea, they will consider it an act of nuclear war.

The South Pacific island of Palau has agreed to temporarily resettle several Uighur detaiees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, as a humanitarian gesture.

Starting the Domestic department off right, Mr. Sullivan gives us a gem from the mouth of Sarah Palin, Republican Governor: Socialism is bad, but collective ownership of the means of production rocks, if you&apos’re an Alaskan. I think it’s safe to say that Governor Palin, if not the whole Republican Party, has been Inigo Monotoya’d. Now we have proof. A helmet tip to the General for also posting on this matter.

Another potential incident of domestic terrorism, although in this case, it is a white supremacist, beleiver in the Grand Jewish Conspiracy, and Holocaust Denier indiscriminately shooting up the Holocaust Museum in D.C. while wearing the Stars and Bars. It’s like you’ve rolled all the bad stereotypes into one person and gave them a gun to shoot with. The only thing missing is finding out whether or not he tortured animals as a child. Because we have a case of that, where we haven't yet found the distrubed individual mutilating and killing young cats.

Doing good with what is there, notice a luxury condo is being used as a homeless shelter, which is much better than having it demolished and/or sold to the bank because the mortgage couldn’t be made. Of course, the posh living arrangements engender jealousy from the neighbors, who would rather see themselves in those condos, rather than having them available at low-cost for people who have fallen on hard times. So, that whole stigma about being poor hasn’t gone away - this looks a lot like “they don’t deserve this because they’re poor (and must have chosen it), while I slave away for tiny apartment space” instead of “wow, that’s a great way of using otherwise-abandoned housing! Hopefully the good digs will help them get on their feet and back out in the world quickly.”

Other stories of interest include the rise and fall of e-gold, an internet currency backed by Real Money, that then ran afoul of federal currency regulators. On other alternative current notes, the head of the Liberty Dollar operation in Asheville was arrested and charged with attempting to pass off non-currency as legal tender. The operation claims they never said anything of the like, and were only attempting to evangelize the metals-backed alternative as an alternative that merchants can and should accept in addition to standard Mint and Federal Reserve currency. The controversy seems to surround objects that could be mistaken as Mint coins.

Captain Sullenberger recounted his experience with the flight that made him a national hero overnight, as part of a panel and hearings on the safety or airplanes and the effectiveness of their ability to take bird strikes.

After making campaigns on cleaning up Washington, Democrats seem to be more interested in covering themselves up, according to the Washington Times, indicating that the Congresscritters are all of the same genus. Rattus.

Oh, and Theres's a new boss in at GM. He has no experience at all in the car industry. Could be bad. Could be awesome. Wonder how he would deal with speculation on fuel ddriving prices up some.

To begin the opinions, Ms. Blanchard sees the deadly hand of corporatism closing around the collective wealth and windpipe of the people, and thus to save ourselves, we have to fight back against it, and free trade, and most of the large governmental and intergovernmental organizations created that are used to keep us out of power and in slavery. One small fact of this may be what Yvonne Singh is compmlaining about - the utilization of biometric data for tasks such as attendance or lunch money at the earliest of ages and primary school, indoctrinating children into the idea that such surveillance and snooping is normal or carries some benefits, which will then blossom into the culture that shares itself with the world, so that governments and criminals can track yoU and do you harm by manipulating or stealing your personal data.

cereta makes the request that men who are against objectification and taking advantage of women impart their wisdom to the next generation, or get out of the way of those trying to fix the problem of men seeing women as entitlements, rather than protesting that they themselves are Not The Problem and they don’t like being hit with sweeping generalizations. Being a member of th XY club, I clearly do not get the full impact of a male culture that feels entitled to women. Accepting as a given that one man thinking in the manner described is one too many, is there at least a progress point we can hit where we can all believe that the taking-advantage--of men are outliers on the bell curve, rather than apparently being not too many standard deviations away? Worse, not being on the receiving end of such culture, I have no idea how pervasive or not-pervasive it is. Ignorance through privilege, I suspect, is the case.

Mr. Voight declares that the President is an excellent actor, and that he has sold his character "Obama" to the nation better than anyone else so far, but of course, now we’re waking up to the reality of the “change” that was promised, and everyone is scared of the “false prophet” Obama. I thought we were done with the “empty suit” argument when the campaign concluded. Furthermore, I still believe that Mr. Obama said what he intended to do in a lot of places, and anyone claiming that they change they wanted isn’t the change they’re getting either didn’t read the documentation or is further along the spectrum than Mr. Obama currently is and is trying to pull him to where they are. Bronzed quiche, sir.

Mr. Bolton declares the supremacy of true conservative foreign policy, taking America as exceptional, building up our military strength, and disdaining international organizations, saying the previous administrator sleepwalked away from it and Mr. Obama openly repudiates it, with obviously disastrous results. Conservative Foreign Policy, he says, explains why all the hostile actors do what they do, while Mr. Obama is constantly surprised that what he’s trying isn’t working. I think Mr. Bolton has found his out with being associated with the previous administrator’s foreign policy that didn’t do all that well, too - clearly, it wasn’t a True Scotsman in the office. I expect to see the Republicans follow suit as they make a run up to the midterm elections - he wasn’t one of us, we didn’t say or mean any of that. Silver for you, Mr. Bolton, because...

...well, you’ve been outclassed. And speaking of conservatives shooting their mouths off, Mr. MacKinnon puts himself in an un-enviable position as one of Boss Limbaugh's apologists, saying that the radio host “honestly believes and espouses conservative values...is truly fearful of a leftist ideology that now controls our government, our media, and our colleges and universities” and is fighting a campaign against censorious lefists who will get rid of the United States of our parents and grandparents. (Arguing for it’s preservation, though, should raise uncomfortable questions about the past. More on that in a bit.) Anyone who opposes Boss Limbaugh, especially those who are doing so for political convenience, “have become the useful idiots of their [the leftists’] censorship campaign”. Because they’re opposing the stalwart likes of Limbaugh and Hannity for their own selfish gain, conservatives are helping the liberals bring about a country where, fictionally, a super-militia was formed to take back the country and return it to its roots. Wait, so the book you wrote is about terrorists at the highest levels of government wanting to reimplement the hazy utopia of the past at the expense of the present? And people are writing to you to say that they feel the country is headed down the path where fundamentalist terrorism is necessary? Terorism to bring back a nation that was racist by law, belives that women are best utilized as housewives whose value is tied up in the tidiness of their homes, the amount of children they have, and whether or not they are completely dominated by their husbands, without voting rights? And you appreciate people telling you that they think your book is prophetic? Yikes. For defending Boss Limbaugh and calling him and Hannity the true conservatives is pretty well enough to earn you the top dishonor, but the book thing really puts it over the top. Enjoy your flaky, hot, high-velocity pastry.

In technology, cheer hard, because we’ve spotted the first extragalactic planet. Beyond that, fifty-one things that you either cannot see or are given deliberate misinformation on using Google Maps, a fivefold incrase in Internet Protocol traffic in the next four years, according to Cisco, growing replacement organs from your own cells in the laboratories.

Last for tonight, epic baseball games on the horizon in Japan, to go along with the tadpole rain. If that’s not interesting, we need to talk about the new Star Trek, and how much it, well, sucked, both as a Star Trek and as a movie.

All talkiness done - 11 June 2009

Okay, here we go with the next incarnation of this interesting roundup of stuff - so, let’s start with Carrie Prejean, Miss California, being fired for breach of contract - y’know, by not showing up to events, giving unauthorized interviews, and the like. Carrie Prejean said that nobody had told her that she was doing things wrong, and that it was really about her answer to Perez Hilton. Well, if that’s what you want to believe.

Speaking of belief, make what you will of the fact that the Creation Museum sells Coca-Cola. No further comment from here.

On much less serious matters than even that, but we will cheer anyway, Futurama returns to television! Whoo!

Going back to serious matters, out in the world, sex workers in India are taking self-defense classes to protect themselves from customers and pimps who would of them violence. So that piece that I linked to about a pervasive culture where men think they have entitlements to women’s bodies? I think I’ve been handed a pretty object lesson with this article.

Domestically, more details on the shooter at the Holocaust Museum - definitely a regular right-wing extremist, but also becoming increasingly desperate as the social net that was supporting him fell out from under him. He thought it was revenge and punishment. Odds are good it was bureaucracy, but with his inclination toward the government, we can see where this contributed to the decision to go shoot up a government facility.

And tucked away, as the very last line in the previous article, is something that should qualify for a WTF. “The responsible white separatist community condemns this,” said John de Nugent, someone who knew the shooter. “It makes us look bad.” Definitely a WTF moment here. I don’t know how you get a responsible community that advocates for separating from the country and building another nation that reinstitutionalizes racism.

Speaking of domestic terrorism, a former officer of the Southern Baptist Convention has declared he's praying that President Obama dies, using the idea of “imprecatory prayer” to call on the vengeful God of the Hebrews to arrange it so that the “usurper in the White House, B. Hussein Obama”, dies because he didn’t turn to said god.

Gun control advocates feel the latest outbreaks of violence strengthens their case for tightening gun control laws.

The Congresscritter rules about paying for new spending as you go... yeah. They haven't been all that enforced. Since they came into being, basically. Because, y’know, Congress can always find ways around their own rules. The WSJ also believes unions are agitating for relaxing of disclosure rules around them, so they don't have to show off how broke they are.

So, we’ve got a goal post in economics here - both parties will be rushing to claim credit for the Fed survey indicating the recession's downward drop may be leveling off.

In the opinions, why everyone needs a company and/or a laboratory space to test new ideas out on, where they can see feedback and ideas and other effects and play, rather than being stuck at work. Thus, the 20% idea at Google, and other good ideas that would give employees latitude to innovate on the things that they do and see at work or elsewhere. (I think every library worker could use a 20% to create ideas that could turn out to be awesome improvements to the process. Instead, we have a more formal, much slower process that probably discourages ideas and innovation...)

Mr. Coughlin tells us not to get excited about the Iranian elections, as all the candidates standing had to pass the Supreme Leader's muster, and are thus unlikely to be actual reform candidates or advocate for the real change that Iran needs. Mr. Boortz is much shorter and more succinct about Kim Jong-Il - nutjob with nukes, needs deposing or destroying, instead of stern language and the dismantling of our own nuclear defenses. The WSJ doesn't go as far as Mr. Boortz, but does concur that real tough action is needed. Mr. Luttwak suggests the silent treatment.

We’re going to start with the statistic here, and then we get to see how others may interpret it and others to get...the result they were aiming for anyway. So, statistic - Fifty-two percent of persons asked to name the main person who speaks for the Republican Party said there wasn't one or drew a blank.

Mr. Avalon hits a solid line with the opinion that the increased Independents are a repudiation of the idea that President Obama has a liberal mandate, and evidence that the Republican Party is being abandoned. Thus, the people who can talk to the independents will be the winners in the next election. Playing to the base is a losing strategy.

Elsewhere in opinions, Mr. Laffer declares inflation and high interest rates are on the way, because the Fed is flooring the gas on the money supply to pay for all the stimulus spending. Mr. Laffer says that the opposite action will retard lending and credit, and so the people in charge are in a very damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

Mr. Jenkins, Jr. says the new GM boss was appointed to play politics instead of selling cars, because GM has always been better at playing politics and will have to continue to be so, rather than being able to act as a private entity and tell the politicians, the unions, and the fuel standards to bugger off. And speaking of Chrysler, Mr. Olivestro feels there's a perversion of the Constitution and the law in the UAW receiving a significant part of Chrysler, over the "secured creditors" who are supposed to be first in line for a bankruptcy.

Mr. Blankley almost praises the the election of anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic parties to the European Parliament, considering it a statement from the people that they do not wish to be run over by aggressive Muslims and immigrants, and want to bring the discussion on what to do with all the people who want to come into the country without being branded racists. At the end, however, he notes that the election of potentially volatile parties is the likely end of not being able to talk about culture and immigration.

Mr. Bronstein chides the press for their continued love affair with the new President, because the press should be grilling the President on things like rogue states and other policies, instead of softball pieces like the NBC inside the White House part.

And Mr. Goldberg pans on the cap-and-trade bill, calling it a waste of everything and that the money could have been better spent on real science to try and solve the climate change problem, where it might have an effect, instead of trying to conflate social science with real science, to a bad effect.

In technology, Nokia is looking into cellular phones that can recharge themselves from ambient radio waves, observing a rapidly shrinking star... maybe we're going to get to watch a nova in realtime? That would be neat.

and last from tonight, courtesy of amenquohi, an autistic child has already grasped an essential truth of life. He'll be going into primary school soon.