Oct. 14th, 2009

silveradept: A cartoon-stylized picture of Gamera, the giant turtle, in a fighting pose, with Japanese characters. (Gamera!)
Braaaains. Braaaaaains. the brains of the digital native are wired very differently that those of the previous generations.

Out in the world today, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared there would be no war crimes trials for Israelis involved in last winter's Gaza offensive, taking a hard line against reports from the United Nations. Both Israel and Hamas were targeted as committing war crimes. The United Nations will be discussing occupied Palestine in a special session, so there will be plenty of time to air out any additional grievances earned.

The finances of the Taliban are stronger than those of al-Qaeda, according to a report from the United States Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorism finance. Starving them of capital would be a much more difficult venture. al-Qaeda, on the other hand, has apparently had its financing disrupted severely.

A firsthand account from a U.N. observer on how the Afghanistan Presidential elections were rigged, identifying problems he insists must be fixed before the country can have free and fair elections. He is one of the persons involved in the growing discontent between two different U.N. sections, each accusing the other of letting the fraud happen.

Last out, Russia resists engaging new sanctions on Iran.

Domestically, Newsweek interviews Maurice Sendak and the people making the film adaptation of "Where the Wild Things Are". That should be interesting. Elsewhere in good things, Capt. Sullenberger's book is arriving, telling us about how airlines are putting cost cuts above safety, with passengers none the wiser, as well as other parts about how his own salary, pension, and other compensation was being cut.

On more political matters, Republicans cannot necessarily count on tea party persons to support them in elections, if the tea party activists feel they’re too big-government tax-and spend or they supported any of the current Administrator’s economic decisions. The question becomes whether or not they can successfully elect small-government low-tax persons to office or not.

Mr. Gore returns to the news, with a big climate change panel approaching soon, taking some questions and interviews from supporters and skeptics. Mr. Fund weighs in in support of a skeptic, claiming that his microphone was cut off because he was about to reveal inconvenient truths and facts that dispute Mr. Gore’s movie and thesis, and that Mr. Gore was really just aiming for propaganda instead of truth or real debate.

And in your “Meet an elected Representative, from the Wingnut department”, Representative Louis Gohmert, who rehashed an old argument that letting homosexuals be people too will lead to bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia, and the return of Nazis, as the people give up all their morals for economic stability. All things the General gives him applause for pointing out to the otherwise-unaware populace.

Finally, a bill has passed the Senate Finance Committee and will move to the Senate floor proper. No public option, but now they’re all out of committee and can begin the real and messy work of building a bill that the whole chamber will pass.

In opinions, Mr. Reich comes out firing at the health insurance industry's latest tantrum, saying it's time to call their bluff about higher premiums happening if they don't get their way. Mr. Reich suggests that this argument is the best reason yet for a public option and more competition - the insurance industry just admitted to us all they can’t handle the efficiency requirements that would make them able to compete and keep their costs down, even with new mandates. On the other side, the WSJ praises the insurance companies for finally waking up to what was going to happen to them even under the Baucus bill, but warns they may be too late and Americans may be forced into more expensive, less-useful coverage because of the contents of the bill. So, another vote for the public option, then?

Mr. Kurtz tries to wrap his head around why the new-President Obama would go after the Fox News network, wondering why his subordinates would make such explicit denunciations of the network usually opposed to him. Bill'O is on the point, offering his defense of the network and claiming that while the opinion people don't like the President, the news people have always been fair to him.

Mr. McGurn feels that science has become the new religion, but that no matter how much science continues to indicate we are electrochemical processes that think we're something better, we will always believe we are something more than those processes, and thus we will always be more than those processes, because we reject science’s amorality on issues important to us. It’s not an argument for a belief in God, but it is a certain smugness that says “Science will never be able to win against religion and metaphysical thinking. Nyah!”

Mr. Black warns us that our financial sector must be reduced to as small a factor as possible, because it preys on the real economy that keeps the country and its people strong and prosperous, and misallocates capital not where it will do good, but where it will make people money. Mr. Karabell provides the international perspective, warning us against keeping too much debt in the hands of foreign agents, lest our power decline like the post-World War II United Kingdom.

Mr. Crovitz tells old media companies that they're doing it wrong in their attempts to leverage the new media for themselves, and that this destruction of the old way will continue for some time.

Finally, more opinions trickling in about the Obama Nobel - the editor emeritus of the Washington Times calls it an ignoble prize, because Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and other "appeasers" have won it, while the people who fought evil in the world, like Reagan, Truman, Churchill, and the like, have never won it. And Obama has delivered, apparently, with the way he handles foreign policy, talking with people who should be snuffed out and leaving his allies twisting in the wind. Mr. Stephens notes the Prize is not really about people who bring about peace, but about people who believe (naively) that all conflict is a result of misunderstanding, and thus the Committee chose the perfect person for their ideals. It’s just that those ideals, Mr. Stephens implies, are not effective ones like Truman, de Gaulle, and the like, who actually fight to bring peace, instead of just talking about it. Mr. Tanillo says the Peace Prize is now damaged goods because of the Obama award, because it was an award for potential, not for actual, and the Peace Prize committee will now have to work really hard to rebuild themselves as something to be taken seriously.

Last for tonight, things to do and not do, now that H1N1 vaccinations are available. That, and go poke around the new GOP website, and see if the next verse is the same as the first.

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