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End of week huzzahs - 9 July 2010
Jul. 10th, 2010 11:31 amGreetings to the end of the week, where baseball fans suggest that Bud Selig move the Major League Baseball All-Star Game out of the stadium of the Arizona Diamondbacks based on the Papers Please law. One might wonder, considering how many MLB players are of Hispanic haritage, whether Selig could see sufficient pressure to move if the players’ association decided to lean on him about the law or more than just Ozzie and another player decided they weren’t showing up to the ball.
NIH scientists have isolated some antibodies that appear to prevent most strains of HIV from attaching themselves to human cells, and even better, have been able to document how one of them works. Vaccination and treatment boost GET. It seems like we’re very close to being able to defeat the HIV crisis. Just a little more...
And, although nowhere near the awesome that HIV news is, Blizzard / Activision decided that perhaps requiring real names on the forums and in the games wasn't such a hot idea after all and are not no longer requiring it, perfering to wait until a more docile population that doesn’t care about their pseudonymity plays the games.
In the world today, prisoner exchange - spies for spies. Exchange rate was about 10:4, with 10 Russian spies off in exchange for 4 American ones.
Talking about spies, both the United States' and Pakistan's intelligence agencies are scrutinizing each other and themselves looking for double agents.
And then on more war-like matters, a new report indicates the presence of corrupt officials in the Karzai government is giving legitimacy to the Taliban insurgency. They may be swift, brutal, and deadly, but at least they’re not corrupt. What a trade-off.
Domestically, the thing is in sport, but it has eerie connotations to how we handle other things, like politics, in this country. People claim big thing coming soon, then spend lots of time talking about the lead into it, then spend more time at the spot of the thing talking nonsense and non-sequitur about it, then finally ask the question, then basically sit back and let other talking heads discuss the impact of the question and its answer. Possibly even including grandiose statements and threats about teh consequences of the action. The only difference here is that in the end, some action was taken and actually done. In politics, it seems like the talking is all that gets done, with no real action anywhere.
Head-desk chorus in three, two, one... Governor Jindal of Louisiana signs a bill allowing people to carry concealed weapons in church. Never mind the obvious refutations about peaceful religions, remember that Dr. Tiller was killed in his church, the one place he would not be wearing a bullet-proof vest or other protection against being killed. Murder and violence in the sanctuary? Sounds like the smiting YHVH, not the healing-of-cut-off-ears Jesus.
a PropPublica journalist tells the story of being detained by police, and apparently interrogated by an FBI agent, for taking a picture of a public sign that was close to a BP refinery. Apparently BP security called the police on the journalist, who explained and showed his photos to the police, protested that his information was then shared with the security guard, and was detained long after it was determined his pictures were of no security threat.
And then there’s Senator Brown of Massachussettes, against the continued unemployment insurance of millions, but allegedly okay with trying to get the government to spend millions to put slot machines at the racetracks. It has nothing to do at all with some friends of his owning race horses and such. Nothing at all.
Oh, and Alvin Greene, Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina, thinks that action figures of himself would be an excellent job-creation initiative. He’s not wrong, certainly. I don’t know how well they would sell compared to something like an Obama action figure, but it’s a thought.
Right. More seriously, in recess-appointing Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the Obama administration dodged a proxy war about the health care bill passed early this year, meaning they don’t have to deal with more endless rounds of “Rationing! Pulling the Plug on Grandma! SOCIALISM!” from the opposition, but also not giving them a chance to expound more upon the bill and its benefits. Then again, it also allowed him not to have to fight Senatorial holds, some of which are put on for the most inscrutable of reasons.
Information regarding BP oil spill claims - all the claims mentioned here are false to various degrees of "And how!".
Last out, President Obama's major midterm campaign strategy involves large parts of pointing out what the past has been and asking voters whether they want to return to that past. If you think things went pear-shaped under the last administration, that’s probably a reasonable argument. The question on that is whether the electorate has a long-term memory to remember how much they hated things under the last president...
Greetz, opinions. A shout-out to one Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC’s Countdown, for exposing the stupidity of Sharron angle's belief that rape victims should be forced to carry their babies to term, by mentioning herself as a survivor and reminding us all that, “God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes, ‘cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to choose.“ is not just a song lyric.
Mr. Greenwald reminds us of the current state of the law - those who whistleblow will be charged and prosecuted, those who torture will be shielded from investigation, those who wreck livelihoods will be given bonuses, and those who kill innocents will be commended. This is in relation to Bradley Manning, attempted whistleblower of wrongdoing in the military and State Department, being charged with crimes that could put him in jail for 52 years. On the actual revelation of the story and the way things have been handled so far, Mr. Greenwald returns to the front with a new piece about the utter lack of real transparency in our Liberal Media. This is a longer piece and supplements the quick hits that he did previously about how much the institution we're supposed to rely on to give us unvarnished truth, complete data, and report on all the dirty secrets and bad things the people we elect do does none of those things and tries to hide their failures from us.
Mr. Greenwald also uses the Octavia Nasr firing to highlight a very important hypocrisy in the Liberal Media: the neoconservative orthodox viewpoint is sacred. Anyone expressing heterodoxy that people outside of Israel or against Israel might have done things worthy of respect, even if they did other things for which they should be vilified, is to be silenced and fired. Anyone who thinks, perhaps, that endless war and war against the Infidels in the Middle East is a bad idea will find themselves shuffled, fired, or otherwise removed from prominence or discourse in any way that won’t make them look like an anti-war cardboard cutout. Yet, those same conservatives will scream about the Libral Media taking over. If we had an actual Liberal Media, when someone goes heterodox and gets yelled at for it by the conservative movement and media, they’d get two extended middle fingers in response, and possibly promoting the firebrand to a better slot in their media of choice.
In politics, Mr. Carroll believes the government should pay market rates for federal employees in salary and in benefits, for a tidy savings of 47 billion USD per year. Plus, of course, make it easier to fire people who aren’t performing (gotta bust those unions somehow) and offer performance-based bonuses for those who are. This coming from people and organizations that would no doubt declare that CEOs have earned every penny of their pay, compensation, and bonus packages because running a business is hard work and CEOs have the merit and skill necessary to command those salaries. Federal employees, though, because they have no competition, can’t be competent or skilled and actually deserve pay based on their skills, experience, and education. One of these things is not like the other.
The Washington Times is now against the earmark process and wants a nice clean war funding bill, instead of one laden down with things they don’t like that would appease unions and other traditionally Democratic constituencies. I’d prefer that the earmark system be scrapped entirely and that all spending be in the budget or require a separate bill for each spending item. Might convince people to get it right the first time and put it in the budget.
Mr. Thomas goes straight for the Dictator Trio in his complaint about the United States trying to encourage maths and sciences in the Muslim world (who are always the Bloodthirsty Backward Religion) while also cutting out our own space program. If only we had appreciated Mao more, he says, putting his hand on his forehead dramatically, or Mussolini, or Hitler, then maybe we wouldn’t have had to grind them into dust because of their evil ways, or bail out Europe from Stalin’s nuclear might, or be the superpower that America, Fuck Yeah, is. All from a sincere desire to unlock brilliant minds in a repressive environment. Perhaps Mr. Thomas could benefit from some of that help. Mr. Towery echoes the theme by considering President Obama to be a worse president in all regards than Jimmy Carter, making an old comparison with new points in support of his conclusion. Apparently, trying to be liberal makes you an incompetent that doesn’t even try to fix crises when they arise.
Mr. Hanson tells people like Rand Paul, who see the decline of America coming, to shut up, because all our solutions are right before us, if we're just willing to do them. y’know, like building a complete fence across the southern border, increasing patrols and getting rid of people and companies that hire illegal aliens. (Hey, one out of three for effectiveness isn’t bad.) We can recover our economy if we just cut spending back to the levels and needs of ten years ago. But most of all, we gotta believe in America the Exceptional.
Mr. Beck says General McChrystal was trying to send a message to Barack Obama in the Rolling Stone piece: if COIN is supposed to work, you give me all the troops I want and let them stay there for as long as they need to. How long have we been in Korea? Japan? Iraq is supposedly a success story now, with a mere seven years investment, and a few more of intense investment, but how long will there be troops staying on for advising and support, even past the withdrawal date? Afghanistan could take decades. The USSR spent lots of time there trying and didn’t succeed. Are the people who are all for surges and ”getting the job done“ willing to say to the troops ”I believe you should spend thirty years here, getting shot at, attacked, and accused of being agents of a corrupt power or a colonizer until there are enough people to make a stable government.“ If they can say that, and mean it, and are willing to put the financial backing behind it in the form of higher taxes to keep paying the salaries and resupply, then they’re fine. If not, then they should be more honest about what they really mean.
Finally, because we haven’t had a good ”global warming is fake“ column in a while, Mr. Helmer tells us that all our warming and cooling worries have been over less than a degree Centigrade, that it's all just totally consistent with the long-term warming and cooling patterns of the earth, and that more CO2 is good for us, anyway.
At the end tonight, our Music You Already Know department offers 10 film scores that most people will recognize. I think, if paired with a concert called Classical Music You Already Know (where we play some of the greatest hits of the Looney Tunes franchise), it would be a great evening spent just to go through all the good music everyone already knows and see where it’s shown up.
NIH scientists have isolated some antibodies that appear to prevent most strains of HIV from attaching themselves to human cells, and even better, have been able to document how one of them works. Vaccination and treatment boost GET. It seems like we’re very close to being able to defeat the HIV crisis. Just a little more...
And, although nowhere near the awesome that HIV news is, Blizzard / Activision decided that perhaps requiring real names on the forums and in the games wasn't such a hot idea after all and are not no longer requiring it, perfering to wait until a more docile population that doesn’t care about their pseudonymity plays the games.
In the world today, prisoner exchange - spies for spies. Exchange rate was about 10:4, with 10 Russian spies off in exchange for 4 American ones.
Talking about spies, both the United States' and Pakistan's intelligence agencies are scrutinizing each other and themselves looking for double agents.
And then on more war-like matters, a new report indicates the presence of corrupt officials in the Karzai government is giving legitimacy to the Taliban insurgency. They may be swift, brutal, and deadly, but at least they’re not corrupt. What a trade-off.
Domestically, the thing is in sport, but it has eerie connotations to how we handle other things, like politics, in this country. People claim big thing coming soon, then spend lots of time talking about the lead into it, then spend more time at the spot of the thing talking nonsense and non-sequitur about it, then finally ask the question, then basically sit back and let other talking heads discuss the impact of the question and its answer. Possibly even including grandiose statements and threats about teh consequences of the action. The only difference here is that in the end, some action was taken and actually done. In politics, it seems like the talking is all that gets done, with no real action anywhere.
Head-desk chorus in three, two, one... Governor Jindal of Louisiana signs a bill allowing people to carry concealed weapons in church. Never mind the obvious refutations about peaceful religions, remember that Dr. Tiller was killed in his church, the one place he would not be wearing a bullet-proof vest or other protection against being killed. Murder and violence in the sanctuary? Sounds like the smiting YHVH, not the healing-of-cut-off-ears Jesus.
a PropPublica journalist tells the story of being detained by police, and apparently interrogated by an FBI agent, for taking a picture of a public sign that was close to a BP refinery. Apparently BP security called the police on the journalist, who explained and showed his photos to the police, protested that his information was then shared with the security guard, and was detained long after it was determined his pictures were of no security threat.
And then there’s Senator Brown of Massachussettes, against the continued unemployment insurance of millions, but allegedly okay with trying to get the government to spend millions to put slot machines at the racetracks. It has nothing to do at all with some friends of his owning race horses and such. Nothing at all.
Oh, and Alvin Greene, Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina, thinks that action figures of himself would be an excellent job-creation initiative. He’s not wrong, certainly. I don’t know how well they would sell compared to something like an Obama action figure, but it’s a thought.
Right. More seriously, in recess-appointing Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the Obama administration dodged a proxy war about the health care bill passed early this year, meaning they don’t have to deal with more endless rounds of “Rationing! Pulling the Plug on Grandma! SOCIALISM!” from the opposition, but also not giving them a chance to expound more upon the bill and its benefits. Then again, it also allowed him not to have to fight Senatorial holds, some of which are put on for the most inscrutable of reasons.
Information regarding BP oil spill claims - all the claims mentioned here are false to various degrees of "And how!".
Last out, President Obama's major midterm campaign strategy involves large parts of pointing out what the past has been and asking voters whether they want to return to that past. If you think things went pear-shaped under the last administration, that’s probably a reasonable argument. The question on that is whether the electorate has a long-term memory to remember how much they hated things under the last president...
Greetz, opinions. A shout-out to one Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC’s Countdown, for exposing the stupidity of Sharron angle's belief that rape victims should be forced to carry their babies to term, by mentioning herself as a survivor and reminding us all that, “God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes, ‘cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to choose.“ is not just a song lyric.
Mr. Greenwald reminds us of the current state of the law - those who whistleblow will be charged and prosecuted, those who torture will be shielded from investigation, those who wreck livelihoods will be given bonuses, and those who kill innocents will be commended. This is in relation to Bradley Manning, attempted whistleblower of wrongdoing in the military and State Department, being charged with crimes that could put him in jail for 52 years. On the actual revelation of the story and the way things have been handled so far, Mr. Greenwald returns to the front with a new piece about the utter lack of real transparency in our Liberal Media. This is a longer piece and supplements the quick hits that he did previously about how much the institution we're supposed to rely on to give us unvarnished truth, complete data, and report on all the dirty secrets and bad things the people we elect do does none of those things and tries to hide their failures from us.
Mr. Greenwald also uses the Octavia Nasr firing to highlight a very important hypocrisy in the Liberal Media: the neoconservative orthodox viewpoint is sacred. Anyone expressing heterodoxy that people outside of Israel or against Israel might have done things worthy of respect, even if they did other things for which they should be vilified, is to be silenced and fired. Anyone who thinks, perhaps, that endless war and war against the Infidels in the Middle East is a bad idea will find themselves shuffled, fired, or otherwise removed from prominence or discourse in any way that won’t make them look like an anti-war cardboard cutout. Yet, those same conservatives will scream about the Libral Media taking over. If we had an actual Liberal Media, when someone goes heterodox and gets yelled at for it by the conservative movement and media, they’d get two extended middle fingers in response, and possibly promoting the firebrand to a better slot in their media of choice.
In politics, Mr. Carroll believes the government should pay market rates for federal employees in salary and in benefits, for a tidy savings of 47 billion USD per year. Plus, of course, make it easier to fire people who aren’t performing (gotta bust those unions somehow) and offer performance-based bonuses for those who are. This coming from people and organizations that would no doubt declare that CEOs have earned every penny of their pay, compensation, and bonus packages because running a business is hard work and CEOs have the merit and skill necessary to command those salaries. Federal employees, though, because they have no competition, can’t be competent or skilled and actually deserve pay based on their skills, experience, and education. One of these things is not like the other.
The Washington Times is now against the earmark process and wants a nice clean war funding bill, instead of one laden down with things they don’t like that would appease unions and other traditionally Democratic constituencies. I’d prefer that the earmark system be scrapped entirely and that all spending be in the budget or require a separate bill for each spending item. Might convince people to get it right the first time and put it in the budget.
Mr. Thomas goes straight for the Dictator Trio in his complaint about the United States trying to encourage maths and sciences in the Muslim world (who are always the Bloodthirsty Backward Religion) while also cutting out our own space program. If only we had appreciated Mao more, he says, putting his hand on his forehead dramatically, or Mussolini, or Hitler, then maybe we wouldn’t have had to grind them into dust because of their evil ways, or bail out Europe from Stalin’s nuclear might, or be the superpower that America, Fuck Yeah, is. All from a sincere desire to unlock brilliant minds in a repressive environment. Perhaps Mr. Thomas could benefit from some of that help. Mr. Towery echoes the theme by considering President Obama to be a worse president in all regards than Jimmy Carter, making an old comparison with new points in support of his conclusion. Apparently, trying to be liberal makes you an incompetent that doesn’t even try to fix crises when they arise.
Mr. Hanson tells people like Rand Paul, who see the decline of America coming, to shut up, because all our solutions are right before us, if we're just willing to do them. y’know, like building a complete fence across the southern border, increasing patrols and getting rid of people and companies that hire illegal aliens. (Hey, one out of three for effectiveness isn’t bad.) We can recover our economy if we just cut spending back to the levels and needs of ten years ago. But most of all, we gotta believe in America the Exceptional.
Mr. Beck says General McChrystal was trying to send a message to Barack Obama in the Rolling Stone piece: if COIN is supposed to work, you give me all the troops I want and let them stay there for as long as they need to. How long have we been in Korea? Japan? Iraq is supposedly a success story now, with a mere seven years investment, and a few more of intense investment, but how long will there be troops staying on for advising and support, even past the withdrawal date? Afghanistan could take decades. The USSR spent lots of time there trying and didn’t succeed. Are the people who are all for surges and ”getting the job done“ willing to say to the troops ”I believe you should spend thirty years here, getting shot at, attacked, and accused of being agents of a corrupt power or a colonizer until there are enough people to make a stable government.“ If they can say that, and mean it, and are willing to put the financial backing behind it in the form of higher taxes to keep paying the salaries and resupply, then they’re fine. If not, then they should be more honest about what they really mean.
Finally, because we haven’t had a good ”global warming is fake“ column in a while, Mr. Helmer tells us that all our warming and cooling worries have been over less than a degree Centigrade, that it's all just totally consistent with the long-term warming and cooling patterns of the earth, and that more CO2 is good for us, anyway.
At the end tonight, our Music You Already Know department offers 10 film scores that most people will recognize. I think, if paired with a concert called Classical Music You Already Know (where we play some of the greatest hits of the Looney Tunes franchise), it would be a great evening spent just to go through all the good music everyone already knows and see where it’s shown up.
