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Salutations to all our persons, individual and corporate, reading our dispatch.
Top billing today to the Supreme Court of the United States, ruling 5-4 that corporations should be allowed to spend their money directly purchasing political advertisements and messages in support or opposition of candidates. Corporate persons are still currently prohibited from directly contributing to campaigns, but they are much more easily able to buy airwaves and media time. This could have a beneficial side effect - one may be able to more precisely determine the prices at which politicians sold their votes to corporate interests, and determine the political positions of those corporate interests, without having to go through the fig leaf of a PAC or an Astroturf group. SCOTUS may have done transparency advocates a favor, even as they let corporate entities flood the airwaves with dollars in support or opposition. I now wonder whether media corporations will be able to spend their own money for adverts and the like in support or opposition. (More so than they do now. I realize NewsCorp and GE already do plenty of that, just in the form of shows and papers and such...)
In the international sphere, the presence of missile in Poland may hamper the new United States-Russia missile agreement, but it is unlikely to derail it, according to sources.
Last out of international news, The Century of the Fruitbat claims Nepal, with a new constitution going into place that will guarantee rights for homosexuals and other sexual minorities.
Domestically, a reminder that affiliation with a political party provides a handy shortcut, but is never a complete picture of a person's beliefs. Two solid examples, one known, one not known, from the McCain family - Meghan McCain, who continues to agitate for a brand of Republicanism that will tell teabaggers and homophobes to sod off, and is the well-known example, and Cindy McCain, who lent her image to the No H8 campaign. One would almost expect John McCain to make a statement in favor of equality, too, but I don't remember him doing so during his campaign or since. Perhaps this is where the divide is.
Speaking of homosexuals, political scientist and professor Gary M. Segura took to the stand in the Proposition 8 trial to lay out the idea that homosexuals hold almost no real political power, despite perceptions in certain circles that homosexuals hold great amounts of power and give marching orders to various politicians. This lack of power, according to the plaintiffs, indicates that homosexuals should be treated as a group deserving protection. The prevalence of ballot initiatives against them and their general lack in political office were cited as evidence in favor of the lack of power. Also testifying was Ryan Kendall, survivor of an "ex-gay" conversion "therapy" technique that left him suicidal.
Furthermore, the people behind ProtectMarriage.com have sued the Courage Campaign for copyright infringement of the Protect Marriage Logo. The Courage campaign defends their logo, insisting that it is a parody of the original. Just by looking at the two logos, I'd say there's also good grounds for a defense saying the two are different enough that they would not be mistaken for each other.
The 2010 Census may be an undercount because people don't want to participate or distrust the federal government enough to refuse. The second reason is fairly disturbing, and suggests to me that some people have bought into Bachmann-style nonsense about the government using census data for something other than the enumeration of the persons and the redrawing of Congressional districts. Others are afraid the data will be used to locate illegal immigrants or violate privacy. The times article focuses on minority groups as being wary about privacy concerns, perhaps because they don't want to mention the Congresscritter from Minnesota, since she messes up the narrative about only minorities being concerned?
And still on the topic of things that people get scared over for no reason, the presence of prayer boxes on an observant Jew was sufficient to divert a plane to Philadelphia because of a terrorism scare. While I can understand someone speaking prayers in a language nobody understands using props, I still am annoyed that the first reaction to this is "Ahh! Terrorists!"
The FBI admitted to procedural mistakes in the handling of the Fruit of the Boom bomber, saying they should have turned him over to a particular group established for high intelligence value persons. Unclear from the article is whether or not said bomber would have been interrogated and held without charges or rights had proper procedure been followed. If the FBI director says that al-Qaeda is rebuilding and spreading, I'm betting that holding without charging is still going to be standard operating procedure for a while.
In lighter fare, the Interior Secretary has said that he was snakes off planes coming into florida. At your leisure, play the iconic clip of Samuel L. Jackson.
Science is a bit light today - discovering ways that tumors defeat the drugs designed for them, The IPCC says a claim about Himalayan glaciers melting was not backed by science, but mostly by sensationalism, further hurting their reputation as an independenet scientific body, and veterans who claim they were experimented on without their consent regarding implanted electronics, mind control, and experimental drugs are given an okay to proceed with suit against the CIA, an organization that Ron Paul suggests has performed a coup on the government and needs to be removed from its power.
The big thing is a new study indicating young children have more exposure and use of media than five years ago, thanks in significant part to the ubiquity of cellular phones that have multimedia capabilities and portable media players with added functionality. For the scare-mongers, there's an indication that many of those children have no rules about the usage of their media, and their grades are fair to poor with that big media usage. For those wondering where they can find about 7.5 hours a day and pack about 10+ hours of content into that time, well, there's a lot of social media stuff going on there, and again, see above about ubiquitous multimedia devices.
In the opinions, The Infamous Brad leads with some advice to Mr. Obama - grab your thumbscrews and start twisting. Joe Lieberman would be a good place to start.
The Slacktivist reminds us, in a vein reminiscent of The General, of the socialist government's intrusion into our lives through product safety recalls, instead of letting the market take its course, once enough consumers have their child's fingers lopped off by the defective stroller design. He also mentions the Republican Party's clear 41-seat majority and the guarantee that their agenda now has no chance of being stopped.
Speaking of that 41-seat majority, the WSJ's editorial board declares that Scott Brown's election is a demand from the voters that health-care plans be scrapped in their entirety, and that Mr. Obama needs to chart a more moderate course, away from the agenda he was elected on, including and courting the 41-seat majority, to succeed. We are still of two minds about scrapping and starting again - if it meant a real bill could be proposed and passed, then go for it. At the same time, if the current bill will actually do good that isn't wiped out by all the evil it does, then maybe things should continue the way they are. The Times Editors also take the tack of "Brown's election means liberals should stop being liberal, and Democrats should become Republicans to succeed". The continued attack of "Obama is a fringe liberal, and the Democrats are running a radical liberal agenda and must be stopped!" continues to baffle me, but if you look at things from the perspective of the American conservative, I suppose his moderate, fairly centrist positions might look like screaming liberalism. A better position would be to decry both parties as shills that offer change from corporate democracy while ensuring it never happens and comparing the whole thing to a train wreck in slow motion.
Mr. Wachter expresses concerns that high-profile trials will turn into ranting platforms for suspected terrorists, of which the responses he mentions are "judges don't usually allow that kind of stuff", and "even if they did rant, it would only make al-Qaeda look stupid". There was someone else who mentioned the best way of killing stupid ideas was to let them out into the forum to be discussed and debunked. I still think it's a good idea.
Last for tonight, Kitties! And an excellent idea for making bookmarks that go very well with the dust jackets.
Top billing today to the Supreme Court of the United States, ruling 5-4 that corporations should be allowed to spend their money directly purchasing political advertisements and messages in support or opposition of candidates. Corporate persons are still currently prohibited from directly contributing to campaigns, but they are much more easily able to buy airwaves and media time. This could have a beneficial side effect - one may be able to more precisely determine the prices at which politicians sold their votes to corporate interests, and determine the political positions of those corporate interests, without having to go through the fig leaf of a PAC or an Astroturf group. SCOTUS may have done transparency advocates a favor, even as they let corporate entities flood the airwaves with dollars in support or opposition. I now wonder whether media corporations will be able to spend their own money for adverts and the like in support or opposition. (More so than they do now. I realize NewsCorp and GE already do plenty of that, just in the form of shows and papers and such...)
In the international sphere, the presence of missile in Poland may hamper the new United States-Russia missile agreement, but it is unlikely to derail it, according to sources.
Last out of international news, The Century of the Fruitbat claims Nepal, with a new constitution going into place that will guarantee rights for homosexuals and other sexual minorities.
Domestically, a reminder that affiliation with a political party provides a handy shortcut, but is never a complete picture of a person's beliefs. Two solid examples, one known, one not known, from the McCain family - Meghan McCain, who continues to agitate for a brand of Republicanism that will tell teabaggers and homophobes to sod off, and is the well-known example, and Cindy McCain, who lent her image to the No H8 campaign. One would almost expect John McCain to make a statement in favor of equality, too, but I don't remember him doing so during his campaign or since. Perhaps this is where the divide is.
Speaking of homosexuals, political scientist and professor Gary M. Segura took to the stand in the Proposition 8 trial to lay out the idea that homosexuals hold almost no real political power, despite perceptions in certain circles that homosexuals hold great amounts of power and give marching orders to various politicians. This lack of power, according to the plaintiffs, indicates that homosexuals should be treated as a group deserving protection. The prevalence of ballot initiatives against them and their general lack in political office were cited as evidence in favor of the lack of power. Also testifying was Ryan Kendall, survivor of an "ex-gay" conversion "therapy" technique that left him suicidal.
Furthermore, the people behind ProtectMarriage.com have sued the Courage Campaign for copyright infringement of the Protect Marriage Logo. The Courage campaign defends their logo, insisting that it is a parody of the original. Just by looking at the two logos, I'd say there's also good grounds for a defense saying the two are different enough that they would not be mistaken for each other.
The 2010 Census may be an undercount because people don't want to participate or distrust the federal government enough to refuse. The second reason is fairly disturbing, and suggests to me that some people have bought into Bachmann-style nonsense about the government using census data for something other than the enumeration of the persons and the redrawing of Congressional districts. Others are afraid the data will be used to locate illegal immigrants or violate privacy. The times article focuses on minority groups as being wary about privacy concerns, perhaps because they don't want to mention the Congresscritter from Minnesota, since she messes up the narrative about only minorities being concerned?
And still on the topic of things that people get scared over for no reason, the presence of prayer boxes on an observant Jew was sufficient to divert a plane to Philadelphia because of a terrorism scare. While I can understand someone speaking prayers in a language nobody understands using props, I still am annoyed that the first reaction to this is "Ahh! Terrorists!"
The FBI admitted to procedural mistakes in the handling of the Fruit of the Boom bomber, saying they should have turned him over to a particular group established for high intelligence value persons. Unclear from the article is whether or not said bomber would have been interrogated and held without charges or rights had proper procedure been followed. If the FBI director says that al-Qaeda is rebuilding and spreading, I'm betting that holding without charging is still going to be standard operating procedure for a while.
In lighter fare, the Interior Secretary has said that he was snakes off planes coming into florida. At your leisure, play the iconic clip of Samuel L. Jackson.
Science is a bit light today - discovering ways that tumors defeat the drugs designed for them, The IPCC says a claim about Himalayan glaciers melting was not backed by science, but mostly by sensationalism, further hurting their reputation as an independenet scientific body, and veterans who claim they were experimented on without their consent regarding implanted electronics, mind control, and experimental drugs are given an okay to proceed with suit against the CIA, an organization that Ron Paul suggests has performed a coup on the government and needs to be removed from its power.
The big thing is a new study indicating young children have more exposure and use of media than five years ago, thanks in significant part to the ubiquity of cellular phones that have multimedia capabilities and portable media players with added functionality. For the scare-mongers, there's an indication that many of those children have no rules about the usage of their media, and their grades are fair to poor with that big media usage. For those wondering where they can find about 7.5 hours a day and pack about 10+ hours of content into that time, well, there's a lot of social media stuff going on there, and again, see above about ubiquitous multimedia devices.
In the opinions, The Infamous Brad leads with some advice to Mr. Obama - grab your thumbscrews and start twisting. Joe Lieberman would be a good place to start.
The Slacktivist reminds us, in a vein reminiscent of The General, of the socialist government's intrusion into our lives through product safety recalls, instead of letting the market take its course, once enough consumers have their child's fingers lopped off by the defective stroller design. He also mentions the Republican Party's clear 41-seat majority and the guarantee that their agenda now has no chance of being stopped.
Speaking of that 41-seat majority, the WSJ's editorial board declares that Scott Brown's election is a demand from the voters that health-care plans be scrapped in their entirety, and that Mr. Obama needs to chart a more moderate course, away from the agenda he was elected on, including and courting the 41-seat majority, to succeed. We are still of two minds about scrapping and starting again - if it meant a real bill could be proposed and passed, then go for it. At the same time, if the current bill will actually do good that isn't wiped out by all the evil it does, then maybe things should continue the way they are. The Times Editors also take the tack of "Brown's election means liberals should stop being liberal, and Democrats should become Republicans to succeed". The continued attack of "Obama is a fringe liberal, and the Democrats are running a radical liberal agenda and must be stopped!" continues to baffle me, but if you look at things from the perspective of the American conservative, I suppose his moderate, fairly centrist positions might look like screaming liberalism. A better position would be to decry both parties as shills that offer change from corporate democracy while ensuring it never happens and comparing the whole thing to a train wreck in slow motion.
Mr. Wachter expresses concerns that high-profile trials will turn into ranting platforms for suspected terrorists, of which the responses he mentions are "judges don't usually allow that kind of stuff", and "even if they did rant, it would only make al-Qaeda look stupid". There was someone else who mentioned the best way of killing stupid ideas was to let them out into the forum to be discussed and debunked. I still think it's a good idea.
Last for tonight, Kitties! And an excellent idea for making bookmarks that go very well with the dust jackets.
