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Before we begin, I would like to highlight a quick primer from ReadWriteWeb about how to go about sifting the giant amounts of news and noise published every minute down into what you actually want to read at the time you want to read it. It’s general, but helpful in showing you good macrostrategies for separating wheat from chaff. That way, you don’t have to wade through my meanderings and opinionations and aren’t shackled to only what I present as things of interest. You can make yourself infintely better than I will ever be.
Our congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks franchise, capturing the National Hockey League Championship trophy, the Stanley Cup, beating the Philadelphia Flyers four games to two. Funny how the hockey trophy, a nominally cold-weather sport, is finally being awarded in June...
Good morning, people who prize their security and privacy. If you own an iPad 3G, regardless of whether you’re a bigwig or a little guy, there's a good chance a security exploit used by a group calling themselves Goatse Security has harvested and sold the e-mail address you used to register to spammers, marketers, and malicious people.
For people who think that abortion should never be allowed, under any circumstances, what exactly do you say to the thireteen year-old girl who performed her home abortion with a pencil after getting pregnant?
Beyond the borders of the place that thinks itself the center of the universe (those who live in Fremont know full well where the center of the universe really is), the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of additional sanctions and restrictions against Iran in a bid to curb their nuclear development program.
A seven year-old child was allegedly executed in Afghanistan by a Taliban group because he was a spy for the United States, according to local reports. I doubt the group accused will confirm the killing and its reason, mostly because once you start admitting you kill children, you start a very swift slide downward on the PR department and you get other groups to try and eliminate you, if only to save their own reputations.
Inside the United States, the politics gets better and better. A candidate that raised no money, had no website, and basically disappeared after filing his candidacy papers has won the Democratic nomination in South Carolina, and is now being asked to step aside because he had a felony charge of showing obscene material to a university student. The candidate has said he won’t step aside. I think this says soemthing about the state of political affairs in the country when the people are willing to vote for someone they probably know nothing about over anyone who even looks like they have any sort of political experience. I’m sure the investigation into how this happened will be very enlightening.
Brither Queen Orly Taitz rambles and meanders and ruminates on her spanking in the California Secretary of State election, concluding she’s undeterred and that the truth about the Secret Kenyan will eventually win out.
A representative from Missouri says that he opposes allowing openly gay people to serve in the military because it might encourage young children to ask their parents about LGBT-ness. Think of the children, and how we must keep their minds closed to concepts they are curious about. Think of the families, where mothers and fathers will have to explain to their children what they think about LGBT in ways their children can understand. And think of all the communication those children will do with each other, their teachers and librarians, and the possibility that the kids will be exposed to the idea that there’s more than one opinion on the matter. Shock. Horror.
A protest against the inclusion of a Muslim place of worship in the community center being built where the World Trade Center once stood included the surrounding and shouting of hateful words at Arabic-looking men...who were there to join the protest, as they were Coptic Christians. The men were eventually pulled out by police, who feared violence. But “everyone knows” that nobody racially profiles brown people as being Bloodthirsty Muslim Terrorists.
British Petroleum is now valued, in terms of stock, at less than the total value of their physical assets. Is this supposed to be the warning bell for a later death knell, where The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) and the government combine to actually stick them with an appropriate repair bill and it bankrupts the company? There’s already dark rumblings that BP is stalling on claims, saying they need more documentation to pay them...
The oil spill is also making plenty of previously anti-government persons suddenly very grateful for federal aid. For example, Tea Party darling and gubernatorial candidate Marco Rubio (and, apparently, even Michelle Bachmann is okay with federal authority to seize things and put them to use when disaster strikes).
Even as the headsman checks his knots, the damage to the wildlife and the ecology is ongoing and getting worse.
Claiming that the Papers Please law is an extension of Federal Law is not possible - there’s a federal regulation that looks something like what they passed in Arizona, but there’s no actual statute. Furthermore, upon actually reading the criteria presented, it looks awfully like it encourages racial profiling through ambiguous statements and a lack of definition as to what actually makes someone illegal. The Papers Please law is still unconstitutional and should be repealed immediately.
Into technology, where I’m going to need a spotter to confirm this - Supposedly, DTE Energy is using unmanned aerial vehicles in Detroit to spot what they consider illegal hookups to the electric grid and natural gas lines, so they can stop people who aren’t paying their rates from receiving ciritically important power or gas to heat their residences with. While supposedly there are programs to help make these essentials affordable for even the hardest-hit of the poor, I’m inclined to believe that they’re not all that well funded to take on all the people they would need to.
Additionally, as one might expect in a pheremone-heavy environment, partners and close friends can smell out each other's emotional states.
And then there’s the idea that neuroplasticity is a blanket term that says nothing and should subsequently be discarded in sciences for something more specific whenever someone is talking about brain stuff.
Finally, ooh, shiny. A new comet is becoming visible to the unaided eye, so check out your night skies for a new body.
In opinions, Mr. Jensen remarks that individuals doing green living is nice, but ultimately useless in achieving actual change, because individuals are not the major consumers of anything, be it natural resources, industrial processes, or the damage done to Terra by extraction of those parts and the industrial processes that generate stuff. If we’re really about saving the planet, then we need to amass lots of people to oppose the corporations exploiting it.
Mr. Gurney has a self-congratulatory moment about the sudden shfit among American allies in the Pacific to go back to using the United States as a military ally, instead of striking out on their own with their SDFs and their own might. He thinks its because of the steadfast alliances and the great power of the United States, and he’s about half-right. Best to have the U.S. in your back pocket if push comes to shove, that much is true, but I don’t think anyone there is really happy with things the way they are.
Rahola, through translation, wants to know why liberals are obsessed with denouncing the United States and Israel instead of campaigning against the places that are truly oppressive dictatorships. According to her, the media and the Left are always ready to believe all the lies about Israel, exaggerate their self-defenses, and leave the Jewish people hung out to dry instead of supporting them and their Real True Democracy in the Middle East.
Remember yesterday about how liberals were supposedly failures at basic economics in a much higher percentage than conservatives? One could almost snark about “Well, then, when conservatives fail at it, they must fail pretty big”, but there’s at least two logical fallacies in there, I’m sure. Instead, we’ll just point out that if you blame the recession on a single thing or a series of things all done by your political opposition, you're wrong and woefully historically ignorant. And in the case of Mr. Morris above, the data that he cites doesn’t paint any sort of convincing picture about how the government is at fault for the recession - it fingers corporations not raising wages or hiring more people but keeping more profits, financial-sector transactions still continuing to create wealth for a few and not driving any part of the real economy, and speculation that the global economy is about to power back up and drive up prices. About the only thing he might be able to pin on the Democrat is new taxes, which is conveniently related to the solution he offers - cut both taxes and spending so that the private sector and the Market (A.P.T.I.N.) will roar back to life unfettered by government and return to what they were doing that created the bubbles and the crashes. In other words - the only way to fix this is to wholeheartedly dive into the Republican ideology and rule as if government was the problem, when even your own data says it isn’t.
Running on that theme, actually, Ms. Malkin does her best impression of a victory lap, crowing that the Obama Administration's corruption, backroom dealing, and scandals are finally coming to light and proving that she was right all along about Hope and Change and Transparency being nice words to get the rubes to vote for you, and that anyone who threw names at her or called her a puppet of Fox or said she overlooked the Bush administration should be sorry they ever doubted her, nyeah-nyeah. So, Ms. Malkin, as an encore, how are you going to help ensure that when the Republicans come back to power, they’re going to govern without corruption, or pork, kickbacks, sweet deals, or any of the other stuff you have been campaigning against? Where’s your commitment to transparency in government?
Finally, from opinions, Mr. Carroll complains about unions that represent government workers being able to spend their dues money on advertisements and poltiical campaigning, because he sees that as taxpayer money being used to fight what the taxpayers want, in addition to complaining about how well unionized government workers are paid. Government workers in unions will bankrupt us all, apparently, with their demands that wages rise to meet increased costs of living and other such problematic things.
And last for tonight, the method by which one creates perfect fried potatoes, in the style of a major fast food chain, complete with recipe.
Our congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks franchise, capturing the National Hockey League Championship trophy, the Stanley Cup, beating the Philadelphia Flyers four games to two. Funny how the hockey trophy, a nominally cold-weather sport, is finally being awarded in June...
Good morning, people who prize their security and privacy. If you own an iPad 3G, regardless of whether you’re a bigwig or a little guy, there's a good chance a security exploit used by a group calling themselves Goatse Security has harvested and sold the e-mail address you used to register to spammers, marketers, and malicious people.
For people who think that abortion should never be allowed, under any circumstances, what exactly do you say to the thireteen year-old girl who performed her home abortion with a pencil after getting pregnant?
Beyond the borders of the place that thinks itself the center of the universe (those who live in Fremont know full well where the center of the universe really is), the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of additional sanctions and restrictions against Iran in a bid to curb their nuclear development program.
A seven year-old child was allegedly executed in Afghanistan by a Taliban group because he was a spy for the United States, according to local reports. I doubt the group accused will confirm the killing and its reason, mostly because once you start admitting you kill children, you start a very swift slide downward on the PR department and you get other groups to try and eliminate you, if only to save their own reputations.
Inside the United States, the politics gets better and better. A candidate that raised no money, had no website, and basically disappeared after filing his candidacy papers has won the Democratic nomination in South Carolina, and is now being asked to step aside because he had a felony charge of showing obscene material to a university student. The candidate has said he won’t step aside. I think this says soemthing about the state of political affairs in the country when the people are willing to vote for someone they probably know nothing about over anyone who even looks like they have any sort of political experience. I’m sure the investigation into how this happened will be very enlightening.
Brither Queen Orly Taitz rambles and meanders and ruminates on her spanking in the California Secretary of State election, concluding she’s undeterred and that the truth about the Secret Kenyan will eventually win out.
A representative from Missouri says that he opposes allowing openly gay people to serve in the military because it might encourage young children to ask their parents about LGBT-ness. Think of the children, and how we must keep their minds closed to concepts they are curious about. Think of the families, where mothers and fathers will have to explain to their children what they think about LGBT in ways their children can understand. And think of all the communication those children will do with each other, their teachers and librarians, and the possibility that the kids will be exposed to the idea that there’s more than one opinion on the matter. Shock. Horror.
A protest against the inclusion of a Muslim place of worship in the community center being built where the World Trade Center once stood included the surrounding and shouting of hateful words at Arabic-looking men...who were there to join the protest, as they were Coptic Christians. The men were eventually pulled out by police, who feared violence. But “everyone knows” that nobody racially profiles brown people as being Bloodthirsty Muslim Terrorists.
British Petroleum is now valued, in terms of stock, at less than the total value of their physical assets. Is this supposed to be the warning bell for a later death knell, where The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) and the government combine to actually stick them with an appropriate repair bill and it bankrupts the company? There’s already dark rumblings that BP is stalling on claims, saying they need more documentation to pay them...
The oil spill is also making plenty of previously anti-government persons suddenly very grateful for federal aid. For example, Tea Party darling and gubernatorial candidate Marco Rubio (and, apparently, even Michelle Bachmann is okay with federal authority to seize things and put them to use when disaster strikes).
Even as the headsman checks his knots, the damage to the wildlife and the ecology is ongoing and getting worse.
Claiming that the Papers Please law is an extension of Federal Law is not possible - there’s a federal regulation that looks something like what they passed in Arizona, but there’s no actual statute. Furthermore, upon actually reading the criteria presented, it looks awfully like it encourages racial profiling through ambiguous statements and a lack of definition as to what actually makes someone illegal. The Papers Please law is still unconstitutional and should be repealed immediately.
Into technology, where I’m going to need a spotter to confirm this - Supposedly, DTE Energy is using unmanned aerial vehicles in Detroit to spot what they consider illegal hookups to the electric grid and natural gas lines, so they can stop people who aren’t paying their rates from receiving ciritically important power or gas to heat their residences with. While supposedly there are programs to help make these essentials affordable for even the hardest-hit of the poor, I’m inclined to believe that they’re not all that well funded to take on all the people they would need to.
Additionally, as one might expect in a pheremone-heavy environment, partners and close friends can smell out each other's emotional states.
And then there’s the idea that neuroplasticity is a blanket term that says nothing and should subsequently be discarded in sciences for something more specific whenever someone is talking about brain stuff.
Finally, ooh, shiny. A new comet is becoming visible to the unaided eye, so check out your night skies for a new body.
In opinions, Mr. Jensen remarks that individuals doing green living is nice, but ultimately useless in achieving actual change, because individuals are not the major consumers of anything, be it natural resources, industrial processes, or the damage done to Terra by extraction of those parts and the industrial processes that generate stuff. If we’re really about saving the planet, then we need to amass lots of people to oppose the corporations exploiting it.
Mr. Gurney has a self-congratulatory moment about the sudden shfit among American allies in the Pacific to go back to using the United States as a military ally, instead of striking out on their own with their SDFs and their own might. He thinks its because of the steadfast alliances and the great power of the United States, and he’s about half-right. Best to have the U.S. in your back pocket if push comes to shove, that much is true, but I don’t think anyone there is really happy with things the way they are.
Rahola, through translation, wants to know why liberals are obsessed with denouncing the United States and Israel instead of campaigning against the places that are truly oppressive dictatorships. According to her, the media and the Left are always ready to believe all the lies about Israel, exaggerate their self-defenses, and leave the Jewish people hung out to dry instead of supporting them and their Real True Democracy in the Middle East.
Remember yesterday about how liberals were supposedly failures at basic economics in a much higher percentage than conservatives? One could almost snark about “Well, then, when conservatives fail at it, they must fail pretty big”, but there’s at least two logical fallacies in there, I’m sure. Instead, we’ll just point out that if you blame the recession on a single thing or a series of things all done by your political opposition, you're wrong and woefully historically ignorant. And in the case of Mr. Morris above, the data that he cites doesn’t paint any sort of convincing picture about how the government is at fault for the recession - it fingers corporations not raising wages or hiring more people but keeping more profits, financial-sector transactions still continuing to create wealth for a few and not driving any part of the real economy, and speculation that the global economy is about to power back up and drive up prices. About the only thing he might be able to pin on the Democrat is new taxes, which is conveniently related to the solution he offers - cut both taxes and spending so that the private sector and the Market (A.P.T.I.N.) will roar back to life unfettered by government and return to what they were doing that created the bubbles and the crashes. In other words - the only way to fix this is to wholeheartedly dive into the Republican ideology and rule as if government was the problem, when even your own data says it isn’t.
Running on that theme, actually, Ms. Malkin does her best impression of a victory lap, crowing that the Obama Administration's corruption, backroom dealing, and scandals are finally coming to light and proving that she was right all along about Hope and Change and Transparency being nice words to get the rubes to vote for you, and that anyone who threw names at her or called her a puppet of Fox or said she overlooked the Bush administration should be sorry they ever doubted her, nyeah-nyeah. So, Ms. Malkin, as an encore, how are you going to help ensure that when the Republicans come back to power, they’re going to govern without corruption, or pork, kickbacks, sweet deals, or any of the other stuff you have been campaigning against? Where’s your commitment to transparency in government?
Finally, from opinions, Mr. Carroll complains about unions that represent government workers being able to spend their dues money on advertisements and poltiical campaigning, because he sees that as taxpayer money being used to fight what the taxpayers want, in addition to complaining about how well unionized government workers are paid. Government workers in unions will bankrupt us all, apparently, with their demands that wages rise to meet increased costs of living and other such problematic things.
And last for tonight, the method by which one creates perfect fried potatoes, in the style of a major fast food chain, complete with recipe.
