Jumbo-sized entry - 11-12 May 2010

Good evening, people who believe in the ability of all peoples to find their calling, regardless of what others think they should be doing. Be reviled by the columnist who says gay men can't play striaght people well, even though straight people can always play gay people well. We think the columnist is too enamored with the sexuality of the performer and thus is looking for whatever excuse he can to say that he’s bad - I’d lke to see what review he would give if the performer hadn’t come out of the closet right before the show. As someone who has worked with the actors being singled out in the column (and a right good actor herself), we think that Kristin Chenoweth knows a thing or two about good acting, and rips the columnist a new one for his claims. Having been hit with a broadside, the columnist says, "No, I wasn't being homophobic, I was saying America can't accept a gay man playing a striaght man". It’s not my fault, it’s yours. If that were the case, then why are you saying that the performance of a gay man playing a straight man is off, sir?

For those looking for a bit happier story, enjoy the ten year-old fashion designer for children.

For those just looking for the cute, The Big Picture shows us some animals in the news.

and for the rest of you, ponder the implications and power perversion potential of the wedding dress that dissolves in water.

Around the world, a triple bombing in the Iraqi city of Basra has killed more than one hundred. Blame went to insurgents tied to terrorists trying to take advantage of the election instability. Elsewhere, the government of Yemen refused to extradite a cleric accused of having terrorist ties, preferring to try him under the laws of Yemen.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent have confirmed the presence of a secret prison on Bargram Air Base in Afghanistan, a place where detainees not in the general populace went. Those detainees claim they were tortured by United States military personnel.

Somali pirates captured and then released by Russian troops mysteriously did not make it back to land, despite official denials that anyone killed them on their way back.

And then there’s the border patrol as well. A Canadian citizen alleges that she was denied entry to the United States after showing her passport, told she was "taking jobs from Americans" because she was getting room and board from a volunteer farm opportunity, then strip-searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and turned out into a now-closed bus station in Windsor at three in the morning. That’s unnecessarily harsh to someone, even if you want to turn them away because you think they’re stealing jobs from farm hands here in the United states.

Fox reports the WHO may ask UN member states to tax its residents to raise money to help research and development - while they also talk about financial and management troubles the organization is having. Wonder whether there will be comparisons to the domestic economy and this organization’s troubles...

The leader of the United Kingdom's Conservative Party forged a successful alliance with the Liberal Democratic Party, creating a coalition government with him as Prime Minister. This should be interesting to watch...

Domestically, the Attorney general has said that the Miranda protections for criminals could be modified to exclude terror suspects. Once again, anyone thinking they elected a liberal is sorely mistaken. That other sound you heard was the sound of several thousand torture porn and 24 enthusiasts hearing that their twisted way of thinking might become legitimate and orgasming at the possibilities.

The Federal Reserve's emergency lending procedures are now under Senate audit. Odds on whether or not the Senate can make heads or tails of the matter to create a meaningful conclusion?

The natural disasters start piling up - Tennessee flooded, and now tornado season has begun in the non-coastal areas of the country. If/when hurricane season hits the Gulf, will the oil be an artificial disaster compounded by natural ones? And will all the idiots who said that the disaster in the Gulf makes them more likely to support offshore drilling stand up and applaud when all that oil is scattered in the rainstorm? (And the further idiots that think environmentalists deliberately sabotaged the rig and caused the problem, what will those people think...) Take a look at what's already happening in the Gulf.

A man shoplifting toothpaste from a CVS in Chicago was caught in a chokehold and killed by one of the employees who saw him shoplift. Whiel the death is ruled a homicide, authorities are calling it “accidental” and not pressing charges. Wow. Seems more than a bit harsh for shoplifting, ya?

More information the case of the school that spied on its students - the people they hired to investigate said that the IT department and bad record keeping were the only problems, and that administrators didn't actually view any pictures. That’s a demonstrably false statement, and one wonders why the CYA is this poorly done. Even if it is just IT, the administration is still responsible for IT and for good policies. We’re hoping for a better investigation done by the parents and someone they hire. That has a little bit better chance of being truly independent.

The Florida Attorney General recommended George Rekers, anti-gay activist caught at the airport with a Rentboy, as a star witness in their campaign to ensure LGBT families and individuals cannot adopt chlidren. According to the piece and comments, negative comments about this association are being deleted from the Facebook page of the AG’s campaign. Tsk, tsk - they should know better about deleting comments - it tends to generate them back and more without too much effort. Admittedly, at least they aren’t lying about police policy in Arizona or claiming that airlines are losing money because of unions, despite a highly unionized shop turning a profit.

After the Supreme Court ruled it could stay, thieves stole a large white cross in the Mojave desert intended as a memorial to fallen soldiers. This action counts under the “Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures” Rule, not only because the people who want it to be there are already vowing and collecting materials to rebuild it, but because it sends entirely the wrong message about religious tolerance and acceptance. Way to give people who see persecution under every rock an example to latch on to that might have some semblance of reality. Stupid, stupid rat creatures.

And for how it hurts you the other way, another stupid, stupid rat creature stole a poster from a teacher's classroom after the Republican plank meeting basically uprooted Republicanism and replaced it with Tea-Party-ness. Best lines from the article? The thieves and the people who complained that the teacher was brainwashing and indoctrinating kids with Evul Librul ideas get schooled by an eighth grader. Lilly O’Leary, one of several students who sent e-mails to this newspaper decrying the behavior of their weekend guests, said the following, “I am not being brainwashed in his class under any circumstances. I am being told that I have the right to my own opinion....These people were adults and they were acting very immaturely.” She’s got it. Why don’t they?

A peek into Rick Berman, fake grassroots and corporate front-group man extraordinaire.

Finally, the Washington Post company is selling off Newsweek, a weekly newsmagazine.

In technology, speaking of news magazines, Time and its advertising partners are writing contracts that guarantee those ads will work, or they will run more ads for free until the target in the contract is complete. I wonder if there will ever be an ad in one of thos magazines that’s all free adverts because none of the paid ones worked well enough. Maybe Time will pair up with Forbes' corporation reputation tracking service so they’ll easily be able to tell whether the people they’re getting ads from will be sure winners or will cost them lots of advertising space.

Electronic Arts says no to multiplayer on those who buy used games, debuting a system where a one-time registration code is included with a game that will allow people to play on-line and use their unlocked content on-line. People who buy used don’t get the code and will have to buy one. Well, here’s hoping that EA’s sales tank and/or someone finds a way to get multiplayer going without having to pay them for it. Stupid decisions such as this should not be rewarded.

Finland embarks upon building a vault for its nuclear waste, a place to be filled up, filled in, and then forgotten until nature can take its course.

The Gates Foundation is investing in measures that aim to create artificial clouds that will reflect solar radiation and hopefully stop greenhouse effects from getting worse.

a microscope has been developed that can plug into a cellular phone equipped with software to read the data. Perfect for those places where cellular access is fairly ubiquitous, but computers and broadband and expensive lab equipment are not.

Finally, Scientists at Emory University claim to have found a manner by which inorganic peptides can arrange themselves into membranes, turning the inorganic into organic.

In opinions, Mr. Epstein likens the option states have to set up insurance exchanges or expand their Medicaid coverage a ransom note, under the reasoning that while the states are free to leave Medicaid so as to avoid the trap, they do not get the taxes taken to fund Medicaid refunded to them. He thinks the state suit against the health care bill might succeed on the grounds that the states should not become simply the servants of the federal governemnt, as that would violate the Constitution.

Mr. Ajami talks of the dangers of the new Islam, one that simultaneously fetishizes and despises the Western world, growing radicals who are well and tightly knit into the communities of their nations. He may have to argue with Mr. Mauro, who claims that the latest Times Square attacker had plenty of clear ties to extremist groups in Pakistan.

Speaking of the fear campaign and the Concept War, Mr. Trzupek says the American strategy is to hope that all the terrorists are more stupid than the administration is, before declaring his belief that terror suspects should not be treated as criminals nor entitled the protections of the law given to criminals. Oh, and that the Obama Administration is weak and doesn’t want to fight the Concept War, so terror will flourish and attack and maybe after Iran shows nuclear weapons or a really big tragedy happens, then he might fight them.

A Jane Q. Public expresses her outrage that the AAP would compromise with female gential mutilators in offering the ritual nick, because it permits the thoroughly misogynistic ideas behind it to continue, instead of demanding that it be stopped because we don't beleive in that sort of thing here in America. As a lesser of two evils, the nick is prefered to the real thing, obviously. In perfect world, nobody chooses to mutilate their daughters or insist that their sexual maturity is something that has to be hidden or is something they should be ashamed of (and that’s not an import from anywhere), but it would seem that if you can at least get people away from doing the whole thing, progress gets made. Then, time takes its natural course from there, working on the ideas behind it and flushing them and the need for any sort of genital anything away.

Ah, WingNutDaily. Only there can you have a column claiming the idea of America as melting pot is false and that there really are demonstrable differences between the races in intelligence, on your way to claiming that immigrants are coming to the United States with the intent of disrupting and destroying it, so you can justify a policy of deporting everyone who doesn’t look sufficiently white, believing it will result in a return to great prosperity and right thinking as the WASP heritage reasserts itself. The General, brilliant person he is, points out the major flaw - so many people who think they're on the side of right will be deemed too brown to exist and be sent away. But the writer isn’t alone - Mr. Gallagher, for example, thinks kids who wore American flag T-shirts to school on a day intended to celebrate Hispanic haritage should be praised, because they're taking a stand against the wave of illegals, like Arizona is, like the people want them to (and that liberals are defending the Wrong with shouts and screaming because they can’t come up with any real reasons, apparently), and that anybody who thinks these boys, or Arizona, is out of line should apologize, because they’re Wrong, and that respect for them will only come when they decide to support his position.

Mr. Paulette thinks he's found a reason for conservatives to oppose Elena Kagan - her apparently flagrant disregard of the law in the way she treated military recruiters and personnel at Harvard while she was Law School Dean. And once the can is opened, suddenly it seems everywhere. Ms. Schlafly, for example, combines the inexperience argument with the "hates military" argument, somehow blames the President for not choosing What The People Want, and also insinuates Elena Kagan is not pro-life, will use foreign law to interpret American law, and must be defeated for all these reasons. That’s a lot to assert from someone who supposedly doesn’t have much of a record to speak of, Ms. Schlafly. Perhaps you’re projecting onto her everything that you can and hoping something sticks?

Comedian bill Maher makes a point that parents are the people who should be fired first for underperforming students, instead of teachers, because it’s more likely that parental involvement (or lack thereof) will shape the kid than the teachers that they get in schooling. (Of course, there’s always a worst of soemthing, so some teachers probably just can’t hack it and should be let go...)

Mr. Sowell plucks something out of thin air, echoing the Death Eaters, and says we're on a path to telling our elderly when they have to die, and that they have a duty to do so, so that we can save the money it will take to treat them in our government-run health care systems. Mr. Sowell, most of the elderly are already on a government-run health care system, and they seem to be doing just fine.

Last out, the Washington Times accuses the FCC of running and end-around the law and the Supreme Court decision that said it couldn't regulate the Internet, and raises the horrible spectre of what might happen next, including the Fairness Doctrine *crash* *boom* *lightning* *thunder*. Or, we could get away from the hysteria and actually realize that Internet access is now almost required for functioning in society, and that it should start being treated like telephone access with similar rules regarding nondiscrimination of packets. Now, the Times may have a case about getting around the law, but if they want to make that case, we expect them to complain every time an agency writes a new rule, or Congress decided to pass a law specifically to nullify or get around a Supreme Court decision.

Last for tonight, Mojibakeru, transforming kanji that become the character the written character represents. Tokusatsu fans may or may not wish there were varieties similar to the ones used on the Super Sentai show Samurai Sentai Shikenger.

And then... Tyra Banks may just manage to eclipse Twilight as the best-selling worst book ever if the book series she's landed turns out to be exactly what it says on the tin.