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Greetings, book-readers (and thanks for the great review of Baby Be-Bop, the book that a lawusit is still pending seeking the right to violate the First Amendment and burn a library's copies of), game-players, video-watchers, and media-junkies. In the new future world, authors are presented with Kindles instead of books to sign, foldable ships of the Roman Empire are available for purchase, so they can be displayed or used in naval battles of miniature wargames, and, as always, remember to find the context that what you are reading or talking about sits in - out of context, all sorts of twisted interpretations are possible.
Internationally, The Supreme Leader of Iran attempted to placate the protest by authorizing a limited recount of certain ballots - supposedly only the ones the candidates claim irregularities happened at. at the moment, I don't think those recounts will be for ones that would change the outcome, or that the outcome will actually be changed by the recount. Plus, there's already been violence going on against the protesters. An analysis of how clumsy vote-fixing has been the catalyst for deeper revolution and protest from a more left perspective. And, with their wonderful photograph montages, the Boston Globe gives us some visual insight into what's going down in the country.
If you want to follow what's going on in Iran, your best bet is to find a reliable Twitter source or five. And then, once you have, or if you want to open up avenues for information to get out, here's a handy primer guide on how to do that, including following the rules about respecting the confidentiality of your sources, once you think you've found a genuine one. As someone who'se been outed, although not with the threat of dying when she was, the Girl With a One-Track Mind tells us why anonymity and privacy are important things for bloggers to have. On the whole mess, Mr. Pruden suggests that Mr. Obama's pipe-dream of a peaceful and democratic Middle East based solely on his rhetorical power is coming crashing down, and that he will now have to deal with Iran as it is, not as he wishes it to be.
The Telegraph believes it has found waste - in the 50 million pounds spent to translate documents into other languages as a help for immigrants. You know, translation to native languages may not be one of those things where there are flocks of people lining up for them, but for the person who needs it at the right time, having it available is probably the easiest and best thing for them. Our library system carries applications in four languages and has computer access in four languages because of our populace. They don't get a whole lot of use, from what I can understand, but it's really freaking handy to have them available when someone who wans materials in those languages comes into the branch.
Mr. Chavez may have angered teh labour unions of Venezuela thanks to his expropriation of several oil facilities, putting many workers out of work and cutting oil production (banking on the higher prices, maybe?).
Domestically, a staffer for a Tennessee State Senator sent an offensive picture from her work account, is not sorry she sent it, only that she sent it from the wrong e-mail account. The General understands what happened, and suggests taking the tack of other conservatives by trying to paint the staffer who sent the picture and other GOP members making similarly racist comments as liberals.
The LA Times indicates that while stimulus intent at the top is noble, those charged with creating projects and spending the money have not always been on the same party line, spending on renovations to theaters instead of building solar plants. It's that whole infrastructure thing - some parts are getting the money, some parts are not and should be.
Mr. Jose Padilla, alleging torture at the hands of his captors while he stayed in Guantanamo Bay, is permitted to continue his lawsuit against John Yoo, the administration official whose legal opinions formed the basis for permitting, continuing, and providing cover for the alleged torture.
A Gallup poll indicates most Americans consider their political views to be conservative or moderate, which indicates to me that there's still a certain stigma around self-identifying as a liberal, while identifying as a conservative is societally okay. I wonder how many of those "moderates" are really moderates, or whether they have enough liberal leanings to be liberal, but don't want to be tarred as a socialist for having views that are left of the American center After all, if you add the moderates plus the liberals, you get about the percentage of the populace that elected Barack Obama in the last eelction.
In opinion realms, the Tax Foundation says cap-and-trade will result in higher costs to you, the taxpayer, and offers a calculator for you to determine your burden. All this because, of course, energy companies will not eat the costs of cap-and-trade, but cheerily pass them along to their customers, so as not to affect their profits. Short of drastic and draconian government intervention in the matter, I don't believe this situation can be rectified so that the companies are the ones paying the actual cost, instead of their consumers. When it comes to energy monopolies, the ability to just charge the customer and laugh because they can't choose someone else is disturbing. Competition would be a potential mess, though, too, so maybe the monopoly regulators have to do their thing.
In reaction to the allegations that the White House fired an Inspector General on impossibly short notice for not being willing to lift a suspension on federal funds to the newly-minted mayor of Sacramento, because the mayor was involved in wrongdoing regarding federal funds earlier before he became mayor, the WSJ plays up the allegations of cronyism, playing favorites, and of an inspector general unwilling to sell out his principles for expediency.
Other opinions, this time on health care: Mr. Boortz reiterates his belief that health-care reform is a scam to take more money from taxpayers and provide no results, if not part of a larger plan to grab as much power from the people as possible, using numbers not grounded in reality to sell something that will turn out to be more expensive than projected, even by the reality-based community, and that the party of NO's lack of a proposal on the matter is precisely the way things should be. Mr. Rosenbloom at least puts forward a proposal, flawed though it may be, to remove all government health care plans, instead making the government subsidize private premiums for health care (supposedly to remove dependence on employers and to remvoed the planned dependence on government any government plan has), and then to let people change their insurance plans whenever they want, assuming that The Market (and a government requirement that all health insurance companies offer an acceptable low-cost option than everyone can get into) and its competitive edge will keep prices in an affordable range, with the government subsidies to the poor making it affordable to everyone. So, for now, be the Party of NO, and then follow these simple steps to reform health care into something we can all have! Sounds nice, but y'know, part of the reason the public option is so appealing is because those private health care companies that are supposed to be doing these kinds of things, well, aren't. And will find as many ways as possible to ensure that profitable people have insurance and unprofitable people either have coverage that doesn't or have no coverage at all, because, after all, as a private business, profit, not care, is the primary motive.
Mr. Boortz also believes Mr. Padilla being able to sue John Yoo for his authoriship of memoranda that resulted in Mr. Padilla's torture is ridiculous. I think that this follows from the rules of law - if someone broke the law by torturing you, you should have the right to sur or have them prosecuted for the violation of that law, and with torture, prosecuting everyone up the chain who authorized the use of it would also be an effective deterrent to it happening again. Or so I would hope.
Finally, out of opinions, Bill'O criticizes the media for covering the murder of a doctor by a domestic terrorist more than the murder of two soldiers by a domestic terrorist, because, according to him, the soldier-killer was Muslim and the President is trying to downplay the violent aspects of Islam for hope of making friends abroad (RIP, "War on Terror"). Thus, the media, ever-loyal lapdogs they are, didn't cover the soldier, despite the possibility of there being many more Muslim terrorists wandering around, and did cover the doctor, who was obviously killed by an entity acting by himself, unaided by any sort of rhetoric or organization that finally broke him and sent him on his killing way. So, repeat after me, as Bill believes: Muslim terrorists bad, and there are many of them putting us all in danger, right-wing extremists also bad, but there aren't many of them at all putting us in danger (and we're certainly not feeding them explosive rhetoric or anything like that.) Come on, Bill, you can do better than this.
In technology, difficulties with the wheat crop, thanks to stem rust and, in the opinion of a Telegraph columnist, weather changes brought about by global cooling and abnormal climate in normally vibrant crop-growing regions.
Elsewhere, consumer-testing the results of the leading genome-analysis services, testing nanoparticles designed to attack cardiovascular plaque, repurposing food poisoning microbes to carry medicine and vaccinations, and a suggestion that kites flying above New York could supply the city with renewable wind energy.
That's it for this early-morning routine. More tonight, including the possibility that both of our land wars in Asia were launched based on falsehoods.
Internationally, The Supreme Leader of Iran attempted to placate the protest by authorizing a limited recount of certain ballots - supposedly only the ones the candidates claim irregularities happened at. at the moment, I don't think those recounts will be for ones that would change the outcome, or that the outcome will actually be changed by the recount. Plus, there's already been violence going on against the protesters. An analysis of how clumsy vote-fixing has been the catalyst for deeper revolution and protest from a more left perspective. And, with their wonderful photograph montages, the Boston Globe gives us some visual insight into what's going down in the country.
If you want to follow what's going on in Iran, your best bet is to find a reliable Twitter source or five. And then, once you have, or if you want to open up avenues for information to get out, here's a handy primer guide on how to do that, including following the rules about respecting the confidentiality of your sources, once you think you've found a genuine one. As someone who'se been outed, although not with the threat of dying when she was, the Girl With a One-Track Mind tells us why anonymity and privacy are important things for bloggers to have. On the whole mess, Mr. Pruden suggests that Mr. Obama's pipe-dream of a peaceful and democratic Middle East based solely on his rhetorical power is coming crashing down, and that he will now have to deal with Iran as it is, not as he wishes it to be.
The Telegraph believes it has found waste - in the 50 million pounds spent to translate documents into other languages as a help for immigrants. You know, translation to native languages may not be one of those things where there are flocks of people lining up for them, but for the person who needs it at the right time, having it available is probably the easiest and best thing for them. Our library system carries applications in four languages and has computer access in four languages because of our populace. They don't get a whole lot of use, from what I can understand, but it's really freaking handy to have them available when someone who wans materials in those languages comes into the branch.
Mr. Chavez may have angered teh labour unions of Venezuela thanks to his expropriation of several oil facilities, putting many workers out of work and cutting oil production (banking on the higher prices, maybe?).
Domestically, a staffer for a Tennessee State Senator sent an offensive picture from her work account, is not sorry she sent it, only that she sent it from the wrong e-mail account. The General understands what happened, and suggests taking the tack of other conservatives by trying to paint the staffer who sent the picture and other GOP members making similarly racist comments as liberals.
The LA Times indicates that while stimulus intent at the top is noble, those charged with creating projects and spending the money have not always been on the same party line, spending on renovations to theaters instead of building solar plants. It's that whole infrastructure thing - some parts are getting the money, some parts are not and should be.
Mr. Jose Padilla, alleging torture at the hands of his captors while he stayed in Guantanamo Bay, is permitted to continue his lawsuit against John Yoo, the administration official whose legal opinions formed the basis for permitting, continuing, and providing cover for the alleged torture.
A Gallup poll indicates most Americans consider their political views to be conservative or moderate, which indicates to me that there's still a certain stigma around self-identifying as a liberal, while identifying as a conservative is societally okay. I wonder how many of those "moderates" are really moderates, or whether they have enough liberal leanings to be liberal, but don't want to be tarred as a socialist for having views that are left of the American center After all, if you add the moderates plus the liberals, you get about the percentage of the populace that elected Barack Obama in the last eelction.
In opinion realms, the Tax Foundation says cap-and-trade will result in higher costs to you, the taxpayer, and offers a calculator for you to determine your burden. All this because, of course, energy companies will not eat the costs of cap-and-trade, but cheerily pass them along to their customers, so as not to affect their profits. Short of drastic and draconian government intervention in the matter, I don't believe this situation can be rectified so that the companies are the ones paying the actual cost, instead of their consumers. When it comes to energy monopolies, the ability to just charge the customer and laugh because they can't choose someone else is disturbing. Competition would be a potential mess, though, too, so maybe the monopoly regulators have to do their thing.
In reaction to the allegations that the White House fired an Inspector General on impossibly short notice for not being willing to lift a suspension on federal funds to the newly-minted mayor of Sacramento, because the mayor was involved in wrongdoing regarding federal funds earlier before he became mayor, the WSJ plays up the allegations of cronyism, playing favorites, and of an inspector general unwilling to sell out his principles for expediency.
Other opinions, this time on health care: Mr. Boortz reiterates his belief that health-care reform is a scam to take more money from taxpayers and provide no results, if not part of a larger plan to grab as much power from the people as possible, using numbers not grounded in reality to sell something that will turn out to be more expensive than projected, even by the reality-based community, and that the party of NO's lack of a proposal on the matter is precisely the way things should be. Mr. Rosenbloom at least puts forward a proposal, flawed though it may be, to remove all government health care plans, instead making the government subsidize private premiums for health care (supposedly to remove dependence on employers and to remvoed the planned dependence on government any government plan has), and then to let people change their insurance plans whenever they want, assuming that The Market (and a government requirement that all health insurance companies offer an acceptable low-cost option than everyone can get into) and its competitive edge will keep prices in an affordable range, with the government subsidies to the poor making it affordable to everyone. So, for now, be the Party of NO, and then follow these simple steps to reform health care into something we can all have! Sounds nice, but y'know, part of the reason the public option is so appealing is because those private health care companies that are supposed to be doing these kinds of things, well, aren't. And will find as many ways as possible to ensure that profitable people have insurance and unprofitable people either have coverage that doesn't or have no coverage at all, because, after all, as a private business, profit, not care, is the primary motive.
Mr. Boortz also believes Mr. Padilla being able to sue John Yoo for his authoriship of memoranda that resulted in Mr. Padilla's torture is ridiculous. I think that this follows from the rules of law - if someone broke the law by torturing you, you should have the right to sur or have them prosecuted for the violation of that law, and with torture, prosecuting everyone up the chain who authorized the use of it would also be an effective deterrent to it happening again. Or so I would hope.
Finally, out of opinions, Bill'O criticizes the media for covering the murder of a doctor by a domestic terrorist more than the murder of two soldiers by a domestic terrorist, because, according to him, the soldier-killer was Muslim and the President is trying to downplay the violent aspects of Islam for hope of making friends abroad (RIP, "War on Terror"). Thus, the media, ever-loyal lapdogs they are, didn't cover the soldier, despite the possibility of there being many more Muslim terrorists wandering around, and did cover the doctor, who was obviously killed by an entity acting by himself, unaided by any sort of rhetoric or organization that finally broke him and sent him on his killing way. So, repeat after me, as Bill believes: Muslim terrorists bad, and there are many of them putting us all in danger, right-wing extremists also bad, but there aren't many of them at all putting us in danger (and we're certainly not feeding them explosive rhetoric or anything like that.) Come on, Bill, you can do better than this.
In technology, difficulties with the wheat crop, thanks to stem rust and, in the opinion of a Telegraph columnist, weather changes brought about by global cooling and abnormal climate in normally vibrant crop-growing regions.
Elsewhere, consumer-testing the results of the leading genome-analysis services, testing nanoparticles designed to attack cardiovascular plaque, repurposing food poisoning microbes to carry medicine and vaccinations, and a suggestion that kites flying above New York could supply the city with renewable wind energy.
That's it for this early-morning routine. More tonight, including the possibility that both of our land wars in Asia were launched based on falsehoods.
