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Up top, a strong case as to why the Catholic Church should have to accept LGBT applicants for their adoption and foster care programs or give up the public funds they receive to administer them when states pass anti-discrimination laws or civil union partnerships for LGBT people. And the people in charge of Home Depot tell the AFA to take a hike.
Beyond that, a request to stop using the word tourism to describe practices such as international surrogacy or crossing borders to have children because of better health care available in another country, as none of the activities usually associated with the word are really tourism.
Finally, a plea to get past the tabloid headlines of sexual violence done by high-ranking others and get to the process of stopping sexual violence perpetrated by men on women of all statuses and ranks.
CNN hosted a Republican Party Presidential Candidate Debate on 13 June, answering some questions about the field of candidates. The general consensus out of the conservative world seems to be no clear-cut winner, but lots of good and interesting candidates all focused on beating Obama. If one wishes, the full transcript of the GOP debate is available for those who read faster than they view and for hose who will be making notes on the various candidates. Reading a transcript, of course, leaves out nuance, delivery, and other parts that are essential to determining whether a candidate has the necessary charisma to engage and sustain a candidacy. It's a delicate balance of being smart enough to be taken seriously on policy matters but not seeming so smart that one is an "out-of-touch" egghead, or worse, an "elitist" who can't appeal to "regular folks" enough to get them to vote for him or her. However, based on the transcripts alone, our analysis is as follows:
Truthfully? This debate makes me return tot he position that the person who will win the Republican nomination in 2012 has not yet appeared on the field. Despite awful questions, a significant amount of information came through about the suitability of the candidates on stage for the office. Most of them seem intent on doing significant damage to the country in the name of enriching corporations, and many of them are more than willing to let people twist in the wind on the whim of private charity in addition. Those positions, if cleanly articulated by President Obama, will sink them, each one, unless they can manage to distract the electorate away from that for long enough. Based on 2010, it's a possibility, but the additional scrutiny of a Presidential campaign suggests that if people vote in a Republican, they do so with their eyes open, knowing full well what they will be doing to themselves when they do. At least, until the candidate that's wise enough to hide their hard-right until after they're elected, like how President Obama apparently hid his supposed hard-leftism.
Out in the world today, the Washington Post focuses myopically on militants in Yemen with ties to al-Qaeda as the people to watch in growing unrest in the country. This feeds the narrative that the Middle East is unequipped for democracy and needs strongmen to keep everyone in check, lest The Bloodthirsty Religion take over and launch a terror campaign against the West. I'm sure that someone would be able to also turn the accusation that more than 7,000 people have been imprisoned by the caretaker regime in Egypt into something that suits that narrative as well.
Do we really know how many people have been killed as a result of the Two Land Wars in Asia?
A United States naval warship intercepted and forced the return of a North Korean ship suspected of carrying missile technology to Myanmar.
And finally, peering in on society in Egypt, one that sometimes tacitly, sometimes not so, encourages sexual harassment and downplays how widspread and large the problem is, with several young men believing that some of what they do doesn't constitute harassment, even though the women they subject it to appear to be offended by it. The film "678" hopes to disabuse everyone of that notion, following women in their daily lives and showing the harassment they are subjected to. Of course, one need only follow a woman through her day to realize that the problem is there and is quite large. I wonder how much of this women in the supposedly more progressive United States get daily, and how much better the men here are at papering it over, pretending it doesn't exist, or justifying it to themselves. It's not like they don't have plenty of practice at it, as this example about women writers shows, as does the fact that the piece, written at least a decade ago, still rings just as true.
Domestically, an amputee received his official Air Force pilot certification, indicating that the Air Force is possibly more progressive about these items, feeling a bit desperate to fill the ranks that they can't afford to be exclusive to the able-bodied, or, perhaps, something else entirely.
The most strikes against the Defense of Marriage Act may be coming from bankruptcy courts, where legally married couples file jointly, and the federal government says they cannot, because their marriages aren't recognized federally, and the courts side against the federal government.
As if suddenly new, a look at midwifery and all the things other than birthing that midwives do.
An ad that accuses a Democratic candidate in a California district of being affiliated with criminals and gangsters, using as many "black men as gangbangers, candidate as a stripper-dancer" stereotypes, images, and attacks as they can fit in 90 seconds has drawn strong criticism and a distancing from the candidate that the ad actually supports.
And finally, The Republican leader in the house, Mr. Boehner, has decided that the War Powers Resolution actually applies to President Obama, and has told him he must seek congressional approval before Friday or have his funds cut for Libya. One might ask where such principled opposition was during the Two Land Wars in Asia, but if the general rule is It's Okay If You're A Republican, then I suppose we can't be too surprised.
In technology, a repurposed laptop that will display pictures and other images it grabs from people using an unsecured wireless connection, like in a coffee shop, for example. The project creator expects it to last exactly one session, as it will likely display something that one of the people around will not like at all, and it will be, erm, smashied. Which is why one uses an old laptop to create such things. And possibly restricts them to use inside one's own home and the surrounding unsecured connections.
Into opinions, where Mr. Brownfield hopes that you forget that No Child Left Behind was a conservative program initiated by a conservative President in his call for the program to be ended and "local control" be returned to schools. The call that was put forward by a lot of teachers and people who knew what NCLB would do when the law was signed into existence. So, better late than never, Mr. Brownfield, and glad to have you on board, but we're not amnesiacs.
Messrs. Rivkin and Casey return to the Obamacare arena and claim that all the previous court decisions on the matter have not gotten to the heart of the question - whether Congress has the power to demand that all persons carry insurance as a condition of existing. In their opinion, it does not, and the Supreme Court's rulings have consistently pointed out that limitation. They're also kind enough to admit there are scenarios where Congress can do something similar to the mandate that would fall within Constitutional authority.
Mr. Asness pooh-poohs the idea that uncertainty is stopping business investment and economic recovery - it's that businesses don't like current policy and refuse to invest. The only way out, he says, is to reverse those policy positions, crush entitlements to a shadow of their former selves, and allow relatively unfettered capitalism to return to the primary position in the economy. Otherwise, businesses will just hoard what they have because they don't want their precious profits to be touched by any sort of government policy for raising revenues or providing protection against ruinous costs. It's very nice to see someone being honest about the reasons that profit-holders aren't investing and bringing people back to work, instead of solely blaming the government, regulation, and its stimulus package as the sole reason why the economy has not rebooted.
Mr. Greenfield criticizes the choice of Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom because, in his eyes, she's a hardline Wahabist who wants to see the rest of the world under her interpretation of Islamic law rather than making the Backward Bloodthirsty Religion admit to being so and prostrate itself on the ground to the rest of the world. It would have been a more effective piece had he brought his evidence to the table with him, instead of leaving his accusations hanging out there and generalizing from Wahabism to Islam, trying to make it seem like all Muslims are Wahabists.
Mr. Clarke wants the United States to take steps to ensure that China doesn's successfully hack the country and leave digital explosives behind, on the generally unlikely premise that the United States needs to be able to move militarily against China and not fear infrastructure in return. And to stop the Chinese governemnt from stealing secrets.
Mr. Brown believes Libya will be the straw that breaks NATO's back, unless members of the alliance start deciding that military spending is a priority and give all of their troops whatever they want to have.
Last out of opinions, Mr. Hurt sees Sarah Palin as a Joan of Arc-type figure for the Republican party, assuming, of course, that liberals can't find a way to sell her to Burgundy and then burn her at the stake.
Last for tonight, it's a good day when your idol reviews a script of yours and says its one of the finest things he's seen. And thus, Martin Scorsese was definitely on the way to his successful career.
Ah, and Neil Patrick Harris explains a very important development in Broadway musicals as the opening number to the 2011 Tony Awards show.
Beyond that, a request to stop using the word tourism to describe practices such as international surrogacy or crossing borders to have children because of better health care available in another country, as none of the activities usually associated with the word are really tourism.
Finally, a plea to get past the tabloid headlines of sexual violence done by high-ranking others and get to the process of stopping sexual violence perpetrated by men on women of all statuses and ranks.
CNN hosted a Republican Party Presidential Candidate Debate on 13 June, answering some questions about the field of candidates. The general consensus out of the conservative world seems to be no clear-cut winner, but lots of good and interesting candidates all focused on beating Obama. If one wishes, the full transcript of the GOP debate is available for those who read faster than they view and for hose who will be making notes on the various candidates. Reading a transcript, of course, leaves out nuance, delivery, and other parts that are essential to determining whether a candidate has the necessary charisma to engage and sustain a candidacy. It's a delicate balance of being smart enough to be taken seriously on policy matters but not seeming so smart that one is an "out-of-touch" egghead, or worse, an "elitist" who can't appeal to "regular folks" enough to get them to vote for him or her. However, based on the transcripts alone, our analysis is as follows:
- The questions asked at this debate are ninety-nine percent atrocious. They start from the premise that the Obama administration are screw-ups and have done evil things, or the other candidates are screw-ups and have done evil things, or that other people are evil, and then they ask the candidates about what they would do or to opine about how much the Obama administration, the other candidates, or people are evil or screw-ups. And this is from the moderator as well as the voters.
- Mr. Cain disqualifies himself as a serious candidate almost immediately, through suggesting that taxes be lowered or zeroed in certain circumstances, and then those tax cuts and zeroes be made permanent. We've had the last decade's worth of major tax cuts to chew on, and they didn't stop the boom and bust that put us in our current situation, not to mention that the "uncertainty" he talks about involves a large amount of capital being held back instead of invested, so there's clearly plenty of money already there - lower taxes isn't going to do much more but feed even more money into that pool. Mr. Santorum does not fare much better with his opening salvo against oppressive regulations - unfettered capitalism is what got us into this mess, not what will get all of us out of it. Messrs. Pawlenty and Romney are at least willing to admit that there needs to be a plan in addition to tax cuts, so they carry the point there, American Exceptionalism chest-thumping and accusations that the President was not working on jobs aside.
- All of the candidates should be careful in how they attack the President. Every time they mention the Obama Administration supposedly went on their own agenda instead of jobs, they risk people remembering that the Republicans elected in 2010 have done the same on their own agendas instead of being about jobs themselves. Talking about Democratic regulations is a fig leaf trying to cover that nakedness of agenda.
- Given the opportunity to run screaming from the Tea Party's madness, all those asked about indicated they were fine with the Platonic Form of a Tea Partier - someone concerned about Constitutional authority and the need to live by the founding documents - but did not address or embraced, in addition to that, the actual Tea Partiers, whose record are much less Platonic.
- Congressman Paul is on his message, regardless of whether it seems like a square peg and a round hole. When given a chance to talk about what will help workers, however, all the candidates instead focused their attention on what would help businesses and those that reap the profits, whether by killing regulations, programs, dropping corporate tax rates, capital gains taxes, or supporting legislation that would give employers the power to arbitrarily and capriciously fire and hire whomever they wanted .
- Given an opportunity to admit that the bailout of verious sectors might have been a success, the candidates chose to focus on how they felt the automotive industry bailout was not a success, because they felt the private secotr could have handled it or that the unions came out reasonably well, instead of being ground into powder. That question should be more of a steel trap than a steel sieve to many, because they supported one facet, but not another, or supported it at the beginning and have now only come out against it after everyone's been paid off and made whole, and should have to explain why.
- We're also not fond of the way that all the blame gets shunted to the government. Government programs and things like that are always at fault, with "bureaucrats trying to run things" the Inherently Superior Private Sector should be doing. The question there is, in those instances where the private sector has been allowed to run reltively freely, have they produced the results that these candidates say they will? I'm guessing the answer is "No, not really, but they've made a lot of money while they were at it."
- The candidates seem universally in favor of Medicare becoming a voucher program at the least, and getting rid of government helathcare entirely at the most, leaving everyone to the tender mercies of the insurance industry and telling anyone who can't afford the premiums that they're just going to have to be sick or die. Some of them are at least willing to let the current people on the program ride it out. They believe Social Security should be put into private accounts, subject to the whiims of the financial institutions and stock traders, as well.
- Many of the candidates seem quite okay with wrecking the credit rating of the United States and defaulting on debts if they don't get their way on other issues. That counts as at least one strike against all of them.
- As expected, the candidates believe that faith should be allowed in government, and that government should not be allowed to affect faith organizations.
- Unless you're a Muslim, then you're always a proto-terrorist and should never be trusted.
- Or you're gay or lesbian, at which point the government must deny you the right to marry the person of your choice and deny you the ability to serve your country in the armed forces openly,
- if you're a woman and you get pregnant, the candidates believe you should be forced to have the child, for the most part, regardless of how it was conceived or how it may harm you
- Similarly, if you're an immigrant to the country, expect no help or love from the candidates, and active hate from them if you're undocumented, to the point that at least one of them will let you die in a hospital because they believe emergency rooms shouldn't have to cover the undocumented. And don't expect citizenship for your children, either, despite what the Constitution says.
- Unlike their counterparts even one election cycle ago, most of the candidates here are ready to be done with the Two Land Wars in Asia, and were against starting a third (although, that could be just because a Democrat started it and not any actual anti-war position).
Truthfully? This debate makes me return tot he position that the person who will win the Republican nomination in 2012 has not yet appeared on the field. Despite awful questions, a significant amount of information came through about the suitability of the candidates on stage for the office. Most of them seem intent on doing significant damage to the country in the name of enriching corporations, and many of them are more than willing to let people twist in the wind on the whim of private charity in addition. Those positions, if cleanly articulated by President Obama, will sink them, each one, unless they can manage to distract the electorate away from that for long enough. Based on 2010, it's a possibility, but the additional scrutiny of a Presidential campaign suggests that if people vote in a Republican, they do so with their eyes open, knowing full well what they will be doing to themselves when they do. At least, until the candidate that's wise enough to hide their hard-right until after they're elected, like how President Obama apparently hid his supposed hard-leftism.
Out in the world today, the Washington Post focuses myopically on militants in Yemen with ties to al-Qaeda as the people to watch in growing unrest in the country. This feeds the narrative that the Middle East is unequipped for democracy and needs strongmen to keep everyone in check, lest The Bloodthirsty Religion take over and launch a terror campaign against the West. I'm sure that someone would be able to also turn the accusation that more than 7,000 people have been imprisoned by the caretaker regime in Egypt into something that suits that narrative as well.
Do we really know how many people have been killed as a result of the Two Land Wars in Asia?
A United States naval warship intercepted and forced the return of a North Korean ship suspected of carrying missile technology to Myanmar.
And finally, peering in on society in Egypt, one that sometimes tacitly, sometimes not so, encourages sexual harassment and downplays how widspread and large the problem is, with several young men believing that some of what they do doesn't constitute harassment, even though the women they subject it to appear to be offended by it. The film "678" hopes to disabuse everyone of that notion, following women in their daily lives and showing the harassment they are subjected to. Of course, one need only follow a woman through her day to realize that the problem is there and is quite large. I wonder how much of this women in the supposedly more progressive United States get daily, and how much better the men here are at papering it over, pretending it doesn't exist, or justifying it to themselves. It's not like they don't have plenty of practice at it, as this example about women writers shows, as does the fact that the piece, written at least a decade ago, still rings just as true.
Domestically, an amputee received his official Air Force pilot certification, indicating that the Air Force is possibly more progressive about these items, feeling a bit desperate to fill the ranks that they can't afford to be exclusive to the able-bodied, or, perhaps, something else entirely.
The most strikes against the Defense of Marriage Act may be coming from bankruptcy courts, where legally married couples file jointly, and the federal government says they cannot, because their marriages aren't recognized federally, and the courts side against the federal government.
As if suddenly new, a look at midwifery and all the things other than birthing that midwives do.
An ad that accuses a Democratic candidate in a California district of being affiliated with criminals and gangsters, using as many "black men as gangbangers, candidate as a stripper-dancer" stereotypes, images, and attacks as they can fit in 90 seconds has drawn strong criticism and a distancing from the candidate that the ad actually supports.
And finally, The Republican leader in the house, Mr. Boehner, has decided that the War Powers Resolution actually applies to President Obama, and has told him he must seek congressional approval before Friday or have his funds cut for Libya. One might ask where such principled opposition was during the Two Land Wars in Asia, but if the general rule is It's Okay If You're A Republican, then I suppose we can't be too surprised.
In technology, a repurposed laptop that will display pictures and other images it grabs from people using an unsecured wireless connection, like in a coffee shop, for example. The project creator expects it to last exactly one session, as it will likely display something that one of the people around will not like at all, and it will be, erm, smashied. Which is why one uses an old laptop to create such things. And possibly restricts them to use inside one's own home and the surrounding unsecured connections.
Into opinions, where Mr. Brownfield hopes that you forget that No Child Left Behind was a conservative program initiated by a conservative President in his call for the program to be ended and "local control" be returned to schools. The call that was put forward by a lot of teachers and people who knew what NCLB would do when the law was signed into existence. So, better late than never, Mr. Brownfield, and glad to have you on board, but we're not amnesiacs.
Messrs. Rivkin and Casey return to the Obamacare arena and claim that all the previous court decisions on the matter have not gotten to the heart of the question - whether Congress has the power to demand that all persons carry insurance as a condition of existing. In their opinion, it does not, and the Supreme Court's rulings have consistently pointed out that limitation. They're also kind enough to admit there are scenarios where Congress can do something similar to the mandate that would fall within Constitutional authority.
Mr. Asness pooh-poohs the idea that uncertainty is stopping business investment and economic recovery - it's that businesses don't like current policy and refuse to invest. The only way out, he says, is to reverse those policy positions, crush entitlements to a shadow of their former selves, and allow relatively unfettered capitalism to return to the primary position in the economy. Otherwise, businesses will just hoard what they have because they don't want their precious profits to be touched by any sort of government policy for raising revenues or providing protection against ruinous costs. It's very nice to see someone being honest about the reasons that profit-holders aren't investing and bringing people back to work, instead of solely blaming the government, regulation, and its stimulus package as the sole reason why the economy has not rebooted.
Mr. Greenfield criticizes the choice of Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom because, in his eyes, she's a hardline Wahabist who wants to see the rest of the world under her interpretation of Islamic law rather than making the Backward Bloodthirsty Religion admit to being so and prostrate itself on the ground to the rest of the world. It would have been a more effective piece had he brought his evidence to the table with him, instead of leaving his accusations hanging out there and generalizing from Wahabism to Islam, trying to make it seem like all Muslims are Wahabists.
Mr. Clarke wants the United States to take steps to ensure that China doesn's successfully hack the country and leave digital explosives behind, on the generally unlikely premise that the United States needs to be able to move militarily against China and not fear infrastructure in return. And to stop the Chinese governemnt from stealing secrets.
Mr. Brown believes Libya will be the straw that breaks NATO's back, unless members of the alliance start deciding that military spending is a priority and give all of their troops whatever they want to have.
Last out of opinions, Mr. Hurt sees Sarah Palin as a Joan of Arc-type figure for the Republican party, assuming, of course, that liberals can't find a way to sell her to Burgundy and then burn her at the stake.
Last for tonight, it's a good day when your idol reviews a script of yours and says its one of the finest things he's seen. And thus, Martin Scorsese was definitely on the way to his successful career.
Ah, and Neil Patrick Harris explains a very important development in Broadway musicals as the opening number to the 2011 Tony Awards show.
