![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Begin Again, Finneagan - 19 April 2010
Apr. 20th, 2010 09:37 amGreetings, persons in search of ways of making science more palatable! For those looking for ways to leverage kids' already brilliant skills at memorizatino and strategy, Phylo, the biodiversity open-content trading card type game is available, but definitely in the alpha stages. If you want to contribute art, text, or rulesets to help the game get bigger, you can at http://phylogame.org/.
Getting back on the blogging soapbox, the previous "add our affiliate link to your outbound clicks" script is back, although this time it's not massively mucking things up. No, LiveJournal has not said anything about it publicly. The official response is that it's transparent, so they shouldn't need to notify you that they're mucking with your links. But that's not the only fun part. The script runs when you even mouse over a link, and could connect the dots on you in ways you don't want as well as offer up all sorts of goodies to people who want to sniff the packets coming from LJ. The last link offers a partial opt-out solution involving the admin console, but it only affects your viewing, and not when someone else views your stuff - their links are still being mucked with. Not that I expect any sort of mass exodus from LJ for this, but a company that starts slipping things in without telling you they're doing it is signaling that they really don't care about you. It may be wise to invest in a service that doesn't do this - and at least one of them has an excellent import tool to get all of your previous stuff up and over, as well as OpenID support so that all the people in LJ can still comment in the new place.
Out in the world today, being hidebound and homogenous is a bigger factor in supporting UK far right parties than increased immigration, according to a study released. In fact, more immigration made the residents less likely to vote for xenophobic parties.
We may see the Westboro Baptist Church headed to the UK as well, as soon as they can find a plane in, to protest the two male swans that have set up a love nest together.
The United States military makesn an unscientific forecast that peak oil will arrive much sooner than expected, in 2015.
Finally, the Big Picture takes a trek out to Iceland to take pictures of the volcano that's the cause of the plane grounding.
Inside the United States, even as Wall Street looks good, there are several metropolises in economic free-fall. Main Street continues to struggle mightily.
A Tennessee town was so very desperate to get rid of the mayor appointed after the previous mayor died that they re-elected the dead mayor to a new term. well, technically, because they elected a dead person, the seat will be declared vacant and the aldermen will try again on selecting a mayor more suited to the people of the town.
In North Carolina, a school changed their prom policy to allow a "guest" to accompany a student, instead of a "date", to accomodate having a homosexual male and his boyfriend attend. This is both good and bad. Good that the school allows for same-sex couples to attend the prom, bad that they decided that they had to change the wording to accompany it. Apparently "dates" are only for heterosexuals, and homosexuals have to settle for having "guests". There was no need to change any wording at all, and if they hadn't, it would have been better for everyone involved.
A recent survey indicates that most of th people in the United States don't trust their government. This is healthy in most ways.
In technology, there are no digital natives. Those that use the technology still need to learn how to make it, break it, and put it back together again better than it was before.
And on blogging, the problogger says most people think blogging or producing static content can make them money, and that the real money is made instead in using the blog to promote services and dynamic abilities.
Beware! Leaving negative feedback for someone who is an obvious fraudster may get you sued for defamation, because they require that excellent feedback rating to continue running their scam.
And finally, perhaps the most novel way of making hack-proof medical wireless devices - tatoo the password on the patient in UV ink.
In opinions in general, a plea for sensibility to reign in religion and for the virulently anti-gay to actually read the whole book for a bit and follow the directions, including the one that says what the greatest commandments are and that the rest should bugger off if they run in contradiction to those.
The question of liberals and conservatives on birth control and abortion might be a difference in mating strategies, with the tending-liberal college kids staying liberal on those issues because they want to have sex but don't feel ready for families yet, and the conservatives who do want families trying to remove the possibility of people having sex without families resulting because such a situation increases the likelihood of cuckolding. These are what brilliant minds are up to these days.
Mr. Cline points out that President Obama, for his good public presentation side, is still going much farther than the previous administrator did in establishing dictatorial powers for the President outside the law and institutionalizing many of the offenses against freedom that the previous administrators did assert. The President claims that he can have you killed, for whatever reason. Even if it only applies to outside the country now, there's no trick at all for it coming inside the country in the next administration. And then people have to live in fear of the real death panels - the people who decide whether your life is still worth living. And that's without the already-legal manner of warrantless searching of your electronic devices if you're making a border crossing.
On more political matters, Mr. Krauthammer believes the recent nuclear summit was a dream where no real progress was achieved, because the big issues, like Iran, weren't talked about. Ms. Charen ageres, and calls the matter a dog and pony show because nobody talked about doing anything to Iran, who will be more than happy, apparently, to hand over their nuclear weapons for terrorists to use elsewhere. Mr. Trzupek says that the new kids on the block, who don't remember the scary Cold War need to learn their history before making nuclear proclamations. And Mr. Adney says that you can't trust the expert scientists, because they don't do any actual testing of the weapons to ensure they are still safe and effective at their task. It all comes together in Mr. May's denunciation of the President as someone whose doctrine is all about making the country weaker while ignoring the greatest threats to the nation.
Ms. Fields thinks that the resurgent Newt Gingrich is returning to the top of his game, instead of the perception of being a has-been.
Mr. Kontrovich uses the National Cathedral as an example of where SCOTUS should go on matters of the Establishment Clause as pertaining to symbols, worrying that if the justices decide against a cross in the desert, they will have to make a decision about the Cathedral as well.
On more personal matters, Mr. Miller accuses the President of having pride and arrogance based on the fact that he made fun of his critics, critics who are normal people instead of other politicans, regardless of the truth value of such poking fun. Mr. McCulloguh takes this point and expands it past simple arrogance into willful deception and defiance of "the people" in pursuit of his agenda, a "delusion" that anything other than slavish adherence to conservative common wisdom, American exceptionalism, and blind adherence to traditional alliances might work as a policy.
Mr. Jacob wants us to remember both anniversaries today - the violent revolution, and the violent terrorist attack, and insists that Tea Partiers and others are and will always be of the peaceful type, and thus anyone saying they might lead to violence is engaging in political baiting. He's right that nobody has done anything, and the grand majority of Tea Types will likely be more like the ones Mr. Kudlow describes, as people who peacefully advocate for more limited government because they don't trust the government to do anything, being absolutely ready to roll back any sort of progress if it doesn't meet their strict guidelines (by the way, Mr. Kudlow, invoking Reagan seems to be more of a dog whistle these days than actually being worth anything.) of what they beleive the governemnt is able to do (almost nothing). That said, you can't just wipe away the fact that several persons appearing at Tea Party rallies have carried signs of a violent nature, or spoken violent words insisting that not only do they not trust the government, they believe it should be forced to bend to the mob rule through violence. At that point, one notes, the chances of reasonable discourse go straight to hell. There are always going to be violent fanatics in any sort of major philosophy - it's inevitable. But denying they exist is the wrong way to go about removing their power. Acknowledging they exist helps dispel the idea that they are powerful, and then they can be flatly ridiculed at every opportunity, and if they ever get enough to actually try something, well, then you have to trust that law enforcement will do their jobs better than the domestic terrorists.
Saying "we're all peaceful" when some have been spotted carrying violent rhetoric lessens your credibility, because it's an easy lie to disprove.
And in the running for tonight's bad people contest, you would think someone would have figured out the bat was rabid before taking it to show and tell for the class.
But taking the bronze is the principal that insisted any teaching about Darwin in a program was inappropriate for upper-elementary school students. The school does do evolution in later grades, but apparently doing them in the earlier ones, is inappropriate, except for the kindergarteners, who get an age-appropriate slice of it themselves.
Down in the department of the silvers, Mr. Stokes gets the honor mostly for calling President Obama a Muslim, Marxist, Liberation Theology Christian (very strange bedfellows indeed) on his railing against the decision that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. Lincoln established it, he said, and FDR prayed on the radio, and so it's obvious (to him) that Christian prayer is just something that should be part of the fabric of politics, no questions asked. But mostly for accusing the President of being three things that don't get along particularly well, two of which aren't true (I have no idea whether the President is for Liberation Theology or not), and a little more for missing the point entirely while appealing to both history and authority to make his point.
Tonight's potential Worst People In The World, if the allegations against them can be substantiated, are all the defendants in Greene v. County of Sonoma et. al, a case that involves two men living together that designated each other as their medical advocates, with the paperwork to back it up, having all of their paperwork and the law ignored when one of the two men was injured. The hospital ignored the papers and treated the medical advocate as if he had no power, and the county seized the house, sold all the possessions the two men had, and then terminated the lease the two men had and surrendered the house back to the landlord, putting the other man in a nursing home separate from the injured man. If substantiated, everyone involved in this who did not try to stop it, especially if they were presented with the documents in question, is guilty of a very serious moral and legal offense. If convicted, I would not be opposed to publicly parading them around for a bit as a warning to others who violate the laws in such a flagrant manner.
Last for tonight: the rainbow eucalptyus, the most colorful tree on Terra. And the path to a very nice tea house... on top of a mountain.
Getting back on the blogging soapbox, the previous "add our affiliate link to your outbound clicks" script is back, although this time it's not massively mucking things up. No, LiveJournal has not said anything about it publicly. The official response is that it's transparent, so they shouldn't need to notify you that they're mucking with your links. But that's not the only fun part. The script runs when you even mouse over a link, and could connect the dots on you in ways you don't want as well as offer up all sorts of goodies to people who want to sniff the packets coming from LJ. The last link offers a partial opt-out solution involving the admin console, but it only affects your viewing, and not when someone else views your stuff - their links are still being mucked with. Not that I expect any sort of mass exodus from LJ for this, but a company that starts slipping things in without telling you they're doing it is signaling that they really don't care about you. It may be wise to invest in a service that doesn't do this - and at least one of them has an excellent import tool to get all of your previous stuff up and over, as well as OpenID support so that all the people in LJ can still comment in the new place.
Out in the world today, being hidebound and homogenous is a bigger factor in supporting UK far right parties than increased immigration, according to a study released. In fact, more immigration made the residents less likely to vote for xenophobic parties.
We may see the Westboro Baptist Church headed to the UK as well, as soon as they can find a plane in, to protest the two male swans that have set up a love nest together.
The United States military makesn an unscientific forecast that peak oil will arrive much sooner than expected, in 2015.
Finally, the Big Picture takes a trek out to Iceland to take pictures of the volcano that's the cause of the plane grounding.
Inside the United States, even as Wall Street looks good, there are several metropolises in economic free-fall. Main Street continues to struggle mightily.
A Tennessee town was so very desperate to get rid of the mayor appointed after the previous mayor died that they re-elected the dead mayor to a new term. well, technically, because they elected a dead person, the seat will be declared vacant and the aldermen will try again on selecting a mayor more suited to the people of the town.
In North Carolina, a school changed their prom policy to allow a "guest" to accompany a student, instead of a "date", to accomodate having a homosexual male and his boyfriend attend. This is both good and bad. Good that the school allows for same-sex couples to attend the prom, bad that they decided that they had to change the wording to accompany it. Apparently "dates" are only for heterosexuals, and homosexuals have to settle for having "guests". There was no need to change any wording at all, and if they hadn't, it would have been better for everyone involved.
A recent survey indicates that most of th people in the United States don't trust their government. This is healthy in most ways.
In technology, there are no digital natives. Those that use the technology still need to learn how to make it, break it, and put it back together again better than it was before.
And on blogging, the problogger says most people think blogging or producing static content can make them money, and that the real money is made instead in using the blog to promote services and dynamic abilities.
Beware! Leaving negative feedback for someone who is an obvious fraudster may get you sued for defamation, because they require that excellent feedback rating to continue running their scam.
And finally, perhaps the most novel way of making hack-proof medical wireless devices - tatoo the password on the patient in UV ink.
In opinions in general, a plea for sensibility to reign in religion and for the virulently anti-gay to actually read the whole book for a bit and follow the directions, including the one that says what the greatest commandments are and that the rest should bugger off if they run in contradiction to those.
The question of liberals and conservatives on birth control and abortion might be a difference in mating strategies, with the tending-liberal college kids staying liberal on those issues because they want to have sex but don't feel ready for families yet, and the conservatives who do want families trying to remove the possibility of people having sex without families resulting because such a situation increases the likelihood of cuckolding. These are what brilliant minds are up to these days.
Mr. Cline points out that President Obama, for his good public presentation side, is still going much farther than the previous administrator did in establishing dictatorial powers for the President outside the law and institutionalizing many of the offenses against freedom that the previous administrators did assert. The President claims that he can have you killed, for whatever reason. Even if it only applies to outside the country now, there's no trick at all for it coming inside the country in the next administration. And then people have to live in fear of the real death panels - the people who decide whether your life is still worth living. And that's without the already-legal manner of warrantless searching of your electronic devices if you're making a border crossing.
On more political matters, Mr. Krauthammer believes the recent nuclear summit was a dream where no real progress was achieved, because the big issues, like Iran, weren't talked about. Ms. Charen ageres, and calls the matter a dog and pony show because nobody talked about doing anything to Iran, who will be more than happy, apparently, to hand over their nuclear weapons for terrorists to use elsewhere. Mr. Trzupek says that the new kids on the block, who don't remember the scary Cold War need to learn their history before making nuclear proclamations. And Mr. Adney says that you can't trust the expert scientists, because they don't do any actual testing of the weapons to ensure they are still safe and effective at their task. It all comes together in Mr. May's denunciation of the President as someone whose doctrine is all about making the country weaker while ignoring the greatest threats to the nation.
Ms. Fields thinks that the resurgent Newt Gingrich is returning to the top of his game, instead of the perception of being a has-been.
Mr. Kontrovich uses the National Cathedral as an example of where SCOTUS should go on matters of the Establishment Clause as pertaining to symbols, worrying that if the justices decide against a cross in the desert, they will have to make a decision about the Cathedral as well.
On more personal matters, Mr. Miller accuses the President of having pride and arrogance based on the fact that he made fun of his critics, critics who are normal people instead of other politicans, regardless of the truth value of such poking fun. Mr. McCulloguh takes this point and expands it past simple arrogance into willful deception and defiance of "the people" in pursuit of his agenda, a "delusion" that anything other than slavish adherence to conservative common wisdom, American exceptionalism, and blind adherence to traditional alliances might work as a policy.
Mr. Jacob wants us to remember both anniversaries today - the violent revolution, and the violent terrorist attack, and insists that Tea Partiers and others are and will always be of the peaceful type, and thus anyone saying they might lead to violence is engaging in political baiting. He's right that nobody has done anything, and the grand majority of Tea Types will likely be more like the ones Mr. Kudlow describes, as people who peacefully advocate for more limited government because they don't trust the government to do anything, being absolutely ready to roll back any sort of progress if it doesn't meet their strict guidelines (by the way, Mr. Kudlow, invoking Reagan seems to be more of a dog whistle these days than actually being worth anything.) of what they beleive the governemnt is able to do (almost nothing). That said, you can't just wipe away the fact that several persons appearing at Tea Party rallies have carried signs of a violent nature, or spoken violent words insisting that not only do they not trust the government, they believe it should be forced to bend to the mob rule through violence. At that point, one notes, the chances of reasonable discourse go straight to hell. There are always going to be violent fanatics in any sort of major philosophy - it's inevitable. But denying they exist is the wrong way to go about removing their power. Acknowledging they exist helps dispel the idea that they are powerful, and then they can be flatly ridiculed at every opportunity, and if they ever get enough to actually try something, well, then you have to trust that law enforcement will do their jobs better than the domestic terrorists.
Saying "we're all peaceful" when some have been spotted carrying violent rhetoric lessens your credibility, because it's an easy lie to disprove.
And in the running for tonight's bad people contest, you would think someone would have figured out the bat was rabid before taking it to show and tell for the class.
But taking the bronze is the principal that insisted any teaching about Darwin in a program was inappropriate for upper-elementary school students. The school does do evolution in later grades, but apparently doing them in the earlier ones, is inappropriate, except for the kindergarteners, who get an age-appropriate slice of it themselves.
Down in the department of the silvers, Mr. Stokes gets the honor mostly for calling President Obama a Muslim, Marxist, Liberation Theology Christian (very strange bedfellows indeed) on his railing against the decision that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. Lincoln established it, he said, and FDR prayed on the radio, and so it's obvious (to him) that Christian prayer is just something that should be part of the fabric of politics, no questions asked. But mostly for accusing the President of being three things that don't get along particularly well, two of which aren't true (I have no idea whether the President is for Liberation Theology or not), and a little more for missing the point entirely while appealing to both history and authority to make his point.
Tonight's potential Worst People In The World, if the allegations against them can be substantiated, are all the defendants in Greene v. County of Sonoma et. al, a case that involves two men living together that designated each other as their medical advocates, with the paperwork to back it up, having all of their paperwork and the law ignored when one of the two men was injured. The hospital ignored the papers and treated the medical advocate as if he had no power, and the county seized the house, sold all the possessions the two men had, and then terminated the lease the two men had and surrendered the house back to the landlord, putting the other man in a nursing home separate from the injured man. If substantiated, everyone involved in this who did not try to stop it, especially if they were presented with the documents in question, is guilty of a very serious moral and legal offense. If convicted, I would not be opposed to publicly parading them around for a bit as a warning to others who violate the laws in such a flagrant manner.
Last for tonight: the rainbow eucalptyus, the most colorful tree on Terra. And the path to a very nice tea house... on top of a mountain.
