The other news, excluding the speechifying - 25-26 January 2011

Today, we begin with an accusation of alteration to an important historical document. That hissing sound you just heard? Were the archivists and librarians recoiling at the thought and then switching into an aggressive protective stance toward their historical documents.

Continuing in the need to aggressively protect one's libraries, Mr. Philip Pullman, well-published author, relates the value of the public library to him, both in childhood and adulthood, as an author and not, and points out all the value that other people who are not published authors get out of it too. It 's an excellent read, especially the parts about how greed and profit motive have infected everywhere and that certain places, like public libraries, shouldn't have to be profitable to be allowed to survive, and should be funded so they can be staffed with professionals.

Last for the opening section, the self-identification of a nurse in a famous photograph and a letter from a young John F. Kennedy explaining the need for a 30 cents/wk raise in his allowance to purhcase supplies for his new Boy Scout affiliations.

Out in the world today, retribution vowed against the pereptators of an explosive attack that left 35 dead at Russia's busiest airport. As is their wont, columnists pointed to many reasons why such things would happen, almost always centered on Islam as The Bloodthirsty Religion, turning its sights against Russia and hoping to build caliphates there. It would be totally cut-and-paste were it not for the other insistence that Russia doesn't have the right kind of Freedoms for them to hate. In any case, let the figner-pointing begin.

Continuing in the theme of Afghanistan being where first world coffers go to die, attempts to construct outposts for Afghan forces have been hindered by the forces of corruption, waste, and inefficiency. So keep that in mind when you hear military people talking about the tough fight in Afghanistan.

In seven counties of Sudan involved in the independence referendum, the number of votes cast exceeds the number of registered voters. It's not likely to change the outcome, but there's always challenge possibilities when there's a discrepancy like this.

Elsewhere, Egypt erupts in anti-government protests, following the Tunisian model (pictures, because it happened), a movement still going quite strong, tensions in Lebanaon mount as a Hezbollah-backed politician is tapped to form the new government, and a lot more in protests on various issues.

Finally, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says he can't be sure about whether Iran has weapons ambitions in their nuclear program, because his inspectors still don't have full and free access to all facilities.

Inside the United States, a new publication claims that the American university system leaves as many as a third of students no better off at critical skills when they graduate than they were when they enrolled.

the first Guantanamo Bay resident to have a civilian trial was sentenced to the remainder of his natural life in prison on the count he was convicted on. Despite this resounding success, there will be no more trials for Guantanamo Bay residents, because the torture advocates and fearmongers felt it was too close of a call to have only one charge stick.

Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff, was ordered removed from the ballot for Chicago mayor, with a panel ruling that he had not met the residency requirements to run. Mr. Emanuel will appeal the decision.

Like so many other public critics of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Governor Rick Perry of Texas was not shy at all about using stimulus funds to cover budget holes - about 97 percent of his budget shortfalls were filled in by stimulus dollars, to be exact. Thus, he could tout a balanced budget and still having rainy day fund material and rail against the very thing that saves his sorry backside. Seems like a lot of the vocal critics of the stimulus aren't being Janus-of-Two-Faces, but Ace-Ventura-of-Talking-Out-Their-Asses.

A Florida Congresscritter wishes to make United States funding of the United Nations conditional on whether U.N. programmes also advance the interests of the United States.

Baseball icon Willie Mays spoke to a crowd of students at PS 46 in Harlem, New York, about his years as a professional baseball player for the New York / San Francisco Baseball Giants and his life in Harlem before that.

For something very different, how the farmers of Mexico and the farmers of Vermont are facing the same situations, and how the migrants from Mexico are caged just as surely as any other person in fear of deportation. Which could get a lot worse if food production stagnates and turns into food riots.

The Residents of Turkey Creek, Alabama, found themselves helped more by the Audobon Society's ability to get large parts of their town classed as nature preserves than by any other appeal for help to stop major development and destruction of the town to serve corporate interests. At least Ecuador can actually prosecute copmanies for destroying their rain forest land with toxic waste and other practices.

Finally, in a more obvious example provided to us from the Media Spin Department, a plea deal in approving a program to provide bonuses for voter registrations is transformed into the entire denunciation of an organization as corrupt and that such practices are assumed to be commonplace among members of that organization. Admittedly, it's not as blatantly opinionated as an attempt to make California out to be an absolute hellhole because of taxes, anti-business and anti-American policies, undocumented workers (leading to the rumor of lawless neighborhoods that the police don't go to), the large amounts of unemployed people (taking no account at all that California has the most seats in the House of Representatives for a reason...) and traffic on I-5. Oh, yes, and TEH GAYS IN YOUR CLASSROOMS.

In technology, what was a jam for NASA turns out to have unclogged, and now a solar sail is orbiting Terra. That's cool. Furthermore, consumer applications on smartphones are being utilized by the military to translate languages, pass along intelligence, and other ways of maintaining and transferring information across the battlefield.

Research indicates that while us Humes play around with avatars on-line as an extension of ourselves, the appearance of our avatars influences how we behave with them. After all, when you're pretending to be a LOUD DOG WHO MUST BE OBEYED, you're going to start acting like one outside of your avatar-space. Plus, all of your tools for judging people work just as well on avatars (sort of.)

Four-color printing, using four different technologies that feed one into another - and the finished product isn't that bad, either.

Additionally, using Kinect and graphics chips to recreate a holographic projection in real-time.

And finally, more resarch indicating a certain group of pesticides may weaken honeybees to infections and sicknesses.

In opinions, Heritage comes out trumpeting National School Choice Week, promoting the idea that schools in poor areas cannot be fixed and must be abandoned, with the residents left to the whim of a lottery on whether they will be able to escape, instead of finding ways to make all schools excellent for all residents. Vouchers programs for student spending allotments deal an extra insult to those school being fled, as it robs them of funds they desperately need to avoid further spiraling started through the tying of funds to Adequate Yearly Progress that insists that only Lake Woebegone schools are allowed to keep all the money they would normally get. We can do education reform and make schools better, but only if we stop encouraging every parent to take their child and flee at the first sign the school system might not be top of the line. And stop selectively prosecuting the "wrong" mothers who send their children to other school districts because the ones they're in right now aren't working, which makes the idea of "school choice" much more plain - people who have the means to put their kids in other schools get the money to do so, thanks to the government, those that can't, don't, and then find out that the school they've been forced to go to is even more starved for funds because all the rich kids fled.

Mr. Blankley says the President's words on regulations were disingenuous at best, and that if we want real regulation reform (and the economy to magically spring back to life once "uncertainty" is gone), then the Republicans have to take a hard line against increasing regulations and work to roll back the ones already in place, by defunding them if they have to. That Mr. Blankley, a normally sane contributor to a program like Left, Right, and Center would praise a disgraced propagandist like L. Brent Bozell III makes his point wobble a bit from its otherwise solidly conservative and Market (A.P.T.I.N.)-praising foundation. Mostly because Mr. Bozell is part of the Anti-Missouri cabal, those people who deny the reality of existence and then expend the further effort to ensure they are never exposed to that reality. following in Mr. Blankley's line of thinking, the editors of the WSJ believe that the naming of Immelt to a Presidential commission is funny, because both GE and Obama have been able to spectacularly misallocate resources that caused or prolonged their financial woes. Expect the boilerplate "money in private hands better for economy than government investment in anything" to follow.

Mr. Sowell believes that the country has stopped honoring entrepreneurs and inventors as the heroes they should rightly be, because they happen to get rather rich off of their inventions, and their processes and companies often are less than environmentally sound or prefer to pay as little wage and supply cost as possible. The inventor will likely still be praised for the invention, but now we tend to look at legacies as well as moments of brilliance, Mr. Sowell. It makes us study history, not hagiography.

The Washington Times can't bring themselves to compliment the President directly, so they use the back of their hand in saying that it's good he's committing to the military, but that he's young to it and these other intiatives that have been going on longer are more important and deserve more praise. Staying in a similar vein, Mr. Bailey is full of praise for the libertarian mindset that he says has been responsible for great developments in society, as well as praising a study that found the libertarian mindset as it develops to be low on a lot of other values liberals and conservatives would find essential. I suppose it's in praise of rational utilitarianism uncorrupted by empathy for people. The Vulcan state of mind, I guess. Perhaps that's why so many people find it alien and off-putting?

Mr. Stephens praises Keith Olbermann for embodying a series of awful behaviors (in his opinion) in an honest manner, rather than being someone who claims objectivity and weasels their way into promoting one opinion over another. Or worse, equivocates two things that are not equal at all. Mr. Stephens is correct - we do better when we're able to express our opinions openly, regardless of what we subsequently think of those opinions. It's a proper salute to an opponent - "I thought he was wrong all the time, and pig-headed about it to boot, but he was always honest about what he thought, and he didn't hesitate to say it."

Ms. Murray details the reasons why she will not be appearing before a grand jury that has summoned her to ask why she was in areas the United States does not look favorably on, citing that all of her actions and writings are protected speech under First Amendment grounds, and should not then be searched or seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment, nor should she have to testify to a hostile jury.

Finally, Mr. Siegel advocates for getting rid of the public sector's right to be part of a union, claiming the original intent of letting them organize in the first place was to shore up Democratic political bases, and thus, those kinds of political decisions can be reversed and the unions broken so theat the Government no longer has to fear essential services going on strike.

Last for tonight, building a car out of bricks, or, if that's not enough for you, building the stadium of an Ohio state university out of Lego bricks. If that's still not enough, how about the first Masters of Beatles.

Sforzando: The State of Our Union is...what, again?

"He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." In this case, Barack Obama spoke of the need to return the United States to competitiveness in the world economy, through giving education the priority it deserves, investing in infrastructure, encouraging innovation, and make sensible changes to government where there is unnecessary complication. After that speech was given, the Opposition gave their response, proclaiming their great priority to be the reduction of expenditures from government, including repealing a popular health care plan. They also claimed to be the advocates of limited government. If you watch the video, as best I can tell, Representative Ryan's TelePrompTer or cue cards were not on good synchronization with his cadence, as emphasis and pauses appear in a lot of wrong places. Past that, one of the official Tea Party voices gave her response to the speech, taking the idea of runaway spending and bloated government and running with it, accusing this administration of doing most of the bloat, and offering suggestions on how to trim it - repealing health care, getting rid of the EPA, and rolling back lots of regulation. If you watch that video, apparently there were two cameras in the room recording, and the one more people saw was not the one the address was being delivered to. For those outside the chamber of Congress, The President of the Libertarian Party accuses the administration of hypocrisy on the Land Wars in Asia, spoke of the need to reduce military spending as well as discretionary spending, accused Congressman Ryan and the Republicans of being hypocrites on actual spending cuts for the last few years, and indicated that the truth needs to be told about entitlements - too much promised, now come the cuts - and boasted that actual libertarians would do the cuts that everyone else is merely willing to talk about doing.

Those were the official responses - the unofficial ones arrive in the columns, and they have lots of range. Mr. Gerwitz is mostly disappointed in the speech, including not much actual tangible stuff on the technology front, while Mr. Henninger believes that the President continued to display an obsession with things that Don't Work to make jobs, like rail systems and solar panels. Mr. Dowd sees no shift at all from Barack Obama of 2009, supposedly stern about spending, through Barack Obama of 2010, touting all the spending he did, to Barack Obama of 2011, now back to supposed spending discipline, because Barack Obama just keeps thinking that government "investment" can work, which is anathema to all those who venerate at the altar of The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) You can hear that strain loud and clear through the reactions penned and highlighted from Heritage, unsubtle and unashamed of that position. Mr. Nugent hedges his outright skepticism slightly, giving the President the benefit of the doubt on some things that might accomplish ends he favors, but it's mostly the same. Which leaves it to Mr. Stossel to articulate the libertarian end, proposing the closing of several major departments, repealing the health care bill, removing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, privatizing entitlement programs, and generally requiring two laws be repealed for each one passed, so that the private sector can stop feeling "uncertain" and start reinvesting their capital.

In a lot of ways, this address looks a lot like what politics has been for the last two years. The President tries to get people to sign on to a grand vision of sparkles, innovation, and economic power, only to find his opposition firmly entrenched in the idea that they should get everything they want, exactly how they want it, before they'll consider anything that he has in mind that might also help solve the problems they're fixating on.

Will Republicans work with Democrats to elevate teachers to the levels that the address said they should be at? Or will they carp about the power of teachers' unions, claiming that they produce overpaid and underqualified teachers who can't be fired for sucking, and then advocate instead for flight from public schools to private schools that don't have unionized instructors? Will they perpatuate the lottery system that says some students in a disadvantaged area will get good education by being sent somewhere adequately funded and enthusiastic about learning, or will they look for ways to make all the schools just as good, no matter whether someone lives in the ghetto or in the gated communities? Will teachers actually get respect, or will they get the Grandchild of No Child Left Behind, the Son of Race To The Top?

For being about jobs and the deficit, the Republicans have spent an awful lot of time so far on things like health care and abortion and other social issues. One would think they would have a budget proposal ready to be examined, or a more numbers-full plan on what they want to cut, right out of the gate, and be ready to justify it when the people who are getting cut complain about losing their slice of the pie. One would think they would be less about finding and extending tax breaks for the wealthiest and more about shoring up revenues while cutting spending. Which might mean tax increases on the profits of corporations, shock and horror. One would think they would have serious plans on how to make health care affordable, ensure the orderly retirement and pension of those who have put their time in, and to check the influence of "let's build bigger hammers" thinking. One would think they should have plans for both short-term means of keeping energy costs down and long-term plans for finding and moving the country over to energy that will be cheap over time and have minimal impact on other resources.

Remarkably, it seems that the libertarian perspective is the one that has concrete plans with numbers attached. They're also fairly extreme in their choices and how far to go with them, but it's much easier to work out compromises or to build something when the people you have to build with have blueprints of their own to make comparisons to.

It's a perfunctory thing to say "The State of Our Union Is Strong" in the speech, either as an opening or closing remark, regardless of what the reality is. In this particular case, I think we had a great case for saying, "The State of Our Union is Fragile" or even going so far as to say "The State of Our Union is Weak", with the unemployment issues, the foreclosure issues, the infrastructure issues, the education issues, and the government paralyzed by the opposition issues. There were a lot of reasons for the perfunctory statement to have been changed to make a point.

Perhaps my plea and the President's pleas are not too apart after all - get off your asses and do something. Prove to us that you have a plan and are working toward it. Make legislation that's not reactionary to something else, or a retread of an issue that's already been fought that provides nothing new to the discussion. Stop being the gods-be-damned Party of No, of inaction, and start taking part in the government. Dragging you around as dead weight makes it tough to do anything at all. And while that may suit the people at the top, who want their good times to continue without end, the people who matter, the ones who are still suffering the recession, those whose jobs are being mercilessly outsourced, the people who are probably most afraid of places like China becoming the dominant player in the world economy, they're the kinds of people who not only will say "Throw the bums out!", but eventually, "Water the tree of liberty."

It's your choice. Whether you truly believe in American Exceptionalism and want to make the United States the bestest at everything, or whether you want the country to hold together for some time longer so you can keep looting it without fear that the plebes will rise up and destroy you, things have to improve. At the very least, we have to have bread and circuses. If we can't even get to bread and circuses, it's going to be an ugly ride.

Not that the President is blameless. But he and his party are at least disposed to action at this point, so they get a little slack - enough that we'll criticize the choices being made, but at least be happy that someone's choosing.