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Greetings, everyone. Let's start with a reminder of some maxims, like who is doing whom a favor in public relations, and that should one insult a blogger, the Internet will often retort en masse.
Last for the headlines, The Dead Pool's Technology Department recalls Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, Inc. at 56 years of age. The tributes range from the obvious, regarding Mr. Jobs' ability to innovate and design well, through questions of whether Apple rolls on, as Steve Jobs had stepped down as CEO of the company in August. And now, signed computer chips might be the new Jobs collectible.
This does not preclude Mr. Jobs and his company from being used as examples of someone's political philosophy, whether or not he subscribed to such a philosophy himself.
Out in the world today, Canada legalized the presence of injection clincs for drug users to receive supervised administration of the drugs they are addicted to, making it safer for the addicts to administer their drugs...and likely reducing crime and ill health and giving those addicts a chance to break the addiction, should they so choose.
Chilean students are in the fifth month of occupying one of the public schools, campaigning for free public university. They have resisted police efforts to dislodge them, through sophisticated communication and community support.
A Pakistani doctor is on trial for treason for assisting the CIA with what would eventually lead to the bin Laden raid. Not a few days after that, the government of Pakistan arrested some suspected al-Qaeda members and backburnered its request for the United States to stop killing people without a trial or other judicial method.
In domestic news, the mentally ill are more likely to be injured or killed by police officers, because the police do not have the training on how to handle them in the middle of an episode, and because states believe that mental health care is an optional service, whose budgets can be cut with impunity, because the disabled are, of course, invisible or expendable to the mainstream. Oh, and did we mention that diplomats and government officials are so far in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies that they will screw the nation's health, and the health of other nations, to line the pockets of those companies with gold?
For those who are still Occupying Wall Street as a movement, and for those getting harrassed, kettled, and manhandled by the police, a thought - self-defense has always been seen as a virtue and as a method of preventing the police from acting against you without cause or justification. One can only hope that such self-defense is allowed to be an assertion of the public's right to peaceably assemble, and is not then used as a pretext for the police to use their military weapons to attack those peaceably-demonstrating civilians and injure or kill them.
Elsewhere, PETA continues with their plans to launch a porn site, where one can view graphic sexuality and graphic images of animals being slaughtered in sequence. Apparently, PETA's hoping to attract fans of torture porn?
The United States millitary claims that it doesn't have enough people to complete all of its missions worldwide, but especially the NATO commitmnts in Afghanistan and Libya. So the mission's not done unless you give us what we want, even as the State Department plans on picking up a lot of the functions the military was doing until this point. Then, there's also talk about the success of a missile defense system. Elswehre, previous Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had a Jekyll and Hyde set of interviews with al-Jazeera reporters over his acts as Secretary of Defense.
In technology, a keylogger virus has infected some of the drone fleet of the United States military.
The Indian government pland to purchase quite a few low-powered Android tablets...available for 35 USD.
In opinions, Mr. Hanson takes schadenfreude in the fact that obstruction in the government now works against the Democrats instead of the Republicans. He tacks on that this is because the Democrats are entirely wrong about everything, of course, but his major point seems to be "Look at how well your own tactics are used against you."
Fox News has a problem with a journalist also being affiliated with Media Matters and covering Occupy Wall Street, thinking there might be unobjective coverage there. Pot, kettle, perhaps?
Mr. Stephens brings out the "Obama has contempt for America" line again, claiming the President only has as much happiness and belief in America as they follow his policies. When America starts not doing exactly as he says, then he shows contempt for them, because he Knows Better, and because he does that, America shows contempt for him because Nobody Knows Better than Us.
Mr. Mauro hopes that Governor Christie still gets to run in 2012, but as a vice presidential candidate. And then Mr. Henninger says that Mr. Christie hasn't stepped into the race because the conservative base he needs to pander to for the nomination has no tolerance for gaffes and mistakes, and that the conservative base might want to stop being such ideologues and start thinking more practically.
Mr. Tapson claims that celebrities should always be using their influence to get Christian preachers freed from Muslim countries where they are imprisoned for being Christians. Which has a very familiar ring to it - "If you're not doing X, you're not a true activist". Or, if you're not doing what we want you to do regarding this issue, then you're just cynically manipulating the people into voting for you.
Mr. Bryce says that all of us need to accept that energy production trumps any sort of climate issues, so climate activists should just admit defeat and move on, and Representative Rohrbacher says the United States needs to become extremely protectionist and stop trading so much with overseas agents like China that are happily taking our money and spending it in ways to kill our economy and security.
Mr. Riley believes that Herman Cain may be the best candidate in the Republican field, because he's got the business experience and he's not relying on his race to get himself elected, like Barack Obama was. And thus, by not saying it, Mr. Riley recreates all of that animosity directed at the President during the last campaign, and claims that Cain will capture those black people that don't want to feel victimized, because Democrats are all about creating victims with resentment. Now, Mr. Cain's popularity might be because the electorate of the Republicans are still disenchanted with their choices, and are vacillating between all of them, hoping one of them will surge up and become who they want. But Mr. Riley wants to position him as the other black guy, while claiming he's doing no such thing.
Last out of this section, Mr. Borwnfield says the Postal Service must be forced into becoming a business and competing with other delivery services if it wants to survive, which includes the usual conservative wish list - close places, lay off workers, and reduce services to turn a profit.
And last for tonight, A Doctor-Seuss style explanation of puberty and the urges that it brings.
Ah, and I saw the latest X-Men movie tonight - and I do believe the things I remember were "they were right - all of the major female characters are in their underwear or less at least once during the movie", which had a secondary of "why is Raven's outfit the only one that has the zipper undone enough to see cleavage?", and "I would have thought someone, even in the early 60s, would have known what the Nuremberg defense was and not used it on someone who was in the camps. Since when does Charles carry the Idiot Ball?"
Last for the headlines, The Dead Pool's Technology Department recalls Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, Inc. at 56 years of age. The tributes range from the obvious, regarding Mr. Jobs' ability to innovate and design well, through questions of whether Apple rolls on, as Steve Jobs had stepped down as CEO of the company in August. And now, signed computer chips might be the new Jobs collectible.
This does not preclude Mr. Jobs and his company from being used as examples of someone's political philosophy, whether or not he subscribed to such a philosophy himself.
Out in the world today, Canada legalized the presence of injection clincs for drug users to receive supervised administration of the drugs they are addicted to, making it safer for the addicts to administer their drugs...and likely reducing crime and ill health and giving those addicts a chance to break the addiction, should they so choose.
Chilean students are in the fifth month of occupying one of the public schools, campaigning for free public university. They have resisted police efforts to dislodge them, through sophisticated communication and community support.
A Pakistani doctor is on trial for treason for assisting the CIA with what would eventually lead to the bin Laden raid. Not a few days after that, the government of Pakistan arrested some suspected al-Qaeda members and backburnered its request for the United States to stop killing people without a trial or other judicial method.
In domestic news, the mentally ill are more likely to be injured or killed by police officers, because the police do not have the training on how to handle them in the middle of an episode, and because states believe that mental health care is an optional service, whose budgets can be cut with impunity, because the disabled are, of course, invisible or expendable to the mainstream. Oh, and did we mention that diplomats and government officials are so far in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies that they will screw the nation's health, and the health of other nations, to line the pockets of those companies with gold?
For those who are still Occupying Wall Street as a movement, and for those getting harrassed, kettled, and manhandled by the police, a thought - self-defense has always been seen as a virtue and as a method of preventing the police from acting against you without cause or justification. One can only hope that such self-defense is allowed to be an assertion of the public's right to peaceably assemble, and is not then used as a pretext for the police to use their military weapons to attack those peaceably-demonstrating civilians and injure or kill them.
Elsewhere, PETA continues with their plans to launch a porn site, where one can view graphic sexuality and graphic images of animals being slaughtered in sequence. Apparently, PETA's hoping to attract fans of torture porn?
The United States millitary claims that it doesn't have enough people to complete all of its missions worldwide, but especially the NATO commitmnts in Afghanistan and Libya. So the mission's not done unless you give us what we want, even as the State Department plans on picking up a lot of the functions the military was doing until this point. Then, there's also talk about the success of a missile defense system. Elswehre, previous Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had a Jekyll and Hyde set of interviews with al-Jazeera reporters over his acts as Secretary of Defense.
In technology, a keylogger virus has infected some of the drone fleet of the United States military.
The Indian government pland to purchase quite a few low-powered Android tablets...available for 35 USD.
In opinions, Mr. Hanson takes schadenfreude in the fact that obstruction in the government now works against the Democrats instead of the Republicans. He tacks on that this is because the Democrats are entirely wrong about everything, of course, but his major point seems to be "Look at how well your own tactics are used against you."
Fox News has a problem with a journalist also being affiliated with Media Matters and covering Occupy Wall Street, thinking there might be unobjective coverage there. Pot, kettle, perhaps?
Mr. Stephens brings out the "Obama has contempt for America" line again, claiming the President only has as much happiness and belief in America as they follow his policies. When America starts not doing exactly as he says, then he shows contempt for them, because he Knows Better, and because he does that, America shows contempt for him because Nobody Knows Better than Us.
Mr. Mauro hopes that Governor Christie still gets to run in 2012, but as a vice presidential candidate. And then Mr. Henninger says that Mr. Christie hasn't stepped into the race because the conservative base he needs to pander to for the nomination has no tolerance for gaffes and mistakes, and that the conservative base might want to stop being such ideologues and start thinking more practically.
Mr. Tapson claims that celebrities should always be using their influence to get Christian preachers freed from Muslim countries where they are imprisoned for being Christians. Which has a very familiar ring to it - "If you're not doing X, you're not a true activist". Or, if you're not doing what we want you to do regarding this issue, then you're just cynically manipulating the people into voting for you.
Mr. Bryce says that all of us need to accept that energy production trumps any sort of climate issues, so climate activists should just admit defeat and move on, and Representative Rohrbacher says the United States needs to become extremely protectionist and stop trading so much with overseas agents like China that are happily taking our money and spending it in ways to kill our economy and security.
Mr. Riley believes that Herman Cain may be the best candidate in the Republican field, because he's got the business experience and he's not relying on his race to get himself elected, like Barack Obama was. And thus, by not saying it, Mr. Riley recreates all of that animosity directed at the President during the last campaign, and claims that Cain will capture those black people that don't want to feel victimized, because Democrats are all about creating victims with resentment. Now, Mr. Cain's popularity might be because the electorate of the Republicans are still disenchanted with their choices, and are vacillating between all of them, hoping one of them will surge up and become who they want. But Mr. Riley wants to position him as the other black guy, while claiming he's doing no such thing.
Last out of this section, Mr. Borwnfield says the Postal Service must be forced into becoming a business and competing with other delivery services if it wants to survive, which includes the usual conservative wish list - close places, lay off workers, and reduce services to turn a profit.
And last for tonight, A Doctor-Seuss style explanation of puberty and the urges that it brings.
Ah, and I saw the latest X-Men movie tonight - and I do believe the things I remember were "they were right - all of the major female characters are in their underwear or less at least once during the movie", which had a secondary of "why is Raven's outfit the only one that has the zipper undone enough to see cleavage?", and "I would have thought someone, even in the early 60s, would have known what the Nuremberg defense was and not used it on someone who was in the camps. Since when does Charles carry the Idiot Ball?"
