![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Leading tonight's parade is the Vintage Ad Browser, where you can go back to yesteryear and see all the wonderful and scary things that were advertisements.
Out in the world, the screaming heads that say "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" any time someone mentions the possibility that any sort of sexual characteristic might be in a public space have complained that full-body scanners intended to search for weapons and contraband take images of sufficiently-detailed resolution that gentialia can be seen, and thus the scanners are in violation of child pornography laws (as well as having to make sure the images are disposed of properly, instead of sold, especially when celebrities come through the scanners...). Can we trust people to be professional in these circumstances? Really? Please? You should be more concerned about the couple that tattooed their children with a needle made from guitar wire because the kids wanted the tatoos. Or the myriads of Zero Tolerance Policies that have zero intelligence in their crafting or execution.
For some in the Japanese economy, home means a bunk just barely big enough to fit the person. This is both an idea fraught with potential for disaster and an excellent re-use of materials built for a completely different purpose. I think those with submersible naval experience will be able to tell us best what life is like in a capsule hotel.
Domestically, the teabaggers continue to make themselves more and more into a performance art movement that too many people are taking seriously. The latest? Calling for a national strike on inauguration day. They want people to not consume nor go to work that day. A general strike? Who used that in the past? Oh, right. Socialists and union workers, sort of the antithesis of the average teabagger. Despite this continued parody of an actual political movement, Representative Bachmann takes them seriously and believes the GOP should allow themselves to become the party of teabagging. You may facepalm or headpiano at any time.
However, they've been done one better - Fox "News" commentator Brit Hume said on air that Tiger Woods will only recover from his scandal and his adultery if he converts to Christianity, because Christianity is the only religion that forgives, heals, and offers redemption. For which Don Imus set him straight about Nirvana on his own program.
And there's also the Obama hung in effigy in former President Carter's hometown. That would be in Plains, Georgia, in a region of the country that has historically had problems with black people in any sort of power, or even as free peoples.
On what is supposed to be the more sane side of politics, the Republican Party accused President Obama of dropping the chainsaw of national security because he was trying to juggle all his domestic chainsaws, an unacceptable change of focus from the Concept War that must be always founght all the time, giving the "defense" industry everything they want and restricting the freedoms of the populace whenever keeping the populace afraid of terrorists demands it. The previous vice-administrator claimed Mr. Obama was trying to pretend the Concept War didn't exist because he isn't trying to keep the populace completely terified of brown people. Instead, he might be engaging in a bit more security theater to quiet the rabble, which can produce some strange things, including resurgent conspiracy theorization that accuses the United States of perpetuating the attack against itself so as to open up another land war in Asia. More sanely, the administration defends its decision to utilize the criminal justice system, instead of military commissions or other extrajudicial methods, even as the opponents scream fear and terror in the name of the Concept War. There is fair criticism for the way the TSA reacted to it, but Mr. Steyn also mixes in criticism that resembles Mr. Cheney's, where the President is living in some sort of fantasy land where the Concept War doesn't exist.
Less about the politics, the group that helped to create the legal framework for introducing capital punishment has declared the experiment a failure and washed their hands of it, because they believe there's no way the system that we have will make capital pnuishment work effectively and appropriately.
American job satisfaction has hit a record low, probably because people are scrambling to find any job, including one they hate, just about everyone feels they're not being paid enough for their work, and the sword of Damocles that is layoffs hands perilously close to people, meaning the stress levels are going way up.
Governemnt-sponsored enterprises invested in real estate might lose up to $400 billion USD on the toxic assets they bought from other institutions. Which was, in some ways, the point of the matter - although some of those units may eventually be sold over the long term for their initial investment cost.
And last out, the dumb criminals file strikes with a lady who punched through a drive-through window in a rage because the chicken nugget product was not available. Wonder if she wants some of Innocent Kids Juices.
Technology begins with the knowledge that a Kodak brand picture frame will broadcast to the world all your pictures...and that it broadcasts in the clear the MAC address of such a frame such that you could change those numbers and access someone else's pictures. Makes you wonder what someone would put on their frames, then, hoping that someone would stumble across it.
From there, successful use of social media to build a customer base - by making the experience intensely personal, a charge of negligence against the doctor that assisted in the fertility treatments and births for Nadya Suleman, aka "Octomom", because the doc didn't recognize that her behavior was an outlier and she wanted to do things that were dangerous to her and her offspring, the designation of dolphins as non-human persons by several scientists (So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish), black holes waltzing around each other and causing galaxies to merge as they dance, and mind hacks for making your resolution and new habits stick until they become ingrained.
Welcome to opinions, where Bono thinks automobiles should be sexy again, America's ISPs should monitor everything to pirated content, and a few other things. Sexy autos, sure, but ISP monitoring? Watch as the traffic disappears onto darknets or places that won't monitor your activities on-line for the thought police.
Mr. Hill complains that Bank of America is not willing to let its good mortgage customers refinance into fixed mortgages, while concentrating on getting as many of its bad customers into other arrangements. Presumably, according to Mr. Hill, because the good customers will be more profitable if left in their current situation. Thus, he's calling to schedule his default, because perhaps then he can get some help refinancing his mortgage.
Mr. McCullough believes President Obama is blinded by his choice to see terrorists as poor people, when they are really religious radicals, and that most of the world's poor (as evidenced by his travels to lots of non-Arabian Peninsula areas) want to be part of America, not mad at it. Mr. Bozell III suggests Orwellian terminology at work in the mainstream media making the stimulus spending a success, while Republican tax cuts like the Great Reagan's are painted as failures, despite the opposite being obviously true.
Mr. Bozeman believes the passage of a health care bill will be the nail in the coffin for self-reliance, as government care will soon shoulder out all the other competition. Which, depending on your point of view, is the intended effect or the abomination of abominations. He is correct, though, in nothing that whomever controls health care controls the people. He even mentions and that currently, that control is in the hands of insurance companies and employers - what he fails to mention is the companies avoid competition for customers while maintaining the premise of it (competing for profits, really), and so would need real competition instead of their oligopoly, and those companies screw employers and employees over equally well.
Mr. David Reilly reads a bill cover-to-cover, finds it much of the same stuff that created the current mess getting more power and money and nothing at all of real reform of the financial industry. Which was about what we expected from them, considering how little actual reform is being talked about in the halls of the Congress. Taking the matter several steps further, which is at least one step too far, Mr. Birdnow believes the Obama push toward transparency should result in lots of investigation into the Obamas and the last year itself, where he sees machinations with corrupt politicians, Mrs. Obama supposedly receiving a salary for work she couldn't have possibly done, being in D.C. while the hospital was in Chicago, and presidential transcripts from college as good ways of being open and transparent about the President and his family. As for legislation, he believes transparency means going through a complete reading of the health care bill, which will result in its inevitable defeat, of course, because once exposed to what the bill really is, everyone will be against it. Only on that point does he have a plausible argument. Digging into the private life of the President, and his past associations, because you think the people want to know and will turn on him once his past is put to light is wrong and better suited for the tabloids than for anyone claiming to be a serious columnist. If he wants to restrict himself to any dealings done as the President of the United States in his official capacity, you might find firmer ground, but I don't think that's what he has in mind.
Last out of the opinions, Ms. Herzog on the poor plight of poor black students in DC, forced to go back to substandard public schools with unionized teachers more interested in padding their own already-exorbitant salaries than in actually teaching or funding their schools enough to have a full school day.
Last for tonight, Equalitopia, the place where we look at what is making things more equal and what is destroying that equality.
Out in the world, the screaming heads that say "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" any time someone mentions the possibility that any sort of sexual characteristic might be in a public space have complained that full-body scanners intended to search for weapons and contraband take images of sufficiently-detailed resolution that gentialia can be seen, and thus the scanners are in violation of child pornography laws (as well as having to make sure the images are disposed of properly, instead of sold, especially when celebrities come through the scanners...). Can we trust people to be professional in these circumstances? Really? Please? You should be more concerned about the couple that tattooed their children with a needle made from guitar wire because the kids wanted the tatoos. Or the myriads of Zero Tolerance Policies that have zero intelligence in their crafting or execution.
For some in the Japanese economy, home means a bunk just barely big enough to fit the person. This is both an idea fraught with potential for disaster and an excellent re-use of materials built for a completely different purpose. I think those with submersible naval experience will be able to tell us best what life is like in a capsule hotel.
Domestically, the teabaggers continue to make themselves more and more into a performance art movement that too many people are taking seriously. The latest? Calling for a national strike on inauguration day. They want people to not consume nor go to work that day. A general strike? Who used that in the past? Oh, right. Socialists and union workers, sort of the antithesis of the average teabagger. Despite this continued parody of an actual political movement, Representative Bachmann takes them seriously and believes the GOP should allow themselves to become the party of teabagging. You may facepalm or headpiano at any time.
However, they've been done one better - Fox "News" commentator Brit Hume said on air that Tiger Woods will only recover from his scandal and his adultery if he converts to Christianity, because Christianity is the only religion that forgives, heals, and offers redemption. For which Don Imus set him straight about Nirvana on his own program.
And there's also the Obama hung in effigy in former President Carter's hometown. That would be in Plains, Georgia, in a region of the country that has historically had problems with black people in any sort of power, or even as free peoples.
On what is supposed to be the more sane side of politics, the Republican Party accused President Obama of dropping the chainsaw of national security because he was trying to juggle all his domestic chainsaws, an unacceptable change of focus from the Concept War that must be always founght all the time, giving the "defense" industry everything they want and restricting the freedoms of the populace whenever keeping the populace afraid of terrorists demands it. The previous vice-administrator claimed Mr. Obama was trying to pretend the Concept War didn't exist because he isn't trying to keep the populace completely terified of brown people. Instead, he might be engaging in a bit more security theater to quiet the rabble, which can produce some strange things, including resurgent conspiracy theorization that accuses the United States of perpetuating the attack against itself so as to open up another land war in Asia. More sanely, the administration defends its decision to utilize the criminal justice system, instead of military commissions or other extrajudicial methods, even as the opponents scream fear and terror in the name of the Concept War. There is fair criticism for the way the TSA reacted to it, but Mr. Steyn also mixes in criticism that resembles Mr. Cheney's, where the President is living in some sort of fantasy land where the Concept War doesn't exist.
Less about the politics, the group that helped to create the legal framework for introducing capital punishment has declared the experiment a failure and washed their hands of it, because they believe there's no way the system that we have will make capital pnuishment work effectively and appropriately.
American job satisfaction has hit a record low, probably because people are scrambling to find any job, including one they hate, just about everyone feels they're not being paid enough for their work, and the sword of Damocles that is layoffs hands perilously close to people, meaning the stress levels are going way up.
Governemnt-sponsored enterprises invested in real estate might lose up to $400 billion USD on the toxic assets they bought from other institutions. Which was, in some ways, the point of the matter - although some of those units may eventually be sold over the long term for their initial investment cost.
And last out, the dumb criminals file strikes with a lady who punched through a drive-through window in a rage because the chicken nugget product was not available. Wonder if she wants some of Innocent Kids Juices.
Technology begins with the knowledge that a Kodak brand picture frame will broadcast to the world all your pictures...and that it broadcasts in the clear the MAC address of such a frame such that you could change those numbers and access someone else's pictures. Makes you wonder what someone would put on their frames, then, hoping that someone would stumble across it.
From there, successful use of social media to build a customer base - by making the experience intensely personal, a charge of negligence against the doctor that assisted in the fertility treatments and births for Nadya Suleman, aka "Octomom", because the doc didn't recognize that her behavior was an outlier and she wanted to do things that were dangerous to her and her offspring, the designation of dolphins as non-human persons by several scientists (So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish), black holes waltzing around each other and causing galaxies to merge as they dance, and mind hacks for making your resolution and new habits stick until they become ingrained.
Welcome to opinions, where Bono thinks automobiles should be sexy again, America's ISPs should monitor everything to pirated content, and a few other things. Sexy autos, sure, but ISP monitoring? Watch as the traffic disappears onto darknets or places that won't monitor your activities on-line for the thought police.
Mr. Hill complains that Bank of America is not willing to let its good mortgage customers refinance into fixed mortgages, while concentrating on getting as many of its bad customers into other arrangements. Presumably, according to Mr. Hill, because the good customers will be more profitable if left in their current situation. Thus, he's calling to schedule his default, because perhaps then he can get some help refinancing his mortgage.
Mr. McCullough believes President Obama is blinded by his choice to see terrorists as poor people, when they are really religious radicals, and that most of the world's poor (as evidenced by his travels to lots of non-Arabian Peninsula areas) want to be part of America, not mad at it. Mr. Bozell III suggests Orwellian terminology at work in the mainstream media making the stimulus spending a success, while Republican tax cuts like the Great Reagan's are painted as failures, despite the opposite being obviously true.
Mr. Bozeman believes the passage of a health care bill will be the nail in the coffin for self-reliance, as government care will soon shoulder out all the other competition. Which, depending on your point of view, is the intended effect or the abomination of abominations. He is correct, though, in nothing that whomever controls health care controls the people. He even mentions and that currently, that control is in the hands of insurance companies and employers - what he fails to mention is the companies avoid competition for customers while maintaining the premise of it (competing for profits, really), and so would need real competition instead of their oligopoly, and those companies screw employers and employees over equally well.
Mr. David Reilly reads a bill cover-to-cover, finds it much of the same stuff that created the current mess getting more power and money and nothing at all of real reform of the financial industry. Which was about what we expected from them, considering how little actual reform is being talked about in the halls of the Congress. Taking the matter several steps further, which is at least one step too far, Mr. Birdnow believes the Obama push toward transparency should result in lots of investigation into the Obamas and the last year itself, where he sees machinations with corrupt politicians, Mrs. Obama supposedly receiving a salary for work she couldn't have possibly done, being in D.C. while the hospital was in Chicago, and presidential transcripts from college as good ways of being open and transparent about the President and his family. As for legislation, he believes transparency means going through a complete reading of the health care bill, which will result in its inevitable defeat, of course, because once exposed to what the bill really is, everyone will be against it. Only on that point does he have a plausible argument. Digging into the private life of the President, and his past associations, because you think the people want to know and will turn on him once his past is put to light is wrong and better suited for the tabloids than for anyone claiming to be a serious columnist. If he wants to restrict himself to any dealings done as the President of the United States in his official capacity, you might find firmer ground, but I don't think that's what he has in mind.
Last out of the opinions, Ms. Herzog on the poor plight of poor black students in DC, forced to go back to substandard public schools with unionized teachers more interested in padding their own already-exorbitant salaries than in actually teaching or funding their schools enough to have a full school day.
Last for tonight, Equalitopia, the place where we look at what is making things more equal and what is destroying that equality.
