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Greetings, fellow travelers and users of airline miles! I'm sure you're aware that American Airlines will be charging you for your pillow, as the airline industry continues to try and squeeze you for as much money in small amounts as they can.
For those looking to take revenge on pop icons, one can purchase a Hello Kitty toy with the internal organs displayed. One hopes said organs are removable, so that one can take the kitten apart.
The EFF would like to see the practice of putting in a ticket agreement a requirement that event attendees release copyright over everything related to the event they may write or photograph ceased, because of how evil people can take a creative idea and use it as legal censorship.
And last for the headlines, The Dead Pool strikes and gets John Murtha, representative from Pennsylvania. We shall see how many eulogize him and how many demonize him becuase of his stances during the last administration.
Out in the world, the Tim Hortons franchise has banned a complainer from their premises by trespass laws, after his repeated attempts to get the company to notice the product he felt was inferior. Well, I know that the customer is not always right, but banning him? There's got to be more to this stotry than the account itself.
Quicknews was Iran-focused, today, linking to articles about increased nuclear enrichment from Iran and attack drone production from Iran, fusing them with Ahmadinejad's vow to stop the protests and Khameni's declaratino of a punch to be delivered to the West to create the spectre of a nuclear Iran ready to launch, possibly unveiling that capability sometime soon.
The Netherlands continues to try and get an error in an IPCC report about the amount of the country under sea level corrected.
In the domestic sphere, the padded rugby championship resulted in a victory and jubilation for the new Orleans Saints, 31-17.. In other matters of that game, the commercial that was supposed to be strongly anti-abortion turned out to be...barely anything, but it did direct people to the Focus on the Family website to learn the full story, so perhaps there's more of the things were used to from FotF there. And it also gave great grist for some others to rear their ugly heads, first in their praise for the ad and their demonization of the balcklash CBS helped to create by letting FotF have their ad and denying equal time to other groups.
Sliding from one moral issue to another, a new study determines those with no religion are just as ethical as those that have one. Ammunition for the camp that wants to stop the argument that says "atheists have no soul, and thus have no moral compass, and will thus do evil whenever they can. According to the study people, religion is not a necessary framework, although it has become the default for many people when it comes to expressing ethical ideas.
This is both a story about why torture is illegal and why we need to be sure those returning from war or practices related to it have the very best mental health professionals available to them at any time - a soldier stands accused of waterboarding his four year-old daughter because she could not recite the alphabet to him. In his anger, he used the technique.
Observe - the jewelry of the Tea Party, highlighting the difference between the True Believers and those looking to make a quick buck off the rubes. Speaking of precious things marketed to the teabag-type crowd, A flareup again of the various silver and gold rounds that are supposed to be useful in the time to come when the Federal Reserve Note becomes useless due to a collapsed government or psychotic inflation. Many of the rounds have interesting messages on them, owing to the leanings of the persons minting them, and the General is picking some of his favorites, including one with the confederate symbol on it.
That said about the agitators against government solutions, the United States food stamp program has enrolled some 32.8 million persons. That's about 75% of the people uninsured or underinsured, and although there's crossover, one is not a subset of the other. That's a lot of people, though, who can't meet basic food needs without assistance. Maybe we should do something about that other than try to declare all of them frauds gaming the system or to say those who can't earn enough should starve? If you want soem hints on where we could free up some cash, or at least redistribute, here's a slideshow of how, on average, a dollar of tax money is spent. At the top? The military, with 42.2 cents on every dollar. (3.5 cents of that is on veterans benefits, by the way.)
Last out, The National Oceanic and Atomspheric Administration will be charged with studying climate change. Bring forth the deniers to complain about the money used to fund this organization...
In technology, Verizon blocking 4chan, which is akin to throwing a rock at a wasp nest, both in effectiveness and in aftermath. According to the company, they blocked certain IPs of 4chan because attacks were coming from there, and never blocked 4chan itself.
Elsewhere, acid droplets finding the shortest route through a maze, where the goal is of lower pH than the start, more lab on a chip devices, the question of whether it is human duty to seed other planets with organisms from our own, and Google's continued attempts to develop a phone that will translate from one language to another automatically.
In opinions, Mr. Benen on the impossibility of getting effective legislation through, because effective legislation will hit the filibuster wall and get negative press because Republicans will demonize it as having had nothign to do with them and their ideas, and legislation that will get bipartisan consensus won't actually be effective. That's pretty unteneable. Mr. Weisberg says we've hit this problem because the American populace are children who want two contradictory things and won't make a grown-up decision. And thus, we elect politicians who support and oppose an issue, depending on how it's framed. The media echo chamber doesn't help, either. For an example, Mr. Stossel heads to the playground in his taunt about the Obama Administration's supposed thin skin about media criticism, missing the President's point entirely. The President says that we need to grow up and start talking about how to help America instead of how to posture and pose and say and do to score short-sighted political points, sound bites, and taunts. Kind of like what this blog post thinks is the administration's definition of bipartisan is, for example.
Ms. Saunders puts herself on the side that says the Pants on Fire bomber should have been held as an enemy combatant, while also criticizing the reference to precedent, because the last administration was super-tough on terrorism and this administration isn't, so they can't use any of that precedent. They're Democrats, after all.
Mr. Hubbard presents a sane, nonpartisan opinion on the need to reduce deficits and debts instead of relying on tax increases to help bring the country's debt under control, starting with real cuts in descretionary spending and attempts to retard the growth of entitlement programs. Taxes, where needed, should be broad-based, he suggests, instead of further attempting to soak the rich. He may end up being elbowed out by an unsigned from The Washington Times considering the new bank tax to be class warfare and an attempt to make up for not getting AIG when they had them by the nuts. Well, as I recall, when not negotiating for many strings, the Secretary said too many strings would discourage use, and that the banks would behave properly with the money. Since they seem not to have taken the hint, this is just the government's way of saying "Remember all that rope we gave you? Hang."
Mostly, though, I expect the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statisticts department to take a look at this graph suggesting a correlation between high unemployment and high government spending as a percentage of GDP, asking first, "Which comes first? High unemployment or high spending?" and working out methodology and numbers from there.
Time to play for the world's best high-velocity quiche. Our bronze-level award to the Florida Family Policy Council, for continued dirty tricks in their attempt to demonize homosexuals and make people afraid of them adopting, up to and through the use of photographs claiming to be the couple adopting in a particular case. The real couple are right next door in the opinion. What exactly is the rationale behind not letting loving families adopt children, especially with so many of them that need it? If they're worried about male role models, those will appear. If they think it sinful, that's a matter of religion. What reason does the State have to bar these couples that can handle having a kid in a secure, stable environment?
Running up a notch from there, Dell Computer Systems, having not learned their lesson from their last foray into selling computers to women with misogynistic ads, is back at it again with new laptops in several shades of nail polish. As the Unabashed Feminism Chief![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ldragoon pointed out, most women want to talk tech, and then will think about color after they have the machine they want. To market to them that they're bubbleheads is, well, to invite the wrath of Kestrel. And others who have no compulsions about separating spleens from condescending salespeople.
The winners, regardless of whether it is a hate crime or just "competing symbols", are the people who placed a cross at the recently-opened worship circle at the Air Force Academy. May as well have lit the damn thing on fire for the message that it sends to the people that are there - there are people in the Academy that think of those cadets as sinners and hell-bound and not following the "right" path. That's more destructive to unit moreale than being homosexual, and I sincerely hope that strong discipline follows for whomever it was that placed the object there, cadet or civilian. We hope the instructors there take the incident as a learning opportunity and impress into their charges the need to be respectful of all belief systems.
Last for tonight, Snow sculptures! And people attempting rocket-power sledding and failing.
For those looking to take revenge on pop icons, one can purchase a Hello Kitty toy with the internal organs displayed. One hopes said organs are removable, so that one can take the kitten apart.
The EFF would like to see the practice of putting in a ticket agreement a requirement that event attendees release copyright over everything related to the event they may write or photograph ceased, because of how evil people can take a creative idea and use it as legal censorship.
And last for the headlines, The Dead Pool strikes and gets John Murtha, representative from Pennsylvania. We shall see how many eulogize him and how many demonize him becuase of his stances during the last administration.
Out in the world, the Tim Hortons franchise has banned a complainer from their premises by trespass laws, after his repeated attempts to get the company to notice the product he felt was inferior. Well, I know that the customer is not always right, but banning him? There's got to be more to this stotry than the account itself.
Quicknews was Iran-focused, today, linking to articles about increased nuclear enrichment from Iran and attack drone production from Iran, fusing them with Ahmadinejad's vow to stop the protests and Khameni's declaratino of a punch to be delivered to the West to create the spectre of a nuclear Iran ready to launch, possibly unveiling that capability sometime soon.
The Netherlands continues to try and get an error in an IPCC report about the amount of the country under sea level corrected.
In the domestic sphere, the padded rugby championship resulted in a victory and jubilation for the new Orleans Saints, 31-17.. In other matters of that game, the commercial that was supposed to be strongly anti-abortion turned out to be...barely anything, but it did direct people to the Focus on the Family website to learn the full story, so perhaps there's more of the things were used to from FotF there. And it also gave great grist for some others to rear their ugly heads, first in their praise for the ad and their demonization of the balcklash CBS helped to create by letting FotF have their ad and denying equal time to other groups.
Sliding from one moral issue to another, a new study determines those with no religion are just as ethical as those that have one. Ammunition for the camp that wants to stop the argument that says "atheists have no soul, and thus have no moral compass, and will thus do evil whenever they can. According to the study people, religion is not a necessary framework, although it has become the default for many people when it comes to expressing ethical ideas.
This is both a story about why torture is illegal and why we need to be sure those returning from war or practices related to it have the very best mental health professionals available to them at any time - a soldier stands accused of waterboarding his four year-old daughter because she could not recite the alphabet to him. In his anger, he used the technique.
Observe - the jewelry of the Tea Party, highlighting the difference between the True Believers and those looking to make a quick buck off the rubes. Speaking of precious things marketed to the teabag-type crowd, A flareup again of the various silver and gold rounds that are supposed to be useful in the time to come when the Federal Reserve Note becomes useless due to a collapsed government or psychotic inflation. Many of the rounds have interesting messages on them, owing to the leanings of the persons minting them, and the General is picking some of his favorites, including one with the confederate symbol on it.
That said about the agitators against government solutions, the United States food stamp program has enrolled some 32.8 million persons. That's about 75% of the people uninsured or underinsured, and although there's crossover, one is not a subset of the other. That's a lot of people, though, who can't meet basic food needs without assistance. Maybe we should do something about that other than try to declare all of them frauds gaming the system or to say those who can't earn enough should starve? If you want soem hints on where we could free up some cash, or at least redistribute, here's a slideshow of how, on average, a dollar of tax money is spent. At the top? The military, with 42.2 cents on every dollar. (3.5 cents of that is on veterans benefits, by the way.)
Last out, The National Oceanic and Atomspheric Administration will be charged with studying climate change. Bring forth the deniers to complain about the money used to fund this organization...
In technology, Verizon blocking 4chan, which is akin to throwing a rock at a wasp nest, both in effectiveness and in aftermath. According to the company, they blocked certain IPs of 4chan because attacks were coming from there, and never blocked 4chan itself.
Elsewhere, acid droplets finding the shortest route through a maze, where the goal is of lower pH than the start, more lab on a chip devices, the question of whether it is human duty to seed other planets with organisms from our own, and Google's continued attempts to develop a phone that will translate from one language to another automatically.
In opinions, Mr. Benen on the impossibility of getting effective legislation through, because effective legislation will hit the filibuster wall and get negative press because Republicans will demonize it as having had nothign to do with them and their ideas, and legislation that will get bipartisan consensus won't actually be effective. That's pretty unteneable. Mr. Weisberg says we've hit this problem because the American populace are children who want two contradictory things and won't make a grown-up decision. And thus, we elect politicians who support and oppose an issue, depending on how it's framed. The media echo chamber doesn't help, either. For an example, Mr. Stossel heads to the playground in his taunt about the Obama Administration's supposed thin skin about media criticism, missing the President's point entirely. The President says that we need to grow up and start talking about how to help America instead of how to posture and pose and say and do to score short-sighted political points, sound bites, and taunts. Kind of like what this blog post thinks is the administration's definition of bipartisan is, for example.
Ms. Saunders puts herself on the side that says the Pants on Fire bomber should have been held as an enemy combatant, while also criticizing the reference to precedent, because the last administration was super-tough on terrorism and this administration isn't, so they can't use any of that precedent. They're Democrats, after all.
Mr. Hubbard presents a sane, nonpartisan opinion on the need to reduce deficits and debts instead of relying on tax increases to help bring the country's debt under control, starting with real cuts in descretionary spending and attempts to retard the growth of entitlement programs. Taxes, where needed, should be broad-based, he suggests, instead of further attempting to soak the rich. He may end up being elbowed out by an unsigned from The Washington Times considering the new bank tax to be class warfare and an attempt to make up for not getting AIG when they had them by the nuts. Well, as I recall, when not negotiating for many strings, the Secretary said too many strings would discourage use, and that the banks would behave properly with the money. Since they seem not to have taken the hint, this is just the government's way of saying "Remember all that rope we gave you? Hang."
Mostly, though, I expect the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statisticts department to take a look at this graph suggesting a correlation between high unemployment and high government spending as a percentage of GDP, asking first, "Which comes first? High unemployment or high spending?" and working out methodology and numbers from there.
Time to play for the world's best high-velocity quiche. Our bronze-level award to the Florida Family Policy Council, for continued dirty tricks in their attempt to demonize homosexuals and make people afraid of them adopting, up to and through the use of photographs claiming to be the couple adopting in a particular case. The real couple are right next door in the opinion. What exactly is the rationale behind not letting loving families adopt children, especially with so many of them that need it? If they're worried about male role models, those will appear. If they think it sinful, that's a matter of religion. What reason does the State have to bar these couples that can handle having a kid in a secure, stable environment?
Running up a notch from there, Dell Computer Systems, having not learned their lesson from their last foray into selling computers to women with misogynistic ads, is back at it again with new laptops in several shades of nail polish. As the Unabashed Feminism Chief
ldragoon pointed out, most women want to talk tech, and then will think about color after they have the machine they want. To market to them that they're bubbleheads is, well, to invite the wrath of Kestrel. And others who have no compulsions about separating spleens from condescending salespeople.The winners, regardless of whether it is a hate crime or just "competing symbols", are the people who placed a cross at the recently-opened worship circle at the Air Force Academy. May as well have lit the damn thing on fire for the message that it sends to the people that are there - there are people in the Academy that think of those cadets as sinners and hell-bound and not following the "right" path. That's more destructive to unit moreale than being homosexual, and I sincerely hope that strong discipline follows for whomever it was that placed the object there, cadet or civilian. We hope the instructors there take the incident as a learning opportunity and impress into their charges the need to be respectful of all belief systems.
Last for tonight, Snow sculptures! And people attempting rocket-power sledding and failing.
