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A relatively short post - 2 Feb 2010
Feb. 3rd, 2010 09:56 amGood day, persons of knowledge, thirsty for more.
We start today with the attemtp to enforce the trademark of being No. 1 in textbook rentals, despite the inherent malleability of the truthfulness of such a claim.
Out in the world, the house Rudyard Kipling grew up in will not become a museum to Kipling, because he is still too much of a political hot potato, quite a while after his death. And there's no way at all to build a museum that won't take that controversy into account.
The United States military is retooling itself to fight insurgents and asymmetric forces - and wants $708 billion USD to do it with. That seems like a lot, but then again, when contractor-provided radar domes malfunction during a simulated missile strike, maybe they should be asking for lots of money to make things work.
In domestic news, if you wanted to know whether the Republican Party really gives a damn about the country as opposed to their own political point score, observe the requirement of sixty votes to approve a mid-level government functionary. The filibuster and claims from the GOP is that the nominee was a liar about a program costing all of $6,000 in an $11 billion budget. That's nit-picking with a high-powered microscope. Perhaps that's why Mr. Obama hasn't made appointments to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board. Well, possibly that, and his tendency to follow certain Bush-era practices that make it seem like he doesn't really care that much about civil liberties.
Not that he's getting any pressure from anywhere else - Republicans and some Democrats are going to try and attach an amendment to any bill they can that will defund civilian trials for the accused of 11 September, under the reasoning that they are war criminals and thus only entitled to whatever our military commissions are willing to give them.
The Washingon Times wants you to believe the President's promise to cut spending is already being broken. Recall said promise was a fig leaf anyway, because it refused to take cuts of the biggest spenders in the economy, like entitlements and defense. Put up against the article indicating the federal government will emply more than 2.1 million people this year and it looks like the tea partiers and Republicans alike should have a feast about government waste and how they're sucking money out of the Inherently Superior private sector.
Lest we forget why there was a health care fight last year, try this - "Will Marry for Health Insurance".
And worse, look well at what happens when your tea party anti-tax sensibilities get the better of your sound judgment.
Last out, the prosecutor in the O'Keefe case recused himself for unknown reasons. Also of apparent interest to the article writer is that andrew Brietbart claims the media and the prosecution worked to deny O'Keefe a lawyer before and then get the narrative set up as a "Watergate Junior". Such material is polluting what would otherwise be a decent article.
In technology, the unveiling of Roxxxy, a robotic sexual partner, moving along the path of closing the uncanny valley (although there's still a ways to go) by adding personality to the mix, and some infographics about the demographics of Internet use.
Rattling on into opinions, Mr. Ajami turns out to agree with Tom Tomorrow in saying that devotees of the President projected their desires onto him, and thus, when those desires were shattered, they turned swiftly on him. He then goes on to say that the President has such an ego, and believes in his own self so much, he took those desires as a mandate to remake the country.
The beginnings of the hearings on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy were greeted with...well, something. Senator McCain used to say he would defer to the judgment of the military, but today decided he was taking a stand against equality. Mr. Gaffney, Jr. wastes an entire column first trying to set Mr. Obama up as an inept commander-in-chief, and then going back to tired arguments about unit morale suffering when openly non-cisgendered or non-heterosexual persons are allowed to be open in their service, with his conclusion that the American people will lash out against Mr. Obama for his decision to support equality.
Further down, in our Worst Persons debate, Ms. Parker says there's nothing provocative about the Tebow ad on the Super Bowl, and the only reason it's inflaming pro-choice groups is because it stops those groups from dehumanizing fetuses and tells people they're part of something bigger than themselves, which runs counter to the messages of selfishness and "it's not life" that pro-choice apparently advocates for. Because pro-choice people are cavalier about the decisions they make and don't ever discuss alternatives or aren't mandated by law in some states to see an ultrasound and be told about all the bad and evil sinful things they have done if they choose to abort. And, if you're a scared single mother whose partner bolted when he found out, I think being told "Oh, it's part of a larger plan. Trust in $DEITY and it will all work out" would result in a middle finger for offering platitudes instead of actual help.
Going one step up from there, Mr. Adams accuses Temple University of reneging on a deal and sticking a group with a bill for security because they hosted a speaker critical of Islam, and obviously that was offensive to the Powers That Be, so those Powers decided to stick them with the security bill for hosting the controversial speaker. He warns them to retract the fee Or Else. How about a more complete reporting before making threats like those. If you want to make the case, you'll have to do better than "it was because of the speaker!" and not giving any proof.
But, at the bottom of the pile, Mr. Barone, who feels that the Obama admininstration techniques of following the rule of law and attempting to act within the boundaries of legal methods is great for impressing liberals, but makes terrorists want to attack all the more. Because we're not impressing "world opinion", terrorists don't care, and even the rest of our own country thinks Obama'a weak. Because he's at least aping doing the right thing, whereas the last administrator had no such compulsions, only justifications for what he wanted to do outside the law.
That said, tomorrow's news will bring notice of a revenge on such thinking...but that's all for today.
We start today with the attemtp to enforce the trademark of being No. 1 in textbook rentals, despite the inherent malleability of the truthfulness of such a claim.
Out in the world, the house Rudyard Kipling grew up in will not become a museum to Kipling, because he is still too much of a political hot potato, quite a while after his death. And there's no way at all to build a museum that won't take that controversy into account.
The United States military is retooling itself to fight insurgents and asymmetric forces - and wants $708 billion USD to do it with. That seems like a lot, but then again, when contractor-provided radar domes malfunction during a simulated missile strike, maybe they should be asking for lots of money to make things work.
In domestic news, if you wanted to know whether the Republican Party really gives a damn about the country as opposed to their own political point score, observe the requirement of sixty votes to approve a mid-level government functionary. The filibuster and claims from the GOP is that the nominee was a liar about a program costing all of $6,000 in an $11 billion budget. That's nit-picking with a high-powered microscope. Perhaps that's why Mr. Obama hasn't made appointments to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board. Well, possibly that, and his tendency to follow certain Bush-era practices that make it seem like he doesn't really care that much about civil liberties.
Not that he's getting any pressure from anywhere else - Republicans and some Democrats are going to try and attach an amendment to any bill they can that will defund civilian trials for the accused of 11 September, under the reasoning that they are war criminals and thus only entitled to whatever our military commissions are willing to give them.
The Washingon Times wants you to believe the President's promise to cut spending is already being broken. Recall said promise was a fig leaf anyway, because it refused to take cuts of the biggest spenders in the economy, like entitlements and defense. Put up against the article indicating the federal government will emply more than 2.1 million people this year and it looks like the tea partiers and Republicans alike should have a feast about government waste and how they're sucking money out of the Inherently Superior private sector.
Lest we forget why there was a health care fight last year, try this - "Will Marry for Health Insurance".
And worse, look well at what happens when your tea party anti-tax sensibilities get the better of your sound judgment.
Last out, the prosecutor in the O'Keefe case recused himself for unknown reasons. Also of apparent interest to the article writer is that andrew Brietbart claims the media and the prosecution worked to deny O'Keefe a lawyer before and then get the narrative set up as a "Watergate Junior". Such material is polluting what would otherwise be a decent article.
In technology, the unveiling of Roxxxy, a robotic sexual partner, moving along the path of closing the uncanny valley (although there's still a ways to go) by adding personality to the mix, and some infographics about the demographics of Internet use.
Rattling on into opinions, Mr. Ajami turns out to agree with Tom Tomorrow in saying that devotees of the President projected their desires onto him, and thus, when those desires were shattered, they turned swiftly on him. He then goes on to say that the President has such an ego, and believes in his own self so much, he took those desires as a mandate to remake the country.
The beginnings of the hearings on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy were greeted with...well, something. Senator McCain used to say he would defer to the judgment of the military, but today decided he was taking a stand against equality. Mr. Gaffney, Jr. wastes an entire column first trying to set Mr. Obama up as an inept commander-in-chief, and then going back to tired arguments about unit morale suffering when openly non-cisgendered or non-heterosexual persons are allowed to be open in their service, with his conclusion that the American people will lash out against Mr. Obama for his decision to support equality.
Further down, in our Worst Persons debate, Ms. Parker says there's nothing provocative about the Tebow ad on the Super Bowl, and the only reason it's inflaming pro-choice groups is because it stops those groups from dehumanizing fetuses and tells people they're part of something bigger than themselves, which runs counter to the messages of selfishness and "it's not life" that pro-choice apparently advocates for. Because pro-choice people are cavalier about the decisions they make and don't ever discuss alternatives or aren't mandated by law in some states to see an ultrasound and be told about all the bad and evil sinful things they have done if they choose to abort. And, if you're a scared single mother whose partner bolted when he found out, I think being told "Oh, it's part of a larger plan. Trust in $DEITY and it will all work out" would result in a middle finger for offering platitudes instead of actual help.
Going one step up from there, Mr. Adams accuses Temple University of reneging on a deal and sticking a group with a bill for security because they hosted a speaker critical of Islam, and obviously that was offensive to the Powers That Be, so those Powers decided to stick them with the security bill for hosting the controversial speaker. He warns them to retract the fee Or Else. How about a more complete reporting before making threats like those. If you want to make the case, you'll have to do better than "it was because of the speaker!" and not giving any proof.
But, at the bottom of the pile, Mr. Barone, who feels that the Obama admininstration techniques of following the rule of law and attempting to act within the boundaries of legal methods is great for impressing liberals, but makes terrorists want to attack all the more. Because we're not impressing "world opinion", terrorists don't care, and even the rest of our own country thinks Obama'a weak. Because he's at least aping doing the right thing, whereas the last administrator had no such compulsions, only justifications for what he wanted to do outside the law.
That said, tomorrow's news will bring notice of a revenge on such thinking...but that's all for today.
