Greetings, all. An impressive method of teaching and keeping students engaged, as well as the extra lessons it has imparted to those students, is a Zen moment called "My Favorite Liar".
For those constructing their own web sites and pages, consider PrimerCSS, that will extract all the classes and ids from pasted HTML and put them into a rudimentary style sheet you can then copy and modify yourself. For those looking for a bit more fun, real-life depictions of Calvin's Snowperson nightmares and the Weekly World News goes comic form.
Out in the world today... discipline for officers that used a riot shield as a toboggan. Something about me says this could have been spun as legitimate research, but they probably looked like they were having fun at it, so that's ruined.
Additionally, Haiti receives a strong multinational response to Tuesday's earthquake, which is good news, assuming that the aid can reach the people it is intended for, a logistical challenge of great proportions, before unrest becomes too big.
Domestically, an attempted art project highlighting Tiger Woods' infidelity on one of the products he previously endorsed has turned into criminal charges. Misbranding and altering food labels with intent to cause serious injury to the business of any person, to be specific, with penalties up to $250,000 USD. Which seems very much like using a sledge to swat a fly.
Those attempting to donate money to Haitian relief efforts through credit cards or text messages found out at first that the credit card companies were taking a cut of the donation, and the telephone companies were still charging fees for the donations, in both cases meaning the companies make profit off of your charity. They have since been shamed into waiving things now, but in just about every other scenario, they will still make that kind of money off you. Consider then when donating.
The NYT sheds light on the secret practices of the last administration hiding from the public information about how many people die in immigration prisons and the conditions and abuse that they died from.
Mr. Greenwald gives us a peek into a paper that recommended an expansion of the infiltrate and destroy tactics (most commonly known to be used against wannabe terror cells) to include organizations promoting conspiracy theories. Y'know, a tactic that the last administration was fond of using, not just against terror cells but to make "independent" voices also appear to be supporting the government through clandestine coordination of talking points or by paying off the independents. Worse, the current government has already used those tactics to generate positive feedback for their plans. I thought we were going to go back to transparent government with the new guy. It's what he promised, right? I mean, it's not like he's asking for a record amount of money to finance and fight the wars going on - he's suppsoed to be ending them. And he's supposed to be finding us jobs and maintaining our workforce, instead of letting companies make their workforces into not much more than temps, often without benefits and wondering from one day to the next whether there will be work for them, while coddling their managers and giving them lots of incentives to stay. And he's supposed to be helping restore freedoms and liberties, instead of helping to contribute to their decline by continuing selected policies of his predecessor. Different policies than the editors of the WSJ find to be the reason why things have gone down - they're blaiming him for trying to talk to nations they don't like and for not "promoting democracy" everywhere in some vigorous manner. Probably involving bombs, troops, and more land wars.
Photographing William S. Burroughs's stuff - peeking into the life of a visionary of the past. More photos at the photographer's site.
In a litigation-happy world, the slush pile is becoming a thing of the past, because of the possibility of being sued for stealing someoneone's idea, among other things.
Some bits about children, young, old, and studious. First, a tool from Taser Corp that allows a parent to hijack a child's mobile and control it, choosing whether to allow or deny calls, text messages, or to intercept the call and answer it before it even gets to the child's phone. Supposedly, it announces monitoring and the like, but its real value is simply as a leash that can be arbitrarily cut off for whatever reaons the parent feels is sufficient. Then, authorities trying to figure out how to curb young criminals who are convinced they will die early, and should thus get it all out while they can. Finally, a study showing that university students in the UK suffer from short attention spans, significantly caused by lack of sleep and the missing of lectures because of the need to hold part-time jobs while attending the university.
Last out, the story of the woman who assumed other identities, but instead of behaving obviously criminally with them, she became those people and reworked their previous lives into something that suited her, picking up education, college, and student loans along the way.
In technology, the urban legend of the Sony timer, where products die right after they fall out of warranty. Over here, we call it planned obsolescence, if I recall correctly, and it's everywhere, from gadgets to vehicles.
From there, questions on whether vitamin supplements are universally good for you, humans are at least partially virus DNA,
Last out of technology, Roxxxy, a soon-to-be-commercially available, AI-equipped, female-gendered sexual companion. Customizable, of course, not only with personalities, but with some features. And I know putting these two thigns together may create unintended juxtaposition, but I want to anyway, so following that is an article wondering whether the Bayonetta character, with her stylized, somewhat OTT sexuality, is an empowering character, because of her deliberate design, or an exploitative one, because she's still fanservice.
In the opinions, the head of the chamber of commerce said the Democrats are driving the country into another recession, claiming the country can't handle all the new taxes and expenditures coming from major domestic policy. He also claimed that by letting tax cuts expire, the country would run even higher defecits. So, in trying to get more revenue, the government ends up with more defecits? If certain people try harder to cheat the government because of those tax cuts expiring, or the government ends up spending more, thinking it will get more in revenues, maybe. It would be nice to cap spending as a percentage of revenue, just so the government has to pay back its debts. No person would vote for it, though. And speaking of government spending, IBD's editors think the stimulus is a flop, because banks decided to take free money and invest in Treasuries at 3 percent, making profit off of money that isn't theirs, instead of lending it out to consumers and businesses. Mr. McGurn says a second stimulus would be unwise, and the President knows it, beceause the first one didn't work at all, and thus the President isn't calling the second stimulus a stimulus because he knows that will get it shot down.
The WSJ proides what may be a three-part shaggy dog story about Senator Reid, starting with the accusation that Democrats are clinging to the race card, and their support of Reid is a double-standard compared to Lott's support of the segregationist candidate and what they are sure will be the denunciation of the next Republican to say something stupid on race, landing in their actual point, at the very last paragraph, where they say Reid should resign because he said Iraq was lost as the surge was working, so he should resign for being a "defeatist". The non-sequitur is the point, rather than the rest before it. Someone may need to edit the editors at the WSJ.
Last out of opinions, Mr. Chuck Norris speculates wildly about a conspiracy between the Obama Administration and INTERPOL, where the recent executive order makes it impossible for terrorist criminal records to be snagged be FOIA requests or the Justice Department and leads to...subjecting us to the International Criminal Court, painted to be a surpa-Constitutional body that will no doubt prosecute brave Americans as torturers and let terrorists walk free to bomb again. Which it won't be, because it will be ratified by a treaty, making it part of the law an dsubject to the Constitution. This is a Thing You Should Have Learned In School, Had You Been Paying Attention. And INTERPOL and the ICC certainly have no love for terrorists or genocidal maniacs.
And because there's still a health-care bill to be hammered out, there's time to try and make the populace believe that there are zillions of studies coming out all saying that the health care bill will be unsustainably expensive, reduce quality, and create different tiers of care and quality. While citing just one, of course. Mr. Boortz believes the administration is going back to the "tax the rich" playbook, sarcastically saying it's okay for the rich to pay more, because they're only rich through greed. Well, they are the rich, Mr. Boortz, which by definition means they have more money than most of us and can afford to pay more in taxes. If they actually would pay all the taxes they should, we'd probably be doing pretty good with revenues.
Speaking of Mr. Boortz, he believes the claim that President Obama strengthened America in his first year is bogus, by reinterpreting the official reasons given to suit his viewpoint and then adding on more examples of his own. Because the President is a liberal, of course, he can do no good, and thus must be both exposed as a liar and an egocentric man making proclamations about his own greatness.
Last for tonight, the history of fish and chips, a JAL jet with Doraemon characters on it, and some speculation as to the origins of the word "Zork".
For those constructing their own web sites and pages, consider PrimerCSS, that will extract all the classes and ids from pasted HTML and put them into a rudimentary style sheet you can then copy and modify yourself. For those looking for a bit more fun, real-life depictions of Calvin's Snowperson nightmares and the Weekly World News goes comic form.
Out in the world today... discipline for officers that used a riot shield as a toboggan. Something about me says this could have been spun as legitimate research, but they probably looked like they were having fun at it, so that's ruined.
Additionally, Haiti receives a strong multinational response to Tuesday's earthquake, which is good news, assuming that the aid can reach the people it is intended for, a logistical challenge of great proportions, before unrest becomes too big.
Domestically, an attempted art project highlighting Tiger Woods' infidelity on one of the products he previously endorsed has turned into criminal charges. Misbranding and altering food labels with intent to cause serious injury to the business of any person, to be specific, with penalties up to $250,000 USD. Which seems very much like using a sledge to swat a fly.
Those attempting to donate money to Haitian relief efforts through credit cards or text messages found out at first that the credit card companies were taking a cut of the donation, and the telephone companies were still charging fees for the donations, in both cases meaning the companies make profit off of your charity. They have since been shamed into waiving things now, but in just about every other scenario, they will still make that kind of money off you. Consider then when donating.
The NYT sheds light on the secret practices of the last administration hiding from the public information about how many people die in immigration prisons and the conditions and abuse that they died from.
Mr. Greenwald gives us a peek into a paper that recommended an expansion of the infiltrate and destroy tactics (most commonly known to be used against wannabe terror cells) to include organizations promoting conspiracy theories. Y'know, a tactic that the last administration was fond of using, not just against terror cells but to make "independent" voices also appear to be supporting the government through clandestine coordination of talking points or by paying off the independents. Worse, the current government has already used those tactics to generate positive feedback for their plans. I thought we were going to go back to transparent government with the new guy. It's what he promised, right? I mean, it's not like he's asking for a record amount of money to finance and fight the wars going on - he's suppsoed to be ending them. And he's supposed to be finding us jobs and maintaining our workforce, instead of letting companies make their workforces into not much more than temps, often without benefits and wondering from one day to the next whether there will be work for them, while coddling their managers and giving them lots of incentives to stay. And he's supposed to be helping restore freedoms and liberties, instead of helping to contribute to their decline by continuing selected policies of his predecessor. Different policies than the editors of the WSJ find to be the reason why things have gone down - they're blaiming him for trying to talk to nations they don't like and for not "promoting democracy" everywhere in some vigorous manner. Probably involving bombs, troops, and more land wars.
Photographing William S. Burroughs's stuff - peeking into the life of a visionary of the past. More photos at the photographer's site.
In a litigation-happy world, the slush pile is becoming a thing of the past, because of the possibility of being sued for stealing someoneone's idea, among other things.
Some bits about children, young, old, and studious. First, a tool from Taser Corp that allows a parent to hijack a child's mobile and control it, choosing whether to allow or deny calls, text messages, or to intercept the call and answer it before it even gets to the child's phone. Supposedly, it announces monitoring and the like, but its real value is simply as a leash that can be arbitrarily cut off for whatever reaons the parent feels is sufficient. Then, authorities trying to figure out how to curb young criminals who are convinced they will die early, and should thus get it all out while they can. Finally, a study showing that university students in the UK suffer from short attention spans, significantly caused by lack of sleep and the missing of lectures because of the need to hold part-time jobs while attending the university.
Last out, the story of the woman who assumed other identities, but instead of behaving obviously criminally with them, she became those people and reworked their previous lives into something that suited her, picking up education, college, and student loans along the way.
In technology, the urban legend of the Sony timer, where products die right after they fall out of warranty. Over here, we call it planned obsolescence, if I recall correctly, and it's everywhere, from gadgets to vehicles.
From there, questions on whether vitamin supplements are universally good for you, humans are at least partially virus DNA,
Last out of technology, Roxxxy, a soon-to-be-commercially available, AI-equipped, female-gendered sexual companion. Customizable, of course, not only with personalities, but with some features. And I know putting these two thigns together may create unintended juxtaposition, but I want to anyway, so following that is an article wondering whether the Bayonetta character, with her stylized, somewhat OTT sexuality, is an empowering character, because of her deliberate design, or an exploitative one, because she's still fanservice.
In the opinions, the head of the chamber of commerce said the Democrats are driving the country into another recession, claiming the country can't handle all the new taxes and expenditures coming from major domestic policy. He also claimed that by letting tax cuts expire, the country would run even higher defecits. So, in trying to get more revenue, the government ends up with more defecits? If certain people try harder to cheat the government because of those tax cuts expiring, or the government ends up spending more, thinking it will get more in revenues, maybe. It would be nice to cap spending as a percentage of revenue, just so the government has to pay back its debts. No person would vote for it, though. And speaking of government spending, IBD's editors think the stimulus is a flop, because banks decided to take free money and invest in Treasuries at 3 percent, making profit off of money that isn't theirs, instead of lending it out to consumers and businesses. Mr. McGurn says a second stimulus would be unwise, and the President knows it, beceause the first one didn't work at all, and thus the President isn't calling the second stimulus a stimulus because he knows that will get it shot down.
The WSJ proides what may be a three-part shaggy dog story about Senator Reid, starting with the accusation that Democrats are clinging to the race card, and their support of Reid is a double-standard compared to Lott's support of the segregationist candidate and what they are sure will be the denunciation of the next Republican to say something stupid on race, landing in their actual point, at the very last paragraph, where they say Reid should resign because he said Iraq was lost as the surge was working, so he should resign for being a "defeatist". The non-sequitur is the point, rather than the rest before it. Someone may need to edit the editors at the WSJ.
Last out of opinions, Mr. Chuck Norris speculates wildly about a conspiracy between the Obama Administration and INTERPOL, where the recent executive order makes it impossible for terrorist criminal records to be snagged be FOIA requests or the Justice Department and leads to...subjecting us to the International Criminal Court, painted to be a surpa-Constitutional body that will no doubt prosecute brave Americans as torturers and let terrorists walk free to bomb again. Which it won't be, because it will be ratified by a treaty, making it part of the law an dsubject to the Constitution. This is a Thing You Should Have Learned In School, Had You Been Paying Attention. And INTERPOL and the ICC certainly have no love for terrorists or genocidal maniacs.
And because there's still a health-care bill to be hammered out, there's time to try and make the populace believe that there are zillions of studies coming out all saying that the health care bill will be unsustainably expensive, reduce quality, and create different tiers of care and quality. While citing just one, of course. Mr. Boortz believes the administration is going back to the "tax the rich" playbook, sarcastically saying it's okay for the rich to pay more, because they're only rich through greed. Well, they are the rich, Mr. Boortz, which by definition means they have more money than most of us and can afford to pay more in taxes. If they actually would pay all the taxes they should, we'd probably be doing pretty good with revenues.
Speaking of Mr. Boortz, he believes the claim that President Obama strengthened America in his first year is bogus, by reinterpreting the official reasons given to suit his viewpoint and then adding on more examples of his own. Because the President is a liberal, of course, he can do no good, and thus must be both exposed as a liar and an egocentric man making proclamations about his own greatness.
Last for tonight, the history of fish and chips, a JAL jet with Doraemon characters on it, and some speculation as to the origins of the word "Zork".