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Up top today, Mr. Wil Wheaton, aka Chaos, expresses his admiration and respect for libraries and librarians.
If you have an Amazon password, you might want to log in and change it, to take advantage of the upgraded security functions.
The historical research department notes that Ayn Rand was eventually someone who used social safety net programs, despite having advocated against their creation in the first place. Her supporters, when confronted with this apparent hypocrisy, refer to a passage that says that it's a smart thing for people to retake the money stolen from them by the government to pay for social programs, and that it's only the people who didn't have any money stolen and are receiving benefits and the politicians that created laws that let them steal who are the morally indefensible.
Out in the world today, Oy, Canada! The Government appeals a ruling that would require it to make Government Internet resources accessible by screen reader. Apparently, the government is arguing the judge overstepped judicial boundaries in the ruling. Not that Government websites should be inaccessible. I guess I should be glad that the United States has Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and that's the end of the discussion. And we hope that someone mentions that in the arguments as a way of pointing out that not only can it be done, it's not overly burdensome.
Fighting the opponent with non-violent tactics, or: Protestors in Egypt employ kisses against the riot police dispatched to break them up. Ah, and speaking of resistance technique, China, whose citizens are probably experts at it by now, has decided that it wants to censor any stories of Egypt form reaching Chinese ears, lest it remind them too much of the time in their own recent history.. With, you know, the tanks coming out, and the protestors all gathering in a square.
The demonstrations are also now big enough to hide people whose interest is crime or vandalism, not protest - treasures and mummies in the Egyptian Museum were damaged or destroyed during the demonstrations.
Mr. Obama told Mr. Mubarak that he needed to make concerete steps to expand the rights of the people in the country. It draws scorn from people who think the right call is for Mr. Mubarak to resign. (Some of them say that Mr. Mubarak should have been gone a long time ago.) Or for those who believe the revolution is being taken over by hard-line extremists who will put themselves in power and make Egypt hostile to the United States.
A message sent by a wireless carrier to all their clients ended up setting off a would-be bomber's device before they were in position. Yet more of the dangers of making sure your spam protection is up to snuff? (Wouldn't have helped in this case, of course, as it was the wireless provider that sent it, but still...)
The funeral of David Kato, supposedly the responsiblity of the Anglican Church, was instead used as an anti-LGBT platform until the mourners evicted the representative of the church and spoke for themselves.
Puerto Rican students continued to protest tuition spikes, and then protested the way that the protests were being handled by the police - rubber bullets and tear gas.
Domestically, A religious college in Michigan finally opened the door to allow the discussion of LGBT sexuality, while still insisting that any groups that run contrary to church orthodoxy will be denied the abilit to exist on campus. The cynic reading of this is that they've opened the door to let the professors lecture the LGBT about how wrong, sinful, and bad they are, but anyone who might be LGBT-friendly will still be forced to stay silent about it.
For anyone who thinks that they're going to obtain a perfect and pure world of one superior race, more people in the United States are embracing a multiracial heritage and are proud to be mixed.
As for the Republicans, not only are they gunning to make insurance companies drop abortion coverage entirely, they're trying to redefine rape to require the use of force before it's actually called a rape. In response to this idea, at least one major campaign, using Twitter and the idea of "Dear John" to force the Speaker to kill the proposed bill.
A panel confirms what the people have already known for a while - weak regulators and reckless Wall Street investment firms combined to create the current financial mess. Well, at least, the Democratic side said that's what happened. The Republican part of the commission washed their hands of the report, claiming that the Democrats didn't actually uncover the cause of the crisis. (Most likely because it didn't touch on their pet groups and accuse the American people of being greedy people who got loans they never should have from banks forced by a cruel government to lend to the clearly unowrthy, and from government-sponsored enterprises that would lend if the banks refused to.)
In opinions, where even the little things have weight and effect, and to dismiss them as little without further thought makes it very difficult to fix them and the bigger things that all those little things generate when put together.
Dr. Wolf points out the obvious flaw in a program that issues hundreds of waivers to its demands, although he prefers to think of it as the administration rewarding its pals rather than the stark admission that the law as currently written is providing a perverse incentive for employers to threaten to drop coverage. His suggested solution is to repeal the thing entirely, because it's clearly a bad law to have so many exemptions granted.
Mr. Bugent suggests that those enrolled on the nation's various social assistance programs be required to perform a certain amount of work time each week or they lose their benefits for the next month. He figures the threat of starvation will get all the supposedly indolent and able-bodied people who prefer to collect their government checks working. Otherwise, they're just liabilities and bloodsuckers who don't want to make the effort. I wonder whether Mr. Nugent has followed those supposedly lazy able-bodied people around or not. Most of them I know of will hustle to find work, because benefits don't pay enough. Those that aren't probably have something that's stopping them from finding work. Plus, I wonder what percentage of those on social assistance Mr. Nugent believes are able-bodied and lazy. It's probably less than he thinks.
Last out of opinions, Mr. Carroll believes that if the people in charge of the country had the opportunity to attend private school, then everyone else should get that chance, too, and the Democrats should stop letting the NEA force people into substandard schools by restricting school choice. Remarkably missing form that perspective is any discussion at all as to whether it's possible to improve the schools that are there to make them of similar caliber as the private schools. Makes you think that conservatives want school choice to get away from something as much as they want to be able to give someone a good education.
And last for tonight, I want to say that I've been learning a lot about how hard it is to express yourself in English. And how easy it is for what seems like a normal statement to have a underbelly that's awful and ugly. Hopefully, I'll be able to come out of this with both a better grasp of the language and a better ability to see the unintended dimensions of my own writing and speaking. I ask for your patience while I learn, that you're willing to teach when the opportunity arises, and that you give me the benefit of the doubt on whether I intended to be flagrantly offensive. Usually, when I'm going for it, I try to throw up big signs that signal my intent to use offensive language or phrasing. The hardest ones to fix are the unintentional ones. So, if I'm going to get flamed, would you at least choose a marinade or a sauce that will make me taste good after I'm cooked?
If you have an Amazon password, you might want to log in and change it, to take advantage of the upgraded security functions.
The historical research department notes that Ayn Rand was eventually someone who used social safety net programs, despite having advocated against their creation in the first place. Her supporters, when confronted with this apparent hypocrisy, refer to a passage that says that it's a smart thing for people to retake the money stolen from them by the government to pay for social programs, and that it's only the people who didn't have any money stolen and are receiving benefits and the politicians that created laws that let them steal who are the morally indefensible.
Out in the world today, Oy, Canada! The Government appeals a ruling that would require it to make Government Internet resources accessible by screen reader. Apparently, the government is arguing the judge overstepped judicial boundaries in the ruling. Not that Government websites should be inaccessible. I guess I should be glad that the United States has Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and that's the end of the discussion. And we hope that someone mentions that in the arguments as a way of pointing out that not only can it be done, it's not overly burdensome.
Fighting the opponent with non-violent tactics, or: Protestors in Egypt employ kisses against the riot police dispatched to break them up. Ah, and speaking of resistance technique, China, whose citizens are probably experts at it by now, has decided that it wants to censor any stories of Egypt form reaching Chinese ears, lest it remind them too much of the time in their own recent history.. With, you know, the tanks coming out, and the protestors all gathering in a square.
The demonstrations are also now big enough to hide people whose interest is crime or vandalism, not protest - treasures and mummies in the Egyptian Museum were damaged or destroyed during the demonstrations.
Mr. Obama told Mr. Mubarak that he needed to make concerete steps to expand the rights of the people in the country. It draws scorn from people who think the right call is for Mr. Mubarak to resign. (Some of them say that Mr. Mubarak should have been gone a long time ago.) Or for those who believe the revolution is being taken over by hard-line extremists who will put themselves in power and make Egypt hostile to the United States.
A message sent by a wireless carrier to all their clients ended up setting off a would-be bomber's device before they were in position. Yet more of the dangers of making sure your spam protection is up to snuff? (Wouldn't have helped in this case, of course, as it was the wireless provider that sent it, but still...)
The funeral of David Kato, supposedly the responsiblity of the Anglican Church, was instead used as an anti-LGBT platform until the mourners evicted the representative of the church and spoke for themselves.
Puerto Rican students continued to protest tuition spikes, and then protested the way that the protests were being handled by the police - rubber bullets and tear gas.
Domestically, A religious college in Michigan finally opened the door to allow the discussion of LGBT sexuality, while still insisting that any groups that run contrary to church orthodoxy will be denied the abilit to exist on campus. The cynic reading of this is that they've opened the door to let the professors lecture the LGBT about how wrong, sinful, and bad they are, but anyone who might be LGBT-friendly will still be forced to stay silent about it.
For anyone who thinks that they're going to obtain a perfect and pure world of one superior race, more people in the United States are embracing a multiracial heritage and are proud to be mixed.
As for the Republicans, not only are they gunning to make insurance companies drop abortion coverage entirely, they're trying to redefine rape to require the use of force before it's actually called a rape. In response to this idea, at least one major campaign, using Twitter and the idea of "Dear John" to force the Speaker to kill the proposed bill.
A panel confirms what the people have already known for a while - weak regulators and reckless Wall Street investment firms combined to create the current financial mess. Well, at least, the Democratic side said that's what happened. The Republican part of the commission washed their hands of the report, claiming that the Democrats didn't actually uncover the cause of the crisis. (Most likely because it didn't touch on their pet groups and accuse the American people of being greedy people who got loans they never should have from banks forced by a cruel government to lend to the clearly unowrthy, and from government-sponsored enterprises that would lend if the banks refused to.)
In opinions, where even the little things have weight and effect, and to dismiss them as little without further thought makes it very difficult to fix them and the bigger things that all those little things generate when put together.
Dr. Wolf points out the obvious flaw in a program that issues hundreds of waivers to its demands, although he prefers to think of it as the administration rewarding its pals rather than the stark admission that the law as currently written is providing a perverse incentive for employers to threaten to drop coverage. His suggested solution is to repeal the thing entirely, because it's clearly a bad law to have so many exemptions granted.
Mr. Bugent suggests that those enrolled on the nation's various social assistance programs be required to perform a certain amount of work time each week or they lose their benefits for the next month. He figures the threat of starvation will get all the supposedly indolent and able-bodied people who prefer to collect their government checks working. Otherwise, they're just liabilities and bloodsuckers who don't want to make the effort. I wonder whether Mr. Nugent has followed those supposedly lazy able-bodied people around or not. Most of them I know of will hustle to find work, because benefits don't pay enough. Those that aren't probably have something that's stopping them from finding work. Plus, I wonder what percentage of those on social assistance Mr. Nugent believes are able-bodied and lazy. It's probably less than he thinks.
Last out of opinions, Mr. Carroll believes that if the people in charge of the country had the opportunity to attend private school, then everyone else should get that chance, too, and the Democrats should stop letting the NEA force people into substandard schools by restricting school choice. Remarkably missing form that perspective is any discussion at all as to whether it's possible to improve the schools that are there to make them of similar caliber as the private schools. Makes you think that conservatives want school choice to get away from something as much as they want to be able to give someone a good education.
And last for tonight, I want to say that I've been learning a lot about how hard it is to express yourself in English. And how easy it is for what seems like a normal statement to have a underbelly that's awful and ugly. Hopefully, I'll be able to come out of this with both a better grasp of the language and a better ability to see the unintended dimensions of my own writing and speaking. I ask for your patience while I learn, that you're willing to teach when the opportunity arises, and that you give me the benefit of the doubt on whether I intended to be flagrantly offensive. Usually, when I'm going for it, I try to throw up big signs that signal my intent to use offensive language or phrasing. The hardest ones to fix are the unintentional ones. So, if I'm going to get flamed, would you at least choose a marinade or a sauce that will make me taste good after I'm cooked?
