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Good morning, everyone! We begin today with the response to a suggestion that Mr. James Bond be armed with something more...manly than a Beretta, which led to the creation of an armourer for the MI:6 agent.
Out in the world today, a Wikileaks cable indicates a conversation between the United States and Saudi Arabia about energy prices - the U.S. asked for more production to ease prices, and the Saudis said they couldn't find buyers for the oil because speculators from Wall Street were dumping lots of money into commodities like oil and driving up the prices.
According to several of the architects of the programme, the "Globar War on Drugs" is a failure and that repressive governments need to do more legalization and less incarceration.
Inside the United States, Sergeant First Class Leroy Arthur Petry will be the second living receipent of the Medal of Honor for the Two Land Wars in Asia, after sacrificing a limb to a live grenade thrown near him and other wounded members of his unit by throwing the grenade away from them after it landed.
Advisers to the military suggest that it work its human angles and contacts more and rely less on unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligence-gathering. There's the possibility that Iran's vaunted nuclear weapons program is a carefully-constructed thing, much like Iraq's WMD, and merely an excuse to have someone to demonize and send soldiers out against.
Ah, speaking of Iran, Iran's parliament voted to try President Ahmadinejad on his seizure of the head of the oil ministry in the country, indicated they felt strongly the move was against the constitution of the country.
A school superintendent sends a request to the Governor of Michigan to convert his school into a prison, based on how much better the state treats its prisoners than its schoolchildren, in terms of spending and facilities.
In technology, a market for mind-altering substances only available through an anonymizing network that uses currency that is mostly anonymous, but not necessarily untraceable.
The United States Navy would like to find a corporate partner to develop a vaccine for dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease vector, believing that their current funding levels will not be enough to produce the product on their own.
In opinions, An unofficial survey indicates that the structures of Western Comics conventions skew (heavily) toward male creators, guests, and Artist Alley presences, as compared to the relative equality of gender in anime conventions. Mixed in with the rather male response to a solicitation of good science fiction, you have a bit of an "'Ey! What's all of this gender-imbalance doing here, especially when there are plenty of really good women writers, artists, and guests that could be brought in?" Perhaps because the "classics" of science fiction being taught and marketed are overwhelmingly male, without sufficient Le Guin, Atwood, and others to balance the Asimov-Heinlein-Card progressions?
Mr. Klein wants to know why the mainstream media has not been more interested in reporting the death toll in Afghanistan has been going up again. He suggests that many of those are due to the troop surge initiated by President Obama combined with a policy that prevents those troops from being unleashed to their fullest and firing first.
Mr. Brownfield is convinced that the way out of the recession is tax cuts and less regulations, because the Obama stimulus plan (the one funded at less than the optimal rate) is clearly a dismal failure based on growth and unemployment numbers. Well, all the growth is going straight to the top - the rich are getting much richer, while the poor get poorer and the middle class slide. So the numbers are bound to look bad. What will it take for the economy to recover? Well, maybe our businesses enjoying their record profits would consider putting them back into hiring more workers for their company? Or actually paying up the taxes they owe, instead of presenting a set of books that demands subsidies to the government and distributes dividends to the shareholders? Those are both no-cost-to-government solutions, too.
Mr. Williams, after a quick reiteration of his "taxes are slavery" position, wonders whether the United States has reached a decline point based on the amount of money being spent on programs like Social Security and Medicare, and a Democratic unwillingness to pass plans that do drastic cuts in spending to those programs.
Speaking of Mr. Williams, Mr. Stossel glowingly recommends him and his consideration that the minimum wage to be a tool used to keep people unemployed, and especially black people, by making comparisons between the minimum wage in the United States and the use of the minimum wage in apartheid South Africa to ensure that employers would not hire black people willing to work for less money than their white counterparts. The unstated answer, of course, is to abolish both the minimum wage laws that artifically keep people unemployed and government assistance programs that make black people dependent on government instead of being able to pull themselves up out of poverty by working hard, like white people do. I'm sure our corporate overlords would love nothing more than to be able to reduce the wages they paid to workers - and I doubt they'll be hiring anyone extra any time soon - they'll just let the race to the bottom make sure that wages go down and the pool of the employed can be changed at will, or at least, the threat of that will make sure profits stay high, wages stay low, and people will work every day of their lives, as soon as they can, just so the family has enough to afford their basic necessities.
Mr. Sowell, however, believes that many of those narratives about white people putting the black man down are nice for stirring up resentment, but otherwise useless in terms of actual economics. Oh, and in the realm of foreign policy, because such beliefs lead you to insult your greatest allies and court your enemies, all because your allies are white and your enemies are dark-skinned.
Mr. Coen indicates the last potentially sane GOP candidate has yoked himself to the crazy, with Mitt Romney suggesting that the free-market economy of the United States is inches away from replacement by collectivism.
Mr. Hanson smugly points out how much liberals who decried actions under Bush are suddenly okay with them under President Obama, but has confused liberals with Democrats in the process. Liberals are still quite irritated with the manner in which Mr. Obama has emulated his predecessor after making campaign statements about how much he would be the opposite of him. Democrats and the center, who were okay with the actions, really, but were riding discontent with the previous administrator, were satisfied once their person was elected to office. They always upported the actions, they just wanted a Democrat in office. It is an important distinction to make, Mr. Hanson. Please don't confuse liberals with Democrats.
Mr. Brownfield returns, this time to berate the President for not signing on instantly to the Ryan budget pln, smugly gloating that proposals to raise the debt ceilng without spending cuts have been shot down by the Republican Party in the House, and pinning all the blame for the current debt crisis on the administration's stimulus plans and inability to pass a budget last year. Because, as they would like you to believe, Two Land Wars in Asia mean nothing at all to the debt, nor do many years of tax cuts and subsidies for the richest corporations and individuals. It's all the Democrat's fault, and only the Democrats' fault.
Last out of opinions, The Heritage Foundation, after describing Wikileaks and Anonymous as the predecessors to terrorist cyberattackers, details the plan they think will work best - a counterinsurgency strategy for the Internet. Elsewhere, worries that cyberwars with foreign actors might escalate into physical wars with those same actors, instead of everyone coughing and denying, of course, that they're doing anything like constantly trying to hack each other's servers and information channels so as to be well-informed about what's going on in another country. Yes, even the ones that we say are our allies.
Last for tonight, Carrie. As a musical. Revived, no less.
Out in the world today, a Wikileaks cable indicates a conversation between the United States and Saudi Arabia about energy prices - the U.S. asked for more production to ease prices, and the Saudis said they couldn't find buyers for the oil because speculators from Wall Street were dumping lots of money into commodities like oil and driving up the prices.
According to several of the architects of the programme, the "Globar War on Drugs" is a failure and that repressive governments need to do more legalization and less incarceration.
Inside the United States, Sergeant First Class Leroy Arthur Petry will be the second living receipent of the Medal of Honor for the Two Land Wars in Asia, after sacrificing a limb to a live grenade thrown near him and other wounded members of his unit by throwing the grenade away from them after it landed.
Advisers to the military suggest that it work its human angles and contacts more and rely less on unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligence-gathering. There's the possibility that Iran's vaunted nuclear weapons program is a carefully-constructed thing, much like Iraq's WMD, and merely an excuse to have someone to demonize and send soldiers out against.
Ah, speaking of Iran, Iran's parliament voted to try President Ahmadinejad on his seizure of the head of the oil ministry in the country, indicated they felt strongly the move was against the constitution of the country.
A school superintendent sends a request to the Governor of Michigan to convert his school into a prison, based on how much better the state treats its prisoners than its schoolchildren, in terms of spending and facilities.
In technology, a market for mind-altering substances only available through an anonymizing network that uses currency that is mostly anonymous, but not necessarily untraceable.
The United States Navy would like to find a corporate partner to develop a vaccine for dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease vector, believing that their current funding levels will not be enough to produce the product on their own.
In opinions, An unofficial survey indicates that the structures of Western Comics conventions skew (heavily) toward male creators, guests, and Artist Alley presences, as compared to the relative equality of gender in anime conventions. Mixed in with the rather male response to a solicitation of good science fiction, you have a bit of an "'Ey! What's all of this gender-imbalance doing here, especially when there are plenty of really good women writers, artists, and guests that could be brought in?" Perhaps because the "classics" of science fiction being taught and marketed are overwhelmingly male, without sufficient Le Guin, Atwood, and others to balance the Asimov-Heinlein-Card progressions?
Mr. Klein wants to know why the mainstream media has not been more interested in reporting the death toll in Afghanistan has been going up again. He suggests that many of those are due to the troop surge initiated by President Obama combined with a policy that prevents those troops from being unleashed to their fullest and firing first.
Mr. Brownfield is convinced that the way out of the recession is tax cuts and less regulations, because the Obama stimulus plan (the one funded at less than the optimal rate) is clearly a dismal failure based on growth and unemployment numbers. Well, all the growth is going straight to the top - the rich are getting much richer, while the poor get poorer and the middle class slide. So the numbers are bound to look bad. What will it take for the economy to recover? Well, maybe our businesses enjoying their record profits would consider putting them back into hiring more workers for their company? Or actually paying up the taxes they owe, instead of presenting a set of books that demands subsidies to the government and distributes dividends to the shareholders? Those are both no-cost-to-government solutions, too.
Mr. Williams, after a quick reiteration of his "taxes are slavery" position, wonders whether the United States has reached a decline point based on the amount of money being spent on programs like Social Security and Medicare, and a Democratic unwillingness to pass plans that do drastic cuts in spending to those programs.
Speaking of Mr. Williams, Mr. Stossel glowingly recommends him and his consideration that the minimum wage to be a tool used to keep people unemployed, and especially black people, by making comparisons between the minimum wage in the United States and the use of the minimum wage in apartheid South Africa to ensure that employers would not hire black people willing to work for less money than their white counterparts. The unstated answer, of course, is to abolish both the minimum wage laws that artifically keep people unemployed and government assistance programs that make black people dependent on government instead of being able to pull themselves up out of poverty by working hard, like white people do. I'm sure our corporate overlords would love nothing more than to be able to reduce the wages they paid to workers - and I doubt they'll be hiring anyone extra any time soon - they'll just let the race to the bottom make sure that wages go down and the pool of the employed can be changed at will, or at least, the threat of that will make sure profits stay high, wages stay low, and people will work every day of their lives, as soon as they can, just so the family has enough to afford their basic necessities.
Mr. Sowell, however, believes that many of those narratives about white people putting the black man down are nice for stirring up resentment, but otherwise useless in terms of actual economics. Oh, and in the realm of foreign policy, because such beliefs lead you to insult your greatest allies and court your enemies, all because your allies are white and your enemies are dark-skinned.
Mr. Coen indicates the last potentially sane GOP candidate has yoked himself to the crazy, with Mitt Romney suggesting that the free-market economy of the United States is inches away from replacement by collectivism.
Mr. Hanson smugly points out how much liberals who decried actions under Bush are suddenly okay with them under President Obama, but has confused liberals with Democrats in the process. Liberals are still quite irritated with the manner in which Mr. Obama has emulated his predecessor after making campaign statements about how much he would be the opposite of him. Democrats and the center, who were okay with the actions, really, but were riding discontent with the previous administrator, were satisfied once their person was elected to office. They always upported the actions, they just wanted a Democrat in office. It is an important distinction to make, Mr. Hanson. Please don't confuse liberals with Democrats.
Mr. Brownfield returns, this time to berate the President for not signing on instantly to the Ryan budget pln, smugly gloating that proposals to raise the debt ceilng without spending cuts have been shot down by the Republican Party in the House, and pinning all the blame for the current debt crisis on the administration's stimulus plans and inability to pass a budget last year. Because, as they would like you to believe, Two Land Wars in Asia mean nothing at all to the debt, nor do many years of tax cuts and subsidies for the richest corporations and individuals. It's all the Democrat's fault, and only the Democrats' fault.
Last out of opinions, The Heritage Foundation, after describing Wikileaks and Anonymous as the predecessors to terrorist cyberattackers, details the plan they think will work best - a counterinsurgency strategy for the Internet. Elsewhere, worries that cyberwars with foreign actors might escalate into physical wars with those same actors, instead of everyone coughing and denying, of course, that they're doing anything like constantly trying to hack each other's servers and information channels so as to be well-informed about what's going on in another country. Yes, even the ones that we say are our allies.
Last for tonight, Carrie. As a musical. Revived, no less.
