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Happy tidings to all who read. Today, we open with a story of "missed it by that much" - a woman put pie on the face of Senator Carl Levin of the Armed Services committee. Lest one think she got away with such a deed, no, she's awaiting trial for the pastry assault.
For those who voted in primaries past, 18 August 1920 was the day the 19th Amendment to the Consitution was passed, officially saying that women were citizens deserving of a vote as well, and likely sparking a series of more heat-than-light opinions about the death of society now that women were officially allowed to be uppity.
Out in the world today, attackers attempted again to make the Iraqi people afraid of joining up with the military, exploding a shrapnel vest that killed 61 potential recruits.
A minister in Bulgaria was irritated at some women who came to see relics straight from the beach, in their swimwear, denouncing them for not having enough clothes on to see the holy things. Eh. I'd rather be investigating how a jet with vacationers crashed on the runway as it was coming it, and only one person died. Or perhaps wondering how a baptism became the scene for an altercation.
Stoning is a barbarous act, and observers in the West could easily pick apart all the things that are wrong, screwy, or agenda-driven in the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, and the example that Iran will make of her, whether stoned or otherwise sentenced. Elsewhere, the Taliban conducted a stoning of their own on a couple convicted of adultery.
And in the "repeating history" department, because clearly someone did not learn from the lessons of Abu Ghraib, a female IDF soldier posted pictures of herself and bound, blindfolded Palestinian detainees under the heading "The Best Days of My Life". And, when pressed, said "I don't see anything wrong with the pictures". Dot, dot, dot.
Domestically, a continuing example of how the Citizens United decision makes it easier for people to know where their corporations stand on social issues, and the effects such knowledge has on their business. I don't know if this was an intended effect, but it sure is turning out nicely that way. Maybe liberals do have a reason to praise the decision (a little) as they brace for the flood of corporate cash.
Laura Schlessinger hangs up her radio hat, claimming that her First Amendment rights are being trampled on by angry people calling her out for being a racist, a bigot, and telling her sponsors that their sponsorship is unacceptable. The funny thing about private enterprise and broadcasting - they want you to believe they're not corporately controlled and entirely dependent on underwriters. They're lying. Anyone who says something that pisses off the sponsors finds themselves without a show very soon. Thus, as a private enterprise, they can dismiss her whenever they like. If there were some angry person firing an airhorn off every time she opened her mouth, wherever she went, then she could make a case that her speech rights were being trampled. But just because she's off the radio doesn't mean she's gone - far from it. She's just going to try and develop her Internet presence...and then she gets to find out what happens when you say stupid stuff on the Internet...
The primary point, about the conservative attempts to build a small-town feel without the actual small-town-ness is an interesting one, and the dichotomy between wanting a small place where everyone knows everyone and deviants are kept in line by shame and the suburban life that so many conservatives prefer, being isolated away from anyone who is different, is fascinating. Perhaps they do think of things like tolerance and The Gay as airbone, communicable diseases that can be gotten by working or living in places where black people or gay people are? And with polling data showing that more and more people think that gay men and lesbians should have all the privileges of marriage, they've got to feel like their little bubble is shrinking swiftly.
While the Defense Secretary eyes the exit door and retirement, he still has a very full plate to deal with before he could turn over the job. And even though he may be gone, the bigger problem still remains - which President was right - the one warning about undue power to the military-industrial complex, or the one who said that we would give them every cent they wanted, no questions asked, if it meant that we felt like our country and the world was safe? right now, Kennedy is winning the battle, but the economic crash might finally get us to recognize Ike's wisdom and turn things back in this direction. (We can hope, too, that finishing up the land wars in Asia will also help reduce that unwarranted influence.)
...after having been given significant monies with which to rehire teachers, money paid for by allowing Republican minorities to cut food assistance programs, school systems are sitting on the cash, saying they need it to prevent future layoffs. Something tells me, then, that the amount in question was too small to be given. So teachers are still laid off and the food stamp program has been cut. All the while, the austerity gluttons demand everyone starve so as to fit their anorexic self-image. (How's that for a mixed metaphor?) And in the end, who wins? The ruling class, the rich people who watch their political puppets dance, and think of the peons below them as mere insects that can be crushed at will.
Speaking of teachers, The LA times used the collected standardized test scores of classes collected by the Los Angeles school district to bang out metrics of teacher effectiveness in schools, assuming that better performance on standardized tests indicates the students are getting a better instruction. They're careful to say they don't think such evaulation should be the sole criterion for hiring or firing, but they think this metric offers useful information to parents and administrators about which teachers are getting it done. In response, the leader of the teacher's union for the school district was incensed about the insinuation that standardized test scores could be of any use at all in determining teacher effectiveness, and planned on a boycott of the paper.
And thus we illustrate the dangers of relying solely on the numbers to evaluate anything. I agree that staandardized tests are actually really poor indicators of whether learning is taking place in schools - ask any teacher whether the kids learn the material or learn how to take the tests and you'll have an answer. Most "test prep" books are not about telling you what kind of knowledge will help you on the test, they're strategies for taking said test and exploiting the format so that you can make informed guesses about the right answer.
Technology opens with the media cabals insisting that all new potential music-playing devices include an FM transmitter so the consumer can always be inundated with the latest cabal-pushed drek.
And then there are the cities and communities using unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite imagery to ensure that you are obeying laws and zoning controls, and have permits for your work outside, citizen.
Into opinions, where Mr. Sowell accuses the people in power of wanting to behave like autocrats, doing their very best to dismantle the Constitution and its prohibitions against autocratic rule. His evidence? Executive branch appointments, "czars" and regulations, and laws pushed through Congress before anyone can react or read them. Which is pretty broken, but still within the system. If you want to reform that, then you're going to need laws or amendments, or to perhaps elect honest people who won't deliberately game the system to get their way or obstruct the normal processes and force the party in power to resort to trickery.
Mr. Brownfield is absolutely certain that the current Washington policies are to blame for the slow growth, because the President's stimulus plans and other actions are frightening investors, who are sitting on piles of money and quaking with uncertainty. If only Washington would get out of the way, they'd invest all that money and drive the economy through hiring. The people are similarly chanting "down with Obama" because, well, they need someone to complain to, and the opposition is more than happy to point them at the President. Bullpucky is the politest way to characterize that statement. The corporate requirement to be profitable, the TARP bailout basically guaranteeing no bank or investment house would have to change its practices or cut executive compensation, and the crash of the speculative housing bubble means if anyone's sitting on money, it's becuase they deliberately extracted it from the economy and want to keep it as profit. People who want to hire can expect a storm of applicants, whom they can pick and choose from to get the best hire at a great wage for the company. And calling stimulus programs "a failure" is kind of like saying that communism didnt' work. If there had been an actual condition for testing with, like how the soviet system almost requires it be worldwide before we know how it will turn out, had the original stimulus amounts been passed, isnetad of whittled, and further bills passed as they were originally intended, instead of being piece-killed, Tarantino'd, and reduced to pitiable shadows of their previous selves, then perhaps you could pass judgment on them as successes or failures. If you want to be able to declare something went wrong, then let the government invest in infrastructure, people, and works to bring our ailing systems back up to code and then into modernity. Let them put millions of people to work in the building part, promise to purchase energy credits, and then say, "Well, private sector? We need materials, and people to train our workers. And we need tax capital to finance all of this. I'm sure your richest executives, with the multimillion-dollar salaries and bonuses have more than enough that they can help us build something that will ultimately profit them." Then you can see whether the economy recovers or not, whether unemployment dtays so high, and whether the private sector recovers due to Washington interference. To make good conclusions, you have to actually let the experiment run, instead of shortchanging it of resources at every stage.
Oh, and also, complaining about government investments in private enterprises that fail is short-sighted and kind of hypocritical - I wonder if the writer there also complains about government subsidies to things like oil and gas companies, which are hugely profitable and don't really need them at all to maintain revenues and profits. At least the conservaDems who want to position themselves as Republicans without the R are being more honest about their positions.
A sanity break before continuing - an essay about the importance of the powerful legs and thighs of a video game character.
And back into the jungle, where the President is accused of not caring about America's security because he hasn't turned Iran into a wasteland of nuclear fallout and glassed sand, because he's not as joined-at-the-hip to traditional allies, because he might sign off on a cut to the military-industrial complex, and because accused illegal immigrants are released on their own recognizance in places, instead of being perpetually locked up or immediately deported without any questions asked.
Things have gotten so very polarized that Justice continues to be accused of being "witch hunters" who will only prosecute cases of white-on-minoirty violence and discrimination, who believes that minorities need the benevolent hand of liberals to achieve anything because of the discriminatory values of conservatives, and is of course, in favor of allowing illegal immigrants to cross the border whenever they like and steal as many jobs as they can get their hands on. That is, when those guys aren't busy insisting that everyone in a minority group apologize when something extreme involving that group happens.
Last out of opinions, the Slacktivist strikes again, showing how easily left-handedness can become a Big Controversial Issue, and then the comment squad takes the theme and runs with it, extending the left-handed metaphor past the original mockery into a different one (this time involving the ambis) and beyond. No word yet as to whether the fact that left-handed people can build wherever they want, so long as they follow the zoning code, based on a law passed by a Republican Congress intending to protect right-handers from discrimination. Oh, and in case you were curious, there are some other brilliant people using the same logic to suggest that a right-handers rally happening in a place where left-handed people flocked to follow a great man should be moved, based on the wisdom of the act.
So, really, if you want an issue to campaign on, chew on this - child care, for some, costs more than their yearly food bill, or their yearly mortgage costs, or a full year of tuition at a public university. For some, it could be all that, combined. The party that wants women to stay in the kitchen will point to this and say, "See? It just proves that stay-at-home mothering is superior, and every mother should be required to do just that, instead of thinking they can work and raise children." The party that likes having women in the workforce should move toward making child care affordable again, where they will be met by the other party decrying "Government spending! Waste! Women should be in the kitchen and have a man taking care of them to the point they'd have to prostitute themselves if they wanted to leave!"
We close with a letter from one Mr. Bruce Lee, not enthused about the ratings of the Green Hornet, his first acting role in front of U.S. audiences, but knowledgeable that even a short stint would be enough to launch his martial arts schools. And with good reason - Green Hornet was a William Dozier show, and it rode the coattails of the far more popular Batman (with the mayor of Family Guy's Quahog himself in the title role) to what it could do. (Bit of a disappointment that it didn't go that far - Bruce Lee and a killer opening theme, after all...) And then there's the girl who patiently waited to join wil Wheaton's fan club finally getting her membership card and letter - almost two decades later. Wil, of course, takes it in stride and humor with his letter. We just hope to see him on Leverage again sometime soon.
For those who voted in primaries past, 18 August 1920 was the day the 19th Amendment to the Consitution was passed, officially saying that women were citizens deserving of a vote as well, and likely sparking a series of more heat-than-light opinions about the death of society now that women were officially allowed to be uppity.
Out in the world today, attackers attempted again to make the Iraqi people afraid of joining up with the military, exploding a shrapnel vest that killed 61 potential recruits.
A minister in Bulgaria was irritated at some women who came to see relics straight from the beach, in their swimwear, denouncing them for not having enough clothes on to see the holy things. Eh. I'd rather be investigating how a jet with vacationers crashed on the runway as it was coming it, and only one person died. Or perhaps wondering how a baptism became the scene for an altercation.
Stoning is a barbarous act, and observers in the West could easily pick apart all the things that are wrong, screwy, or agenda-driven in the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, and the example that Iran will make of her, whether stoned or otherwise sentenced. Elsewhere, the Taliban conducted a stoning of their own on a couple convicted of adultery.
And in the "repeating history" department, because clearly someone did not learn from the lessons of Abu Ghraib, a female IDF soldier posted pictures of herself and bound, blindfolded Palestinian detainees under the heading "The Best Days of My Life". And, when pressed, said "I don't see anything wrong with the pictures". Dot, dot, dot.
Domestically, a continuing example of how the Citizens United decision makes it easier for people to know where their corporations stand on social issues, and the effects such knowledge has on their business. I don't know if this was an intended effect, but it sure is turning out nicely that way. Maybe liberals do have a reason to praise the decision (a little) as they brace for the flood of corporate cash.
Laura Schlessinger hangs up her radio hat, claimming that her First Amendment rights are being trampled on by angry people calling her out for being a racist, a bigot, and telling her sponsors that their sponsorship is unacceptable. The funny thing about private enterprise and broadcasting - they want you to believe they're not corporately controlled and entirely dependent on underwriters. They're lying. Anyone who says something that pisses off the sponsors finds themselves without a show very soon. Thus, as a private enterprise, they can dismiss her whenever they like. If there were some angry person firing an airhorn off every time she opened her mouth, wherever she went, then she could make a case that her speech rights were being trampled. But just because she's off the radio doesn't mean she's gone - far from it. She's just going to try and develop her Internet presence...and then she gets to find out what happens when you say stupid stuff on the Internet...
The primary point, about the conservative attempts to build a small-town feel without the actual small-town-ness is an interesting one, and the dichotomy between wanting a small place where everyone knows everyone and deviants are kept in line by shame and the suburban life that so many conservatives prefer, being isolated away from anyone who is different, is fascinating. Perhaps they do think of things like tolerance and The Gay as airbone, communicable diseases that can be gotten by working or living in places where black people or gay people are? And with polling data showing that more and more people think that gay men and lesbians should have all the privileges of marriage, they've got to feel like their little bubble is shrinking swiftly.
While the Defense Secretary eyes the exit door and retirement, he still has a very full plate to deal with before he could turn over the job. And even though he may be gone, the bigger problem still remains - which President was right - the one warning about undue power to the military-industrial complex, or the one who said that we would give them every cent they wanted, no questions asked, if it meant that we felt like our country and the world was safe? right now, Kennedy is winning the battle, but the economic crash might finally get us to recognize Ike's wisdom and turn things back in this direction. (We can hope, too, that finishing up the land wars in Asia will also help reduce that unwarranted influence.)
...after having been given significant monies with which to rehire teachers, money paid for by allowing Republican minorities to cut food assistance programs, school systems are sitting on the cash, saying they need it to prevent future layoffs. Something tells me, then, that the amount in question was too small to be given. So teachers are still laid off and the food stamp program has been cut. All the while, the austerity gluttons demand everyone starve so as to fit their anorexic self-image. (How's that for a mixed metaphor?) And in the end, who wins? The ruling class, the rich people who watch their political puppets dance, and think of the peons below them as mere insects that can be crushed at will.
Speaking of teachers, The LA times used the collected standardized test scores of classes collected by the Los Angeles school district to bang out metrics of teacher effectiveness in schools, assuming that better performance on standardized tests indicates the students are getting a better instruction. They're careful to say they don't think such evaulation should be the sole criterion for hiring or firing, but they think this metric offers useful information to parents and administrators about which teachers are getting it done. In response, the leader of the teacher's union for the school district was incensed about the insinuation that standardized test scores could be of any use at all in determining teacher effectiveness, and planned on a boycott of the paper.
And thus we illustrate the dangers of relying solely on the numbers to evaluate anything. I agree that staandardized tests are actually really poor indicators of whether learning is taking place in schools - ask any teacher whether the kids learn the material or learn how to take the tests and you'll have an answer. Most "test prep" books are not about telling you what kind of knowledge will help you on the test, they're strategies for taking said test and exploiting the format so that you can make informed guesses about the right answer.
Technology opens with the media cabals insisting that all new potential music-playing devices include an FM transmitter so the consumer can always be inundated with the latest cabal-pushed drek.
And then there are the cities and communities using unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite imagery to ensure that you are obeying laws and zoning controls, and have permits for your work outside, citizen.
Into opinions, where Mr. Sowell accuses the people in power of wanting to behave like autocrats, doing their very best to dismantle the Constitution and its prohibitions against autocratic rule. His evidence? Executive branch appointments, "czars" and regulations, and laws pushed through Congress before anyone can react or read them. Which is pretty broken, but still within the system. If you want to reform that, then you're going to need laws or amendments, or to perhaps elect honest people who won't deliberately game the system to get their way or obstruct the normal processes and force the party in power to resort to trickery.
Mr. Brownfield is absolutely certain that the current Washington policies are to blame for the slow growth, because the President's stimulus plans and other actions are frightening investors, who are sitting on piles of money and quaking with uncertainty. If only Washington would get out of the way, they'd invest all that money and drive the economy through hiring. The people are similarly chanting "down with Obama" because, well, they need someone to complain to, and the opposition is more than happy to point them at the President. Bullpucky is the politest way to characterize that statement. The corporate requirement to be profitable, the TARP bailout basically guaranteeing no bank or investment house would have to change its practices or cut executive compensation, and the crash of the speculative housing bubble means if anyone's sitting on money, it's becuase they deliberately extracted it from the economy and want to keep it as profit. People who want to hire can expect a storm of applicants, whom they can pick and choose from to get the best hire at a great wage for the company. And calling stimulus programs "a failure" is kind of like saying that communism didnt' work. If there had been an actual condition for testing with, like how the soviet system almost requires it be worldwide before we know how it will turn out, had the original stimulus amounts been passed, isnetad of whittled, and further bills passed as they were originally intended, instead of being piece-killed, Tarantino'd, and reduced to pitiable shadows of their previous selves, then perhaps you could pass judgment on them as successes or failures. If you want to be able to declare something went wrong, then let the government invest in infrastructure, people, and works to bring our ailing systems back up to code and then into modernity. Let them put millions of people to work in the building part, promise to purchase energy credits, and then say, "Well, private sector? We need materials, and people to train our workers. And we need tax capital to finance all of this. I'm sure your richest executives, with the multimillion-dollar salaries and bonuses have more than enough that they can help us build something that will ultimately profit them." Then you can see whether the economy recovers or not, whether unemployment dtays so high, and whether the private sector recovers due to Washington interference. To make good conclusions, you have to actually let the experiment run, instead of shortchanging it of resources at every stage.
Oh, and also, complaining about government investments in private enterprises that fail is short-sighted and kind of hypocritical - I wonder if the writer there also complains about government subsidies to things like oil and gas companies, which are hugely profitable and don't really need them at all to maintain revenues and profits. At least the conservaDems who want to position themselves as Republicans without the R are being more honest about their positions.
A sanity break before continuing - an essay about the importance of the powerful legs and thighs of a video game character.
And back into the jungle, where the President is accused of not caring about America's security because he hasn't turned Iran into a wasteland of nuclear fallout and glassed sand, because he's not as joined-at-the-hip to traditional allies, because he might sign off on a cut to the military-industrial complex, and because accused illegal immigrants are released on their own recognizance in places, instead of being perpetually locked up or immediately deported without any questions asked.
Things have gotten so very polarized that Justice continues to be accused of being "witch hunters" who will only prosecute cases of white-on-minoirty violence and discrimination, who believes that minorities need the benevolent hand of liberals to achieve anything because of the discriminatory values of conservatives, and is of course, in favor of allowing illegal immigrants to cross the border whenever they like and steal as many jobs as they can get their hands on. That is, when those guys aren't busy insisting that everyone in a minority group apologize when something extreme involving that group happens.
Last out of opinions, the Slacktivist strikes again, showing how easily left-handedness can become a Big Controversial Issue, and then the comment squad takes the theme and runs with it, extending the left-handed metaphor past the original mockery into a different one (this time involving the ambis) and beyond. No word yet as to whether the fact that left-handed people can build wherever they want, so long as they follow the zoning code, based on a law passed by a Republican Congress intending to protect right-handers from discrimination. Oh, and in case you were curious, there are some other brilliant people using the same logic to suggest that a right-handers rally happening in a place where left-handed people flocked to follow a great man should be moved, based on the wisdom of the act.
So, really, if you want an issue to campaign on, chew on this - child care, for some, costs more than their yearly food bill, or their yearly mortgage costs, or a full year of tuition at a public university. For some, it could be all that, combined. The party that wants women to stay in the kitchen will point to this and say, "See? It just proves that stay-at-home mothering is superior, and every mother should be required to do just that, instead of thinking they can work and raise children." The party that likes having women in the workforce should move toward making child care affordable again, where they will be met by the other party decrying "Government spending! Waste! Women should be in the kitchen and have a man taking care of them to the point they'd have to prostitute themselves if they wanted to leave!"
We close with a letter from one Mr. Bruce Lee, not enthused about the ratings of the Green Hornet, his first acting role in front of U.S. audiences, but knowledgeable that even a short stint would be enough to launch his martial arts schools. And with good reason - Green Hornet was a William Dozier show, and it rode the coattails of the far more popular Batman (with the mayor of Family Guy's Quahog himself in the title role) to what it could do. (Bit of a disappointment that it didn't go that far - Bruce Lee and a killer opening theme, after all...) And then there's the girl who patiently waited to join wil Wheaton's fan club finally getting her membership card and letter - almost two decades later. Wil, of course, takes it in stride and humor with his letter. We just hope to see him on Leverage again sometime soon.
