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Good morning. We start today with Sherman Alexie, author, explaining that those who believe teenagers need to be saved from the dark aspects of literature are far too late - most of those teenagers have experienced those dark factors and more in their lives. Often repeatedly. The only people being "protected" by that kind of censorship are those people who don't want to acknowledge the reality around them.
Over the course of a little while, apparently Livejournal decided it wanted to deploy location information associated with comments and entries in their system, without any sort of user opt-out of that data, and at closer distances that general IP address lookup would have provided. After hearing their community say "OH HELL NO", they have reverted the changes. For those who want to broadcast their location, there are services like Foursquare and such. And it continues the trend of Livejournal implementing first and assuming everyone wants in on those kinds of things. Pointing out that IP addresses do broadcast all sorts of things (and that e-mail headers do even more) that are personal just reminds us that the Internet was built as a trust system.
And finally, a most useful thinky - I do not need to understand you fully to accept you and respect you. Understanding may help cement that more, but it is not a pre-requisite. It's the idea of treating people as people, regardless of the stereotypes you may have of them (true or otherwise), and we really should be doing that more often.
Out in the world today, The outgoing Defense Secretary indicated he thought the future of NATO was dim because he felt European governments were being freeloaders and piggybacking off of the United States' massive defense spending.
Of course, the United States has some of its own issues - like 6.6 billion USD in lost money for the Second Land War in Asia, mostly in pallets of cash that were lifted into the country after the invasion. And then, when a Congresscritter suggested that Iraq repay the United States for the cost of the invasionagainst them, I wonder if any of them remembered how Haiti was subjected to debts after their own freedom was achieved...and how those debts were designed to keep them poor.
The First Land War in Asia isn't going so hot, either, at least in the idea of managing to leave behind a functional democratic central government.
The International Monetary Fund admitted to a cyber-attack, one designed to give a nation an insider presence in IMF operations. They did not say which nation, nor give much for details about the attack. That will give ammunition to groups insisting on powerful measures against cyber attacks.
The United States continues with covert operations in Yemen against targets they associate with terror groups, operations they insist are coordinated with the Yemeni government.
Evidence before the International Criminal Court indicates Gaddafi encouraged mass rape of women by his soldiers, going so far as to purchase drugs that would assist in the process.
The Somali government indicates the suspect in the 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy in the country has been killed at a military checkpoint.
In the years before Bahrain engaged in its crackdown on the people in the country, the United States sold them more armaments.
Religious icons and speakers are cooperating with each other and shifting their language form that of the inner circle and the believers to more general language to be more effective in their cooperation.
As if it were new, IPS looks into the presence of alternative currencies in communities that feel far too battered by market forces, and how some are quite successful.
In Peru, despite a smear campaign and deliberate attempts at fraud, Ollanta Humala wins the Presidential election. In response, corporations that want to be able to exploit with no impediment are scared that their exceedingly high profits might be taxed.
The nation of Iceland is seeking input from its residents as to what revisions to the Icelandic constitution might be useful or necessary.
And finally, in anticipation of a major sporting event, Brazil is aggressively displacing its poor and claiming that they do so in the name of dignity. It would be like selling a trailer park out from under the owners so the land could be used to build a megamall. Which happens here in the US quite frequently, we might add. And, in smaller scale, it's like New York City attempting to drive street musicians out of their best spots by turning them into "quiet zones".
Domestically, according to a study released by the University of Michigan, anger is a powerful enough motivating factor that it will drive people who normally abstain from politics to the ballot box. When someone has screwed you sufficiently, you will want them replaced or removed, and you might even believe that your vote means something, too.
The continued campaigns against Planned Parenthood are making self-fulfilling prophecies for conservatives - without funding for all those other birth control measures, then abortion becomes the last resort, and Planned Parentyhood does become all about the abortion. A possible solution - no nookie for men (hopefully, only for those who hate PP, but I can understand the appeal of a nationwide No Nookie Strike) until PP is back and properly restored.
What would happen if Sarah Palin had exposed herself and sent pictures to young men? Certainly not what happened to Anthony Weiner in our reality. And perhaps the best suggestion yet about what to do with Congressman Weiner - resign to satisfy the hounds on ethics, then run again for his own seat in the special election, whether as a Democrat or an Independent, and let the people decide whether or not his scandal was bad enough to keep him out of office.
Instead, we should be focusing on things like whether or not Mitt Romney committed voter fraud by voting in the Massachusettes special election that put in Scott Brown, considering he may not hav emet the definition of residency required....or not. Maybe we can just talk about important stuff, like jobs and equality?
Forty years after their first revelation, the entirely of the Pentagon Papers has been released.
Finally, pictures of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, survivor of an attempted assassination, and looking very much like the physical body has been recovered and reconstructed to what it was.
In technology, Graphics Processing Units can be used as brute-force processors for compromised user account databases, completing their tasks in much less time than a CPU would. It only works on databases that have been compromised severely enough to have their data copied off-site, as most sites will lock out after so many attempts.
io9 points out that the patent office has been granting patents to such things as gestures to control devices with - then again, there are people patenting yoga poses as well. at some point, one would think the examiners would be able to say, "This is not patentable."
The United States is trying to help develop an Internet for use in places where the government suppresses information or Internet access. And we must wonder what they have in place to make sure that it can't be used against them.
A commencement speech was cross-checked against other speeches and found to be fairly close to plagarized, after the students hearing the address used their smartphones to search. Would that we could fact-check our political speeches in real-time with that kind of data.
Scientists may have developed a way of turning a cell into a laser, with the possibility of using such cellular lasers in treatments.
And last, a competition that pits AI Ms. Pac Man versus AI Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Sue.
In opinions, Mr. Bovard says that based on his experience working with a highway crew and one study, government jobs are ways for people to be lazy and work to subpar standards and get paid decently for it, so no make-work program or other government job entity is worth funding. The Private Sector's Inherent Superiority would make things better, simply because they would be focused on efficiency and time, he says.
Mr. Henninger feels confident that the U.S.'s mood will continue to turn against Barack Obama on the matter of the economy, and that the Republican orthodoxy of less taxes, combined with the Tea Party orthodoxy of "No government but the military" will be the winning narrative for 2012, and possibly for Tim Pawlenty.
Mr. Flesichman believes Venezuela should be treated as a rogue nation because of their continued ties with Iran and their willingness to host long-range ballistic missiles from Iran in the country, giving Iran a possible strike point against the United States. The echoes of the 1962 USSR --> Cuba missile crisis are drawn in explicitly.
Mr. Mauro points out Wikileaks documents that indicate the fourth justification for the Second Land War in Asia had credibility - Saddam was indeed, a Bad, Bad man, with ties to several organizations - through his staffers, anyway.
Mr. Pendry hangs his hat on the idea that the media is evil based mostly on Walter Cronkite's declaration that Vietnam is lost and the media's fascination with Sarah Palin, a fascination he declares to be an obsession with destroying her - if that were actually the case, the media wouldn't give her the time of day. That they follower her about with something akin to puppy love would indicate a very different obsession, would it not? Mr. Crovitz is both for and against the disclosure of too much information on-line by political figures, apparently for it when it helps generate scandals like Mr. Weiner's, and against it when all it shows is that someone is consistent in their public and private lives, as apparently with Ms. Palin's governor e-mails.
Last for opinions, Mr. Sayet details the reasons for his climate change skepticism - mostly having to do with the way that climate change is being advocated for and maybe one or two reasons why the science itself might be suspect. It is a weak case to build for skepticism when your major points are "Well, there are some scientists who disagree, and those alarmists are pushing propaganda and fear to children, so obviously they know what they're advocating for is fraudulent." Instead, he would have done better to say "I'm not sure the numbers are accurate, just because there's a consensus doesn't mean they're right, and we seem to hav ean awful lot of world-ending crises these days" and left it at that. Because, you know, committing ad hominem attacks when claiming your opponents are bad for committing ad hominem attacks is self-defeating, to say the least. Mr. Ahlert handles the political side of the operation, claiming that the Obama administration will use the EPS to do by fiat what it could not do by law and impose cap and trade on power generation, resulting in much higher prices for all consumers as coal power has to subsidize renewables power in greater and greater amounts, the costs of which are naturally passesd on to the consumer, because anything that touches the profits must be shunted away immediately.
And finally, Mr. Klein condemns the United Nations for not spotting and immediately condemning evil acts by Syria and not knowing to take Israel's side, because they're always right and only defending themselves, in a recent incident between protesters and IDF forces.
Last for tonight, what should be obvious for a lot of supposed Christians, even those in the Republican party - starving the poor to balance the budget is the wrong idea.
Over the course of a little while, apparently Livejournal decided it wanted to deploy location information associated with comments and entries in their system, without any sort of user opt-out of that data, and at closer distances that general IP address lookup would have provided. After hearing their community say "OH HELL NO", they have reverted the changes. For those who want to broadcast their location, there are services like Foursquare and such. And it continues the trend of Livejournal implementing first and assuming everyone wants in on those kinds of things. Pointing out that IP addresses do broadcast all sorts of things (and that e-mail headers do even more) that are personal just reminds us that the Internet was built as a trust system.
And finally, a most useful thinky - I do not need to understand you fully to accept you and respect you. Understanding may help cement that more, but it is not a pre-requisite. It's the idea of treating people as people, regardless of the stereotypes you may have of them (true or otherwise), and we really should be doing that more often.
Out in the world today, The outgoing Defense Secretary indicated he thought the future of NATO was dim because he felt European governments were being freeloaders and piggybacking off of the United States' massive defense spending.
Of course, the United States has some of its own issues - like 6.6 billion USD in lost money for the Second Land War in Asia, mostly in pallets of cash that were lifted into the country after the invasion. And then, when a Congresscritter suggested that Iraq repay the United States for the cost of the invasionagainst them, I wonder if any of them remembered how Haiti was subjected to debts after their own freedom was achieved...and how those debts were designed to keep them poor.
The First Land War in Asia isn't going so hot, either, at least in the idea of managing to leave behind a functional democratic central government.
The International Monetary Fund admitted to a cyber-attack, one designed to give a nation an insider presence in IMF operations. They did not say which nation, nor give much for details about the attack. That will give ammunition to groups insisting on powerful measures against cyber attacks.
The United States continues with covert operations in Yemen against targets they associate with terror groups, operations they insist are coordinated with the Yemeni government.
Evidence before the International Criminal Court indicates Gaddafi encouraged mass rape of women by his soldiers, going so far as to purchase drugs that would assist in the process.
The Somali government indicates the suspect in the 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy in the country has been killed at a military checkpoint.
In the years before Bahrain engaged in its crackdown on the people in the country, the United States sold them more armaments.
Religious icons and speakers are cooperating with each other and shifting their language form that of the inner circle and the believers to more general language to be more effective in their cooperation.
As if it were new, IPS looks into the presence of alternative currencies in communities that feel far too battered by market forces, and how some are quite successful.
In Peru, despite a smear campaign and deliberate attempts at fraud, Ollanta Humala wins the Presidential election. In response, corporations that want to be able to exploit with no impediment are scared that their exceedingly high profits might be taxed.
The nation of Iceland is seeking input from its residents as to what revisions to the Icelandic constitution might be useful or necessary.
And finally, in anticipation of a major sporting event, Brazil is aggressively displacing its poor and claiming that they do so in the name of dignity. It would be like selling a trailer park out from under the owners so the land could be used to build a megamall. Which happens here in the US quite frequently, we might add. And, in smaller scale, it's like New York City attempting to drive street musicians out of their best spots by turning them into "quiet zones".
Domestically, according to a study released by the University of Michigan, anger is a powerful enough motivating factor that it will drive people who normally abstain from politics to the ballot box. When someone has screwed you sufficiently, you will want them replaced or removed, and you might even believe that your vote means something, too.
The continued campaigns against Planned Parenthood are making self-fulfilling prophecies for conservatives - without funding for all those other birth control measures, then abortion becomes the last resort, and Planned Parentyhood does become all about the abortion. A possible solution - no nookie for men (hopefully, only for those who hate PP, but I can understand the appeal of a nationwide No Nookie Strike) until PP is back and properly restored.
What would happen if Sarah Palin had exposed herself and sent pictures to young men? Certainly not what happened to Anthony Weiner in our reality. And perhaps the best suggestion yet about what to do with Congressman Weiner - resign to satisfy the hounds on ethics, then run again for his own seat in the special election, whether as a Democrat or an Independent, and let the people decide whether or not his scandal was bad enough to keep him out of office.
Instead, we should be focusing on things like whether or not Mitt Romney committed voter fraud by voting in the Massachusettes special election that put in Scott Brown, considering he may not hav emet the definition of residency required....or not. Maybe we can just talk about important stuff, like jobs and equality?
Forty years after their first revelation, the entirely of the Pentagon Papers has been released.
Finally, pictures of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, survivor of an attempted assassination, and looking very much like the physical body has been recovered and reconstructed to what it was.
In technology, Graphics Processing Units can be used as brute-force processors for compromised user account databases, completing their tasks in much less time than a CPU would. It only works on databases that have been compromised severely enough to have their data copied off-site, as most sites will lock out after so many attempts.
io9 points out that the patent office has been granting patents to such things as gestures to control devices with - then again, there are people patenting yoga poses as well. at some point, one would think the examiners would be able to say, "This is not patentable."
The United States is trying to help develop an Internet for use in places where the government suppresses information or Internet access. And we must wonder what they have in place to make sure that it can't be used against them.
A commencement speech was cross-checked against other speeches and found to be fairly close to plagarized, after the students hearing the address used their smartphones to search. Would that we could fact-check our political speeches in real-time with that kind of data.
Scientists may have developed a way of turning a cell into a laser, with the possibility of using such cellular lasers in treatments.
And last, a competition that pits AI Ms. Pac Man versus AI Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Sue.
In opinions, Mr. Bovard says that based on his experience working with a highway crew and one study, government jobs are ways for people to be lazy and work to subpar standards and get paid decently for it, so no make-work program or other government job entity is worth funding. The Private Sector's Inherent Superiority would make things better, simply because they would be focused on efficiency and time, he says.
Mr. Henninger feels confident that the U.S.'s mood will continue to turn against Barack Obama on the matter of the economy, and that the Republican orthodoxy of less taxes, combined with the Tea Party orthodoxy of "No government but the military" will be the winning narrative for 2012, and possibly for Tim Pawlenty.
Mr. Flesichman believes Venezuela should be treated as a rogue nation because of their continued ties with Iran and their willingness to host long-range ballistic missiles from Iran in the country, giving Iran a possible strike point against the United States. The echoes of the 1962 USSR --> Cuba missile crisis are drawn in explicitly.
Mr. Mauro points out Wikileaks documents that indicate the fourth justification for the Second Land War in Asia had credibility - Saddam was indeed, a Bad, Bad man, with ties to several organizations - through his staffers, anyway.
Mr. Pendry hangs his hat on the idea that the media is evil based mostly on Walter Cronkite's declaration that Vietnam is lost and the media's fascination with Sarah Palin, a fascination he declares to be an obsession with destroying her - if that were actually the case, the media wouldn't give her the time of day. That they follower her about with something akin to puppy love would indicate a very different obsession, would it not? Mr. Crovitz is both for and against the disclosure of too much information on-line by political figures, apparently for it when it helps generate scandals like Mr. Weiner's, and against it when all it shows is that someone is consistent in their public and private lives, as apparently with Ms. Palin's governor e-mails.
Last for opinions, Mr. Sayet details the reasons for his climate change skepticism - mostly having to do with the way that climate change is being advocated for and maybe one or two reasons why the science itself might be suspect. It is a weak case to build for skepticism when your major points are "Well, there are some scientists who disagree, and those alarmists are pushing propaganda and fear to children, so obviously they know what they're advocating for is fraudulent." Instead, he would have done better to say "I'm not sure the numbers are accurate, just because there's a consensus doesn't mean they're right, and we seem to hav ean awful lot of world-ending crises these days" and left it at that. Because, you know, committing ad hominem attacks when claiming your opponents are bad for committing ad hominem attacks is self-defeating, to say the least. Mr. Ahlert handles the political side of the operation, claiming that the Obama administration will use the EPS to do by fiat what it could not do by law and impose cap and trade on power generation, resulting in much higher prices for all consumers as coal power has to subsidize renewables power in greater and greater amounts, the costs of which are naturally passesd on to the consumer, because anything that touches the profits must be shunted away immediately.
And finally, Mr. Klein condemns the United Nations for not spotting and immediately condemning evil acts by Syria and not knowing to take Israel's side, because they're always right and only defending themselves, in a recent incident between protesters and IDF forces.
Last for tonight, what should be obvious for a lot of supposed Christians, even those in the Republican party - starving the poor to balance the budget is the wrong idea.
