![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Greetings. We begin today with books given away on World Book Night showing an increase in their sales, continuing to prove the idea that if you can let someone see the quality of your work for free, they're much more likely to then buy that work at a good price later. Plus, people with free books recommend them, if they're good, and so other people will go buy them, too.
In the continuing session of The People versus The Corporations, observe the following - unions are responsible for a lot of things you as a worker take for granted - like the weekend. And then, the opinion columns where the caricature of unions as evil organizations that prevent wheat-chaff separation and impede progress persists, making the governors fighting them look like reasonable people who just want their budget holes fixed and the evul unions are stopping them. Or comparisons between government unions and organized crime protection racketeers, and a general denigration of the work that public sector employees do, calling them all "dead weight". That said, despite all of this, unions are seeing a resurgence of interest and solidarity among the people.
Wisconsin government officials introduce a bill to make prank phone calling illegal. The timing on it makes it sound like Walker lackeys are trying to make sure the boss never gets punked like that again. It has a similar ring to the Florida bill that would make taking pictures of farms illegal because agriculture industry doesn't like it when people expose their practices without their PR sanitizing. Or perhaps the attempt to disenfranchise legal voters in New Hampshire by claiming they vote foolishly...and heavily Democratically. College students are often informed people on the issues that matter to them. It's not "foolish" when they vote, they're just using a different rubric. The Republicans as a whole also seem pretty interested in the use of force to get their way when they can't just pass it through a complicit legislature, or when whomever their target is shows resistance to their tactics or successfully foils or impedes them.
And in the latest flare-ups and revolutions around the world - Libyan rebels regrouped after taking a pounding from forces loyal to the governemnt in Libya, including air attacks and fighting in the capital city of Tripoli.
Here in the United States, the keyboard battles wage war. A suggestion that intervening in Libya might turn it into another Iran, with others claiming the United States has an obligation to stop Gaddafi from returning to power, and that means being Team America: World Police.
Gunmen in Yemen kill four, and the United States advises against travel there.
One quick note on Charlie Sheen - his behavior toward women is not an isolated incident. At all. (The worst part? It will likely turn out quite profitable for the networks and studios in the end.)
Out in the world today, International Women's Day, with pictures of influential women from HuffPo, many of whom are influential because they're political leaders or high cabinet ministers. On the ground and in the trenches, though, women face much more obstruction, including laws that require them to bring a fetus with no chance of survival to term and to birth because the event that doomed her was past the threshold allowed for an abortion.
An attack in a Frankfurt airport killed two airmen. The shooter confessed to targeting United States military personnel, and investigations are ongoing to see whether this shooter could be credibly linked to being an extremist Muslim. (Regardless of the findings, expect conservative columnists here in the U.S. to assume he was and then go to their Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion script.)
Domestically, Washington State moves toward recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages as well as civil unions and partnerships.
The Department of Homeland (in)Security is still seeking to use terahertz backscatter devices on citizens without their knowledge or consent while they are out in public or attending events at public venues. No doubt to make everyone feel safer that the terrorists can't get it. While also exposing everyone to radiation they didn't know about and that might harm them. If they should find something, then we might soon expect to see several hunter and sensor robots deployed to find and render us unable to escape.
The problem also extends to local law enforcement, where shysters, hucksters, Islamophobes, and others can make a lot of money "training" police officers on how to spot terrorists, but only really instilling in them that Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion, must be treated with hostility, and that every Muslim belongs won't hesitate to kill them if given the chance.
And should we be convicted and sent to jail, well, assuming we avoid being sent to Guantanamo Bay and tried as enemy combatants well away from the law, now that President Obama has abandoned any pretense of being different than the previous administrator on this issue (for which his conservative opposition gives him praise and smiles, believing that we will all now say the previous administrator was right all along, and The ACLU requests that the President please use the rule of law and the established justice system), there's what appears to be a systemic amount of coercion and rape in prisons that goes unreported. That is, when we're not actively requiring suspects to be undressed and continuing the presumption of guilt against them regardless of the evidence actually available.
A Christian college banned access to a zine distributed on-line and under the doors of its residents, because the zine was about QUILTBAG topics and the administration couldn't have such filth in their clean college. Sufficiently so that one of the administrators would not say the name of the zine, the Harding University Queer Press, because the word "queer" was offensive and profane for him to utter.
According to research published in Archives of General Psychiatry, more than 500,000 teenagers said they had an eating disorder, and almost none of them ever sought treatment for it. Which says something about the possible stigma of doing so, but also says something about the prevalence of the issue - it's almost like teenagers are expected to develop those kinds of issues to meet an unrealistic standard of beauty, health, and attractiveness, or something.
Long after he should have done so, Senator John Ensign of Nevada announces he will not seek re-election in the 2012 contests. This is, recall, the Senator that was schtupping someone who worked for him, was also the wife of someone who worked for him, attempted to buy their silence by having his parents give them hush money, and was also married at the time he did the schtupping.
On budget battles, Republican lawmakers looking for any leverage they can get against public broadcasting are asking whether or not appeals on PBS and NPR stations are illegal under lobbying rules for nonprofits. They also claim that since PBS and NPR can afford to pay good salaries to their executives, places like Sesame Workshop make money from licensing agreements, and liberals donate to PBS and NPR, the taxpayers shouldn't have to fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Because the people at the head of the organization do well, the people at the tail end should suffer. Not every public radio station is WGBH.
Mr. Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Comission, says that shelving the culture war until the financial house is in order is a ludicrous suggestion and will spell DOOM for the Republicans. Not to mention, it's all those degenerates with their non-Christian morals and lack of our Family Values that are driving up costs and creating these financial wrecks of situations. Fight the culture war and win, he says, and financial stability will follow. Is that before or after the legions of religious police are hired to make sure nobody's being gay, or getting an abortion, or miscarrying, or anything else?
Finally, A Seattle farmer's market for medical marijuana.
In technology, a mobile phone with a humanoid shape, and possibly eventually a way of mimicking the facial expressions of the person on the other line. It's an attempt to make the conversation feel more human.
Elsewhere, a robotic hand to help people avoid repetitive stress injuries by typing and Europe will see a retinal prosthesis come to market soon, with the anticipation of approval for the US market in 2012.
An observation satellite launched from NASA failed to make orbit and crashed in the Pacific Ocean. The launching rocket has had a similar failure in the past.
And finally, solid state drives are able to resist current forensic techniques for drive imaging, making it possible currently for data to be destroyed even while forensics persons are trying to recover and save it.
In opinions, Drill, Baby, Drill shout the voices at Heritage, accusing the President of deliberately driving oil prices higher by preventing the exploitation of oil reserves.
One may accuse the Washington Times and conservatism in general of a Janus position when they say that the idea of an Internet kill switch to fight cyberterrorists is finding threats where there are none, yet they continue to push for all sorts of intrusive measures into citizen lives to look for threats where there are none, and continue to say every attack perpetrated by a Muslim just proves all Muslims are Bloodthirsty Terrorists and the current administration is deliberately overlooking this, when there are comparatively few terrorist-affiliated Muslims, especially in the United States.
Ms. Weiss and Mr. Feith stirke an excellent point in wondering why Vogue would choose to put the wife of the leader of Syria as their feature piece in a magazine, but miss another strong point - what does it say about the tastes of the people reading the magazine that they would probably more than happily lap up that kind of data?
Tait Trussel thinks the GAO report indicating duplication in government efforts is a damning exposition...against the Obama administration only, at least in the way it's framed. The actual article could be used to damn any number of Administrations and Congresses for duplications they created, but there's very little in terms of actual specifics, which I'm sure the actual report from the GAO (PDF linkable from page) has in spades. Thus, they're trying to keep it vague so they can continue to blame only this administration for all the spending and debt. Mr. Reagan blames every Congress and executive but the most recent one sworn in for causing the problem, although we do wonder how far back that blame goes and if it crosses administrations. Speaking of trying to pin it all on one administration, Mr. Dowd invokes the Carter echo and claims that President Obama is following the same path and the American people will meet with much the same result as what happened under Carter.
Going broader, Mr. Steyn says that all these troubles with unhinged people and Islamic terrorists are because the Western world is too fat and decadent to close their borders to immigrants and to tell their own [poor] people that the government will no longer provide them with any assistance at all. (Rich people and corporations, of course, will continue to be subsidized and allowed to evade their tax responsibilities.)
Ms. Malkin does something that liberals have been trying to get tea party types to do for a very long time - she has a list of people who aren't white that espouse a similar philosophy to her. (Mind you, the comments are Woe and Spiders, but the writing at least makes a point). She's got a handful, which is good start - if she really wants to help combat the perception that most Tea Partiers are still WASPs that entertain philosophies that are more in line with John Birch and the KKK than constitutionalism or even libertarianism, she's going to need a lot more of them.
Tait Trussel returns with a declaration that the government must immediately cease implementation of the Patient Affordable Care Act because Judge Vinson, of the District Court, ordered it so, and that they should get their appeal to the Appeals Court as soon as possible. In conflict with three other courts that have ruled the other way, who are also likely to get their Appeals in, and then it will eventually land on the desk of the Supremes after having gone through the proper channels. What I don't know, and thus can't really say, is in a question like this, where differing district courts rule differently, is there established precedent as to how to proceed in that case? Go as normal and wait for an appeal to the Supremes to come down and settle the question?
Last out for opinions, the newest anti-Democratic conspiracy on the block - the economic crisis was manufactured so that liberals could get elected and George Soros and Barack Obama could take over!
Finally, a demonstration of the various strengths of homeopathy, using Felicia Day as the example, and Improv Everywhere provides King Philip IV of Spain at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to sign autographs near a painting done of him.
In the continuing session of The People versus The Corporations, observe the following - unions are responsible for a lot of things you as a worker take for granted - like the weekend. And then, the opinion columns where the caricature of unions as evil organizations that prevent wheat-chaff separation and impede progress persists, making the governors fighting them look like reasonable people who just want their budget holes fixed and the evul unions are stopping them. Or comparisons between government unions and organized crime protection racketeers, and a general denigration of the work that public sector employees do, calling them all "dead weight". That said, despite all of this, unions are seeing a resurgence of interest and solidarity among the people.
Wisconsin government officials introduce a bill to make prank phone calling illegal. The timing on it makes it sound like Walker lackeys are trying to make sure the boss never gets punked like that again. It has a similar ring to the Florida bill that would make taking pictures of farms illegal because agriculture industry doesn't like it when people expose their practices without their PR sanitizing. Or perhaps the attempt to disenfranchise legal voters in New Hampshire by claiming they vote foolishly...and heavily Democratically. College students are often informed people on the issues that matter to them. It's not "foolish" when they vote, they're just using a different rubric. The Republicans as a whole also seem pretty interested in the use of force to get their way when they can't just pass it through a complicit legislature, or when whomever their target is shows resistance to their tactics or successfully foils or impedes them.
And in the latest flare-ups and revolutions around the world - Libyan rebels regrouped after taking a pounding from forces loyal to the governemnt in Libya, including air attacks and fighting in the capital city of Tripoli.
Here in the United States, the keyboard battles wage war. A suggestion that intervening in Libya might turn it into another Iran, with others claiming the United States has an obligation to stop Gaddafi from returning to power, and that means being Team America: World Police.
Gunmen in Yemen kill four, and the United States advises against travel there.
One quick note on Charlie Sheen - his behavior toward women is not an isolated incident. At all. (The worst part? It will likely turn out quite profitable for the networks and studios in the end.)
Out in the world today, International Women's Day, with pictures of influential women from HuffPo, many of whom are influential because they're political leaders or high cabinet ministers. On the ground and in the trenches, though, women face much more obstruction, including laws that require them to bring a fetus with no chance of survival to term and to birth because the event that doomed her was past the threshold allowed for an abortion.
An attack in a Frankfurt airport killed two airmen. The shooter confessed to targeting United States military personnel, and investigations are ongoing to see whether this shooter could be credibly linked to being an extremist Muslim. (Regardless of the findings, expect conservative columnists here in the U.S. to assume he was and then go to their Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion script.)
Domestically, Washington State moves toward recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages as well as civil unions and partnerships.
The Department of Homeland (in)Security is still seeking to use terahertz backscatter devices on citizens without their knowledge or consent while they are out in public or attending events at public venues. No doubt to make everyone feel safer that the terrorists can't get it. While also exposing everyone to radiation they didn't know about and that might harm them. If they should find something, then we might soon expect to see several hunter and sensor robots deployed to find and render us unable to escape.
The problem also extends to local law enforcement, where shysters, hucksters, Islamophobes, and others can make a lot of money "training" police officers on how to spot terrorists, but only really instilling in them that Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion, must be treated with hostility, and that every Muslim belongs won't hesitate to kill them if given the chance.
And should we be convicted and sent to jail, well, assuming we avoid being sent to Guantanamo Bay and tried as enemy combatants well away from the law, now that President Obama has abandoned any pretense of being different than the previous administrator on this issue (for which his conservative opposition gives him praise and smiles, believing that we will all now say the previous administrator was right all along, and The ACLU requests that the President please use the rule of law and the established justice system), there's what appears to be a systemic amount of coercion and rape in prisons that goes unreported. That is, when we're not actively requiring suspects to be undressed and continuing the presumption of guilt against them regardless of the evidence actually available.
A Christian college banned access to a zine distributed on-line and under the doors of its residents, because the zine was about QUILTBAG topics and the administration couldn't have such filth in their clean college. Sufficiently so that one of the administrators would not say the name of the zine, the Harding University Queer Press, because the word "queer" was offensive and profane for him to utter.
According to research published in Archives of General Psychiatry, more than 500,000 teenagers said they had an eating disorder, and almost none of them ever sought treatment for it. Which says something about the possible stigma of doing so, but also says something about the prevalence of the issue - it's almost like teenagers are expected to develop those kinds of issues to meet an unrealistic standard of beauty, health, and attractiveness, or something.
Long after he should have done so, Senator John Ensign of Nevada announces he will not seek re-election in the 2012 contests. This is, recall, the Senator that was schtupping someone who worked for him, was also the wife of someone who worked for him, attempted to buy their silence by having his parents give them hush money, and was also married at the time he did the schtupping.
On budget battles, Republican lawmakers looking for any leverage they can get against public broadcasting are asking whether or not appeals on PBS and NPR stations are illegal under lobbying rules for nonprofits. They also claim that since PBS and NPR can afford to pay good salaries to their executives, places like Sesame Workshop make money from licensing agreements, and liberals donate to PBS and NPR, the taxpayers shouldn't have to fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Because the people at the head of the organization do well, the people at the tail end should suffer. Not every public radio station is WGBH.
Mr. Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Comission, says that shelving the culture war until the financial house is in order is a ludicrous suggestion and will spell DOOM for the Republicans. Not to mention, it's all those degenerates with their non-Christian morals and lack of our Family Values that are driving up costs and creating these financial wrecks of situations. Fight the culture war and win, he says, and financial stability will follow. Is that before or after the legions of religious police are hired to make sure nobody's being gay, or getting an abortion, or miscarrying, or anything else?
Finally, A Seattle farmer's market for medical marijuana.
In technology, a mobile phone with a humanoid shape, and possibly eventually a way of mimicking the facial expressions of the person on the other line. It's an attempt to make the conversation feel more human.
Elsewhere, a robotic hand to help people avoid repetitive stress injuries by typing and Europe will see a retinal prosthesis come to market soon, with the anticipation of approval for the US market in 2012.
An observation satellite launched from NASA failed to make orbit and crashed in the Pacific Ocean. The launching rocket has had a similar failure in the past.
And finally, solid state drives are able to resist current forensic techniques for drive imaging, making it possible currently for data to be destroyed even while forensics persons are trying to recover and save it.
In opinions, Drill, Baby, Drill shout the voices at Heritage, accusing the President of deliberately driving oil prices higher by preventing the exploitation of oil reserves.
One may accuse the Washington Times and conservatism in general of a Janus position when they say that the idea of an Internet kill switch to fight cyberterrorists is finding threats where there are none, yet they continue to push for all sorts of intrusive measures into citizen lives to look for threats where there are none, and continue to say every attack perpetrated by a Muslim just proves all Muslims are Bloodthirsty Terrorists and the current administration is deliberately overlooking this, when there are comparatively few terrorist-affiliated Muslims, especially in the United States.
Ms. Weiss and Mr. Feith stirke an excellent point in wondering why Vogue would choose to put the wife of the leader of Syria as their feature piece in a magazine, but miss another strong point - what does it say about the tastes of the people reading the magazine that they would probably more than happily lap up that kind of data?
Tait Trussel thinks the GAO report indicating duplication in government efforts is a damning exposition...against the Obama administration only, at least in the way it's framed. The actual article could be used to damn any number of Administrations and Congresses for duplications they created, but there's very little in terms of actual specifics, which I'm sure the actual report from the GAO (PDF linkable from page) has in spades. Thus, they're trying to keep it vague so they can continue to blame only this administration for all the spending and debt. Mr. Reagan blames every Congress and executive but the most recent one sworn in for causing the problem, although we do wonder how far back that blame goes and if it crosses administrations. Speaking of trying to pin it all on one administration, Mr. Dowd invokes the Carter echo and claims that President Obama is following the same path and the American people will meet with much the same result as what happened under Carter.
Going broader, Mr. Steyn says that all these troubles with unhinged people and Islamic terrorists are because the Western world is too fat and decadent to close their borders to immigrants and to tell their own [poor] people that the government will no longer provide them with any assistance at all. (Rich people and corporations, of course, will continue to be subsidized and allowed to evade their tax responsibilities.)
Ms. Malkin does something that liberals have been trying to get tea party types to do for a very long time - she has a list of people who aren't white that espouse a similar philosophy to her. (Mind you, the comments are Woe and Spiders, but the writing at least makes a point). She's got a handful, which is good start - if she really wants to help combat the perception that most Tea Partiers are still WASPs that entertain philosophies that are more in line with John Birch and the KKK than constitutionalism or even libertarianism, she's going to need a lot more of them.
Tait Trussel returns with a declaration that the government must immediately cease implementation of the Patient Affordable Care Act because Judge Vinson, of the District Court, ordered it so, and that they should get their appeal to the Appeals Court as soon as possible. In conflict with three other courts that have ruled the other way, who are also likely to get their Appeals in, and then it will eventually land on the desk of the Supremes after having gone through the proper channels. What I don't know, and thus can't really say, is in a question like this, where differing district courts rule differently, is there established precedent as to how to proceed in that case? Go as normal and wait for an appeal to the Supremes to come down and settle the question?
Last out for opinions, the newest anti-Democratic conspiracy on the block - the economic crisis was manufactured so that liberals could get elected and George Soros and Barack Obama could take over!
Finally, a demonstration of the various strengths of homeopathy, using Felicia Day as the example, and Improv Everywhere provides King Philip IV of Spain at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to sign autographs near a painting done of him.
