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And into the Weekend loop - 26 March 2010
Mar. 27th, 2010 02:12 amGreetings, people searching desperately for a drink of something. For the palate that requires cute drinks, we offer wine with the Hello Kitty label.
For those looking for a bit of sweet and sour in their drink, Untied States Defense Secretary Robert Gates altered the rules regarding investigation of suspected homosexuals in the military services, requiring accusers to speak under oath rather than comment anonymously and encouraging commanders to squash investigations and rumors based on hearsay. Unfortunately, he is still bound by the law the requires the discharge of open homosexuals from the military service. Perhaps that would be a good place for the Democratic Party to put some focus on.
And for those looking for something completely weird, a researcher is claiming the Facebook is a major cause of the fourfold increase in syphilis cases around three cities in the United Kingdom. Because Facebook allows people to more easily meet and have casual unprotected sex, apparently.
If that’s not quite your thing, have a Quentin Tarantino movie reference chart.
For those looking to drink a drink of potential joy, observe - a music service for libraries that will allow library users to download music freely, without DRM. Users will be limited to a certain number of tracks per week, and the library buys blocks of downloads, so when they’re gone, they’re gone and more needs to be invested. The service currently only offers Sony catalogue material, but still, a service like this could work really freakin’ well, and there’s no messiness of DRM or dud files afterward. (You do agree not to share those files when you download, them, of course.)
Out in the world today, the United States and Russia reached an agreement to further reduce the number of nuclear weapons in each country's stockpile. What will likely be called the START III treaty, if ratified, would continue to lower the amount of weapons from “Destroys the world over eleventy billion times” to “Destroys the world over eleventy million times”. Still, progress is progress, although if you read the Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell editorial on the matter, you might believe the administration has somehow sold out our nuclear defense capabilities and that Russia will gleefully violate the treaty if given the slightest chance.
Speaking of nuclear devices, North Korea have once again threatened to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a report about the country's instability coming out from South Korea and the United States.
al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden released audio today warning that Americans would be killed if Kalid Sheik Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 11 September attacks, were put to death. Considering that the United States has still not decided fully on whether to put Mr. Mohammed throuh the civilian court process or secret military tribunals, I’d say Mr. bin Laden’s timing is off by several orders of magnitude.
Israel's prime minister felt humiliated and snubbed after meeting with President Barack Obama, because Mr. Obama gave him his expectations on what Israel needed to do to make the peace process go and then refused to budge on them, choosing instead to go to a different event rather than spend more time in fruitless negotiations. I expect conservative reaction to that to be “Well, we know he can play hardball now, so why doesn’t he do it to Iran, our HATE enemy instead of Israel, our sole Middle Eastern ally?” and variants thereof, some of which may or may not involve the “Secret Muslim” or “Wants to Destroy America!” themes.
Last out, questioning the birthplace of a potentially-elected leader is apparently not limited to the fringes of America - Iraq's main contender for the prime minister role has had this and other accusations leveled against him.
Domestically, after passing the final bill of repairs and modifications to the previous health care bill an sending it on to the President, the next phase of the health care fight begins. It looks to be the several states suing that the bill is unconstitutional. Governors and state lawmakers are not being shy about how they feel about the matter - Georgia's state lawmakers moved to impeach their Attorney-General because he did not join on with the suit, with the governor claiming he will appoint someone to go through with the suit over the objections of his A.G. The A.G. saw no merit in joining on because he believed the effort to be futile and a waste of taxpayer money. On the obverse of this coin, Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan ordered her Attorney-General to cease being a plaintiff in the lawsuit and instead act as an advocate against the lawsuit, citing her superior state constitutional authority to direct what his position will be over his authority to initiate such proceedings according to his own beliefs.
On the matter of Congressionally-directed threats and violence, Richmond, Virginia police say the bullet that struck Congressman Cantor's office window was fired randomly into the air and then came down to strike the window, rather than being fired deliberately at the window. Congresscritter Cantor, however, still maintains that Democrats and liberals are giving media coverage to these threats an acts for political gain, rather than to illustrate the effect that inflammatory rhetoric produces in people, a position that RNC Chairman Steele echoed in his refusal to work on a joint statement from both chairs condemnding violence against elected officials, regardless of whom was perpetrating. Chairman Steele, like Mr. Cantor, took his opportunity to take a political swipe about the health care bill in addition to refusing to work on a simple agreement against violence. I wonder if Mr. Steele thinks that he would lose a significant portion of the base he has if he gave into such a silly concept as civility. Thankfully, at least according to the dirt on death, we know it's not very likely that there will be actual deadly violence perpetrated. The possibility that it might, though, is enough to worry.
In the continuing fight in the legislative body, alternative tactics such as trying to kill appropriations bills to fund the new mandates may be on teh Republican docket. And elsewhere in the affected world, companies such as Verizon are already trying to suss out what the new law means for them, and what potential revenge they can exact on their employees so as to keep their costs within levels they find acceptable, whether it means reductions in coverages or cancellations of certain benefits. It’s probably not out of malice, but out of passing-the-buck from whatever increases and changes they will be seeing from their insurance providers.
TLC will be airing a 8-part documentary on Sarah Palin, half-term governor of Alaska and firebrand rhetorician.
On other, non health-care related news, according to projections, the Social Security Administration will pay out more in benefits in 2010 than it receives in payroll taxes. Cue doomsaying and loud laments about how the younger generations will either be more heavily taxed or everyone will have their benefits cut because the money isn’t there. There may also be come accusatory fingers pointed at past and present Congresses for their “raiding” of the Social Security fund to pay for other programs. Ideas like a “lockbox” don’t sound nearly as foolish now, do they?
Last out, the 9th District Court of Appeals has decided it is not a violation of someone's rights to use stun guns on them if they refuse to sign traffic tickets, because then they are “obstructing an officer” Regardless of the status of the person - in this case, she was pregnant when the stun gun was used on her. The argument against this said refusing to sign was not an arrestable offense, so resisting an unlawful arrest was not illegal, and police officers should have been more cognizant of possible unintended consequences from using the stun gun once, much less three times, on a pregnant woman.
In technology, HP demos a flexible, roll-up display, although it can’t stand being rolled up many times before it malfunctions, attempts to combine virtual reality environments and haptics feedback, some for therapy or rehabilitation purposes, a robot to assist dental students that shows pain and other reactions, and also slackens their jaw as time goes on, and General Motors unveils, in China, their concepts of a small urban electric vehicle. If it catches on there, it could get imported over here to some places, right? A perfect commuter car, and possibly one you can take out drinking and will drive you home? Interesting.
And there are the opinion pages - Mr. Rove believes the health care bill of 2010 will turn out to be like the stimulus bill of 2009, with Democratic defeat everywhere, because of delayed implementation of the benefits versus immediate implementation of the costs. He thinks there’s a winning streategy in the idea of “repeal what’s been passed, and then replace it with real reform”. One would hope that if the Republicans go for repeal out of the gate, that they have already constructed and have a replacement bill immediately ready to pass behind it. I don’t think they have one, despite already having introduced a repeal bill into this Congress. Until you’ve got something to compare, sit on your hot repeal-oriented hands, lest you be slammed rightly with “Republicans want to go back to the days when these bad things hapened routinely.”
Mr. Elder, on the other hand, declares the bill to be a huge overreach of Constitutional authority, and wants a Constitutional Convention to be called and then an amendment to the Constitution passed that would prevent any sort of federal individual mandate to purchase a product. that’s the first and last paragraph of his column. In between, he claims that this yet another step along the statist, socialist path that the President desires and foolishly believes is better, because he lacks the experience in running businesses to see the harm government does firsthand. Europe is trotted out as the example of what we don’t want, with low private sector jobs, the potential of price controls, dependency-fostering welfare, state-run health care (to which the American system is apparently superior), and choking union contracts. The Market (All Praise to Its Name) is the regulator he wants in power, and he believes, optimistically, that there will always be enough charity from people to take care of the needs of those who are less able. He produces a fantasy world to argue against, and then advocates for his own fantasy world as the replacement. It would have been a much better column if he had stuck strictly to the Constitutional matters and saved his other arguments for a different piece.
Not specifically on health care, the conservative mood turns slightly more paranoid, with ominous suggestions that the President will continue to wage big political battles to get things done his way, instead of taking the “simpler” suggestions provided that would accomplish just as much without more taxes or animosity between him and the people, a positioned support by other columnists who really want to believe the narrative that this administration and legislature is out of control, ramming through ultraliberal, government-expanding bills without listening to the sane minority or the angry people, while hellbent on destroying the conservative media that continues to expose them for what they are.
Last for tonight, a fascinating look into the past to see how engineers managed to build human-powered cranes and lifting devices to move really big blocks of rock around. That’s really ne--ooh, shiny. No wonder my memory's going bad.
Maybe I should go back to basics. With a badass alphabet.
For those looking for a bit of sweet and sour in their drink, Untied States Defense Secretary Robert Gates altered the rules regarding investigation of suspected homosexuals in the military services, requiring accusers to speak under oath rather than comment anonymously and encouraging commanders to squash investigations and rumors based on hearsay. Unfortunately, he is still bound by the law the requires the discharge of open homosexuals from the military service. Perhaps that would be a good place for the Democratic Party to put some focus on.
And for those looking for something completely weird, a researcher is claiming the Facebook is a major cause of the fourfold increase in syphilis cases around three cities in the United Kingdom. Because Facebook allows people to more easily meet and have casual unprotected sex, apparently.
If that’s not quite your thing, have a Quentin Tarantino movie reference chart.
For those looking to drink a drink of potential joy, observe - a music service for libraries that will allow library users to download music freely, without DRM. Users will be limited to a certain number of tracks per week, and the library buys blocks of downloads, so when they’re gone, they’re gone and more needs to be invested. The service currently only offers Sony catalogue material, but still, a service like this could work really freakin’ well, and there’s no messiness of DRM or dud files afterward. (You do agree not to share those files when you download, them, of course.)
Out in the world today, the United States and Russia reached an agreement to further reduce the number of nuclear weapons in each country's stockpile. What will likely be called the START III treaty, if ratified, would continue to lower the amount of weapons from “Destroys the world over eleventy billion times” to “Destroys the world over eleventy million times”. Still, progress is progress, although if you read the Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell editorial on the matter, you might believe the administration has somehow sold out our nuclear defense capabilities and that Russia will gleefully violate the treaty if given the slightest chance.
Speaking of nuclear devices, North Korea have once again threatened to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a report about the country's instability coming out from South Korea and the United States.
al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden released audio today warning that Americans would be killed if Kalid Sheik Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 11 September attacks, were put to death. Considering that the United States has still not decided fully on whether to put Mr. Mohammed throuh the civilian court process or secret military tribunals, I’d say Mr. bin Laden’s timing is off by several orders of magnitude.
Israel's prime minister felt humiliated and snubbed after meeting with President Barack Obama, because Mr. Obama gave him his expectations on what Israel needed to do to make the peace process go and then refused to budge on them, choosing instead to go to a different event rather than spend more time in fruitless negotiations. I expect conservative reaction to that to be “Well, we know he can play hardball now, so why doesn’t he do it to Iran, our HATE enemy instead of Israel, our sole Middle Eastern ally?” and variants thereof, some of which may or may not involve the “Secret Muslim” or “Wants to Destroy America!” themes.
Last out, questioning the birthplace of a potentially-elected leader is apparently not limited to the fringes of America - Iraq's main contender for the prime minister role has had this and other accusations leveled against him.
Domestically, after passing the final bill of repairs and modifications to the previous health care bill an sending it on to the President, the next phase of the health care fight begins. It looks to be the several states suing that the bill is unconstitutional. Governors and state lawmakers are not being shy about how they feel about the matter - Georgia's state lawmakers moved to impeach their Attorney-General because he did not join on with the suit, with the governor claiming he will appoint someone to go through with the suit over the objections of his A.G. The A.G. saw no merit in joining on because he believed the effort to be futile and a waste of taxpayer money. On the obverse of this coin, Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan ordered her Attorney-General to cease being a plaintiff in the lawsuit and instead act as an advocate against the lawsuit, citing her superior state constitutional authority to direct what his position will be over his authority to initiate such proceedings according to his own beliefs.
On the matter of Congressionally-directed threats and violence, Richmond, Virginia police say the bullet that struck Congressman Cantor's office window was fired randomly into the air and then came down to strike the window, rather than being fired deliberately at the window. Congresscritter Cantor, however, still maintains that Democrats and liberals are giving media coverage to these threats an acts for political gain, rather than to illustrate the effect that inflammatory rhetoric produces in people, a position that RNC Chairman Steele echoed in his refusal to work on a joint statement from both chairs condemnding violence against elected officials, regardless of whom was perpetrating. Chairman Steele, like Mr. Cantor, took his opportunity to take a political swipe about the health care bill in addition to refusing to work on a simple agreement against violence. I wonder if Mr. Steele thinks that he would lose a significant portion of the base he has if he gave into such a silly concept as civility. Thankfully, at least according to the dirt on death, we know it's not very likely that there will be actual deadly violence perpetrated. The possibility that it might, though, is enough to worry.
In the continuing fight in the legislative body, alternative tactics such as trying to kill appropriations bills to fund the new mandates may be on teh Republican docket. And elsewhere in the affected world, companies such as Verizon are already trying to suss out what the new law means for them, and what potential revenge they can exact on their employees so as to keep their costs within levels they find acceptable, whether it means reductions in coverages or cancellations of certain benefits. It’s probably not out of malice, but out of passing-the-buck from whatever increases and changes they will be seeing from their insurance providers.
TLC will be airing a 8-part documentary on Sarah Palin, half-term governor of Alaska and firebrand rhetorician.
On other, non health-care related news, according to projections, the Social Security Administration will pay out more in benefits in 2010 than it receives in payroll taxes. Cue doomsaying and loud laments about how the younger generations will either be more heavily taxed or everyone will have their benefits cut because the money isn’t there. There may also be come accusatory fingers pointed at past and present Congresses for their “raiding” of the Social Security fund to pay for other programs. Ideas like a “lockbox” don’t sound nearly as foolish now, do they?
Last out, the 9th District Court of Appeals has decided it is not a violation of someone's rights to use stun guns on them if they refuse to sign traffic tickets, because then they are “obstructing an officer” Regardless of the status of the person - in this case, she was pregnant when the stun gun was used on her. The argument against this said refusing to sign was not an arrestable offense, so resisting an unlawful arrest was not illegal, and police officers should have been more cognizant of possible unintended consequences from using the stun gun once, much less three times, on a pregnant woman.
In technology, HP demos a flexible, roll-up display, although it can’t stand being rolled up many times before it malfunctions, attempts to combine virtual reality environments and haptics feedback, some for therapy or rehabilitation purposes, a robot to assist dental students that shows pain and other reactions, and also slackens their jaw as time goes on, and General Motors unveils, in China, their concepts of a small urban electric vehicle. If it catches on there, it could get imported over here to some places, right? A perfect commuter car, and possibly one you can take out drinking and will drive you home? Interesting.
And there are the opinion pages - Mr. Rove believes the health care bill of 2010 will turn out to be like the stimulus bill of 2009, with Democratic defeat everywhere, because of delayed implementation of the benefits versus immediate implementation of the costs. He thinks there’s a winning streategy in the idea of “repeal what’s been passed, and then replace it with real reform”. One would hope that if the Republicans go for repeal out of the gate, that they have already constructed and have a replacement bill immediately ready to pass behind it. I don’t think they have one, despite already having introduced a repeal bill into this Congress. Until you’ve got something to compare, sit on your hot repeal-oriented hands, lest you be slammed rightly with “Republicans want to go back to the days when these bad things hapened routinely.”
Mr. Elder, on the other hand, declares the bill to be a huge overreach of Constitutional authority, and wants a Constitutional Convention to be called and then an amendment to the Constitution passed that would prevent any sort of federal individual mandate to purchase a product. that’s the first and last paragraph of his column. In between, he claims that this yet another step along the statist, socialist path that the President desires and foolishly believes is better, because he lacks the experience in running businesses to see the harm government does firsthand. Europe is trotted out as the example of what we don’t want, with low private sector jobs, the potential of price controls, dependency-fostering welfare, state-run health care (to which the American system is apparently superior), and choking union contracts. The Market (All Praise to Its Name) is the regulator he wants in power, and he believes, optimistically, that there will always be enough charity from people to take care of the needs of those who are less able. He produces a fantasy world to argue against, and then advocates for his own fantasy world as the replacement. It would have been a much better column if he had stuck strictly to the Constitutional matters and saved his other arguments for a different piece.
Not specifically on health care, the conservative mood turns slightly more paranoid, with ominous suggestions that the President will continue to wage big political battles to get things done his way, instead of taking the “simpler” suggestions provided that would accomplish just as much without more taxes or animosity between him and the people, a positioned support by other columnists who really want to believe the narrative that this administration and legislature is out of control, ramming through ultraliberal, government-expanding bills without listening to the sane minority or the angry people, while hellbent on destroying the conservative media that continues to expose them for what they are.
Last for tonight, a fascinating look into the past to see how engineers managed to build human-powered cranes and lifting devices to move really big blocks of rock around. That’s really ne--ooh, shiny. No wonder my memory's going bad.
Maybe I should go back to basics. With a badass alphabet.
