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Good morning, everyone. No, the nightmares do not always go away when you sleep on them. Despite all the various things that were accomplished in the last two years, we are in a position to change the speaker of the House of Representatives and allow a party already dedicated to the purpose of making sure Barack Obama is not elected President again amd to repealing the last two years of work, instead of doing their jobs as legislators. The President is ready to compromise with the no-compromise crowd, as always, and rejects the idea that he's been repudiated by the voters. We'd like to disabuse him of that notion, and here's a set of helpful visual aids - a breakdown of how Missouri voted on their various issues - two cities versus the rest of the state. And that's in one state. I'm betting all the others have a similar looking breakdown as well - concentrated pockets of one versus the other's broader-based appeal.
Both groups responsible for a lot of the conservatism-lurch and the obstruction to the passage of more liberal versions of various bills got whomped in the elections, now that we have more complete data. All told, of the rush of candidates the Tea Party put up, about one-third actually won their general elections. Sanity prevails. As for the other group, the Blue Dog Democrats, the conservaDem block, got whipped and lost half of their membership. Makes sense - why vote for Republicanism Lite when you can get the full-bodied thing?
Sanity prevails on isues of sexuality - anti-abortion initiatives failed, and marriage-equality people won offices. Admittedly, the Iowa judges who ruled in favor of gay and lesbian marriage were all ousted, so it's not all wine and roses, and we still have to see how hard the new Congress will push on social issues.
Ah, and then there was also the Oklahoma ballot initiative that forbade their courts from using "international law" or "Shariah law" in their decisions? There will be challenges there, I'm guessing.
Speaking of politics, taxes, and the rest, a serious question awaits all the people who think they're going to be part of the middle class - what happens when the robot revolution comes for you? Many of the jobs we consider to be middle-class, quite a few "blue-collar" jobs, and jobs that we would consider to be "grunt work" are soon to be robotic. When iRobot develops a robot lawnmower, landscapring will be less expensive. When your grocery store is entirely self-checkout, and possibly entirely vending machines, then there are no need for hu-mons, only repair staff for the machines. That's going to change how we look at work and economic output. The utopic vision of the robot revolution is that most jobs are taken up by robots, leaving humans to pursue their passions freely - assuming, that is, that their economic system and government accepts this and provides what they need to live to them regardless of what work they do.
Earning themselves a Worst Plagarists in the World today, Cooks Source magazine lifted an article entirely from someone else and published it. When confronted about the matter, they claimed material on the Web was in the public domain, that plagarism happens everywhere and this is just okay, and that she should be paying them for improving her "poorly-written article" about old recipes, instead of requesting they make a donatino to a journalism school as compensation for plagarizing her. The attitude taken by the editor indicates they should be either be sent immediately to a remedial course in copyright or sacked from their position, before they plagarize someone who won't just ask for a donation. My library hackles also go up because most people only get their grounding in copyright and fair use when they're writing papers and getting library instruction on how to cite and quote.
And then, there is this - Without telling anyone, deviantArt removed the option for new accounts to create profiles that were non gender binary. When queried about the change, the Customer Support representative said "Sorry, you have the equipment of one or the other, so you must choose" Furthermore, the option to suppress gender doesn't work either, as the pronouns in place are clearly gendered, even if the gender option doesn't display. Further attempts to get any and all of those issues resolved were met with copypasta of the original excuse and the summary closure without resolution of the support requests.
Preisdent Obama reiterated his commitment to ending the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law and policy, but continued to insist that the legislature and not the courts should decide the matter. With the new slate in place, I don't expect to be seeing Congress do anything about it, unless the lame duck gets on their horse and puts it through.
There are some things that are good, though - a Deaf actress talks about how much Hollywood has been better at casting or adapting parts to Deaf people over the last few years.
Out in the world today, arms sales to Saudi Arabia! Concern!...perhaps because Saudi Arabia is also home to Wahabist Islam, which is not all that friendly with its neighbors or the United States? And that might support other militants and al-qaeda divisions with similar interests?
Afghan governors say U.S. presence helps them stabilize, as South Korea fires warning shots at North Korean boats too close to the maritime border.
In technology, the Air Force is looking into technology that would allow their own soldiers to become super-cognitively powered and to degrade their opponents cognitive powers...not that they would then license the technology to police departments and let them use it on civilians or anything. The military also claims Cyber Command is ready to combat threats coming in over the tubes.
In the "Not so Evil" department, the possibility that we could coat our windows with a material that would let them generate electricity from the sun and the beginnings of three-dimensional moving holography that does not require specialized glasses or devices.
The Supreme Court held oral arguments about a California law that regulated the sales of video games to minors by applying a modified version of the Miller obscenity test as the standard to wehthr a game would be regulated.
Welcome to opinions, where now that they have a foot in the door, we can begin to see conservative-leaning publications, and hopefully, elected representatives, rolling out the plans they have been so reluctant to put specifics to during the campaign season. For example, the WSJ, a News Corp.-owned poublication that supports big business and Wall Street, talks about the need to cut taxes across the board, kill discretionary spending, and highlight all the way that regulation is getting the way of returning to the glory days of the previous administrations, all things that would benefit large corporations and wealthy people immensely - the WSJ's target demographic. They also host Mr. Rove's editorial, encouraging Republicans to at least make the motions of fighting for the Tea Party and outside special-interest group things thay've been running on, even if they only use it to attack the Democrats for not letting necessary work get done, which will appeal to the people that Mr. Rove has been using his outside money to appeal to in Astroturf ways. Mr. Elder, on the other hand, who has two feet solidly in the Tea Party Originalist Constitution Interpretation camp, has more stringent policy prescriptions - sell federal land off and privatize or eliminate as many government functions as possible, offer an option to privatize Social Security, require everyone under 55 to have a health savings account from which they can purchase disaster-only plans from the private sectore and pay for everything else out of pocket, stop all federal welfare spending, expecting the states or private groups to pick up the social safety net, repeal all taxes and require the government to gain income solely on "duties and tarriffs", and get rid of any law that violates his interpretation of federalism, especially age and hour laws, the federal minimum wage, the Clean Air Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, equal pay laws, the Davis-Bacon Act (mandating prevailing union wages for those working under federal contracts), and all federal anti-discrimination laws that apply to the private sector. I'm surprised he doesn't call for repealing the popular election of Senators, myself, but I guess some things still have to be left after he's done gutting the federal government of any function at all and rolling back the work and social climate to the 17th century. Finally, Heritage puts out their prescriptions - freeze discretionary spending, then cut the budget and immediately zero out any unspent monies to be put toward deficit reduction, block funding for any health care bill related stuff and then repeal all of the health care bill before actually thinking about what private sector solution might be good to replace it with, leave the military-industrial complex alone, if not grow them, and then post complete bills and aggressively prevent regulators from having any power at all, through either rollbacks of previous authority, overrides of executive orders, and hostility to the idea that a bureaucrat might be worth something. Heritage has always made no secret of being firmly in the defense camp, so their anti-executive stance likely excludes all the extrajudicial and extralegislative powers the previous president asserted and the current president defeds and expands in the name of national secuirty.
The funny thing is, it's not like these papers, think tanks, and organizations have changed their positions, or that this is the first of this kind of publication. You can probably chart backward through this blog where all of these positions first appeared and how consistent they have been. The American electorate has theoretically had plenty of time to digest this information - the originally coy-on-specifics Republicans started coming out with them in force once campaigning got into full swing - and they still chose the way they did. This is why liberals look at the electorate and make remarks about fear overriding reason, or "God, guns, and gays" or clinging to guns and religion - they see the information, they assume the people are going to use it and think about it, and then they assume that the information, once in the minds of the people, should propel them to victory. That's how it's supposed to work - and when people prefer untruths, can't provide details on why their position is the way it is, or indicate that their gut is what they trust in the end, it makes people who try to appeal to higher brain functions throw their hands up in disgust. And then, after they continue to get beat by the fear-slingers, they decide that it's time to start slinging some of their own, so they can at least compete. Problem is, having lowered themselves to the level of the idiot, they then get beat by experience. It's a no-win situation for the liberal. Occasionally, the people get so very fed up of being afraid all the time that they kick the fearmongers out, but it's not too long before they let them all back in, because after having been sober for a couple of years, fear starts affecting them fresh again, and they fall off the wagon and back into bad habits again. It will be interesting if I ever feel like the American electorate is sober for more than just One (Election) Day.
Last out of opinions, a warning to journalists - not thinking politically is dangerous. Commit to having no bias, but do not commit to having no brains. Anyone could have told them what inviting people who are openly contemptuous of you will do in terms of generating anger, heat, and possible outrage. ABC could have fulfilled a commitment to being unbiased without inviting the person who said they were out to destroy the mainstream media.
Last for tonight, Charlie Chaplin answers a fan letter with encouragement to an aspiring Actress.
Both groups responsible for a lot of the conservatism-lurch and the obstruction to the passage of more liberal versions of various bills got whomped in the elections, now that we have more complete data. All told, of the rush of candidates the Tea Party put up, about one-third actually won their general elections. Sanity prevails. As for the other group, the Blue Dog Democrats, the conservaDem block, got whipped and lost half of their membership. Makes sense - why vote for Republicanism Lite when you can get the full-bodied thing?
Sanity prevails on isues of sexuality - anti-abortion initiatives failed, and marriage-equality people won offices. Admittedly, the Iowa judges who ruled in favor of gay and lesbian marriage were all ousted, so it's not all wine and roses, and we still have to see how hard the new Congress will push on social issues.
Ah, and then there was also the Oklahoma ballot initiative that forbade their courts from using "international law" or "Shariah law" in their decisions? There will be challenges there, I'm guessing.
Speaking of politics, taxes, and the rest, a serious question awaits all the people who think they're going to be part of the middle class - what happens when the robot revolution comes for you? Many of the jobs we consider to be middle-class, quite a few "blue-collar" jobs, and jobs that we would consider to be "grunt work" are soon to be robotic. When iRobot develops a robot lawnmower, landscapring will be less expensive. When your grocery store is entirely self-checkout, and possibly entirely vending machines, then there are no need for hu-mons, only repair staff for the machines. That's going to change how we look at work and economic output. The utopic vision of the robot revolution is that most jobs are taken up by robots, leaving humans to pursue their passions freely - assuming, that is, that their economic system and government accepts this and provides what they need to live to them regardless of what work they do.
Earning themselves a Worst Plagarists in the World today, Cooks Source magazine lifted an article entirely from someone else and published it. When confronted about the matter, they claimed material on the Web was in the public domain, that plagarism happens everywhere and this is just okay, and that she should be paying them for improving her "poorly-written article" about old recipes, instead of requesting they make a donatino to a journalism school as compensation for plagarizing her. The attitude taken by the editor indicates they should be either be sent immediately to a remedial course in copyright or sacked from their position, before they plagarize someone who won't just ask for a donation. My library hackles also go up because most people only get their grounding in copyright and fair use when they're writing papers and getting library instruction on how to cite and quote.
And then, there is this - Without telling anyone, deviantArt removed the option for new accounts to create profiles that were non gender binary. When queried about the change, the Customer Support representative said "Sorry, you have the equipment of one or the other, so you must choose" Furthermore, the option to suppress gender doesn't work either, as the pronouns in place are clearly gendered, even if the gender option doesn't display. Further attempts to get any and all of those issues resolved were met with copypasta of the original excuse and the summary closure without resolution of the support requests.
Preisdent Obama reiterated his commitment to ending the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law and policy, but continued to insist that the legislature and not the courts should decide the matter. With the new slate in place, I don't expect to be seeing Congress do anything about it, unless the lame duck gets on their horse and puts it through.
There are some things that are good, though - a Deaf actress talks about how much Hollywood has been better at casting or adapting parts to Deaf people over the last few years.
Out in the world today, arms sales to Saudi Arabia! Concern!...perhaps because Saudi Arabia is also home to Wahabist Islam, which is not all that friendly with its neighbors or the United States? And that might support other militants and al-qaeda divisions with similar interests?
Afghan governors say U.S. presence helps them stabilize, as South Korea fires warning shots at North Korean boats too close to the maritime border.
In technology, the Air Force is looking into technology that would allow their own soldiers to become super-cognitively powered and to degrade their opponents cognitive powers...not that they would then license the technology to police departments and let them use it on civilians or anything. The military also claims Cyber Command is ready to combat threats coming in over the tubes.
In the "Not so Evil" department, the possibility that we could coat our windows with a material that would let them generate electricity from the sun and the beginnings of three-dimensional moving holography that does not require specialized glasses or devices.
The Supreme Court held oral arguments about a California law that regulated the sales of video games to minors by applying a modified version of the Miller obscenity test as the standard to wehthr a game would be regulated.
Welcome to opinions, where now that they have a foot in the door, we can begin to see conservative-leaning publications, and hopefully, elected representatives, rolling out the plans they have been so reluctant to put specifics to during the campaign season. For example, the WSJ, a News Corp.-owned poublication that supports big business and Wall Street, talks about the need to cut taxes across the board, kill discretionary spending, and highlight all the way that regulation is getting the way of returning to the glory days of the previous administrations, all things that would benefit large corporations and wealthy people immensely - the WSJ's target demographic. They also host Mr. Rove's editorial, encouraging Republicans to at least make the motions of fighting for the Tea Party and outside special-interest group things thay've been running on, even if they only use it to attack the Democrats for not letting necessary work get done, which will appeal to the people that Mr. Rove has been using his outside money to appeal to in Astroturf ways. Mr. Elder, on the other hand, who has two feet solidly in the Tea Party Originalist Constitution Interpretation camp, has more stringent policy prescriptions - sell federal land off and privatize or eliminate as many government functions as possible, offer an option to privatize Social Security, require everyone under 55 to have a health savings account from which they can purchase disaster-only plans from the private sectore and pay for everything else out of pocket, stop all federal welfare spending, expecting the states or private groups to pick up the social safety net, repeal all taxes and require the government to gain income solely on "duties and tarriffs", and get rid of any law that violates his interpretation of federalism, especially age and hour laws, the federal minimum wage, the Clean Air Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, equal pay laws, the Davis-Bacon Act (mandating prevailing union wages for those working under federal contracts), and all federal anti-discrimination laws that apply to the private sector. I'm surprised he doesn't call for repealing the popular election of Senators, myself, but I guess some things still have to be left after he's done gutting the federal government of any function at all and rolling back the work and social climate to the 17th century. Finally, Heritage puts out their prescriptions - freeze discretionary spending, then cut the budget and immediately zero out any unspent monies to be put toward deficit reduction, block funding for any health care bill related stuff and then repeal all of the health care bill before actually thinking about what private sector solution might be good to replace it with, leave the military-industrial complex alone, if not grow them, and then post complete bills and aggressively prevent regulators from having any power at all, through either rollbacks of previous authority, overrides of executive orders, and hostility to the idea that a bureaucrat might be worth something. Heritage has always made no secret of being firmly in the defense camp, so their anti-executive stance likely excludes all the extrajudicial and extralegislative powers the previous president asserted and the current president defeds and expands in the name of national secuirty.
The funny thing is, it's not like these papers, think tanks, and organizations have changed their positions, or that this is the first of this kind of publication. You can probably chart backward through this blog where all of these positions first appeared and how consistent they have been. The American electorate has theoretically had plenty of time to digest this information - the originally coy-on-specifics Republicans started coming out with them in force once campaigning got into full swing - and they still chose the way they did. This is why liberals look at the electorate and make remarks about fear overriding reason, or "God, guns, and gays" or clinging to guns and religion - they see the information, they assume the people are going to use it and think about it, and then they assume that the information, once in the minds of the people, should propel them to victory. That's how it's supposed to work - and when people prefer untruths, can't provide details on why their position is the way it is, or indicate that their gut is what they trust in the end, it makes people who try to appeal to higher brain functions throw their hands up in disgust. And then, after they continue to get beat by the fear-slingers, they decide that it's time to start slinging some of their own, so they can at least compete. Problem is, having lowered themselves to the level of the idiot, they then get beat by experience. It's a no-win situation for the liberal. Occasionally, the people get so very fed up of being afraid all the time that they kick the fearmongers out, but it's not too long before they let them all back in, because after having been sober for a couple of years, fear starts affecting them fresh again, and they fall off the wagon and back into bad habits again. It will be interesting if I ever feel like the American electorate is sober for more than just One (Election) Day.
Last out of opinions, a warning to journalists - not thinking politically is dangerous. Commit to having no bias, but do not commit to having no brains. Anyone could have told them what inviting people who are openly contemptuous of you will do in terms of generating anger, heat, and possible outrage. ABC could have fulfilled a commitment to being unbiased without inviting the person who said they were out to destroy the mainstream media.
Last for tonight, Charlie Chaplin answers a fan letter with encouragement to an aspiring Actress.
