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Welcome to the weekend - 25-26 June 2009
Jun. 27th, 2009 01:38 amIn the past two days, the Dead Pool really got some serious payoffs - Michael Jackson departed this mortal coil at a mere 50 years of age, or which we will probably start seeing some version of the Poe Toaster, although likely equipped with zombie-killing or werewolf-destroying equipment (they may be looking in the wrong place - the robots are starting to develop carnivourous tendencies), and Farrah Fawcett, whose hairstyle probably launched many boy's dreams (well, okay, it was her Charlie’s Angels thing, too).
Our profession takes another hit today, with some of the 275 jobs to be cut from Harvard coming from the library. To balance that out, though, remember that not every interview went smoothly for everyone else. If you’re feeling the cash pinch, sevn tips on how to spend to maximize happiness per dollar.
Out in the world, speculation that the Supreme Leader of Iran could be ousted by a rival cleric, as the protest movement settles into long war tactics, because of the increased crackdown on mass assemblies. Mr. Kasparov urges the United States to speak out more, because, in his opinion, nothing the U.S can say will stop the crackdowns, and they're going to be blamed anyway, so they may as well go in full-bore. Talking about the other side of the coin, Mr. Henninger criticizes the West's response to the increased use of Web 2.0 tactics and services by dissidents, believing they should embrace and bring the 2.0ers into the discussions on what to do, say, about Iran. Because the dissidents are definitely up for 2.0, and are using TOR, a technology originally developed by the Navy, in high numbers to avoid being traced back to themselves. Of course, some of them are a bit more open about their opinions about the current regime.
Mr. MacFarlane suggests that the Obama administration deploy all its tools, including bringing on allies and engaging other regional powers instead of just talking when it comes to Iran. The nuclear program is still a high priority, but effective diplomacy involves not just the U.S., but the people around Iran.
the United States is looking into signing on to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a good thing, considering only the U.S. and Somalia have not signed on.
Want to see what a witch-killing looks like? Here's a firsthand account.
Australia is planning on censoring access to on-line games that would be rated above 15 years of age, which will probably kill traffic over the web but increase it on torrents and direct access to servers, if not having local mirrors start happening inside the censors. This is not a good sign, and we do wonder when Australia decided to start going down the road that ends in the Great Firewall.
For the enterprising, here’s an interesting twist - pay your money to go pirate-hunting in Somalia.
And, good for a laugh, a monkey gave his blessing to the Zambian president by urinating on his jacket during a press conference. Take “blessing” however you like.
Leading with today’s domestic story, Oh, thank Prime. The SCOTUS decided that strip-searching a student really is a violation of their rights. Glad we finally got that settled. Shall we move on, then?
Also of importance, the members of Congress doing what they do best - stuffing unrelated appropriations into a war-spending bill. There should be a law against that, y’know?
One of the passengers in the D.C. Metro crash was(?)/is(?) receiving harrassing phone calls about the legality of her immigration. Good for us, we’re such wonderful people, continuing to harrass people in their grief. I thought only Phelps did that. Similar hives of cillany include the firefighter that killed his pets to save on the cost of boarding the animals while he and his girlfriend were on vacation.
Brain drain at Citigroup and Bank of America - and the article thinks it's because the government still has some sway over them. Well, they’re right in the same way that people think corporations and rich people flee tax-heavy states - because they don’t want to be regulated, nor do they want to give up anything of their money if they can avoid it. So why are they going along as if nothing happened, paying out as if they were still making money hand-over-fist?
A part of the climate change bill would have the United States buy into carbon offsets as a way of neutralizing the carbon output of the country. Critics contend it is a transfer of wealth overseas and that domestic efforts would be better. At least now there's a bill on the floor to have to pass or avoid in the House, with machinations gearing up for a Senate bill to apear soon.
Two members of the House announce the introduction of a bill that would require Congress to hold to the paygo rules as law, rather than as rules.
Last before opinions, even the Washington Times must admit that conservatives are rocketing down from the moral high ground, with all the scandals piling up at their doorstep. Perhaps they need to take a lesson from Mr. Driscoll, a pastor known for advocating good sex between married couples, instead of cutting him off of the radio network once discovering he was the guest of an interview, and then adding several pages on afterward justifying why they felt it necessary, including accusing him of picking and choosing his scriptural basis and of being unholy with the holy book. Perhaps they should go back to trying to exorcise the gay from someone instead of trying to tell a pastor who’s okay with sacred sex (that might get a little more than vanilla) that he’s being disgraceful to his office. Naturally, in such matters, the General gives advice from his trove of knowledge.
In the opinions, Simson Garfinkel on the need for privacy to be protected uniformly, instead of piecemeal, because the option of opting out is no longer a real reality. Thus, strong security across the board to protect our data is what’s needed, which includes the idea of having a government-backed identification for your on-line self. Useful for doing transactions and business and keeping your identity from being stolen. Question there is whether we can still have sufficient anonymity in that world so if we want to do things that are not explicitly linked back to our on-line selves (like protest undemocratic elections), we still can.
Mr. Kamiya on how seeing the human side of Governor Sanford stopped his schadenfreude, the WSJ thinks California, New York, and New Jersey are all stellar examples of how the Obama plan for the nation will fail, and Ms. Strassel us taking the temperature on climate change and is finding more skeptics everywhere.
Mr. Smalera tells us that while the new tobacco bill looks like a good thing, it was crafted by Phillip Morris to their advantage and the detriment of everyone else, as well as not actually doing anything to stop smoking.
Pour on the gasoline about President Obama’s health care propositions, I guess - suggestions that he wants to kill off old people because treating them wouldn’t be useful or cost-effective, accusing the President of hypocrisy because he didn't declare that he would definitely subscribe to his own proposed plan, making it into a “let them eat cake” kind of moment that would force the populous into the disaster plan, while he and other elites stayed above it because they had money. Mr. Tapper insinuates that people might end up on the public-option plan even though they didn't want to change their plan, because their employers would yank their coverage out from under them, Maestro Trud Blossom expects the popularity of the initiative to sink because the populace is more sensitive to spending than before, Mr. Gottlieb says that all government-run plans inevitably ration care to those that are part of them, unless we change the way we reimburse doctors, says he in a throwaway line, with Mr. Calfee bringing up the idea that a public option plan will kill medical innovation because of the need to cut costs,
That said, letting things stay the same is no option, either - the Congresscritters got more than a bit about insurer practices and tactice leading to people paying billions more than they should have. Here’s some primary source data on that testimony.
Mr. Riedl is afraid that the current borrowing practice will break the economy when we hit the point where China is unwilling to lend us more money, as well as criticizing the Obama budget defecits.
The WSJ suggests the abolition of the Inspector General post, based on the reasoning that they're used more for generating scandal and less for actual work, and that the current administration seems unwilling to abide by their own rules for the fismissal of IGs.
Last bits before the pastry, Ms. Noonan suggests the President is trying to do everything, and thus accomplishes nothing, and misses out on seizing hold of a nice sound bite that will get him re-elected. While I hope that the populace is a little bit better than voting on sound bites, I think the point about trying to do everything and achieving nothing is proabbly warranted. That said, very few Presidents get to focus on one issue to the exclusion of others, these days.
In a weak bid for flaky stuff, Ms. Rabinowitz imagines her ideal "I had an affair" press conference, lacking groveling, apologies, or any other signs of remorse. The better tactic to take for Governor Sanford and many others, might be to openly embrace polyamory and work things through with their partner(s), instead of clinging to a mode that clearly isn't working for them.
Mr. Sowell also turns in a weak attempt by categorizing the drive for more education as mindless, making a good point that there are some people who would rather be elsewhere, and some who should be elsewhere than their university, but not really offering up much for suggestions on how to change things so that people get the education they want, in the subjects they enjoy.
We can do better than this. Luckily, we have the Republican Party, who want to paint the Federal Reserve chairman as an ally of Big Government. Considering who the Fed chairman works with pretty heavily, it might make sense for him to be allied a bit with the government, instead of with the people who prefer unregulated capitalism and are against the Fed gaining more power. Who would you ally with - the people who want to give you moer power, or the people who want to take it away from you?
But winning tonight’s pastry offering, a repeat offender. Yes, it’s Missouri State Representative Cynthia Davis, unapologetic and defending her previous statement about feeding children over the summer, believing she’s been taken “out of context” and thus needing to defend herself. Well, if she wants to put her foot in her mouth again, I don’t think media outlets are going to stop her. So, in her own words, the State Rep considers the feeding of children to be the sole responsibility of the parents, with government programs like summer feeding treating families “like they do not exist”. She believes food assistance is “taking those who are capable and treating them like they are incapacitated”, and then gets the details of the program wrong, believing they feed the kids a “cafeteria style meal” at school, away from their parents and the table where they can make meaningful relationships (they don’t feed the kids at school at all) and that more families just need to be connected with churches and food pantries (who are the primary outlets for the summer feeding programs already). Government, in her eyes, is trying to take children away from the role their parents are providing, and her argument against her critics is that that the logical consequence of the slippery slope of government involvement that government should (or will) try to take children away from poor parents.
Representative, your faith in your fellow person’s charity is admirable. Your brains, however, are lacking. Those capable parents, if they didn’t have assistance from the government, whether in TANF, WIC, food stamps, or other programs, would be far less capable, either having to work more to feed their young children (and thus have even less time around the table to spend with them or to cook nutritious meals instead of preservative-laden unhealthy stuff), or simply be lacking the means to feed their kids and themselves sufficient food. The reason those kids are getting free or reduced school lunches (hey, there’s another government program!) is because we recognize that there isn’t enough money to do it with, and we would rather, out of concern for their well-being, feed children rather than make them starve because they don’t have the couple dollars to spare. If you think kids are unruly in schools now, add on them being hungry, perhaps starving, to that equation and tell me whether you could enforce classroom discipline, or whether they would learn anything at all. If you polled the people who were on government assistance, I’d bet you wouldn’t find all that many who were ungrateful for the help. They may want to pull themselves up sufficiently so they don’t have to rely on that help any more, but they’re probably not going to turn away assistance that’s offered. Plus, government assistance comes through without any religious hangups, so everyone can get it, regardless of whether or not they believe what you do. There may still be plenty of people looking down their nose at you for needing charity, considering it a moral failure of yours that your employer offers no benefits, just enough money to make the rent every month, and your child needed to have a tooth extracted. Or will consider you a lazy slob for working an 80-hour work week to try and make ends meet and still come up short. Or have to deal with a State Representative who, while not quoting Dickens, and cloaking herself in the language of church charity, made it abundantly clear that she believes the same way Scrooge did: “Are there no prisons?...And the Union workhouses,...Are they still in operation?”
So, State Representative, we’ll set aside your second well-deserved quiche and use it to feed hunfry children, who will appreciate it far more than you ever would were it to be thrown in your face. Congratulations, repeat offender of being the Worst Person in the World.
In technology, do we use our telephones to talk to people anymore, new drugs that kill cancer more effectively and with fewer adverse effects, checking out crop circles from the air has led to the discovery of new tomb complexes in England, including bits older than Stonehenge, studying the curious case of a girl who, at 16 years of age, has developed bodily as far as an eleven month-old child, designing structural rings into buildings that could divert earthquake energy away from the building, and the thought that if we utilized our big desert and peppered it with photovoltaic cells, we could potentially generate enough power to run entire continents, if not the world.
On the tail end for tonight, It's a Gundam! Oh God, MY EYES!
And, one that the Unabashed Feminism Department might want to mull over, although it’s being tossed in the Dumb Criminals file - a woman traded sex for a case of chips, and was arrested for prostitution and driving without a license, which is a gross undervaluing of herself in the first place, but the UFD might want to look into the idea that at the “Officer[‘s] Discretion“ where the john was not arrested for soliciting and faces no fines.
Our profession takes another hit today, with some of the 275 jobs to be cut from Harvard coming from the library. To balance that out, though, remember that not every interview went smoothly for everyone else. If you’re feeling the cash pinch, sevn tips on how to spend to maximize happiness per dollar.
Out in the world, speculation that the Supreme Leader of Iran could be ousted by a rival cleric, as the protest movement settles into long war tactics, because of the increased crackdown on mass assemblies. Mr. Kasparov urges the United States to speak out more, because, in his opinion, nothing the U.S can say will stop the crackdowns, and they're going to be blamed anyway, so they may as well go in full-bore. Talking about the other side of the coin, Mr. Henninger criticizes the West's response to the increased use of Web 2.0 tactics and services by dissidents, believing they should embrace and bring the 2.0ers into the discussions on what to do, say, about Iran. Because the dissidents are definitely up for 2.0, and are using TOR, a technology originally developed by the Navy, in high numbers to avoid being traced back to themselves. Of course, some of them are a bit more open about their opinions about the current regime.
Mr. MacFarlane suggests that the Obama administration deploy all its tools, including bringing on allies and engaging other regional powers instead of just talking when it comes to Iran. The nuclear program is still a high priority, but effective diplomacy involves not just the U.S., but the people around Iran.
the United States is looking into signing on to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a good thing, considering only the U.S. and Somalia have not signed on.
Want to see what a witch-killing looks like? Here's a firsthand account.
Australia is planning on censoring access to on-line games that would be rated above 15 years of age, which will probably kill traffic over the web but increase it on torrents and direct access to servers, if not having local mirrors start happening inside the censors. This is not a good sign, and we do wonder when Australia decided to start going down the road that ends in the Great Firewall.
For the enterprising, here’s an interesting twist - pay your money to go pirate-hunting in Somalia.
And, good for a laugh, a monkey gave his blessing to the Zambian president by urinating on his jacket during a press conference. Take “blessing” however you like.
Leading with today’s domestic story, Oh, thank Prime. The SCOTUS decided that strip-searching a student really is a violation of their rights. Glad we finally got that settled. Shall we move on, then?
Also of importance, the members of Congress doing what they do best - stuffing unrelated appropriations into a war-spending bill. There should be a law against that, y’know?
One of the passengers in the D.C. Metro crash was(?)/is(?) receiving harrassing phone calls about the legality of her immigration. Good for us, we’re such wonderful people, continuing to harrass people in their grief. I thought only Phelps did that. Similar hives of cillany include the firefighter that killed his pets to save on the cost of boarding the animals while he and his girlfriend were on vacation.
Brain drain at Citigroup and Bank of America - and the article thinks it's because the government still has some sway over them. Well, they’re right in the same way that people think corporations and rich people flee tax-heavy states - because they don’t want to be regulated, nor do they want to give up anything of their money if they can avoid it. So why are they going along as if nothing happened, paying out as if they were still making money hand-over-fist?
A part of the climate change bill would have the United States buy into carbon offsets as a way of neutralizing the carbon output of the country. Critics contend it is a transfer of wealth overseas and that domestic efforts would be better. At least now there's a bill on the floor to have to pass or avoid in the House, with machinations gearing up for a Senate bill to apear soon.
Two members of the House announce the introduction of a bill that would require Congress to hold to the paygo rules as law, rather than as rules.
Last before opinions, even the Washington Times must admit that conservatives are rocketing down from the moral high ground, with all the scandals piling up at their doorstep. Perhaps they need to take a lesson from Mr. Driscoll, a pastor known for advocating good sex between married couples, instead of cutting him off of the radio network once discovering he was the guest of an interview, and then adding several pages on afterward justifying why they felt it necessary, including accusing him of picking and choosing his scriptural basis and of being unholy with the holy book. Perhaps they should go back to trying to exorcise the gay from someone instead of trying to tell a pastor who’s okay with sacred sex (that might get a little more than vanilla) that he’s being disgraceful to his office. Naturally, in such matters, the General gives advice from his trove of knowledge.
In the opinions, Simson Garfinkel on the need for privacy to be protected uniformly, instead of piecemeal, because the option of opting out is no longer a real reality. Thus, strong security across the board to protect our data is what’s needed, which includes the idea of having a government-backed identification for your on-line self. Useful for doing transactions and business and keeping your identity from being stolen. Question there is whether we can still have sufficient anonymity in that world so if we want to do things that are not explicitly linked back to our on-line selves (like protest undemocratic elections), we still can.
Mr. Kamiya on how seeing the human side of Governor Sanford stopped his schadenfreude, the WSJ thinks California, New York, and New Jersey are all stellar examples of how the Obama plan for the nation will fail, and Ms. Strassel us taking the temperature on climate change and is finding more skeptics everywhere.
Mr. Smalera tells us that while the new tobacco bill looks like a good thing, it was crafted by Phillip Morris to their advantage and the detriment of everyone else, as well as not actually doing anything to stop smoking.
Pour on the gasoline about President Obama’s health care propositions, I guess - suggestions that he wants to kill off old people because treating them wouldn’t be useful or cost-effective, accusing the President of hypocrisy because he didn't declare that he would definitely subscribe to his own proposed plan, making it into a “let them eat cake” kind of moment that would force the populous into the disaster plan, while he and other elites stayed above it because they had money. Mr. Tapper insinuates that people might end up on the public-option plan even though they didn't want to change their plan, because their employers would yank their coverage out from under them, Maestro Trud Blossom expects the popularity of the initiative to sink because the populace is more sensitive to spending than before, Mr. Gottlieb says that all government-run plans inevitably ration care to those that are part of them, unless we change the way we reimburse doctors, says he in a throwaway line, with Mr. Calfee bringing up the idea that a public option plan will kill medical innovation because of the need to cut costs,
That said, letting things stay the same is no option, either - the Congresscritters got more than a bit about insurer practices and tactice leading to people paying billions more than they should have. Here’s some primary source data on that testimony.
Mr. Riedl is afraid that the current borrowing practice will break the economy when we hit the point where China is unwilling to lend us more money, as well as criticizing the Obama budget defecits.
The WSJ suggests the abolition of the Inspector General post, based on the reasoning that they're used more for generating scandal and less for actual work, and that the current administration seems unwilling to abide by their own rules for the fismissal of IGs.
Last bits before the pastry, Ms. Noonan suggests the President is trying to do everything, and thus accomplishes nothing, and misses out on seizing hold of a nice sound bite that will get him re-elected. While I hope that the populace is a little bit better than voting on sound bites, I think the point about trying to do everything and achieving nothing is proabbly warranted. That said, very few Presidents get to focus on one issue to the exclusion of others, these days.
In a weak bid for flaky stuff, Ms. Rabinowitz imagines her ideal "I had an affair" press conference, lacking groveling, apologies, or any other signs of remorse. The better tactic to take for Governor Sanford and many others, might be to openly embrace polyamory and work things through with their partner(s), instead of clinging to a mode that clearly isn't working for them.
Mr. Sowell also turns in a weak attempt by categorizing the drive for more education as mindless, making a good point that there are some people who would rather be elsewhere, and some who should be elsewhere than their university, but not really offering up much for suggestions on how to change things so that people get the education they want, in the subjects they enjoy.
We can do better than this. Luckily, we have the Republican Party, who want to paint the Federal Reserve chairman as an ally of Big Government. Considering who the Fed chairman works with pretty heavily, it might make sense for him to be allied a bit with the government, instead of with the people who prefer unregulated capitalism and are against the Fed gaining more power. Who would you ally with - the people who want to give you moer power, or the people who want to take it away from you?
But winning tonight’s pastry offering, a repeat offender. Yes, it’s Missouri State Representative Cynthia Davis, unapologetic and defending her previous statement about feeding children over the summer, believing she’s been taken “out of context” and thus needing to defend herself. Well, if she wants to put her foot in her mouth again, I don’t think media outlets are going to stop her. So, in her own words, the State Rep considers the feeding of children to be the sole responsibility of the parents, with government programs like summer feeding treating families “like they do not exist”. She believes food assistance is “taking those who are capable and treating them like they are incapacitated”, and then gets the details of the program wrong, believing they feed the kids a “cafeteria style meal” at school, away from their parents and the table where they can make meaningful relationships (they don’t feed the kids at school at all) and that more families just need to be connected with churches and food pantries (who are the primary outlets for the summer feeding programs already). Government, in her eyes, is trying to take children away from the role their parents are providing, and her argument against her critics is that that the logical consequence of the slippery slope of government involvement that government should (or will) try to take children away from poor parents.
Representative, your faith in your fellow person’s charity is admirable. Your brains, however, are lacking. Those capable parents, if they didn’t have assistance from the government, whether in TANF, WIC, food stamps, or other programs, would be far less capable, either having to work more to feed their young children (and thus have even less time around the table to spend with them or to cook nutritious meals instead of preservative-laden unhealthy stuff), or simply be lacking the means to feed their kids and themselves sufficient food. The reason those kids are getting free or reduced school lunches (hey, there’s another government program!) is because we recognize that there isn’t enough money to do it with, and we would rather, out of concern for their well-being, feed children rather than make them starve because they don’t have the couple dollars to spare. If you think kids are unruly in schools now, add on them being hungry, perhaps starving, to that equation and tell me whether you could enforce classroom discipline, or whether they would learn anything at all. If you polled the people who were on government assistance, I’d bet you wouldn’t find all that many who were ungrateful for the help. They may want to pull themselves up sufficiently so they don’t have to rely on that help any more, but they’re probably not going to turn away assistance that’s offered. Plus, government assistance comes through without any religious hangups, so everyone can get it, regardless of whether or not they believe what you do. There may still be plenty of people looking down their nose at you for needing charity, considering it a moral failure of yours that your employer offers no benefits, just enough money to make the rent every month, and your child needed to have a tooth extracted. Or will consider you a lazy slob for working an 80-hour work week to try and make ends meet and still come up short. Or have to deal with a State Representative who, while not quoting Dickens, and cloaking herself in the language of church charity, made it abundantly clear that she believes the same way Scrooge did: “Are there no prisons?...And the Union workhouses,...Are they still in operation?”
So, State Representative, we’ll set aside your second well-deserved quiche and use it to feed hunfry children, who will appreciate it far more than you ever would were it to be thrown in your face. Congratulations, repeat offender of being the Worst Person in the World.
In technology, do we use our telephones to talk to people anymore, new drugs that kill cancer more effectively and with fewer adverse effects, checking out crop circles from the air has led to the discovery of new tomb complexes in England, including bits older than Stonehenge, studying the curious case of a girl who, at 16 years of age, has developed bodily as far as an eleven month-old child, designing structural rings into buildings that could divert earthquake energy away from the building, and the thought that if we utilized our big desert and peppered it with photovoltaic cells, we could potentially generate enough power to run entire continents, if not the world.
On the tail end for tonight, It's a Gundam! Oh God, MY EYES!
And, one that the Unabashed Feminism Department might want to mull over, although it’s being tossed in the Dumb Criminals file - a woman traded sex for a case of chips, and was arrested for prostitution and driving without a license, which is a gross undervaluing of herself in the first place, but the UFD might want to look into the idea that at the “Officer[‘s] Discretion“ where the john was not arrested for soliciting and faces no fines.
