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Good morning, people of significance in our lives. For those who suffered violence in theirs because they’re lesbian or gay, The Pansy Project plants a flower, then photographs it as a memorial to those persons who suffered. At least the United Kingdom has decided those who seek asylum from persecution based on being lesbian, gay, or bisexual can't be sent back to their home country. It’s not the Century of the Fruitbat, but it’s at least moving along the right track.
If you’re in the United States Military, right now the Pentagon is conducting a review of how to implement the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. How they’re going about it, though, is by asking biased survey questions about what servicepeople would do with openly lesbian or gay people in their units. Servicemembers United presents their complaints in more detail, and offers a URI of the actual survey itself.
For something less head-desk (*bang* Ow.) inducing, weigh in as to whether these childhood makeovers are fresh or frightening. Including the natural extension of Dora the Explorer to tweenagerdom as the demographic that grew up with her now is in that part of their life.
And then there’s the silly. Trained monkey soldiers of Afghanistan, hello!.
Out in the world today, the woman condemned to be stoned has had her stoning sentenced reprieved, but this does not mean she won’t be executed - all the other women who avoided the stones were killed instead by the noose.
Brazil just got major props for a proper implementation of copyright law - breaking DRM is not an offense unless breaking the DRM is in the process of committing a copyright violation - this is how it should be here in America, too, instead of “breaking DRM is illegal, period.”
For examples of corrupt corporations screwing their workers out of deserved revenues, look at how Hollywood accounting ensures that even blockbuster movies like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix mysteriously manage to lose money on their film, throuh the use of a shell corporation that can’t make enough money to be profitable, so it doesn’t have to pay out bonuses or other revenues based on profits. One would think that SAG and the other unions would be demanding truly fair compensation for all the people working on a movie. As much as I hate having nothing on to watch, I’d suffer a strike again to clean up the accounting.
Finally, Iraq claims there will be a new government in place by August.
Domestically, a much older woman posed as a 14 year-old boy to capture the attention and affection of a young woman. There’s something here about how the older woman shouldn’t have to pretend, but also something about how the maturity of the young woman needs to be taken into account before throwing open the doors like that, and the definition of legal adulthood, among other things. I can’t quite tease it all out, though.
The National Review Online reports on a Democracy Corps poll that says 55 percent of those polled believe the president is a socialist, and thus fail basic political science. And then there’s the comment section.
We can hope that the conservative shouting about the need for the government to do Something about the border quiets down upon learning of several business audits that result in fines and also result in the firing of all immigrant workers that might be suspected of being illegal, so as not to be caught withan undocumented worker on the payroll. Doubtful, though - Democratic governors expressed concerns that the Papers Please suit was putting focus where it would be bad for them in elections. those that have might have insinuations of cowardice placed against them, for thinking more of their own careers before attempting to right a wrong.
Finally, Critics of the lack of "Islamic extremism" in government proclamations say that distinctions can be drawn so as not to mistake Muslims with radicals and terrorists, but that Islam as the root of their radicalization has to be addressed. I tend to agree with the administration on this one - if you say “Islamic extremism”, anyone who wants to paint you as anti-Islam has a nice sound bite. To get rid of the sound bites, you have to get rid of the Islam references. If you do that, of course, you can’t then paint all of Islam as The Bloodthirsty Religion and claim that when a father and brother attack their family member for being un-Islamic that they're what mainstream Muslims do, based on things in the writings, instead of fringe Muslims, and that all mainstream Muslims follow the words of their writings to the letter in the most fundamentalist way conveniently ignoring all the other things in their own past and present that result in religiously sanctioned violence against women, property status instead of people status for women, and all of the things in their own writings that are no longer so zealously followed in their most fundamentalist degree. Speck. Plank. Problem.
Furthermore, and note this well, there weill always be another Eurasia or Eastasia - have one lose his potency, and mysteriously another will come to take his place, so as to continue the justification and the spending and the war.
In technology and the sciences, creativity in American children is sliding, perhaps because our standards insist on rote memorization, drills, teaching to multiple choice tests, and basically squishing any possibility of explaining or allowing for variant answers or creative detours. If we retune the curriculum for problem-solving, we can re-spark creativity and teach the things we’re supposed to.
Microsoft opens up their source to the Russian government, as they have before, letting some entities look at their code to make sure its secure before promoting it much in their own countries. Why not just open up the source to everyone so that the entire community of coders can make sure that it’s secured?
Sport science and women do not get along, as things that work for men have no effect on women, and thus salt is always to be taken with any study that is only male-based.
Where your cell phone is at the time of a crime may be presented as evidence against you. Even better, that data is currently not warrant-required. Oh, did we mention that the terahertz scanners are delivering on their promise to be able to sense contraband?
Finally, we've finally taught a robot to bring beer from the fridge. All hail Nerdvana, where we will soon also watch YouTube in 4k resolution.
In opinions, Gaius Publius reminds us that the rich are the people calling for no government spending to cushion the deflationary period, because they have the cash that will allow them to buy you super cheap.
Mr. Cline reaches much the same conclusion as Mr. Greenwald did - the current administration has become a police state and is showing that it will prosecute those who whistleblow on it to protect itself, while ignoring prosecution of people who are committing crimes.
The Slacktivist points out the hypocrisy of using Dr. King, who believed that we are all tied together (and thus, waht we do affects others), to justify systems of economics and governmance that insist we are all separate entities. He’s looking at you, Rand Paul, and many of your libertarian and Republican kin.
Freed from having to be right on the party line, defeated Senator Bennett weighs in with his opinion that the Tea Party will not help the Republican Party win elections.
And forward through politics, where Mr. Fund says that his conservative-leaning polls are more important and truer than the polls Nancy Pelosi is citing, so the people are still against the health care bill instead of for it, and that the Democratic Congress are behaving like lame-ducks because they believe they're going to get spanked in November, and they won’t have the kind of control they’ve enjoyed so far to get their agenda done. (So they should apparently pledge, after the election, not to take up anythings ubstantive until the new congress is sworn in. *pffft*)
Ms. Noonan says the Democrats didn't learn the lesson of the town halls of last year, which was to focus on the issues of their constituents, before throwing in an afterthought about how Republicans might not be qualified to lead again. (conservative framing, mind you) Ms. Noonan characterizes it all as grass-roots popular opposition and heat, which is not anywhere near the truth, even if the astroturfers don’t have to disclose their donors - their technique and strategy, and the Tea Party that resulted, is plain for anyone to analyze.
Mr. Nugent comes out in favor of guns for everyone, everywhere, claiming that crime drops when the citizenry is armed and that anyone who believes guns should be restricted is delusional. While also taking several pokes at the administration on other issues.
Mr. Elder says the Washington Post is wrong that banks didn't like the new financial regulations, based on their stocks going up when they were announced. His solution says that banks, especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, should have to play with their own money and not be given any guarantees against default. We think Mr. Elder is subtly saying that he wants to see Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac crash and all the homeowners whose mortgages they hold be summarily dumped out, because they didn’t deserve to have a house on their income and credit. Otherwise, removing the guarantees of too big to fail and forcing those banks to use their own monies and only according to certain rules would be a good thing.
Speaking of finances, Mr. Bolduc says that the late Senator Byrd would have done better by encouraging private investment in his state, instead of funneling federal spending to it, because now that government’s in a pinch, the state is, too.
And last, in the Personal Attacks department, Fox and Friends characters compare Jimmy Buffet to Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because he remarked that having oil tycoons run the oil regulation process is akin to vampires running the blood bank, (interlude, GO(B)P candidate in Wisconsin is all for drilling in the Great Lakes and forgiving oil companies - the up to $466,000 USD in stock he owns in the companies couldn't be influencing his positions, could it?) proving they don’t get the analogy at all.
Oh, and at the bottom of the barrel, Rand Paul says what a lot of Tea Party folks, libertarians, and Republicans have been thinking and saying more obliquely: Poor people, shut up. You're richer than most other countries' wealthy people, so stop whining about how capitalism is screwing you over.
Last for tonight, A Letter of Note to Patrick Stewart, thanking him for the seven years of Jean-Luc Picard, inspiration to her son. And the Transition, the closest thing to flying cars that we've got.
If you’re in the United States Military, right now the Pentagon is conducting a review of how to implement the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. How they’re going about it, though, is by asking biased survey questions about what servicepeople would do with openly lesbian or gay people in their units. Servicemembers United presents their complaints in more detail, and offers a URI of the actual survey itself.
For something less head-desk (*bang* Ow.) inducing, weigh in as to whether these childhood makeovers are fresh or frightening. Including the natural extension of Dora the Explorer to tweenagerdom as the demographic that grew up with her now is in that part of their life.
And then there’s the silly. Trained monkey soldiers of Afghanistan, hello!.
Out in the world today, the woman condemned to be stoned has had her stoning sentenced reprieved, but this does not mean she won’t be executed - all the other women who avoided the stones were killed instead by the noose.
Brazil just got major props for a proper implementation of copyright law - breaking DRM is not an offense unless breaking the DRM is in the process of committing a copyright violation - this is how it should be here in America, too, instead of “breaking DRM is illegal, period.”
For examples of corrupt corporations screwing their workers out of deserved revenues, look at how Hollywood accounting ensures that even blockbuster movies like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix mysteriously manage to lose money on their film, throuh the use of a shell corporation that can’t make enough money to be profitable, so it doesn’t have to pay out bonuses or other revenues based on profits. One would think that SAG and the other unions would be demanding truly fair compensation for all the people working on a movie. As much as I hate having nothing on to watch, I’d suffer a strike again to clean up the accounting.
Finally, Iraq claims there will be a new government in place by August.
Domestically, a much older woman posed as a 14 year-old boy to capture the attention and affection of a young woman. There’s something here about how the older woman shouldn’t have to pretend, but also something about how the maturity of the young woman needs to be taken into account before throwing open the doors like that, and the definition of legal adulthood, among other things. I can’t quite tease it all out, though.
The National Review Online reports on a Democracy Corps poll that says 55 percent of those polled believe the president is a socialist, and thus fail basic political science. And then there’s the comment section.
We can hope that the conservative shouting about the need for the government to do Something about the border quiets down upon learning of several business audits that result in fines and also result in the firing of all immigrant workers that might be suspected of being illegal, so as not to be caught withan undocumented worker on the payroll. Doubtful, though - Democratic governors expressed concerns that the Papers Please suit was putting focus where it would be bad for them in elections. those that have might have insinuations of cowardice placed against them, for thinking more of their own careers before attempting to right a wrong.
Finally, Critics of the lack of "Islamic extremism" in government proclamations say that distinctions can be drawn so as not to mistake Muslims with radicals and terrorists, but that Islam as the root of their radicalization has to be addressed. I tend to agree with the administration on this one - if you say “Islamic extremism”, anyone who wants to paint you as anti-Islam has a nice sound bite. To get rid of the sound bites, you have to get rid of the Islam references. If you do that, of course, you can’t then paint all of Islam as The Bloodthirsty Religion and claim that when a father and brother attack their family member for being un-Islamic that they're what mainstream Muslims do, based on things in the writings, instead of fringe Muslims, and that all mainstream Muslims follow the words of their writings to the letter in the most fundamentalist way conveniently ignoring all the other things in their own past and present that result in religiously sanctioned violence against women, property status instead of people status for women, and all of the things in their own writings that are no longer so zealously followed in their most fundamentalist degree. Speck. Plank. Problem.
Furthermore, and note this well, there weill always be another Eurasia or Eastasia - have one lose his potency, and mysteriously another will come to take his place, so as to continue the justification and the spending and the war.
In technology and the sciences, creativity in American children is sliding, perhaps because our standards insist on rote memorization, drills, teaching to multiple choice tests, and basically squishing any possibility of explaining or allowing for variant answers or creative detours. If we retune the curriculum for problem-solving, we can re-spark creativity and teach the things we’re supposed to.
Microsoft opens up their source to the Russian government, as they have before, letting some entities look at their code to make sure its secure before promoting it much in their own countries. Why not just open up the source to everyone so that the entire community of coders can make sure that it’s secured?
Sport science and women do not get along, as things that work for men have no effect on women, and thus salt is always to be taken with any study that is only male-based.
Where your cell phone is at the time of a crime may be presented as evidence against you. Even better, that data is currently not warrant-required. Oh, did we mention that the terahertz scanners are delivering on their promise to be able to sense contraband?
Finally, we've finally taught a robot to bring beer from the fridge. All hail Nerdvana, where we will soon also watch YouTube in 4k resolution.
In opinions, Gaius Publius reminds us that the rich are the people calling for no government spending to cushion the deflationary period, because they have the cash that will allow them to buy you super cheap.
Mr. Cline reaches much the same conclusion as Mr. Greenwald did - the current administration has become a police state and is showing that it will prosecute those who whistleblow on it to protect itself, while ignoring prosecution of people who are committing crimes.
The Slacktivist points out the hypocrisy of using Dr. King, who believed that we are all tied together (and thus, waht we do affects others), to justify systems of economics and governmance that insist we are all separate entities. He’s looking at you, Rand Paul, and many of your libertarian and Republican kin.
Freed from having to be right on the party line, defeated Senator Bennett weighs in with his opinion that the Tea Party will not help the Republican Party win elections.
And forward through politics, where Mr. Fund says that his conservative-leaning polls are more important and truer than the polls Nancy Pelosi is citing, so the people are still against the health care bill instead of for it, and that the Democratic Congress are behaving like lame-ducks because they believe they're going to get spanked in November, and they won’t have the kind of control they’ve enjoyed so far to get their agenda done. (So they should apparently pledge, after the election, not to take up anythings ubstantive until the new congress is sworn in. *pffft*)
Ms. Noonan says the Democrats didn't learn the lesson of the town halls of last year, which was to focus on the issues of their constituents, before throwing in an afterthought about how Republicans might not be qualified to lead again. (conservative framing, mind you) Ms. Noonan characterizes it all as grass-roots popular opposition and heat, which is not anywhere near the truth, even if the astroturfers don’t have to disclose their donors - their technique and strategy, and the Tea Party that resulted, is plain for anyone to analyze.
Mr. Nugent comes out in favor of guns for everyone, everywhere, claiming that crime drops when the citizenry is armed and that anyone who believes guns should be restricted is delusional. While also taking several pokes at the administration on other issues.
Mr. Elder says the Washington Post is wrong that banks didn't like the new financial regulations, based on their stocks going up when they were announced. His solution says that banks, especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, should have to play with their own money and not be given any guarantees against default. We think Mr. Elder is subtly saying that he wants to see Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac crash and all the homeowners whose mortgages they hold be summarily dumped out, because they didn’t deserve to have a house on their income and credit. Otherwise, removing the guarantees of too big to fail and forcing those banks to use their own monies and only according to certain rules would be a good thing.
Speaking of finances, Mr. Bolduc says that the late Senator Byrd would have done better by encouraging private investment in his state, instead of funneling federal spending to it, because now that government’s in a pinch, the state is, too.
And last, in the Personal Attacks department, Fox and Friends characters compare Jimmy Buffet to Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because he remarked that having oil tycoons run the oil regulation process is akin to vampires running the blood bank, (interlude, GO(B)P candidate in Wisconsin is all for drilling in the Great Lakes and forgiving oil companies - the up to $466,000 USD in stock he owns in the companies couldn't be influencing his positions, could it?) proving they don’t get the analogy at all.
Oh, and at the bottom of the barrel, Rand Paul says what a lot of Tea Party folks, libertarians, and Republicans have been thinking and saying more obliquely: Poor people, shut up. You're richer than most other countries' wealthy people, so stop whining about how capitalism is screwing you over.
Last for tonight, A Letter of Note to Patrick Stewart, thanking him for the seven years of Jean-Luc Picard, inspiration to her son. And the Transition, the closest thing to flying cars that we've got.
