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Greetings, everyone, and welcome to a world where we no longer think heaven will be inhabited solely by white people, attended by white angels.
We also live in a world where people will generate all sorts of unofficial fixes to their problems... and then take pictures of them and post them, or at least put them out in public for other people to take pictures of their homegrown solutions.
And finally, we live in a world where we will send text-type messages to each other about some of the very silliest things that we did last night.
Professionally speaking, OCLC gives us Geek the Library, a campaign to get those of you who know the awesome power of your local library to speak up about it, and for those of you who don’t know what kind of power dwells in the public library building to get out and explore it - I guarantee you won’t be disappointed by what’s there, even if there isn’t what you need right there at that time. Odds are good, We Can Get It For You.
Internationally, perhaps another stab at sustainable transport - the bamboo bike. Inexpensive, not yet, but could be a cute thing for the environmentally conscious person in your life.
Domestically, California Marijuana growers would like to pay more in taxes, possibly to help with the idea that pot growing is normal and taxable business, instead of the forbidden fruit by the feds that it is now. The opposition, of course, is not buying it.
Governor Sanford continues to enter the news fray, this time with more details about his affairs, including that they were more numerous than originally thought...and not just with the one mistress. The coming-clean continues, drawn out and remaking the story into soemthing even moer bizarre than when we first started. And while his matter is continuing to look more and more like a trashy piece of fiction, a resident of Washington State has the officially worst writing in the country. Last out of this chapter of this affair, The General reminds us of what is not considered sexual activity, based on the actions of politicians of the past.
Many people have health insurance. This is supposed to protect them from catastrophic medical costs, based on the payment of premiums over time when one is healthy. That is what insurance does. Until, of course, they deny your claim, drop you from coverage, tell you that what you thought was comprehensive isn't, or raise your rates so much that you can't afford the insurance protecting you from being bankrupted by your medical costs. This, supposedly, from the best health care system in the world, according to the insurers, and some politicians. Even though there are still plenty of peopel without insurance, and many more who don’t have enough, as the article points out.
Vanity Fair unveils their latest article about the Sarah Palin she wants you to see versus the Sarah Palin that is, relying on anonymous off-the-record conversations with members of the McCain campaign as well as on-the-record recollections from people she’s interacted politically with over the course of her governorship and campaigns. Despite the disconnect between hockey mom and Barracuda, we still suspect she holds the frontrunner’s job for 2012, until the person who will actually be the nominee appears and captures the party’s interest with an appeal to do things differently than the Republicans have been doing so far (and getting thrashed for). We’re not sure who that will be, and the candidate list continues to shrink daily. VF provides a companion poll asking who is the most powerful woman in the GOP right now out of a dozen offerings. Many of the comments on the poll are attackers taking issue with the Palin piece, either for printing so much unsourced material, for being an attack piece (for various definitions of “smear”, “hit job”, and other derogatory statements) against a strong conservative by a “liberal” writer/magazine, or for being an anti-woman piece painting a powerful, successful woman as a dimwitted shrew. (There’s also assorted material that’s actually on topic and discusses what was mentioned in the article, but they’re few and far between.)
And, because he was sufficiently iconic to inspire emulation, kids doing Michael Jackson, who may be remembered by some as a pioneer in the transhumanist front.
In the opinions, the dark underbelly of the Olympic Games - they make the cities that get them go into debt and they become excuses for government excesses and displacements of people.
Dean Foods, maker of Horizon and Silk, is apparently playing loose with the organic label, putting in and marketing non-organics as organics so they don't have to pay the organic farmers as much for their products.
And tonight’s worst of the lot, a late entry, Mr. Feehery's confidence that America will reject the Franken Democrats as much as they did... the metric system, because the country is waking up to the fact they’re being moved leftward and they don’t want to go there. Well, this is just one of many doom assertions where the Dems get 60 and the world is slated to end, assuming there aren’t sudden Democratic rebellions. (Considering who we’re talking about, it will be a different rebellion each time.) Depending on what the current President can do in the rest of his term, we’ll see whether he gets voted out. Still... the metric system? There have got to be better comparisons than that and the 55 mph speed limit (imposed by a Republican, by the way.)
In tech, fears of giant jellyfish invasions, which is scarier than it sounds, because those guys will hurt, if not kill, if they get you, the most complete topographic map of the world to date, just released, a lock wheel that permits the connection of two waterways nearly eight stories apart, which runs pretty green and really well, gdgt, a database and community built around the idea of gadgetry, hopefully, with a database that might even let people search gadgets by their specs (which would rock for gadgetseekers everywhere), and utilizing ultrasound and three-dimensional fabricators to produce an actual-size model of a fetus.
Last for tonight, because it’s gorgeous, take a look at the paper craft castle, complete with lights and a moving train.
We also live in a world where people will generate all sorts of unofficial fixes to their problems... and then take pictures of them and post them, or at least put them out in public for other people to take pictures of their homegrown solutions.
And finally, we live in a world where we will send text-type messages to each other about some of the very silliest things that we did last night.
Professionally speaking, OCLC gives us Geek the Library, a campaign to get those of you who know the awesome power of your local library to speak up about it, and for those of you who don’t know what kind of power dwells in the public library building to get out and explore it - I guarantee you won’t be disappointed by what’s there, even if there isn’t what you need right there at that time. Odds are good, We Can Get It For You.
Internationally, perhaps another stab at sustainable transport - the bamboo bike. Inexpensive, not yet, but could be a cute thing for the environmentally conscious person in your life.
Domestically, California Marijuana growers would like to pay more in taxes, possibly to help with the idea that pot growing is normal and taxable business, instead of the forbidden fruit by the feds that it is now. The opposition, of course, is not buying it.
Governor Sanford continues to enter the news fray, this time with more details about his affairs, including that they were more numerous than originally thought...and not just with the one mistress. The coming-clean continues, drawn out and remaking the story into soemthing even moer bizarre than when we first started. And while his matter is continuing to look more and more like a trashy piece of fiction, a resident of Washington State has the officially worst writing in the country. Last out of this chapter of this affair, The General reminds us of what is not considered sexual activity, based on the actions of politicians of the past.
Many people have health insurance. This is supposed to protect them from catastrophic medical costs, based on the payment of premiums over time when one is healthy. That is what insurance does. Until, of course, they deny your claim, drop you from coverage, tell you that what you thought was comprehensive isn't, or raise your rates so much that you can't afford the insurance protecting you from being bankrupted by your medical costs. This, supposedly, from the best health care system in the world, according to the insurers, and some politicians. Even though there are still plenty of peopel without insurance, and many more who don’t have enough, as the article points out.
Vanity Fair unveils their latest article about the Sarah Palin she wants you to see versus the Sarah Palin that is, relying on anonymous off-the-record conversations with members of the McCain campaign as well as on-the-record recollections from people she’s interacted politically with over the course of her governorship and campaigns. Despite the disconnect between hockey mom and Barracuda, we still suspect she holds the frontrunner’s job for 2012, until the person who will actually be the nominee appears and captures the party’s interest with an appeal to do things differently than the Republicans have been doing so far (and getting thrashed for). We’re not sure who that will be, and the candidate list continues to shrink daily. VF provides a companion poll asking who is the most powerful woman in the GOP right now out of a dozen offerings. Many of the comments on the poll are attackers taking issue with the Palin piece, either for printing so much unsourced material, for being an attack piece (for various definitions of “smear”, “hit job”, and other derogatory statements) against a strong conservative by a “liberal” writer/magazine, or for being an anti-woman piece painting a powerful, successful woman as a dimwitted shrew. (There’s also assorted material that’s actually on topic and discusses what was mentioned in the article, but they’re few and far between.)
And, because he was sufficiently iconic to inspire emulation, kids doing Michael Jackson, who may be remembered by some as a pioneer in the transhumanist front.
In the opinions, the dark underbelly of the Olympic Games - they make the cities that get them go into debt and they become excuses for government excesses and displacements of people.
Dean Foods, maker of Horizon and Silk, is apparently playing loose with the organic label, putting in and marketing non-organics as organics so they don't have to pay the organic farmers as much for their products.
And tonight’s worst of the lot, a late entry, Mr. Feehery's confidence that America will reject the Franken Democrats as much as they did... the metric system, because the country is waking up to the fact they’re being moved leftward and they don’t want to go there. Well, this is just one of many doom assertions where the Dems get 60 and the world is slated to end, assuming there aren’t sudden Democratic rebellions. (Considering who we’re talking about, it will be a different rebellion each time.) Depending on what the current President can do in the rest of his term, we’ll see whether he gets voted out. Still... the metric system? There have got to be better comparisons than that and the 55 mph speed limit (imposed by a Republican, by the way.)
In tech, fears of giant jellyfish invasions, which is scarier than it sounds, because those guys will hurt, if not kill, if they get you, the most complete topographic map of the world to date, just released, a lock wheel that permits the connection of two waterways nearly eight stories apart, which runs pretty green and really well, gdgt, a database and community built around the idea of gadgetry, hopefully, with a database that might even let people search gadgets by their specs (which would rock for gadgetseekers everywhere), and utilizing ultrasound and three-dimensional fabricators to produce an actual-size model of a fetus.
Last for tonight, because it’s gorgeous, take a look at the paper craft castle, complete with lights and a moving train.
