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Salutations, persons of great power and influence. It is the thought of catching your eyes for a fleeting moment, either of interest or WTF, that we continue our work.
The closure to a an older story - Fathima Rifqa is sent back to Ohio, as a judge could find no substatiation of the allegations of child abuse and threatened death a Christian church in Florida claimed in refusing to return her. Whether converted or no, the church was unsuccessful in its bid to depict her family as one that would perform some sort of honor killing on her just for thinking about not being Muslim. That said, she is not going back to her family just yet.
Out in the world, mobile phone service in Iraq, both as communication tool and informal banking and payment method, where passing on the numbers of various credit-charged cards is the equivalent of currency transactions. In the United States, unofficial, unlicensed, informal businesses could be as much as $1 trillion in the recession, because informal business is often cheaper to conduct, for various reasons.
Elsewhere in Iraq, the prime minister's re-election campaign is touching on sectarian issues and raising tensions between the major Muslim groups.
Syria and the IAEA stare each other in the eye, with the IAEA considering making accusations that Syria has been engaging in secret nuclear activity.
Domestically, here's what people should mean when they say "Think of the children" - backpack programs where hungry children pick up food backpacks on the weekend to take home with them, returning the backpacks on Monday. Because even in our country, where billions of dollars of profits are recorded daily, children go hungry.
Not that kids are the only place where the wheels appear to be coming off - here's fifteen signs that the society is going through seam-ripping.
Representative Kennedy was asked to refrain from the central part of the Catholic ritual, the Communion, by a bishop of the church because of his continued support for the right to abortion and his criticism of the Catholic Church's stance opposing health care unless yet more restrictions on abortion were included, restrictions that have been put in and passed through the House.
Insurance companies, so recently in the news, might not want to garner negative attention to themselves like revoking the benefit payment of a depressed person based on Facebook photographs that looked like she was having fun. Depression is not a one-shot thing, nor is it necessarily gone if you happen to be having fun at one particular spot in life. Not to mention, she was following doctor's orders, or so she claims. The insurance company claims they would never terminate someone solely on web stuff - and they're probably right - they'd terminate on less than that.
Economic predictions that the unemployment rate will begin to shrink come first quarter 2010, which right now have less than the value of the bits that display them, and even then, they say the shrinkage will be small to start.
After new recommendations that normal healthy women not get mammograms until 50 years, instead of 40, a large amount of ink and hot air has followed. The LA Times attempts a fact checking.
Last out before the opinion line, Governor Mark Sanford, of the Old Appalachian Trail, is facing 37 ethics charges by the state ethics committee.
In the opinions, FiveThirtyEight says, "one e-mail about sexing up data that's a decade old does not a conspiracy make", regardless of how much climate change opposition wants it to be.
Mr. Cline opines about the feasibility and electability of a Palin/Prejean ticket, as well as how useful the two of them are for making it look like women agree with Republicanism (and making the Good Old Boys Party look like it actually cares about women, too.)
Ms. Weiss puts the New York Marathon winner in the category of "immigrant realizes the American Dream through hard work, adaptation, and perseverance, with religion guiding the way" - the ideal view of the conservative, who are more than happy to embrace him in reaction to a comment made about his American-ness. Much like the WSJ is swift to offer reproach to Jesse Jackson regarding his comment about blackness and voting against the health plan, attempting to extend it out to "all liberals still believe that racial politics are the way to go, and will gratuitously use such, while we conservatives have moved past that." Mr. Fund is more conservative in his assessment, talking about the various apologia and noting that not many people have come forward to denounce the remarks.
Mr. Beamer, family of someone lost on 11 September, expresses in lack of confidence in the Attorney General's decision to hold civilian trials for the attack, while conveniently hitting all the opposition talking points about intelligence being handed over, new possible rights, and the big fear, that those on trial might walk.
The WSJ also feels new policy changes at the National Mediation Board have ben rammed through by the Obama appointees without so much as a by-your-leave to debate or dissent, attempting to make it easier for airline workers to unionize. Sounds familiar, although I think it went the other way on other things in the last administration. Still, the truth grain is that if the NMB appointees are trying to influence the results, they're not behaving in a neutral fashion, and thats probably not all that good.
And then there's the health care stuff - The WSJ continues to paint any proposal anywhere as damaging and destructive to health care, this time, focusing on how the plans affect flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts, which they claim liberals hate because it gives the consumer choice and control over their spending, instead of the government. Really? I would have thought such things are there so that people can cover things their insurances won't, or can make their co-pays in pre-tax income. It's not "I have more control", it's "I'm setting aside this money so I can cover the expenses my insurance won't."
More generally, budget and defecit concerns are always on the minds of the editors, now that they've been through a few wars and bailouts, things that they certainly supported for expenditure before opposing things when the new administration came it. Eastasia, Eurasia, potato, potahto. Ms. Strassel makes a mock job posting for someone to get the people to believe again that the Democratic stimulus is working and that another one is necessary, the WSJ thinks there's trickery afoot and that we've been lied to about the risk of the credit default swaps, leading to an apparent bid for unlimited power by Treasury, and for all of this, Messrs. Hensarling and Ryan blame it all on getting away from conservative principles and free-market economics, All Hail The Market.
Last out for tonight, an opinion about the plight of Christians in China and a request that the United States start making normalization talks with Cuba contingent on proving they're improving human rights.
In science and technology, rediscovering a study that tested whether the blind would hallucinate when given LSD, answer, "Kind of. If you had some sight before losing it, you were more likely to hallucinate.", another successful spacewalk, after a bit of a snag in a suit,
Last for tonight, Fox has threatened firings for mistakes happening on air, which then leads to the question of whether some of these things are mistakes or deliberate actions only classed as mistakes after someone calls them out on it.
Oh, and anchor Katie Couric, of Auto-Tune The News and CBS, getting down on the dance floor.
The closure to a an older story - Fathima Rifqa is sent back to Ohio, as a judge could find no substatiation of the allegations of child abuse and threatened death a Christian church in Florida claimed in refusing to return her. Whether converted or no, the church was unsuccessful in its bid to depict her family as one that would perform some sort of honor killing on her just for thinking about not being Muslim. That said, she is not going back to her family just yet.
Out in the world, mobile phone service in Iraq, both as communication tool and informal banking and payment method, where passing on the numbers of various credit-charged cards is the equivalent of currency transactions. In the United States, unofficial, unlicensed, informal businesses could be as much as $1 trillion in the recession, because informal business is often cheaper to conduct, for various reasons.
Elsewhere in Iraq, the prime minister's re-election campaign is touching on sectarian issues and raising tensions between the major Muslim groups.
Syria and the IAEA stare each other in the eye, with the IAEA considering making accusations that Syria has been engaging in secret nuclear activity.
Domestically, here's what people should mean when they say "Think of the children" - backpack programs where hungry children pick up food backpacks on the weekend to take home with them, returning the backpacks on Monday. Because even in our country, where billions of dollars of profits are recorded daily, children go hungry.
Not that kids are the only place where the wheels appear to be coming off - here's fifteen signs that the society is going through seam-ripping.
Representative Kennedy was asked to refrain from the central part of the Catholic ritual, the Communion, by a bishop of the church because of his continued support for the right to abortion and his criticism of the Catholic Church's stance opposing health care unless yet more restrictions on abortion were included, restrictions that have been put in and passed through the House.
Insurance companies, so recently in the news, might not want to garner negative attention to themselves like revoking the benefit payment of a depressed person based on Facebook photographs that looked like she was having fun. Depression is not a one-shot thing, nor is it necessarily gone if you happen to be having fun at one particular spot in life. Not to mention, she was following doctor's orders, or so she claims. The insurance company claims they would never terminate someone solely on web stuff - and they're probably right - they'd terminate on less than that.
Economic predictions that the unemployment rate will begin to shrink come first quarter 2010, which right now have less than the value of the bits that display them, and even then, they say the shrinkage will be small to start.
After new recommendations that normal healthy women not get mammograms until 50 years, instead of 40, a large amount of ink and hot air has followed. The LA Times attempts a fact checking.
Last out before the opinion line, Governor Mark Sanford, of the Old Appalachian Trail, is facing 37 ethics charges by the state ethics committee.
In the opinions, FiveThirtyEight says, "one e-mail about sexing up data that's a decade old does not a conspiracy make", regardless of how much climate change opposition wants it to be.
Mr. Cline opines about the feasibility and electability of a Palin/Prejean ticket, as well as how useful the two of them are for making it look like women agree with Republicanism (and making the Good Old Boys Party look like it actually cares about women, too.)
Ms. Weiss puts the New York Marathon winner in the category of "immigrant realizes the American Dream through hard work, adaptation, and perseverance, with religion guiding the way" - the ideal view of the conservative, who are more than happy to embrace him in reaction to a comment made about his American-ness. Much like the WSJ is swift to offer reproach to Jesse Jackson regarding his comment about blackness and voting against the health plan, attempting to extend it out to "all liberals still believe that racial politics are the way to go, and will gratuitously use such, while we conservatives have moved past that." Mr. Fund is more conservative in his assessment, talking about the various apologia and noting that not many people have come forward to denounce the remarks.
Mr. Beamer, family of someone lost on 11 September, expresses in lack of confidence in the Attorney General's decision to hold civilian trials for the attack, while conveniently hitting all the opposition talking points about intelligence being handed over, new possible rights, and the big fear, that those on trial might walk.
The WSJ also feels new policy changes at the National Mediation Board have ben rammed through by the Obama appointees without so much as a by-your-leave to debate or dissent, attempting to make it easier for airline workers to unionize. Sounds familiar, although I think it went the other way on other things in the last administration. Still, the truth grain is that if the NMB appointees are trying to influence the results, they're not behaving in a neutral fashion, and thats probably not all that good.
And then there's the health care stuff - The WSJ continues to paint any proposal anywhere as damaging and destructive to health care, this time, focusing on how the plans affect flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts, which they claim liberals hate because it gives the consumer choice and control over their spending, instead of the government. Really? I would have thought such things are there so that people can cover things their insurances won't, or can make their co-pays in pre-tax income. It's not "I have more control", it's "I'm setting aside this money so I can cover the expenses my insurance won't."
More generally, budget and defecit concerns are always on the minds of the editors, now that they've been through a few wars and bailouts, things that they certainly supported for expenditure before opposing things when the new administration came it. Eastasia, Eurasia, potato, potahto. Ms. Strassel makes a mock job posting for someone to get the people to believe again that the Democratic stimulus is working and that another one is necessary, the WSJ thinks there's trickery afoot and that we've been lied to about the risk of the credit default swaps, leading to an apparent bid for unlimited power by Treasury, and for all of this, Messrs. Hensarling and Ryan blame it all on getting away from conservative principles and free-market economics, All Hail The Market.
Last out for tonight, an opinion about the plight of Christians in China and a request that the United States start making normalization talks with Cuba contingent on proving they're improving human rights.
In science and technology, rediscovering a study that tested whether the blind would hallucinate when given LSD, answer, "Kind of. If you had some sight before losing it, you were more likely to hallucinate.", another successful spacewalk, after a bit of a snag in a suit,
Last for tonight, Fox has threatened firings for mistakes happening on air, which then leads to the question of whether some of these things are mistakes or deliberate actions only classed as mistakes after someone calls them out on it.
Oh, and anchor Katie Couric, of Auto-Tune The News and CBS, getting down on the dance floor.
