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Another week's end - 12 June 2009
Jun. 12th, 2009 11:26 pmAt the very top here, well, there’s really only one thing you can say about these photos: "It's A Gundam!" A very good-looking and very life-size one.
At the top of the news, the youngest son continues on his path to being named Kim Jong-Il's successor, and then tucked here in the back of the article is, oh yeah, North Kora may be gearing up for a third nuclear test. Okay, when writing articles and headlines, please be sure to put the important information at the top, not the bottom.
Election day today in Iran. No knowledge yet as to the results, or whether the process was anything resembling free and fair, and whether any of the candidates available will shift the country’s policy toward the United States and others in any significant way. Turnout was heavy enough, however, that voting hours were extended to ensure that everyone cast their ballot.
Israel's prime minister has indicated he will accept the possibility of a Palestinian state, but he has conditions on what that state will be before he acknowledges it.
And finally, H1N1 has been elevated to pandemic status, indicating that it has infected and continues to infect at a high rate that it needs special attention. Vaccination research is underway, and there have been no border closings or travel advisories, so still, don’t panic.
Domestically, The United States military apparently warned members of this administration of their objections to the transferrence of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, but have filed no formal complaints, believing the matter to be a done deal and their objections would be pointless, regardless of what kind of intelligence or other basis they would use.
Executives for Bank of America indicated that the previous administration and members of the Federal Reserve threatened to fire top executives of the bank if they did not merge with Merill Lynch. Which changes the timbre of Obama’s GM firings from “unprecedented!” to “he made good on his threats.” Not that this will dissuade people like Mr. Cantor, who compared the GM handling to “Vladimir Putin’s Russia.” No, that Russia is persuading neighboring countries to tell the United States to vacate their air bases.
The Senate passed a bill today that would give the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products, including ingredients, nicotine levels, and to make decisions about whether or not tobacco products could sponsor sporting events.
Starting the top of the opinion columns, Mr. Krugman mentions the retracted DHS memo about right-wing extremism and levels blame on conservatives and conservative media for systematically feeding these extremist views, using Glenn Beck, the Washignton Times running a piece that zombified the belief that Obama is a secret Muslim, and Boss Limbaugh as his examples of how the right wing is mainstreaming extremism.
Mr. Pearl indicates that the Obama speech in Cairo was lacking key components - the need to recognize Israel's historical right to exist, and the need to put real demands on the Palestinian Authority to prove they're serious about the peace process, through removal and/or censoring of programs and textbooks that deny Israel’s right to exist.
In competition for the wurst (for not everyone likes quiche every day), Mr. Thomas compains about the media's unquestioning devotion to President Obama, as they trumpet his successes and sweep failures or adverse effects under the rug. Mr. Thomas thinks that the President will start to believe all this fawning praise and consider himself a god among men, and that the mainstream media has forefeited any credibility at all by refusing to question the President on anything. Which leads me to wonder - is everyone complaining that the MSM isn’t asking the tough questions automatically excluding anyone asking such questions from the MSM? Are you not considering yourself part of that media, and thus lacking credibility in another way? Or is it that you consider yourself the only media with credibility and everyone else lacks it. In that case, if you were the media, shouldn’t you have a bigger mcirophone? Perhaps, instead, those “tough questions” you think should be asked aren’t really all that important, or tough, or have the attribute “nakedly partisan”, which would generally leave them to be asked by uncredible sources.
Mr. Tabor spins a tale of how the Democrat Party is attempting to hiujack the census for their own personal gain. Don’t know about you, but we don’t have a Democrat party, as far as I know, and if Mr. Tabor is concerned only now about population counts being used for political ends, he’s either stupid or incredibly sheltered, having missed the routine redistricting and redrawing of Congressional boundaries based on the population there and, of course, the fact that there’s lots of cash and House seats up for grabs when a census comes out. I would be more surprised if there were no accusations at all of political people-counting. The end result, and here the true colors come out, is for the Obama Administration to spend more money helping illegal immigrants, who are committing fraud using tax credits to get money back from the government when they’ve never paid a cent in taxes into it, and are eligible for assistance programs because we don’t require a tax identification number to get the benefits. So really, the Obama administration is going to maniuplate the Census to give themselves more power and to give illegal immigrants more money and benefits. It has nothing at all to do with the requirement that we try and get an accuratio nenumeration of everyone living in the country and methods that may be helpful for reducing the amount of error in the count.
The WSJ takes the same theme but has different specifics, raising the spectre of compensation controls, meaning the government will soon be implementing wage and price controls to keep the successful from making “too much”, taxing whatever can’t be capped, and then redistributing all that money to the people on the bottom. All this, of course, will retard any sort of economic recovery we might be building and nuturing. Because executives (and sport players, I might add) deserve to make three hundred times more than their lowest-paid employee, with the options to make even more if the company survives long enough for them to cash in.
But because you can’t beat actual action, Tom Fetzer, who would be the North Carolina GOP chair, wins handily by suing a radio host for libel, because the radio host apparently forwarded an anonymous letter on to the NC GOP suggesting that Mr. Fetzer was homosexual. Mr. Fetzer wrote a reply letter and sent it out to the Republicans in North Carolina, prompting a “doth protest too much” flag to be raised, but also pointing out to his Republican backers how much he hates homosexuals and thinks homosexuality is an abomination, possibly, as Pam explains, because if anyone in the NC GOP believed he might be a homosexual, it would sink his chances at heading up said party. Which says almost as much about the NC GOP as it does Mr. Fetzer. The General has advice on how to proceed for Mr. Fetzer. You’ve earned your wurst, Mr. Fetzer. Do what you like with it.
In technology, A robot that recognizes Japanese characters well enough to read a book aloud, the beginning of a complete shift to digital broadcasting in the Untied States, some virtual laboratory experiments as a class from Johns Hopkins University, the offering of a human genome sequence for $48,000, research indicating animation in PowerPoint slides negatively impacts a sstudent's ability to learn new concepts, and further confirmation of a pop phrase - sleeping on it really does help you solve problems, leading to a flash of insight after the nap.
Last for tonight, the best advice regarding reproductive choices, from the late Dr. Tiller - Trust Women.
At the top of the news, the youngest son continues on his path to being named Kim Jong-Il's successor, and then tucked here in the back of the article is, oh yeah, North Kora may be gearing up for a third nuclear test. Okay, when writing articles and headlines, please be sure to put the important information at the top, not the bottom.
Election day today in Iran. No knowledge yet as to the results, or whether the process was anything resembling free and fair, and whether any of the candidates available will shift the country’s policy toward the United States and others in any significant way. Turnout was heavy enough, however, that voting hours were extended to ensure that everyone cast their ballot.
Israel's prime minister has indicated he will accept the possibility of a Palestinian state, but he has conditions on what that state will be before he acknowledges it.
And finally, H1N1 has been elevated to pandemic status, indicating that it has infected and continues to infect at a high rate that it needs special attention. Vaccination research is underway, and there have been no border closings or travel advisories, so still, don’t panic.
Domestically, The United States military apparently warned members of this administration of their objections to the transferrence of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, but have filed no formal complaints, believing the matter to be a done deal and their objections would be pointless, regardless of what kind of intelligence or other basis they would use.
Executives for Bank of America indicated that the previous administration and members of the Federal Reserve threatened to fire top executives of the bank if they did not merge with Merill Lynch. Which changes the timbre of Obama’s GM firings from “unprecedented!” to “he made good on his threats.” Not that this will dissuade people like Mr. Cantor, who compared the GM handling to “Vladimir Putin’s Russia.” No, that Russia is persuading neighboring countries to tell the United States to vacate their air bases.
The Senate passed a bill today that would give the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products, including ingredients, nicotine levels, and to make decisions about whether or not tobacco products could sponsor sporting events.
Starting the top of the opinion columns, Mr. Krugman mentions the retracted DHS memo about right-wing extremism and levels blame on conservatives and conservative media for systematically feeding these extremist views, using Glenn Beck, the Washignton Times running a piece that zombified the belief that Obama is a secret Muslim, and Boss Limbaugh as his examples of how the right wing is mainstreaming extremism.
Mr. Pearl indicates that the Obama speech in Cairo was lacking key components - the need to recognize Israel's historical right to exist, and the need to put real demands on the Palestinian Authority to prove they're serious about the peace process, through removal and/or censoring of programs and textbooks that deny Israel’s right to exist.
In competition for the wurst (for not everyone likes quiche every day), Mr. Thomas compains about the media's unquestioning devotion to President Obama, as they trumpet his successes and sweep failures or adverse effects under the rug. Mr. Thomas thinks that the President will start to believe all this fawning praise and consider himself a god among men, and that the mainstream media has forefeited any credibility at all by refusing to question the President on anything. Which leads me to wonder - is everyone complaining that the MSM isn’t asking the tough questions automatically excluding anyone asking such questions from the MSM? Are you not considering yourself part of that media, and thus lacking credibility in another way? Or is it that you consider yourself the only media with credibility and everyone else lacks it. In that case, if you were the media, shouldn’t you have a bigger mcirophone? Perhaps, instead, those “tough questions” you think should be asked aren’t really all that important, or tough, or have the attribute “nakedly partisan”, which would generally leave them to be asked by uncredible sources.
Mr. Tabor spins a tale of how the Democrat Party is attempting to hiujack the census for their own personal gain. Don’t know about you, but we don’t have a Democrat party, as far as I know, and if Mr. Tabor is concerned only now about population counts being used for political ends, he’s either stupid or incredibly sheltered, having missed the routine redistricting and redrawing of Congressional boundaries based on the population there and, of course, the fact that there’s lots of cash and House seats up for grabs when a census comes out. I would be more surprised if there were no accusations at all of political people-counting. The end result, and here the true colors come out, is for the Obama Administration to spend more money helping illegal immigrants, who are committing fraud using tax credits to get money back from the government when they’ve never paid a cent in taxes into it, and are eligible for assistance programs because we don’t require a tax identification number to get the benefits. So really, the Obama administration is going to maniuplate the Census to give themselves more power and to give illegal immigrants more money and benefits. It has nothing at all to do with the requirement that we try and get an accuratio nenumeration of everyone living in the country and methods that may be helpful for reducing the amount of error in the count.
The WSJ takes the same theme but has different specifics, raising the spectre of compensation controls, meaning the government will soon be implementing wage and price controls to keep the successful from making “too much”, taxing whatever can’t be capped, and then redistributing all that money to the people on the bottom. All this, of course, will retard any sort of economic recovery we might be building and nuturing. Because executives (and sport players, I might add) deserve to make three hundred times more than their lowest-paid employee, with the options to make even more if the company survives long enough for them to cash in.
But because you can’t beat actual action, Tom Fetzer, who would be the North Carolina GOP chair, wins handily by suing a radio host for libel, because the radio host apparently forwarded an anonymous letter on to the NC GOP suggesting that Mr. Fetzer was homosexual. Mr. Fetzer wrote a reply letter and sent it out to the Republicans in North Carolina, prompting a “doth protest too much” flag to be raised, but also pointing out to his Republican backers how much he hates homosexuals and thinks homosexuality is an abomination, possibly, as Pam explains, because if anyone in the NC GOP believed he might be a homosexual, it would sink his chances at heading up said party. Which says almost as much about the NC GOP as it does Mr. Fetzer. The General has advice on how to proceed for Mr. Fetzer. You’ve earned your wurst, Mr. Fetzer. Do what you like with it.
In technology, A robot that recognizes Japanese characters well enough to read a book aloud, the beginning of a complete shift to digital broadcasting in the Untied States, some virtual laboratory experiments as a class from Johns Hopkins University, the offering of a human genome sequence for $48,000, research indicating animation in PowerPoint slides negatively impacts a sstudent's ability to learn new concepts, and further confirmation of a pop phrase - sleeping on it really does help you solve problems, leading to a flash of insight after the nap.
Last for tonight, the best advice regarding reproductive choices, from the late Dr. Tiller - Trust Women.
