One more day left - 30 December 2009

Make all things new, we will, soon, and celebrate another Gregorian year ending, and a new decade beginning. The year in the Pacific Northwest saw a lot destroyed, often carelessly or wastefully. More individually, the city of Lakewood is seeking relief from someone who makes a lot of public records requests, because he's apparently too much of a drain on city resources. What I wonder is why there aren't more people making more requests of all levels of government. And why it would take that many requests - most of what government does is supposed to be public information...

As all things continue on, internationally, the tug of war between letting the Iranian protesters play out their hands and see what happens and actively interfering to boost the protesters chances of success continues. I think we're still waiting to see whether the thing put up in place of the old way will be substanitally different. It definitely seems like the protesters are here to stay and will not be easily rolled over, so now it's a matter of deciding if we have compatible aims. Support for those whose ideals are compatible is probably the next logical step. As is, hopefully, curbing ideas that will lead to much more indiscriminate bloodshed. And even if rumors that the leaders are planning on fleeing are true, what rises in their place will be a most interesting thing.

Afghanistan after nine years may revert easilt to the way it was once the United States and NATO troops actually leave, if the idea about "Time running out" on the United States strategy is true. Which would make the United States another casualty in the line of people who have tried to make Afghanistan something better than it is. Of course, some believe the mention of any timeline for drawdown indicated the United States has already given up on the task, and their efforts will be hurt more as insurgents try to wait out the timeline.

Now that it's come to light in the papers as a place where the latest attacker got material, Yemen is going to be on people's lips as a terror haven, including calls to begin yet another land war in Asia there...likely also without stopping to think about the place they want to attack.

Missile difficulties - defensive shield means threats of new offensive warheads, and the dance between Russia and the United States continues. Despite the real knowledge that there are so many weapons pointed at each other that Terra would be atomized were they all to detonate.

Domestically, al-Qaeda claims responsibility for the failed attack in Detroit. What I always wonder is why more groups don't take credit for things like that to boost their own reputations. It always seems like there's only one and others aren't trying to usurp their prestige. After all, our political groups won't hesitate to seize whatever datum they can that will prove their belief that someone else is responsible for security failures.

An article throwing more heat than light by the Washington Times about the transfer of the chief prosecutor who recommended Justice go forward with a voter intimidation complaint against the New Black Panther Party, implying the move was a political decision done to bury the case and the people who worked on it.

Did you know there's no head of the TSA right now? And furthermore, his appointment is being blocked because one senator thinks the new boss might let his workers organize and join unions? Clearly, unions are the real terrorists to Jim DeMint - the people trying to detonate explosives are just a sideshow. Furthermore, a reminder from your "Pay attention to the name" department - terrorists intend to inflict terror on the population. Thus, your best defense against them is not to get scared. By not being scared witless, too, you can reognize when incoherent arguments that the rule of law should only be selectively applied are being thrown at you with the command "Obey! Obey! Fear! Fear!". And you can recognize when there's something totally not kosher about the TSA delivering threats to the bloggers that posted the new security directives after receiving copies of them from an anonymous source.

Technology begins with a challenge to reveal the sales amounts for the Amazon Kindle, to break the secrecy over vague statement about how well the Kindle's sales really have done.

From there, transparent goldfish, which makes biology studying that much easier, estimatinng how much information the average American consumed in 2008, which was about 100,000+ words and 34 gigabytes of other per day, mostly video, and an idea to turn sand into sandstone with microbes, and thus build a wall that will stop the expansion of great deserts, with an eye toward getting plant life and other greening units back into the desert to thrive.

In the opinions, Mr. Koppel says that we have to cut the ties of the Federal purse strings to private enterprise if we don't want TARP to be a regular occurrence, with some banks dominating the industry. We agree. Cut the strings, and break up the institutions. Since Wall Street&apo;s bailout has had no effect at all in making Main Street's life better, and may have in fact made it worse, those of us in the real economy might fight for ourselves and our money by divesting ourselves of the giant, too big to fail banks wherever possible and moving our money to local banks and credit unions, taking our business elsewhere.

The WSJ editorial board takes the attemtped terrorist attack to try and browbeat everyone into believing there's still the need to hold people extrajudicially, basing their reasoning on the point that the Concept War is necessary and that current efforts are failing miserably. So, giving into the terror is the best way to fight terror, right? Significantly more sanely, they also believe the FAA neds to modernize its network and equipment so that planes can depart in a more orderly fashion, and the new regulatiosn and fines regarding long tarmac waits are the wrong way to go.

The WSJ also rails agains tthe use of courts to try and compel emission reductions and other practices based on nusiance laws and blaming megacorps for environmental destruction. They see it as a runaway train that will get worse and as just one more way radical environmentalists are trying to get around the legislative and/or treaty process to achieve their ends. It almost sounds like they've gotten smart and want to run the same tactics against their opponents they feel they've had run at them over the years.

Mr. Fund figures the compromise version of the health care bill will be conducted entirely in secret, with no actual compromise committee meetings, but just having changes bounced back and forth between the two places until a final bill materializes and is passed by both houses as a rush job, naturally leaving out the time needed to study the bill and raise objections. He cites Michel Bloomberg as another person who would at least like the bill to be comprehensible before it gets voted on. Well, that could be easily accomplished - Medicare for all. Done.

Mr. Steil is already convinced that the actions so far in bailing out and letting banks keep bad assets on their books will bring us a nice rebound recession, and governemnt spending so far will only worsen it. /On top of that, the WSJ editors believe a defecit-reduction commission is only cover to get bipartisan support for higher taxes, taxes that will not acually curb the defecit, and no real spending cuts. Republicans should apparently refust to work on such a thing unless tax increases are taken away from the beginning, thus forcing the Democrats to make become the unpopular party that cut entitlements, because nobody sure as hell is going to cut military expenditures. And with tax increases off the table, there's no convenient way of making the people who should be paying the most actually pay their taxes.

Ms. Parker turns her lens inward, claiming that the real front of the Concept War is at home, where our leaders have no moral pillars, are passing socialism disguised as health care, ignore those struggling for freedom and snub our allies as we reach out to dictators, but thankfully there are still enough Real Americans who know what the country is that they will change us back to our path of good and righteousness - probably right during or after the midterm elections, I'm guessing. She may find a kindred spirit in Mr. McGurn, who feels that the President of the United States is not using his photo-op powers to promote democracy and good causes through he world, the causes that would antagonize a lot of major players in the world.

Fred Barnes believes the current administration is operating on a "tyrrany of the minority", because the American populace doesn't want what they're putting out. Casually neglected in his attempt to apply de Tocqueville to the current situation is why those people aren't buying what's sold. He starts with the lack of bipartisanship, which is a matter of "it takes two to tango", where Democratic forging ahead can be just as easily seen as a product of obstructionism by the minority party as it is some wild desire to go and accomplish the agenda no matter who stands in the way. From there, it's all about how the people don't want things like the stimulus or health care, implying that the country is opposed to it because of the conservative reasons to oppose it - an untrue statement. A significant chunk of people opposing those plans did so because they felt they were insufficiently Left, leaving in place insurance companies or not doing nearly enough to kickstart infrastructure because Republicans demanded tax breaks for the very people that should be paying in more. The Democrats are forging ahead with what they can get, which is a compromise that will satisfy nobody. That said, what they're doing is probably still going to be helpful. Finally, Mr. Barnes, on a lot of civil rights legislation, the majority was not in favor of it at all. It took court cases first, and then legislation finally came afterward, and even today, there are plenty of people who oppose women voting or minority equality or homosexuals being able to marry. Every time, there's been a cry about how a minority is dictating to the majority. That said, today, the majroity of Americans think those radical ideas of he past are great ideas now. It's the cycle, Mr. Barnes, and you're probably on the wrong end of it. Learn from your history.

And last out - teenage heart-throb Kevin Jonas, now married, finds waiting until marriage to have been, ahem, anticlimactic. While that doesn't qualfit as a whopper of a lie for this year, it does sort of underlie that abstinence may not work in other ways, too - one might be underwhelmed by the experience with one's married partner, too.

At the tail end of today's material, the concept of UsExpress, a package delivery system that aims to take advantage of the normal driving people do to transport cargo, utilizing the United States Postal Service for coverage where there aren't regular carriers going. It's an idea that basically hopes to harness people's daily commutes and regular trips, driving they already do, as a means of transporting packages to and from locales for a fairly cheap price, considering the company would not necessarily have to maintain a fleet of employees and vehicles and pay the associated costs.

That, Tom Gauld, the fact that lead outperformed gold in 2009, and an appeal for people to behave civily on-line, to shun gossip sites and comments that are inflammatory, and to provide support for the victims of on-line abuse. One part "Don't feed the trolls", one part "make it so that the trolls don't develop".

Good bye, 2009 - 31 December 2009

To start your final news for this year - The Baby-Sitter's Club will be returning to try and capture a new generation of readers. That said, one wonders whether the practice of baby-sitting is sufficiently popular these days as to make the books' premise believable. Then again, when confronted with adverts that make the "for girls" versions of science tools have less power, I realize just how far people have to go to get acceptance for women in science and math. Thus, we must promote "Shopping is hard - Let's do math."

Hip, hip, huzzah! Hip, hip, huzzah! Hip, hip, huzzah! Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Peter Jackson, each awarded knighthoods in England and New Zealand, respectively.

Prime Minister Harper has asked for and been granted a request to shut the Parliament of Canada down until March, which is beginning to sound like a tradition for him.

For those people waiting eagerly for next year to be better... or at least to get some revenge on the people who dominated the news working against them, we have three units of interest. From tamest to most wild - Karl Rove is gettign dicorced, which means not that much, because he was never much of a marriage culture warrior. Then, Rick Warren's megachruch is about $900,000 USD in the hole and needs donations, which you could take some schadenfreude in because of the Saddleback church's stance on homosexual marriage and other social issues, and then Boss Limbaugh is admitetd to the hospital with chest pains for a possibly heart-related condition, for which more people than there probably should be are hoping that it's a scary experience for him and that he comes out a little kinder and nicer and less of a blowhard liar. We choose not to acknowledge the faction that wishes he doesn't come out of the hospital.

Something mroe sobering, as we begin the international section - the latest Afghan bomber, responsible for the death of at least seven CIA officers, was wearing an Afghan Army uniform, underscoring the difficulty one has in telling friend from for when they're wearing the right clothes to pass undetected. More information on the attack from Fox.

Domestically, the response from Republicans on the current administrator's three-day wait before commenting on the underpants bombing is markedly different from their lack of response when the previous administrator took six days to comment on the shoe bomber. Not that hypocrisy is new among politicians, but this is particularly embarrassing for the party that claims it's always tough on national security and wants to start yet another land war in Asia to stop the terrorists from bringing the fight here. Yeah, it's Joe Lieberman, but I doubt the Republican Party disagrees with him. Besides, the 101st Fighting Keyboarders will give Obama an F on protecting America unprompted, because he's not seeming to take anything seriously and this incident is clearly His Administration's Fault.

In opinions, we criticize because we love. No, really. People on the left criticizing the President for being a sellout center-rightist continuer of and apologist for Bush practices, willing to sacrifice any sort of real reform to appease the members of his own party that should be part of the opposition are doing it because they want the country to succeed, not because they want the party or the President to fail.

Mr. Coughlin opines about the vulnerability of Iran's leaders as the WSJ editorial board says it's time to learn the names of the democracy dissidents in Iran, further pushing the idea that the demonstrators are agitating for real Western-style democracy instead of wanting the election to be fairly arbitrated and the system to be relatively undisturbed.

Mr. Wallison continues to blame the government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their buying decisions for why the financial crisis happened, believing HUD's guarantees and requirements to lend to lower-income borrowers started and continue to drive the dangerous practice.

Mr. Fund decries persons registering to vote in the counties of their second homes as a nakedly political attempt to upset the balance of power. To me, this sounds like the opposite of gerrymandering - people crossing lines and coting in certain places to get their candidates elected.

Ms. Finley has fun with the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Department by carefully not saying high taxes are the only reason people are unhappy, according to a new study, but they definitely contribute, even displaying the conclusion of "high taxes without the perception of corresponding high levels of service makes people unhappy" without hiding or obfuscating it. It's a well-crafted opinion that admits to the possibility that other things also contribute, while making sure to find the thing that she wants to highlight as a root cause.

Mr. Jenkins, Jr. tut-tuts the Chicken Littles saying airport security is a woefully dismal failure, by pointing out what airplane attacks have looked like in the last eight years - small, ineffective whatevers blown out of proportion with ineffective reactionary responses. Ye gods, two sane opinions in the same issue? Happy New Year!

Balance must be maintained, however, and thus, the WSJ devotes time and column space to how overblown the commentary against Jim DeMint is, because unions really are the greater threat to security, because they entrench bad workers and make it impossible to get rid of them, and Yemen is to be blamed and scrutinized for the attack and attacker, not the TSA.

And then we get Mr. Hanson, repeating old lies about the socialist President, who wants bureaucratic control of our health, misrepresented himself as a moderate so as to implement a radically Leftist agenda, and continues to do his thing against the will of a clear majority that opposes him (for their own separate reasons, of course, but that is never really made mention of...) and doesn't want the elites doing what they think is best for us all (excepting for the people that do want to elect smart people so they can rule us intelligently). Mr. Shelby Steele returns to the "empty suit" argument with more, erm, sophistication, considering the election of Barack Obama to have been an "Emperor's New Clothes" style of illusion on racism that let a person who concealed who he really was ascend to the Presidency without anyone trying to uncover him, without taking stands that defined him for who he was, and relying wholly on the collective guilt of white America to vote for the black man without investigating him so they wouldn't be seen as racists.

And to close out, Mr. Sowell says the health care bill is not about health care, but about Barack Obama's ego and desire to impose his will on the people, just like the stimulus bill was about his ego and his appointment of "czars" was about imposing himself and the liberal elite on the people, who are now too dumb to question liberal ideology because their schools didn't educate them enough and their colleges are all unflinchingly liberal, so there's no way they could have truly learned conservatism so as to dedice it is the true philosophy and slavishly follow it instead. And thus, we end where we began, a whole year gone by and no real changes to the arguments against the President, despite all he's done, said, and had done to him by those seeking to make him "compromise".

Last for tonight, Happy New Year with postcards from the past detailing a flight from Japan to London, and a way of possibly stopping the spread of resistant superbugs - stop giving so many antibiotics.