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Excellent work, everyone - July 3-5, 2009
Jul. 6th, 2009 10:27 pmGreetings, all. Another year older (definite), another year wiser (indeterminate), and not dead (yet). It being warm out, if some of our readers are up for showing some skin, here's an offering that purports to be a bit more ecologically sound than your standard two-piece.
After the Canadians celebrated their holiday at the beginning of the month, the United States took is turn with predictably explosive results. Cue up, if you will, please, claptrap about the United States as a Christian nation and all the things we honor by folding the flag properly, courtesy of Laura Schlessinger, American exceptionalism and privilege as the last best hope of the planet, by way of Lincoln’s coattails, and a throwback to the last administration about the death of the Constitution, likely linked today because the source thought it now applied, when, if it applies, has been applyinig for seveal decades now.
After all that’s done, Ms. Noonan takes her column space to praise Mr. David McCullough, a historian with a gift for admiration by both the commoners and the elites.
Outside the United States, A big push in the Afghanistan conflict from United States troops, with more soldiers being dispatched to be less “shock and awe” and more “hearts and minds” as well as going about stomping out Taliban forces and trying to clear the area in advance of elections.
In Pakistan, if you want more reasons to hate the Taliban, the Washington Times reports the Pakistani Taliban is buying children to use as suicide bombers.
And details from Iraq’s past, namely that Saddam Hussein insisted to the end of his life that Iraq and Osama bin Laden had no ties, as well as Iraq condemning the attacks against the U.S.
The Unites States is still on alert for a sihp-based missile test from North Korea, intending thoroughly to knock it out of the sky if it gets near U.S. territory.
Domestically, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin resigns her office, leading to at least one partial-term abortion joke out on the Internets. I’m not exactly sure how or why or anything about the timing on this issue, but there it is. This would, however, likely give her power in the GOP a boost, considering it is all the unelected voices that are getting airtime, apologies, and seem to be running the Republican Party at the moment. Perhaps it is a surprise Machiavellian gambit to take over control of the Party while out of the media spotlight and galvanize it into a properly religious organization en route to the Palin/Huckabee 2012 ticket, stopping along the way for the Great Romney Purge. Or not. One wonders who's going to draw the short straw for the resigned Governor.
The holiday does not deter the criminal - a serial killer killed most of the holiday celebrations in a South Carolina town, as the residents did not want to wander outside, and quarterback Steve McNair was found shot inside a condominium. Additionally, those already incarcerated may receive further abuse for being against Michael Jackson.
But the criminals do not deter the holiday - sixty-eight hot dogs was the new world record mark set.
In the “meant well, but went the wrong way about it” department, a daughter heard her mother having loud sex, mistook it for assault, rounded up a posse and went after the boyfriend when he opened the door to their knock. In the “Did you READ the fine print?” department, The man burned at Burning Man by the Burning Man is suing Burning Man for letting him get close enough to the Burning Man to be burnt, despite his intent to well, get burnt by the Burning Man.
Despite the headline that makes it sound like the Obama administration is just handing out abassadorships to those who donated the most money, the article talks about how while not part of the Foreign Service corps, many of the new ambassadors have skills that may be helpful in their jobs.
GM is facing an ultimatum - no more money after 10 July unless the sale and bankruptcy happens as planned.
In the opinions, a quick visual ciritque of just how much on-line articles have improved over the last few years, Mr. Henninger's worry that politicians are taking over as the new celebrities (and using the Democrats as his majority fo examples, when the Republicans are the ones giving the attention-seeking press conferences),
Mr. Cline comments on Ms. Davis's remarks, contextualizing them not as a sole loon with odd ideas, but someone who has spoken the truth about what conservatives and many liberals believe - if people do not have enough to build stable lives on their own, they are much more easily manipulated through the fear of losing with fragments they have. Thus, afraid of where their next meal comes from, they have no time to organize together so they can fix things so that nobody has to wonder where their next meal comes from, whether they can pay for medicine, and whether or not their jobs will be secure.
Mr. Powell expresses concern that the Obama administration is spending too much on ambitious programs, Mr. Pruden on the obvious failure of stimulus to the populace, giving advice to Mr. Obama to stop digging, Mr. Liebowitz says that enforcing high down payments on houses is the way to stop the housing bust, because apparently having no money down was the biggest contributer to negative equity, and thus to foreclosure, Mr. Boortz highlights a part of the cap-and-trade bill the he says will screw homeowners by forcing them to retrofit their houses to green guidelines from the feds before being able to sell them, as the WSJ hammers it as a 1,200 page monstrosity that doesn't actually do what it is supposed to do regarding emissions and the envrionment, while also going after the President for “abdicating his agenda” to Congress. Remind me again who actually has the Constitutional power to draft legislation and pass it?
Mr. Garvin speaks of the context-devoid condemnation of the recent coup in Honduras, telling the people who said bad things to go do their homework about what actually happened before opening their mouths. Mr. Boortz agrees with the assessment, considering the Honduras coup to have been legitimate power exercise against a dictator before the dictator could ceemnt himself.
In competition for the dishonorable quiche, Mr. Booker uses the exclusion of a ploar bear expert from a climate change panel, as well as the true context behind an iconic picture to tell you that polar bears are in no danger of extinction, and by association, climate change theories are bunk. He shares space with Mr. Boortz, who wants you to believe if you oppose climate change, you oppose everyone in the world and their “fradulent” cause, and with Ms. Strassel, making big deals out of the recent EPA flap. But none of these make our finals. Sorry.
The WSJ does them one better, complaining about the ineffectiveness of the stimulus because so much of it was spent on useless transfer payments, while unemployment continued to rise and jobs continued to be shed. We’re still five months into a plan that is supposed to help soften the fall and then in the long term help drive the economy back up. But no, the WSJ says only The Market (praise to its mighty name) can save us, and the faster the President stops spending, the faster we can recover. They get one share of the bronze, with the other share going to Mr. Stossel, for being a parrot about the talking points against the public option - government will take over, then will ration and deny care, everyone will have astronomical wait times on life-threatening diseases, innovation will die because the government takes over, Canada and the UK are stretched to the breaking point because of their free care, et cetera, et cetera.
Mr. Sowell earns his spot through fallacy and poor logic, criticizing Judge Sotomayor for being reversed "four of six times" and the populace for not demanding that their Congresscritters deny or put heat on the clearly inept and racist judge. Six times the SCOTUS has agreed to hear arguments, and in four of those, yes, reversal. What about all her other cases and opinions that SCOTUS has not heard. Those thousands of cases where she did just fine? Are you going to extrapolate that because SOCTUS reversed her 2/3 of the time when they heard it, that 2/3 of her decisions are similarly wrong? I don’t think your sample size is big enough for that. I wonder how many cases she may have been part of that SCOTUS denied ceriatori to. And then, insinuating that she will decide based on race over law, because of her “empathy”, well, we’ve been down that road before. So enjoy your silvered quiche.
Tonight’s winner, however, is Michael Scheuer, a former counter-terrorism expert, who opines "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.". Because only after another attack will the country wake up enough to demand that the government protect them from the bad evil men, with violence and regularity. Thus, we make another Osama-Obama connection, but not in the way it was originally intended. Still, this is worse than “I hope he fails.” This is “I hope the country is hit by terrorism so that my preferred government form will appear.” Worst. Person. In the World. And recipient of a high-velocity flaky pastry. Not even Jon Stewart thinks you should have said that.
In science and technology, speaking self-help platitudes helps those who already have high self-esteem, a volcanic eruption in Russia tints sunsets across the United States and Europe, Stephen Hawking suggesting we've entered a new evolutionary phase, based not on biology, but on communication and information exchange, leading to designing our own evolution and DNA shifting, pictures from NASA's latest lunar explorer, pictures of the aurora borealis as seen from beyond Terra's atmosphere, trying to redesign the space suit to be less bulky, and robotic rats that can use whiskers to figure out their surroundings.
Last for tonight, trading in one's iPod to play a Walkman, for a week, and finding that thirty year-old technology does not seem to be hip nor seen as the killer that it was thirty years ago, and the passing of the original CompuServe. Old tech gives way to new. Like previous tools used for surgery compared to our current set. And, still on the conceptual table, but neat in its own right, making way for self-driving cars that can seat seven in the same space as a parking spot. Or perhaps the story of how Glass Joe got his only win.
None of that? Crop circles it is, then. And a column about what Neuromancer got right, and what it got wrong.
After the Canadians celebrated their holiday at the beginning of the month, the United States took is turn with predictably explosive results. Cue up, if you will, please, claptrap about the United States as a Christian nation and all the things we honor by folding the flag properly, courtesy of Laura Schlessinger, American exceptionalism and privilege as the last best hope of the planet, by way of Lincoln’s coattails, and a throwback to the last administration about the death of the Constitution, likely linked today because the source thought it now applied, when, if it applies, has been applyinig for seveal decades now.
After all that’s done, Ms. Noonan takes her column space to praise Mr. David McCullough, a historian with a gift for admiration by both the commoners and the elites.
Outside the United States, A big push in the Afghanistan conflict from United States troops, with more soldiers being dispatched to be less “shock and awe” and more “hearts and minds” as well as going about stomping out Taliban forces and trying to clear the area in advance of elections.
In Pakistan, if you want more reasons to hate the Taliban, the Washington Times reports the Pakistani Taliban is buying children to use as suicide bombers.
And details from Iraq’s past, namely that Saddam Hussein insisted to the end of his life that Iraq and Osama bin Laden had no ties, as well as Iraq condemning the attacks against the U.S.
The Unites States is still on alert for a sihp-based missile test from North Korea, intending thoroughly to knock it out of the sky if it gets near U.S. territory.
Domestically, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin resigns her office, leading to at least one partial-term abortion joke out on the Internets. I’m not exactly sure how or why or anything about the timing on this issue, but there it is. This would, however, likely give her power in the GOP a boost, considering it is all the unelected voices that are getting airtime, apologies, and seem to be running the Republican Party at the moment. Perhaps it is a surprise Machiavellian gambit to take over control of the Party while out of the media spotlight and galvanize it into a properly religious organization en route to the Palin/Huckabee 2012 ticket, stopping along the way for the Great Romney Purge. Or not. One wonders who's going to draw the short straw for the resigned Governor.
The holiday does not deter the criminal - a serial killer killed most of the holiday celebrations in a South Carolina town, as the residents did not want to wander outside, and quarterback Steve McNair was found shot inside a condominium. Additionally, those already incarcerated may receive further abuse for being against Michael Jackson.
But the criminals do not deter the holiday - sixty-eight hot dogs was the new world record mark set.
In the “meant well, but went the wrong way about it” department, a daughter heard her mother having loud sex, mistook it for assault, rounded up a posse and went after the boyfriend when he opened the door to their knock. In the “Did you READ the fine print?” department, The man burned at Burning Man by the Burning Man is suing Burning Man for letting him get close enough to the Burning Man to be burnt, despite his intent to well, get burnt by the Burning Man.
Despite the headline that makes it sound like the Obama administration is just handing out abassadorships to those who donated the most money, the article talks about how while not part of the Foreign Service corps, many of the new ambassadors have skills that may be helpful in their jobs.
GM is facing an ultimatum - no more money after 10 July unless the sale and bankruptcy happens as planned.
In the opinions, a quick visual ciritque of just how much on-line articles have improved over the last few years, Mr. Henninger's worry that politicians are taking over as the new celebrities (and using the Democrats as his majority fo examples, when the Republicans are the ones giving the attention-seeking press conferences),
Mr. Cline comments on Ms. Davis's remarks, contextualizing them not as a sole loon with odd ideas, but someone who has spoken the truth about what conservatives and many liberals believe - if people do not have enough to build stable lives on their own, they are much more easily manipulated through the fear of losing with fragments they have. Thus, afraid of where their next meal comes from, they have no time to organize together so they can fix things so that nobody has to wonder where their next meal comes from, whether they can pay for medicine, and whether or not their jobs will be secure.
Mr. Powell expresses concern that the Obama administration is spending too much on ambitious programs, Mr. Pruden on the obvious failure of stimulus to the populace, giving advice to Mr. Obama to stop digging, Mr. Liebowitz says that enforcing high down payments on houses is the way to stop the housing bust, because apparently having no money down was the biggest contributer to negative equity, and thus to foreclosure, Mr. Boortz highlights a part of the cap-and-trade bill the he says will screw homeowners by forcing them to retrofit their houses to green guidelines from the feds before being able to sell them, as the WSJ hammers it as a 1,200 page monstrosity that doesn't actually do what it is supposed to do regarding emissions and the envrionment, while also going after the President for “abdicating his agenda” to Congress. Remind me again who actually has the Constitutional power to draft legislation and pass it?
Mr. Garvin speaks of the context-devoid condemnation of the recent coup in Honduras, telling the people who said bad things to go do their homework about what actually happened before opening their mouths. Mr. Boortz agrees with the assessment, considering the Honduras coup to have been legitimate power exercise against a dictator before the dictator could ceemnt himself.
In competition for the dishonorable quiche, Mr. Booker uses the exclusion of a ploar bear expert from a climate change panel, as well as the true context behind an iconic picture to tell you that polar bears are in no danger of extinction, and by association, climate change theories are bunk. He shares space with Mr. Boortz, who wants you to believe if you oppose climate change, you oppose everyone in the world and their “fradulent” cause, and with Ms. Strassel, making big deals out of the recent EPA flap. But none of these make our finals. Sorry.
The WSJ does them one better, complaining about the ineffectiveness of the stimulus because so much of it was spent on useless transfer payments, while unemployment continued to rise and jobs continued to be shed. We’re still five months into a plan that is supposed to help soften the fall and then in the long term help drive the economy back up. But no, the WSJ says only The Market (praise to its mighty name) can save us, and the faster the President stops spending, the faster we can recover. They get one share of the bronze, with the other share going to Mr. Stossel, for being a parrot about the talking points against the public option - government will take over, then will ration and deny care, everyone will have astronomical wait times on life-threatening diseases, innovation will die because the government takes over, Canada and the UK are stretched to the breaking point because of their free care, et cetera, et cetera.
Mr. Sowell earns his spot through fallacy and poor logic, criticizing Judge Sotomayor for being reversed "four of six times" and the populace for not demanding that their Congresscritters deny or put heat on the clearly inept and racist judge. Six times the SCOTUS has agreed to hear arguments, and in four of those, yes, reversal. What about all her other cases and opinions that SCOTUS has not heard. Those thousands of cases where she did just fine? Are you going to extrapolate that because SOCTUS reversed her 2/3 of the time when they heard it, that 2/3 of her decisions are similarly wrong? I don’t think your sample size is big enough for that. I wonder how many cases she may have been part of that SCOTUS denied ceriatori to. And then, insinuating that she will decide based on race over law, because of her “empathy”, well, we’ve been down that road before. So enjoy your silvered quiche.
Tonight’s winner, however, is Michael Scheuer, a former counter-terrorism expert, who opines "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.". Because only after another attack will the country wake up enough to demand that the government protect them from the bad evil men, with violence and regularity. Thus, we make another Osama-Obama connection, but not in the way it was originally intended. Still, this is worse than “I hope he fails.” This is “I hope the country is hit by terrorism so that my preferred government form will appear.” Worst. Person. In the World. And recipient of a high-velocity flaky pastry. Not even Jon Stewart thinks you should have said that.
In science and technology, speaking self-help platitudes helps those who already have high self-esteem, a volcanic eruption in Russia tints sunsets across the United States and Europe, Stephen Hawking suggesting we've entered a new evolutionary phase, based not on biology, but on communication and information exchange, leading to designing our own evolution and DNA shifting, pictures from NASA's latest lunar explorer, pictures of the aurora borealis as seen from beyond Terra's atmosphere, trying to redesign the space suit to be less bulky, and robotic rats that can use whiskers to figure out their surroundings.
Last for tonight, trading in one's iPod to play a Walkman, for a week, and finding that thirty year-old technology does not seem to be hip nor seen as the killer that it was thirty years ago, and the passing of the original CompuServe. Old tech gives way to new. Like previous tools used for surgery compared to our current set. And, still on the conceptual table, but neat in its own right, making way for self-driving cars that can seat seven in the same space as a parking spot. Or perhaps the story of how Glass Joe got his only win.
None of that? Crop circles it is, then. And a column about what Neuromancer got right, and what it got wrong.
