![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Greetings, all - in the writing prompts category, have a list of Frequently or Not So Frequently Asked Questions about various topics - pose or answer questions as you like.
We begin with A letter from Yoko Ono Lennon opposing the parole of the man who shot her husband.
Out in the world today, no troops, yes drones in Libya. And a nice shout-out to the Libyans who manage to keep a mobile network alive during all the fighting.
A new Wikileaks cache details many of the operations of the Guatnanamo Bay prison, as well as details about where accused plotters of the 11 September attacks were leading up to the event.
The leader of Yemen, president Ali Abdullah Saleh, will step down in the face of the massive protests in his country, but not after delivering grave insults about the women that were participating in the protests. I'm expecting the conservative columnists to once again bemoan another stepping-down as Yet Another Chance for The Bloodthirsty Religion. They do not disappoint us - Mr. Mauro is out in the lead. Others might be sounding the alarm on a propaganda piece put out by Iran, just to make sure all the fronts are covered. The announcement of the deal did not stop the protests.
The Federal government of Canada has sent slop pails and water jugs to remote First Nations reserves as their way of asking them to help conserve water. The First Nations tribes are understandably unhappy at being treated like they were a poor country without access to basic moden infastructure.
A new Wikileas cache released today details the inner workings of the Guantanamo Bay facility, the confusion over its residents, and even more details about what's already gone on there in the name of the United States. It brings to mind again the way the President was sandbagged, opposed, sabotaged, and then gave up on his promise to close the facility. But it can also be used to jusifty the detenion of people based on their records as well.
Speaking of Wikileaks, it looks very bad for PFC Manning when even the President of the United States is convinced of his guilt before any trial has actually happened.
More than 500 prisonenrs escaped from the high-security Kandahar jail through a tunnel that took months to dig. And they probably didn't need to pay a person to copy the letter A of the Encyclopedia to do so.
Finally, Iraq's Prime Minister says that Iraqi forces are ready to take over security for the country. Cue fluttering and clucking that the sky is falling, or at least The Bloodthirsty Religion will move in and take over. At least, assuming they aren't having to fight off computer attacks.
Domestically, The United States military is changing policy to allow legal immigrant recruits to complete the tasks of citizenship and naturalization while in boot camp. If they want a passport, however, once they're done, they'll potentially be faced with a long, overly-inquistive, and difficult-to-complete passport application form, assuming they don't magically happen to have all the right documents with them at the time.
There ar estill plenty of uncapped wells in the Gulf just waiting to explode or repressurize, but we're not likely to do anything about it - the GOP has been soaking up lots of oil money, so they're not likely to move to change anything.
As part of the new bill to help first responders to the 11 September attacks pay for medical bills, the names of the responders will have to be run through the FBI's terrorism-associations database, or they will lose their help.
The evidence of a violent wing of anti-abortion extremists getting ready to kill again in Kansas mounts, while a federal judge looks the other way and refuses to grant a restraining order against someone who made threats against a doctor. Of course, they could just do as Oklahoma does and outlaw abortion after a certain period of time, likely in direct contradiction to the interpretation of Roe v. Wade.
Of course, violence while the authorities look the other way is not a new condition, nor limited to abortion. Observing a day of silence out of respect for Othered People who don't normally get to speak will earn you verbal violence while administrators say you're the problem. And heaven help you if you actually are Different, then people will execute violence against your person while others look on and nobody really tries to stop it...but they will film it.
A Michigan State Senator beleives that if you're a child and poor, your allowance for clothing should onyl be spent at thrift stores. No new things for you, friend. You're poor and don't deserve them. Elsewhere, Idaho Governor signs the withdrawal of the state from the Medicaid program. Because poor people also don't deserve health.
That said, there are sometimes worries when things go to the extreme in the other direction - like when white evangelicals want to adopt not-white people's kids, not necessarily as a humanitarian gesture, but as a way of making sure their ministries continue to get donations and the not-white kids get the message of Jeezis. If you actually ask the kids who have gone through the process, they have less than flattering things to say about it. But, y'know, it's not in the tradition to let not-white people talk about the not-white experience and be heard.
And through all of this, people will still blithely claim that the religious values of Christians are always a good thing for the country to follow, while claiming said Chrsitian majority is being persecuted by an apparently even bigger secular majority that pulls the levers of government. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that columns claiming our current society is evil and needs the power of the institutionalized Church to right it start appearing around every Christian holiday, but tell me this - how many lawmakers and executive staff are something other that Protestant or Catholic Christians?
Really, it's better to be talking about the merits and demerits of the way Dearborn police handled a planned protest in front of a mosque, because that has implications about the laws, their enforcement, and religious freedom, rather than a nonexistent fear that Christians will mysteriously vanish from their dominant position any time soon.
The people who have been trying to get the proper amount of stimulus spent to drive the economy out of recession are looking for other places to go, now that it's fairly well certain nobody's listening to them any more.
Arizona begins its own work to make workers contribute more to their own retirement plans under the guise of making the program fiscally solvent. and did you like that hanging threat left in the last line of the column? "Well, if they don't like it, we can fire them and not have to worry that we'll get sued for wrongful termination or anything. So shut up and pay up if you want to keep your job."
The sheriff who believes himself Immigrations and Customs Enforcement's top agent is still in power and still persecuting any brown people he can see. But apparently, nobody can be arsed to get rid of him - he's not on the radar of the people who can dismiss him. Or they support him. Even when the people in his jail show callous disregard for the severe illness of an inmate. Those sorts of conditions are scarily mirrored in the way the police and the jails are currently being run in New Orleans, post-hurricane. Although, to be fair, some of the sherriffs there are working at fixing the problem. In Arizona, he believes there's no problem to be fixed.
Finally, the amendments to Michigan's laws that give the sate new powers to dissolve elected governments and boards and replace them with financial managers has some very interesting consequences - the poor city of Benton Harbor is seeing its public park taken over and used as a private golf course and high-rent housing, and a school that takes care and educates pregnant women, new mothers, and their children is slated for closure - the students protested the planned closure over their break, and the police were sent to get them out and break them up. The Emergency Financial Manager position is becoming more and more of an autocratic fiefdom, and Michigan is suffering from it. (Despite whatever attempts someone does to weasel out of discussing the actual issues by claiming that it's a bipartisan thing and that there are exaggerations and distortions going on to fit a national narrative.)
Ah, technology, where Apple's iPhone keeps sensitive and personally identifying information in an unencrypted file, ripe for the taking. Suffice to say, lawsuits over the data retention, ahoy, even as Steve Jobs denies that anyone is being tracked at all.
If you own a Barnes and Noble Color Nook, your device will soon become a fully-fledged Android tablet, although you won't be able to access to full Android App Store.
In opinions, Mr. Ebert points out why 3-D movies right now are mostly gimmicks and should be avoided, as Mr. Hiner explains that 3-D is mostly a scam to charge extra for a movie. Wonder why things are so underwhelming despite being so expensive when the glasses are on? These help to explain.
The possibility that higher education is the next bubble that will cause a crash when it bursts, based on the government continuing to lend out lots of money at artificially low interest rates.
Mr. Brownfield believes the Department of Energy has overstepped its bounds of basic research into being a government agency that picks winners and losers in energy technology. Thus, that part of it can safely be cut with no worries.
The question of whether non-humans that aren't corporations deserve rights as well - maybe laws to make sure that we don't destroy the planet can come into being? Or will Mammon once again reassert his dominance? If you believe Tait Trussel, only fossil fuels should be used, because green energy is both a pipe dream and a way of buying loyalty and favors with government money. Not like oil and gas companies get billions in subsidies, or anything.
Speaking of corporations, California and Texas are partnering to find out specific reasons why corporations are packing up from California and going to Texas. I'm betting they come back with "Texas is far more corporation-friendly, with less taxes, less ability for unions to receive a livable wage, less pesky social programs and regulations demanding money and compliance, and a Governor who will side with corporations against people and the envrionment."
Mr. Hanson conflates two distinct points into one in trying to discount the President's remarks on the need for better collection of taxes. The first - "If we want more money to pay deficits with, maybe we should close loopholes and tax the rich at the income, rather than the capital-gains rate, and reduce our spending where it is prudent to do so" is eminently sensible. The second, "Oh, and while we're at it, we should make sure all those poor people have to pay some percentage of their income in income taxes, so they can become good little Republicans" is not. While many people pay no net income taxes, it's not like they pay no income taxes - refund checks are issued but once a year, but withholding happens all the time. To set some sort of minimum requirement for taxes paid defeats the progressive part and, unless those loophole closers are also given a fleet of auditors, continues to guarantee that the poor people will be paying a large amount of the revenue collected, because they have neither loopholes or acountants to do their taxes.
Mr. Kessler believes that the current structure of insurance subsidies will be a disincentive to work, because earning certain amounts of money will cut subsidies severely and make people want to stay just this side of the notch to keep the better subsidies. And of course, that will be a disincentive to work. Well, Mr. Kessler, we could just go single-payer and not have to worry about that. Or maybe we could ensure that an affordable insurance plan actually is affordable and covers what people need it to be.
Mr. Taylor attempts to turn numbers into graphs regarding the various budget proposals - he's comparing two Obamas to a Ryan and no Progressive nor Congressional Black Caucus in sight, so it's not complete. And it invokes the scrutiny of the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Department for accuracy.
We should also be looking at what things are getting cut in the budget - the totals are nice, but the programs that are getting axed are important to examine, as well.
Mr. Williams finds universities teaching Things He Doesn't Like, and says that this problem must be immediately fixed, lest one be "indoctrinated" into Hating America. I wonder if he will be critical of Ms. Noonan's reflection that America could still use improvement to become the model of (Christian) moral virtue she believes it can be, because she dares suggest that improvement is necessary.
Mr. Brown expects the tensions between black Africans and Middle Eastern Arabs to continue to rise with the usage of black mercenaries in the Libya conflict.
Out of opinions, Mr. Goldberg, having been unable to find something of substance to write his column about, spends inches commenting on how he doesn't pity the President at all for being the President, but expects him to simply shut up and deal with all the roadblocks in his way without ever venting to anyone. At least Mr. Stafko puts up a veneer of talking about substance in his myopically-focused column about one Presidential remark. (Really, if you believe that the Presidet believes solely that social programs are what makes America great, you need to have those straw men burnt to ashes.)
Last for tonight, a parable of a man and several vineyards, and why that story makes the supposedly benevolent landowner out to be a big dick.
We begin with A letter from Yoko Ono Lennon opposing the parole of the man who shot her husband.
Out in the world today, no troops, yes drones in Libya. And a nice shout-out to the Libyans who manage to keep a mobile network alive during all the fighting.
A new Wikileaks cache details many of the operations of the Guatnanamo Bay prison, as well as details about where accused plotters of the 11 September attacks were leading up to the event.
The leader of Yemen, president Ali Abdullah Saleh, will step down in the face of the massive protests in his country, but not after delivering grave insults about the women that were participating in the protests. I'm expecting the conservative columnists to once again bemoan another stepping-down as Yet Another Chance for The Bloodthirsty Religion. They do not disappoint us - Mr. Mauro is out in the lead. Others might be sounding the alarm on a propaganda piece put out by Iran, just to make sure all the fronts are covered. The announcement of the deal did not stop the protests.
The Federal government of Canada has sent slop pails and water jugs to remote First Nations reserves as their way of asking them to help conserve water. The First Nations tribes are understandably unhappy at being treated like they were a poor country without access to basic moden infastructure.
A new Wikileas cache released today details the inner workings of the Guantanamo Bay facility, the confusion over its residents, and even more details about what's already gone on there in the name of the United States. It brings to mind again the way the President was sandbagged, opposed, sabotaged, and then gave up on his promise to close the facility. But it can also be used to jusifty the detenion of people based on their records as well.
Speaking of Wikileaks, it looks very bad for PFC Manning when even the President of the United States is convinced of his guilt before any trial has actually happened.
More than 500 prisonenrs escaped from the high-security Kandahar jail through a tunnel that took months to dig. And they probably didn't need to pay a person to copy the letter A of the Encyclopedia to do so.
Finally, Iraq's Prime Minister says that Iraqi forces are ready to take over security for the country. Cue fluttering and clucking that the sky is falling, or at least The Bloodthirsty Religion will move in and take over. At least, assuming they aren't having to fight off computer attacks.
Domestically, The United States military is changing policy to allow legal immigrant recruits to complete the tasks of citizenship and naturalization while in boot camp. If they want a passport, however, once they're done, they'll potentially be faced with a long, overly-inquistive, and difficult-to-complete passport application form, assuming they don't magically happen to have all the right documents with them at the time.
There ar estill plenty of uncapped wells in the Gulf just waiting to explode or repressurize, but we're not likely to do anything about it - the GOP has been soaking up lots of oil money, so they're not likely to move to change anything.
As part of the new bill to help first responders to the 11 September attacks pay for medical bills, the names of the responders will have to be run through the FBI's terrorism-associations database, or they will lose their help.
The evidence of a violent wing of anti-abortion extremists getting ready to kill again in Kansas mounts, while a federal judge looks the other way and refuses to grant a restraining order against someone who made threats against a doctor. Of course, they could just do as Oklahoma does and outlaw abortion after a certain period of time, likely in direct contradiction to the interpretation of Roe v. Wade.
Of course, violence while the authorities look the other way is not a new condition, nor limited to abortion. Observing a day of silence out of respect for Othered People who don't normally get to speak will earn you verbal violence while administrators say you're the problem. And heaven help you if you actually are Different, then people will execute violence against your person while others look on and nobody really tries to stop it...but they will film it.
A Michigan State Senator beleives that if you're a child and poor, your allowance for clothing should onyl be spent at thrift stores. No new things for you, friend. You're poor and don't deserve them. Elsewhere, Idaho Governor signs the withdrawal of the state from the Medicaid program. Because poor people also don't deserve health.
That said, there are sometimes worries when things go to the extreme in the other direction - like when white evangelicals want to adopt not-white people's kids, not necessarily as a humanitarian gesture, but as a way of making sure their ministries continue to get donations and the not-white kids get the message of Jeezis. If you actually ask the kids who have gone through the process, they have less than flattering things to say about it. But, y'know, it's not in the tradition to let not-white people talk about the not-white experience and be heard.
And through all of this, people will still blithely claim that the religious values of Christians are always a good thing for the country to follow, while claiming said Chrsitian majority is being persecuted by an apparently even bigger secular majority that pulls the levers of government. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that columns claiming our current society is evil and needs the power of the institutionalized Church to right it start appearing around every Christian holiday, but tell me this - how many lawmakers and executive staff are something other that Protestant or Catholic Christians?
Really, it's better to be talking about the merits and demerits of the way Dearborn police handled a planned protest in front of a mosque, because that has implications about the laws, their enforcement, and religious freedom, rather than a nonexistent fear that Christians will mysteriously vanish from their dominant position any time soon.
The people who have been trying to get the proper amount of stimulus spent to drive the economy out of recession are looking for other places to go, now that it's fairly well certain nobody's listening to them any more.
Arizona begins its own work to make workers contribute more to their own retirement plans under the guise of making the program fiscally solvent. and did you like that hanging threat left in the last line of the column? "Well, if they don't like it, we can fire them and not have to worry that we'll get sued for wrongful termination or anything. So shut up and pay up if you want to keep your job."
The sheriff who believes himself Immigrations and Customs Enforcement's top agent is still in power and still persecuting any brown people he can see. But apparently, nobody can be arsed to get rid of him - he's not on the radar of the people who can dismiss him. Or they support him. Even when the people in his jail show callous disregard for the severe illness of an inmate. Those sorts of conditions are scarily mirrored in the way the police and the jails are currently being run in New Orleans, post-hurricane. Although, to be fair, some of the sherriffs there are working at fixing the problem. In Arizona, he believes there's no problem to be fixed.
Finally, the amendments to Michigan's laws that give the sate new powers to dissolve elected governments and boards and replace them with financial managers has some very interesting consequences - the poor city of Benton Harbor is seeing its public park taken over and used as a private golf course and high-rent housing, and a school that takes care and educates pregnant women, new mothers, and their children is slated for closure - the students protested the planned closure over their break, and the police were sent to get them out and break them up. The Emergency Financial Manager position is becoming more and more of an autocratic fiefdom, and Michigan is suffering from it. (Despite whatever attempts someone does to weasel out of discussing the actual issues by claiming that it's a bipartisan thing and that there are exaggerations and distortions going on to fit a national narrative.)
Ah, technology, where Apple's iPhone keeps sensitive and personally identifying information in an unencrypted file, ripe for the taking. Suffice to say, lawsuits over the data retention, ahoy, even as Steve Jobs denies that anyone is being tracked at all.
If you own a Barnes and Noble Color Nook, your device will soon become a fully-fledged Android tablet, although you won't be able to access to full Android App Store.
In opinions, Mr. Ebert points out why 3-D movies right now are mostly gimmicks and should be avoided, as Mr. Hiner explains that 3-D is mostly a scam to charge extra for a movie. Wonder why things are so underwhelming despite being so expensive when the glasses are on? These help to explain.
The possibility that higher education is the next bubble that will cause a crash when it bursts, based on the government continuing to lend out lots of money at artificially low interest rates.
Mr. Brownfield believes the Department of Energy has overstepped its bounds of basic research into being a government agency that picks winners and losers in energy technology. Thus, that part of it can safely be cut with no worries.
The question of whether non-humans that aren't corporations deserve rights as well - maybe laws to make sure that we don't destroy the planet can come into being? Or will Mammon once again reassert his dominance? If you believe Tait Trussel, only fossil fuels should be used, because green energy is both a pipe dream and a way of buying loyalty and favors with government money. Not like oil and gas companies get billions in subsidies, or anything.
Speaking of corporations, California and Texas are partnering to find out specific reasons why corporations are packing up from California and going to Texas. I'm betting they come back with "Texas is far more corporation-friendly, with less taxes, less ability for unions to receive a livable wage, less pesky social programs and regulations demanding money and compliance, and a Governor who will side with corporations against people and the envrionment."
Mr. Hanson conflates two distinct points into one in trying to discount the President's remarks on the need for better collection of taxes. The first - "If we want more money to pay deficits with, maybe we should close loopholes and tax the rich at the income, rather than the capital-gains rate, and reduce our spending where it is prudent to do so" is eminently sensible. The second, "Oh, and while we're at it, we should make sure all those poor people have to pay some percentage of their income in income taxes, so they can become good little Republicans" is not. While many people pay no net income taxes, it's not like they pay no income taxes - refund checks are issued but once a year, but withholding happens all the time. To set some sort of minimum requirement for taxes paid defeats the progressive part and, unless those loophole closers are also given a fleet of auditors, continues to guarantee that the poor people will be paying a large amount of the revenue collected, because they have neither loopholes or acountants to do their taxes.
Mr. Kessler believes that the current structure of insurance subsidies will be a disincentive to work, because earning certain amounts of money will cut subsidies severely and make people want to stay just this side of the notch to keep the better subsidies. And of course, that will be a disincentive to work. Well, Mr. Kessler, we could just go single-payer and not have to worry about that. Or maybe we could ensure that an affordable insurance plan actually is affordable and covers what people need it to be.
Mr. Taylor attempts to turn numbers into graphs regarding the various budget proposals - he's comparing two Obamas to a Ryan and no Progressive nor Congressional Black Caucus in sight, so it's not complete. And it invokes the scrutiny of the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Department for accuracy.
We should also be looking at what things are getting cut in the budget - the totals are nice, but the programs that are getting axed are important to examine, as well.
Mr. Williams finds universities teaching Things He Doesn't Like, and says that this problem must be immediately fixed, lest one be "indoctrinated" into Hating America. I wonder if he will be critical of Ms. Noonan's reflection that America could still use improvement to become the model of (Christian) moral virtue she believes it can be, because she dares suggest that improvement is necessary.
Mr. Brown expects the tensions between black Africans and Middle Eastern Arabs to continue to rise with the usage of black mercenaries in the Libya conflict.
Out of opinions, Mr. Goldberg, having been unable to find something of substance to write his column about, spends inches commenting on how he doesn't pity the President at all for being the President, but expects him to simply shut up and deal with all the roadblocks in his way without ever venting to anyone. At least Mr. Stafko puts up a veneer of talking about substance in his myopically-focused column about one Presidential remark. (Really, if you believe that the Presidet believes solely that social programs are what makes America great, you need to have those straw men burnt to ashes.)
Last for tonight, a parable of a man and several vineyards, and why that story makes the supposedly benevolent landowner out to be a big dick.
