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News and commentary - 9 December 2009
Dec. 10th, 2009 09:33 amCheers to you, great people of power and skill! There are charities for everyone, we find, including one that will take your old and new games and game systems and provide them for children with long hospital stays to use.
As we are concerned with certain professions over other, we update you on an earlier story. After firing two library employees who manipulated a hold record and breached patron privacy because of their belief that the requesting user should not see the item requested, the Jessamine County Library system elected to recatalog and reshelve the graphic novel collection in Dewey Decimal 741.5, instead of as a separate collection, citing concerns expressed by citizens that the graphic novel collection was too close to the young adult area. The library will still loan materials to anyone who requests them, regardless of age, but the gesture will probably placate the "THINK OF THE CHILDRENS!" people who believe that children should never ever be exposed to anything adult in nature. So, when will we hear of the complaints about the book that's just been mixed in with more family friendly material like Garfield? That's also in the 741.5 area, and I'm betting that just as many people who discovered the LXG in the graphic novel section will do so in the 741.5 section.
For a more classic example of someone advocating for censorship while loudly proclaiming they are not a censor, A woman wants the Pataskala library to stop carrying a book that is billed as a lovemaking guide and offers instructions with illustrations and pictures because she is concerned that children will find it and read it. Yet, in her own words, "This is not about censorship, because I believe in America we have the right to read and see whatever." You cannot have it both ways - you must either be okay with the possibility of young children and adolescents viewing a sexual instruction book or you must admit you believe that in some situations, censorship of materials is appropriate. What we're not saying is that your belief is wrong - it just happens to not be shared by the library in this situation. And if you keep our book out because you don't want us to check it out, we'll bill you the cost of the book and go buy another. It is still up to the parent(s) or guardian(s) of children to decide what they are and aren't willing to let their children read. (And besides, with the proliferation of materials available on other networks, it's not like you'd be closing off the only avenue by which a youngster could obtain that explicit data. With linked video of it in action.)
A teacher in Oregon took flak for using sexual profanity, devoid of its surrounding literary context, as part of a lesson on censorship and how words taken out of context can result in bannings or challenges. The teacher also received some support from parents about the lesson and the choice of words. From the sounds of the context provided by the article, the teach is within his educational boundaries to use that kind of language, especially in pointing out how easy it is to take things out of context. One hopes his students grasped the lesson in viewing all the fallout from the teacher's choice of words.
Out in our world today, the unique situation and challenges of three creatures found as cub together and raised as brothers - a lion, a tiger, and a bear. We'll refrain from what you have probably already said as a reflex action, if you're in the part of the country that has had too much of that phrase drilled into you.
An Australian coroner's report indicated that participation in a self-help course is what helped drive a woman to suicide, most likely because the course uncovered some hidden mental problems that then were uncontrolled. Caveat Emptor and then some, and always know what's going on before you let someone else try to help your head get screwed on straight.
Iraq suffered a large co-ordinated bombing attack, killing more than 120 and raising calls for resignations of security heads. The Prime Minister did some movement of officials, but there are bigger and angrier calls in the wings.
Iranian government forces and student protesters clashed heavily in a resurgence of the unrest around the alleged results that put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power several months ago. while the students are getting bolder, we'll see whether they go forward to the point of advocating the complete overthrow of the system or whether they are still just agitating for a change at the head, according to their election results.
In Nigeria, being stopped by the police could result in your death, if you don't have the money to pay bribes to the underpaid police force. Blargh. Corruption everywhere. Seems like the best option there is for the people to decide to scrap it and start again. Of course, there's no guarantees there that what results will be any better than what was. You might, instead, end up executing rogue traders, as China has, instead.
Last out, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency for the United States said the current administration is attempting to make up for lost time on climate change and promised there would be Congressional action to complement the actions of the Executive, instead of using the executive's power to regulate through agencies as an end-around lawmakers unwilling to take up the legislation. Mr. Lomborg suggests that the climate change attendees focus less on climate change (implied to be at least exaggerated, if not hoax-tastic) and more on helping the people of the world around their favorite climate change examples.
Domestically, yesterday we talked about how our drinking water sometimes fails tests for cleanliness standards. Today, we have the knowledge that fast food restaurants test more and have more stringent standards for contamination than the government uses for meats going into school lunches. So the next big bacterial breakout will be tainted food at a school, maybe? Wonder how well that's going to play.
More information about the connections between the Ugandans now pushing to kill their HIV-positive homosexuals and The Family, a secretive organization here in America that has lots of ties to lots of influential people. As the bill makes it way through, The General urges us to contact members of The Family and show our support for their work by sending them a stone and encouraging them to sponsor similar legislation here in America.
Several members of the Democratic Party are campaigning for election or re-election to office based on their opposition to the President's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. As is their right to do so. Anyone trying to make more of it, into some sort of "The Democrats are fracturing and will lose to Republicans" is making mountains out of anthills.
On health care, the public option is dead, long live the public option as Senators have apparently abandoned the idea of a government-run insurance option in favor of pushing to reduce the minimum age of entry into Medicare to 55 years and allowing those 55-64 to buy into the program at subsidized rates. Although, in the print of the article, it looks like the authorization to put in place a low-cost option is still retained by the Office of Personnel Management, but they have to use private-sector people first, and then can do it themselves if nobody signs up.
Additionally, although used as a throwaway line, the Senate version of the Stupak Amendment was permanently tabled, and thus the Senate bill has no punitive abortion restrictions. Not that the female Senators didn't get their chance to lay into the amendment, making apt comparisons of the availability of reproductive enhancement drugs for men without corresponding availability of reproductive control for women.
Last out, the homeowners's association threatening legal action against a veteran who flew his flag on a flagpole have relented on their threat, according to the spokesman for one of the Senators from that state. I wonder what sort of counterthreat was made against them if they persisted with their folly.
In the sciences and technologies of our lives, pets can be infected with H1N1 virus, but these are very rare cases, and we might have already synthesized the right drug to help with H1N1 infections anyway, an article about parts of the Internet that prize and thrive on their anonymity, including Freenet, whose creator penned a response about the dark aspects mentioned and his general happiness with the article, ways of getting robots to avoid collisions, requests for published authors to sign on to a letter supporting new legal frameworks that would permit adaptations of their work for he blind and visually impaired, Twoddler, a device that takes the play and input of toddlers and converts it to pre-defined Twitter updates, AT&T introducing incentives to make smartphone users use less of their data network, and the growing potential of smartphones to become musical instruments that we have everywhere, which means democratization of music composition, production and performance, along with all the neat possibilities that having a portable electronic instrument provides.
Striking into the opinion section, Mr. Crovitz on what may be peer-review for peer-review, where data disclosed or obtained is then checked by the wisdom of the crowds to determine whether the claims made are backed up by the data, using the disclosure of the East Anglia e-mails as an example of how the process could work better if instead of covering up and restricting data, it was released at the outset for the crowd to draw its own conclusions from. In other words, science at work (sort of - the ability to replicate experiments, especially on climate issues, is a bit difficult, as temporal displacement devices are not widely available.) Mr. Connor goes the opposite route, hailing the criminal hackers as intrepid skeptics, being all for transparency in data, and commenting on the foolishness of proceeding as if nothing had happened, criticizing the Administration's stance that climate gases still need regulation. Well, of course you like transparency if it helps to prove your point. That said, one corruption does not a complete undoing make - how many other studies have been conducted according to appropriate protocol, without manipulation, that conclude as the discredited study does? Why not investigate that, instead of jumping straight to the conclusion that there's a conspiracy to keep the doubters out?
In our juxtapositions department, criticism of stimulus spending from Senators, claiming that up to 15 percent of the spending is wasteful, a claim the administration denies, and Mr. Hill's complaints that the President's policies and actions have been completely against the spirit that generates jobs and profits, now mixed with Mr. Obama proposing to use some of the money that is left over from the TARP program to fund jobs and tax credits to get people hiring, resulting in... Republican opposition to the plan to use the money to fund jobs and tax credits, now apparently claiming that the money is better spent reducing the deficit. There's certainly an aspect of Party of No there, in that Republicans, who were so very much about spending on jobs and tax cuts, are suddenly opposing them. The truthout article also contains more about what has been done and what the plan still currently lacks to make it a truly effective use of funds.
Finally, Mr. Barone tells a shaggy dog story about the burdens of being commander in chief while having grown up in an environment usually hostile to the military resulting in a speech that seemed to have both of those men speaking from the podium all to say that he feels that the President should have used the word "victory" in his speech if he truly were committed to the war effort he just ordered.
Last for tonight, some retro-style graphics for some... very interesting creations, dictators, and more.
As we are concerned with certain professions over other, we update you on an earlier story. After firing two library employees who manipulated a hold record and breached patron privacy because of their belief that the requesting user should not see the item requested, the Jessamine County Library system elected to recatalog and reshelve the graphic novel collection in Dewey Decimal 741.5, instead of as a separate collection, citing concerns expressed by citizens that the graphic novel collection was too close to the young adult area. The library will still loan materials to anyone who requests them, regardless of age, but the gesture will probably placate the "THINK OF THE CHILDRENS!" people who believe that children should never ever be exposed to anything adult in nature. So, when will we hear of the complaints about the book that's just been mixed in with more family friendly material like Garfield? That's also in the 741.5 area, and I'm betting that just as many people who discovered the LXG in the graphic novel section will do so in the 741.5 section.
For a more classic example of someone advocating for censorship while loudly proclaiming they are not a censor, A woman wants the Pataskala library to stop carrying a book that is billed as a lovemaking guide and offers instructions with illustrations and pictures because she is concerned that children will find it and read it. Yet, in her own words, "This is not about censorship, because I believe in America we have the right to read and see whatever." You cannot have it both ways - you must either be okay with the possibility of young children and adolescents viewing a sexual instruction book or you must admit you believe that in some situations, censorship of materials is appropriate. What we're not saying is that your belief is wrong - it just happens to not be shared by the library in this situation. And if you keep our book out because you don't want us to check it out, we'll bill you the cost of the book and go buy another. It is still up to the parent(s) or guardian(s) of children to decide what they are and aren't willing to let their children read. (And besides, with the proliferation of materials available on other networks, it's not like you'd be closing off the only avenue by which a youngster could obtain that explicit data. With linked video of it in action.)
A teacher in Oregon took flak for using sexual profanity, devoid of its surrounding literary context, as part of a lesson on censorship and how words taken out of context can result in bannings or challenges. The teacher also received some support from parents about the lesson and the choice of words. From the sounds of the context provided by the article, the teach is within his educational boundaries to use that kind of language, especially in pointing out how easy it is to take things out of context. One hopes his students grasped the lesson in viewing all the fallout from the teacher's choice of words.
Out in our world today, the unique situation and challenges of three creatures found as cub together and raised as brothers - a lion, a tiger, and a bear. We'll refrain from what you have probably already said as a reflex action, if you're in the part of the country that has had too much of that phrase drilled into you.
An Australian coroner's report indicated that participation in a self-help course is what helped drive a woman to suicide, most likely because the course uncovered some hidden mental problems that then were uncontrolled. Caveat Emptor and then some, and always know what's going on before you let someone else try to help your head get screwed on straight.
Iraq suffered a large co-ordinated bombing attack, killing more than 120 and raising calls for resignations of security heads. The Prime Minister did some movement of officials, but there are bigger and angrier calls in the wings.
Iranian government forces and student protesters clashed heavily in a resurgence of the unrest around the alleged results that put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power several months ago. while the students are getting bolder, we'll see whether they go forward to the point of advocating the complete overthrow of the system or whether they are still just agitating for a change at the head, according to their election results.
In Nigeria, being stopped by the police could result in your death, if you don't have the money to pay bribes to the underpaid police force. Blargh. Corruption everywhere. Seems like the best option there is for the people to decide to scrap it and start again. Of course, there's no guarantees there that what results will be any better than what was. You might, instead, end up executing rogue traders, as China has, instead.
Last out, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency for the United States said the current administration is attempting to make up for lost time on climate change and promised there would be Congressional action to complement the actions of the Executive, instead of using the executive's power to regulate through agencies as an end-around lawmakers unwilling to take up the legislation. Mr. Lomborg suggests that the climate change attendees focus less on climate change (implied to be at least exaggerated, if not hoax-tastic) and more on helping the people of the world around their favorite climate change examples.
Domestically, yesterday we talked about how our drinking water sometimes fails tests for cleanliness standards. Today, we have the knowledge that fast food restaurants test more and have more stringent standards for contamination than the government uses for meats going into school lunches. So the next big bacterial breakout will be tainted food at a school, maybe? Wonder how well that's going to play.
More information about the connections between the Ugandans now pushing to kill their HIV-positive homosexuals and The Family, a secretive organization here in America that has lots of ties to lots of influential people. As the bill makes it way through, The General urges us to contact members of The Family and show our support for their work by sending them a stone and encouraging them to sponsor similar legislation here in America.
Several members of the Democratic Party are campaigning for election or re-election to office based on their opposition to the President's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. As is their right to do so. Anyone trying to make more of it, into some sort of "The Democrats are fracturing and will lose to Republicans" is making mountains out of anthills.
On health care, the public option is dead, long live the public option as Senators have apparently abandoned the idea of a government-run insurance option in favor of pushing to reduce the minimum age of entry into Medicare to 55 years and allowing those 55-64 to buy into the program at subsidized rates. Although, in the print of the article, it looks like the authorization to put in place a low-cost option is still retained by the Office of Personnel Management, but they have to use private-sector people first, and then can do it themselves if nobody signs up.
Additionally, although used as a throwaway line, the Senate version of the Stupak Amendment was permanently tabled, and thus the Senate bill has no punitive abortion restrictions. Not that the female Senators didn't get their chance to lay into the amendment, making apt comparisons of the availability of reproductive enhancement drugs for men without corresponding availability of reproductive control for women.
Last out, the homeowners's association threatening legal action against a veteran who flew his flag on a flagpole have relented on their threat, according to the spokesman for one of the Senators from that state. I wonder what sort of counterthreat was made against them if they persisted with their folly.
In the sciences and technologies of our lives, pets can be infected with H1N1 virus, but these are very rare cases, and we might have already synthesized the right drug to help with H1N1 infections anyway, an article about parts of the Internet that prize and thrive on their anonymity, including Freenet, whose creator penned a response about the dark aspects mentioned and his general happiness with the article, ways of getting robots to avoid collisions, requests for published authors to sign on to a letter supporting new legal frameworks that would permit adaptations of their work for he blind and visually impaired, Twoddler, a device that takes the play and input of toddlers and converts it to pre-defined Twitter updates, AT&T introducing incentives to make smartphone users use less of their data network, and the growing potential of smartphones to become musical instruments that we have everywhere, which means democratization of music composition, production and performance, along with all the neat possibilities that having a portable electronic instrument provides.
Striking into the opinion section, Mr. Crovitz on what may be peer-review for peer-review, where data disclosed or obtained is then checked by the wisdom of the crowds to determine whether the claims made are backed up by the data, using the disclosure of the East Anglia e-mails as an example of how the process could work better if instead of covering up and restricting data, it was released at the outset for the crowd to draw its own conclusions from. In other words, science at work (sort of - the ability to replicate experiments, especially on climate issues, is a bit difficult, as temporal displacement devices are not widely available.) Mr. Connor goes the opposite route, hailing the criminal hackers as intrepid skeptics, being all for transparency in data, and commenting on the foolishness of proceeding as if nothing had happened, criticizing the Administration's stance that climate gases still need regulation. Well, of course you like transparency if it helps to prove your point. That said, one corruption does not a complete undoing make - how many other studies have been conducted according to appropriate protocol, without manipulation, that conclude as the discredited study does? Why not investigate that, instead of jumping straight to the conclusion that there's a conspiracy to keep the doubters out?
In our juxtapositions department, criticism of stimulus spending from Senators, claiming that up to 15 percent of the spending is wasteful, a claim the administration denies, and Mr. Hill's complaints that the President's policies and actions have been completely against the spirit that generates jobs and profits, now mixed with Mr. Obama proposing to use some of the money that is left over from the TARP program to fund jobs and tax credits to get people hiring, resulting in... Republican opposition to the plan to use the money to fund jobs and tax credits, now apparently claiming that the money is better spent reducing the deficit. There's certainly an aspect of Party of No there, in that Republicans, who were so very much about spending on jobs and tax cuts, are suddenly opposing them. The truthout article also contains more about what has been done and what the plan still currently lacks to make it a truly effective use of funds.
Finally, Mr. Barone tells a shaggy dog story about the burdens of being commander in chief while having grown up in an environment usually hostile to the military resulting in a speech that seemed to have both of those men speaking from the podium all to say that he feels that the President should have used the word "victory" in his speech if he truly were committed to the war effort he just ordered.
Last for tonight, some retro-style graphics for some... very interesting creations, dictators, and more.
