And there was weekend - 5-8 November 2009
Nov. 8th, 2009 11:44 pmAh, weekends. How we love thee. Ish.
Starting out today, the Parents Television Council, holder of the number one spot for copmlaints to the FCC (last I knew), is up in arms about a teaser advert for a threesome happening in the Gossip Girl drama. Well, they’re at least trying on something that might be salacious. Others think Sesame Street satire has gone too far, and that Oscar saying “Pox News” is trashy is PBS displaying some sort of liberal bias.
Internationally, U2 plays concert honoring the fall of the Berlin wall...with a 6.5 foot wall separating the concertgoers from the rest of the crowd. While we realize there are too many odd juxtapositions in the world to catch them all, surely this one could have been spotted.
In the conflict zones, United States troops express their displeasure at the use of lightly armored vehicles, especially against opposition that utilizes buried IEDs as a common tactic.
Fallout from the conflict zones includes allegation by a former United Kingdom ambassador that the CIA sent people to countries where torture, forced confessions, and violation of their persons with broken glass bottles were all common and expected.
On religious matters, the European Court of Human Rights has determined that the weaing of crucifixes in Italian schools is a violation of religious and educational freedoms, rejecting the idea that the symbol is one of Italian heritage and culture instead of religion. We’re guessing this ruling will be applied equally to all and that no religious symbols will be permitted to be worn in the schooling. Does that include head coverings, too?
Domestically, most of the news cycle will be focusing on a military psychologist killing 12 and injuring more than 30 in a shooting on the base of Fort Hood, a tragedy at best. There will always be something odd or fringey and entirely not true about it, if it looks like it might somehow try to connect the madman with the president.
Rock on, San Francisco, now proud owners of a ban on cat declawing.
On H1N1 matters, The Health and Human Services secretary admitted to overstating the amount of vaccine available and of being improperly skeptic of the claims made by the manufacturers.
More generally on health matters, The House of Representatives says they will have a bill ready for voting on Saturday of this week, a promise they followed through with, despite also including an amendment increasing prohibitions on federal money being used for abortion procedures, due to their ability to limit the time spent on debate and amendments. This continues despite several members of the opposition taking part in a rally intended to make the Congresscritters afraid of the wingnut portion of their population, a population clearly misinformed about what the bill will actually do.
The persons accused of planning and executing the 11 September attacks will receive trials in civilian courts over Republican objections that those attacks were a matter of war instead of crime, and thus military courts, with laxer rules on evidence and transparency, would be better-suited to the suspects.
Lowe's pays out a $29.5 million settlement regarding required but uncompensated hours for their worker and continues to deny they did anything wrong. After this, a worker spots and anti-EFCA poster in their break room. Because unions are evil when they make people pay for overtime work or make employers stop forcing their hirees to do uncompensated labor.
Officially, unemployment back over 10 percent, although if you ask![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bradhicks, he’ll tell you the number is really either just this side of 20 percent or slightly over, and all those people need to be working instead of having their unemployment benefits extended, thus, the WPA is in order moreso than more unemployment.
On climate, Senator Boxer, committee chair, may utilize rules to allow her to move legislation past the committee, despite the boycott of committee meetings that the opposition party is currently undertaking. Howls of “not bipartisan” ensue, but considering the obstructionist track record so far, rules like this may be the way Democrats get things done.
In opinions, Mr. Reich says the President should sell a bigger stimulus to Congress, based on the argument that bigger stimulus will make for better midterm numbers, as well as continuing to bring the economy back.
The Pandagon people like Mad Men, because it tells it like it was, and make fun of someone who feels uncomfortable and tries to defend the nonexistent idyllic times past, where women were sex-and-cooking appliances and black men stayed out of sight because they knew their place.
The WSJ likes to gather as much happy as it can out of the recent elections, feeling confidence that Republicans are on the ascendancy again and Democrats have to watch out. Mr. Pruden, of the Washington Times, suggests that the President realize that all the problems of the country are his now, and that he should get to fixing them, now unable (in theory) to hide behind the knowledge that this mess was started and exacerbated by the last administration. Against those ideas, Mr. Miniter says some Republicans were not necessarily winners in the last battle, depending on which candidate they backed, as a signal that the purge continues and Republicans will soon be the Conservative Party.
Mr. Gordon says that liberalism has succeeded at the time its current ideology of anticapitalism was needed, and now the liberals need to congratulate themselves and move on, instead of still clinging to a world of sheep, wolves, and shepherds, because the conservatives are changing and evolving into something new. (While they continue to purge people away who don’t fit the hard-right attitude).
Mr Jeffrey says that health care reform plans will turn us into a welfare state, with subsidies for enough people to keep the Democrats in power and fierce taxes and no help for those who make enough to be above that line. All basing itself on the idea that health care and insurance premiums are expensive. So why not reform the insurance premiums and the system there, instead of whinging about a government program that is attempting to do so (even if it will bite the big one)?
Taibbi slams the Goldman Sachs execs for actually saying that Jesus was for greed, profit, and self-interest when he said that we needed to love each other as we do ourselves.
The best thing to do, I would agree, is to forget left and right and focus on doing what is right (with the caveat that the majority is not always right, especially when it wants to act counter to the founding principles of the country.)
Ans we should avoid pontification about how everyone has a point of view in journalism and that accusations of non-objectivity and bias are rendered moot by that, with a little martyr complex thrown in. (“I’m special because I’m counter to them, thus when they say I’m biased, they’re only showing their own biases.”)
The truly worst, however, prefer to attack Holocaust survivors by claiming that Jews are profiting off of the treatment they received during that period, including such gems as “America is a Christian nation, so Jews should shut up”, and “Obama takes his orders from George Soros, who is Jewish.” This was after said survivor took umbrage at a picture comparing the Democratic health care bill with the concentration camps.
In technology, Firefox surpasses IE6 for browser share. Now, here’s hoping IE6 dies in a standards-noncompliant fire. Also, Google unveils the DTN protocol, for interplanetary Internet-type communications, although one would probably not be able to play Quake across worlds with such a thing,
And last out for tonight, velvet paintings of kaiju, including most of the Godzilla cast and Ultraman. Additionally, the letterbox principle works - a camera left at the summit of a climb was returned, as per instructions, after other climbers had taken pictures of themselves at the summit.
Oh, and by the way, did we mention Jesus was born in June?
Starting out today, the Parents Television Council, holder of the number one spot for copmlaints to the FCC (last I knew), is up in arms about a teaser advert for a threesome happening in the Gossip Girl drama. Well, they’re at least trying on something that might be salacious. Others think Sesame Street satire has gone too far, and that Oscar saying “Pox News” is trashy is PBS displaying some sort of liberal bias.
Internationally, U2 plays concert honoring the fall of the Berlin wall...with a 6.5 foot wall separating the concertgoers from the rest of the crowd. While we realize there are too many odd juxtapositions in the world to catch them all, surely this one could have been spotted.
In the conflict zones, United States troops express their displeasure at the use of lightly armored vehicles, especially against opposition that utilizes buried IEDs as a common tactic.
Fallout from the conflict zones includes allegation by a former United Kingdom ambassador that the CIA sent people to countries where torture, forced confessions, and violation of their persons with broken glass bottles were all common and expected.
On religious matters, the European Court of Human Rights has determined that the weaing of crucifixes in Italian schools is a violation of religious and educational freedoms, rejecting the idea that the symbol is one of Italian heritage and culture instead of religion. We’re guessing this ruling will be applied equally to all and that no religious symbols will be permitted to be worn in the schooling. Does that include head coverings, too?
Domestically, most of the news cycle will be focusing on a military psychologist killing 12 and injuring more than 30 in a shooting on the base of Fort Hood, a tragedy at best. There will always be something odd or fringey and entirely not true about it, if it looks like it might somehow try to connect the madman with the president.
Rock on, San Francisco, now proud owners of a ban on cat declawing.
On H1N1 matters, The Health and Human Services secretary admitted to overstating the amount of vaccine available and of being improperly skeptic of the claims made by the manufacturers.
More generally on health matters, The House of Representatives says they will have a bill ready for voting on Saturday of this week, a promise they followed through with, despite also including an amendment increasing prohibitions on federal money being used for abortion procedures, due to their ability to limit the time spent on debate and amendments. This continues despite several members of the opposition taking part in a rally intended to make the Congresscritters afraid of the wingnut portion of their population, a population clearly misinformed about what the bill will actually do.
The persons accused of planning and executing the 11 September attacks will receive trials in civilian courts over Republican objections that those attacks were a matter of war instead of crime, and thus military courts, with laxer rules on evidence and transparency, would be better-suited to the suspects.
Lowe's pays out a $29.5 million settlement regarding required but uncompensated hours for their worker and continues to deny they did anything wrong. After this, a worker spots and anti-EFCA poster in their break room. Because unions are evil when they make people pay for overtime work or make employers stop forcing their hirees to do uncompensated labor.
Officially, unemployment back over 10 percent, although if you ask
bradhicks, he’ll tell you the number is really either just this side of 20 percent or slightly over, and all those people need to be working instead of having their unemployment benefits extended, thus, the WPA is in order moreso than more unemployment.On climate, Senator Boxer, committee chair, may utilize rules to allow her to move legislation past the committee, despite the boycott of committee meetings that the opposition party is currently undertaking. Howls of “not bipartisan” ensue, but considering the obstructionist track record so far, rules like this may be the way Democrats get things done.
In opinions, Mr. Reich says the President should sell a bigger stimulus to Congress, based on the argument that bigger stimulus will make for better midterm numbers, as well as continuing to bring the economy back.
The Pandagon people like Mad Men, because it tells it like it was, and make fun of someone who feels uncomfortable and tries to defend the nonexistent idyllic times past, where women were sex-and-cooking appliances and black men stayed out of sight because they knew their place.
The WSJ likes to gather as much happy as it can out of the recent elections, feeling confidence that Republicans are on the ascendancy again and Democrats have to watch out. Mr. Pruden, of the Washington Times, suggests that the President realize that all the problems of the country are his now, and that he should get to fixing them, now unable (in theory) to hide behind the knowledge that this mess was started and exacerbated by the last administration. Against those ideas, Mr. Miniter says some Republicans were not necessarily winners in the last battle, depending on which candidate they backed, as a signal that the purge continues and Republicans will soon be the Conservative Party.
Mr. Gordon says that liberalism has succeeded at the time its current ideology of anticapitalism was needed, and now the liberals need to congratulate themselves and move on, instead of still clinging to a world of sheep, wolves, and shepherds, because the conservatives are changing and evolving into something new. (While they continue to purge people away who don’t fit the hard-right attitude).
Mr Jeffrey says that health care reform plans will turn us into a welfare state, with subsidies for enough people to keep the Democrats in power and fierce taxes and no help for those who make enough to be above that line. All basing itself on the idea that health care and insurance premiums are expensive. So why not reform the insurance premiums and the system there, instead of whinging about a government program that is attempting to do so (even if it will bite the big one)?
Taibbi slams the Goldman Sachs execs for actually saying that Jesus was for greed, profit, and self-interest when he said that we needed to love each other as we do ourselves.
The best thing to do, I would agree, is to forget left and right and focus on doing what is right (with the caveat that the majority is not always right, especially when it wants to act counter to the founding principles of the country.)
Ans we should avoid pontification about how everyone has a point of view in journalism and that accusations of non-objectivity and bias are rendered moot by that, with a little martyr complex thrown in. (“I’m special because I’m counter to them, thus when they say I’m biased, they’re only showing their own biases.”)
The truly worst, however, prefer to attack Holocaust survivors by claiming that Jews are profiting off of the treatment they received during that period, including such gems as “America is a Christian nation, so Jews should shut up”, and “Obama takes his orders from George Soros, who is Jewish.” This was after said survivor took umbrage at a picture comparing the Democratic health care bill with the concentration camps.
In technology, Firefox surpasses IE6 for browser share. Now, here’s hoping IE6 dies in a standards-noncompliant fire. Also, Google unveils the DTN protocol, for interplanetary Internet-type communications, although one would probably not be able to play Quake across worlds with such a thing,
And last out for tonight, velvet paintings of kaiju, including most of the Godzilla cast and Ultraman. Additionally, the letterbox principle works - a camera left at the summit of a climb was returned, as per instructions, after other climbers had taken pictures of themselves at the summit.
Oh, and by the way, did we mention Jesus was born in June?
